Everything you need to know about higher level coaching

It is always a great time to offer higher level coaching and luxury packages. Today I’m talking about what higher level coaching is and smashing some of the beliefs that are held around coaching at this level.

When I talk about higher level coaching, I’m referring to private coaching or consulting, masterminds, Voxer (yes that is high level coaching!), VIP days and intimate retreats. And this will look different for everyone and in different phases of your business. My coaching has certainly evolved over time and I talk about what this has looked like for me in terms of raising my prices and making changes from a structural and practical perspective.

At the beginning of my journey, I thought that I had to provide structure and handhold my clients to feel as though I was providing value. But what I realised is that high level clients want freedom to pick your brain. They want to flow with you, they want to come up with their own agenda, and the onus is on them to show up and be engaged. A high level client will do the work!

One of the most important things to remember is to back yourself. Find the structure you can back in your business and then move the needle from there. And allow a greater level of trust, flow and surrender to unfold in a coaching relationship at this level.

The high level coaching you offer is high level because it's the off-the-cuff commentary that you provide which helps your clients shift beliefs and change their perceptions. It’s not a set and forget course but true customization to each unique client, which is why it feels expensive.

I also share some of the key principles that I’ve been discussing with my Inner Circle, which revolves around higher ticket offerings. We have such juicy conversations around everything to do with money, pricing, self worth, raising standards and so much more. 

There are so many things I wish I had known when I was raising my prices and beginning to offer something more premium and luxurious. I hope this conversation inspires you and gives you some really tangible strategies to help you expand your business to that next luxurious level. 

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Transcript

00:01

Welcome to Flow State Business.

00:06

Welcome back my love's, I want to talk to you all about everything you need to know about higher level coaching. some things that I wish I had known when I was exploring, raising my prices, offering something more premium more luxurious. And it seems really fitting because I'm currently running an inner circle, which is literally only solely focused on high end offers. And basically, my entire world with them is filled with such juicy conversations and questions revolving around higher ticket offerings. And I thought that I would bring out some of the key principles that we've been discussing on the inside with the hopes that it also helps you do the same. And as always just have a perception shift, or perhaps a light bulb and a ha moment, that will help you get out of your own way. Because I understand money, pricing, worth, raising standards, it all becomes quite a big discussion. And often, when you talk about it in this way, it helps you just sift through some of the beliefs that hanging about like a bad smell, and you're able to shift them quickly, especially if they're kind of right at the surface, and you're ready to kind of hit go and raise them prices raising the bar. 

01:23

Okay, so it is always a great time to offer higher level coaching and luxury packages. It's not meant for certain amount of time or a certain time of the year, you can do it whenever you feel ready to. But I will say this, it's a really, really good time to extend out high level coaching, especially when you start kind of heading to the close of the year. So I want to really bring this as a highlight. And all of it is really based on As always a lot of my own personal experiences with high level coaching. One of the key moments I remember in my coaching career so far is launching my Amplified Mastermind for the second time around because the first time was really a builder year. The second time, I was ready to take it big and to start charging what I knew it was going to be worth. And also at the end of the year, I launched my private coaching and I started to float the idea of a higher level mastermind being what is now called The Inner Circle - definitely need to change, the name has to go but I just haven't really thought of one yet. 

02:28

So anyway, with all that being said, I had the three highest ticket programs and still is private coaching amplify and inner circle launched out during Black Friday. And this was when I was living in Sofia, Bulgaria, it was snowing out. And I just felt really inspired to offer a couple of different options of high level coaching to work with me and also start really building up my monthly recurring revenue into the new year. So typically Black Friday happens on the last weekend of November, which also coincides with my birthday. So just the energy around that time is so so so good. For me personally, that I was like, Yep, I'm ready. I want expensive gifts. And I also want to give expensive gifts, and I want to share expensive items. So let's talk about this. Because if you're listening to this live, we are heading towards that time of year. It's really great. And I want to bust some beliefs that people aren't willing to buy at high prices towards the end of the year, because the most common one I hear is people are saving for Christmas presents and they are shutting off from the coaching business. And that is a load of baloney. If you want to believe that, go for it, if it serves you awesome, doesn't serve me feels really restrictive, feels like I can't sell anything in December. It feels like everybody in the world celebrates Christmas, which is so untrue coming from a Muslim nation, I grew up in Malaysia. So I guess I just have a totally different view on holidays and what that actually means because there's a ton of people who I have launched to at the end of the year, and I launched all through the year, but especially through December, and they are my most abundant launches and my most engaged programs because people don't give a shit about the holidays. 

04:13

So and they would rather just really be you know, in the moment of professional development when maybe their jobs aren't as demanding or their business is quiet. So let's begin with what are the forms of high level coaching? The main ones if you run a mentoring an online business, it's going to be private coaching or private consulting, masterminds. Voxer and yes, Voxer is high high high level coaching. And don't you think that it's not meant to be VIP or red carpet days and intimate retreats, not large retreats where typically ticket price is a lot lower intimate retreats where they get a lot of one to one time with you. So they are kind of the main ones maybe you have thought of some others but typically these are the core. So what do I mean by high High Level coaching, I mean, exactly what it sounds like. It's a luxury program offering, you are charging a lot for it, it takes up potentially more of your time than some of your other offerings, if not the majority of your time, hence why it's luxury, because you are exchanging your time and energy for this level of income so that you can really be up and close with your clients and your clients can be up and close with you. That's what it looks like on the inside to me. And I have definitely been through a lot of iterations of what high level coaching means to me in my business based on wherever my journey was at the time with wealth and still continues to be. So what I love about this whole exciting voyage as an entrepreneur is at every stage, there is something different to look at, and something different to share, I'm sure that I might go back and listen to this episode, in like three years time and be like, Okay, that's where I was at. And that's cool. And I'm somewhere else now. 

05:57

So as of this year, this is how I approach high level high end offers. And it continues to be the main income stream that my business earns. So if I look at my entire income chart as a pie chart, and is definitely the biggest part of the pie chart, as opposed to it being passive courses, for example, private high level coaching continues to be the most abundant way that I receive income in my business. So I want to smash some beliefs around high level coaching by answering the question of what it isn't. And I think sometimes our mind works better when it comes to belief work, when you kind of answer it in this way, rather than here are three ways to offer high level coaching. Instead, I'm going to try and position it in a way that speaks to your subconscious mind and what it doesn't mean. 

06:49

So first off the bat, it doesn't mean doing more, because you're charging more. I used to charge $5,000 for three months with me. And within those three months, I was offering weekly sessions and private Voxer. So there was a lot happening. 12 calls, daily access to me for $5,000. And that just felt so good to me at the time. In fact, that was probably one of my highest sold private coaching offers ever in a very short period of time, I released this offer on Black Friday in 2019. And that was my first $50,000 launch for private coaching. So I'm sure I've got an episode in the archive somewhere, you can go and dig back into the history and listen to me screaming from the rooftops about it because I said guys, I've just sold 10 spots at 5k. And that was just absolutely wild and insane. I loved it, I celebrated it, I shared the experience with all of you. And that was so cool. But as I started to really notice how much time each client was taking for me, because no duh like I had to now navigate through 120 calls.

07:59

I was like okay, something needs to shift here. And effectively, I never really said it, but I was sold out. Because I literally could not take any more clients, I had to actually stagger the start dates, which I ended up emailing everybody to say okay, so a lot of people bought this package who would like to start straight away, and who would like to start next month, and who would like to start the month after I'm happy to hold your payments until then with a deposit. And that bit worked out beautifully. So I was able to stagger them out. But it was a really big lesson because I realized holy crap like this is going to be intense. So the next time I offered it, I moved the needle. And I said I'm now charging $5,000 a month, not $5,000 for three months, but nothing changed in terms of the service. So that to me still felt like a really nice step up. And I was still offering weekly calls and Voxer. But I was just simply calling in a different type of clients. So rather than it being 5k, for three months, it was 15k for three months, same offering. And then not long after that after I sold that out, I moved the needle again. And I do not do weekly calls in that sort of container anymore. But that's really how it started to evolve. 

09:13

I just wanted to give you a picture of the exact way that I started to call in high level clients and how you can do it too, remembering that when you raise your prices, you're not just raising your income, you're also raising your standards. You're telling your clients that you believe in yourself and your work is enough to ask for more or as Amanda Francis would say your work is worthy of massive compensation. And you're saying that you're worth it by raising the needle in this way by not changing or doing anything more because honestly, I don't know what else I could have done more like two calls a week. You know, to be able to feel worthy of raising my prices to 15k. No, like so to me that was a really good way to almost trick my logical mind around what I could do and what I could back. Find the structure in which you can back and then move the needle from there. Okay? 

10:04

Second thing that higher level coaching doesn't mean. Higher level coaching doesn't mean that you have to structure your coaching calls the same way as you did for the first time that you kind of charge private coaching, or you're not lower levels of coaching, but you know, not as expensive. So this is what I used to do. I used to plan out each of my coaching sessions with lesson plans and homework, so much hand holding, a ton of structure, because that's really what I thought they wanted for it to feel expensive. And a lot of this came from the corporate world learning and development teams that I was a part of. But soon, I realized that higher level clients aren't looking for this. Now, this is contentious, I am purely speaking about the type of clients I tend to attract and love to work with. And at the beginning of the journey, I truly thought that I had to really structure things out for me to feel as though I was providing value. But this is what I realized, high level clients want freedom to pick your brain, they want to flow with you, they want to riff on some stuff that's on their mind, they want to come up with their own agenda, they've got some things that they need to ask you. And there's an urgency behind it. 

11:22

The high level coaching you offer is high level, because it's the off the cuff commentary that you provide, which gives perception changes, which gives a shift in beliefs, a shift in their philosophy. And essentially, they're working with you at a higher level to buy in a new level of belief for them. This is true customization, this is why it feels expensive. This is why it's really going to feel exclusive for them. Because if a high level client came to me these days, and I said great, I know that you want to work on building up your monthly recurring revenue, but we can't get there until week seven of a 12 week course they're going to say, okay, that's not for me, I need to go to somebody else who can flow with me, and who can really act as an advisor and a mentor, based on the flow of my business. And this is why it's going to maybe kind of feel a little bit like eh, like how do I just trust myself as a coach, and I, you know, don't have my notes in front of me. But here's how to think about it. It's about them. It's not about you and your agenda babe. Okay, so trust yourself back yourself, they've picked you, you're meant to work with each other, there's going to be a level of connection that you can really have with your client if you allow this level of trust and flow and surrender to unfold in a coaching relationship at this level. 

12:37

And what has happened without the structure and the homework, typically, with my high level clients is they work out their own action plan. And they sound that back to me. And they'll say, Hey, okay, so what I got from this call was, I'm going to do this, this and this, I'm going to not worry about that stuff. And I'm going to need you to help me just stay on track. So if I get shiny object syndrome, Rubes, you need to nudge me back. Because they know that I follow their socials. And for most of my clients, I subscribe to their email list. So in that way, if I see something and I'm like, Okay, what's going on here? Sara Lee, you said you were going to focus on this in this month, what's happening? And if they come back to say, All right, I had a channeled session, and I had guidance from my guides to go here instead, that's all cool. But if I see that, and I say, hey, what's happening here, she might be coming back to say, Oh, my God, you're so right. See what I mean? Shiny Object. This is exactly what I need you thank you for, you know, helping me nudge back into focus and alignment. 

13:33

High level coaching involves discussing goals. It involves strategizing ways to achieve these goals and providing support and guidance throughout the process. But you don't need to be accountable for their results in that way. They are and they know that your high level clients will understand that and they're not coming to you saying can you please put together a to do list and a tick sheet and mark me according to my performance, they're going to definitely be able to do that on their own. Because if they're not, then it's just not going to be the right fit for you and what you're expecting out of high level coaching. So I usually have like a 90 minute kickoff call with my private clients so that we can get on the same page. And we tailor it to a point where it's almost like cool. So over the next 90 days or six months, this is our goal, you want to raise your monthly recurring revenue, you want to stop working with these sorts of clients, you want to ramp up your passive income. And you want to be able to start writing your book and connecting with the right people to help you raise that awareness of your book, which means that we need to work on your social media. Does that feel right for you? Yes, it does. 

14:35

So each client has individual needs, and it's more personalized, which is why it feels more high level and more expensive. So that's really important for me to have shared that like, you know, saying with my inner circle, we have the best, most dynamic chats about this because I think throughout the course of having these sorts of discussions, there's also very different viewpoints and there's very different you know, ideas of what that looks like. Because I've had some clients say to me, but I do like the structure, I really enjoy having the homework that you give them this like, okay, cool, I hear that. Let's look at what homework actually means. And then when I give them homework, they're like, No, I don't like the homework, I take that back. And that's cool as well. So you know, I think it's just about realizing and helping them realize how far they've come since maybe different forms of coaching that wasn't high level. 

15:25

Lastly, high level coaching is different in that it puts the onus on the client to show up and be engaged. So kind of is a piggyback off the second point there, but it's no longer about you keeping them highly accountable. It's about their responsibility for their own progress and action and results. And this can be a difficult transition for a lot of coaches who have maybe in the past built more of a codependent relationship with their clients. I remember speaking to a certain person in the industry, and she said that she can never ever launch without her coach being right by her side. And she's like, I guess it's because I've only ever launched with her. And this coach is basically a buy in to her business, so has a level of equity in her business. So codependency is a very broad term. But you know what I mean, like, there's this sense of, I can't do something without this other person being there with me. If that's your style of coaching, it can be difficult to transition into something that is like, hey, the onus is not on me, the onus is on you. You're the one who can drive your results, not me, right. So I'm just here to be a guide and a mentor to show you some blind spots to hold the mirror up at times. And also at times to basically just lay it down and be like, you want to sell shit, but you're not selling anything. So what is this? Are we just going around in loops? Have you just spent 50 grand to do absolutely nothing. So there's those those discussions to be had as well. But ultimately, it's what will help them grow and change the most if they're willing to change. 

16:56

So in my case, a high level client comes to the calls with a really clear outcome in mind. We're focused and we're very time aware, we're not time poor. We're Time Aware entrepreneurs were soul led soul driven individuals who come in with a mission. And as the Aussies say, it's a crude term, but it's probably the best way that I can say it. We're not here to fuck with spiders. Okay. So there are some examples of what my clients come to the calls with, which may help you show up in your coaching calls differently with your coach, or if you're thinking about working with me, this is what it looks like. 

17:29

So they might say something like, Hey, Rubes, I want to bounce ideas off for, you know, raising my monthly recurring revenue by 20%. It's currently sitting at this average, this is what I want to get to what does that look like, for me a mastermind? Does that look like increasing my ad spend to unlock a new funnel? And we'd be having those sorts of discussions. I'd have a client who will say something like, I want to only focus on high end offers between now and the end of the year? How do I do that without boring the shit out of my audience. Another example, I want to deepen my manifestation practice, I've been leaning too heavily on masculine energy. And I realized that I forgotten completely how to manifest like I used to do when I started my business. That's a really, really common one that I get. Rubes, I'm really ready to start a flow based funnel, but I just don't want it to feel inauthentic. Where do I start? Where do I begin? So at that point, we might be looking at their freebies and their emails, what they're already writing, what they love creating, and how we start to actually create more of a flow based, authentic connected funnel for them. And then once we kind of plugged together the basic framework, at that point, I might recommend a specialist to come into their business to start really enhancing that out in terms of, you know, having that sit in the right places, and all those wonderful things. 

18:41

I'll have another client who say, I'm needing to close down this program, it's sucking the life out of me, I can't stand it anymore. I don't want to teach on this anymore. So basically, what happened with me and my LinkedIn course, they might come to me with their own membership, for example, and say, okay, like, I need to chat to you about this, because it's doing my head in and I basically just need permission. Can you tell me how I can do this? But also at the same time? Can you give me examples of the scripts that you wrote, When you close down your membership? And what are some scenarios that I might be not thinking of that will help me just be a little bit more prepared in the closing of a program. If you haven't seen my program, Alpha Omega, omega is the section that talks all about closures of a certain part of your business and how to do that with ease and flow. 

19:27

I might also have a client who say, Rubes I'm really ready to launch bigger and you know, clean up my launch game. It's in need of some fine tuning and my first launch did really well because I had a lot of organic peeps in there who already and I hadn't launched something like this before the second launch feels different I think it's going to be a little bit more challenging because I'm really going for a more cold to warm audience than I was last time which was more of a warm to hot audience. Very common. I have a lot of clients will say oh my god, I did a massive launch last year did a second launched completely bombed. It's only because you probably haven't really been messaging and growing and deepening your relationship with your cold to warm audience as much as you've been relying on your warm to hot. So we talk a lot about those strategies there. And how you can start to build incredible rapport with things like free events and nurture sequences, gifting, offering, lots of accessible, great information that can help your colder audience become warm to hot. 

20:24

So the last part that I really want to take you behind the scenes on is the structure of high level coaching, not so much in terms of like, yeah, the homework and all that. But just in terms of the time, and this is really, really interesting for me to observe when I first started offering something like this. So I started off with one hour sessions with my clients. And what I noticed very quickly, because it's really important to be, as Abraham Hicks says, The gentle observer in your business, and you take a step back and you realize, hang on, like what's working, what's not working? Where can I release more energy more time? And all those wonderful questions. So what I noticed really quickly out of the one hour session was we would be done in 30 minutes. And I think that's a sign of being a good coach. That's efficient, you can get to the bottom of it, you can get an action plan out, you can get a clearer understanding of it. You don't need to keep like tearing back the layers and layers and layers and layers to get a particular outcome. You can just be like, okay, cool. Like, why don't we start here. And typically, after 30 minutes, we're good, we're done. 

21:26

And then I realized, like, I'd spend the next 30 minutes trying to like fill in the time so that they felt like they were getting a ton of value out of the one hour. And most times in that extra 30 minutes that we had were just be talking absolute shit or because I was like trying to prove that it was worth the time and just be laying on more advice and more advice and more advice that it would just become overwhelming. So after some time, I realized that you know what, high level coaching, it can be way less than an hour. I now offer 50 minute sessions and 30 minute sessions as a part of my high level coaching. And I'll tell you in that 30 minutes, we get shit done. And we still get it done in 30 minutes if we do the 50 minute session, but I find that in the remaining 20 minutes, we'll be talking more so around energetics of business. So it still is relevant to whatever particular key outcome they were looking for in a high level session. So you know, the remaining 20 minutes, we might be talking about how to manage ambition and drive around very demanding children and their schedules, we might be talking about desires to travel to certain locations in the world, we might be talking about wifehood or you know just our partners just driving us up the wall and how we manage that through what we're hoping to be a really abundant launch. But you know, our partners are killing the vibe. 

22:46

We might be talking about the need for self love and feeling like there's no time for it. We might be talking about money and what we do with this money when it comes in or when the money's not showing up. What do we do there. So it's almost filled in with much more intention now. And I found that cadence with it being 50 minutes. So everybody has their own thing. But just lean in, don't lean on the industry average or what your coach has offered you or what you think is the right time go off what it is that you're observing about your clients. And that makes it a really powerful high level coaching experience as well. 

23:21

So I hope you've enjoyed this episode. High level coaching is meant to be such a beautiful experience for both parties. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to be like this fancy schmancy amazing Tony Robbins godlike coach, it's just meant to be unique, personalized, it puts the onus on the client to be engaged and accountable. It's meant to be a really luxurious experience where hopefully I know for me, you really gain beautiful friendships out of it. And if you are finding it difficult to transition to this type of coaching, you will get there with time and with practice, it will only ever feel more comfortable if you put yourself more in that position of offering something like this where it feels very much out of your comfort zone. So give it a go 2022 is still alive, well perfect time to start launching something like this. And if it makes it easier for you to actually gain more perspective on what that looks like and you want a high level coach with me then you know, you can always reach out we can talk about timing of that what that can look like I would love to chat with you further on this and offer some more perspective on what might be more customizable to your style so that you can start attuning to more high level clients as well. 

24:31

Okay, so on that note, thank you so much always for tuning in for listening for being an amazing audience. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. If so, please share with me leave a review down below and I'll catch you on the next one. Bye guys.