Kim Avery Coaching

Crocodiles, Sharks, and Coaching Fees: Making Confident Decisions in a Confusing World

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Would you stand under a 5,000-pound car duct-taped above your head? When a shark attacks should you try playing dead? Will running in a zigzag pattern successfully deliver you from a hungry crocodile’s jaws? Urban legends answers “yes” to all of the above, but are you willing to stake your life on it? There’s only one way to know for sure.

Hands-on research (or at least have your stunt double try it out for you). And that’s exactly what Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, hosts of the wildly popular show, MythBusters, did to expose these myths and hundreds more like them.

Crocodiles

Using the scientific method, they observed behavior, researched it, formed a hypothesis, predicted a likely outcome, and then experimented to discover the truth.

Because face it, we don’t want to stake our lives on an untested theory.

Or our businesses.

Yet many coaches do. Free marketing advice litters the Internet, and we rarely know its source. And if the sheer volume of information isn’t enough to confuse you, discovering that 50 percent of the information contradicts the other half will.

For example, on the issue of coaching fees you’ll read…

internet-wisdom

I guess that just because the computer says something, doesn’t mean it’s true. And assuming what worked for someone else will work for us can be just as dangerous and potentially lethal to our businesses as swimming with sharks.

In the real world, marketing to your specific niche, from your geographical location, with your unique brand is less like a paint-by-numbers client-attraction kit and more like a laboratory in which you observe, research, predict, experiment and learn.

So, why not put the scientific method to work for you?

Here’s an easy experiment to try.

Find the Ideal Price Point

Observe – While marketing principles such as, “People do business with people they know, like, and trust,” hold true across various niches, the specific application of those principles are as varied as the colors in a box of Crayola crayons.

Observe your target audience, and note their unique buying preferences, spending patterns, and preferred price points.

Research – Now look below the surface and try to uncover your niche’s enduring traits. Do they see themselves as quality-minded, always wanting the best? If so, then raising your prices might be just the thing. But if you are working with a budget-minded crowd, lower fees and shorter commitments might be a bigger draw.

The better you know your niche, the clearer their specific values and priorities become.

Predict – After you observe and research your target market, try to predict how they will respond to different price points. Then choose an appropriate fee.

Always remember, it’s only a guess until you put it to the test. You can always adjust your fees later if need be.

Test – When testing, experiment with variety of options before landing on your final one. With fees, for example, pick a price. Quote it to your prospects for a month. Note what happens. Then raise the price for new prospects the following month. Compare results. Next, lower your fees, and repeat the experiment again. Continue this process until you find the sweet spot that serves you and your clients best.

Hint: To learn as much as possible from your testing, try to keep all but one of the variables the same.

Learn – There’s no such thing as failure, there’s only learning. When you view your marketing as an experimental laboratory, each result, whether it’s what you predicted or not, brings you one step closer to having a profitable business that impacts the world.

Crocodiles, Shark Attacks and Duct Tape
But what about crocodiles, shark attacks and duct tape? Since you may not want to test those in the real world, let me share the MythBuster’s results. Their tests proved that we can safely stand under a duct-taped car with no fear of being crushed. However, playing dead during a shark attack is an iffy proposition at best, and don’t even think about running in a zigzag pattern from that hungry crocodile. If you do, you’re toast.

Happy experimenting!

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