Thanks, breakthroughlifecoach.org

We have a bone to pick with the “coaching” profession – and anyone else that discounts like crazy.

Yes, that means you, person who sent me the Twitter Direct Message saying how you can help me by coaching me to live my BEST life! Of course, to do that, you’re giving me a link to my FR*EE Coaching Session.

First of all – aside from the fact that you spelled “FR*EE” with an asterisk in it, to get past the spam filters – you’re leading with the wrong thing. Free is not the unique selling proposition here. Discounting your services to get us in the door I understand – but I don’t think you’re doing it correctly.

Might I suggest this approach instead…

1. Make the Free Stuff Standout.

Yeah, we’re back on our high horse about FREE and Paywalls and The Free Line. Start by showing us what you can do, what you propose doing, little and big changes you have helped clients make. White papers, blog posts, newsletters – things of value. Free, sure – but valuable so that the time I invest reading your stuff gets me thinking you might be worth hiring.

2. Don’t Start by Discounting.

Similar to our continuing study of Gilt Groupe vs. Groupon – once you get people (clients) in the door thinking that you have a value of “x,” it’s really tough to get them back in the door at a value of “x divided by 2.”

Note that a Free Assessment or similar tool is great – but don’t call it that. “No Obligation [insert name of tool].”

We once had a session, we were the client, and the coach said this up front: “I want to work with you. Let’s spend the first 15 minutes off the clock, then, if you and I agree that we’re compatible, we can have the next 45 minutes at my regular rate. If not, we’ll part as friends.”

3. Make Us Pay to Even THINK About Working With You.

I absolutely love this. Dead Serious. An application fee.

We filled one out a couple weeks ago – a coach who we have been following for at least a year, we like what this person’s up to, and we thought we might want to hire them.

We knew their going rate – posted at the bottom of their application – and it cost us a refundable $19 to fill out the form.

Not a gimmick; this isn’t something done so that we’d forget about it and the statute of limitations on getting a refund would run out.

We actually had a chat with the coach, found out we were not a good fit for each other, and got our refund 10 minutes after our call ended.

4. Oh, and Don’t Be A Coach if You Can’t Coach

Did you know that you can get a Life Coach Certification on the Internet?

This reminds me of the Diploma Mills that we used to bump into during our Higher Education Marketing days. There are respectable groups – ICF and ICA for the Life Coaching types, franchises such as The Growth Coach and The Strategic Coach, and there’s Vistage and others.

But there are crappy designations out there, many of them available for a few bucks.

Coaches are a dime a dozen. And, if you don’t communicate value, you’ll never be able to charge what you’re worth.

Is THIS even worth it?

Sticking with the theme of Products, Freemium, and Experience…

A couple weeks ago, Area 224 purchased a product that continues to puzzle us: a piece of software that made pretty substantial claims. You can read the post here: http://area224.com/crappy-product-avoidance/

What has been interesting is how the company has handled this whole process – and what we can all learn from it. We’ve sanitized this post to keep names and identifying information out of it. Highlights:

1. Software Purchased, But Keeps Breaking.

What the software was supposed to do – automate a repetitive process using a combination of API calls and the like – ended up being something it was not at all good at. Queue it up to do that once, find that it shuts down, you need to restart.

Our email to the company: Help, please.

Their response: Try again, it works fine for us.

2. Product still breaks, proves ineffective.

Still has us puzzled, as we’ve tried all the recommended tweaks. Manual is not much help – in fact, the manual looks like it was written for a different process altogether.

Our email: We’d like a refund, please.

Their response: Well, we’ve had to change the product entirely. Please try the new version. Download here.

3. New Product is for something entirely different.

Imagine you order a mobile phone. After learning that the mobile phone doesn’t work, you send it back to the company and ask for a new phone. In return, they send you an extension cord.

That’s the best analogy. This thing is not gonna work for us, not what we ordered, and really would be a waste of our time here at HQ.

Our email: Please for the love of Mike give us a refund.

Their response: Hold on, we’re going to give you complimentary “coaching” that only “members” pay for.

4. The complimentary “coaching”? Send us an email. No more than one email per day. We’ll respond as soon as we can.

I “get” coaching. I think it’s a really valuable exercise. I have interviewed people who could potentially be coaches to the team here at Area 224, and to me personally. BUT, in all honesty…I’m not interested in coaching around a product that has changed drastically since I purchased it.

Our email: We’re done here. Please send us a refund.

Their response: ?

We’re giving them one last benefit of the doubt, and we’ll post the update once we get it. BUT…

We talked earlier this week about The Free Line. In this case, even if this were a “Free” product, there is no value exchange. Brand, Product, Value, Experience – all of that is absolutely horrible.

If you’re in the business of selling stuff, or giving away free stuff, or whatever your business is: are you focusing so much on the “upsell” that you forget to add value?

Maybe – FREE or $39 – the focus needs to be on making it insanely valuable – so that the “upsell” is easy.