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Welcome to make more money without selling your soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale. On this podcast, you can expect to hear regular talk about wills, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward. 

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Welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello Evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer. And today I am talking about something that’s really close to my heart, actually, which is how to transition from being that fully booked to one-to-one service provider to moving to the one-to-many model as it is often referred to. What do I mean by that? I also mean about that transition between going from being a one-to-one service provider to launching your first online course membership group program, and people have different ideas about what is the best fit for them. We’ll talk more about that a little bit later. But let’s talk about what it is to do that. And why why would you want to do it in the first place. Now here is what happens to most online service providers. We start out, we celebrate that first client, we get excited by the second client, we get excited by the third client, we start to recognise the need to increase our rates because we’re not actually hitting you know, we’re suddenly aware of, oh gosh, this tax I need to pay. And actually, I’m going to have expenses beyond you know, all that kind of transitional stuff that can often happen to us. We’ve previously worked in a corporate workspace, and we’ve not had to take into consideration the expenses of running a business. So you do that you build up a demand, you build up a reputation, no doubt people are referring you because you’re really good at what you do. And at some point, you reach a stage where you’re like, Oh, I can’t keep on increasing my rates anymore. It doesn’t really feel ethical or a price myself to the extent that I’m no longer competitive. And that could come with its own issues. There’s a variety of reasons why we may decide we don’t want to keep on increasing our rates, it may even be that you’ve tried increasing your rates. And there’s been a massive decline in people applying to work with you. Who knows, there’s a variety of reasons but one of the biggest reasons one of the biggest pain points that drives a lot of booked out one to one service providers to move to the stage where they want to create a one-to-many model is essentially time. It’s very challenging. You know, when we first started out, we’ve got that freedom of having our own business, it feels amazing to take your laptop, to a coffee shop feel like you can work from anywhere. It doesn’t feel so amazing when it comes to the Christmas holidays, or birthdays and you’re feeling that need to like be keeping an eye on Slack or watching your emails because you are your business. And should you let your I fall in may come off your business for a moment. Who knows what can happen. And because you’re working one to one, you have such a tight roster of clients, which which means that even if one of them were to fall off, that has an impact on you that Sonny like, Oh, we’re going on this holiday or that holiday well that one to one clients fallen off? And how soon are we going to be able to replace it. And even if you’re in a really gorgeous predicament of having a waitlist of people waiting to work with you, that in itself can feel like a pressure of its own. I speak to many one-to-one service providers who share with me the kind of that burden of this burden in one-to-one waitlist. Many people come to me in a situation where they’ve even switched off their one-to-one waitlist, because it’s getting so long. I mean, what a crazy predicament to be in right? But at the same time, they’re then in that icky sticky place of where do I find the time to make this look any different? This is working like I should be happy because this is working? How dare I like mix things up. What if I change the way I work, and nobody wants to work with me anymore? Like that is a very real fear. You know, you’ve created a business out of thin air based on your expertise alone. You’ve built up a list of like loyal clients, you’ve got people saying how amazing you are what you do, it’s taken like grit to get there. You’ve got to the stage, you’ve got your business cards, you’ve got your logo, you’ve got your website, there’s been a lot of kind of push to get to this stage. And are you potentially risking throwing in the towel or things kind of falling apart? If you dare do things any differently. Now you may be listening to this thinking is pulling inside my head. How does she know this is how people fail? Well, let me remind you in case you’re new around here, that was me. I was a Facebook Ads Manager. I then attempted the approach of having a micro agency. And what’s really lovely is when I talk to service providers, they often are in a very small 

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in a predicament, they may have decided, okay, so there’s enough demand that I can be doing like 1.52 times three times the amount of work, if I had a small team working under me, maybe I need to hire another consultant to take on some of the workload. I mean, there’s various words for who that person is. But ultimately, it’s hiring other people to help the demand that you’re bringing in, help that work go further. So whether that’s hiring team members to do some of the admin to do some of the onboarding, to do some of the off boarding to do some of the bookkeeping accounting, or whether that’s hiring other experts who are doing the work alongside yourself. So in my case, in my Facebook ads agency, that’s exactly what I did. I hired another ads expert so that she could be on my team so that I was no longer the one doing all the advertising, all their ads, management, let’s say, and so that I could actually focus on advertising my business to ensure that there was a constant interest in working so that I had that constant flow work coming through, and somebody else doing the actual ads management, but I would still be involved strategically overseeing everything. So that that was my predicament in think it was 2022. But things changed, should really know this by now. But essentially, I remember working with a mentor. And interestingly, I’d hired this mentor to help me grow my agency. And within about two quarters, he was like, do you actually want to grow your agency? And I was like, No, I want to do what you’re doing. I want to be consulting, I want to be paid for consulting. I do so much consulting in the work I do already. And I don’t really know when is the right time to be able to like, own that and be that and make money from that. And the idea of launching a group program felt really terrifying, despite the fact that I also was working one to one on a consultation basis, helping businesses grow and scale outside of the ads management. So I did have experience mentoring business owners, but it still felt like a big leap to host a group coaching program. I associated group coaching programs are like massive cohorts of people coming in, that you either are successful and rolling like 30 to 50 people at a time, or you’re a failure. There’s nothing in between. I considered it to be a massive pressure, I needed to be some kind of online guru, if anyone would would want to sign up for that. I had so many like misapprehensions about doing it. And ultimately, the biggest challenge I had, which I see for so many one-to-one service providers, was just quite simply a lack of time and a lack of energy. I had actually tried launching a group program, I think it was a membership actually, prior to working with this mentor who suggested to me about going the group coaching model way. And I remember finishing that launch and just thinking sold that I’m never ever launching ever again. This is exhausting. And quite rightly, you know, I look back and recognise Yeah, because I was running a fully booked, you know, service providing business alongside building out a whole frickin launch a course that’s tiring. Now I say all of this. And, obviously, I hope if you listen to this podcast, you’ll know by now that I have one very successful signature program elevate for evergreen, we’re about to launch a brand new kind of beginner free group program called Never have I evergreen and launch later on this year, a mastermind exclusively for six figure business owners. So needless to say, I am a huge fan of group coaching programs of masterminds, and all of those trappings. And I actually think they are the perfect transition from being a booked up one to one service provider to how do you create scalable income. And I say that because online courses are actually very hard to sell without an enormous mailing list without really good brand authority without a really good social media following. So by the way, if you’re listening to this, and you’re like, I have all of those great, most booked out one to one service providers don’t. If you do, then you can explore things like online courses. But I will throw in as an afterthought 90% to 95% of people don’t complete online courses. So you know, there are higher refund rates on online courses. There are I mean, there’s a whole bunch of reasons why I’m not a big fan of online courses. And if you really care about delivering exceptional experiences to your clients, and you recognise that there’s an element of that that needs to be bespoke. Again, online courses don’t allow for that it only really allows for a cookie cutter approach. So again, there are exceptions to every rule that might be a good fit for you. But for most people, I have seen so many people been burned by creating online courses, which then don’t sell because they don’t have the things that you need to have. First you don’t have a sizeable mailing list, you don’t have brand new authority, you haven’t found a way of effectively communicating the power efficacy of your unique framework, and that can leave you in a sticky situation. Similarly 

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memberships absolute nightmare. Let’s not even get started with that you need a huge mailing list to make memberships work from the get go. I’ve met so many burnt out membership people. So whether they’re either burnt out because it’s not selling and they’re exhausted trying to sell something that they’re like, come on, it’s only 37 pounds a month, or they’re burnt out because it’s really busy. And they’re like, oh my gosh, these people just want more and more things. For me, I’m having to create all this content, the short rates kind of low, people aren’t really on any clear pathway to anything in particular. So there just isn’t that momentum. So I’m not a big fan of memberships. Again, there’s exceptions to every rule. But I’m generally speaking not a big fan, not a big fan of online courses. Big fan of group programs, particularly when you can include hybrid one to one elements, so that you’ve got that really smooth transition from one to ones it also works really beautifully. Because if someone comes to work with you one to one and actually they’re not in the perfect place to work with you on to unsay they can’t afford to your group program could be another way to get really good access to you to be coached by you know hotseat coached by you in a group coaching environment to be able to, you know, get perhaps some one to ones if you’re a one to one milestone calls, like they get some of that one to one access to you. They get like a really clear pathway to follow to get towards their transformation. They get the benefit of that community wisdom, I mean, big big fan. But anyway, you may be hearing all this going poorly. I’m sold on group programs, but how on earth do I get to the stage to get there? Well, my friend, I’m just going to break down the three things I would love for you to consider when it comes to creating a group. Well, when it comes to moving from one to one that say let’s not even think about what the thing is on the other side. But let’s think about what you need to do. Whether it’s an online course, whether it’s a membership, whether it’s group program, what do you need to do to confidently graduate away from being that fully booked one to one service provider to having a successful, scalable business that does allow you to have a sick day without panicking, that does allow you to even take a holiday. And that allows you to have you know, a business, that is actually a business and not just you overworking yourself all the time. Okay, I want that for you. I got it for me, I’ve helped so many other people get it too. And I want that for you as well. There’s nothing more disheartening than when I get on Discovery calls with booked up one to one service providers who then don’t commit to changing who then don’t commit to the program they don’t entirely trust, it’s possible for them. And six months later, when I check in with them, they’re still burnt out, they’re still exhausted, they’re still like running with all their wheels, and it just breaks my heart. So I really, really hope that you will listen to this and and take some bold aligned action. And it doesn’t even need to be that bold, I’m going to tell you like almost an easy hack to making it easier to take that bet on yourself. So one, let’s validate this offer, shall we? Let’s validate that there is a demand in your following for your offer. So no doubt to get to the stage, that you’re fully booked one to one, there is something working for you. Whether it’s a referral network, whether it’s social media presence, whether you’ve built up a sizable mailing list, don’t worry if you don’t have all of these things. I have like a mailing list of 400 I think maybe if that when I launched my group coaching program, and I had I don’t know, like one and a half 1000 followers on Instagram, it was nothing overly impressive. Okay. And I still managed to have a 25k launch with five people signing up to us trying to do the Master. Yeah, it was five people. No, so it was a 20k launch of five people signing up to my first ever program. So you know, that was not crazy money, right. But for me, it was evidence, evidence that I could sell evidence that there was a demand evidence that if I kept on plugging at this thing that it was going to work. And yes, within a matter of months, I had my first 50k month. And the nice thing about these sums of money coming in is that it was recurring revenue, which meant that when December came around, or any traditionally quieter periods where inquiries would drop down, I was still making healthy happy sums of money. That meant I could pay myself pay my team, chill the hell out because I had recurring revenue coming in. Okay, so step number one that’s validate this offer. So lean into the network you already have wherever they are, and simply say, I am looking for five, 

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whoever your ideal client is. So in my case, I might say, fully booked service providers who would like to insert desired transformation. So in this case, I’d say create a scalable group program within and usually I’d say 90 days, so think about what transformation you can create for your clients in 90 days. Even if long term you want your transformation to be a year long. Start with 90 days because if this is brand new, and you’ve not done it before, people can feel a bit nervous about investing in anything much longer than that unless you’ve got a proven like one-to-one method that 100% has to take nine months or 12 months and there’s already a demand for that. So you know, it’s really easy to transfer people across from 

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Once the other, then I would start smaller. But like I say exceptions to every rule. And if you’ve got a really popular method that takes a specific amount of time that you’ve got a one-to-one waitlist for, then 100% reach out to that waitlist and say, How about five, you come in for a hybrid one to one? Well, I will support you through the very same process, you will get one to one access to me, I don’t know, once a month or once every two months, and everything else will be group coaching calls, and you’ll get access to an on-demand library of resources that will support you through this at the same time. Can you see how appealing that is? Suddenly your waitlist is no longer sat there doing nothing. You’ve managed to enrol five of them at the same time. And I will hasten to add, by the way, that every single person that’s come to work with me, has not made their group program less expensive than their one to one. No, they’ve doubled their one-to-one rates, and made their group program the same cost as a one to one, which means that there is no drop off. There’s no like, oh, gosh, I’m now so busy. My group program and I’m making less money. No, there’s five clients you’ve previously enrolled, and they took up five times your time, you’re now doing it in a really time effective fashion, where you’re looking after five clients in the same time it took you to look to look after one juicy, right? Really juicy. So validate that there is a demand make a really simple invitation, who it’s for, what is the transformation, you can even say without common objection. Like if it’s like, oh, God, I haven’t got loads of time, I haven’t got loads of energy. I don’t want the fluffiness I don’t want hustling. I don’t like talk to that, right? Because that’s going to show you’re their person, you get it, and then talk about a specific timeframe. And it’s called a hand raiser, right? It means that people can respond to you, you can do this on social media, you can do this with emails, you can even reach out to your network of people who adore you and say, I’m looking for this. And it’s then very easy for them to communicate with their people. Okay, just generally speaking, work better on social media and emails, I will just say, as a caveat. So I would generally speaking, start there. But you could totally even do it on your own, you know, personal social media, make the invitation. And what is really exciting is, you know, a lot of people panic at this stage and go, but I don’t have anything ready. That’s fine. A lot of these people are already warm, and you’re following and they will wait. They will wait, okay, you don’t need to have everything ready for them. Immediately. Most people aren’t like, I need this, I need it tomorrow. Most people will be like, you need a month cool. I’m here, here’s my deposit, come back to you later. And if you’d want to take deposits, because you want to feel more confident about your selling, do that too. Again, it really depends on where you’re at. You know, if you’re really clear on your method and how you help people one to one, you’ll probably be able to communicate really clearly what your group program experience is going to look like. Okay, so that’s that piece. Next. So number one, you’ve validated that people want it like oh, by the way, just to give you some hope and excitement here. I had a call like this last year, where somebody had a waitlist of one to ones where she’d actually had to turn it off. She put this invitation out there she had 30 expressions of interest 30 expressions of interest. She then sold out her first group program for the beginning of this year, because it was the end of last year we had this conversation in between she came to me of course, we put together the most epic of group programs so that she knew what she was selling and how she was going to invite them in. But she sold out not just the first cohort, but she’d already started to fill out the second one last time I spoke with her. And I mean, honestly, and up until this point, she didn’t even believe it was possible. And when I just said send out that email, it changed everything for her. And if by the way, if you want that to know, if you want the template for that email, simply just drop the Word template in my DMs and my little bot bot also like to fondly refer to it will take care of you. Okay, so that’s step number one, validate that there’s a demand. And that will then motivate you to do step two, which is to create more time. And this is something I have inside my group program because it’s so so important. But ultimately, what it boils down to is audit your time, look where your time is going. I’ve not yet met a service provider who can’t actually outsource elements of how they’re looking after their clients, but have been nervous to do so. So what is exciting is in step one, where you know there are people waiting on this group program once you launch it, that is going to give you the confidence to be like you know what, I don’t need to be onboarding all my clients personally, I don’t need to be off boarding on my clients. Personally, I don’t need to be writing all these notes personally, like there are various elements of what you do already. That can be either automated or outsourced. You know this that took the notes that old cliche, right delegate ditch or automate, you know, you can do any of those things, those things but create some time, because if you don’t create that spaciousness first, you won’t be motivated to get it out there. And the step number three really is like don’t overthink it. It won’t be perfect when you get it out there. But you’ll have the benefit of it also not being an enormous cohort, take the pressure off yourself and decide that your first group program gets to be I don’t know three to five people, keep it really small and tell them that this is essentially the most accessible, affordable way to get this kind of 

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I touch support from you right now. And this opportunity will not come around again. Because once you have refined this, this journey, this this offer, moving forward, the price is going to go up, and it will never be this kind of intimate container again. And what that allows you to do is if someone ever gets stuck, or someone ever gets confused, or they’re like, I don’t understand this bit that you just shared inside this group program, how do I make this work, you can then go create the extra lesson that’s required to make it easier for them all create the extra resource because you’ve got that spaciousness, you’ve got you know, people paying you five times what a one to one will pay you taking up the space of any one, one to one, which gives you the time to work on those pieces, which then and obviously, while you’re running that program, you can be sharing the behind the scenes on your social media and things like that. So that people are going, oh my gosh, that looks amazing. I’ve got massive FOMO. Next time this person launches it, I want to be in there, set up a little waitlist so that waitlist is beautifully filling itself while you continue to run that program. And then by the time you’re ready to launch it the next time round, the program will be fully developed, fully fleshed ready to go. It won’t be taking up any of your time developing resources for it. And then you can put your full energy behind giving it a real hunger donker Jonker, have a launch so that you can then have this scalable asset that is scaling for you. How simple is that friends? 

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So step number one, validate the demand. It really is simple. Just make the invitation, make it really simple to understand and make them it really easy for them to understand if it’s for them. Make it speak to an internal desire that they know they have Don’t be saying things like, does anyone, anyone want to eat more broccoli in their diet each week? No one’s gonna say that, say, Does anyone eat more chocolate without getting fat? You know, like, I’m not saying make up lies here. But I am saying do position it in a way that is speaking to your ideal client and where they want to be. And give it that specific timeframe. So make the invitation, get those people saying yes, please. And then step two, audit your time. And by the way, even if you don’t get your offer validated the first time around, please still go about doing step number two, because you need to, it’s where the money lies, your time is your money. So make sure you’re using it efficiently. If you’re already in a situation that you’re in demand and fully booked out, then you 100% are in a position to optimise how you’re using your time so that you can figure out how to be making more money in a way that’s more time effective, you are really safe to do this. So please, I know when we started off in business, we can feel unsafe for a long time. And one of the hardest things to get past is recognising you are safe to make these changes, you will not lose everything. It’s never ever that simple. You are not one bad decision or one program offer away from losing everything ever. So please look after your time. Got it, got it. And then finally, just make take the pressure off yourself by allowing it to be a smaller group program the first time you don’t have to call it betta. But you do need to position it as you know, this is a way you’re going to get this really high touch, high access to me and my brain and my expertise. I’m going to support you with this. This opportunity is never ever ever coming around again because it won’t. fabulous friends. I’m really really excited to have to hear how you get along. As I mentioned, if you want the template, the handwriting the template, simply pop that little word into my DMs and my little bot will take care of you. I said bot not bots, just to be clear. So yeah, my bot will send you a link to that template so you can get that email out into the world. And what else? Is there anything else I have to share? I don’t think so. So thank you very much for listening to this. If you know any booked out overwhelmed service providers who need to hear this, please, please please share it with them. I really would love for this information to reach as many of them as possible. Like I say, having been in those shoes myself. I wish I wish I knew about this sooner because honestly, I can’t believe how fast it took me from a hustling six figure business to a multi six figure business was able to make 50k from a frickin sun bed in Greece. I mean, I used to hear those stories and go back you you really exist. And then it was me. It was me. So you know, give yourself that gift. And then yeah, thirdly, finally just you know, just don’t put that pressure on yourself. Let it be fun. I’m sorry. I’m just repeating myself here saying sadly fine. I don’t know what I’m going on about here. So next week, I am going to be back talking about 

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why it pays to look at your offers like a body of work rather than just pulling them out of thin air all the time. So there we have it. I’m gonna give it an more nifty name like that, and that by the time I come around to recording, but that’s it for now friends, I hope to see a bee in your ears next week.