MONETIZING YOUR EXPERTISE
What’s the Best Way to Monetize Your Expertise As a Consultant or Coach During a Recession?
Yes, Even If You’re Just Starting Out and Have Zero Coaching or Consulting Clients
Since 2016 I’ve worked with over 1,100 business coaches and consultants. Our primary focus? Crafting their message into meaningful impact with a sweet mountain of moolah attached.
What’s the #1 question coaches are asking now that their industries are disrupted or even headed towards extinction? “What’s the best way to monetize my expertise?”
This is the exact process I’ve seen clients of ours monetize their expertise in the same hour they launched this approach. No matter your industry, you have the tech, opportunity, and process to leverage your expertise to serve your audience with on-demand insight.
Step 1: Set Up a Calendar Scheduling Account With a Payment Link.
You likely have some type of calendar scheduling system already set up, such as Calendly, AppointmentCore, Acuity, ScheduleOnce, or any number of other options. If you don’t have it set up, I highly recommend Calendly. It takes less than 10 minutes to set up and integrates directly with Stripe for fast payments. If at all possible, I also highly recommend offering video-only sessions, specifically through Zoom, because of its now universal user adoption because of COVID-19. More on that later…
If you have another calendar option already in place that doesn’t offer payment integration, you can go ‘old school’ and use PayPal to collect payments. Whatever you decide for securing payments, set up your calendar with scheduling options for different time increments, such as 30-minute sessions or 50-minute sessions.
I also recommend setting specific time blocks for your availability, such as 8:00–11:00 a.m. or 1:00–5:00 p.m. Create some scarcity in your calendar so it doesn’t look like you’re just available whenever. If you’d rather not pay for the full Zoom account at this time(it’s $14.99/month), you can still host some Zoom calls for free that are limited to 40-minute time slots.
Prospective clients can then book a time slot based on your mutual availability, provide payment before your session, and then you connect for your session. No payment ahead of time? No session. You can include those basic terms in your calendar schedule form. Just list out what your expectations are, and if they agree to those terms, they need to check “Yes!” to complete the form and schedule a time. No agreement? No session.
If you want to take this another step further, you can also create a vanity URL using a service like bitly. It allows you to take the main URL (link) to your calendar and create a nicer-looking link, such as bit.ly/yournamehere or bit.ly/yourcoachingcallnamehere. It’s much easier to share a vanity URL than having to go to Calendly each time, copy the more obscure link, and then forward that link to your prospects.
If you’d like to get better results with your message than ever before, go to workwithjoncook.com.
Step 2: If At All Possible, Record Your Sessions Using Audio AND Video.
The first objection you may have is, “But, Jon, I’m under compliance or an NDA or HIPPA or [insert regulation or privacy concern/restriction here].” I get it — I’ve worked with key decision-makers from NASA, Nike, major automobile manufacturers, law firms, tech startups — every industry either needs to have or does have legitimate privacy concerns.
That said, many coaching or consulting conversations do not involve sensitive information. You can always check with your prospect to see if you can record the session for posterity and promotional purposes. If your client objects to you recording — and this truly should go without saying — honor their request, no exceptions.
However, if given the opportunity and approval from your client, record your sessions and extract different coaching concepts or ‘a-ha’ moments while in the conversation. Don’t share the full session because you want to protect the integrity of their investment.
With Zoom’s massive popularity during this COVID-19 craziness, you’re likely already familiar with Zoom’s interface. Zoom has built-in recording capabilities that can capture your audio and your guest’s audio feeds in separate files. That’s a significant benefit if you or an audio engineer need to clean up the audio before publishing the recording.
Step 3: Repurpose Your Session Content.
By recording your sessions, it starts creating a library of fresh content that you can then redistribute to various social media platforms where your audience is. Here are a few ways you can repurpose your content:
- Record your video using Zoom and download the audio and video files separately.
- Transcribe your audio files using Rev.com. They are the only transcription service I recommend because of their accuracy, turnaround time, and level of professionalism.
- Save your transcript as a Google Doc file or Word doc that you, a team member, or ghostwriter can then edit into a feature-length article.
- Use a service like Lumen5 to create promo videos based on wherever you want to share new video content. Lumen5 has built-in templates that can create your video using text from your blog feed and then segment your video based on where you want to share your video (IGTV, Facebook Stories, Snapchat, etc.).
- You can use a service like Repurpose.io to do most of the tasks listed here, including extracting the audio from a video, adding a pre-recorded intro and outro, and saving that new audio file. Congratulations, you now also have a podcast episode.
In this way, your coaching or consulting clients are also paying you to create content for your company.
If you’d like to get better results with your message than ever before, go to workwithjoncook.com.
Step 4: Share Your Session Content With Other Clients or Prospects Already Connected With You.
The most overlooked way to connect with your audience is through your email list. You know this — that’s why you probably have an email list. So, when was the last time they heard from you with a value-first, sales-second email? This is your opportunity.
Start with a simple email saying you completed a coaching or consulting session with another client. If permissible, mention the client by name to boost credibility. And then, mention specific takeaways or topics from that session and that the reader may be facing a similar situation as your client experienced before your session. Connect the dots for the reader by saying something along the lines of, “If you’re also having the same types of struggles or questions, here’s what we worked through during our session that may help you get the same type of insight.”
By sending that email, it’s giving value in advance. At the end of your email, you can ask, “What’s one challenge, question, or decision you’re facing right now that’s similar to what I shared?” Curate the responses and look for patterns because people leave patterns. That’s your new list of content or product ideas to create that can be true solutions. It could be a micro-course on a specific question, like meal planning or creating a household budget. It could be a half-day training or workshop experience done via Zoom. It may even be a book idea that launches a bestseller.
Step 5: Drive All Actions Towards a Paid Session.
Whatever content you create, whether it’s videos, a podcast episode, a blog article, any piece of content, funnel your audience’s focus towards only one action step: book a session.
Depending on the piece of content or topic, it’s best to customize your call to action (or CTA, as it’s often called) specific to the topic. If you’re sharing a video series on talent retention, your CTA for each video could be, “If you’re struggling to keep top talent in your organization, book a Keep Your Top Talent session. We’ll talk about your current talent in your organization, the biggest risk factors, the best conversation starters and reactions that will retain your top talent, and practical steps you can implement to keep your team thriving as you raise the bar of talent moving forward.”
Whatever your CTA is, make the link go to your calendar with a payment integration. It shows your audience that if they’re serious about getting results, they’ll put some ‘skin in the game’, as it were. They can keep tire-kicking their way through business and life…or they can get immediate results from your expertise.
And that’s how you monetize your expertise as a coach or consultant during this time. There are people in this world begging to find someone with your expertise. You have the chance to change someone’s life for good and do it in a way that gives your business the momentum you need to thrive.
If you’d like to get better results with your message than ever before, go to workwithjoncook.com.
