How To Create An Online Program That Makes An Impact - With Petra Mayer
Oct 17, 2021Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Petra Mayer.
Online Learning Expert and Group Coaching Profit Accelerator Petra Mayer works with high-achieving professionals such as coaches, consultants and experts who are serious about incorporating online courses and group programs into their organization’s service offering.
Through her systematic approach, Petra helps her clients gain clarity and overcome barriers in order to create online programs that attract their ideal clients and result in the freedom entrepreneurs seek in their business.
Here are some of the key takeaways from Petra's episode:
- Most of Petra's clients are typically professional advisors
- The biggest challenge they face is being unable to scale with hourly rate clients.
- This means they either have reached a plateau, they can't grow anymore, or they feel like they're on a constant roller coaster.
- The importance of getting your ideal audience really clear. And then ensuring you are building a scalable service.
- You need to develop a system that is proven, where you've seen the results that are repeatable for you.
- And then it's important to start building systems early on in your business.
Resources / Links
https://petramayerconsulting.com/
Transcript
Tom Bailey 00:07
Hello and welcome to Succeed Through Speaking, the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey and in today's episode obligating snow Petra Mayer, who is an online learning expert, and group coaching profit accelerator. So, Petra, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode
Petra Mayer 00:38
Hello Tom, thanks for having me.
Tom Bailey 00:40
Thanks for coming. And just I guess, for my interest, and also the listeners whereabouts in the world are you right now?
Petra Mayer 00:46
I am in a beautiful place called seashells, which is on the Sunshine Coast, just a short ferry ride away from Vancouver, BC Canada.
Tom Bailey 00:54
Amazing sounds very picturesque. And thank you, I just want to just share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So Petra typically works with high achieving professionals, such as coaches, consultants, and experts who want to incorporate online courses and group programmes that attract their ideal clients and provide freedom in their business. The title for today's episode is how to create an online programme that makes an impact. And Petra is gonna show us how to do that in just seven minutes.
Petra Mayer 01:26
that's a that's a big ask here.
Tom Bailey 01:28
Yeah. Absolutely fine. And the first question for today is Who are your ideal clients?
Petra Mayer 01:36
Yeah, well, Tom, as you said, most of my clients are what I call professional advisors. These are there, they would consider themselves as being a speaker, they might be an author have published a book or more. They are coaches, their consultants, they typically in my case, work in the business to business environment, so their clients, or corporates or other organisations,
Tom Bailey 01:59
it makes makes complete sense who they are. And what would you say is the biggest challenge that they typically face. So very
Petra Mayer 02:07
often consultants get into and coaches as well get into that space where they are paid by the hour. So when they are getting a client, then they've one of the first question is, what's your hourly rate. And with that, the scalability is quite limited. So they're always between a rock and a hard place, as I say they want to get more clients, but they also need to deliver on their business. And that becomes really difficult. Exactly.
Tom Bailey 02:31
So that's that juggling and prioritisation, I guess, between between the two. And with with this happening, what would you say is the biggest or the typical impact that that may have on them or their business?
Petra Mayer 02:42
I think what I've seen is there's twofold they either have reached a plateau, they can't grow anymore, they they can't get bigger, or they feel like they're on a constant roller coaster. They're constantly either trying to get clients, or they're so busy in their work, that they don't have time to do any business development. And then when that contract ends, then they feel that they don't have clients and they're out of out of work.
Tom Bailey 03:08
Yeah, I completely get it. And I guess for any coaches, consultants, experts that are listening to this, what's that one piece of advice that you might give them to really help them solve this problem?
Petra Mayer 03:19
Yeah, so firstly, I think there's two things, it's really important that you have your ideal audience really clear. And it's an audience that you connect with, and that you can help. And then once you have your systems in place, and you have something that really works for them, then it's time to think about scalable services. And that could be a coaching programme, a training programme, a mentoring programme, it could be a combination of all of that, the benefit of having those is that a, you get some passive income, you also can increase your rates on your one to one work or your high end work. You can create and get new leads and get new clients who are loyal clients. We're working with you through these various levels of the services that you're providing.
Tom Bailey 04:03
Of course, I just want to add one follow up question from that. And that is someone's brand new to this, and maybe they want to jump into all the coaching, should they go straight to group coaching? Or do you think they should maybe be one to one first for a little bit before.
Petra Mayer 04:18
Now, for sure a one to one is really important, because that's where you see the impact of the work that you are making. So you need to develop a system that is proven, where you've seen the results that is repeatable for you. Once you've identified the secret sauce that you have in your business and how you are serving your clients. That's the time to start building scalable programmes
Tom Bailey 04:41
yet makes complete sense. And what I find happens when you work in one to one is that you start to see the same trends, the same things happening anyway. So you might as well start to pull those together into that category Exactly.
Petra Mayer 04:52
And then it's important to start building systems. Start taking that knowledge that you have and start building small assets later. We'll help towards every piece that you're doing for one client, you might one day, give to another client, so it becomes a system. And that's really important to start building that early in your business.
Tom Bailey 05:10
Absolutely love that. Okay, great. And for anybody that does want to get started, what is one valuable resource or a link you can share to help people with this problem?
Petra Mayer 05:19
Oh, yeah, I'd love to share something. And thank you for asking for that. I have a white paper, how to create an online programme. And it really takes you through the steps that you need to consider when creating online programmes. It's a really useful guide, and you can find it on my website at john mayer consulting.com. Or I have a bitly link as well for you. It's Bitly, and then pmac for petrom and Associates consulting, hyphen, op for online programme. And you can also find the link on the show notes as far as I know. Absolutely, of
Tom Bailey 05:49
course, what I'll do is I'll put all of those links in the show notes for you. So our listeners can just click on those and dive right in. So a question for you specifically, then obviously, you've been on a journey with your business, what would you say is one of your greatest either learnings or mistakes or failures you've made either in life or business? And what did you learn from it?
Petra Mayer 06:10
Yeah, I as I said earlier, it is so important to be really clear on your audience. Yeah, early in my business, I was working mostly in the business to consumer market. So my clients were serving the business consumer sector. And I it took me a long time to figure this out. But it wasn't a good fit. It felt like I was pushing water uphill, I was struggling to get my clients, I thought that I had an amazing service for them. But it just didn't work. So eventually, I switched, I changed over in my business, and I'm now working with professional advisors in the b2b market. And I also work directly with larger organisations, businesses, nonprofits, government entities, and that's a much better fit for me, it is much less struggle, it's much more fun. So for you, as a professional advisor, find that ideal audience, it is so important. And if you feel you're pushing water appeal, you might want to relook at that.
Tom Bailey 07:08
I love that perfect. That's a great analogy. And the last question for me today is what is the one question that I should have asked that also brings some great value to our audience?
Petra Mayer 07:18
Yeah. So one question I often hear is, why should I work with another advisor on doing this when I'm a consultant or a coach myself, when I you know, help other people do their business? Why would I need to have you help me do my business. And what I'd say to that is, I find that it's really important to get some outside neutral perspective, because we get emotionally involved in our own business, we're connected to our own service, we'd sometimes do not see the forest for the woods, you know, it's really difficult for us to distance ourselves also. And a professional advisor who is experienced in this can really help you save money on systems that you don't need, can get you to your results faster, and can also see when the programmes you're developing, and I see that very often get too big, so they're too big for you to deliver. So you give up early, and they're too good for you too big for your clients as well. They're feeling overwhelmed. Yeah, we need to sometimes scale things down. Sometimes less is more, and an outside adviser can really see that.
Tom Bailey 08:29
Perfect. Thanks for that. And I guess for anyone that just wants an outside advisor, go to petromax consulting.com. And find out some of the services on that website as well.
Petra Mayer 08:37
Thank you so much, Tom. Yeah,
Tom Bailey 08:39
thank you. I really appreciate your time today and for coming along and sharing such great value with our audience.
Petra Mayer 08:45
Awesome. Thank you for having me and you have a great rest of the day.
