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Hey there. Are you ready to learn the only process that you need to fill up your group program or really any signature offer anytime you want year round? I've got an upcoming advanced sales training class called fill your group program in five weeks. This is a three part roadmap to consistently sell out your offer year round anytime. In this training we are going to talk about my signature 5 week buzz blitz process. I'm going to show you the calendar for how to create a five or even six figure launch and also going to learn the three key ingredients for a step by step rinse and repeat sales cycle that brings you consistently full groups. You just have to go to stephcrowder.comworkshop to get all signed up again. It's on June 24th. That's a Tuesday at 12pm Eastern Time and I cannot wait to see you there. Welcome to the Courage and Clarity Podcast. I'm your host Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast we deliver both in equal measure. Oh and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hey there friends. Welcome to the podcast. Let's talk today about where things might be going wrong with your group program. So this episode will be really useful for you in a couple of different cases. Number one, maybe you have a group or you've tried a group and it either you you feel like it either didn't work, like it didn't fill, people didn't buy it. Maybe some people bought it, but not at the level that you hoped and you're not really sure what went wrong. Or maybe you don't have a group yet, but you keep like you're if you're listening to this episode, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you're at least vaguely interested or curious about the idea of having a group program. But there are reasons that you are not pursuing it because you feel like you have a lot of stuff that you need to do to be prepared for your group. And so today really going to talk about the five main detours that I see. And again I'm kind of the group program guru, right? I help a lot of people with their group programs. I've been doing groups myself for years. And so there's probably a lot of different issues that we could get into, but these five are, I would say, the most common. Myths and misconceptions issues, roadblocks. And you need to be aware of them. Again, whether you already have a group or. Or you're really considering launching your group, bringing your group back, whatever the circumstance may be. So again, if you've launched a group and you've heard tumbleweeds, you've heard crickets, it didn't work out. You're so disappointed. You're like, I don't think that it's going to work for me. I tried it before. I really encourage you to listen closely here for which of these snags or traps you may have hit. Maybe it's a few of them. And I'd be super curious to hear if you're open to sharing with me. You can always DM me at Instagram at Hey, Steph Crowder, or reply to any of the emails that I've sent you and let me know what light bulbs might have gone going off for you. So in no particular order, let's get into the five reasons why group programs fail, why yours may not have filled, or in general, just the myths and conceptions of misconceptions about group programs that you need to be aware of before pursuing them. Okay. Number one is over building. This one's got to be my favorite. Okay. Over building. So this is the most common. I had to start with the biggest one. I would say thinking that you have to be super, super prepared ahead of time is going to sink your group program. Okay. You spend the time, I've seen it before of having an 80 page workbook, right? You have all of the videos ready to go. You're thinking to yourself, I need to like, I know exactly what we're going to do every single week. I have a 12 week program and every single week has a theme and I know exactly what we're going to talk about and listen. It's coming from a good place. I know why you want to do that. You care deeply about seeming prepared. Like if people are going to pay you, you're like, I have to know what I'm teaching them. They have to be ready. Right? Here's where that's wrong. Okay. You want to be thinking about allowing them to guide you. Stay with me. Because some of you are already like, I don't know about this, right? You're never wavering from your expertise. You are always the expert in us in a situation. But what I want you to think about is imagine that you have, like, a pantry, okay? Instead of sitting down and being like, I'm gonna make the menu, I'm gonna say, you know, meal course one is this, and course two is this. And you've got everything all written out and ready to go. And then your customers come through the door and someone's like, I'm gluten free, I'm vegetarian. I don't like fish. Like, and suddenly this whole menu that you got already and you bought all the ingredients for, you're having to pivot and it's not the right menu. And you spend all of this time, money and energy preparing for a meal that doesn't fit the people who will be eating the meal. Versus imagine the most talented chef in the world has a pantry and refrigerator full of ingredients and has the confidence and experience to know and have the thought, I can put together the best possible meal for the customers that are in front of me. And so when your customers come in and sit down and you ask them about their preferences and you get to know them and you get to know their dietary restrictions, you're like, ooh, okay, I know exactly what I'm going to make, right? And you think to yourself, I'm really glad that I asked because I have all of these dietary restrictions and all of these preferences, and if I had gone down the direction of just making what I wanted to make, I would have made the wrong meal. Thank goodness I didn't do that, right? This actually 100% happened to me when I launched my first round of my mastermind years and years ago. I called it the Messy Middle. At the time, it's now known as sold out group programs. And I thought for sure that I was going to be teaching the like. I. I shared in a previous episode that when I launched it, I had no curriculum ready. I was just like, we're going to teach it one live workshop a month. We're going to be together for six months. And I. I literally put in my marketing for the group. We are going to select the topics based on the needs of the group. So the group knew that going into it. So we were all on the same page, right? I went into it thinking a hundred percent. I was like, I'm going to teach them 90 day planning. They know how. They need to know how to plan their 90 days. That's what I'm going to teach But I didn't. I did not prepare it in advance. That was just my hypothesis, my theory. And what I ended up doing is getting on my very first coaching call with them. I started just by coaching them, getting to know them, and I thought, oh, it hit me right in the face like a ton of bricks. I thought, oh, my goodness, these guys do not know how to sell. I have to teach them my Buzz Blitz process. And to this day, Buzz Blitz that you can. One of the versions. There's multiple versions now of Buzz Blitz because I've updated it over the years. This is my launching process, by the way, my selling process. The original was so good that it is still intact inside of the program. And I never would have gone there. I was gonna teach them how to plan. But when I got in there and I realized, oh, my goodness, these guys need revenue. They need to be selling. They don't have a process for selling. They're not confident with their selling. We have to start with that. Then I was able to actually get them what they needed, and they got results so quickly. And I would have been wrong, Right? So I had the confidence to know there are so many different things I could teach these clients. I could make them this meal or that me meal. I'm gonna get in there and get to know them a little bit, and then I can respond to the needs of the group. You will be so grateful that you do it this way. I know it can be scary. And if you're scared about it, I will coach you inside of my program. If you want to come be a client, I will teach you exactly how to do this without looking like an amateur, without looking like you don't have your stuff together. You can be so competent and so empowered, just like the chef who has a pantry and a refrigerator full of ingredients. They're not scared. They're like, I am. Know that I can whip up the best meal based on who I have in front of. That's what you're gonna do when you're building your group program. Now, that's in the start phase. Eventually, when you have a group, it's not always gonna be like that. You're gonna build out your curriculum, and you're gonna, you know, you, you. To this day, I am always still teaching new workshops and new concepts again, adjusting to the needs of the people in front of me. But I do have a library of curriculum now that I have banked over the years. But I've been building it with my clients, testing it with them instead of making it alone. In my evil laboratory and hoping that it' okay, so that is number one over building. You can go into it with an idea of like, here's like probably the, you know, 10 big ideas I'm going to end up teaching, but I don't want you going into it with much more than that. Again, for some of you, you're like, there is no way in hell. I could never do that. I promise. I have walked the most skeptical people through it and they have been like, you were right. Actually, my favorite is when people are like, I'm going to go do it my way. And then they do overbuild and, and they come back and they say, I see why you said that. Okay, so that is number one is you may very well have been over building. Okay. The second detour that I see is under pricing. Okay. So you may find I've seen clients of mine and people that I've worked with and talked to who maybe don't even charge at all for the first round of their group. They think like, oh, this is why, if you listen to my previous episode, I was saying the word beta, like beta test is not my favorite because I think it implies like, do it for free. I am a fan of founder pricing. If you want to have a no brainer price that you plan to increase in the future, perfectly fine. But when you cut your prices to the point where you're giving it away, a few things happen. Number one, your clients ghost, right? If it's free, they're not bringing themselves to the line the way that you need them to. Because remember, one of the things we're doing when we're starting our groups is we're collecting transformations and we're collecting testimonials. And so if you don't have people actually engaging with you, you're not going to be able to help them get the transformation. So you have to strike that balance between, yeah, price for your confidence. Like you don't want to, you know, swing beyond the fences and feel like you have picked a price that you have no confidence in. It's okay to be like, okay, I, I know I can sell for a $thousand dollars or $800. Like I shared that my first group was eight weeks for $800. That was a no brainer price for me because I was literally able to say like, don't go out to eat one time a week with your partner on date night and you can afford this program. Right? So, but notice it wasn't 99 for eight weeks. Right. It was a significant cost but it wasn't so significant that I was freaking myself out. So what I want you to do is really think about how can I price for my confidence, but also for their commitment. You want to find the sweet spot between the two. The third detour and big sort of myth. It's not even. This one's not even a myth. It's honestly a flat out mistake, if I'm honest, is teaching versus selling and understanding the difference between the two. If you really wanted to, you could go back and listen to this group program series that I'm doing and hopefully you feel like you're getting a lot of value. I feel like I'm sharing a lot of information. But I am selling though, right? Like, I am getting you excited, hopefully to come showing my hand here. Okay. I'm getting you excited to come learn more on my webinar. And I've told you very directly here on the podcast and in my emails that I'm going to be inviting you to my program that is selling. I'm telling you right now that I'm going to be inviting you to consider applying and talking to me about me being your coach. I am teaching here on this podcast, but I'm teaching in the context of what you need to know to be prepared, to be my client. Does that make sense? I'm going to say it again. I am teaching you what you need to know to become a good client, for me to become a prepared client, to come into my program being like, I know why I'm here, I'm excited about it, I get it, and I'm ready to go. I am not teaching and over teaching and telling you, here's all of the solutions so that you can go say, thank you very much, let me go try this on my own. And then I always call this knowing enough to be dangerous, right? It's like giving a toddler a knife. No offense, but I give you the KN life and then like, and you know, you can't be surprised when a disaster happens, right? Because when you teach, we try to teach too much in advance or teach for free. People think they get it. Like, imagine a really advanced concept, like if you're a nutritionist and you're trying to teach people how to balance their blood sugar, and you try to teach it on one podcast, you try to give them the whole solution. They're like, okay, I got it. And then they go and try it, and as soon as they get hungry, the plan doesn't work. And they're like, I tried that. It didn't work so it actually ends up backfiring. I'm not telling you not to teach because I want you in scarcity and I want you to withhold old and not help your people. It's not that. It's that when you try to teach in that way, it actually is too advanced typically for that for it to land. You want in your sort of lead up, in your pre launch content, in your selling content to get people sold on why. So I want you to think about swapping how to for here's why. Okay. Instead of step by step, here's exactly what to do. It's here's why you should care about balancing your blood sugar, right? What does balancing your blood sugar actually solve? Why should I care about that? Notice how much in these podcast episodes I've been really helping you see why group programs, that's really the whole point of this, this series is to help you see, like, why should I be paying attention to group programs in 2025, even when I walked you through my framework of start sell out. And scale is more about why you need to do each step and what happens in each step, but not how to do it. If I want to show you how to do it, I need to give you my templates, I need to give you my calendar, I need to give you my coaching. And all of that has to happen when you become my client because we have to have proper time and space and I need to get to know you in order for it to work right. So I don't pretend I can teach all of the how here on the podcast, but I can really help you with a lot of tidbits that'll take you really far. I have people reach out to me all the time and say, like, I've gone so far just listening to your podcast and that's great, but I really try to sell the map right? Like, really think about, here's the map, here's what we're gonna do together. Instead of misleading anyone into thinking like, they can go out onto the trail all by themselves, I don't want y' all get eaten by a bear, right? You don't want to be like, hey, it's your first time hiking, go good luck up the Appalachian Mountain, right? It's more like, hey, here's a map. Let's do this together. Here's why I'm going to be the right guide to walk you through this. So that might be a big reason when I see people with undersold group programs, there's typically, I call it professor mode. There's typically a lot of professor type behavior happening and you're just making your clients think that they know everything. They're like, oh, yeah, that podcast is amazing. I just have taken all the free information and kind of cobbling it together on my own. You want to think about why that's actually not in highest service to your client and how it's doing them a disservice not get to experience the full transformation with you and with your coaching and with your, your service providing or whatever it is that you do. Right. Okay. Detour number four is an interesting mashup of some of the things we've already talked about. Detour number four is teaching too much inside of the program. Teaching too much inside of the program. So what happens here is you create burnout in your clients. Okay? So instead of having the mindset, I am going to sprint towards results. So if we're in the one to few sort of that small group program where we're typically when we do a small group program, the one to few aspect, that sort of like first beta group, it's going to be a shorter program. It's usually eight weeks or 12 weeks. And typically what I see is even if you haven't overbuilt your content, like I said, you didn't plan it in advance. To go back to my cooking analogy, this would be like, you waited, you didn't make the menu ahead of time. You responded to the needs of the client, of the customers. Good job. But the plate that you gave them is like a Thanksgiving feast. And you're like, you need to eat it all. And they're like, literally, I can't fit all that in my stomach. Right. Versus think of a time when you had a meal where less was more. Nobody wants to be uncomfortably full. Nobody likes to be stuffed. You can have a delicious, amazing favorite meal of a lifetime that doesn't leave you feeling bloated and like you can't even finish it. Right? So sometimes what I see is again, that your heart is in the right place. When I see this, you want to help. You want to give them so much value. So you just keep stuffing and stuffing and stuffing and stuffing, lessons and ideas and worksheets and curriculum into your program when less would have been more. In fact, what I typically see is if you could lean more towards more teaching concepts or more open coaching. I'm always going to say more open coaching because then you are responding to the actual needs of the group, then you can make your curriculum. You could be like, okay, If I have to talk about this one question one more time, if the same question keeps coming up, then yes, you do need to address that with a little lesson or a little piece of curriculum. But I want you to think about, especially in the early stages of your group program, think about a sprint. Sprint. Sprint now, polish later. Sprint now, polish it up later. Here I am in 2025. I mean, I launched my first round of my Mastermind program again when I was calling it the Messy Middle, that was probably 2020. So I'm like, in year five, I am still very much polishing. I mean, I feel like I'll be polishing for the next few years. Okay. So this can absolutely be a process, and it should be a process. And you want to make sure that you're not creating that client burnout again from your desire to help them. But remember that less is more and you only want to give them enough that they can digest. Because if we're overstuffing, they're not executing on it, and it's going to interrupt their ability to actually get results. Okay, Detour number five is a big one. I've been talking to my clients about. I'm going to call this one support tunnel vision. Support tunnel vision in your. In your program. And what that looks like is you're having tunnel vision about how your clients get helped in your program. Typically, this looks like you're only thinking about your live calls. I've seen this a lot where people are like, I don't see how my group program, like, I'm scared I'm not gonna get to everyone. How am I gonna coach everybody? I only have one 2 hour call a week, right? And so what ends up happening is we have to stretch ourselves to ask the question, what are all of the layered supports in my program? I always say in my Mastermind, and I'm so sold on this because I do it every single day. We have 360 degrees of support in the program. It's a layered support matrix. What does that look like? For some of my clients, it's offering asynchronous voice coaching in between the calls on something like Voxer, it could be setting up peer pods. It could be a searchable resource vault. For me, I have a certain number. My clients can submit a certain number of pieces for feedback from me and my coaching staff. Every month. You can have four deep dive, like, loving tear downs of your stuff, your sales page, your. I mean, just this morning I did a social media audit for someone I look at and diagnose and give guidance on 90 day plans. I review emails, I strengthen website pages like we really do it all. And that is one of the huge pieces of support that is not a live call. In addition to that, my coaches and I are coaching our clients every single day in our community with written coaching as well in between our calls. And it benefits the clients because we, our clients don't have to wait until the next phone call in order to get what they need. So I love having the thought there are so many different ways to get support in the program. If you are tunnel visually visioning yourself where you're only thinking about how valuable the zoom calls are and you're kind of thinking of all the other things in your program as like secondary, you know, you might be thinking to yourself, if they can't come to a live call, they shouldn't be in my group. I coach clients all the time who never can come to my group calls and they're still getting transformation in the program. Yes, coming to the calls is ideal, but it's only one way to get support in the program. So when you come into my mastermind, you become a client of mine. I will help you creatively problem solve for what are all of the different unique, out of the box ways to support your clients in your group that you haven't thought of yet. Live zoom calls are just scratching the surface of what makes a group a great group program. It's not even everybody's favorite way to get support. There are so many other cool things you can do, especially based on your on your niche and on your industry. There's probably things I haven't even thought of yet. I love new and different ideas that we can add into your group to really make it feel like your clients are so held and so supported. It is about so much more than can I come to the call every week? Right. That's really going to build your belief that your group program gets people results even if your clients are very busy. So one thing you can do, friends, is you can go back through the five detours that I just shared and you can kind of score yourself if you already have a group program or you're thinking about starting one, where are you? Like falling down with this? You could even score yourself on a scale of 0 to 5, where are you? You know, 5 is like, I'm really like, this is a real concern for me. Zero is like, I'm not really concerned this detour. And you can kind of develop what I would call a launch risk score for yourself in terms of where am I at risk of shooting myself in the foot with my group or having a group that doesn't work or just having a group that's running suboptimally? This can really help you get ahead of it before it becomes a problem. And if you really want to de risk your next launch, you want to know exactly how we do this in a way that's going to work for you and your clients. I'm handing you the five week roadmap coming up on June 24, 12pm Eastern Time in my training. I can't wait to see you there. You can just go to stephcrowder.comworkshop to get all signed up. It's going to be such a juicy advanced training so make sure that you're there. I can't wait to see you in my next group program episode. We're going to round out our series and until then I'm wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love.