4.2 What you explain every week

Think back to your last three first sessions. Not the clients. What you said.

There’s probably a part you said all three times. The same explanation. The same example. Maybe the same sketch on the same piece of paper. You could say it in your sleep.

That part is a product. It’s already been tested on real people, more times than any course anybody ever launched. You know where people get confused, because you’ve watched them get confused. You know which example makes it click.

And here’s the thing. Clients pay you to hear it, an hour at a time, because it’s the only way they can get it. Write it down, and they can have it without the hour.

So how do you find it? Three questions.

First: what do you explain in the first twenty minutes of nearly every first session? That’s the foundation. The thing people need before anything else makes sense.

Second: what do clients ask you to send them afterward? The checklist you mentioned. The template you showed on screen. If somebody’s asked for it twice, it’s worth making properly once.

Third: what do you wish clients had done before they came to you? The reading, the numbers, the thinking that would’ve saved the first session. That can be a workbook somebody buys before they book.

Pick one. Just one. The one that came up first when you read those questions.

Now write it the way you say it. Not the way you’d write a book. Short sentences. The example you always use. The questions people always ask, with the answers. If you’d normally draw something, draw it, and put it in.

Keep it small. Twenty pages is plenty. A workbook somebody finishes is worth more than a course they abandon in week two.

Then price it against an hour of your time, not against other people’s downloads. A file that does part of what a session does is worth part of a session. Between a quarter and a half of a $180 session is $45 to $90, and that’s a fair place to start.

You might worry that giving away your method means nobody books you. It works the other way. Somebody who’s read your workbook and done the exercises arrives at a session knowing what they want from you. They’re the easiest client you’ll ever have. And some people will only ever buy the workbook, which is fine, because they were never going to book.

One more thing. Put it on the same page as your sessions. A file on its own is a product. A file beside the sessions is a first step. Somebody who isn’t ready to spend an hour’s money can spend a quarter of it, and find out you’re worth the rest.

That’s the lesson. Your next step is in the workbook in a moment. Before that, a short text lesson on pricing a group.