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How To Structure A Successful Group Program For Client Results With Vix Meldrew · Values-First Marketing

• 0:03
  Unknown: Hey, hey Today I am with Victor Meldrew who helps group offer leaders designed transformative curriculums engaging and interactive lessons and all around rave worthy experiences. So more of your clients get results. She has partnered with brands such as Microsoft, Squarespace, Pinterest, and more. In 2019, she launched her membership Grow and Glow, gaining over 100 founding members in under an hour. Amazing. And it says worked with over 400 course creators, coaches, Service Pros and entrepreneurs to go from experts to educators to design and launch their programs. I am so excited to chat with you today. It has been a long time coming. Welcome to the show.
• 0:43
  Unknown: Yay. Thank you for having me.
• 0:43
  Unknown: I'm so excited.
• 0:46
  Unknown: So recently you did this state of Group offers survey, which I want to chat about and break down today is so smart, so good.
• 0:56
  Unknown: And you had 200 300 People take this survey, so it was both people who have a group program of some sort. And that could be in like a group program, a membership or a mastermind all those fall under that category.
• 1:10
  Unknown: And you also had people take the survey of people who have participated in those things to kind of get both perspectives.
• 1:20
  Unknown: And some people obviously fill in, in both categories, leaders of those programs, likely are also you know, have participated in them before as well. Yeah, so. Okay, first, I just wanted to get clear on like, what is this group coaching that we're even talking about? So I don't know if you have any clarity you want to add there, just so we kind of define our terms? I don't know, everyone might have a slightly different definition.
• 1:50
  Unknown: Yeah, I have my definitions of things. Everybody who took the survey, obviously have their own definitions of things as well.
• 1:57
  Unknown: So it's hard to kind of quantify a sort of universal definition because I do like you said, I think everybody has their own.
• 2:04
  Unknown: In my mind, a group program is curriculum based, it often has some amount of support, whether that is live coaching calls and a live community or whether that's more, you know, something like Voxer bit of sort of recorded back and forth, type thing. So that's what I consider to be a group program, I consider a mastermind to be more group coaching. So a group who are masterminding together, there perhaps is a leader or facilitator, but a lot of the group contribute and lead a lot of the time in that space as well, versus a group program where it's usually the leader who's running the curriculum and running the show. So they're my definitions, but yeah, everybody has their own.
• 2:47
  Unknown: Yeah, and I know from participating in both chatting with people, like leaders of these, some of it can kind of blend a little bit. But yeah, I would agree a mastermind is more it's more of a group contribution in the facilitator or leader is more of kind of like a curator I guess of sorts.
• 3:05
  Unknown: Whereas group program, like you said, it typically curriculum based, there is a leader who is kind of sharing their expertise, there might be components of of masterminding as well. But yeah, there's typically that more leadership aspect. So okay, so before we jump into, what did we learn from these? What was it 284 total participants across both surveys, which is a good a very staggering number to take on. So what was your reason why behind creating the state of Group offers survey? Hmm.
• 3:44
  Unknown: So I love data. I love statistics and a lot of the content that I create, around, you know, group programs and curriculums. It's very much quoting the statistics that are kind of outdated now and kind of don't share the whole picture.
• 3:58
  Unknown: So you may have heard this statistic around how only 2% of online courses are completed.
• 4:02
  Unknown: But for me, that doesn't show the whole picture because completion of a curriculum isn't the sole identifier of whether the person is getting results or not. There's conflicting statistics around that being 20% of people finish a group program, some say 40% of people finish a group program. So there was not really that much robust data in, you know, the world that we're in and these kinds of people that have group programs, masterminds memberships, it's very much more around those like massive open online courses like the EU dummies and the low ticket kind of being data driven. I teach a group program which helps group program leaders with their group programs. It's all very inception and meta, but I wanted to have some better data to share with them around client results, client experience, Completion, engagement and all of those kinds of things. So that was my kind of mission. And behind doing it was just to see if I could get some better data that we could use in the industry.
• 5:07
  Unknown: I love that. And that's what I really felt as I was reading through the survey and the actual data and results that you shared, like, Oh, this feels like better data than was out there. Not only like not out no longer outdated, but also just more specific to our particular industry and what we are talking about and like, I'm a numbers, girl data is so important, but like, not just any data, like it has to be secure and cracked. So that leads to my next question, which is, how did you get so many leaders to take your survey? That is a very good number 284 total participants across both surveys? And 196 Taking? Wait, did I say that?
• 5:47
  Unknown: Right? Yeah, I wrote that wrong.
• 5:51
  Unknown: Okay. Okay. Yeah, we didn't get that right. Yes. So great question. And the first thing that came to mind when you said that, to me was threads. Now I'm loving threads, I'm on threads, I'm threading everyday that I'm working. And I've built a really great community on threads of group or for leaders. So I had a lot of reshares on my content, where I was sharing about these things. So lots of group offer leaders who have communities that you know, have business coaches, and entrepreneurs and service pros in their communities as well. So we've got a lot of shares on threads.
• 6:25
  Unknown: I also have a good audience size myself, I've got an email list of over 1200 people, a social media following of over 45,000, although that is from previous niches and businesses that I've had. So it's not that niche specific. But yeah, I would say my ability to get that many people, I was talking about it every day of June, constantly sharing the links to the surveys, I had lots of people sharing it for me, and I've got a good audience size already.
• 6:54
  Unknown: Awesome. Awesome. And did they take it? Like on their own accord wanting to contribute?
• 6:58
  Unknown: Was there some incentive? Or just yeah, just Yeah.
• 7:04
  Unknown: And actually, I got towards the end, and I was like, Oh, maybe I should have had an incentive, maybe more answers. Because I really wanted 1000 people to take it. I just pulled that number from nowhere was like 1000 people to take this. And I actually then spoke to somebody who did a similar survey, but in their industry years ago, who was like, you know, what, 284?
• 7:22
  Unknown: That's a really good number.
• 7:22
  Unknown: Like, don't stress about it. So.
• 7:25
  Unknown: Okay. So I don't know where that number came from. But, yes, okay, good. I actually kind of love that there is no incentive given because sometimes I feel like that can skew the maybe the type of person that would take it or, or whatever, or do it for the wrong reasons. It sounds like the bachelor right there. But okay, so that's awesome. I feel like that is a great sample size to to work with. So let's get into how how do you create a group coaching program that get results? Yeah, that's a really great question.
• 8:02
  Unknown: And I think one of the big things that came out of this report is that I have been working with group of leaders since end of 2021, beginning of 2022. So a good couple of years now. And having run my own group offers from 2018 2019, I've been in this kind of world for a really long time, I used to also be a teacher. So my background is in education, and all that kind of stuff. So the thing that kind of came out to me from this survey was almost the theories or hypotheses that I had, as to why Group offers weren't getting results were kind of proven from the surveys, but I wanted like the actual proof. So let's be really honest, a lot of the times Group offers don't get results is because people don't put the work in. Our clients do not put the work in. They don't hold themselves accountable, they lose motivation, they get distracted, they have other priorities, circumstances arise.
• 9:00
  Unknown: So a lot of the time, it is because the clients don't do the work. But what I have always theorized for the last however many years is that is only part of the picture. And we all like to say, Oh, our clients just didn't do the work and our clients just didn't do the work.
• 9:16
  Unknown: But in my experience with my expertise, and in my background, and in all of the people that I've worked with, that's only part of the picture. There's only a percentage of our clients who just will spend sometimes a lot of money to come into our programs, memberships and masterminds and just decide they don't want to do the work. And I actually think a majority is that they are not facilitated to be able to do the work. They are not supported to be able to do the work. They are not motivated to be able to do the work.
• 9:44
  Unknown: They're not held accountable, to be able to do the work. There's a lot going on. I call it the results gap. This gap between we have enrolled X amount of people into our offer, but only X amount of people have done the work. Now we know that some of those people that have haven't done the work it is on them. It is their circumstances, priorities, distractions, etc.
• 10:05
  Unknown: But there's other group of people who drop out of Group offers, because those Group offers have not been designed so they can get results. So to answer your question about how do you launch a group program that gets results, If I could sum it up very simply, is that your group program needs to be engaging, motivating, and re motivating. So that those people who are wanting to drop out or wanting to not wanting to be distracted, but who get distracted or who fall away, can be supported to come back in can be engaged along the way and their attention can be retained.
• 10:43
  Unknown: There's a lot of that that goes into it. But that's what I would kind of sum it up as, yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Because I feel like often only that one side of the story is told is, well, the client didn't, you know, give it their 100% didn't put in the work. And oftentimes, like yes, that our first versus circumstances where that is true for whatever reason, you know, good or not.
• 11:09
  Unknown: But I agree that is only part of the picture. And yeah, if you design it to get results designed to be engaging movie, and I love that you said real motivating, knowing, anticipating that these that life happens to all of us, you know, despite our best efforts, and that you are very intentional about designing a program. That is not just I mean, there's so much out there about like a business fitting your lifestyle, which yes, 100% agree. And we can do that in a way where it is also designed to get our clients results.
• 11:46
  Unknown: Exactly, yeah. And you know, I had a baby 11 months ago, and I've grown, I've got my current group program that has just tipped over its 50th member that I launched in February. So I launched it in February, we're in July now, it's just tipped over its to its 50th member, and I run it around an 11 month old, you know, you can absolutely have an i also have a mastermind to masterminds as well. So you can absolutely have group containers that fit your lifestyle, and that are designed to get results and that are designed to be supplementary to your lifestyle. But they're not passive. They're not passive courses. And I'm kind of anti passive income in that way, in that you do have to put in effort. And your client will match that.
• 12:29
  Unknown: Yes, yes. Yeah, it does take effort to be passive, quote unquote. And I love that you've that you said that. And honestly, if you can do it with a newborn, no one else has an excuse. I've been there too. Oh, and yeah, to to design it strategically. And I love that the what came out of this survey. I was reading through it. I was like, Yes, this is so good. Yes. This is so good. Yes, this is so good. And I was like, if you read through that, honestly, none of them were like, surprising, necessarily.
• 13:01
  Unknown: They all made so much sense. And they're like good reminders, I think because when you are roped in all the details, it's easy to like, you know, miss something that could be staring right at you. But none of them were super shocking. So I'm curious, why do you think more people aren't doing these, I don't know what seemed like basic things when you look at them on paper. But there, there's obviously a deeper reason maybe why good people of integrity might be missing out on some of these components.
• 13:38
  Unknown: For sure. And what I put this down to is if you look at any course or program that is about how to launch courses and programs, you will only ever see that their curriculums cover the marketing and the sales of the course and program before myself and there are other instructional designers there are other curriculum specialists. But it's very much been under the radar until possibly sort of like this year where it's becoming more to the forefront but I say anything pre 2020 for any course about how to launch a course is about how to sell a course there is no education in there about learning psychology, how people learn how to engage, how to motivate them, even instructional designers who are putting together curriculum, you know how to write a curriculum still are missing the mark on how to really work with people and how to engage them and keep them motivated and and that kind of stuff. So the average expert who is absolutely incredible in their field, years of experience, big businesses absolutely expert at what they do, has gone right I want to launch a course or a program let me go and learn from this guru.
• 15:13
  Unknown: Let me go and learn from this person and they've learned how to market and sell that program.
• 15:16
  Unknown: But it's when they then come to deliver it that they then go ah, you plant getting results, and I've overstuffed my curriculum and app. This isn't working, I thought it would be working, because they didn't learn how to teach, essentially. And of course, why should you like I have a background in education you don't you're an expert in whatever it is that you are an expert in, you have never been trained how to teach a large group of people in a scalable way that gets results, how to keep them engaged, how to motivate them, because when you've come to learn about how to launch courses and programs, you've only been taught about the marketing. So that's, that's my theory as to why is there's too, for those of us who maybe have a background in education, or we just have longer experience of running programs in groups. These are the things that only come up once we started doing it if we weren't aware about it before.
• 16:10
  Unknown: Yes, and I am also a former teacher, I have my master's in education. So I'm absolutely just like 100% agree with what you're saying. And like, being an expert is one thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean you know how to teach it. And I know I, of course, have seen like courses about how to launch a course. Yeah, marketing and sales is what they teach, because that is what is going to get the quick wins the results.
• 16:35
  Unknown: It's, I don't know sort of easiest to teach people how to do those things, versus doing the kind of more the deeper work of, and I think this is more of like, for long term success.
• 16:57
  Unknown: You've got to have this right, the instructional design and like how to actually teach this because if people aren't getting results from your program, like, do you are not going to have longevity in your group program?
• 17:10
  Unknown: Yeah, I have a framework that I teach that I call it rave, refer and retain. And I think a business and online business or a business where you want to have one too many Group offers, is only going to be sustainable, and only going to be a business that you can run for the next year, three years, five years, 10 years, if you have clients who are raving, referring and retaining. And by that I mean, you get raving testimonials and solid case studies, then it sells your offers for you, you have your clients, referring other people to you without you having to ask them and bribe them and incentivize them. And you have those clients who are retaining with you, in your business for a long period of time client retention and going into your other offers. That is a truly sustainable business.
• 17:54
  Unknown: And when you're only learning about marketing, and launching what you're learning is how to get people in the door. But then what do you do with them when they're in the door to create a sustainable business, because, yes, you may be great at launching, you may have a really big Facebook ads budget, and you may be able to continually enroll and enroll and enroll and enroll. But there comes a point where your clients are very savvy and we're going we saw that in the group offer survey, they're very discerning, very savvy, 2024 by extremely savvy on your sales page that you have had 5000 students in your program, but the only testimonials or screenshots of people saying, hey, that lesson was great, or I really like this, they know people aren't getting results. So in this climate of the savvy buyer of the more hesitant buyer of the more discerning buyer, those buyers have been burnt by so many Group offers before they are not willing or ready to get burned again. So they're only investing in offers that have receipts of results. So I feel like this is why there's a bit of a resurgence of this in 2024 Because we're reacting to the market. And yeah, the market wants to see results and proof of results.
• 19:10
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree with that. There are so many people that have been burnt before. I mean, you've been in this industry long enough, like it happens. And I feel like I experienced that a ton as a copywriter too, like people come to me. And they're like, Well, I'm hesitating because I've been burnt by a copywriter before.
• 19:25
  Unknown: And so how do you talk about that in a way where like, prove that like, Well, no, I do have integrity. Here are my receipts of the ROI. I've gotten people off of their investment, and so on. And yeah, I feel like social proof social proof social proof is always the best way sometimes though, not enough, but a great way to start showing like hey, here's I'm the real deal here, you know, hear it from other people, not just me.
• 19:53
  Unknown: And to that as well that I think buyers are even more discerning even about social proof like before, that wall of sort of slack screenshots or facebook group screenshots was enough so but again, people have been burnt them way more discerning.
• 20:08
  Unknown: And what our buyers want to see now is measurable results. So an example there is maybe they're looking to invest in a program about you know, here's how to dominate Instagram in 2024. They don't just want to see screenshots. That's They, I posted a real, or I had a great time, they want to see case studies of somebody who said, I joined your program when I had 200 followers, and my grid looked like, and I had no idea what I was doing. And three months after your program, I now have 2000 followers, I'm regularly booked out with clients, my grid looks so cohesive, I have something to post every day. They that that's the level that people are looking for, especially in higher ticket programs, especially in high ticket where there's for them a lot more at stake. Yeah, yeah, totally. I love that you are saying this, I totally agree.
• 21:02
  Unknown: It's a trend that I think we're starting to shift towards. But I would love to see more. I mean, I hate even calling it a trend, because this is just like, doing the right thing, you know. But I think people don't know what they don't know, necessarily, or it can't. And also, it can be overwhelming because there are so many pieces and parts to creating a course or a group coaching program, and whatever else that things can, you know, fall to the wayside, even unintentionally. But this is a great call to like, hey, let's, let's look at this and make sure all these pieces are in place in place so that we can stand in our integrity and truly offer this group program that is going to get results so that you can have the impact that you want to have that your clients can, you know, get the results that they are looking for. And then it just becomes a win win for everybody, both the client benefits, and you as the coach or leader also is getting the benefit as well. Awesome, well, good. This has been such a helpful conversation. And for the listeners here, I would definitely encourage you to download the state of Group offers survey and get all of the specific outcomes that that came out of it. Vic's did a great job of just sharing the numbers, but then also giving a great like quick, kind of explanatory piece of, kind of here's the takeaway from that and very specific, like, here's what you can do.
• 22:39
  Unknown: Here's how it's like if you feel like you're lacking in this boom here is very quickly how you can you know, update this to like, if you are looking to raise your prices, if you're looking to create your next program, I would definitely recommend checking this out. So fix if you want to tell us where can people find you? Where can we hang out with you?
• 22:58
  Unknown: Amazing Yeah, so if you do want to access the survey, you can go to fixed meldrew.com/survey victimology.com is my website. So you will see my offers there and how to work with me if you are looking to, you know, revamp or work on your group offer, improve it, bring in some more measurable results and have more, you know, raving clients. I'm very active on threads. So I'm at Vic's Meldrew on Instagram and on threads always up for a chat in the DMS on Instagram as well. And I also have my rave results podcast I do a lot of teaching on there about how to teach and how you know, things that you need to let know about learning. I feature that on there. And then also insights into the world of Group offers what's working, what am I seeing working with my clients? What am I seeing, you know, pitfalls and things that you can avoid all that kind of stuff. And that you can find that on Apple and Spotify results.
• 23:51
  Unknown: Perfect. Thank you so much. I will link all of those things in the show notes to make it easy for our listeners to find and thank you so much. I appreciate this conversation and the work you did with that survey as well.
• 24:01
  Unknown: Thank you for having me.