Yep, we’re all aware, coaching groups are well and truly ‘in’. Over the last few years, the rise of the done with you model has grown rapidly, and for good reason. Who doesn’t love a community? A place to relate with like-minded business owners, your peers, sometimes they’re made to feel like your coworkers, something that business owners inherently lack. Even better, the coaching groups are led by smooth-talking, well-rounded, well-experienced individuals who make you feel like anything is possible. But, like everything, underneath the smooth-talking ceo, the clear messaging, and meta ads with a double-digit frequency, there is a flawed model for the average business owner.
This ‘Jesse’s notes’ section is all about having an outlet to explain my philosophy and strategy, which up until now is something I’ve always lacked. However, I’m always open to a conversation. If you have a differing opinion or thought, please, I’d love to hear from you. I’m passionate about helping businesses. There are too many great people giving up on their dreams due to false promises, flashy words and well edited, well funded Meta ads.
The Psychology
Business owners love control. A lot of the time we need it. After all, the buck stops with you, in Australia, the economics of running a small business are becoming less and less favourable, and marketing is naturally the most important part of running a business, so of course you’re always going to be wondering what you can be doing differently, whether you actually can save on agency fees and get better results. I get it, marketing seems easy, there is an endless string of AI tools on the market, and an enormous pool of well-established coaches throwing their snazzy marketing theories down the throats of business owners.
At the end of the day, the practical execution of these groups is to get thousands of business owners together to share resources, whilst there are a lot of really great businesses and business owners in there. The reality is that even if they had 100 amazing case studies and success stories, what we’ve found is that the majority of owners are struggling to break free, chasing this dream with a poor product market fit and replicated, templatised messaging and strategy.
The Issue
There are a few core issues that all coaching groups have, which can’t be avoided.
Experience
Individuality
The fact is, if you’re doing the same/similar strategy to the large bulk of ecommerce businesses, how can you expect your users to be excited about what you’re doing? On a more granular level, sometimes Meta gets it wrong, sometimes coaches get it wrong, best practices aren’t always what’s best for your business. Your coaches aren’t using their experience to manage your account; they are not responsible for performance. At the end of the day, you are.
time
One of the main draw cards of owning an ecommerce business (or most businesses nowadays) is to have the freedom to be able to work from anywhere in the world, and run your business. The fact about these groups is that the majority of these business owners are more time poor than when they started. And even if you look at the large, successful examples, even at the epitome of results, they are still working all day, every day, in the office. The reality ends up setting in that, although in theory this model sounds great, you’re working towards a work life that is heavily reliant on you as the business owner.
sales
If I had a university course, it would be about how silly running sales are. The reality is that most of these ecommerce groups teach you to have 2 or 3 great months a year, leaving you strung out to dry for the remainder of the year, clutching at your 2-3 ROAS and crumbling EBITDA. Sale dependency is the silent killer of ecommerce businesses. You will never be able to scale reliably, hire efficiently, or plan accordingly, and you’ll just start ostracizing your audience one by one.
Not all businesses are the same
Yes, there are a lot of really bad experiences out there with agencies, strategists, and consultants.
We’ve heard them all:
- Promising the world delivering significantly worse results.
- Sold on a chef, and given a Microwave.
- Falsely claiming I.P. on ad managers, pixels, and assets.
- Blatantly offshoring work and lying about it.
- Doesn’t answer the phone, ever.
- New account manager every other week.
I get it’s daunting, but it’s not an issue with the model; it’s solely related and responsible with the poor operators that exist in every space.
Where we fit in
We combine many years of relevant industry experience, with in-depth knowledge of your product, and your business to give you the best of both worlds. We deliver cutting edge returns for our clients by providing a completely bespoke, untemplatised strategy for every client, and every service. After all, what works best is always a unique answer. We recognise that and I’ve built my business model around that. Additionally, we stand by our work; we have no lock-in contracts and are completely month to month. We make it so we’re in this as much as you. We also don’t have account managers. The person you’re speaking with is the person doing the work; there are no middlemen involved, and you have open access to our whole staff to meet and call upon as much as needed. In short, we take what’s great about the coaching method, but combine it with the hands-off, stress-free bliss that a good agency should provide, all at a far cheaper rate than any alternative in-house solution.
Communication sucks in my industry
I don’t understand it, service businesses are built on two things: quality of work and communication.
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