Coaching (DIY) vs. Services (DFY)
A lot of people ask me this question. If you are starting a new business, should you offer coaching or services?
To be honest, it doesn't matter whether you position yourself as a coach, mentor, or guide with services. The lines are blurred in this.
There are 3 parts to the offer that help your customers reach their goals.
- Done for you (DFY)
- Done with you (DWY) and
- Do it yourself (DIY)
Done for you (DFY)
At the top of the pyramid, it's done for you services. You help your customers reach their goals by doing it for them. DFY can be building landing pages, content, email marketing or sales for your clients (in the digital marketing field). You charge high for DFY services because you are doing it for them and you cannot do it for everyone. The pricing for this will be high-ticket.
Done with you (DWY)
There are some categories where you cannot do DFY. For example, weight loss or relationship coaching. You cannot lose weight for them or find a date for them. In this case, DWY works well. You guide them step by step and offer personal consultation (like 1 call per week for 3 months).
In business also you can offer DWY services. For example, in AlphaClub mastermind, I do not do anything for my customers myself but guide them how to do it on mastermind calls. I review their work and suggest improvements. This is more scalable than DFY but you still have to trade your time and it's limited in scale.
Do it yourself (DIY)
Do it yourself is the most scalable. From the understanding you acquire from DFY and DWY, you can create a training or coaching product that is customized for a target audience (niche) and you release it. Books are DIY but you cannot charge much for books. Video training courses are great DIY products because they offer a richer learning experience.
Video training courses are hard to make and communicate the information better than books. People will pay more for it. You can add a little bit of DWY here by offering a community where people can ask questions. You can answer the questions yourself or have team members do it for you.
The Path
Whenever you are entering a new niche, I recommend starting out with Done for you and done with you services. Because you do not understand the niche well enough to create efficient DIY products that can scale.
If you are building something for your clients, take less clients, charge high and then give it to them. If you are helping your clients reach a goal, work very closely with them.
The initial traction from DFY will help you get testimonials from customers and then you can transition into DWY (more scalable) and then into DIY (highly scalable).
The digital marketing services that we offer are part of DFY (includes content, performance marketing, design, email marketing and copywriting). The consulting services that we offer are part of DWY (includes our mastermind program and business consulting)
The courses that we offer are part of DIY (includes various mastery courses and internship programs) with a little bit DWY mixed with it such as mentorship from my team. The books, lead magnets and tools are completely DIY.
When you have a lot of people taking your DIY offers, you will have some people who are ready to pay a premium for your DWY and DFY offers. Your DIY becomes your top of the funnel at later stages to bring people into DFY.
If you are starting a new business, this is the path I would recommend for you.
Do you think this framework makes sense?