Today's episode is another Focused Action Coaching sessions. I'm thrilled to share a vibrant discussion with Heather Wyatt of Goddess Getaway Waves, who's courageously navigating the retreat planning business from the lush landscapes of Costa Rica. Heather's confronting a common snag: potential clients love the idea of hosting retreats until they realize the upfront investment involved. We dissect this dilemma and strategize ways to reposition her offerings for better client alignment and commitment.

Key Points:

• Heather's innovative three-tier pricing strategy for retreat planning services.
• The psychological barriers potential clients face in committing to upfront payments.
• How Heather's recent adjustment to a payment schedule may ease the financial hesitance of her clients.
• Identifying an ideal client profile who not only has the need for retreat planning but also the ready audience and financial ability to commit.
• The importance of having a pre-sold or at least a primed audience before planning a retreat to ensure success and justify the investment.
• The valuable insights gained from distinguishing between potential clients who are just interested in the idea of a retreat and those who are serious about executing one.

Take Action:

• If you're considering hosting a retreat, ensure you have a solid audience foundation willing to invest before seeking professional planning services.
• For retreat planners, qualifying clients by their commitment level and program pricing can save time and better allocate resources to serious customers.
• Explore breaking down your offerings into transparent package options to reduce client overwhelm and ease the decision-making process.

Links:

• To learn about retreat planning with Heather Wyatt and unpack her various options tailored to fit your vision, visit https://goddessgetawaves.com
• Interested in the live coaching sessions like the one you've just listened to? Click the link in the show notes to schedule your own focused action session.

Keywords:

coaching, consulting services, online business, high-ticket offers, business coaching, in-person masterminds.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the real truth about business podcast. My name is

Michelle Danayo. I am your host as always, and I am

excited to get this new style of podcast

started. These are the focused action

live coaching sessions. So although I calling them

live, but they're not live, they're pre recorded. Right. But

they are in the moment. Right. We are recording it and the coaching is

happening live as we are recording. So although it's

pre recorded, that's what I mean by it. Um, so anyways,

uh, a little bit of a digression there, but I have today

with me Heather Wyatt with goddess ghetto waves. And she

is in Costa Rica, the absolute dreamiest of

places. She moved down there recently, right within

the past year and starting her new business, or

has a business that's, um, was established or getting going.

So she's having trouble. I want to, um,

read exactly what her struggle

is. Um, and then we're going to just dive into it, we're just going to

riff on it, we're going to go through it and we're going to figure it

out. So, um, if you are interested in one of these

live coaching sessions, you can click the link in the show

notes and you can, um, get yourself scheduled.

So please, by all means. And the more information you can give me,

the better. So Heather's question to me

was, I'm having a lot of interest in the retreat planning, but when

it comes to people paying and people realize there's a cost, they

back out. All the work is done on my end before they can promote

their retreat. The fee is added to the retreat guest cost, so there

is no out of pocket money for the host. But they do have to pay

upfront and it is non refundable if they can't fill

the retreat. So, Heather, I'm going to let you

tell me a little bit more. I know you said that you've got a little

bit more information since you filled that out. So tell me. Let's dive

in. Welcome. Hi. Thank you so much.

So, yeah, that's exactly it. And

some more information to add is I've since broken it

down into three different categories and so I'm doing

500. Just consulting to map out your vision, what you need to

do, your timeline to get there. I'm not doing any of the booking

on that. So 1500 is your full

itinerary. I book everything for you. You don't have to

do a thing except bring the guests, collect the money from the guests,

and then the third option is $3,000. That's where I do

the full itinerary, book everything. But I'm there on site

with you. And so I've broken

it up into three different categories now. I felt like that makes it a little

more options, which is sometimes,

sometimes not. So the place I'm getting

stuck in, the thing that I wrote to you is people are

very excited. They want to have their retreat. They want me to plan it for

them. But, yes, it's that $1,500 does have to be paid.

We do put that into the price of the guest attending the retreat,

but it still has to be paid. All of my work is done in the

beginning, and people are getting turned off by that, by having to

pay so, like, upfront, because they feel like it's

money out of their pocket.

So it. Before, when I wrote this to

you, I was, 1500 is the fee up front. I think that's

fair. It's a service you have to pay for. You get your money back.

And now I'm trying to make things cleaner and

more efficient, as we should be doing, and

I've broken it up into payments. So upon proposal, you pay

$500 for the deposit, and then

90 days after, you pay another 500.

And so in that point, I'm still in the middle of

planning your itinerary. And then the final

$500 is due 60 days before you retreat. So by

then, you will have had your itinerary. Everything's booked, everything's done.

So that's where I'm at. That's all the information that I have right

now. Okay, so tell me a little bit more about the

calls that you're having, the people that you're having conversations with. Who is

your ideal client for these

retreats? So that's been

evolving, the more conversations I have, because I'm

realizing maybe these people just aren't right.

Maybe they're not understanding what it is

here. And so my ideal client

is a person that has a community. They have a program

they want to offer. But now part of this

evolvement is they have to have at least a $5,000 program,

because if you just need to,

I feel like that's the qualifier. You have to have a $5,000 program, because

then we can sell a lower priced retreat.

And afterwards, the idea is to keep you making money

from this, so you make money from the retreat, but I want you to be

able to make money another way. I want you to keep that ball rolling.

So, $2,500 retreat. We

can enroll into a $5,000 program

minimum. I mean, some of my clients are having, they have

bigger ticket offers, but

where was. I lost my train of thought. So. Okay, so

that's okay. It's a good spot. Okay, good. A good point.

So are you trying to

get people to use the retreat as their initial, like, lead

generator or. This is a warm audience. They already have,

they already have people ready and waiting and they're

waiting for this retreat or they're trying to sell the retreat?

Are they, like, are they planning the retreat and then trying to

sell it, or is the retreat already sold and they just need to plan

it? Right. Like, are these, do these people you're talking to, do

they have an audience that's ready and waiting for a retreat?

They've already primed their audience. They've already prepped them. They already said

in 2025, we're going to Costa Rica. It's part of this

program. Or is it something where they have an audience,

they're maybe in a program, and then it's like, oh, I'm thinking of doing

a retreat and, and I'm thinking it will be in Costa Rica.

And who do you, who might be interested in

this? Where are they at? I think the people

that I'm getting right now are more in the thinking about it. It's not

the already have it planned, just

need it planned. And you know that it's an idea. It's still, people are still

in the more beginning stages of this thinking about it.

And the other part of it is, I think that might be part of the

issue is they're lacking the confidence that they're going to be able to fill

the retreat. So they're like, oh, wait, this is non refundable, right?

But what if I can't do it? Yeah. So $1500

really, at the end of the day, for somebody with a $5,000 program is

not a terrible investment. So I don't think it's the investment

issue of it. I think it's that it all sounds good. Right. I

think that there's a lot of issue in the people

that you're having conversation with is that they have never done this. Right.

For the most part, probably many of them have never offered a retreat.

Um, the idea of it sounds exciting, but

then they get into it and they think about all the things they have to

plan and all of the selling and all of the things that go around it,

and it's like, I don't know if I really want to put $1,500 into

this, you know? So, because again, like, especially in the online

space, like, retreats are the thing, and everybody thinks it's like the next best thing

until they realize how much work it is. So

one thing is I would potentially change your positioning, and

this has been the thought that I've had since I originally got your request

for this call was it's working with the

audience of people who either incorporate their retreat and this

is where your consulting piece may come in, is being able

to help them figure out how this falls

in line. So instead of maybe jumping right to that

$1500, maybe the consult is the piece that you

actually sell them first because it actually, actually

will help them figure out how they can incorporate this into their

already. Into their offers already. Right. So maybe they have a

mastermind that they launch once a year and their mastermind

is five to $6,000 to join in and they already have people ready

and waiting on the waitlist for this mastermind. And then, oh, by the way,

if you want to go to the retreat, it's at a reduced price if you

buy into the mastermind. Right. And mastermind members get first access,

they get first dibs, you know, so really creating more of

a inclusive offer of, oh, the retreat

is included in this program and you own.

So there's two ways to do it. They can either increase the price of their

initial program and just include the retreat costs in it, which is where that

$500 consult might come in really handy because you

might be able to say to them, okay, before you launch this program,

let's just sell it once. It's much easier to sell one

program than it is to sell multiple programs. Right. So if a coach is

already or consultant is already struggling to sell one

program, why not just incorporate it in? Oh, when you get

this, you also get access to the retreat. You get upfront.

Right. So you may just need to be more on the

consulting side in the beginning to get people prepped

and ready to help them incorporate it into their offers. That's one

thought. The other thought would be to work

with people that have already done retreats and are just

looking for a new location. Have you spoken to anybody that's like,

they run a retreat every single year and they've just, Costa Rica's

been on their bucket list and they just have no idea and they're afraid of

safety and they don't know anything about it. Right. But they're, they already have an

audience primed and ready, and that knows that's what they do and that's

all they offer is retreats. So I think that's really

interesting, that part. And that's

certainly an ideal niche market is the people that have done

retreats and understand how painful it is to

go through the process of it and just don't want to do it. They just

want to hire somebody else to do it because they're tired of it. That is

certainly the ideal market. Something

there is also the avenue. There's the people that.

Some people are very type a, and they want control of the retreat. So

some of these people that run retreats, they don't want to let

go control of that. So it is finding that very

niche area where it's, oh, no, I don't want to do it.

I have the market. I want to do it in Costa Rica, but I don't

want to do the work. You do it. And somebody who's willing to pay that,

we all have those things. I don't want to do it. I will pay somebody

else to do it. And that's actually the market I need to get to. And

it's just filtering out on my part who that person

is. Yeah. So I really do think that

right now, especially for you in the beginning, just because there are a

lot of people, I mean, there's a lot of people in business that have great

ideas. Right. Like, personally, you know, I've talked about trademarking

a couple of my things. I look into it, I'm like, do I really want

to spend the money on that? Like, I don't know, how serious am I

about this? Right. And so I think in general, as business owners, things

sound exciting. I mean, I think even at one point, I was like, oh, I'd

love to do a retreat. It's not that. It's not something

I don't want to do. It's that it's just I haven't actually

taken the time to sit down and really pre sell my audience.

And I think that's the biggest thing is they've got to have an audience

pre sold and ready. And then it's like, okay, I

know that I have at least six people. I mean, because your retreats are small,

right? Aren't they? You're not looking to fill 10, 20, 30

people size retreats. Aren't they smaller? I haven't. Yeah, I

haven't talked to anybody over 20 at this point. Yeah.

So I think that's, I think that is really the key in your

positioning and in your marketing is if you want my

done for you services, you have to have already, a, you have to already

have an audience pre pre sold, ready and waiting for this

retreat, or b, you've already run retreats, and

you've never actually gone out of the country. Right. A lot of people do domestic

retreats. Um, so people that do these style of

retreats or high level masterminds, and they've always, ever done them in the states, and

they're looking to do something out of the country. But the whole thought of, like,

scare, like, where's the safest place? Where do we fly into? Right. Again,

because they also know

what they want to do as far as the actual retreat, but they don't know

the area. And that's where your expertise comes in your boots on

the ground in that area. You know what areas are safe,

you know how to get them from point a to point b. You know what

food is good. You know, you know what I mean? You've met the locals. You

have these relationships. And so that, to

me, is a positioning issue that I would change for you is I think you're

just talking to the wrong people. It's not your pricing. Your pricing is.

Is really, really reasonable.

Um, so I don't think it's the pricing at all. I think it's just

that you're talking to a. A lot of people that

like, oh, my God, this sounds exciting, but then when they

see how much work it is or they think about the fact that they have

to sell it is like, I don't have anybody in my audience

willing to pay that. Right? And so even if they have a $5,000 program, doesn't

mean they have an audience full of people that are ready to go to Costa

Rica. If they're. If they have a $5,000 program that's targeted

at moms, then they all have, you know, little. Little kids.

The chances of the. Them getting their moms away from the little kids.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a lot slimmer. Right. So, again,

I would really change your positioning and speak to the people

that plan and do retreats on a

regular basis. Right. Like, this is part of their marketing

retreats. Masterminds high level out of, you know, getting

people in person. Doing in person events is

their selling. That's what they do. This is how

they coach. These are their programs. And they've just never been to Costa Rica

before. Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

I really like the idea of targeting people to doing

retreats in the US already, because there are a ton of people doing

that. And you're right. I forget about the

small questions people might have, like, is it

safe somebody just asked me, do I have to eat mexican food the whole

time? No, you're not in Mexico. But like,

just taking my brain to the very beginning. If I've never

been to Costa Rica, what would I want to know? And use that

in my marketing? But it's been so long, I forget these thoughts go in people's

head, like, is it safe? Can you drink the water? Well, yes, I

know both are fine, but I forget, other people

don't realize that if you've never been, why would you know?

Right, exactly. And so, and then as far as the other

audience that you already currently have, instead of trying

to sell them or you're in, remember, you're not in

the business of convincing. And right now you've got an audience full of people you're

trying to convince. This is a good idea. So work with

the people that already know they love in person live retreats, and that's where

you're done for, you, services come into play and then your other

audience really just focus on, okay, if you're serious about putting a

retreat, let's do this consultation. Let's figure out how can we incorporate it

in. Let's look at your audience. Do you have an offer that you can add

this onto? Is it something, you know, on average, we're looking

at $1,500 per person and you're already

charging 5000. So let's do 6000 and then maybe

just add on a $500 upgrade to, if they want to

attend the retreat, right? Something of that sort, like really looking at

their actual business and saying, like, who are the people? Who's in your

audience? Who, who would we even target? Who would you even want to bring

to this? Right? Like, I think there is a level of, a high level of

consulting that could go into play on the,

on the front end of even helping them

see, like, here's who I would talk to. Show me your list. Like, let's look

at your list of people. Who would you even want to reach out to? What

do they need to do? Like, what commitment does your client need to give you?

You know, who is the right audience to even come to Costa Rica? What are

we trying to even accomplish while we do this retreat? What's the goal?

How is it going to add to your program? Right? Like really

diving in and looking at it? Because I think too, the

idea sounds good, but then the thought

of actually doing it is overwhelming,

is like, well, who am I to host a retreat in Costa

Rica? Who's going to come with me? What are we going to do am I

teaching? Is it just fun? Right? Like, how

do I sell this? Do I need to get deposits first? Right. I would

even also encourage them to pre sell

it. Like, pre sell it if you're interested. I'm doing this

retreat. It's a dollar 250 deposit, right? If they

can get ten people to put $250 down,

that secures their spot, which is also non refundable. Right. It

may go towards another offer of theirs if for some reason they

can't go to the retreat. But that $250 times ten people just paid

your $1500 fee.

Right. So let them resell it up front.

They've got to get tickets pre sold to this

retreat prior to you even remotely stepping foot

in. Now,

along those lines, something I feel like

people want to know is the dates and how much are they spending

total before I put down a $250 deposit, what would you

suggest in terms of that? Because I feel like those are two things people want

to know. I would want to know. Yeah. I would give a range.

Do you have an, do you have a range or

do you have budgets? Do you have retreats on average? Like,

I just was. I'll give you an example. So I reached out

to a travel agent a couple months ago

and said, listen, here's what we're thinking. We're trying to plan this Christmas, like, all

inclusive Christmas thing with. So it's totally different. But I'm coming

back around. And she said to me, well, what's your budget? And I said, well,

I don't really know. Like, I have no idea what to expect. I'm thinking, like,

I can't imagine we'd want to spend more than three or $4,000 a person. Right?

Like, at the time. And she kind of knew based on locations.

Like, okay, for that amount, like I said, oh, let's go to Turks and Caicos.

And she knew immediately off the top of her head, like, there's no chance you're

getting to Turks and Caicos for $3,000 during Christmas, right?

So I would say as long as you can give

ranges, right? Like, it won't cost you any

more than this. It may be less,

but we're looking at approximately 1500 to 2000

for a five day retreat. Um, and I would have

them pick some dates. It's probably going to be in the month of April or

whatever. Like, in the month of April or May. So I would give, I don't

think people need exacts. Some people do before they're going to put a deposit

down. But again, it's

$200. It's not, you know, I'm not talking like half or

a $1000 deposit, you know, you're talking like dollar 200.

And if they decide they can't go because the dates don't work out or something

of that sort of, they can use it towards something else with that

person, with the provider, but they just don't get

money back. I think that, you know what I mean? Yeah,

I mean, I would try to come up with. Yeah, like on paper for

yourself, come up with some ranges. Like

if you want this style of retreat, we're looking at approximately this amount

of money. If you want this style retreat, it's approximately this per person.

So I would give yourself, do some of that homework just so you have it

so that again, when you're presenting it to people, because I think you have to

also understand is that there's so much unknown. And the second things

start to become unknown, they become overwhelming. And when we get overwhelmed, we shut

down. Right. So it's almost like we can customize

this, but we have retreat, package a, package b, package c.

A is, you know, more of a yoga retreat. B is more of a

mastermind. C is more of like this super fun boats,

catamarans, luxury. Right. And these start at this

price. This one starts at this price and this one starts at this price. So

you can kind of give people a bit of a range to. And that may

also help with your selling if you can say to them, listen, here's

the three different styles of retreats I typically plan. What one,

you know, what is your audience think and what do you feel most comfortable

with? Yeah, and we have something

like that. Now I have to find, I have to work

on a better way to present it without giving away all of my

sources as well. So that's something I need to work on.

I would definitely work on that. Yeah. Yeah. I. I think that would help

a lot is to be able to present and say, okay, here's what we can

give you. You're not giving away the sources. And the reality is, is that if

they're going to take and run with it themselves, again, this is all part of

the consultation or whatever. You know, they've paid you some money. But again,

if they're going to take and run with it themselves, then let them take and

run with it themselves. It's not any, you know, who cares at this point

because there's somebody else that's not going to. They're going to try

it. Let them try it, then they're far more likely to come back and be

like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm ready to pay you. You know

what I mean? But if you can give them, you know,

three different styles to think about, like, hey, here's

this. If you really want just the lowest cost, you just want to get your

people together, have a great time, not do a lot of

excursions, just kind of really enjoy the space and do it

as, you know, inexpensively as possible, but just as a way to connect and

be more in person and very intimate. We can do it this way. If

you're looking for that more luxury experience, we can do

all of these things. Options include a catamaran. Um,

didn't you do, like, that fire? I think at one point I saw something with,

like, a fire ceremony. You know, a yoga, private yoga

instructor, a chef. Right. Like high end. Like, you can pick and choose

and we can customize it. But these are some options that would include,

or you can kind of blend the both, you know? I think, too,

that it shuts down the overwhelm a little bit. Like, it

seems more manageable versus like, well, what do you want it to do? You

know? Yes, that's true. That's a good point.

Because just for education purposes, you can't promise people

a $2,000 retreat and promise all these luxurious activities

like, it's just not going to happen. If you want a $2,000 retreat treat, you're

getting a $2,000 retreat. It's just some

people wave that. Right? Education. They do. Yes. Some people want

their rustic kind of just in nature. Just exactly.

Exactly. And I think that's what you people are just not

understanding. Like, I don't know. I can't even come up with a price

because I can't even fathom. I have no idea

even what to expect. Yeah,

I think you're right. Something visual would be helpful. Mm

hmm. Just to give them. And again,

what I always try to tell people is there's always room for customization.

So setting packages or creating these three set

style offers of retreats doesn't mean that you can't bring somebody in

that says, I want this and this and this. Right. Like, there's always

room for customization. But what this does is make the

selling easier because it eliminates

overwhelm. So it doesn't mean that people aren't going to say, I

want package a. And then, oh, but wait, can we get one meal catered?

Right? Like, there's always opportunity for customization, so keep

that in mind. But you can't you can't present

customization up front with all the options

because then it seems very overwhelming and they think, oh, God, this sounds expensive. My

audience is never going to go for this. Yes,

you're 100% right. Because I realized that in my very first conversations,

I was too many choices, too much, and it was

just decision overwhelm. Like, I don't know. I have no

idea. So that's definitely something I need to

implement, is just presenting those packages just so it's

visible. Yep. So to wrap this up, here's

my. My action items. I want to make sure I give you action items. So

number one would be to create some type of visual

with package starting rates, you know, something

of that sort. Just to be able to use that in your marketing, use it

in your lead generation, use it in your discovery calls, everything that

allows that. Number two is I would start researching

people that already host retreats domestically,

get a list of those people, find them, and start targeting those

people that really want to take their audience outside of the

US, um, for something maybe a little bit more luxury or maybe

more of just that intimate nature jungle feel.

Um, and really start having those conversations because again, their

audience is already ready and waiting for retreats. That's what they're

used to buying. Um, and then as far as your. Your

current audience, I would reach out to

some that you feel like are warm leads that you felt like you lost out

on and offer more of that consulting level to say, what can

we do? Let's really look at and see. Can we

come up with this? How can we get a deposit? How can we pre

sell this? I would even call it something like a pre sell console.

Right? Like, let's pre sell

your retreat. Let's figure out if your audience

is ready for it. Like, help them

pre sell it. That will then get them the

money to pay you to plan

that. Right. I like that

idea. I like that.

Good. Any other last minute questions? Was this helpful?

Super helpful, yes. I don't think I have any more

questions. Those three action steps are

really good. Give me something to

focus on and reach out to people and different

avenues to pursue. Yeah. And I would get really

focused on a couple. So spend the next maybe 60 days reaching out

to just retreat planners or. And

just consulting. Right. Like, so it's bringing money

in, but it's also targeting people that are already ready. Stop

getting in the business of convincing, and start getting in the business of, like,

I already know I have this. I already have an audience ready and waiting. I

just need to know that you're the best person for me.

Yeah, agreed. Awesome. Awesome.

Heather, how can people find out more about you? If they want

to schedule a retreat, tell everybody. Where can

they find you? Where can they learn more about your retreats? So

you can go to goddessgettawaves.com.

Know why the like waves. And that will

have my contact information. It will have a little bit information on the

retreats and all my social media platforms if you want to

reach out to me there. Awesome. I'll make sure I get all of those links

in the show notes. If you want to connect with Heather, if you are listening

and you are somebody who would love to have a retreat in Costa

Rica, reach out. Reach out to Heather. Have the conversation. If you know

somebody, if you're listening to this and you know somebody that is a retreat

planner or somebody who sells retreats domestically, please make

the introduction to Heather. Um, if possible, we can. The more

we help each other, the more we grow. So, Heather, thanks so much for being

here with me. I appreciate it. And if you have any other questions, you know

how to find me. Thank you.