Why Your Next Workshop Will Fail (And How to Fix It) with Jake Wysocki

Jake Wysocki Group coaching program, which is a series of workshops. A ninety minute, almost like a webinar. But I have like a thing about webinars. Please don't do webinars is my personal opinion. I'm being a little facetious. There are a good place for webinars, but help people do things and so do a workshop instead.
Intro You're listening to the seven figure podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Reichman.
Dustin How do you create a world class workshop that your clients love and you love to deliver? That's what we're going to answer today with a good friend of mine, a client of mine, Jake Wazowski. this is his whole specialty is helping people create these world class workshops. this could be group coaching. It could be an introductory workshop. It could be a corporate workshop. But he's got a really interesting background in how to do this. Well. And he's been helping me and other people in our community do this at a high level. So I was really excited for the opportunity to have Jake come on today, show us some of his secrets. instruct us on how to do this so we can grow our coaching and consulting businesses in a smart way. So, Jake, I'm super grateful that you're here. I'd love to just give the mic over to you for a few minutes. Here, let you give a little context. give us your background, and then we'll dive into your business, and we'll get into teaching people how to create these world class workshops.
Jake Wysocki Perfect. Thanks, Dustin. Excited to be here. And, buckle up, everybody. Dustin just gave me the mic. And you know what happens when you give me the mic? You know, I can just go and go, but I'll keep it contained for you. Dustin. So a little bit about how I got here. I actually started sort of similar to you in engineering, although I'm a mechanical, if I remember correctly, you're civil.
Dustin Yes. You're much, much smarter than me, is what that means to me. So.
Jake Wysocki Well, I don't know, but then I'm less smart than the aeronautical engineers and the nuclear engineers. So, you know, we all have our own, I suppose. Uh, but I actually, I never went into engineering itself proper. I have more of an engineering mindset, but I went into sales out of school, and I always like to mention this because I kind of like to brag about it. I'm really proud of it. But then I quit my job and my wife and I traveled for a year. We came back. I actually came back to the same fortune two hundred company, kind of by chance, but in a different role in a product development role. So I was kind of an entrepreneur almost. I didn't realize that at the time, but looking back, that's what it was. And that's where I got in touch with the design thinking team at my company and Design Thinking, for those of you who don't know, is actually like a capital D designers mindset and toolkit applied typically by non capital D designers. So what do I mean by mindset and toolkit. So the mindset is human centric. So thinking about the humans on the other end of whatever you're designing. And the toolkit is usually represented by the sticky note which I know you love Dustin.
Dustin I do love yes.
Jake Wysocki You've been running your business off of sticky notes I hear for quite a while until relatively recently. But structured exercises, often with sticky notes. But it doesn't have to be. That's kind of the representation of them. And so what I love about design thinking is it's the mixing of this process, this system mindset that I have and the human element of things. And I think that makes a really nice mix. And so anyway, I came in contact with this team in that role, and then I eventually joined that team to then train other people in the company. Our primary role was training other people in the company to do design thinking in their own roles. And also we did facilitation kind of for hire for the leadership teams or special projects or something like that, where I would design and deliver workshops for a specific purpose, besides all the other training, which was, in its own way, a workshop too, by the way. So it's kind of workshops all the way down for me. Maybe everything just looks like a nail because I have this, this awesome hammer of design thinking. But so that was my corporate work. And if you want to pull the thread on why I left, we can pull that. But really, ultimately it came down to I just want to try something new. I loved my job. I actually had a conversation yesterday with my old boss, had a great time, and in twenty twenty four, beginning of twenty twenty four, I started my own, my own business. I left the company and started my own business. And this is actually this phase of my business is when I met you. And again, I'll keep this short, but I was originally helping people with life design, helping millennial parents live regret free through life design. So workshops that I developed for my wife and I, we call them state of the unions to think big picture about our life. I wanted to help other people do that too. And when I met you, I had this like sort of existential crisis where I'm like, well, I love doing this. I love helping people with this. But I'm also feeling called to helping people develop awesome workshops because I had some incoming, inquiries, if you will, from people who met me along the way and said, I know your background and I need help with the workshop. Can you help me? So I'm just helping these people on the side. And long story short, I joined your accelerator. It was a great accelerator. and in the middle of it, instead of podcast guesting, although I did some of that too, I actually pivoted my business. So that's not really the promise that you gave, but that was the help I needed. Right. And so now fast forward to today. I'm helping people build and deliver world class workshops.
Dustin I love it. That's great. Yeah. That's, uh, not uncommon. You know, I think, uh, in our world, podcast guesting is is the thing. It's the hook. And the truth is to do that. Well, it requires a lot of clarity. And so a lot of times people don't realize they're actually pretty unclear on who they want to serve or what they want to talk about or what their core messaging is. And many times that's the big unlock. And then the podcast guesting sort of flows naturally from there. I actually viscerally remember our first conversation after you signed up, because I usually do them on zoom, and we had this one on one call scheduled. And for whatever reason, I was like, I got to be outside the house. And I remember being on this long walk with Jake and it was raining, and you were telling me about your family history, and it was very it was very emotional, actually. And you were talking about this sort of tug of war of ideas of like, I really care about this, and I really care about this and which one should, should come first. And so it's really been awesome in the ensuing eighteen months to see you find the right path and go all in on this world class workshops as the thing you're doing. Again, you've helped me with it. You've helped a lot of previous guests on this, show with it. I think one thing that would be
helpful, and you sort of alluded to this help me define workshop and realizing our, our audience is primarily entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, agency owners. I think some of us think of is that in person and online? Is it two people? Is it one hundred people like you define it pretty loosely, but at the same time very intentionally. So what's a workshop? Jake.
Jake Wysocki Yeah. So the way that I define a workshop is when you're trying to use a intentional structure to take someone from point A to point B, and I actually recently came across this analogy. I love my analogies and I'm going to use it again here. To me, it's kind of like the Americanized Mexican food that you see where the ingredients are more or less kind of all the same. It's just a different packaging. Right. And so for me, workshops like you mentioned, at the top, group coaching programs, that's actually kind of what I originally pivoted to, but I've recently kind of widened the aperture just a little bit because it represented more what I was actually being like, helping people with. But so group coaching program, which is a series of workshops, a ninety minute, um, almost like a webinar. But I have like a thing about webinars, please don't do webinars is my personal opinion. I'm being a little facetious. There are a good place for webinars, but help people do things and so do a workshop instead. So that's a workshop. Uh, in-person retreat could be a workshop. You should be doing some of these exercises to help people think deeply about their, deeper purpose in their meaning and where they want to go in their business or whatever. So all those things are workshops in my mind. Um, and they all have the same ingredients. So the process I follow applies to all of them with maybe some very minor nuances.
Dustin Okay. And I think if we're going to get into the framework and the mechanics of how to do this, well, of course, but just sort of setting the stage for what is and isn't a workshop. It sounds like one of the big differentiators here is their outcome based. Like we're driving towards a result, whereas like a quote unquote webinar that's all fluffy and pie in the sky and actually doesn't drive any result would not qualify as a workshop. A webinar done well that's driving people to an outcome could be a workshop. But is that one of the big differentiators then?
Jake Wysocki for me, the difference just to get on my soapbox for a minute. Thanks for teeing it up. I love a soapbox for webinars is originally it came from the word seminar on the web and a seminar is talking at people. I'm a big fan of get people to do as fast as possible, because that's the best way to actually help them transform, to take the next step, to learn the best learning. I mean, how many books have you read and never done anything with? And so it's almost like, sure, maybe there's some like, residue in my brain about this thing I read about. But if you're not actually applying what you're learning, you're getting very little value. So that's why I'm really big on get people to do something. So maybe you actually help me unlock the better answer, which is workshops actually take people through doing something to get to point B from point A. And I'll also highlight the thing that you mentioned with outcome based. So the three main ingredients I use to like high level ingredients to design a workshop, a world class workshop are two types of outcomes and an identity. And so the outcomes are for you. Like if you were my client Dustin, I would be asking you, what do you want this workshop to do for your business? And then what do your clients want it to do for them in their business or their whatever? Right? In your case, it'd be business. those two things are usually aligned, but they
may seem misaligned. You know, on the face of it, you might be trying to scale from one on one to many or few or however you want to phrase it. And so you're thinking, I need to reduce my time. But that may be in conflict a little bit with delivering an awesome experience. So it just holds those two things in tension and also helps me helping you design a great experience. That third thing, which is identity, is like the feeling. It's kind of this like human X factor, if you will, of like, what does my program or my workshop feel like? And essentially it boils down to three adjectives. So maybe it's guided, it's fun and it's, inspirational or something like that. Right? And then all three of these things combined act as filters so that you can use or I can use to design a great workshop.
Dustin Okay. That's super useful. Like the intent was really to define workshop, but we're already getting into what makes it an effective workshop. And you know, what are the considerations. so we're going to spend almost the rest of our time picking your brain and getting your framework so that people can go create a world class workshop. before we do that, I don't want to lose sight of your own business. One of the things I think I like, and therefore I'm assuming the audience likes as they like to kind of have a peek inside what other people are doing in their businesses. So tell us a little bit, now about your offers and who you like to work with, because there's a lot of ways to do design thinking and apply it to workshops. So are there certain, types of clients you like to work with and certain formats that you personally prefer?
Jake Wysocki Yeah, this is perfect timing. So I mentioned I recently did like that very mild pivot to workshops over group coaching programs. And it brought to mind all these existential questions. So this is a little bit in flux as of this moment. But my ideal client is typically someone who's an established expert who already has one on one clients and already has a business, and they want to either start a new offer of their own through some kind of workshop, whether it's a new, we'll call it lead magnet, if you will, or an attract offer like Hormozi would talk about, or maybe a group coaching program or something new, or they have something that's not working and they're considering abandoning it, or they're frustrated about it, and I can help them diagnose what's going on and help them decide, is this actually not working for your business, or is it something fundamental to like the way you're doing the workshop that could improve that outcome that you want for your business, which is probably what you're frustrated about? If we can find a better way to do that. So that's what I help people do. I'll I'll save the framework, the ten fifty ninety nine I'll dangle that here. But I work kind of in those stages, which I'll explain. but the center line that I try to help people with is what I call that fifty percent, which is a delivery guide. And it's I don't like this phrase, but a lot of people use it. It's like the run of show. It's like, here's exactly what you're going to be doing. Here's how you're going to say the important things that need to be said in a certain way. It's not a script, but it's like, here's the things, here's the timing, here's the exercises, here's why. And it's like the plan. You still, at that level need to build your slides and other stuff. I don't always do that. I can, and I don't want to just stop at ideally the like the basics. I like to get in there with you and actually design designed the experience from start to finish. So you know how to do a great job.
Dustin Okay, awesome. So very much a done with you service, with some done for you components and your deep diving with this expert based on some of the stuff you've already
started to share. To make it very custom to what they're trying, what they want, what their client wants, what they want it to feel like. and so each of these would be a unique workshop at the end of the day. And you like to be their partner in delivering that, to designing and delivering that in the best case scenario, I capture that pretty good.
Jake Wysocki You did actually. That's perfect. And it makes me think of, this concept that I've been writing about a little bit, which is like, don't just use someone's framework. or like a template maybe is a better word for it. I can't just give you. Dustin, here's here's a podcast. Well, maybe if it's a podcast guesting etc. a template, maybe that would work because that's pretty specific. I don't think that exists, but maybe it's like an accelerator template. I can't just give you an accelerator template and then you just plug in your stuff. It's not that simple. Maybe that gets you fifty percent of the way there or something like that. But that's not going to get you to world class. You need those. And that's where design thinking I really love because it's these ingredients, these Americanized Mexican food ingredients, if you will. But it's the combination and the specific way you actually apply them that makes that, for lack of a better word, that magic that is like a really, truly world class experience.
Dustin Yeah, it really makes it exceptional, impactful, memorable, all those things which would probably be in my three adjectives if I was trying to design an experience like this. Yes. All right. Well, I think now would actually be a perfect time to dive into the framework. So I know it's ten fifty point nine nine, design framework. pick that up wherever you want and either guide us through the framework and we can dive into sort of application of it or where people mess it up. Um, yeah. Like, educate us on this framework and why we should be looking at these world class workshops through this, lens and through this process that you designed.
Jake Wysocki Perfect. Yeah. So let me get on another soapbox. Do not build your whole program before you sell it. Please don't. And this is where ten fifty, ninety nine comes in. So all you need to sell a program, a workshop, a retreat or whatever is that ten percent level. Ten fifty ninety nine roughly corresponds to percentage. Done. And this this is all relative. You can like zoom in and then there's a ten fifty nine. You can zoom out and there's a big ten fifty ninety nine. But I'll put a little bit of structure on it for you. So let's just use a group coaching program or an accelerator program as an example, a ten percent plan for a group coaching program. The ten percent is the promise. So like, what are you actually promising people? The transformation will be and this is frankly really the only thing you actually need to sell, like to actually convince someone to to buy it because that's actually what they're buying. They're buying the promise of transformation. They're not buying a program. They're buying the thing that the program gives them. And so you need to be clear on that, and also really helps to have some of the basic structure mapped out. So you know, you as the person delivering it have confidence that, oh, this actually makes sense. And it's not just completely made up. And so what that would be for a group program is like here's my eight sessions. I know I'm going to do ninety minutes a week. And then here's the topics for each week. And that's that's really it. That's really all you need at the ten percent level. Now there's some other things we could kind of define, but those are like the two big ones. And then obviously how much you're charging and other things like that. But from a program design perspective, that's the ten percent. And that's enough to know, okay, this this feels reasonable. I can see it coming together. I know I
can adapt. And by the way, here's another soapbox. You don't need to tell anybody this anyway, I never share. Like here's each week. Maybe if it's an established program and you really want to, but people don't care, at the end of the day, they don't care. They need to know when they show up and what you're giving them at the end of the program, which can be more than one promise. Maybe there's a few surprises in there or some outcomes that you're giving them. That's all they really need to know. And that's the ten percent.
Dustin So ten percent we are ready to sell seats to the workshop. And again, workshop could mean a full group coaching program. It could be a one off event. It could be an in-person experience. But you can sell tickets to this thing at the ten percent. And it sounds like you think you should like basically a presale where you've got enough of the structure to have a clear promise to have a structure that people can commit to. That's ten percent.
Jake Wysocki Right? Yes, because the alternative is building the whole thing before you even talk about it, or maybe even to, well, let's go extreme. Let's say you build the whole thing before you even talk about it. Just to make this example really simple, I like to get nuance, but let me just keep it simple. The the problem is people may not ever buy it. And think about all that time you wasted. I mean, this is obvious in retrospect, but so many of us, and I've done this in the past, too.
Dustin I've done it too.
Jake Wysocki Yes, I think I think we all have. But it's easy to forget that when you have a new opportunity, you're like, oh, I need to get the slides and all this stuff. No, you don't, because people may never buy it. And then the sales process, by the way, which usually includes some form of research, whether it's, explicitly designed as research or just because you're talking to people will help inform further what that program should be for when you actually need to deliver it. And you'll have time between selling it and actually delivering it, that you don't need to have this stuff figured out. So like the fifteen to ninety nine percent level figured out ahead of time. So that's the ten percent that's important.
Dustin That sounds very critical. All right. Let's move to fifty percent. And what that means and where this enters the equation what it looks like.
Jake Wysocki Yeah. So fifty percent is where it starts becoming more real. So for a I'll actually zoom out from my my group program for a second. For a general any kind of workshop. It's it's delivery guide. So here's like that run of show like I mentioned before For. Okay, it's just to repeat one more time. it's like the timing. So it's like an agenda. It's like a detailed agenda basically. But there's more details than just like, here's what we're doing. It's here's how we're doing it. Here's the materials I expect to need. It's it's like the whole plan. It's not necessarily ready for you to deliver. Although an experienced facilitator probably could in a pinch, like if I needed to, I could instead of using slides or something, just talk at people and or talk to people as I'm walking them through the exercise and tell them to write on a piece of paper. I don't need a workbook necessarily, although maybe you want that even in a first run. That's also fine. So that's the fifty percent. Now, with the group program, you're only doing the fifty percent for your first session about two weeks in advance. This is what I recommend. This is how I
help my clients. So two weeks in advance you're doing your your fifty percent your delivery guide about two weeks before you actually go live. And then the week of or the week before, that's when you're doing that ninety nine percent level. And so that ninety nine percent level is what I call deliver ready. And by the way, I picked ninety nine because it's not one hundred percent because you're never going to be one hundred percent, nor should you be. That's perfection or perfectionism or whatever you want to call it. And we're never going to be there. There's always things. So back in corporate, we did so many of these trainings over many years, and there was still like this laundry list of things we wanted to change. And it was super dialed in and it was awesome and people loved it. People were like, this is the best training we've ever taken. And it was awesome. But there's still so many things we want to change. So you're never done and you're never trying to get done. You're just trying to get good enough, right? so really, even ninety nine is probably too high, but I like the way it flows. So anyway, ninety nine percent is the delivery ready material which is slides, maybe an online whiteboard like a miro board. it could be workbook. It could be knowing what you're going to do in person for like a, um, like a flipchart page. Like, what is my design going to be for the Flipchart page? You know, all those sorts of things. And critically, especially for your first delivery, a run through so you can make sure to massage that fifty percent, plan that delivery plan into something you feel confident about and you've kind of checked like your assumptions. Because even even though I'm really experienced at this, whenever I run through a workshop, I'm like, oh yeah, we need to get from that thing to that thing, and that doesn't work. So I now need to change this and change that. And it's not a huge deal. It's close. But if I didn't think about that, I'd be kind of scrambling in the moment and kind of thrown off and it'd still be okay. But that's what you get to get to the ninety nine. Okay, so to connect those dots real quick, if you're doing a group program, you're doing fifty percent two weeks before one week before your first session, you're doing ninety nine percent for that and fifty percent for the next week, assuming it's the week after. And you do that in a rolling fashion, so you're still not building everything up front, you're just building like the next one coming up.
Dustin The benefit of that be. So I know, I already know there's type A is listening and they're like, I get the ten percent because, you know, pre-selling makes sense. Because if I build this whole thing and I try to sell it, no one buys it. That would be a huge waste of everyone's, you
know, time, money and energy. Um, but once people buy it and I already know I'm going to deliver it. Why wouldn't I just build the, like, lock myself in a closet for a weekend and build the whole thing so I don't have to, like, piecemeal it? Um, what's the benefit of doing it one week at a time, effectively, and sort of having this rolling fifty percent, ninety nine percent, fifty percent, ninety nine. why do you prescribe that versus just getting it all done and having it ready to go.
Jake Wysocki Because it's going to change after your first session almost every time. So I'll give you an actual exercise that anybody listening can can follow. It's called hopes and fears. This is my favorite way to start any, uh, any session. And it kind of scales and there's some nuance here, but I talk about it in my crash course, so we can talk about that later. but the hopes and fears at its core is asking people what they hope will happen with whatever, whatever the scope of your program or workshop is and what do they fear about it? So in your case, Dustin, maybe it's what are you hopeful for or what do you hope will happen with podcast guesting? And what are you nervous about? Or where do you fear in doing podcast guesting?
There's more sophisticated ways to ask similar questions, but that works totally fine and what you're going to learn is what they actually need. this is the most important. The first time you deliver any given workshop. It's still useful for each subsequent one. But for the first one. So one of our one of your former, accelerator attendees and podcast guests, uh, Joe McKay was one of my clients, and he did this hopes and fears. And he came back and he said, Jake, I'm freaking out. We need to change everything. And I have this this huge weight on my head of all their hopes and fears that they're putting on me, like they're worried about their families and their livelihoods. And this is not what I was expecting. And we talked through it. And he said, you know what? I actually feel a lot better because now I actually know what they need and how I can actually help them. And it changed everything. So immediately he knew, okay, this thing I was going to talk about next week, which was probably something about LinkedIn or something like that, he said. We're going to do that later, if at all. Next week we're going to focus on whatever. I forget what it was specifically, but their offers are getting clear on what their business foundations are or something like that. And it made it really crystal clear what they needed to do. And because we didn't develop the whole thing, it wasn't a huge loss. It was really easy to pivot instead of feeling trapped in this, um, this sunk cost fallacy situation where like, well, it's already developed and I don't want to do all that work. And this is really hard to change.
Dustin It's painful if I changed it, but I don't feel like taking that on. So instead intentionally building it one week at a time so that you can respond to iterate pivot as needed based on each week's, clarity that you're getting as you're delivering it. That makes a ton of sense. So hopes and fears specifically like how do you extract that information? Is that like on the sales call before they sign up? Is it in the first session? Is it the very first thing you talk about, like where does hopes and fears come into the process?
Jake Wysocki You can do it in any phase of the process. let's just talk a workshop this basically like the warm up. This could be an easy warm up for any phase of the process or any type of workshop rather. let's say it's a big workshop and you're doing like a ninety minute with, thirty people or something. You can have people type it in the chat and then you can see what they're saying, and that's like a really low key way to say it. And I would do it one at a time just to be really tactical about it. I'd say what everybody's hopes and then you can kind of react to some of them. Or maybe if you have time and want to spend the time, ask somebody to jump on and share briefly and interact with them that way. But you're understanding who's in the room and what they care about, and then you can do the fears after that. For example, and I mentioned before, this is really important for like the first time you do anything, any kind of workshop. But it's also still useful, even if you have a pretty dialed in workshop, because it kind of I kind of think about like, uh, like mind like water, like swaying in the wind or something like that, where you're not going to make a huge change. Like the example with Joe I gave after you have it pretty established. But you might be thinking, okay, I'm going to emphasize this thing that came up versus that thing for the specific audience that you have. So I find it really useful regardless of how long you've been doing it.
Dustin Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'm thinking about how I can incorporate this. You know, we've done sixteen cohorts of the Podcast Profits Accelerator that Jake was part of. frankly,
through some of your feedback specifically, we've changed some things about the program as we've gone. It's definitely version sixteen is completely different in many ways than version one, and it's better than version fifteen. but I'm thinking about this like every kickoff call. So every new cohort, like everything's preloaded, predetermined as far as we know, we're going to cover each week. And it's a live experience and I'm leading it. Right. And so Calibrating the experience to that group is still really useful, because I would imagine there's sort of this I don't know how this happens, but it tends to be I get a group of people and there's some kind of through line. It's like, well, all of these people are really stuck on their offer, or all these people are really fearful about getting behind a microphone and impromptu conversation. Really weird. And I don't know if that's an energy. They feed off each other. It's just the way God designs these experiences. But I can totally see the value now in the kickoff session as part of the introductory process is like, what are you really excited about? What are you hoping to get out of this? And then what are you scared about? Like what's holding you back? why are you hesitating about with this like and and then being able to address those sort of objections not to the sale. They've already committed to the, to the program, but to just kind of customize it that little bit and be able to audibly or, you know, in a coaching, care sort of like, hey, I know in week one you said you were scared about this and we're addressing it this week. Are you still fearful? Like, you know, it makes it feel much more custom, even though it's a, crafted and refined workshop. So I'm sort of, I guess, affirming what you're saying I'm thinking about in real time. As someone who's served a couple hundred people with these types of workshops, I can totally see the application. And then, you know, going back to the beginner mindset, this is exactly how I launched the accelerator was week by week, the first version and the second version. We iterated from there and has continued to refine over time. So yeah, I have a follow up question. Is there anything else with hopes and fears that you feel like you should get out here? Before we move on to some other tactical questions?
Jake Wysocki Yeah, I'll give you a few, um, sort of pro level tips or whatever I gave you, like, the high level, and that gets you whatever eighty percent of the value right there. You actually mentioned one of them. That was like a pro move. If you can pull the, actual things people said into like a future session. You don't necessarily have to call it out. Like, hey Tammy, I know you said this explicitly, although if you can, that's pretty cool. Like, they'll be like, wow, like Dustin was paying attention and you're like, well, I kind of used AI to pull that out and recommend which ones to bring it up. So I had the system. You can systematize moments of magic and it's just as authentic. It's just systematized. Right? Yeah. So you can do things like that. That's really useful. I have two more. The other benefit or another benefit is when you have multiple people. And this kind of this actually might reinforce what you were talking about, about you kind of have people who have some similar thread throughout their, uh, their journeys. When people hear other people struggling with things that they also struggle with, that builds community, that's going to build some even stronger sparks to like, oh, I need to reach out to Dustin because he had this thing and we didn't really talk about it on the call, but like, I'm going to message him in the community right now because like, that really resonated. I have that same problem or whatever it may be, it just makes it more human and more connected.
Dustin Vulnerability is an extremely uniting, action and emotion. And then, yeah, I think naturally, then you get like, hey, like we're going to encourage people on the first call, you guys
should connect one on one with someone on this call in the coming week. When people are vulnerable and transparent, it creates so much more connectivity within the whole group and then within individual, you know, pairings. So I love that. So that's number two is sort of this vulnerability culture that you can create by asking this question. And then three.
Jake Wysocki Yeah. And just to put another word to it, if people haven't heard that's related to psychological safety. And that's a whole topic on its own. But vulnerability psychological safety, that's a great way to start your program if people will engage with that. Really quick side note you don't do hopes and fears. As the host, you are in a different position. That's I would not recommend anyone out here listening, doing your hopes and fears for their program because that's not the I don't know how to articulate this properly, but if you're saying like, well, I'm a little nervous that people aren't going to show up on calls or, you know, whatever, you're worried.
Dustin Oh, yeah. You don't want to say, yeah, I see what you're saying. Now. You want to ask the group, you don't want to, um, it's like, uh, doctor JJ from Storybrand talks about this a lot. Like, you can talk about your own failures, but you can only talk about it in a rear view mirror. Right? You don't want to be like, oh, I also suck, like, you know, like because you're the authority. This is not the time for you to talk about your hopes and fears. Especially the fears. it's about getting people in the group to open up. And you're sitting there as a facilitator You want to maintain your own credibility and authority and and not be like, I think you're all going to hate me. And I actually don't know what I'm talking about. And I can't believe you guys spent money on this. That's my fear.
Jake Wysocki Yes, yes. Well, I'll just be vulnerable for a moment and say, Joe, the same story I told you about before. That's why I learned this. I tried doing it just on our one on one sessions with him, and I'm like, that was not good. It was. It was fine. It was fine. And especially Joe and I have a good relationship, so it wasn't like detrimental. But I'm like, oh yeah, never do this. So anyway, that was a lesson learned. and then the third thing is at the very end, this, this works in particular, for either a bigger retreat like a longer duration or like a group coaching program at the end or at the last session. Bring these back. So hopefully you found some way to document it, whether they're turning in or sharing templates or they just set it out loud or they dropped it in the chat, bring these back for your participants to reflect on. And then hopefully if you've done your job well, they have now had at least some of the hopes come true. And some of the fears have been put to rest or whatever you want to call it. And that's a really powerful way to get people to see the transformation that you as the expert in the room, have delivered to them. And that makes for an even better testimonial. And what's your biggest takeaway at the end and all these other things. So it's a really cool way to wrap up a program by actually highlighting for them with words they said versus how they feel now.
Dustin I love that. Yeah, we haven't been as systematic about capturing it at the beginning and then reflecting at the end. But something we do that I think people might get value out of too. and I think again, this part came out partly out of Jake's experience and cohort. We didn't really have a great like, close, you know, it was kind of like, I mean, in the last session, you know, we were still teaching and it's like we're squeezing in as much transformation as we can. One
thing we've done is give that a little breathing room and we talk about on an individual basis, we let them articulate. What was your biggest insight or takeaway or transformation. And then we meaning me. And oftentimes I have a co-coach. Coach. we will, in our own words, speak into them and say like, you know, they'll say something and we may just affirm that. Or we could totally be like, that's true. And I want to just speak truth into you and tell you I've seen this amazing transformation in you. Or, hey, I know you were scared about this thing, and I've seen you overcome that. Plow through it. Look what you've done. And that's super helpful and affirming. And it's and it's always true. But it also. Yeah, then like, people are really jazzed to give testimonials because you've spoken truth to them and a lot of times held a mirror up that they can't they couldn't articulate it on their own. And so we give that space at the end of our programs now to sort of do that virtual circular, you know, around the circle moment. And then naturally, people in the chat will will be affirming each other and like, yeah, you were super helpful with this for me. Um, so I love that idea of leaving space for reflection. And if you have the hopes and fears at the beginning and you capture that, then it gives you a very tangible things to reflect back to individuals. Uh, Individuals at the end. That's really cool.
Jake Wysocki Totally. That's that's beautiful. I don't even think I can take credit for all that, except maybe the recommendation to end strong. That was really good. Nice work.
Dustin Thank you. Yeah, um, we're figuring it out, man. Like these things that maybe seem like details or nuances, they really do matter. And also true. You cannot possibly predict this pre-plan for it like it does. Take doing the work to get clarity. And that's why I think this ten percent thing is so important too. It's like these are both true. You should have a ninety nine percent amazing experience and do the pro level when you're ready Jake. the way I frame this question is if I am a type A, and I want to have everything perfectly scripted and I want to pre plan everything and like, I'm not comfortable kind of like with spontaneity or like figuring it out as I go. Like, how do you address that? Because I'm sure you've had clients in corporate and in your entrepreneurial journey who would identify as like a perfectionist. And it's the fear of God when someone hears, oh, I got to like, sell a ten percent thing and then like, deliver before it's like totally, you know, polished. The reality is you have to do that, but speak to people and coach them through, like, if that's their big fear, if that's their fear, like, how do you address that with people?
Jake Wysocki Yeah. So a few things come to mind. First, you have what you need when you need it with this. Ten fifty ninety nine so again, A lot of people think they need ninety nine. But if you trust and believe me, you don't need ninety nine. You only need ten percent. You have everything you need. There's no need to be spontaneity, spontaneous or have spontaneity. Yeah, you have everything you need. Same with when you deliver, you will never be at one hundred percent. So part of this is just accepting what is now. That's easier said than done. Yes. The best advice and I've gotten feedback a few times on this. The best advice. And it came from just a throwaway comment I made to somebody maybe not totally throwaway, but just an off the cuff comment was they were worried about, okay, well, I'm really nervous, I know I have a plan. You gave me a great plan. Like there's no more work to be done, but, like, I'm really nervous. What do I do? What if something happens? What if people ask me questions I'm not prepared for. And I said, look, you clearly care about your clients. And I'm assuming
everybody listening here does too. You're not just trying to make a quick buck and like, crank that, like group coaching program wheel and make that big, sweet pile of money that you can, like, dive into, like, uh, whatever the duck. Scrooge McDuck. Yeah, that's not anybody listening. I'm assuming here. So because you care, that will shine through with everything you do. I know you will have to get to a high ticket program. Most of you are thinking high ticket programs. Probably out there. You're already talking with them. You're already building relationships. They care about you. You care about them. In fact, that's why I said yes to your program. Dustin is mostly because of the connection that we had. And like, Dustin has my back. He cares. And, uh, you know, he's going to make sure that I'm taken care of. And because of that, if you stumble, if you make a mistake, if you're like, oh crap, I don't have my slides or, you know, whatever, something happens, I'm like, no problem. Just like, what do we need to just walk us through? Or the people listening aren't going to care. They're going to give you so much grace. It's they're not even going to notice. Most of the time, if you make a mistake, by the way. And here's the thing. If you do make a big mistake, guess what? People will love you for it. Assuming you've done the relationship building and they care because they now know that they don't have to be perfect either. There's actually a negative. if you're a super polished and like, super dialed in in a way that's like, so, tightly structured that it feels like, ooh, I don't really want to get in here and get messy. Like, what if I make a mistake? It makes it harder for people to actually engage. So being like, I kind of ramble a lot of times, as people may or may not have noticed. I think I did a pretty good job today, but like this stuff that I'm doing right now, actually, I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm just kind of naturally doing it. Are the things that people can like. Yeah, exactly. People can resonate with and it actually gives permission to be more human. And I think we need to be more human in the world, especially this day when so many people are online and they don't get to see people face to face very often. I mean, zoom calls take you pretty far, but like, how do we make it as good as possible by being as human as possible. So that's I don't know if that completely assuages everybody's fear, but that's, you know, my kind of pep talk I would give to people is it's not as bad as you think. Go try it and you'll be pleasantly surprised. So just try to get through it and bias towards action. Just try and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Dustin Yeah, I can totally back that up. my wife jokes when I say this because she's like, is that positive or negative? But people I hear very frequently, hey, if you can do it, I think I can do it too. You know, it's like, yes, what are you really saying here? But, you know, the idea is I am. Yeah, I'm pretty unpolished. I'm kind of like, see what you get? My number one value is transparency. I'm like, hey, I screwed up or hey, this is not working the way I thought it would. I've had plenty of calls where I'm delivering and I'm in a hotel and the Wi-Fi is really, really bad or I. One time I launched an AI tool I was super excited about. I'm like, you guys are going to love this. And everyone tried to access it at once and it didn't work at all. And I'm like, well, that's embarrassing, you know? But you know, people have grace. They laugh and they're like, they just like you more because it's just a very human thing, right? Um, and it gives them, like you just said, I'm helping people in many cases do coaching or do consulting in their area of expertise. But people love the fact that you can go with ten percent, and it doesn't have to be perfect and you can figure things out. And especially in my specific, thing I'm helping people with, podcast guesting is one of the biggest fears that people have is like, ooh, I can literally
speak in front of a conference of five hundred people. I'm cool because it's my keynote. I know what I'm going to say. You're going to put a microphone in front of me and this other person, and they're going to ask me kind of anything. And this idea of an impromptu conversation really scares the heck out of people until they experience and they realize this person actually wants you to look good. People love the nuance. They like it when you say, um, people are fine. If you say, I lost my train of thought, you know, like these things that we have as fears are actually endearing because they're human to human. So I love that answer. I have one kind of final practical question, and we'll kind of close up, obviously talk about how people can go deeper with you. I think most people listening would fall into a camp when they say workshop in their business. Probably a pretty even split of like one time workshops versus ongoing workshops, which is how you're characterizing, like a group coaching program as an example. Um, is there like differences there and like how you think about those design, those? Ten fifty ninety nine um, I guess we're going to use that as a verb. like talk to us a little bit more about one time things versus recurring or ongoing things. Um, when I say things, workshops. So like, how should people think about a one off experience versus a recurring experience with the same group of people over time, I guess, is the way I'd ask that question more clearly.
Jake Wysocki Yeah. So I'll answer it. And if I'm not quite getting the nuance, let me know. I'm happy to tighten it up. So let me start with a group coaching program. I think about it in its entirety first. So what is the overall promise. And then each constituent part has its own outcome or promise if you want to call it that. And I actually designed like a retreat the same way, maybe not a ninety minute workshop that might be too small, but like a retreat, if you have two days worth of activities, you're actually going to have like different modules, for lack of a better word, that will have their own outcomes for each as well. So it kind of again, it kind of scales. It's kind of like a fractal a little bit. So that's kind of how I think about like a program that has multiple days. And the main difference with that would be you have I recommend having rituals. So if you have a group coaching program twelve weeks, ninety minutes each week, start the same way, end the same way, and then maybe in the middle, it can change that one. I feel I think you should adapt to the material. Maybe you're talking less or talking more and we didn't even get into this. But my recommendation is teach as little as possible and get them doing stuff as fast as possible. I just want to shove this pro tip in here real quick. because if they're actually doing something, they're going to ask better questions, and then those are going to be the really powerful teaching moments that you can get into that connect with a question someone actually has. But anyway, that's a whole nother topic. So you have kind of those, uh, those rituals, but then a one off. and then there's two kinds of one offs. Let's say it's one off from an audience perspective that I would treat basically no difference. It's just like a ninety minute that you do every, every other week to get people in the door kind of thing. You design it, you iterate whatever. Now, if it's a true one off or like effectively a one off, maybe you'll do it again next year. Frankly, I would still follow the same process, So here's a good example of the difference. If I'm doing something over and over, I will do as little work up front as possible because I'm testing things out. So I might be talking more even though I said not to for the first go around and then turn that into a video. Some of it that can be done outside so I can maximize that time together. If I'm just doing one on one time and I'm likely never doing it again, I might be doing a little bit more of that, like, uh, pre-work or something, just to use that
specific example up front, but otherwise the planning process is still the exact same. It's. What are the outcomes that I want? What is the identity? What is the experience I want them to have? And how do I best get them from point A to point B? It's basically still the same overall thought process.
Dustin You're still taking a ten fifty nine ninety nine approach. But obviously if it's an ongoing group coaching program, you're just going to do that week by week by week. But you what I heard what I picked up from that is when you have a recurring or ongoing, series of workshops, um, there's got to be through lines. One big through line is you're driving towards the same outcome, but you have some outcomes along the way for each of the individual sessions. Um, and rituals. I think rituals is a really important whenever you're talking about a group coaching program or any sort of ongoing, thing, that you're building progress as you go. Um, because, well, I'll just say, I don't know why it works. I don't have the design, background that you have, Jake. But I can say it really, really works. About halfway through the evolution of our accelerator program, I went from teaching most of the call and to basically a flipped classroom where it's basically watch this, and we boiled it down to the bare minimum. It's like, watch this eight minute video. You have to watch this before our call on Wednesday. And by doing that, you're going to free us up to basically spend all our time on implementation. Right. And so, um, and we have a ritual. It's like wins of the week. Any announcements? That only takes ten minutes total. Now we have fifty minutes of a one hour call. And everyone's pre educated on what they really need to know. I can give them the highlights for about two minutes and then we go into workshop time. So everyone actually gets some progress, gets things done and then we come back for the last fifteen minutes. Way better questions because I've actually tried to build stuff and they're like, I got stuck on this or I don't know what you meant by this way. Different experience than me teaching for forty five minutes and then ten minutes of questions before they've actually done anything with it. So I'll just back up what you said and say in practice, as someone who's been doing this for three years, night and day difference as far as that's our number one feedback now is I love the workshop time. Like people love to have twenty minutes to actually get stuff done on a call. And then I'm there in the chat and I'm able to support them. I would have presupposed, well, they don't want to be like twenty minutes on zoom with their camera off. Like, who wants to do that? Like they want me teaching. No they don't, they want to be doing. And then they can actually get way better results and get way better questions answered. So any reflections on that before we close out?
Jake Wysocki Yeah. No, that's completely right. And um, I'll actually inject one of my other phrases that I came up with recently again, kind of, uh, just off the top of my head talking to one of my other clients, and they were asking me, how do you actually help people transform? Like, what if they don't come and do the work? And I have young kids, I have a just turned eight year old and an almost five year old. And it doesn't matter what I say, what I do like, I can't make anybody do anything. And that's true of your coaching program. And so the phrase I've been using is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. But you might be able to help them take a sip. And so that's why I love getting people to start doing something. It gets that it breaks that that friction and starts the momentum. So hopefully they can carry it forward and then they can start, they start thinking about and all these things that you just mentioned. So yeah, completely agree with everything you said.
Dustin I love that. so if you want to have an amazing experience, work with Jake. we're going to tell them how to get Ahold of you, Jake. But, uh, as a takeaway here, like, if people say, I got to know more about this, I want some more Jake in my life, I need to go deeper. Like, what would be the next best step for everybody?
Jake Wysocki Yeah. So you can actually see how I work firsthand. And I'll help you figure out what your workshop y is, is what I call it. like the why should anybody attend? Why does anybody care? And why are you doing it? In my workshop y sessions, this is a free forty five minute call with me one on one. It's a mini workshop and you can go to Workshop Wycombe. That's like the word y. So workshop y, and I will work with you to figure out what that first like kernel of your workshop is, that then everything else becomes easier once you have that that promise really clear basically, so you can get all that stuff there. And then I also mentioned the hopes and fears. That's part of my crash course that's also at Workshop Wycombe. So I only have one CTA. Dustin, I'm following your playbook.
Dustin I'm like, I'm like a proud papa over here. I'm like, this is a very clear what a great domain. you get live um, time with Jake and then if you're like, I may want that, but I also want the goods and want the templates and want the. It's all in one place. So workshop y w y or w h y workshop Wycombe. Is that right?
Jake Wysocki Yep. And you're very human. You made a little flub. But everybody loves you more for it. So we don't have to be perfect workshop. Wycombe. Thanks, Dustin.
Dustin Yes. they're gonna remember that call to action. And yeah, I hope everyone goes and takes advantage of that. Uh, I don't know how long Jake will offer free forty five minute sessions to go and, discover your why for for your next workshop. I think that's extremely, generous and, valuable. And so, yeah, definitely go to workshop Wycombe, hook up with Jake. Um, I think once you identify the why, everything else becomes so much more clear. Like that's going to be such a leverage point for people to be able to do that and tap right into your design thinking brain and do it right the first time, so they don't have to struggle with it like I did for many years. So, Jake, you're a great friend. Uh, a huge expert on this topic. I'm really grateful. Workshop, Wycombe. thank you again for being here, my friend.
Jake Wysocki Yep. Thanks for having me, Dustin. This has been fun. Thanks.