Name: Gareth James
Business: MTT Poker School
Website: https://www.mttpokerschool.com/
Problem: Gareth was enrolling around 10 people a month into his group programme, but filling a new cohort every four weeks was stressful and meant constantly having to generate the next batch of leads.
Result: People asking to join throughout the month, one evergreen programme instead of multiple cohorts, a marketing system working in the background, better client outcomes and more time with his family.
“Every day throughout the month, I’m now getting messages on social media and email asking if they can join my programme.”
Before working with Gemma…
Gareth's programme was already working.
He was enrolling around 10 people a month. The problem was that every four weeks, he had to fill another cohort.
“I would do what I needed to do each month to post on social media, whether it was email, Twitter, Facebook group, whatever it was to bring in those new leads. But it was always a bit of a stressful event each month.”
He was also running groups side by side at different stages, which meant repeating calls and teaching the same things more than once.
“I thought, there must be a better way to do this.”
And that was why Gareth joined Amplify. He didn't need help creating a group programme or proving people wanted it. He had the pieces in place, but wanted a better way to put them together.
“I had pieces of the puzzle in place but I knew there was a better way to do it and I needed some support with it.”
The shift
The first big change was moving from separate cohorts to one evergreen programme.
Instead of starting a new group every four weeks, people could join throughout the month and work through the programme at their own pace.
That made delivery much simpler.
“It's much easier to run one call a week than two.”
It also created a better dynamic inside the group. People further along could help people who had just started, while newer clients could see what was possible by watching the people ahead of them.
“It's less stressful and less work, but when I do work it becomes higher value and higher quality and I'm getting better outcomes for those people in the group.”
Then we worked on making his marketing less feast or famine too.
Gareth had only recently started email marketing properly. He had people joining his list, but there wasn't much happening between someone signing up and being invited to join MTT Poker School.
He created a welcome sequence to do that job.
“The sequence really shows them what I'm about, the value they can get straight away, and then turns them into a paying client a little bit quicker.”
And that changed when people started enquiring.
Instead of having to wait until the end of the month, announce another group and hope enough people raised their hands, people started getting in touch throughout the month.
“Every day throughout the month, I'm now getting messages, whether it's on social media or email, saying, ‘Hey, can I join your programme?’”
Gareth also created a lead magnet and started running Facebook ads to bring new people onto his email list, and introduced my Monthly Sales Ritual: a simple checklist of things to do each month to help drive sales.
What it looks like now
The biggest difference for Gareth is that the business feels less stressful.
“I'm getting the hotter leads throughout the month, which is leading to less stress for my business. Then I can focus on the thing I love doing, which is coaching and helping people.”
He's running one group rather than multiple cohorts side by side.
His marketing is doing more of the work in the background.
And he's got more time outside the business too.
“I've not only been able to deliver better outcomes to my clients, I've been able to actually do stuff outside of work. I've got a new baby, so spending time with him and my wife is really important as well.”
When I asked Gareth what he was looking forward to next, his answer wasn't more growth.
“I just want to spend six months seeing the fruits of my labour, step back and enjoy the process a bit more, and get back to coaching while the systems and automation work in the background.”
Working with Gemma
“I always feel like you should learn from someone who's done what you want to do and that's what it felt like. I knew you had the systems I could learn and implement.”
Gareth also liked having the time to actually implement what he was learning.
“Sometimes you can learn new stuff and then not have an opportunity to implement it. In Amplify, you have the time and space to learn, implement, maybe fail and implement again - and you've got the support to get it right.”
And the approach to business suited him.
“I follow a lot of people on social media with the David Goggins approach or Gary Vee hustle culture. And that works for some people. It absolutely doesn't work for me. I don't want to hustle. I want to work less and enjoy life.”
Who would you recommend Amplify to?
“Anyone who already has an existing group programme like I did.”
If you have a group programme your clients rave about and you want it to become a reliable source of income, find out more about Amplify here.
