Posted on November 14, 2013 by Stephan Wiedner
Sorry, I couldn’t resist this goofy photo given that it’s Movember and I’m answering questions. Please keep scrolling down to get to the more serious content on this page. Image credit: Adam Ross
You may know by now that Noomii is currently in the process of (once again) updating and changing how our site works. While we’ve tried our best to inform our valued coaches about these changes, we also understand that there are still a number of questions that many of you have. So we’ve put all of them together in this blog post, with the hope that this will answer any and all remaining queries.
Of course, if your question still isn’t answered, you can always call or email us and we’ll do our best to help (and/or add the Q&A to this page)!
Q. What are the changes?
A. Noomii has essentially split apart our two main ways of getting clients into two separate services. The first service is our “core” directory listing. This service now costs $397 for one year, and is billed up front. It comes with a 100% money back guarantee: If the service does not at least pay for itself in one year, we will give you 100% of your money back.
The second way we get clients for coaches is our custom referral service. This service allows clients to describe their coaching goals, background, and related information, and Noomii sends them a list of coaches who’s experience and training matches their request. Prior to the new change, this matching was done by allowing coaches to “browse” our daily leads, refer themselves, and Noomii would choose 5 coaches to send to the client.
While we are still going to refer coaches to clients, we are changing the way we make referrals. Instead of sending the client a list of 5 coaches, we will be sending them fewer matches, usually just one or two. Furthermore, we will no longer allow coaches to browse the leads. Instead, we will be interviewing the client more thoroughly and “hand-selecting” the best fit. When the client receives their match, WE will be writing a message to them rather than getting the coach to do so. We have found that this increases the number of clients who hire a coach by 80 to 90 percent, because the client feels more confident that we have personally found the best fitting coach for them. With the old system, clients frequently told us they felt overwhelmed by 5 coaches, all of whom were writing “high-pressure” sales messages to them.
Q. What are the requirements to join the referral service?
A. There is no set criteria. We base our assessments on a number of factors, including your coach training, experience, and specialization.
Q. What does the referral service cost?
A. The charge will be a referral fee of 30% for each client we recommend, unless otherwise specified. Note that coaches are ONLY required to pay if and when they are hired (and paid) by the client. That way you only pay us if you get paid yourself.
Q. I am already paying Noomii to be on the directory. Why should I pay extra for referrals?
A. We charge extra for our personalized referral service because of the higher level of time, effort, and resources it requires on our part. Each client is carefully interviewed by a member of the Noomii team, after which we contact and interview coaches we feel might be a good fit. We then follow up with both the selected coaches and the client until the client hires a coach. As you can imagine, this is a much higher level of service, with a higher associated cost. Remember that you don’t have to join the referral program if you don’t want to. If you only want to be listed on our directory of coaches, any clients who hire you via that service will cost you nothing beyond your annual membership fee.
Q.How do I apply to join the referral system?
A. First, you must sign up for a directory listing on Noomii. As part of your on-boarding process at Noomii, we will conduct a 5 minute audio interview with you that will go on your profile for prospective clients to listen to. Once you have done your interview, you will be able to apply to join the referral service.
Q. I’ve already done my interview. How do I join?
A. Contact us by phone or email and we will go over the terms of service with you. Once you agree to the terms, we can begin referring clients to you.
Q. Are you offering a discount if I change to the 1 year plan?
A. Yes. Any coach currently on a paid monthly plan will be given a discount of $100 if you upgrade by December 1, 2013. That means you get a full year of service for just $297. And, of course, it comes with a 100% money back guarantee. To take advantage of the discount, log into your account, click on Settings, and then click on Upgrade/Billing. There, you will find a discount code to save $100. Enter the discount code when you switch to the 1 year plan.
Q. How am I affected if I signed up for one of the “old” monthly plans?
A. Many of our members joined Noomii before we separated our coach directory service from our referral service (generally anyone who joined before September 24, 2013). If this is you, we WILL allow you to stay on your monthly plans for the foreseeable future. You are NOT required to change to the 1 year plan at this time. However, keep in mind we will be ending the “old” referral system on December 1, 2013. After that date, you will still be on Noomii’s directory of coaches, and your listing order will be prioritized by plan type as it was before. However, if you wish to receive client referrals after December 1, 2013, you will need to change your plan to the annual plan.
Q. I am currently on a monthly plan and also on the 1 year guarantee. How will my guarantee be affected?
A. As mentioned above, we have “grandfathered” existing monthly plan coaches. Thus you are welcome to stay on your monthly payment plan and your guarantee will be honored. However, we want to encourage all coaches to switch to the new 1 year plan. To encourage you to do so, we are offering to extend your guarantee if you upgrade. For example, if you are currently 6 months into your guarantee and you upgrade to a 1 year plan, we will extend your guarantee to 18 months (6 months + 1 year). Thus at the end of this time, we will refund 100% of all money paid if you do not recover this amount from paying clients.
Q. My question still wasn’t answered. How do I contact you?
A. Call or email us any time:
email: support@noomii.com
phone (US & Canada toll-free): 1-800-278-1057
phone (International): +1-604-709-9894
Hi Stephan:
Re the “referral fee of 30%”; 30% of what amount? If it’s 30% of everything we earn from the client that sounds like a very steep referral service, not even counting the $397 per year we’d have to pay to be considered.
I’ve been a big fan of Noomii, and I got some wonderful clients thanks to the old bidding system. I understood your first batch of changes but I’m sorry to see further changes happening. I will miss the Noomii that was.
Best,
Laura
Hello.
I received this when I requested information regarding the referral fee: “The typical referral fee will be 30% of what you charge for up to a year.”
Much like Laura, I feel this is ‘very’ steep and I am curious how it will be managed. Will billing be done for the client through Noomii, thus insuring you secure the 30% commission during every billing cycle, or will there be an up-front 30% fee to be paid based upon length of contract? Will we be required to send Noomii the contract to confirm actual length, rate and terms?
There seem to be plenty of unknowns around the referral system that are fairly significant details. Especially at 30% commission. I think these should be posted, in writing, so coaches can determine if this actually is a route they wish to take.
Example: 3 sessions per month at $100 per session = $300 per month. x 12 months = $3600 gross. 30% commission for the referral is $1080. That’s a hefty sum to be paid upfront on a contract that may or may go the distance. If it’s not all paid up front, I’m curious as to how you will manage the payment system.
Therefore, I would like to see the referral system details posted in writing on Noomii so we can make an informed decision before committing to being a part of it.
Thank you
Hi,
Some coaches may be members of organizations who follow a code of ethics that is against referral fees. The belief behind it is that a coach is not referred because they are the best match but because they are paying for the referral. This may not be in the client’s best interest. Something to consider?
Ron
Tell me more about the 30%. This does seem very steep if it is for up to a year. Is there a cap on the maximum amount and how will this be monitored? Will you want to see our billing records or what? How will this be monitored? I have only received one client off of NOOMII and she stayed for a couple of months.
I agree with Ron. Many coaches who are also therapists (as I am) will have an ethical dilemma on their hands regarding paying a referral fee. In my case I’m comfortable paying to be on the directory, and I was comfortable buying “points” each month to contact potential clients directly myself, but I’m not comfortable paying someone else for a specific referral. Maybe the difference isn’t very big, but to me it feels big enough.
Like I said, I will miss the Noomii that was. I’m curious about the new changes and look forward to more being published about them, but based on what’s been described so far I won’t be participating in the referral component.
Laura
@Laura Deming – The 30% referral fee is on coaching fees charged to the client. We do not require a referral fee for reimbursable charges to the client such as the cost of assessments or travel expenses.
@Stephen Gann – You do not pay the referral fee until you’ve been paid. Each month of your engagement with a client, we ask that you tell us how much you got paid that month. So for example, during the first week in February, we will ask you to tell us how much you were PAID by your client(s) (only the ones acquired through the referral system) during the month of January. Then, during the second week in February, we charge your credit card 30% of the amount you got paid.
When you tell us how much you’ve been paid each month, we do not require proof of invoices or receipts. We are going to employ the honor system. You tell us how much you got paid from the client. We bill you accordingly.
A 30% referral fee is reasonable when you compare it to other referral and lead generating services out there. Many charge upwards of 50% on the lifetime fees billed to a client.
If a 30% referral rate seems too high for you, there is no obligation for you to agree to the terms. For some coaches, it doesn’t make sense to pay a 30% referral fee because they can generate leads for less money. For example, we had lunch with a successful coach the other day and he said he would pay us $500 per client lead, all day, every day, because the average paying client costs him more than that. However, since he also ends up billing his average client more than $2000, a 30% referral fee doesn’t make sense for him (it would cost him $2k x 30% = $600). He can do better on his own.
For others, it’s a no-brainer because it saves them time and they only pay when they secure a paying client. When we decided to move to the new referral system, we knew it wouldn’t be for everyone.
From our perspective, charging a 30% referral fee gives us the opportunity to spend more money on specific marketing and advertising campaigns that will generate more high quality leads. For example, if we find out that the average client pays $1000 for coaching through the referral system, that client is worth $300 to us. Therefore, we’d be willing to spend up to $100 on advertising to generate that client (not including overhead). To date, we have tried and tested such campaigns but we always lost money (the lead would cost more than the revenue generated). YES, we LOST money. We didn’t break even. We didn’t profit a little bit. We lost money.
With the 30% fee, we can hopefully start to turn a profit.
@Ron – thanks for mentioning this issue. Coaches whose code of ethics is against referral fees will not be able to participate. I guess that’s an unfortunate reality. But do consider that we have a good sized pool of coaches from which to choose and they are all agreeing to the terms of service. Therefore, when we refer coaches, we are free to choose the one that is the best fit (from our pool of ‘referral’ coaches, of course).
@Amy Barnes – No, there’s no cap. But if the client stays for more than a year, you keep everything after that (including referrals from that client).
If you have more questions, please leave another comment.
Stephan & the Noomii Team.
Thanks, Stephan
Those are the sort of details that were missing from the initial posting regarding the referral system. Thank you for clarifying.
So far, I have been given three referrals under this new system. Only one allowed me to see contact information. That person did not respond to either phone or email messages. The other two did not allow sharing of contact information. i did not hear from either of them either. It was frustrating not to be able to communicate at all with these two people.
So, I have a suggestion: For those prospects who do not want their contact information shared with the coach, let the coach write to the prospect the way we were doing and Noomii will forward that to the person. That way I can address the prospect on how I would help them with their needs as stated on their request form, the way I would in an email if I had the address.
@Stephen Gann – you’re welcome.
@Ted Behr – Great suggestion. I’ll notify the dev team of that suggestion.
I currently pay $56/month on the premium plan. Does this mean if I make no changes to my membership I will still be charged $56/month and only be listed in your directory?
Yes, that is correct, Diane. You can stay on the monthly plan and that will list you at the top of the directory but the coach matching system will be no longer. We recommend you switch over to the new system (although you don’t have to) and if you were approved for the money back guarantee, we will still honor that by extending it.
One more question: If we only go through the listing route and no referral, will we still get the audio interview in the listing? Or will only those signed up with the referral system be getting that?
Just curious, really. Maybe it was published and I missed it.
I am a member of a non-profit that matches coaches and clients much like you are proposing. Usually clients are given the names of three clients who get their contact info and they interview the coaches. When a client selects a coach, the coach pays the referring entity the fee received for the initial intake session. Usually that is $400. After that fee is paid, the coach receives the full monthly coaching fee. That seems cleaner and a more reasonable price. Any chance you would consider that system?
Hi Dema,
We have strongly considered a flat fee. That would make it simple but we are not controlling the pricing and delivery of coaching services. For instance, we don’t require our coaches to offer initial intake sessions. Some coaches charge by the session. Others charge 6 months worth of fees up front. Some coaches charge $50 per hour. Others charge $500. Why should they all pay the same fee?
The referral fee is what we are sticking with, unless there is a good enough reason to change.
Stephan
Hello,
As you know I’ve been a big fan of noomii up until this change and I, like many Coaches, don’t agree with the steep fee of 30%. I’m wondering what percentage of leads given to Coaches under your new system have actually signed on for coaching as opposed to the percentage under the old system? Also what is the average amount of time that a Client stays on for coaching – 3 months, 6, 1 year (I realize it’s early in the new system, but you should be getting a bit of a feel for it now)? How is the new system going for Coaches out there and for noomii? For the $1200 or more noomii is charging per year, per Client, do you feel that you’re giving $1200 more of service per Client to the Coach? Are these Clients that are willing to pay more to cover the 30% and are they Clients that are more ready for coaching and will stay with the Coach for 6 months or more? What makes your services worth $1200 plus the yearly fee? Interviewing a Coach for 5 minutes and a Client for 5 or 10 minutes hardly seems worth that kind of money. I want to be able to justify handing over this large fee. Help me out here.
One more thing – you say under the old system you didn’t make a profit, but isn’t this a bit of a misnomer – what is it you consider a profit after all? By this I mean, that you all get paid (as well you should), so what will making a profit look like for you and is this what justifies paying the large fees you are now?
Thanks,
Angela
Hi Angela,
We still don’t have enough data to know what percentage of the leads turn into paying clients, how long clients stick around, and their life time value. What we’ve seen so far is that the process of hiring a coach takes at least a couple weeks and in many cases longer than that. That’s the most surprising fact that we’ve come across so far.
Regarding the 30% referral fee – it’s to cover the extra costs that are required for us to follow-up with the clients. Not to mention the time and money required to generate the lead in the first place. Do you, as a coach, directly benefit from that as you do an interview or profile review meeting? No, of course not. But the leads we generate require ongoing time and money.
What do we consider a profit? Here’s the equation: profit = revenue – expenses. We want our revenue to exceed our expenses. So far, we haven’t done that. In other words, it costs a LOT of money (yes, our meager salaries) to generate client leads. If you can generate your own coaching client leads for less money than we are charging, by all means, you should be doing that. Noomii is not for everyone.
Stephan
Stephan, you’re asking us to pay a large fee that is over and above anything you’ve asked before, therefore, any questions we have that ask you to justify those fees, in my opinion, are to be expected. As a Coach, if I’m asked to spend $1,200 more (or more) per Client per year for the same service than I was already paying considerably less for, then I should of course be benefitting in some way from paying out this amount; it wouldn’t make good business sense otherwise so your answer that if I can generate leads for less money I should do that, and that Noomii is not for everyone, feels a bit defensive and as though you’re brushing me off. I’m sure you don’t mean it that way as we’ve had many great conversations in the past so I just wanted to say I really hope you don’t mean it the way it’s coming off here. Yes, of course I can generate leads for less money than this, however, I’m asking questions because I’d like to get to a place where I feel that paying out this kind of money is worth it. If you’re giving us Client leads that you feel confident will sign a 6 month or more contract and pay enough so that your fees are covered rather than us getting 30% less per month than our usual fee, then it is worth considering. If you can’t say with great confidence a big YES to these questions, then perhaps it’s not time for me to sign up for the new system and perhaps there is a bit of a flaw in charging this kind of money. I may be one of the many Coaches that are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how all this will pan out. And you can’t blame us can you? After all, we’ve gone through many changes so far and have stuck it out, the difference is this change is a huge financial committment so it becomes a big business decision. Thanks for having this format to communicate with us.
Be well,
Angela
Hi Angela,
You’re comparing our current system to the old system. I think that’s the wrong point of comparison. You should compare Noomii with all the other marketing and advertising opportunities available to you.
If you can generate leads for less, you should do that. I would not be offended by someone opting out of Noomii because they can generate leads for less. That’s why I said Noomii’s not for everyone. I’m not trying to be dismissive or mean. I’m being realistic.
If you end up paying Noomii $1200 for a client that stays with you for six months, could you get that same lead for less? If so, congratulations! You should do more of that. And if you can’t, your goal should be to do that.
But the fact is, it’s tough to generate client leads for coaches because as much as we can see that millions of people could benefit from life coaching, a very small percentage of them are actually looking for a coach. Look at your own circle of friends. I suspect that 70% (or more) of them could benefit from a coach but fewer than 2% have hired a coach.
Charging a 30% referral fee gives us the opportunity to try new marketing channels. And guess what, we take all of the risk. If you get a client, you only pay the 30% out of money you got paid. You DON’T pay the hard cost of generating that lead. What if the lead cost us $500 and they only hire you for one month? Then we lose money. The referral fee is for the risk.
BTW: By signing up for our annual plan, any leads that contact you directly are not subject to the 30% referral fee. The referral fee is only for leads that we recommend to you.
Does that make sense? Does that answer your questions?
I hope so.
Stephan
Hi Stephan,
Thanks for the answer. So what you’re saying is that you’re using the fee to open up new possibilities of leads. That’s great – that makes your company bigger and hopefully more profitable for you and the Coach. What I’m saying is that the 30% is worth it only if you’re handing me a Client that is willing to pay enough to cover that 30% and will stay on for a bit of time – you haven’t proven this model yet because you haven’t already put the changes in place to get that type of Client. Hopefully that will happen!
How long do you anticipate you’ll keep the month to month system of being able to stay on the directory? What is the order system of the directory – as in, is it the folks on the referral system first, then the folks on the annual plan then the $60 plan then the $30 plan or a different order?
Thanks,
Angela
Let’s say you charge $100 an hour. Are you saying that if we send you a referral client, you are going to charge $130, an extra $30 to pay for the referral fee?
If so, why wouldn’t you always charge $130? You should, if you could get it. Therefore, you should charge Noomii referral clients the same amount that you would normally charge.
Highest paying coaches are at the top of the directory. The listing goes:
– Premium Plus
– Annual Plan
– Premium
– Listing Only
– Free
We want to honor all of the one-year money back guarantee customers so we are going to allow monthly subscribers until all of those are done.
Stephan
Hi Stephan,
And now you’ve hit the nail on the head – my inner battle is that I don’t want to charge the higher price for my services. Using $100 as the example, I would have to charge $143 to continue getting paid $100 per session. In my case I charge $340 per month meaning that I would have to charge $485 through Noomii to continue getting my $340 – this makes for a considerable price increase and therefore means that Noomii would have to deliver me a Client that would be willing to pay that amount. My philosophy has been to offer a great service at an affordable price. Your point is well taken, but the increase I would have to charge is substantial and is the reason I’ve asked so many questions here 🙂
Thanks for letting me know about the listing order. Are you calling the annual plan both the referral plan and the annual plan without the referral system? In that case, how do you figure out who is first?
Thanks,
Angela
That’s the risk you take. If you charge Noomii referral clients $485, you may be pricing yourself out of the market. But if that’s what it takes for you to feel adequately compensated, I guess you must. But if you can get $485/mo client, why aren’t you already doing that?
Whether you are on the referral program has no bearing on the directory listing order.
Right, all I want to do is get the $340 I currently charge. My point is that I feel $485 is rather high and would only have to charge that due to your 30% fee.
My hope is that you’ll go to some kind of flat fee with perhaps it being one fee if the Client just does one month and a bit more if they sign for 3 or 6 months.
Thanks!