Backend Sales Automations for Coaches: 5 Things You Need to Know About Selling to the Clients You Already Have

Keep hearing the words “backend offer” and “backend sales”, but not sure what that actually looks like in your online coaching business?

This post breaks down the concept of backend sales automations for coaches, and shares 5 things you need to know about selling to the clients you already have.

Before we dive in, let me be real—it used to be, if someone started talking to me with the word “backend”, my eyes would glaze over as my mind went back to the traumatic experience of trying to write the code for my own WordPress site back in 2015.

You too?

It’s not surprising.

Focusing on the front-end of your business – your branding, your IG grid, your content and immediate sales probably gets you buzzing. 

It’s colourful.

It’s sexy.

It’s dopamine-fuelled fun that can result in brain-pleasing “likes” and the rush of making sales.

Being in your business’ backend, on the other hand, can feel confusing and overwhelming. 

“Err, better not mess around in there,” you might think. “The people have already paid. Let’s just leave them alone and let them do their thing.”

Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you if you LOVE seeing your inbox flooded with DMs, the satisfaction that comes from seeing your offer laid out in all its splendor on a long-form sales page, or the life-sustaining lift you get from sales made during launches…

Your business does need those front-end sales to survive.

But I bet you’d feel a bit differently about the backend of your coaching business IF you were clear on how your online coaching company could be generating an additional 5-6 figures in revenue EACH QUARTER with a backend sales system (like this one) in place.

You might even start to wonder if you can afford NOT to focus on backend sales.

Because if there’s one thing that tends to get a 7-figure business owner’s attention?

It’s the prospect of low-lift, long-tail revenue that doesn’t require you to keep dumping money into Facebook ads or ask you to stuff another launch into your already overstuffed year.

But first, what even is a “backend sales automation”?

Let’s break it down:

Backend = Not something the general public can see. Exclusive to your existing clients. Only visible to those who’ve already purchased your signature offer.

Sales = With the goal of selling an additional product or service, whether immediately or down the line.

Automation = Sent automatically, without requiring action from anyone on your team. Triggered by your recipient’s action (or lack thereof).

Put it all together:

Backend Sales Automations are flows, typically delivered via email (sometimes augmented by SMS & other channels), sent to your existing customers at specific points in their customer journey, with the aim of offering them additional support in the form of a complementary product or service.

These sales sequences are only seen by your existing customers. Hence, “backend”.

While they may accomplish other goals in the meantime, they have the ultimate goal of increasing customer retention and lifetime customer value.

And they are typically triggered by the recipient’s behaviour, e.g. immediately after they sign up for your program, complete a specific module or mark a particular achievement as “Complete”.

One simple example of a backends sales automation is offering a post-purchase upsell:

Let’s say someone signs up for your signature program, a $2500 6-week program, at which point they are presented with the option to add a 60-minute 1:1 coaching call to their order for $500. 

If that person adds the upsell to their order, they’re tagged as having purchased the upsell and their onboarding continues as usual.

If they don’t add the upsell, they can be tagged accordingly as well, then added to an augmented onboarding sequence that either gives them another opportunity to purchase the aforementioned upsell, presents them with an alternative offer, or both.

The post-purchase upsell is a relatively well-known example of a backend sales automation, but did you know there are actually 9 Profit Levers you can pull in your signature offer’s backend to help you improve customer retention and increase lifetime customer value?

I walk you through each of them in more detail – with examples and stats to back ’em up – in my on-demand workshop, Profit without Pressure: How to sustainably add 5-6 figures to your bottom line with no new ads, offers or launches. Click here to watch it now.

What are the benefits of having backend sales automations in place?

Whether you’re:

• The CEO of a 7-figure company, hoping you might be able to take some of the pressure of selling live off your back,

• A Director of Operations who’s heard murmurs about the potential of backend sales, or

• A CMO (Fractional or not) looking for ways to increase your ROAS in the face of ever-increasing CACs

I know there are a ton of potential projects competing for your team’s attention and your time.

So why should implementing backend sales automations be a priority?

Because simply delivering what you promised isn’t necessarily enough to keep your clients happy, engaged and shouting how much they love you from the rooftops—or continuing to think about investing in your work. 

But when you have backend sales automations in place, like the ones we build out for you inside The Post-Sale Profit System, you can:

• Keep your clients engaged for the duration of your signature program, meaning they are more likely to see the results you promised

• Connect your people with the support they need, when they need it, again helping them see results while you make an easy sale

• Encourage your clients to share program feedback as they go, providing you with more social proof and ideas for how to optimize your offer

• Seed your next offering within the current one, so that people know what their next step is after completing your signature offer

• Invite your star students to become brand ambassadors, sending more people like them your way << A no-cost, yet highly effective way of making more sales of your signature program

What kind of impact will backend automations have on your business?

You can sneak a peek at what your numbers might look like using this tool, but in general, I love to quote the following stats:

•  According to a Bain and Company study conducted with faculty from the Harvard Business School, a 5% increase in customer retention produces 25% to as much as 95% increase in profit. (Bain & Company)

• Another study by Gartner Group found 80 percent of future revenue will come from just 20 percent of your existing customers. (Paylode)

• That’s because: “Retained customers buy more often and spend more than newer customers.” (Bain & Company)

Ok, let’s say you’re bought into the idea that the backend sales automations within The Post-Sale Profit System will help you add 5-6 figures to your bottom line with no new ads, offers or launches.

What kind of tech does it take to get a backend sales automation up and running?

My answer might surprise you because you likely won’t need to add anything to your tech stack, other than a survey tool like Typeform, if you’re not using one already.

The automations within The Post-Sale Profit System are triggered by your clients’ actions, whether that’s:

• Completing a specific module

• Sharing a specific win

• Reaching a defined program milestone

• Reaching a specific point in your program (e.g. the halfway mark), or

• Demonstrating a certain level of engagement

Depending on the team you have in place and the scale of your signature program, your clients can be automatically or manually tagged (or both).

Upon being tagged or added to a specific segment, clients are added to the relevant automation within your email marketing platform.

Tagging and segmentation is accomplished within the same platform.

Clients are tagged or segmented based on their answers to simple surveys, feedback forms and clicks within segmentation emails.

Examples of Post-Sale Profit Sequences in the Wild:

When my client Sue Crites reached out to me back in 2022, she had a thriving membership community and over a dozen digital products, but she wasn’t actively marketing those offers anywhere.

In the context of our work together, one of the sequences I created for Sue was a new welcome sequence, with the ultimate goal of getting new subscribers to sign up for her membership, Energy in Motion.

 What that sequence also does, however, is mention another one of Sue’s offers, Morning Mojo. When I interviewed Sue about her results, she mentioned that in the first 6 months after her new funnels went live, she had made more sales of that product than in the previous 4 years combined!

Check out the full case study of the work I did for Sue right here:

Within just 3 emails, Sue’s subscribers are given clear next steps on how to get the most out of the short training they’ve just purchased, asked for insight into what led them to sign up, and invited to get more of Sue’s unique style of teaching by signing up for her membership community.

Check out how this subscriber went from downloading her lead magnet to purchasing her mini-offer to joining her community in just one day:

First they downloaded her freebie.
Then they purchased the mini-offer.
Then they joined the community.

All via automated emails!

There’s also this subscriber, who was on Sue’s list, bought the mini-offer, and then immediately upgraded to the membership from one of the onboarding emails:

This work I did for Sue was one of my very first forays into the power of Post-Sale Profit Sequences.

And it was in seeing results like Sue’s that I started thinking about the potential impact this kind of automation could have if it was implemented in a business that focused on higher ticket sales…

I’ve always been someone who loves seeing $$$ numbers, so I initially put together this ROI Calculator Tool for myself, to see what that impact might look like.

The results?

That’s when I decided to make The Post-Sale Profit System my signature offer.

And The Post-Sale Profit Studio was born.

How can you get started with backend sales automations today?

If you’re a 7-figure coach looking for an expert team to create a bespoke strategy for your backend system, write the emails that will make you sales and implement the whole thing in your business’ backend, your best next step is to book a Fit Check Call with my team today. 

On this quick, 15-minute call, we’ll make sure that your business & offer suite are well-suited to The Post-Sale Profit System before inviting you to a longer Strategy Review call, where we hammer out the details of what your PSP System will look like.

Hoping – for now – to get something in place for yourself?

Check out my free, on-demand workshop, Profit without Pressure: How to add 5-6 figures to your bottom line with no new ads, offers or launches:

In it, I walk you through the 9 Profit Levers you can pull in your signature offer’s backend.

It should give you some great ideas for where to start.

If you have any questions about the above – or the workshop – I’d absolutely love to hear them.

Comment below or send an email at katie@postsaleprofitstudio.com