Coaching Business is a set of features in Final Surge that allows coaches to create both recurring monthly Subscriptions as well as one-time services you can charge for (Programs). Below is a summary of the two types of services:
Subscriptions - A subscription is a service you offer that is charged monthly to the athlete. For example, if you want to offer a one-to-one coaching service and your athlete will be paying you a fee every month to be coached by you. In this case, you would want to set up a subscription so that the athlete is automatically charged each month for your services.
Programs - A program is a one-time fee that the athlete pays you for a fixed amount of time. For instance, if you own a running store or club and are putting on a 12-week training program, you would want to set up a program and charge the athlete one-time for the 12-weeks. Or, if you are offering a service where you build an athlete a custom training plan for a fixed length of time or to prepare for an upcoming race, you would want to use a program.
Additional features of Coaching Business include the ability to create and attach waivers for athletes to sign, and create and attach onboarding questionnaires that allow you to collect additional information from the athletes as they sign up and register for your Subscriptions and Programs.
When an athlete registers for one of your Coaching Business services, they are automatically placed on the team that you specify in your Final Surge account and you become their coach in the platform.
Initial Setup of Coaching Business
To access the Coaching Business features, click on your coach profile image at the top of the main navigation. From there click on Coaching Business from the fly-out menu: https://beta.finalsurge.com/coaching-business
The first time you visit Coaching Business, you will not be able to access the Subscriptions and Programs tabs until you complete the initial setup process. However, you will still have access to the Transactions, Questionnaires and Waivers tabs if you would like to browse those before doing the setup process.
To begin the setup process, click the "Setup Account" button in the middle of the page under the tabs:
You can access the Setup Account page at any time in the future by clicking the cogwheel in the top right corner of the Coaching Business page.
Once on the Account Setup page, you will be ask to complete a series of steps in order to enable both Subscription and Program sales.
You can click on the "How Does this Work?" link at the top of this page to get more information on this feature before you begin the setup process.
Below is a summary of each step on the Sales Setup page
1. Recurring Subscription and Timeboxed Programs Sale Agreement – you must agree to our sales agreement which outlines the revenue split for both Subscriptions and Programs as well as some additional terms. When a subscription sale is made, Final Surge will keep 6% of the transaction amount plus $3.00. When a one-time Program sale is made, Final Surge will keep 5% of the transaction amount plus $4.00 for programs up to 20 weeks in length. This covers the credit card processing fees, ongoing customer support for the user who purchased the service, as well as the continued feature development and marketing of the training log platform and services we offer to coaches.
2. Location & Tax Information – we need to collect your location and individual or business information for tax reporting purposes. If you are located in the United States and sell a certain amount of plans per year, Final Surge will issue you end-of-year tax documents.
3. Setup & Connect Stripe Express – Final Surge will pay coaches for subscription and program sales through Stripe Express. By clicking on the “Setup Stripe Express” button, you will be taken to Stripe’s secure website where you can set up an Express account. This allows Final Surge to automatically transfer your sales proceeds through Stripe. Final Surge will hold the initial sale monies in our Stripe account for 14 days to ensure no refunds or transaction disputes are requested by the customer, and then we will automatically transfer that money to your connected Stripe Express account. Once that money transfers to your Express account, it will then take 1-2 business days to automatically pay out to your connected financial account.
4. Setup a Coach Page – To enable subscription and program sales, you must create a Coach Page. This page is a unique URL assigned to you where athletes can go to find more information about your coaching services, training plans you offer, as well as view all of your subscription services that are for sale. Any custom program landing page that you create will also be linked through your Coach Page. You can click the button in this section to access your Coach Page. This page can also be accessed at any time by clicking on your profile image at the top of the main navigation and selecting the “Coach Page” option. You can setup your unique URL and launch a Coach Page on our site even if you do not want to sell subscriptions or programs.
Setting up a Coach Page URL is a great way to market yourself on social media, on your own website, and to use at the bottom of your emails in your signature. This gives athletes a direct link to find your training plans and services, or learn more about your coaching services.
Once you complete the setup of your Coach Page, you can leave that turned off until you finish setting up your Subscriptions and/or Programs. However, in order for Subscriptions and Programs to be available to the public, you will need to turn your Coach Page to "ON" once you are ready to begin sales:
Any time you turn off your Coach Page, your Coaching Business service sales will be disabled until you turn your Coach Page back on.
Once you have completed the Setup Account page, you can go back to the Coaching Business features by clicking the "Close" button in the top right hand corner:
Your Coaching Business account is now set up and you will have access to both the Subscriptions and Programs tabs going forward: