Planning your year Archives - Health Coach Solutions

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Feeling Like Your Coaching Business is Stuck? 3 Ideas for Giving It a Boost

by Kathleen LeGrys | Apr 10, 2023

Feeling Like Your Coaching Business Is Stuck? 3 Ideas for Giving it a Boost

There are times in every business when things seem hard or confusing, and it’s often at the very beginning because there is so much to figure out. If you’re in a place right now where you’re feeling stuck, we have 3 ideas that can help.

Even though Karen and I have each been in business for about 10 years, there are still times when things don’t go as planned and we have to take a step back to evaluate what happened and figure out how we can improve for next time. It’s all part of the process.

Today, we’re going to cover 3 specific areas of your marketing that you want to look at closely because these are the most common places where we see coaches struggle.

We see it with coaches in our Facebook groups and we see it with coaches when they first join our Wellness Business Accelerator program – our signature course that teaches a proven system for reaching your ideal clients online and consistently enrolling new clients within 60 days. We’ll be opening the doors to the WBA on Monday, April 17^th, and if you’d like to be notified when the doors open, just message me on Instagram here.

Let’s dive into the ideas for giving your business a boost.

When we look at the health coaches who are struggling to get clients, one thing we notice is:

1. They don’t have a marketable ideal client. A marketable ideal client is someone who:

1. Knows they have a problem – they are aware of their struggle or issue.
2. Wants to solve the problem – they are looking for a solution.
3. Has money to invest into that solution – this is important, so you have people who are willing and ready to invest in the solution.

This is one of the first things we cover in the Wellness Business Accelerator because it’s so foundational and critical for reaching the people you want to help. Once coaches have this in place, everything else get easier because they are attracting the right people.

You could be trying to reach people on social media who may be aware of the problem they have (let’s say it’s high blood sugar) but they aren’t actively looking for a solution and they don’t have money to invest, so those people will never become paying clients no matter how amazing your marketing is or how often you show up for them. These people definitely need help but until they are ready and willing to invest in solving the problem by hiring you they aren’t the people you are trying to connect with.

One way to solve this problem and make sure you are attracting the right people that have all of the attributes of a marketable ideal client is to be very clear in your messaging and the content you create – are you speaking to the people who already know they have a problem, they are looking for a solution and they are ready to take action because they have money to invest?

So, you could choose a niche, but you also want to be sure it’s a marketable ideal client. We cover all of this in the WBA to make it easy.

Another common struggle coaches have is:

2. Not getting the attention of their dream clients on social media. This is typically due to 3 reasons:

1. Not speaking clearly with the words and phrases your ideal clients are using – you’re using industry jargon or words they are not actually using so there is a disconnect
2. Not creating content around their pain points – maybe you’re covering more general content but it’s not specific to your niche
3. No clear theme in your content creation strategy – you’re posting graphics and other content but there is no real path for taking followers to the next step of the customer journey which leads them to working with you.

Let’s look at not speaking clearly with the words and phrases your ideal clients are using because this is very common. One example would be if your niche was helping women improve their menopausal symptoms through diet and lifestyle. These women may be thinking about their frustration with hot flashes, waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, sudden weight gain around their waist and mood swings. If you’re focusing more on words like ‘balancing hormones and hormonal imbalances” they may not resonate with that because it’s not speaking to the pain points they have – it’s going over their heads. That doesn’t mean you can’t use those words in places like your sales page and other areas of you copy and your content, but you want to focus on using more of what they are already thinking and saying, so they can relate to you more and see that you may be the one to help them. We covered this topic in detail on episode 296 about How to Find Out What Your Ideal Clients Really Want, so check that one out if you need help with this.

Remember, you’re not trying to reach the masses with your social media content. You are trying to get people to say, “Yes, this is for me” or “No, this is not for me”. You do that through creating content that speaks clearly and concisely about what you believe, your unique approach to solving their problem, and consistently inviting them to work with you.

Let’s move on to #3, which is…

3. Lack of consistency in making offers. This includes things such as:

1. Opening and promoting spots on your calendar for discovery calls
2. Opening the doors to your program/services at least once per quarter (open/close cart launch)

This is a big one! We know health coaches don’t want to come off as being salesy, but what often happens is the other extreme – they never or rarely ever promote their programs or invite people to book discovery calls. It would be amazing if our followers and subscribers automatically knew how we can help them, but they need reminders and they also need us to have direct calls to action such as how to book a call, how they can sign up to work with us, join a membership or other program. There has to be an intentional strategy with this where you plan it out on social media, and you map out any launches or promotions you want to do.

How often are you making offers – inviting people to take the next step in one of your paid programs? If you don’t have enough clients right now, chances are, you aren’t doing it often enough. One of the things we love helping our Wellness Business Accelerator students accomplish while we are together is to do a deep dive into how to make offers, how to map out their launches and the best way to get your followers excited about working with you before you even open the doors.

We know there is a lot to learn when it comes to growing your business with online strategies such as social media and email list building, but the good news is you CAN learn exactly how to do it. We love sharing our proven strategies to systematize and scale your efforts so you’ll save time and we’ll help you get the best results in the shortest time possible.

Resources and Links mentioned on the show:

Let's Connect on Facebook:

Kathleen’s Free Facebook Group Audit Checklist

Subscribe and listen to The Wellness Business Podcast on your favorite platform!

3 Common Facebook Group Mistakes to Avoid

by Kathleen LeGrys | Feb 20, 2023

3 Common Facebook Group Mistakes to Avoid

If you have a Facebook group for your health coaching business but it seems like an uphill battle to get members to engage (and sign up for your programs) it could be that you’re making one or more common mistakes.

The good news is that you can turn things around pretty quickly. Once you know what mistakes to avoid, you’ll have more of the right people joining your group, and you’ll also have more members enrolling in your paid programs (instead of them only consuming your free content).

On this episode we’re sharing 3 Common Facebook Group Mistakes to Avoid, and here’s what you’ll discover:

The #1 reason why people are joining your group but not becoming clients
Tips for naming your group to attract the right members
One of the first things new members will look for as soon as they join your group, and if you don’t have this in place, you are missing a huge opportunity to build trust and connection
How to lead people to the next step to working with you in a non-salesy way

Let’s dive in!

Mistake #1: The group name is not directly aligned with or related to your niche.

One of the common mistakes made with groups is that the group name isn’t clear about who it’s for. This is a problem because if your group is pretty generic about health and wellness, you may have a lot of people joining, but they won’t necessarily be your ideal clients. This means engagement tends to be low and people won’t be enrolling in your programs because they aren’t a good fit for your particular area of expertise and your offers.

One way to know if your group name is specific enough is can people self-identify that this is an area where they need help and is it very obvious who the group is for. Will people see the group and know right away if it’s for them or not? Remember, you only want your potential ideal clients joining your community, so be bold about claiming your niche and go all in on it.

See if you can spot the difference in these two names and see which one is very specific:

Abundant Health and Energy
Thrive Through Menopause

The first one is general and could be for anyone – men or women at any age with any issue or problem. The 2^nd one would be an option if your niche was helping women with menopausal issues, and the right people will be interested in joining and the wrong people will scroll on by, and that’s exactly what you want.

When you look at your group name, is it specific enough? You can always fine tune it a bit to narrow it down more.

Mistake #2: No welcome video pinned to the top of the group.

This is a really important element to include in your group because when people first join your group, they come in and take a peek around. They want to know who you are as the host of the group and the expert. When they see a welcome video from you, they instantly get to connect with you and get a feel for your personality and what you’re about. Think about what you do when you join a new group – you want to see what’s going on and find out if it’s going to be a helpful community – or not. By having a short 1-2 minute video pinned to the very top, it’s usually one of the first things new members will check out, and when they feel like they’re in the right place, they are more likely to come back the group, post questions and engage.

Mistake #3: No (or very few) calls to action to work with you. A call to action to work with you could be to book a discovery call or join your paid program. It’s easy to post content in your group, but it’s important that members know how they can take the next step to get support from you. People are busy and they don’t want to have to dig around to find out what you do and how you can help them, so you want to post about it from time to time.

There are several ways to do this and one of them is during your livestreams in your group. You can share a story about a client and what problem they were having when they came to see you and what the result was after they implemented what you recommended. This creates interest and curiosity about working with you. During the livestream, mention that you have a few spots open for discovery calls this month and how they can schedule one.

Another way is to post occasional direct invites in your group to book a free discovery call. Be sure to include who it’s for and a link to your online calendar to make it easy for people to take action.

Need more ideas for your Facebook group?

Be sure to download your free Facebook Group Audit Checklist, so you can audit your own group to help troubleshoot any issues you’re having and get the best results possible.

Resources and Links mentioned on the show:

Let's Connect on Facebook:

Subscribe and listen to The Wellness Business Podcast on your favorite platform!

How to Find Out What Your Ideal Clients Want

by Kathleen LeGrys | Feb 13, 2023

How to Find Out What Your Ideal Clients Want

One of the most important elements of good marketing is connecting the dots between what your customers and clients want and the solution you offer. Sometimes we think we may know what our ideal clients want, but often times, we’re really guessing and that can mean there is a disconnect between your audience and your offers. This is the most common reason for people not signing up for your free resources and enrolling in your paid programs.

Today, we’re sharing 3 easy ways to find out what your ideal clients truly want, so you can – A. Attract more of your ideal clients and B. Have more paying clients.

You’ll use the information you gather in places such as your website, sales pages, landing pages for your free offers. You can also use it for some of your free content such as blog posts, podcast episodes, and social media content, including videos.

The good news is that this is actually really easy to do, and we’ll kick things off with #1:

1. Your Facebook group.

If you have a Facebook group or any other online community, you can find out a ton of information about your ideal clients there. The first way to utilize your group to find out what your ideal clients want is to use the membership questions feature to screen people before you approve them to join. When you go to your admin tools section of your Facebook group, you’ll see the option for ‘membership questions’. You can ask up to 3 questions, and one of them should give prospective members the opportunity to share their top struggles and challenges with you.

A simple question to ask would be “What is your biggest struggle with ______________.”

So, if your niche is helping women balance menopausal symptoms naturally, it could read something like this: “What is your biggest struggle with your menopausal symptoms.” This should be a one very short, concise question, so people know how to answer it. You want to keep track of the answers and look for common words and phrases they’re using to describe the problem. One way to keep track of these answers is to use Google sheets, and you can just copy and paste the answers. When you use the same words that your audience is using, they are going to feel like you really understand them, and that helps them see you as a possible solution.

Another way to use your Facebook group to find out what your ideal clients want is to use occasional polls, direct question posts and paying close attention to questions that are posted and conversations that are going on. Polls aren’t the best because they aren’t open-ended questions, but if you’re narrowing down some options, it can be helpful to get some input. For example, if your niche is related to gluten-free living, a poll question could be: What would you say is your biggest frustration when it comes to eating a gluten-free diet? Poll answer #1. Finding affordable food options. 2. Preparing meals. 3. Eating out. Then allow people to add their own answer if there is something else that is a top struggle for them that’s different than the choices you list.

A direct question post would be where you ask a question which can give you more information than a poll. You can ask the same question I just mentioned about “What is your biggest frustration when it comes to eating a gluten-free diet?” but leave it as a regular post and people can add their answer in the comments.

Facebook groups are great because most of the members already have a level of trust with you, so they will feel comfortable being open to sharing their answers.

2. Discovery Calls.

Yes, these calls are designed to enroll clients, but they are also meant to find out what your clients really want and see if you are a good fit to help them. Discovery calls are going to give you the most detailed an in-depth information. This is why really listening during these calls and taking notes is critical. When you ask the right questions, you are going to get invaluable market research about where they are struggling the most, how they are feeling about it, what they actually want and why they want it. Most people will open up to you during this call and you’ll get a lot more detailed information, you’ll hear their tone of voice and emotions, and you’ll have the chance to ask follow-up questions if you need clarification.

Asking questions such as: What is your biggest struggle with this right now? What has been the biggest roadblock for you? How would it feel if you reached your goal or had this problem solved? can give you a ton of great insights into what they really want and why.

If you want a complete step-by-step discovery call script, so you have more great questions to ask, you can download my FREE Ultimate Health Coach Toolkit which also includes a Food Diary, Meal Planning Worksheet, Exercise Log, Coaching Session Template and more.

3. Surveys to your email list.

Surveys are another great option for gathering information about your target audience. You’ll get a lot more responses when you offer an incentive. We’ve done this several times with great success and we like to offer Amazon gift cards because everyone likes them. You can offer two $25 gift cards and let people know you will be choosing two winners at random – include the deadline of when they need to complete the survey and pick a date then you’ll announce the winners.

You can use surveymonkey.com or Google Forms for this if you want, and make sure one of the questions you ask is for their email address, so you can notify them and send the eGift card.

You don’t have to limit this to just your email subscribers since you can also share the survey link on social media and in your Facebook group.

Your survey doesn’t have to be super involved. You can ask 3-5 questions to find out what their biggest struggle is that relates to your niche, what they have already tried, how is it impacting their life and what are their top 1-2 goals.

Start with whichever of the 3 options we shared seems easiest to you right now and you add more later if you want.

Take the information you gather and compare it to your current messaging and see where you can make some changes and/or additions to make it really grab the attention of the people you are trying to reach. Remember, you aren’t trying to attract everyone – you only want to get the attention of your dream clients. This will take a little time to do, but it will be so worth is because you’ll be enrolling more clients.

Resources and Links mentioned on the show:

Kathleen’s Free Ultimate Health Coach Toolkit (including Discovery Call Session Script and more)

Let's Connect on Facebook:

Save 40% on all of Kathleen’s done-for-you health coaching programs and resources through Jan 12^th with code: JAN2023

Subscribe and listen to The Wellness Business Podcast on your favorite platform!

Should You Run a Free or Paid Challenge?

by Kathleen LeGrys | Jan 10, 2023

Should You Run a Free or Paid Challenge?

If you’ve been thinking about running an online challenge but you aren’t sure if you should charge for it or not, you are going to find this conversation very helpful in making your decision. January is a popular time for running challenges, but the great news is that you can run them any time of the year. So, if you’re thinking you’ve missed out on the New Year frenzy because you don’t have a challenge ready, nothing could be further from the truth because people are looking for help 365 days a year.

This was a great question that Sara posted in my Health Coach Biz Support Facebook group, which was: “I want to run an online challenge but I’m not sure if it should be a free challenge or a paid challenge, so I’m not sure how to proceed.”

Sara is right – you can run a free challenge, or you can run a paid challenge, so which one is right for you?

Challenges are great, and the good news is that BOTH options can generate revenue, but let’s look at how to help you decide which one is best for you right now.

If you are starting out with zero email subscribers or a small email list (under 200 people or so) and a small social media following, hosting a free challenge would be the way to go since you’ll be able to GROW your email list AND your following, allow people to get to know you and connect with you, and at the end of the challenge, you invite people to your paid program – whether that’s a 1-on-1 coaching program or an online group program. You’ll have way more people signing up for your free challenge than you will for a paid challenge – even if you only charge $10.

Here’s what’s important to know: In order to get paying customers, you have to have an audience of followers and subscribers to share it with, right? So, if you are just starting out, running free challenges is what we recommend because it will help you spread the word about what you do and give people a chance to see what it would be like to work with you. In your challenge, you’re helping people solve a small PART of a problem they have, and then the next step is to join your paid program to get more support and the rest of the solution they want – which is what your coaching program is all about. That’s one of the reasons why I like challenges so much as a marketing strategy, because you’re having people join who are interested in the topic, so it’s easier to get clients when you invite them to get the full solution.

Let’s talk about PAID challenges and when they can work well.

If you want to run a paid challenge, we recommend calling it something other than a ‘challenge’ because that word has become synonymous with being free. It’s a good idea to call it something like a jump start, kick start, reset or something along those lines, and save the challenges for free offers.

With a paid program of any kind, you are going to include more resources and more support to make it worth the investment, so when people see your sales page and the benefits they will get out of it, they are more likely to be willing to make the investment. Your paid program will give people more of the “how” and a free challenge is more of the ‘what’ with a few micro steps and examples that will leave them wanting more from you. A paid challenge can be as short as 7 days, but a short-term paid program is typically more like 21-30 days. There isn’t a right or wrong here, so do what makes the most sense to you and test it out. You are the only one who knows your business, your niche and your audience, so always do what resonates with you the most and be open to experimenting.

Which option is right for you?

If you have a good size email list (over 200 subscribers and you have been emailing them regularly) and a social media following, you can promote a paid program any time, so it depends on your goals and where you are right now with your business. Since this would be a shorter program, it can be a really good way to introduce your audience to your services and try it out in a low-risk way since the investment will be lower than your 1-on-1 programs.

A free challenge leads to new clients on the back end, which means at the end of your challenge, you invite people to work with you. This option will also help you grow your email list, so that’s a plus.

A free challenge is also a good way to reintroduce people to what you do if you’ve been gone for a while and you want to re-engage your email subscribers. It gets people excited and looking forward to your emails each day of the challenge. We actually have a great episode coming up in a couple of weeks about How to Successfully Reconnect with a Neglected Email List, so if that’s something you’ve been wondering about, you’ll love that episode.

So, while there isn’t a right or wrong way as far as running a free or paid challenge, if you are just starting out, our recommendation would be to run a free one and use it as a way to get exposure, grow your email list, and then invite people to your program at the end.

Whether you want to do a free or paid challenge, we know how well they can work for growing your business and generating revenue. We also know there is a lot that goes into creating one that your audience will be excited to join and then also, at the end, some participants are ready to take the next step in whatever program you are going to offer.

To make this easy for you, I have two different done-for-you challenges you can use that are all ready to go, complete with all the content for each day, the emails and social media posts you need, the posts for your Facebook group, social media posts and emails to fill your challenge, and then emails and posts for the end of your challenge to invite people to your next program. It’s like hitting the easy button for running a successful challenge because you get everything you need including video tutorials that walk you through each step.

The best part is that right now all of my done-for-you programs are on sale – EVERYTHING is 40% off through this Thursday, January 12^th when you use code: JAN2023.

You can choose from a 7-Day Healthy Habits Challenge, a 5-Day Menu Planning Challenge or if you want to run a short-term paid program, I also have the 30-Day Mind-Body Reset and the 30-Day Fit and Healthy Jump Start. Then, I have my most popular program which is a complete 6-month health coaching program that you can customize to fit your niche and that is called Coach with Confidence.

When you have all the resources you need to run your business, you will be able to start helping clients sooner, which means making money sooner and growing your business, which is so exciting. Running online challenges was how I got clients when I was a health coach and they have only become more popular and more effective as a marketing strategy over the years.

Which type of challenge do you plan to run?

Resources and Links mentioned on the show:

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