Setting and Achieving Purposeful Goals for Your Wellness Business

Setting and Achieving Purposeful Goals for Your Wellness Business

Setting and Achieving Purposeful Goals for Your Wellness Business

When you hear the words ‘goal setting’ does it make you feel a little uneasy or does it motivate you to put things into action?

If you haven’t set goals for your business yet, it could be that you aren’t sure what type of goals to set and/or you don’t want to feel disappointed if you don’t reach them. 

Whatever your reason, we’ve got you covered on this episode where we’re sharing ideas for 3 types of goals to focus on in your business and how to set yourself up for success when setting them.

Before we dive into this episode, we want to let you know that we’re hosting a free live training called: 3 Secrets Every Wellness Business Owner Needs to Know to Grow a Thriving Practice in 2023.

You’ll learn a Streamlined Blueprint that Attracts Dream Clients, Grows a Niche-Specific Email List, and Generates Consistent Monthly Revenue on Autopilot

We have two dates: Oct. 17th and 18th

To save your spot, register here:

Let’s get started with goal #1

1. Income: How much revenue do you want your business to generate each year?

You can have different timelines for this such as your income goal for the next 12 months, and then what you want to earn after your first year. Break that down into a monthly goal and how you can get there. For example, if your initial goal is to earn $2,000 a month, you can reach that with 5 clients at $400 per month or 10 clients at $200 per month.  You can also reach that with a combination of 1-on-1 clients and your online group programs or membership.  Setting income goals is the first step to coming up with a plan to put the pieces in place. 

TIP: We like setting 3 levels of goals for this: low, medium and high. This takes some of the pressure off of having to reach one goal where you either reach it or you don’t. 

The low goal is one you feel pretty confident you can reach. The medium goal is one that will be a little of a stretch, but it would be nice to reach it.  The high goal is one that would be amazing if it happened. 

NOTE: Goals aren’t intended to make you feel like you’ve failed if you don’t reach them – but they serve as a way to measure results, so you know what’s working well and what you can do differently next time.  It’s just data that you use to decide how to move forward.  There will always be things you want to change, especially when you’re starting out. 

2. The second type of goal to set is how many new email subscribers you want to get each month.

Your new subscribers are new potential clients, so having a focus on growing your email list each month will help you build your business.  If you have an email list and you aren’t growing it each month, it’s shrinking because people unsubscribe – it’s just part of the process.  In order to have a current and active email list, bringing new people in each month is critical.  So, what would be a low, medium and high goal of new subscribers for you?  Your goals may change if you’re running FB ads or you’ll be a guest on a podcast or an online summit where you know you’ll be getting in front of a new audience.  How many times per month are you promoting your free offers, so your followers know about it?  Again, when you set a specific goal, you can reverse engineer a plan to reach it.   

3. The 3rd type of goal is deciding how many hours per week or days per week you’ll work on your business.

This is important to do because working 7 days a week, long term is a recipe for burnout. You also want to set a goal for how much time off you’ll take each year. How many weeks do you want to take off? Be sure to put it on your calendar, so you can work your schedule and promotions around it. When you decide how many days a week you want to work, you can look at the tasks and projects that need to get done and decide what you can delegate and outsource.  Growing a business requires you to wear a lot of hats and the fewer hats you have the wear, the more you can focus on the things that only you can do such as work with clients, show up on video on social media, do podcast interviews, deliver workshops, etc.  The beauty of having your own business is that you get to decide how you want to run it, so being intentional with this is key, so that you don’t end up with a business that is running YOU. 

What goals do you want to set for your business? Be sure to write them down and refer back to them often. Make adjustments along the way and know that your goals serve as a guide to lead you towards reaching them.

Be sure to save your spot for our free live training: 3 Secrets Every Wellness Business Owner Needs to Know to Grow a Thriving Practice in 2023.

We hope to see you there!

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Best Of: The Difference Between Your Free and Paid Content

Best Of: The Difference Between Your Free and Paid Content

Best Of: The Difference Between Your Free and Paid Content

When it comes to creating and sharing content for your business, there are two types; Free and paid. 

But how to you determine what should be included in your free content such as your freebies, blog posts and videos, and what should be saved for content for your paid programs? 

If this question has been on your mind, this episode will be a huge help.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

  • The purpose of your free content and how it plays an important role in your marketing and client attraction strategy
  • 8 popular types of free content you can use to attract your ideal clients
  • What to avoid doing with your free content
  • Examples of free content you can start sharing today

Tune in or read the post below to learn how to use both forms of content in your business to get the best results. 

I received a great question about how coaches should distinguish between their free and paid content; what should be offered as part of content such as freebies, blog posts and livestreams, and what should be saved for content for paying clients. 

Alma asked this question and then went on to say “I feel like if I just touch on the subjects of healthy nutrition or exercise tips without getting into the “nitty-gritty” in the materials available for free, people would sense that there isn’t much value in them.”

This is such a great question, and it may be something you are wondering too, so we wanted to cover this on the podcast.

Purpose of Free Content

Let’s talk about the purpose of your free content, we’ll share a few different examples, and then we’ll talk about your paid content (your coaching programs and courses) and how to set that apart, as well as how to use your free content to lead to your paid programs. 

It’s important to first point out that your free content is actually part of your marketing strategy because it’s an important piece of the awareness and attraction phase where people get to learn more about you and determine if they can learn something valuable from you. This is called content marketing. 

According to the Content Marketing Institute: “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

So, content marketing – your free content – is a client attraction strategy and it’s a key part of how you will bring people into your world.  Think about the people you follow on social media – you probably follow many of them because you learn from them on a regular basis.  You learn bits and pieces of information, but you don’t learn an entire process from A-Z, right? Your free content builds trust and rapport and is oftentimes the first step in the customer journey or sales funnel. Here’s one example: People read one of your blog posts, they see your social media icons, and they follow you on Instagram. Once they check out your IG bio, they see you have a free offer or a Facebook group, and they request to join your group or they opt-in for your freebie.

Your free content can come in many forms, including: 

  1. Blog posts
  2. Social Media (posts, stories, Reels, YouTube, Clubhouse, etc.)
  3. Webinars
  4. Free PDF downloads
  5. Video series
  6. Podcasts
  7. Livestreams
  8. Podcast

Where it can get confusing, as Alma mentioned, is how much information do you offer for free, where you make it valuable enough and what should be part of your paid programs.

With the list of 8 options above for free content, each one of those should play a part in creating awareness and desire for your paid programs and let people get to know YOU as a person and your brand.  This is a process that takes time, and it takes multiple touch points over time.

Your free content should be part of the customer journey where you get to educate and inspire your audience about topics that you cover in your programs and how your program helps your clients achieve their goals. 

Here’s the big distinguisher between your free and paid content:

Your free content shares small pieces of helpful information on a specific topic but it does not give a system or a roadmap for a transformation or desired outcome. Your paid program provides the entire solution.   

Your free content is only small chunks of the solutions you offer. You aren’t taking people from point A to point B and beyond – you are making them aware of what you do, who you help and how you help them, and you provide helpful tips

and inspiration along the way.

Think about the people you follow on social media – let’s take someone who is an Instagram expert, like Jasmine Star (we had her on the podcast back on episode 117 about How to Easily Navigate the Changes on Instagram).  She is one of my favorite people to learn from when it comes to IG. She shares fun and helpful tips and strategies, but if you want to learn her whole system and you want more access to her, you need to enroll in her paid program, Social Curator, which is her monthly subscription where you get a complete monthly IG strategy, IG posts, captions, and images for IG.

You can take some information from your paid program, but just share a small part each time, and make it specific to your niche, so you are attracting more of your ideal clients and building trust with them.  People will still learn something of value, but it’s not going to solve an entire problem.

It will be the same for a freebie you offer. It should be about one specific topic, so your ideal clients can get a small win. Your free offer shouldn’t be a 30-page eguide. A big mistake we see is overwhelming people with too much information.  A great free offer is more about what they can take action on vs making it too long for them to consume and never put anything into place. When you get very specific about who your freebie is for and the quick mini win it will get your ideal client, it makes it easier to come up with ideas.

Say your niche is helping moms who have just been diagnosed with celiac disease. You know from experience, that one of their top struggles is likely how to pack food and snacks when they travel.  Maybe your freebie is a list of 20 gluten-free, celiac-friendly foods that are perfect for traveling.

The list will give them a quick win, but there is so much more they need to learn and implement in order to implement a gluten-free lifestyle, from how to avoid cross contamination in their home, how to cook for the whole family when you are the only one who has to be GF, how to eat out when you have celiac, and so much more.  There is a lot they have to learn, and your free guide gives them one small part of what they need to know. They can now start to see that you are a trusted resource, and they may want to learn more about how you can help them by working with you.

Take this podcast as another example.  We now have over 300 episodes full of free and helpful content. We also have a paid program called the Wellness Business Accelerator which is our 12-week course for wellness business owners who want to fill their practice.  In this program, we take our students through a very detailed, and step-by-step process to dramatically accelerate their business growth, so they can start getting clients in as little as 60 days.  People can get free content on the show to get small wins, which we love hearing about, and for those who want more support and a proven blueprint and process to follow, they can enroll in our paid program – the full solution. 

Recap

The goal with your free content is to draw people in to learn something short and sweet and leave them wanting more, then direct them to the next step such as sign up for your freebie, join your Facebook group, read a blog post, watch a video or something else. Your free content should ultimately lead people to your paid programs, and that’s how content marketing works. 

Speaking of content, you can save yourself a lot of time by repurposing your hard work, and we covered how to do this on episode 144 where we talked about 5 Simple Ways to Repurpose Your Content to Reach More People.

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If You Received $1k to Invest in Your Coaching Business, What Would You Do?

If You Received $1k to Invest in Your Coaching Business, What Would You Do?

​As two health coaches turned business coaches that have over 10 years of experience under our belts, we thought it would be fun to turn back the clock to share what we would do if we were just starting out as new health coaches who had $1,000 to invest in our businesses. In other words, where would we invest those funds, what software would we use, and what coaching resources would we purchase in order to get new clients sooner rather than later.

In this episode you’ll discover:

  • The top 5 business categories we would focus on when investing the money that would give us the biggest bang for our buck
  • Why it’s important to invest in each of the 5 business categories to set you up for success right from the start
  • Our 4-month expense plan that fits into our $1k budget

Tune in to find out how we would spend $1k and see if it gives you any ideas if you are trying to figure out where to invest your money, especially if you are on a tight budget.

It’s only through our years of experience, trial and error, and working with health coaching clients and so many health coaches that we have the clarity that we have now. We didn’t have all of this knowledge back when we were first starting in our health coaching businesses. Back then it felt like there were so many things to accomplish and so much money that needed to be spent to get set up. Hindsight gives us the clarity that not all of the things we were focusing on were important and we were both certainly missing some of the key elements that we should have focused on.

Here are a few things we invested in (or would now invest in as a new coach) as well as ideas you may want to consider (tune into the podcast to find out details on what we used and how we used it).

Email List Building:

Choose an email platform such as MailerLite. The free version is a good place to start and it includes templates for landing pages and sales pages that make it easy without having any web design skills.

Use Canva to create free resources and guides to grow your email list.  It’s easy to create beautiful PDF’s in Canva when you use their templates. You can do this with a free version of Canva, however, we recommend hiring a graphic designer or Canva specialist to do this for you to free up your time.

Generating Sales:

Find a way to make program sales easy.

Karen used free workshops as her main way to get in front of new people and enroll clients. Karen provides done-for-you workshops for health coaches to make this easy for you.

I used free challenges as one of my main marketing strategies for client enrollment. I loved running challenges when I was a health coach, and they still work great today.  I provide done-for-you challenges and health coaching programs, so you can get your challenge up and running in no time.

Software / Platforms:

In addition to an email management system, you’ll need a way to:

Take payment: Paypal or Square are good options to get you started.

An online calendar system: Calendly or Acuity – for booking clients. You can start with the free version. 

You want a way to easily work with clients, and PracticeBetter is great. This is an all-in-one platform that makes it easy to run 1-on-1 or group coaching programs.  You can start for FREE with three 1-on-1 clients, then it bumps up to $25/mo, and it goes up from there based on your needs.

Zoom is a great option for delivering workshops/challenges, running webinars, and online coaching programs. 

Website:

When we graduated from IIN we were given a website as part of our certification – it wasn’t amazing, but it was a place to start.   

If that isn’t an option for you, check out what your email management system offers. For instance, MailerLite offers a website option even with the free version. Wix is also a good option for building a website because it’s very user friendly even for beginners and the paid version starts at $5 a month.

Advertising:

Once there was social proof that the free offer I had was grabbing the attention of my ideal client, I would boost a post on Facebook & Instagram for additional reach or run Facebook ads if I knew how to use the ads manager dashboard. 

Networking Events (In person or online).

As you start and grow your business, there are a lot of tools available to help you along the way.  We hope our list of recommendations was helpful.

Is there something you would add to the list? Let me know.

Scroll down to find the links to the resources we mentioned in this episode.

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Supercharging Your List Building:  5 Vital Elements for High-Converting Freebies

Supercharging Your List Building: 5 Vital Elements for High-Converting Freebies

Supercharging Your List Building: 5 Vital Elements for High-Converting Freebies

​If you have created a free resource to grow your email list and it’s not getting the number of leads you had hoped for, or you’re getting ready to create a brand-new free offer, it’s important to know the 5 vital elements needed for a high-converting freebie. This week on The Wellness Business Podcast we’re sharing the 5 elements you need to know, so you can attract more of your ideal clients and grow an email list full of quality leads. 

In this episode you’ll discover… 

  • The 4 ‘sweet-spot’ details to pay attention to when creating a new free offer that will make it a gotta-have it resource for your dream clients
  • The 5 vital elements that every high-converting freebie must have that makes it irresistible in any chosen format
  • Why designing a freebie that is niche-specific and highly valuable, (vs. general health information), is a game-changer for attracting the right people that are perfect for your paid program

One of the lessons we teach inside the Wellness Business Accelerator program is called – Create the Perfect Lead Magnet & Landing Page to Attract Your Ideal Clients. Many of our students think they have a pretty good freebie already, but quite often once they go through the lesson, they can make it even better by focusing on the ideal client they want to attract. That’s the beauty of having two experienced coaches working side-by-side with you through this program.

In fact, here’s what one coach had to say after completing this lesson and implementing the process we teach:

Supercharging Your List Building: 5 Vital Elements for High-Converting Freebies

Once we help coaches improve the positioning and messaging of their lead magnet, their email list quickly starts to grow with all of the right type of potential clients, which become warm leads.

We will be opening the doors to the Wellness Business Accelerator again this fall, and you can be among the first to be notified by joining the VIP waitlist here.

First, it’s important to point out that any free offer or lead magnet creation needs to have a sweet spot and that sweet spot starts at the intersection of these 3 specific details.

  • Grabbing the attention of the right people so they will immediately say yes this is for me, or no this is not for me.
  • Includes information that is perceived as valuable – meaning that it is promising a specific outcome so they know exactly what they are signing up for and what they can expect when they subscribe, rather than a general health topic that could be appropriate for almost anyone.
  • Gives next step action items to move the subscriber forward – so you don’t leave them hanging wondering what’s the next step to get more information or how they can work with you.

Creating a compelling lead magnet that addresses a specific problem or provides valuable information to your target audience is a big part of running a successful coaching business. You absolutely need a way of building an email list of ideal customer subscribers and when the people on your email list are a perfect fit for your program you’ll find it much easier to enroll them into your program whenever you are launching.

Your lead magnet could be in the form of an PDF guide, a cheat sheet, a checklist, a template, a video tutorial, a mini-course, or any other form of digital content. As long as it’s considered a helpful piece of content, no matter which format you choose, you’ll be building your email list with the right people.

Supercharging Your List Building:  5 Vital Elements for High-Converting Freebies
Here are the 5 vital elements that every high-converting freebie must have.

1. Compelling Title – This means that the title is niche specific and grabs the attention of your dream client. For example:

Not specific: 5 Foods Every Woman Over 50 Should Eat

That title is pretty generic. Other than it’s for women over 50 it really doesn’t give much information who it’s for or who it will help

Instead, if the title was: 5 Foods Women Over 50 Need to Eat Daily to Prevent Hot Flashes & Reduce Belly Bloat, you know exactly who it’s designed to help.

This title is a lot more specific and an easy “yes, that’s for me”, or “no, that’s not for me” scenario as you promote the freebie on social  media.

2. Bio at the end

We’ve noticed that coaches often want to make their bio the first thing their new subscriber sees as they go through the new resource they just got access to. Here’s the deal, your new subscriber is more interested in the content you promised them than they are your credentials and personal story. There is a time and place for that information which is at the very end of the freebie on the last page.

The bio should include a little information about you, 2-3 short paragraphs, along with a call to action and a headshot of you,. In this case the call to action could include a recommendation about how to implement what they’ve learned in the freebie as well as next steps to get to know you better, such as follow me on social, join my FB group, or visit my website for more great info.

3. Education/Information (but not too much) – Think of your freebie as a way to educate or inspire with practical solutions, actionable steps, or insights that they can implement to achieve their goals or overcome challenges, however, it’s important not to give so much information that they feel like they are good to go and don’t need to know anything else or the information feel overwhelming.

As you create your lead magnet, a good rule of thumb is to keep asking yourself this question about each piece of information you include, “Does my new subscriber really need to know this information to have success with this resource?”

A great example of this, and one we’ve seen many times, is that coaches want to give way too much background information and then it feels like a science lesson vs. helpful and informative. Your new subscriber wants the crib notes version or the shortcut to get results. Only share what they need to get a quick win vs. all the background info. They aren’t the coach, you are, and they don’t need all the details. 

4. Something easy to implement so they feel like they are making progress

This step is really important in the overall scope of your new subscriber feeling like this resource is valuable. Of course, they are going to want to take action or implement something to see if what you teach works so include a small step that they can take to get a small result. You’re not trying to fix the big problem with this one resource, rather giving them hope about what’s possible for them.

5. Next steps to work with you – discovery call or link to paid program

Some of your new subscribers will be satisfied with the information that they just received and take the slow approach to implementation. Then there will be other subscribers that are excited, inspired, and ready to take action so it’s up to you to be specific as to their next step as we mentioned before.

It’s perfectly reasonable to include a link to your paid program so they can check it out or better yet, give instructions about how to book a discovery call with you so you can have a personalized conversation with them. There will absolutely be people that want to discuss your program and your coaching services with you and will book a call with you immediately.

Save this post and refer back to it when you are ready to create your own irresistible free offer and let me know how it goes! 

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BEST OF: 5 Ways to Market Your Health Coaching Business

BEST OF: 5 Ways to Market Your Health Coaching Business

BEST OF: 5 Ways to Market Your Health Coaching Business

One of the top struggles we know most wellness business owners have is knowing how to market their business, so they can get a steady flow of new clients. Since this is such an important topic, we are bringing back an episode we did a few months ago that shares 5 simple but effective marketing strategies you can start using right now.

Marketing can be kept very simple, especially in the beginning as you’re testing things out and you’re feeling more confident about your niche and your skills as a coach. You don’t need a complicated 5-step sales funnel or any high-tech tools to be successful. You just need to make a plan that includes some foundational concepts and be consistent.  Just like everything else, you’re going to keep learning as you go, so be patient with yourself and realize that not everything you try is going to be home run, and it’s all part of the process to test and experiment.

Before we cover the 5 strategies, it goes without saying that you must first be clear on who your ideal client is – your niche, so your marketing and your messaging is reaching the right people. You want people to know right away if you are for them or not. You don’t need a build a huge audience, you just need to build an audience of people who want what YOU are offering. 

If you are still working on narrowing down your niche, be sure to check out episode 265 where we covered 3 Simple Steps to Validate Your Niche Marketing Message.

Let’s start with strategy #1 – Publish content on a regular basis.

Share content on social media and email that is related to your niche and how you help people. The most effective form of content is video because it helps people get to know you much quicker than just image posts.  Not all of your posts have to be video, but you want to include it as part of your strategy. Short form video such as Reels are good for reaching more people and allowing others to find you when you use trending music and hashtags. Pick 1-2 social media platforms and go all in rather than dabbling in a few and not being consistent. 

Other forms of content are good too such as blogs and podcasts. 

TIP #1: Focus on the forms of content you have time for right now and that you will enjoy the most.  The most important part of the success of your content is being consistent, so make a plan you can stick with on a regular basis – whatever that looks like for you. 

TIP #2 – Repurpose your content – you can use your blog content for part of your emails, social media posts, and vice versa.  One topic can be broken up in several ways to be used in multiple places in different formats.   

2. Have an opt-in on your website to collect email addresses.

Growing your email list will be one of the most important things you do for your business and it will also be a key indicator in the profitability of your business. When you’re feeling discouraged about your reach on social media and/or the algorithm changes again, you are still in control of your email list and no one can take that away from you.  Even if your email open rate is 20%, that is still much higher than your reach on social media.

We recommend you have your opt-in showing on your home page, and also use a pop-up opt-in if possible. A pop-up opt-in is where your free offer pops up after people are on your website for a certain amount of time. At a minimum, be sure to have your free offer on your home page towards the top, so visitors see it as soon as they land on your page.

If you don’t have a website yet, that’s okay. You can still promote your freebies on social media to grow your email list. You can use something like MailerLite where the free version includes email management for up to 1,000 subscribers as well as landing page templates for your freebies and sales pages. Having a website is not a must as you get started, so don’t let that hold you back.   

5 Ways to Market Your Health Coaching Business

3.  Email your subscribers weekly, if possible, so you stay top of mind.

You may know this is a good idea, but you might be wondering what your emails be about.  Topics, can be taken from your social media posts, and it can also come from questions you get from clients or prospects, any myths you want to bust or common misconceptions about your area of expertise are some ideas to consider. 

Most people will not be ready to work with you when they first get your freebie or follow up sequence, so this is why keeping top of mind is so important. If people opt in for your free offer and they don’t hear from you for 2-3 months, when they do get an email from you, they are likely to unsubscribe because they don’t remember who you are. 

4. Host a Facebook group or other online community.

One of my zones of genius and favorite topics to talk about is Facebook groups, and that’s because you get to build a community around your area of expertise. A Facebook group is different than a Facebook business page because your group is where people will gather, hang out and interact with other people – they aren’t doing that one business pages.  Your group is also where people get to know you, and you get to know them and find out more about what they want and where they struggle. This is important for your marketing and for ideas for your content – for your free content as well as ideas for your coaching programs and other offers.  Some ideas for this podcast come from questions in the groups that Karen and I host.  They sometimes also give us ideas for webinar topics and other offers.  When you can find out where your ideal clients struggle the most and you find out more about their Why – that’s priceless. 

If you want to host your own Facebook group but you aren’t sure how to run one, and how to get your ideal clients to join, my Group Accelerator mini course, walks you through everything you need to know, step by step.  You’ll learn how to grow a highly engaged group that turns members into clients, and the mini course is 50% off right now. 

5. Be a guest on podcasts

One of the best ways to grow your audience and your following is to leverage other people’s audiences, and podcasting is one great example of this. We did an entire episode all about how to get booked on podcasts, including how to research podcasts for possible guest opportunities. It was back on episode 89.  If you set a goal to get on one podcast a month, you would be amazed at the growth of your business in a few short months. Plus, it allows you to make new connections with the hosts and you never know what opportunities can come from that.  Sometimes, another podcast host will hear your interview and they may reach out to have you on their show too.

Before that imposter syndrome creeps up, just know that you don’t have to know everything to be a podcast guest – just focus on that topics you are most passionate about and feel the most comfortable talking about.  Of course, you want the topics to be related to your niche, but you can be newer at what you do and still be a great guest who can share helpful information.

Where can you begin?

Don’t let this overwhelm you; start with one thing for now and do that until you can add something else.  Maybe you aren’t able to outsource anything at the moment, and that’s okay too. When you are able to, hire a virtual assistant or social media manager who can take some of these tasks off your plate.  A virtual assistant can even help research potential podcasts for you to be on.

We can’t wait to hear where you are in the process and what strategies you can add or be more consistent with in the coming months. 

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