10 No-Pressure Ways to Keep Your Health Coaching Biz Buzzing This Summer

Michelle Leotta: Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex-corporate girl turned certified health coach. With over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice, I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom. I created a health coach power community over a decade ago. To make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

Hey there, health coaches, thanks for being with me today. If it feels like your business right now is stretched out in a hammock with a popsicle, I feel you. It's been very, very warm in New York, and there's that like summer slowdown feeling. It's totally normal, and taking a break is healthy for you, but ignoring your health coaching business all season.

That's gonna backfire in the fall. There are so many opportunities this summer to move your business forward in a way that feels light and fun and very much aligned with pool days and flip flops. So today, I'm gonna share 10 zero-pressure ideas to get visible, grow your mailing list, and even earn some income this summer.

How's that sound? A few of them involve delicious summer food because summer doesn't have to be all hot dogs and macaroni salad right now. By the way, this episode is for Ellen. Ellen asked for the best strategies to keep her audience engaged during the summer months when everyone is saying, I'm so busy.

So thanks for the idea, Ellen. I appreciate it. And if you have an idea for a future episode, something that you'd like me to talk about. It is so easy to reach me directly. You can do it via text message. Go to HealthCoachPower.com/text and maybe your idea will be featured next. So we're gonna dive into our 10 fun summer ideas for health coaches.

And if you're here with me live or watching the replay, I have my eye on the chat. So every time you hear an idea that you like, just type I like it in the comments or type your questions or other ideas for the summer as we go along. And like I said, I got my eye over here on the chat so I can see everyone who's joined us today.

And this can be a conversation. Oh, and Ellen is here. Ellen is here from 108-degree New Jersey. Yeah, we are really feeling it on the East Coast. Let's get into it. First, I want you to think about keeping your business thriving this summer by connecting and reconnecting with actual humans. I know this is a wild concept.

We think a lot about algorithms. Let's just think about people being people. So, idea number one is to use this time to reach out to past clients or wellness professionals that you know not to pitch, not to sell, just to say. Hey, how's your summer going? Or, I was thinking about you, or I saw your awesome vacation pictures.

Hope you had a great time, especially if it's a peer or a professional. You can also ask, Hey, what are you planning for the second half of the year? And ask how you can support them. I do this every year. You would be amazed at how just a very simple human-to-human interaction, not a businessy thing, just, Hey, I like you. That's really the message, and it's not trying to achieve anything in particular, but it can still open the door to future opportunities or just brighten someone's day or keep you top of mind. Do we like it? If you're here with me live, say I like it. If that's something that you know you can do fairly easily, and fit it in between your own summer activities.

Alright, number two is kind of in the same vein. I want you to think about starting conversations with local businesses. So, not necessarily wellness professionals. Um, and maybe these are people that you don't know already. That's okay. You can get to know them. Think. Coffee shops in your area, yoga studios, or that adorable little organic market where your ideal client is hanging out, or maybe thinking of hanging out. Swing by. Pick up a cup of coffee, take a class. If it's a yoga studio or Pilates studio, buy ahead of greens. You know, introduce yourself. Ask if they have any events coming up this summer. It's the same idea. Show interest in them. Ask how you can support. Them and don't ask for anything in return. You just wanna open up the conversation because it leads to collaborations down the road.

I mean, things that you can't even imagine right now, and you don't have to because it's summer. So just do the easy part, and you can let all the details fall into place, down the line, and they will. Your connections play a huge role in your success as a health coach. So now's a good time to create ones that don't already exist and nurture the ones that you have.
And Ellen says, I like it. All right. Who else can reach out to somebody this summer and just say, hi, I'm a human being. Reaching out to another human being. Oh my goodness. You could do it in person, too. It doesn't even have to be a digital thing. If we could just get off some screens this summer, that would be fantastic. All right. How about this for reconnecting? How about using the summer to get in touch with friends from health coaching school? Yeah, I mean, whether you graduated last month or, like me, 16 years ago, God, I bet you met some health coaches along the way. I know I did, and you bonded over your love of behavior change theory or organic gardening or whatever.

Health coaches make the best, best, best friends, and the best connections because we really get each other, and now it's a great time to reconnect. Say hi, ask what they're up to. Share ideas. Maybe get together for a virtual iced tea date. I just did this with one of my peers. She had emailed me and emailed her back and said, yes, yes, to a virtual coffee or tea date. You never know what might spark from there, and you can do it from the deck. Right. Here's an idea, by the way, if you're interested in making those connections, like forming those friendships, or you know, reconnecting with coaches that you had maybe been in touch with previously. I am hosting a free event this summer. It's just for health coaches. It is the world's first health coach cook-along. It's the perfect place to invite your health coach friends to meet up, do something together, or meet new friends, and I'm gonna tell you more about that in just a few minutes. Okay, Chris said, great suggestions so far. We are on a roll.

I promised you 10, and we just got through the first few. We got lots more to go, but what I want you to think about is how your community, your community's like little floaties on your arms when you're swimming with your business. You know, it keeps you connected, keeps connect your community, keeps you floating and moving forward so you're never just treading water by yourself.

Ellen said, wow, you read my mind. I just traveled to see an old health coach friend from five years ago who opened a snack shop. Oh gosh. That's amazing. Take it a step further. Go visit each other. That's really something. And for many of you, especially if you're in the East Coast or the West Coast, and we, there's tons of health coaches that are probably in your local area.

I know in the middle of the country it's not quite as concentrated, but still, it's very likely that you can't even meet up locally. Alright, let's talk about summer parties, 'cause we're doing this anyway, right? I know. I got a picnic to go to tomorrow night. We got barbecues, we got pool parties. So hear me out. This can be something that you do. To benefit your business, you know, and yourself, and your own social life all at the same time. There are super simple ways to create connection and buzz, and it doesn't have to feel like work. It can really feel fun. So, idea number four for you today. I. Host a summer recipe potluck or a block party.

I know right around me, they do a block party every year. They just put a flyer in everybody's mailbox. Now, there's no health bent to that. There's nothing related to business or coaching or anything like that. But what if you did a real-life event where you're asking folks to bring their favorite healthy summer dish and a copy of the recipe?

Now it's gonna be this really fun event where everyone's gonna walk away with something, because what you can do is collect the recipes and afterwards compile them into a cute little PDF. You can put your branding on it, and you could send it out to everybody who attended. It's easy, it's fun. You also can just print a simple flyer and put it in mailboxes, or you could do this collaboratively with a few other local businesses.

And that is automatically just the idea of it being like a healthy summer event. It's gonna open up conversations about healthy eating and what that means and what that means to each of the participants and why they care. And you won't have to feel pushy or salesy at all. These conversations will just happen naturally.

Now, it does require you to have some local connections, friends, a neighborhood full of people. But as you'll see in a second, parties can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. So if this is not you, don't worry about it. You can even hold parties online. What do we think about that idea? The potluck, the bring your own.

The recipe swap could be so fun, but let's say that we wanna take it online, for example. This one is for social media, and this one's really easy, meaning there's not a lot of organization with other people. You can just decide to run a themed Facebook or Instagram party week, and I'm putting that in air quotes because you're really the only person who's at the party, but you're inviting other people to watch. Right? All it means is that you would pick a fun theme like frozen treats or summer mocktails. Ooh, I did one last night, right? I just took watermelon and ice, and coconut milk. A little bit of lime. Blended that up. Ooh, is that good? So anyway, you show up live every day for five minutes with a quick tip, a recipe, a demo, right?

I could blend up that watermelon drink I was just telling you about. It's casual and it builds your confidence on video, which is an important skill, and it gives people a reason to tune in again and again. So instead of saying, oh, here's one random summer mocktail, you can say, Hey, all week I'm doing a healthy, happy hour. I'm gonna do a different summer mocktail each day. So tune in tomorrow and dangle the carrot for what you're gonna be showing them tomorrow. That's gonna get them back and engaging with you, and again, build up your confidence on camera. Now, idea six, this one can be done virtually as a list builder. It can also be done as a way to earn income.

You can host a summer cook-along party, and yeah, I'm hosting one for you free. As I mentioned earlier, thanks. Since it's summer, it's gonna be more about grilling and no-cook meals, salads, and whatnot. And it's a way to bring people together, no matter where they live, to cook together, and that's how we bond.

Right in the kitchen, people just naturally congregate around food talk while they're eating, while they're chopping, right? This is what we do. So I think a cook-along is like a summer sweet spot between nurturing and partying and having fun and marketing in a really smart way, and it works. I used to run these all the time in my own practice, and it was really, really popular.

Just a little tiny program that gets people preparing and eating real food. Amen to that. So I have a fun one planned for you, for all the health coaches in my community, so that you can experience it. You can see how this type of mini program actually works and what it feels like to be a participant. And it's for free. Come see how it's done, and then you can turn around and offer it to your own audience. So remember to sign up for that. Here's the URL, you wanna go to HealthCoachPower.com/cook and we'll cook together. Francine saying, what a lovely idea. Chris is asking. What platform do you use? Zoom.

Yeah. If you're gonna do some type of cooking, if like, let's say you were gonna take that idea to do something on social media, you'd be doing a demo of a watermelon cooler, which I highly recommend you try. Um, you could do it over Zoom and from there, stream into Facebook. That might be more complicated than it needs to be.

You could just stream directly through Instagram Live or Facebook Live or something like that. Um, or of course you could record it. You don't have to do it live. You could record it in advance and then upload it to, you know, one of these platforms. Whatever feels most comfortable for you. The point is that any kind of party, like that's what people want to do.
They don't wanna like learn about whole grains this summer. That's really pretty boring sounding parties. They're great because they create buzz. They have this energy for your business. They're not too demanding people's energy, and they're not too serious for this time of yea,r where people do just wanna kick back and throw on the flip flops, Ellen says, for coaches with that clean life.

They have great mocktail recipes that can be exported easily into A PDF. Very professional looking. Yes. And if anybody wants information about that clean life, it's a platform that lets you pull together any kind of recipe and create, uh, you know, suggested meal plans, recipe books of all kinds. You can go to health coach power.com/tcl info.

All right. Now let's talk about visibility. We wanna make it easy breezy though, right? Because this is summertime stuff. These next ideas are about attracting attention and growing your email list without feeling like you're in full-on sales mode. Not doing that in the summertime. Let's keep it fun. So. We do these all year long.

You can always create a freebie, something that people are gonna be able to download in exchange for an email address. Why don't you create a freebie that has something to do with your summer favorites? So if you have a few go-to summer recipes, you could put them together in a mini-ebook. Or if you are someone who loves strolling the farmer's market every Saturday, a lot of people are intimidated by the farmer's market.

You could create. Some sort of quick guide, like what to look for, what questions to ask, what to buy, how to use seasonal produce, you know, maybe a recipe or two. I know these things probably feel second nature to you, but. To our audience, to your ideal client. It can be this big aha moment. Like they never realize that just because you go to a farmer's market doesn't mean that everything is organic or whatever, you know, whatever you have to say about it.

They may not have thought about that before, and they also may be stuck in a summertime mode that's like. Spear and ice cream and feeling bloated, and this is gonna be like, ah, there's a better way to enjoy my summer. So think about freebies designed around the season, or it could be a fun series of emails that you're sending out.

It doesn't have to be like a downloadable PDF, right? So think about different formats. Maybe it's. What's in my beach cooler? Like, what do you bring when you're headed to the beach for the day or for the week, or non-toxic summer skincare ideas? Right. In either of those types of guides, you can add affiliate links to your favorite snacks, your favorite sunblock brands.

Boom. You've got a freebie that's useful right now, relevant right now. With those affiliate links, you can even earn some income, and super easy to share. Like it's not a whole big lift, you know, for you to put some event together, you know, you could just package this up into a freebie, deliver it automatically.

Just make sure, like I mentioned a minute ago, you wanna offer something. First of all, make it super valuable and offer it for free in exchange for an email address. Don't just give it out for free. It's always in exchange for an email address because that's how you're gonna build your mailing list. And Ellen says she likes that freebies. Freebies all day long. You can do those every season, by the way, not just in the summer, because I know, like when you know, we're talking about what are you bringing to the beach or like how are you taking care of your skin this summer? I like to remind people that a wide-brimmed hat. Creates a natural barrier to the sun, so you don't necessarily have to be slathering stuff on your skin, et cetera.
I know you have healthy stuff like this going on in your life, and if you're like me, you know you're very particular about the sunblock or like you're making your own homemade popsicles using real fruit. Whatever it is, package it up. Offered as freebie. And finally, let's talk about tools and technology.

I know some of you get excited about this. Some of you are like la, la, la, la, la. I don't wanna talk about tools and technology, but again, let's just keep it low pressure. I think there's some nice opportunities in the summer, like maybe it's time. To try out some new technology or equipment. I just did this recently with a new teleprompter and I wouldn't have wanted to do that in the middle of like a big launch in the fall or when I have client sessions back to back to back on my calendar.

So summer was a good time to give it a go. But maybe you've been thinking about a better microphone or a ring light or a new scheduling tool, or maybe you're gonna try out that clean life because you wanna see what you can do with recipe books and meal plans. Test it out now while things are a little bit slower in your business, right?

It's a good time to mess around with something new. And idea number 10, and I think we should all do this because why not? Take some new photos for your business. Yeah, you don't need a professional photographer. I'm guilty of waiting until I book the photo shoot. I forget to do this on purpose, so this is a reminder to you as well as to myself: you do not need a professional photographer or a professional photography studio.

This is great when the warm weather hits, because most of the year, where I live in New York, I don't wanna go outside. You know, it's freezing all winter. I'm not taking pictures in a big winter coat, but now. Put on a cute sundress, grab a friend, grab your phone. You wanna get out there during golden hour.

That's that hour right before the sun goes down, and the light is so flattering. It's just like. The sun's gift to your skin to take your photos during that time, and have your friend, or you can even use a tripod and do this yourself. Snap a few updated shots for your website for social media. Feels really good to freshen up your brand, and people love and need to see your face.

That helps them get to know you and like you, and trust you over time. And here's a tip. Take the sunglasses off, human beings. You know, we are designed to look other people in the eye, see their smiles, see their eyeballs. Take the glasses off your face. And flash a nice grin at that camera. That's the kind of photos that you need.

Chrissy says, I'm offering a summer series at my workshops focused all on moments that matter, beginning with how we want our summer vibe to be, followed by different moment-themed topics. I love summer. Hey, that's awesome, Chrissy. What, Chrissy, where are you holding these? She says my summer series.

Focus on, but I don't know if they're online or in their, a particular place. I'm just curious. I mean, we always think, oh, no one's around in the summer, but that's not true. People go on vacation for one week, two weeks, I don't know, maybe three weeks, but there's all the other weeks of summer that they're around and their lives tend to be a different schedule than the rest of the year.

So they may never be able to participate in anything in the fall, or you know, when like maybe their work is more busy, and then in the summer you might actually catch them. It's vice versa for other [00:20:30] people. But don't get in your head that no one's gonna come to anything, 'cause it's just not true. It's just a variation on everybody's schedule in the summertime, all the ideas we talked about today, you know, they may feel like no big deal, like, whoop to do Michelle.

I'm gonna go outside and take a picture of myself at golden hour. You know, thanks. But they really can boost your confidence, and they can polish your presence big time. So just think of it as summer self-care for your business. There you have it. 10 fun, low-pressure ways to keep your business afloat this summer without feeling like you're missing out on all the sunshine in sangria and getting stuck behind your computer screen.

And if you're thinking. This all sounds great, Michelle, but what steps do I need to take to do that online party, or my brain's on summer mode and I need a plan to follow? I got you. That's exactly why I created our Health Coach Cook along. It's happening this July, and it's a simple way to do just about everything we talked about today, like kind of dip your toe into all of it, staying visible, building your list, making connections with people you wanna go to, HealthCoachPower.com/cook. Grab your free spot. We're gonna have fun together. We're gonna be cooking together and not cooking together because of course, it is the summer. Enjoy the rest of the warm weather months, you guys. I'll be back next week, and remember, as always, your confidence grows in proportion to the action that you take. We'll see you soon.

Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.