#106: Marketing 101: “What’s In It For Me?”

Well, hello there, health coaches. How are you doing today? Listen, summer is officially here. Awesome. I'm so excited about it. My boys and I have been getting out every day, you know, finding some parks that are open, things like that. So I hope that you're taking care of yourself too and taking advantage of some nicer weather, but here's the really good news about summer being upon us. Wait for it. I know this virus has not given us a lot of good things. However, listen to me this year, summer's going to be a little bit different for health coaches and in a very good way. So normally, typically it's not a good time for finding clients during the summer, right? Like if you've been in the field for awhile, you've probably noticed this pattern because people go away on vacation, right? People have plans in the summer.

They want to barbecue. They want to eat ice cream, whatever. And so they're not usually willing or wanting to commit to working with a coach during that time. However, I mean, I know parts of the country are starting to open up. Travel's still not going to be what it typically is. Right. And I'm in New York and it feels like we are never going to open and our kids definitely won't be in camp. So it may actually be a phenomenal time for health coaches because it's not a normal summer and people definitely need our support right now. So when you may normally be taking a bit of a break or what I usually see every summer is health coach kind of freaking out. Cause they're like, nobody's paying any attention. Yeah. Well this summer they are. So there's a great opportunity to be marketing yourself. And when it comes to that marketing yourself, that is today.

I want to talk about the what's in it for me principle, you're going to be able to utilize this, whether you're pitching a corporation or you're writing emails to your list, or really any kind of marketing communications, we always, and I'm saying we meaning health coaches and people in the wellness industry. We always get this backwards and I'm going to share with you how you can turn that around. Now, if you are here with me live and I'm excited for those of you that are, please say hello in the comments to say, Hey and ask any questions that you have as it relates to this topic or anything that's going on in your health coaching business right now. I'm always, always happy to answer your questions on the spot. Now, before we go to our first question of the day, I want to share a relevant resource with you.

This is something that I just found yesterday. It's from Chrissy King. She's a fitness coach. She's a person of color and she's running some live webinars coming up called anti-racism for wellness professionals. How to show up better. This is not a topic that I would ever pretend to be an expert on. So I'm really excited to have found this. I think we should look to women in the field like Chrissy. So I'm going to sign up and learn from her. I want to encourage you to do the same and you can get details on her Instagram page, which is I am Chrissy King. I am C H, sorry. I'm going to say that again. I am C H R I S S Y King. Check it out.

Now, I also want to think satisfied user four, five, three, to whoever you are for writing this five-star review on iTunes, the title was positive, affirming energy.

Yes, she wrote. Or he wrote, I don't know who wrote it. Michelle is amazing. And her energy and personality really come through in her podcasts. Her wealth of knowledge in the health coach industry is exemplary and she presents in a way that inspires and makes me want to be a better person and share that energy and positivity with my clients. Once you view one of her podcasts, you'll be hooked and inspired. Awesome. Thank you so much for that review satisfied user, and please send your mailing address to support@healthcoachpower.com and just reference episode number 106. We have a little gift for you. And for those of you who are listening, who have not yet left a review, could you do me that little favor because your reviews help me reach more health coaches. And that allows me to continue producing free content for you on a weekly basis.

So thank you in advance for that. Now we are going to get into today's topic. Here it is. This is our first question from Jodi and Jodi says, wait before I read this from Jody, I want to say hi to Samantha. Who's here and had a Norma who say, she says she is new to this forum. Hi, happy to have you here. Here's our first question from Jody. Jody says I finally have the opportunity to pitch a proposal to my current employer for my health coaching services this week. I've coached outside this full time job, but I've never had to pitch a proposal to any employers before my boss said to outline what my dream position would look like. And I also want to include some testimonials, any other suggestions from anyone who has done this before? Yeah. I have a suggestion for you Jody, and have a suggestion for all of you, regardless of what you're writing and for whom or whatever the particulars are.

Here's the, here's the, the linchpin of this whole thing. Cause Jody could write something like that. She could say you know, I want to offer, I'm just going to make this up, but I want to offer one on one coaching. I want to offer group coaching. I want to offer cooking classes and lunch and learns and yoga. And I here's testimonials about me. And here are some of the clients that I've worked with in the past and case studies about what I've done with them and what you really want to do, Jody. Not that you shouldn't have any of that, but what you really want to frame this all around is the what's in it for me idea. Whoever's going to be reading this document again. This goes for any email, you send anything you are ever writing or creating as a marketing effort, you have to think about the person on the receiving end.

Their brain... Some subconscious part of their brain. It's not that they're bad people. It's not that they're selfish or don't care about anybody but themselves, but their brains going, what's in it for me. What's in it for me like you right now, you're listening to this podcast. Not because you think like, I don't know. I'm so amazing. Or you just really like how my hair looks today or something like that. Although it does look pretty good, doesn't it? But, but you're listening to this podcast because you're like, what's in it for me. What can I learn today? That's going to help me, Michelle. Right? That's why you're here. And that's why someone's going to be reading whatever you write. So Jody, you want to tell your employer what's in it for them. Are they going to be able to increase revenue somehow? Are they going to be able to have more of their employees showing up to work you know, on time taking fewer sick days, that sort of thing?

And I don't know where you work and I don't know the particulars, but however you frame it, you want to say what's in it for them. Why they are going to benefit from this arrangement. You don't want to tell them how you're going to benefit. I mean, you might allude to that or it may be obvious, but it's really about how they are going to do better, how they are going to solve their problems by hiring you. And if you can frame it that way, it's going to land a lot better with them than if you just come out of the gate going Mimi, Mimi, Mimi, Mimi, did we mention me yet? So that is the big, big difference. I'm actually putting together a pitch proposal right now for something inside my business. And that is exactly the way we're framing it. We're not starting off with about Michelle.

We're starting off with, about you, the reader, about your organization, about what we've learned about your needs, about your problems cut to here's what I provide cut to. Here's how it will solve your problem. And then about me a little about me, let's talk more, right? So it's kind of like the messaging wants to go in that order, whether you're putting together a pitch proposal, or even if you're writing something very simple, you just want to start with here's how you can benefit. So I hope that that will help you Jody, being the hope. It will save you from spending a lot of time on like all of the nitty gritty particulars that probably do not belong in what you are providing your employer at this time. Like you don't have to write things like you know, I want to work nine to two Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

I mean, that might be a detail that comes later, but that's not, what's going to sell it. That's not going to have your employer going. Yup. We have to do this 100%. Sounds good. What do you want me to pay you? Anything you want? Hmm. Leave that kind of stuff out. Leave you out of it, make it all about your employer. And if you're going to do any case studies, you might even consider case studies. I'm just, again, I'm just making this up, but like case studies of problems that they have encountered in the past and how, if you were working for them, you would help solve those problems. Or you could have helped solve those problems or you've solved the problem like that in the past. Right? So, use things that they will really relate to from their perspective

Kristen saying, hello, hello, Kristin. Sam saying, I feel like immune boosting would be popular, but it doesn't fit into my target market.

Don't want to miss the boat. Okay. So, so this is a good, that's kind of a good thing to talk about when you're, so when someone's thinking, like what's in it, for me, part of that is meeting people where they are. So part of that is of course, talking to people about the big problems that they're having right now. And many of us I've seen pretty much every single health coach in this group, myself included at one point or another, since the virus hit jump on this idea of immune boosting. And I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but you want to approach it. If you approach it, you want to approach it with this idea of what's in it. For me, me being the person in your target market. So, if it's just kind of the same old, same old, you know, get enough sleep, eat your vegetables, take vitamin C.

You know, that's going to feel like packing peanuts, but if you can provide something of value, if you truly have something unique to say, as it applies to the market that you're trying to bring into your world, then that could be a good thing to put out there. Because if right now they are thinking, how do I protect myself from this virus? When I have an autoimmune disease and you work with women who have autoimmune disease, like that could be a match. If you work with women who have small children and they are worried about their kids and going back to school and I don't know, whatever you want it to be both, not either, or you don't want to talk about immune health or talk about problems that your target market has. You want to talk about how those two things go together, if that makes sense and if it's relevant.

RK is asking about this idea of what's in it. For me, she says is that's the, is it the same if I'm making a flyer to send to doctors in order to get referrals? Yes, yes, yes. Anybody, if you're looking for a referral, let's say you're trying to get referrals for me. I don't know why that would be the case, but let's, let's just pretend I get all kinds of inquiries from all kinds of people all the time and the ones that are like, hi, like this is the service that I offered and that great. And would you be willing to unlike delete, ah, time for that? You know what I mean? And most people don't, but if you can lead with something like you know, your, your, like, whatever percentage of your patients are not healing or whatever percent of your patients are still suffering with such and such, you know, you are still having this problem.

You're not getting results. I've even, and I don't know if this is true in your situation, but I have heard of doctors and certain insurance situations, they only get paid if their patient sees results or their healing. I I'm not, I don't, I don't work in this world, the insurance world, but I have heard of this happening in which case it would be a really nice idea to step in and be like, I can help you get those results for your patients so that you get paid, right? So however you have to frame it. So that what's in it for me is like the first thing that a person understands when they read your communication, you have a much greater likelihood of them reading the rest of your note and taking any action on it whatsoever. An example of that would be when Natalie approached me about practice better, this is kind of a tangent, but you'll see how it goes together.

And just a second. So practice better is a platform that many of us use to manage our client relationships scheduling, accepting payments, writing notes, protocols, things like that. We all, we do it all within this platform called practice better. And I first, I had never heard of it before. And Natalie had emailed me, Natalie is the owner. And she emailed me and said, she didn't say hi. I have a great platform for health coaches to manage their client relationships. I would have deleted it within like a millisecond. Instead she said, I've noticed inside your group, which is amazing by the way, your health coach power community group, that a lot of your members are asking about scheduling, billing, this, that, and the other thing. And you provide a lot of great resources inside that group. If you would like, I could walk you through this platform that we've created, that solves all of these problems for health coaches.

And, you know, if you like it, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I forget exactly how the whole thing went. But the point was, she started with this problem, which is like, yeah, I was always seeing health coaches ask these questions and I didn't have a really great answer. How do you accept a credit card over the phone? Kind of a pain in the neck. It was, it was always my answer, you know? Or how do you how do you set up, you know, custom payment plans? Ah, well, I'm kind of a pain in the neck. Like I didn't really have a good answer. So she spoke to that. She spoke to this issue that I wanted to solve, not only for myself, but for all of you guys. And I was like, yeah, definitely. I want to hear more about that. So, it doesn't a real-life example.

I hope that's helpful. Do you have any other questions though, about how this might work in your own business? Just pop them in the chat. And I will answer those in just a second, but I do want to make some time for a few other questions that I plucked out of our group. Like I do every week. I kind of scan through you guys know. I don't have time to answer every question from all 9,000 plus of you, but I go through and I pick the ones that I think are most relevant to the most people. And they're the ones that end up in the show. And of course, if you're here live, I try to answer yours as well. So here's a question that came from Samantha. She said, hoping I can pick your brains and get some input. I'm a new coach trying to get my business off the ground.

And I'm somewhat torn between the direction to take. I have two pretty strong pulls. Number one, weight loss mindset, basically combining intuitive eating and cognitive thought work strategies to change your thinking in regards to food, your body and your life, or number two vegan transition, helping primarily with food, but also the lifestyle challenges, social challenges, et cetera. She says, I have thought a lot about how to combine the two, but can't really get there. And I've reserved reservations about both from a singular perspective, mostly related to the market for either of them, I'm concerned. I won't be able to reach enough of women who want to use thought work to manage their weight, or want to transition to veganism so badly that they hire a coach to help. So Samantha's asking us, what do we think? Which way should she go? And I see stuff like this a lot.

I'll see coaches being like, I really want to focus on gut health or let's see, what's another big one. I think I get that one a lot, like about that, like healthy mindset or getting out of a weight loss, mine, something like that, weight loss mindset. And what I want to say about all these things is what you are describing are Samantha is describing with her. I'm helping somebody with their mindset and also helping transition to a vegan diet. Both of these would be how you help someone achieve their ultimate goal. I'm going to say that again. If you were helping someone with their mindset and how they think about their weight, their ultimate goal is their weight. Nobody just wants to change their mindset, right? They either want to change their actual weight or they want to change their body in some way, or they want to change their, I guess our goal in some way, right?

Like it's not just like, Oh, I just want a healthier mindset for the sake of it. And that's what I'm going to spend money on. Okay. Occasionally that might be the case, but by and large people are spending money on weight loss products and weight initiatives because they need to lose wait. Right? So if you're working with them and who need to lose weight and they want to lose weight, you have to help them solve the problem of losing weight, how you do it. Okay. You might do that by helping them with their mindset. Absolutely. You might help them do it by transitioning to a vegan diet. Sure. I'm not here to tell you what's right or what's wrong about how you do it. You might do it through Reiki. You might do it through a paleo diet. You might do it through exercise.

You may do it through a combination of some of these different things. But the point is, and sorry, my phone just dinged. The point is that you want to identify who you are helping first and what big problem. This person desperately wants to solve their big problem that they are willing to pay for. So you said it right here, you said, I don't know if somebody would, how would I pay for me to them transition to a vegan lifestyle? True. They probably won't. I don't really see a lot of that. They can buy a book, you know, they can practice. It's not like a big problem. Oh my God, I have to be vegan. Most people do not have to do not have to be perfectly vegan tomorrow. Right? Like they can sort of figure it out over time. It's not like a pressing issue, but if they have some sort of condition, maybe they were recently diagnosed with heart disease.

Maybe it's been recommended to them like that. They go on a vegan diet for some larger reason. That's the big problem that they want to solve. You can help them solve it by your, how is helping them transition to a vegan diet. So I suggest, and I suggest to Samantha and I'm suggesting to all of you that you might want to rethink the way about rethink the way that you consider your niche. It's not about what you're interested in. It's about who you help and the big problem that they want to pay to solve. That is big enough problem. They want to pay to solve it. And I go into this in depth with all of my healthy profit university students. Because even once you have identified these things, you then need to test them. Is it a viable market?

Is this truly something that this type of person is paying money to try and solve? Is it a big enough problem? Right? Do I have access to these people? We have to test, test, test before you can land on something. That's going to provide you with a sustainable business model. So for starters, for all of you, I just want to get you on this path. I do have a free before you, if you go to healthcoachpower.com/targetmarket, I talk more about this. I will lead you through the exercise so that you can come up with a very succinct way of describing who you help and what big problem you help them solve. Cool. I'm going to put a link for that in the show notes, and I'm going to drop it in the comments right here. Hope that's helpful for you guys. Okay.

Kristen's got a question for me here in the comments. She said, when trying to pitch doctors or other complimentary wellness providers, do you recommend, we ask them to contact us if they're interested, I'd like to be more proactive, but I don't want to seem pushy such as I will follow up with you on Monday at 9:00 AM to check in and see if you have any questions about potentially working together. Well, I don't think following up is a bad thing. Like I said, I get pitched a lot of different things all the time from different people. It usually starts with an email, a very simple one. Like just, you want to ask for a yes. Like, are you even open to this? Is, is this even remotely interesting to you? Are you having this problem? And would you like to solve it? Like if so, you know, I can hook you up with more information or if so, I can tell you more.

Right. So that's the kind of email that I will write back to you. I can think of one. I recently did. I was being asked to join as a partner for something. And I said, yeah, sure. Cause you know, you're going real fast through your email and it's like, yeah, sure. Send me some more info. So that's like a green light to go. Then they send more info. That's when you might send some sort of document or a video or something like this. So in this case, you know, upon watching the video, I was like, yeah, no, this isn't for me. You know, but I would, Kristin, I would ask for a green light before laying it on thick. And I would certainly follow up if you don't hear back after your initial outreach with just the same, same message. Hey, hadn't heard from you.

I know you're busy. If you're interested in such and such, just give me a shout. Norma says I'm working to find my focus as a coach on 57 and was able to eliminate menopausal symptoms. When my primary doctor recommended the keto diet, he recommended the same for my husband to get diabetes under control. I would like my focus of practice to be menopausal women and diabetes patients. However, I've noticed that in conversation with strangers, the mention of Keto and genders, a feeling of either love or hate and not in between any thoughts. Yes. Stop talking about Keto. Keto is your, how nobody cares. All they care about is can you help me solve my problem? And you may even surprise yourself as a coach. Sometimes you really might like for years, I'm helping women, you know, eat clean and take all the junk out of their diet.

And like, that was always kind of like what I thought my purpose was. And as I continued to work with women and really found my voice with women, you cannot believe how often I say to my clients these days. Oh, for God's sake, just get a pizza. Because what I learn now in 11 years of practice is that the women that I work with tend to be the women that stress out so much about making the right choice and being perfect. That is impacting their health in a bigger way than if they ordered a pizza tonight. And so a lot of my work is getting women to loosen up around food. Ironic. Right? So let go of your dog mama, because it's not useful. It's really can be counterproductive. Try to let go of your dogma. And if you can't let go of it, just kind of put it in your back pocket.

Like, you know, you want to talk about keto, but shhh, nobody wants to hear it. They really don't. They just want to hear, I can help relieve your symptoms. That's all. And I will say to you, Norma, definitely pick up that freebie, that I've just dropped into the comments, health coach, power.com/target market, because you are going to need to decide whether you're focusing on diabetes or menopause. You can't do everything. You can do anything you want. What does that thing? You can do everything, but you can only do one thing at a time. Something like that. Anyway, you'll benefit by narrowing in on one or the other. Okay. Awesome sauce. Let's do one more question. You guys. And this one comes from Jade. Jade said I'm new to taking clients and I have a couple of questions first. What is the process that you go through with your clients on filling out a food journal?

I was thinking that I wanted clients to fill out a diary for the week before our first session. So I could get a good feeling for their eating patterns. Is this what everybody else does? Or do you wait until you've met with them and can explain it more so you don't overwhelm them and next, does anybody have a good template? Because I made one in Google sheets that I thought was good, but I overwhelmed my friend that I asked to fill it out. Good questions, Dave. So I'll tell you what I do. And I also have a resource for you and for anybody else in this boat, I have my clients complete a three day food diary and no more again, kind of depends on who you're working with. I find that my women have done a lot of dieting in the past and can sometimes be triggered by food diaries.

So I purposely keep it pretty chill. I'm not asking anybody to measure anything for example, just three days. And I love it because exactly what you said, it helps you get a feel for their eating patterns and not only their eating patterns, but like their living patterns. So I always ask about like the times of their meals and the time that they wake up and the time that they go to bed, because sometimes weird things will emerge. I'm like, Oh, that's strange. Like, why are you waking up at four 30 in the morning? Oh, because that's the only time you have to yourself, your entire day between four 30 and five 30 when your children wake up. And then so you're only getting how many hours of sleep. And sometimes it opens up questions that actually have nothing to do with food at all. So, I love this as a way to… I sort of describe it as stepping into my client's shoes and just sort of living their life for a couple of days. It helps me really understand the flow of their life in addition to their food intake.

So, love that we definitely don't want to overwhelm our clients. So it's important to make this easy for them. And I do have a template that you can use. You can just use it. You don't have to credit me or anything. It's at health coach power.com/diary. And I'll drop that into the show notes as well, because I want you guys to have the resources that you need. I have found it. I really have found having this food diary incredibly useful. So feel free to pick that up. What else do I want to say about this? I guess the only thing that I wanted to say about this is, again, you will find what works well for you and the clients that you work with.

My clients love, always loves spreadsheets because like, they tend to be very like type a perfectionist women who love to do like a color coded spreadsheet. So if that's the case, you know, you may find that spreadsheet works great. I have worked with other clients who are not that kind of woman at all. And they would really get frustrated if I, you know, asked for something formal like that. They just wanted to like do some chicken, scratch on a piece of paper and then take a picture of it and send it to me. So if that works for your clients, they can do it that way as well. I did mention practice better earlier, just coincidentally. I do use practice better for my food diary. So when somebody signs up for a package with me, they automatically get sent two things. One is the intake questionnaire and the other is a food diary.

It just, as soon as the payment processes, those two things get sent automatically. I don't have to do it at all. And then they completed online and then boom, it gets sent to me. And that has been the best way I have found to get paperwork of any kind done is to have it automated and have it all in an online system. That's really easy and doesn't require people like printing anything out. So if you guys want to check out practice better, you know what? We do have a discount for all members of our group. And I'm going to find that for you guys right now, because I want to make sure you have it. No, this episode is not sponsored by practice better. It's just like one of these things that once I learned about it, I'm like, how did I ever function as a health coach without this tool?

And I did for many, many years, you guys I've only had practiced better in like what the past, like three years or so, maybe four. And before that everything was on paper, everything was manual. I was scheduling people going like this. Hi, here are three times that I could meet next week. Do any of these work for you? And then they would say no. And then I have to repeat that process again and again, until we landed on a day in time, and then I'll tell you what, how, what actually made me take the leap and, you know, decide to spend money on a software like this, which by the way, is not that expensive was when I continuously was messing up time zones. Isn't that crazy? Cause I was doing everything on a paper calendar and I would write down the time I would write it down and Eastern time they would be mountain time and I messed it up too many times to count.

And finally, I was like the heck with this. I need this to be a tool that automatically tells the time zone change for me. I think that was just like the straw that broke the camel's back. And I'm so glad I started using this tool. Okay. Here it is. Okay. You can save 30% on your first three months of practice better. You want to go to healthcoachpower.com/practice. And for the discount you want to use code H C power 30. That's it? HC like health coach H C power and the number 30. Oh, good stuff. See, I just pulled that right up for you guys. Cause I thought you might need it.

That's it for this week, everybody. Thank you so much for being here. Keep asking great questions and I'll be back next week, answering them. See you then.