#125: Holiday Ideas For Your Health Coaching Business

Well, hello there, health coaches! We are moving into a special time of year, but it can be a little bit challenging in our industry. So I want to help you get ahead of that today. Talk about the holidays. How can you make the most of November and basically all of November and December, we're talking here people. I'm going to share some ideas today so that you don't lose two months of the whole year. If you're with me live, tell me in the chat area, what are you thinking of doing with the next two months of the year? How are you going to make the most of things before we get into today's topic? I do want to remind you that we have a free workshop. It's coming up on November 10th. That's all about how to earn with workshops for corporate clients and your community.

And you can sign up for that@healthcoachpower.com/createworkshop. Talk about doing something in the next two months. This would be a great thing to get going on so that when January comes around, you might have some workshops already set up with different corporations and groups in your community. So again, if you want to sign up for that, you can join us for free on November 10th at health coach power.com/create workshop. So today's topic all about the holidays was inspired by a question that came from Kate. So thank you, Kate, for bringing up this topic. It hadn't even been on my radar, but boom, you put it down in our Facebook group and I'm like, yes, we need to talk about this. So here's what Kate asked. She said, I want to offer holiday gift cards and gift certificates for private health coaching. Does anyone have advice on how to make them or promote them?

And Kate, I know you got some feedback inside the Facebook group. I just wanted to say here that in my experience, gift certificates for health coaching don't work out very well because ultimately it's like your signing somebody up for weight Watchers, or you're signing somebody up, you know, giving a gift certificate for a therapist or for a life coach or, you know, it kind of has a somewhat negative connotation here. I think you need this. And the other thing that can be a little off about gift certificates and gifting health coaching, even though like to be clear, it is the most amazing loving gift that someone can give yet. The way it is perceived as either. Like, I think there's something wrong with you. I would have noticed is that if somebody does not make the investment themselves and make the decision themselves, they tend to not be as invested.

Like they're just not as committed to it. And probably won't end up being a very good client, which is sort of a disservice to them as well as to you, because if they came to you on their own and bought the same exact package, things would probably go a lot more smoothly and they'd get better results. So I'm not going to tell you don't do it. I just want to let you know that there are some potential pitfalls offering gift certificates for your services. Now, that being said, there are lots of other ways that you can take advantage of the holiday season so that your business is growing so that you are contributing to the world in a positive way and just bringing some good cheer all around. So today I want to talk about that. I think you guys, first of all, this holiday season is going to be different than usual.

So maybe even what I just told you about gifts, gift certificates, maybe even that won't apply. But typically what I see year in and year out is that from about mid November, until the end of the year, nothing, nothing for health coaches. Because what are people thinking about? Their Thanksgiving feasts, their Christmas, shopping, the baking, the gift, wrapping the traveling, you know, and a lot of that is obviously not based around necessarily healthy choices. It's the time of year where people go, Oh, well, I'm going to drink the eggnog or whatever. And so when we come in with a message about health and making healthy choices, a lot of times we're just going to go, you know, off to the side, they're not going to listen. They might be open to the message better in January. That's a typical year, 2020 though, who knows? What I can tell you already is that guaranteed, a lot of people are not going to be traveling the way that they normally would.

So if you were ever going to try to do something different, do something to engage with your audience through the holidays. This might be the year. So let's talk about how to do that. First of all, I still think that between mid November and Christmas, that's probably not going to be the time that anybody wants to sign on as a new paying client. So if you were going to go out there with some sort of launched, you going to hold a webinar, or you're going to pitch your services in some big way, I wouldn't hold it during that time period, I would hold off. But that doesn't mean you can't be doing other things. So for example, typically during the holiday time of year is when I focus more on list building activities. Now, if you pay attention, I talk about doing this year-round, of course, but during the holidays, will somebody sign up and give a lot of money and dedicate themselves to changing their diet and lifestyle?

Maybe not, but will they give an email address in exchange for some healthier holiday recipes you betcha. So there was all kinds of opportunities to give people things that they very well might be looking forward to and participate with and then try those recipes and think that you're awesome. Even though it's the holiday time of year for free in exchange for an email address. So think about freebies that you may be able to offer. So recipes, that is a good one, right there. Another thing that comes to mind is we are kind of coming to the end of 2020, and while who knows what's going on quarantine and COVID, I'm not here to tell you that it's over, but a lot of people have been looking forward to this year being over, right? Cause it's been one heck of a year. Maybe you can build on that idea, something about creating your vision for the net for the new year out with the old, in, with the new, that message.

While people say it every year, I don't think has ever been more relevant than right now. So run with that. Maybe you're a coach that does stuff a little bit more in the realm of a life coaching primary foods, you know, pick up on that angle. It's the end of the year, it's time to start planning for next year. What do you want to create? What do you want to build? Like let's leave 2020 in the dust. There's something free that you could offer around that. That could be amazing to think about holding a webinar. Think about holding a five day challenge. Think about something free that people can download. Even just doing Facebook lives or Instagram lives. These are all topics that are going to be very relevant this time of year.

What else? If you Want to give a gift to your audience, that would also make a lot of sense this time of year and just ask them, it's a wonderful time of year to just be of service. Plus you get the side benefit of some market research. So ask your audience on social media, ask your mailing list. What do you need? What do you want more of? How can I help you and see what they say? And then give it to them. Sometimes it helps to do this in a form of a multiple choice question so that their answers don't come out of left field. So if you know, there are like three or four things that your clients always need or that your audience is always looking for, you know, write those up. I want to make a gift for you. Tell me which one of these you would absolutely want the most and then list them off a, B, C, D, and have them respond and tell you whichever the winner is.

That's the one you make. That's the one that you send them for free. You can give it to everybody on your list because they're already on your list as a thank you as a holiday gift. And then of course you could use it as a freebie to grow your mailing list elsewhere. So that's batcha another idea. Come in bearing gifts for the people who have been surrounding you all year long. If you have any ideas for things that you might be doing this holiday season, by the way, throw them in the chat. I would love to hear what you're thinking because it's, I think at the time of year where we have some leeway to do something a little different and unexpected, and this can just be a great time to really, if not sell your coaching services, make connections with potential clients. Okay?

So here's an idea. I have noticed this every year. There is that sort of blackout week between Christmas and New Years, the kids are off of school. You know, all the major holiday stuff is over and there's that one week of the year where you think, well, I can't do anything that year. Nobody's going to be paying attention or that week I should say, I can't do anything that week. Nobody's going to be paying attention. And I've actually found the opposite to be true. It may depend on your target market, but in some cases, that's the week where especially this year, we're not going to be traveling. People are not going to be on airplanes. They're going to probably be home. They're maybe not working and paying a little bit more attention to the other stuff in their inbox. Maybe if they're not usually on Instagram, they're going to be scrolling a little extra that week because they have the extra time.

It's just downtime for most people. So if you did want to sneak in some sort of promotion before the end of the year, think about that week. I would not do it before Christmas, but in that week between Christmas and new year's, you could do some sort of promotion and a common one is something along the lines of you know, enticing with my rates are going up in the new year, get in now for my 2020 rate, start your program in the new year. So that's of course you do have to actually raise your rates if you say that, but if you were standing in your integrity and you are going to do it, you said that's very compelling, right? And especially right after, or as we're like leading up to the new year, everyone's starting to think about their resolution. So, they might think, all right, I'll pay for it.

Now we'll get the 2020 rate. I'll be able to start this after January 1st. That's perfect. And you may be able to fill up your January roster with just that one offer. The thing that I want to say about the holidays is this it's a festive time of year. We are being called to be a little bit less of a, a health Nazi and a little bit more of a, you know, a celebratory force. We want to help people enjoy themselves. Enjoy good food. Look to the holidays as a time when we are maybe not getting together in person, but getting together in spirit with our friends and family a joyous time of year. So, I just wanted to say, if you're usually out there with the message about don't eat meat or don't eat this, or don't eat that, or even like, don't eat processed food, I'm with you, but now's not the time.

If somebody makes their grandmother's recipe with like canned this and box that and marshmallows, and then they throw in a pound of powdered sugar and mix it up, just applaud, just applaud that they're carrying on their grandmother's tradition. And isn't that a beautiful thing, right? We're not here to be the naysayers. I'm just here to provide moral support to everybody. We can talk to them more in January about kicking their sugar addiction, right? There's a time and a place for all of these things. Just a little reminder, a little health coach etiquette there. And I have another idea for you that has nothing to do with your perspective clients. Well, maybe a little bit to do with them, but more about your past clients and your So, peers, your network, your colleagues organizations, maybe your contacts of different organizations. Now's a great time to reach out to them.

You know, the holiday cards that come in the mail, not too much anymore, but we used to do so many holiday cards years ago. Now we get, now we get something over email. Usually you can do that. You can send out a holiday card that says happy holidays, but what if you went into the holidays like this? It's been a tough year for everybody on earth. Like in the new year, let's catch up or even with the energy of how can I be of service to you? I know it's been a difficult year. It's been a crazy 2020. How can I help? You never know how your relationship with people can turn into an opportunity. So you don't have to say like, would you like to host a workshop in the new year? Or have you, you know, to a past client, have you thought about doing a few more sessions?

You don't even have to say that, just reach out. How can I be of service? How can I help? Let's make 2021 a better year. I think that's a beautiful message. And one that will help you reconnect again, past clients, peers, anyone in your network, you haven't spoken to in a while, a way to reconnect with all of them and rekindle the conversation and really listen, what do they need in the new year? And really, how can you help? And you may find yourself with brand new opportunities next year, that you never could have imagined all good things. Finally, on this topic, one of the best things that you can do in November and December is invest in your own business growth, right? We talked about growing your list. What else? What's something you've been putting off learning how to do now would be a great time to sit down with that thing and figure it out.

How have you been putting off getting support? Have you been, you know, so focused on learning about gut health or hormone health that you haven't actually set up your mailing list yet? Ah, now is the time and you may also have a little bit of downtime, particularly between Christmas and new years, or maybe you're not traveling this year. Like you normally would be. So as your client load slows a lot of clients, even if they are current clients of yours, they're going to skip some weeks, right, because of the holidays. And you may just find yourself with a little bit of extra time, invest in your own business, do that so that you are well set up for the new year. In fact, I have a goal setting workbook for health coaches. I always talk about it towards the end of the year. Cause it's just a really great way to wrap your head around what you want to accomplish for the new year. And then it'll even help you shift your energy around and shift your schedule around so that you can make it happen. So if you're interested, you're not really sure where to begin, but you know, you want to do something different in your business next year, go to health, coach power.com/goals. And you can download this free workbook that I created and go through. It's a whole kind of figuring out what your goals should be and how you're going to get there. You are going to love it.

All right, let's move on to some other questions. I'm going to just take a sip of tea over here. One thing that happens in the colder months is that I get a space heater right here in my office. And whenever I'm doing a live like this, I get very thirsty. Cause there's like this hot air. That's just this hot, dry air pumping out of the space heater.

Okay. Here's a question that came from Dalton. Dalton said, what's your opinion on offering a free 30 minute consultation for those who are curious? Do you think I should send them any kind of intake questions before the consultation or only leave that for people who want to pay for full sessions? My goal is to keep it simple for the clients. I don't want to overwhelm them even for something they may not be sure of yet.

I understand your question Dalton. So I'm going to break it down into parts. What's your opinion and offering a free 30 minute consultation? Yes. Yes. You need to offer a consultation to those who are curious. Now some health coaches charge for the consultation, others don't. It would really be a matter of figuring out when you offer it for free. Do you get better results? Do you sign more clients? If you offer it for a fee, even if it's like $25, maybe you're only going to be doing this consult with people who are very, very interested, but then maybe they all sign up. And so sometimes people find that to be a better way to at the end of the day, have you know, more paying clients.

So, there's, there's no right or wrong way to do it, but I offer free 30 minute consultation. However, not to anyone, not to somebody. Who's just a little curious. I'll tell you what someone who's a little curious can do. They can listen to my podcast.

They can go to my website. They can follow me on Instagram. That's for people who are curious, people who are interested in working with me and interested in working with me now, they get sent to an application form and that kind of comes up at this next part of your question. Should you send an intake question? It's less of an intake and it's more of an application because if someone completes this application that shows that they have a certain level of commitment to the process, it's not very long, but if they can't be bothered to do it, they're probably just curious. They're not actually interested. So for people to take the time, sit down, fill out the form. Now I very well put them on. I might put them on my schedule, not even necessarily though, because I'm going to read the application. And if what I read; I don't like it doesn't make sense for the work that I do.

I don't think we're a good fit. They kind of sound like a jerk. I mean, whatever, you never know, you never know what you're going to get when you're working online. I may not accept their application, but in most cases I do because someone has been following me for a while. They know the work that that I do when they're interested in working with me, they're directed to an application and then I will accept them and we'll get them on the calendar. So it's an application for prospective clients. It's an intake for actual paying clients and that's a much more in-depth health history form.

Okay. Any other questions? I have one here from Julie. She says, who works for, or who has worked for an online health coaching outfit like Noom? Are there any other ones I should be looking at pros and cons. I love health coaching, but I'm struggling to make the money I need for my family.

Got it. I have never worked for anything like that, but I have seen them come and go. And I have heard from a lot of different health coaches who have worked for them. My general impression is that you don't get paid very much. And by that, I mean, you really don't get paid very much. May not be true. And I'm not saying that about Noom in particular. I really don't know. But in general you can expect to be paid much, much less than you would. If you were taking a client on your own.

What else? When you're working for another establishment, you're not building your own business anymore. So even if you were to have like a full days worth of clients at whatever rate they're paying you, if at any point you were no longer working for this place, right, you're going to kind of be left with nothing. So if you do take a job working for Noom or working for wherever, I don't know if they have any sort of language in their contracts about you still promoting yourself outside of that. Like, would you still be able to go out and hold a workshop? Would you still be able to add people to your mailing list and be writing a blog and attracting clients on your own? If so, cool. Maybe that could be a supplemental thing that you do on the side, but if it's going to keep you from promoting your own business, I would be very cautious because first, like I said, you're not going to get paid very well. And secondly, in the meantime, your business is going nowhere.

So with that, if the relationship ends, you will be back to square one. So just some words of warning on that. And I know that it can be difficult to figure out how am I going to make the money add up? How am I going to make enough money this year as a health coach to support my family. And I went through this exact scenario a couple of times, once when I started my business and I thought, what the heck am I doing? How am I going to make this work again? When I got divorced? And it was like, okay, for real, I need to support myself. And my two kids. Now we really need to make this happen. So I know exactly where you're coming from, Julie. And if you want, I do have a free training available at healthcoachpower.com/earn E A R N. It's all about how to turn health coaching into a full-time salary. And you may that very helpful.

Okay. What else do you guys have for me today? I've got a question here from Merly and let's see what Merly says. She said when it comes to blogging, is it a thing to interview people on your own blog, similar to what people are doing for podcasts? Yes, you can absolutely do that. Merly. I have been featured. I'm trying to remember where right now and I totally can't remember, but I have absolutely been featured on blogs in like an interview format where instead of somebody asking me the questions and us recording the audio, usually they'll just send the questions and then you type out your answers for them or for you in this case, if you were going to be interviewing people, it's pretty nice and easy because all you have to do is write the questions and they're going to provide all the content.

Maybe you're just going to edit it a little bit. So that's a little bit easier than coming up with all fresh content on your own. And Meryl then for them, or for the person getting interviewed, it's nice and easy because you know, they don't have to read an article from scratch. You're not asking them to do a guest post. That's much harder. You're saying I'm going to send you a list of six or seven questions. No problem. I'll get that back. I can get that back to the next day. So it's an easy way to do an interview and hopefully create some great blog content. Okay. let's see. I have a question here from Nissi. Nissi says any tips for balancing giving valuable information like freebies, social media posts to keep people interested without giving too much away and finding yourself without having anything to charge for.

That is the classic question. And the answer is, say it with me. If you know it, give away your best content for free, you give away the, what the information people will pay you for the how, because if you think about it, there is all the information anyone could ever want is already available. You know, with like I was going to say a few clicks of the mouse. You don't even have to do that. You can just like shout to your Alexa or something. You can get any information that you need about literally anything. So we never have to worry about giving away too much information. The point is that human beings are not capable like nine times out of 10 of taking that information, relating it to like how it's going to fit into their life and then following through on it. And that's why people hire a coach. So you can literally give away all of your best information and you will get more clients because they will see what a wealth of information you are. They will see that you have information that applies directly to them. If you're being very targeted with your marketing and you will sign clients who need help with the, how no one really needs with the what, that's just a Google away. Thank you for asking that question. It's a good one.

Sheila is asking where can I find out about how to do an archive page. Sheila, I believe you are one of our HPU members and you're talking about doing an archive page for your five day challenge. That's a very specific question. Ask that inside the Healthy Profit University Group, and we'll answer you there. But just to recap what I just said, if you are running a five day challenge during the holidays or any time, it's a very good idea to have an archive page somewhere for everything that happens over the five days, even if you're or a longer challenge. I see sometimes coaches doing like a free 30 day challenge. Sometimes they go on even longer, do yourself a favor and have all that information collected in one place. It's easier for you. And it's easier for your participants.

Okay. Oh, and Niecy is correcting me. Her name is not Nissi. It's Niecy. I will try to remember that for next time.

Alrighty, I have a question here from Joe. Oh, this was a good one. And I already responded to this inside of our Facebook group, but I just loved it so much that I wanted to talk about it again and hear from any of you who have experienced anything similar. So this is what Joe wrote. He said, I got trolled last night in the comments of one of my social media posts. It was an old friend from high school. So he's running this event. He says the event is all about kickstarting, fat loss, the education forming the proper habits, et cetera, to set you up for fat loss. And so, this guy, this friend, he says he took it to mean that you would lose all the belly fat in five days. I don't think he read any of my posts where I explained that. He left several wise comments and ended it with you're better than this nonsense.

I'm not normally the sensitive type, but this really made me angry, especially because it was a friend and he was not joking around. Any advice on how to deal with haters? Is it just part of putting yourself out there? But it got to me. Yeah. So there's, there's something good here, which is they say until you've been trolled, you haven't truly made it. And it gets worse sometimes. It will be like, perfect strangers ripping you apart when you're like, why are you even commenting? Who are you? But that means you've made it, you're doing something that is eliciting a response. And so for some people, it's going to be a positive response. And for some people it's going to be a negative response. But generally, if anyone cares enough to leave a negative comment like that, it means you're doing something. And that is a great thing.

So, you know, there's different levels of negativity. Sometimes people can be skeptical. Sometimes people can be rude. Sometimes people can be extremely rude and it's up to you like your social media, or if it's on like your own website and people are leaving comments on your blog, that's like your house. And so you get to keep your however you want it. And with the people in it that you want there. So you can delete comments. You can block people anytime that it's ruining with your mojo, because I would rather, you reach the 100 people who care about your message and think it's awesome. And this one guy gets blocked, right? Like we're going to, we're going to focus on the people who, who want what you have to offer and don't worry about the rest.

But that being said, it's hard, right? Like, I have totally lost sleep. I've had anxiety over things happening like this in my business. It's ruined entire weekends of my life. In retrospect, it doesn't matter at all. But of course in the moment and you're like, Oh my God, what do I say, what should I write back? Here's what you definitely don't want to do. Don't write back, don't get into it, leave it there. If you feel that this person's entitled to their opinion. And otherwise, if it's... You know, it goes beyond what is acceptable to you. Don't think twice about it. Delete, delete, delete, and move on. But I wanted to reiterate this point. I know I had mentioned it to you already, Joe.

Sometimes when I am my best self, I'm able maybe a few days later to take somebody's criticism and learn from it. So, to be clear, I'm still going to block them. They still don't need to be rude. They still don't need to call you out in public. None of that needs to be happening. So yes, they're still getting blocked all the way around, but sometimes I've looked back and I go, Hmm, well, they might be responding to this thing that I did. And in all honesty, I felt a little weird about that too. Maybe I want to do that differently next time or, Hmm. They do have a point. I did make that mistake or I did do this wrong or I'm not so sure about that. And it might just give me food for thought, you know, and how I might move forward differently in the future.

It's not to say they're right, but there, there could be a shred, a shred of what they contributed to the conversation that may actually be valuable. So before you just go on a rampage and declare them like the worst and block them, maybe just, you know, keep, keep track of what they said though. So that when you cool off, you can go back to it and just see if there's anything that you can take from it. Because mostly when people respond in such an overt negative way, it has everything to do about them and nothing to do with you. I mean, so, there's no reason to take it personally and we can still say, okay, this is how my message is landing. Hmm. Interesting. You know, again, that's only when I'm really like at my best. And most of the time, if I get a comment like that, I'm not going to be at my best for a little while.

I'm not going to be able to look at that comment and not get pissed off for a little while. So take care of you first and see what you can learn and otherwise ignore block and move on. And that's all we have time for today. You guys thank you so much for joining me. We will be back next week. And remember next week is also our workshop on the 10th of November, called how to earn with workshops for corporate clients and your community it's free and you are welcome to join us at healthcoachpower.com/createworkshop. So hopefully I will see there. Have a great week, everybody.