#143: How To Know If You Need Business Coaching

This episode will help you figure out if business coaching is right for you during this season of your business. And here’s the thing…you may not need it! If you DO…well, business coaching comes in many shapes and sizes. In fact, you can sample a small slice of business-building support during Michelle’s upcoming free event: Create a Social Media Strategy That Works…In the Next 5 Days. Register for free at http://healthcoachpower.com/social.

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Well hello there, health coaches. Listen, I apologize. If today I'm like a little bit sniffly or sneezy. I was outside working on my deck, which is amazing, but it's that springtime allergy season for me. I know. I know, but I'm not complaining. The sunshine is awesome. The warmer weather, Oh my God. I'm feeling energized. I feel so alive and motivated. And I hope that you are to wherever you are in the world and whatever the season is. I realize not everybody is in New York today. However, today we're going to talk about what to do with that motivation. And with that energy, sometimes it's like, I don't even know. I want to do something with business. I want to get this thing going, but I'm not even sure how, so today I want to talk about how to know if you need business coaching, because we hear about it all the time.

I know ever since I was a student at the Institute for integrative nutrition, I was hearing about different business coaching opportunities that were available. I'll be it, many fewer back then, but here's the thing. You may not need business coaching. And if you do, you know what it comes in, different shapes and sizes. So let's talk about what's a good fit for you. And if you are here with me live, go ahead and say hello in the comments. I do have my eye on those. And if you have any questions, I'm here for you. So first of all, I want to let you know, speaking of getting some help with your business, I have a free opportunity for you. That's right? No cost, absolutely free five day challenge coming up. I haven't done one of these in a while. And this time we're going to be focused entirely on social media because you guys asked for it.

I literally posted into our Facebook group a couple of months ago and said, what do you need help with? And by and large, everybody said, Oh my God, I need help with social media. So we are going to do this. This will be specifically for health coaches, helping you create a social media strategy that works in just five days. And you can sign up now@healthcoachpower.com slash social. Go do that. Now it is going to be the perfect time to not only of course learn about using social media in a more efficient and effective way, but also you can see how having some support in general makes a difference. It just makes a difference in how you approach your business, how you get up in the morning, how you decide what to work on. So sign up now and invite your health coach friends to join us at healthcoachpower.com/social. And I'm going to just plop that link right here in the comments for those of you that are watching.

I also need to give a shout out to Addiegirl125, who left this five star review on Apple podcasts. And she said, game-changing content. I am currently in the process finishing my health and life coaching certification. And this podcast was introduced to me by a fellow student O M G. This changed everything for me. I no longer waste my time listening to music or other for fun podcasts. I have a notebook next to me and audio notes. If I'm driving, wow, the information is vital for all new health coaches trying to build their brand. I even made my boyfriend listened to it on our last road trip together. He was great as we would pause and discuss ideas for my business. I took Michelle's advice on Instagram followers and grew my followers by over 200 in about two days. And that's just the beginning. I already have three paying clients and my first month after my announcement and absolutely love the work after my income surpasses my coffee shop's income, I plan on hiring a manager so I can step back and have the freedom to travel and run both businesses from anywhere. Thank you for your time efforts and information. I truly appreciate it all.

Addiegirl125, that is amazing. This is what happens when you're able to take information and run with it. I am so happy to hear about your successes, especially with social media. Since we do have this five day challenge all about social media coming up, that's great to hear you're seeing success there. So thank you so much for the review. And please send your mailing address to support@healthcoachpower.com and just reference episode number 143. We have a little thank you gift to the send your way. And to all of my listeners. I so appreciate your reviews of this podcast. It's what allows me to reach more health coaches. It's what allows me to continue showing up and providing this free content every single week. So please head over to Apple podcasts, leave a written review, and you never know. Maybe I will read yours live on the air next time.

Now, did you hear what I just said to addiegirl125 about taking information and running with it? Yeah. Not everyone is able to do that. Some people I noticed when I was in school to become a health coach. You guys, I literally sat in the back row. I was the one who was like covering my eyes like this. Like, please don't look at me. I'm not really ever going to become a health coach. This is not for me. I'm not going to become an entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. You're all doing things. Oh, look, that one is having great success. It was like not in the cards for me. I was pretty sure some people right away were able to take information. They got out there, they were making an impact. I didn't feel like I was ever going to be able to do that. So here's what I want to say. When it comes to hiring a business coach, I think there are some markers that you may not need it. So for example, if you're one of those people, I was just referring to, you've taken information that is readily available to you from your health coach certification program, from online resources like this podcast, and you're putting it into action and you're seeing the results that you want. Maybe right now, you're good to go, right?

Where you're at in your business right now, things are moving. You're feeling momentum. Hey, that's amazing. If you have a really clear target market and you're finding it pretty easy to speak to them, whether you're blogging, maybe you're podcasting, you're doing workshops series. However, you're reaching out with your marketing. If you're easily connecting to people who want to become a client.

Then again, you may not need business coaching right now. So, it’s you know, raise your hand or think to yourself, yeah, that's me. It feels smooth. It's like smooth sailing here would be another one. If you already have a sizeable mailing list and you know exactly what you're selling. And if you had to this sort of litmus test in my world, because it has come up so many times in my life, if you had to make an extra 5,000, $10,000 this month, Could you do that? If you could, because you had the mailing list, you know what you're selling, you know how to sell it. Then my friends, you may not need a business coach right now.

Now that being said, I mean, I'm saying some of this isn't just because I know it is rare that a health coach feels this way, but there have been times in my business and I see it within our community that some people have really hit their stride. Even that I do want to point out. Every business can always benefit from an outside perspective. So even if you're easily attracting your target market and you're signing clients and you're building an email list, and if you had to, you could earn that extra $5,000 this month, even then you might benefit from some business coaching. If in the midst of all this success, at least what looks like success from the outside, you are feeling. As I remember feeling in the early days of my business, burnt out, overwhelmed, completely exhausted, and even know that your own health is taking a toll. Why does that happen? We're health coaches. We got to be our own first client, right? We have to take care of our own health first, but this happens because when you're new, even when you're successful, at least from the outside right early on, you have that, you have that success, you have that momentum, you kind of running with it and it feels really good, but you likely do not have systems, no systems in place. You're probably running in circles where you do not need to be. And business coaching could be the thing that you need to create those systems and pinpoint the areas where your growing business really needed support. Like maybe for you, it's a virtual assistant. Or maybe I remember at one in my career, I really needed a bookkeeper. Right? Sometimes you just need someone to tell you that and point you in the right direction. Okay? So, all of that, everything that I just said applies to you applies to health coaches who are seeing success, signing clients, and maybe just need some help streamlining at all so that they're not running themselves ragged, common pitfall.

But if I'm going to be honest, we know, I know anybody in our community knows that a lot of health coaches are not in that boat. So let me talk to the issues that most often come up within our health coach power community. Okay? And these are just like, this is not a comprehensive list, but this is just like me having run this community. Now for like seven years, these are the issues that come up over and over and over again that make me think, okay, this is the person that could really benefit from some type of business coaching. So one would be when you're feeling stuck, it's like inertia with you and your business. You are not in motion at all. Nothing is happening that feeling can take over. And you know that law of physics or whatever it is that a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

A business at rest tends to stay at rest too. So if you were in a stuck place, getting some type of help with your business will kickstart you. And it almost doesn't even matter what direction, right? You just need some type of motion to put your business in motion can be extremely helpful. The more you sit back, the more you check your Instagram and compare yourself to what your peers are doing. The more you will likely stay stuck. The more you talk to your friends who mean well, but they really don't understand what health coaches do or your spouse, who also means well, but also really doesn't understand why you're doing this. The more you will stay stuck. It really helps to talk to other people that are in the field and have been there and done that and can guide you and get you back into motion.

Okay? So that would be one side. If you're, if you're taking notes on the other end, by the way, if you're like Addiegirl125, just give a little check mark, next to that one, feeling stuck, feeling inertia. The next way to know that business coaching could be helpful for you right now in your business is if your marketing feels like you would rather stick your head in the toilet. If marketing feels horrible to you, it feels impossible. You just do not know what steps to take. You're one of these people that say, I hate marketing. I don't know anything about marketing. I hate everything about it. Okay? If that's you, it's not that you can't market yourself. It's not that these skills can't be learned. It's just, you don't have them right now. These are tools that you haven't been given.

It would be like asking me to, I don't know, build up a car, take a car apart and put it back together. I couldn't even begin. I wouldn't know what tools to use. I wouldn't know what parts to touch. I mean, I just about know how to fill the car with gas and push the pedal. Like really not my thing. But if someone were to sit down and teach me, then of course you can learn, right? Anybody can learn anything. So if you're one of those, I hate marketing people. Some business coaching could be exactly what you need. The other thing is when you're up against a project that feels impossible, it's completely overwhelming. And what a good coach will do as you know, just as being a health coach. What we help do for our clients is break things down into manageable steps so that you're not looking at the whole car, trying to figure out how you're going to take apart and put it back together.

You're looking at just one piece at a time. So that's the other way that it can be super helpful for you. Is there anybody in this boat? I mean, I feel like this comes up all the time. Okay. Another way to know that you were in a place where you could use a nice gentle kick in the pants when it comes to your business is if you haven't signed any paying clients in a while or ever, right. Let's say that you graduated from health coach school like a year ago, and haven't done anything with your certification. That's okay. It happens to a lot of people. Life happens. A lot of health coaches have a baby or, or who knows we're stuck in quarantine for a year. So there's lots of reasons that it happens. It's not a big deal, but again, if you're kind of stuck or you're having that inertia thing happened to your business, it can be really, really helpful.

You need paying clients, I think a lot more than just for the money. I think you need paying clients because it's exciting to work with clients. I mean, this is the work that we want to be doing, right. And when I have a client and I'm like, Oh my God, like they had a success. Or I had a client who just was able to like go off of, you know, one of the medications that they've been on, or I have a client who tells me how important our conversations have been to their transformation or whatever. Like I get such a high off of that. And I know health coaches almost invariably feel the same way that fuels your motivation, that fuels you to go out and find the next client. It gives you confidence, right? So, you kind of, I feel like you almost need clients to get clients, right?

Cause again, it puts you in motion. So if you haven't signed any paying clients in a while, this is a sign like you need, you need a little help get an into the groove so that you can take it from there. Okay. What about this? A lot of people, if you're like me, you used to work in corporate America or you have whatever your salary goals are. For whatever reason I know for me, I always want it to be able to replace my salary as an art director went back when I worked in big advertising. Well, do you have any idea of how to make that happen? I think we all do the math in the beginning. We're like, okay, if I have like this many private clients and they paid me this much, how many would I need in a year? And then we look at that number and we go, ah, you know, and it all just falls apart.

You know, we just stick our head back in the sand. Cause we don't want to think about it. If you don't know, how are you going to put together the salary that you need to earn? How are you going to put together the salary that you need to earn to me, that means you need a plan. You need a roadmap. I mean, I literally am now able to map out the entire year of my business, see exactly where my income is going to come from. And then I'm able to execute against that. It almost makes too much sense, right? But in the early years of my business, nobody taught me this. I didn't know how to go about it. So if you need a plan, you need a roadmap. That's a good sign that you need some sort of coaching. Okay. How about those of you who feel like technology is your arch nemesis.

It is the barrier between you and success. I'm not good at technology. I don't know anything about websites, blah, blah, blah. I hear this all the time. Here's the thing. Good coaches know that our businesses are built on relationships, not technology. I will say that again, your business as a health coach is going to be built on the people that you know, the relationships that you have, not technology, the technology doesn't matter. If all you ever did was, uh, maybe write an email and hit send. That could be enough in the way of technology. Okay? I do think you might need to use email, but I'm pretty sure you know how to do that. I built my entire business without much technology at all because, well, we didn't really have a lot. When I started, we didn't have practice better. We didn't have that clean life. We didn't have, we didn't have webinars.

We didn't have of webinars. This makes me laugh. But it's true. You build relationships with people. They refer you to other people, you build relationships with someone, they invite you to come to a workshop. You can have an entire business that happens off the computer. Can you believe it? It's true. And another way that I think it's pretty, you know, I think it's pretty clear if you look at yourself and you think man getting my health coach certification, it was a waste of time. If you're feeling that way, don't right. Like you had to invest in order to get your certification and then to make use of it. Yes. You may need to invest a little bit again so that you can put that certification to you so that you can reach the people that need your help so that you could have an impact on the world, the impact that you want to be making on the lives of people around you. So if you're in that camp, that's like, Ugh, I never should have done this. This is impossible. I don't know why I even bothered with that health coach certification. I would say you're just not done yet. Your health coach certification only got you so far. I need you to go a little bit further in order to be able to put it into action. And that is normal. You're not doing anything wrong. That is completely normal.

So if you're here with me, or if you're listening later, just think to yourself, how many of those apply to you? And is this a season of your business where you could use some support, right? It's like with health coaching, clients don't necessarily need a health coach all week, all month, every month, every year. No. Usually we work with them for three months or six months or whatever it is. And then the job of a coach is to say, okay, now you're on your own. Go live a healthy life. Same with business coaching. You should be able to get support during the seasons when you need it and then carry on on your own. So let's talk about some of the different options when it comes to business coaching, because that's a very large umbrella term. And within that, I think also fall like products. So sometimes you'll want to buy like a done for you product or, you know, these things like people make for health coaches, where all your emails are written for you for a year.

That's not what I'm talking about. That's not going to change that much about your business, right? Those are products. So we can all do that. It'd be like buying a new desk. Like, you know, you can buy things for your business, but like really understand who you are as a health coach, what you sell, how you sell it, who you do your best work with. That's where business coaching comes in. So private business coaches, if you were to hire one and I did, at one point in my business, you're going to spend a lot for a private coach. And I talked about this a couple of episodes ago, you're going to spend in the thousands, right? It could be like 5,000. It could be 6,000. It could be like 10,000. And there's a huge range when it comes obviously as with anything, there's a huge range within business coaching. I noticed that some business coaches are very, very businessy.

Does that make sense? When I say that very hard nose marketing business, hardcore, you know this, we are putting together your business plan and where your suit and break out your ballpoint pen kind of business, right? So there's that. And one downfall can be the business coaches in that realm don't necessarily understand that we are health coaches. And first of all, we'd like to do some yoga and then we're going to meditate on that. And then I'm going to get back to you on how I feel about my business. So be careful about the personality that you choose when it comes to a business coach, do they really understand you and your business and how you want to go about doing business now on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes people hire a business coach and they're whoa, way over here. Where I would actually almost call them a life coach.

And I've heard of a lot of health coaches hiring someone like that because it feels better. It feels more aligned with who they are, but that person who can be a very useful person, you know, in the coach's life, isn't so much about building a business. It's more about clearing your money blocks and stepping into your power and feeling like you do have something to say in the world. All important things, don't get me wrong, but these coaches will then say, I spent all this money on this private coach. And in the end, it's not like I'm making any more money in my business. I don't have any more clients. I don't have anything to show for it. I didn't build anything in my business. Like I feel more ready than ever, but, but something is, is lacking. So, I just want you to be aware of that spectrum.

And of course, as with the world in general, not everyone really understands what a health coach does or what a health coach needs. So just be careful of that. What I want to suggest for most of you watching most of you listening, because I see you out there. I want to tell you that I think the most useful form of business support when you were in your first year of business, second year of business, third, fourth, if you've taken a break from your business for a while, you're in the earlier stages, you should try to look for a form of support that is relatively inexpensive. Yes. You may need to invest. No, I don't think you need to go $20,000 in debt. I just don't. That doesn't make sense to me. If you haven't made $1 with your health coaching business, why would you invest $20,000 or $10,000?

Right? That's a huge disparity. Look for something that's a little bit more accessible. You are just starting out. You do need to be sensible when it comes to how you're moving forward and what you need more than anything is that basic plan. You need a roadmap to follow. Honestly, your needs are probably not that much different from the health coach next to you. Like everybody graduates from a similar health coach program. Everybody wants to work with private clients, start a group, that kind of thing. Everybody's kind of in the same situation. And so with that, you can take advantage of courses and programs that are not quite as high end, but give you exactly what you need at the right time. Now that is something that I have been doing for years with healthy profit university and our fast-track semester is coming up this spring.

So if you are at all interested, I would encourage you to get on the wait list for that is that healthcoachpower.com/waitlist. Again, designed specifically for coaches who need to get in motion, get over the technology hurdles, get past the self-doubt and need a map to follow in order to go from step to step, to step, to build their business. Now, if you want just a taste of what business support feels like, just a slice of the pie. It's like when you're a mom. And I remember when my first son was born and I just was with him 24 seven and I had no support and I didn't live near family. And the first time that I had a babysitter for it was just for like two hours. I was like, hallelujah, felt like a brand-new woman just to have a little slice of support, made such a difference in how I felt about myself and how I felt about motherhood.

Well, listen, if you would like to taste that for yourself and how it feels to have some support with your business. I want to encourage you to join me, to create a social media strategy that works in just five days. That's going to be five days of not just information, but actual support and interaction to help you go from point A to point B. See how that feels and you can join us for free at healthcoachpower.com/social. That five day challenge starts on April 17th. All right, you guys that's it for today. I'll be back next week. Talking more about social media. So tune in then. Thank you for joining me and I'll see you soon. Take care.