#181: [Coach the Coach] Holly’s Mailing List, or Lack Thereof

Michelle Leotta:
Hello there health coaches. We are doing something different today. We're starting a series of podcast episodes called "Coach the Coach." So, if you subscribe to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast, you're gonna see these start popping up every couple of weeks. If you're inside of our Health Coach Power Community Facebook group, you're gonna see beautiful faces popping up on your screen. As I actually coach another coach through a challenge problem block that they are trying to solve. And today we are going to be talking to Holly about her mailing list, or as we were just joking before we hit record her lack thereof. And I know this is important for so many of you, because I think it was just last week. I was have... We were recording about something else entirely, but everyone was talking about how they didn't have a mailing list.

Michelle Leotta:
So, I just knew that there was, was something that we had to bring back and do an episode on very, very quickly. Holly's here because she is part of our weekly mentorship group. If you would like to, to be mentored by me, it's not always one on one like this, but in a small group environment and get that kind of ongoing support and accountability. That's gonna help keep you moving in your business. The wait list is open now. You can put yourself on it and by doing so, get a coupon towards your first month of membership in weekly mentorship. When we open up for enrollment later this spring. The URL to put yourself on the wait list is healthcoachpower.com/mentorship. And we'll hope to see you there in the meantime. Holly, thank you for joining me today.

Holly:
Hi Michelle. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, this is so great. This is like one of the perks of being inside of our mentorship group is that we're giving you, you guys this one on one time with me, even though we are kind of broadcasting it to the whole universe, but I just know everybody's gonna get a lot out of this. Holly, before we get into talking about, uh, your mailing list or lack thereof, could you just share a little bit about what your experience has been like inside weekly mentorship so far?

Holly:
Yeah, sure. I joined HPU in December, right before the end of the year, I am a brand new coach. I just got my certification, probably a week before I joined your program and started diving into all the modules. There's a lot of rich information there, but then saw the mentorship opportunity as more of a smaller group format where I could get a little bit more personal attention to the questions and my needs. So, I'm a couple weeks into that and I think I've made every weekly mentorship call except for one. And they're really valuable because the format switches up. Sometimes it's one on one coaching. Sometimes it's small group format, sometimes it's putting a coach in the hot seat. And I walk away every week with, with some... an insight that I didn't didn't know that I needed basically.

Holly:
So, I'm happy with it. And I think the biggest thing for me is accountability. The way that you have been challenging us to share with the group what our, you know, sort of business building revenue generating activity for the week will be, and kind of put that out there and then checking back in with us. It stays in the back of my mind throughout the week, like, oh my God, I gotta get this done. Like, Michelle's gonna check in. My group's gonna check in. So it's, it's been kind of that push I needed to get started.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh, good. I'm happy to sit on your shoulder and quietly whisper in your ear all week. Hey, remember you were gonna do this thing. That is the whole point. Well, thanks for sharing that. And you had one big question for me today. Tell everybody what it is.

Holly:
Yes, I am wondering, do I really need an email list? Before I've clearly defined my model, meaning my signature program and my signature offer, as I mentioned, I'm new. And so it feels a little premature to be developing an email list. I'm not really sure yet what my offer is.

Michelle Leotta:
Great question. I mean, I hear from coaches who are years into their practice and they're still saying I don't have an email list or people who are struggling to sell their stuff. And well, I posted it on Facebook. Well, did you email your list about it? I don't have an email list and it so often comes back down to this. So, let me put it back at you like this. Why not? Why not just hop on into Convert Kit or Mailchimp or whatever the service is and get that dang thing set up?

Holly:
You know what, I don't know. That's I don't know what the barrier is because I, before jumping into HPU, I took the little beginner module course that you put out there and that was something that you encouraged us to do. And I, I don't know. I think there's some... You know, I don't have all the confidence yet since I'm a new coach. And so it's like the, if I put the list together, then I've gotta communicate to them and what am I gonna say? I'm not quite ready yet. So I just, it became a roadblock for me, honestly. And I just started doing the things that felt a little bit easier.

Michelle Leotta:
It's fascinating to me because, legit to sit down and set up your email lists will take like 10 minutes. Doesn't involve talking to anybody about anything or talking about money or coaching. I mean, it's just like a administrative task behind the scenes. And yet you're not the first one to say this. Like it becomes a stumbling block. So, so if we just think of it as like an admin task, kind of like you have to up your new cell phone, or you have to hook up the, the cable and the internet, when you move into a new house, you know, you got this new business and we just gotta hook up some services. Does that alleviate any of the hesitation? What if you just set it up? You don't even have to use it.

Holly:
Yeah, actually that does. Cause I think when I was thinking about setting up, I was immediately jumping to the, using it part and I'm like, I'm not ready to use it. Um, and the other part to it too was, you know, how do I build it? I felt a little, I think this goes back to not having a hundred percent confidence yet since this is a new career for me, but I felt a little weird just putting like friends and family on there because my ex previous job was marketing and were, you know, taught in marketing optin, optin, optin, optin. So, I'm like, this feels a little, a little uncomfortable. So yeah, I think thinking of it as an admin task, which I've done plenty of those to get my business off the ground, um, this felt more marketing focused and a little bit uneasy at this point.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. So you're skipping a couple steps ahead. It's the first, uh, I gotta set up my list, but well, I can't set it up because then I have to use it. You know, I can't set up because I have to build it, add more people to it. I can't set it up because all this stuff that's gonna come down the road and you're gonna be well taken care of because you are inside Healthy Profit University and you have access to how to do all of those things. Like it's all coming, but for right now we just need the service set up. And the reason I'm always pushing for coaches to do this right away is because it's not that hard, but sometimes you're in the process and you realize, oh, I'm not supposed to use my Yahoo account with this. I gotta get a domain email address, right?

Michelle Leotta:
And inside HPU. We have a tutorial on how to do that. It's not very difficult, but okay. So that's one thing, oh, I gotta take a care of that too. Um, or you get in there and who knows? There's some technical thing you can't figure out, blah, blah. It's not hard, but you don't wanna wait until the minute you need it to set it up is my point. Because sometimes coaches wait and wait and wait, and then they're like, okay, I'm finally ready, Michelle. I'm gonna run five day challenge and I'm gonna send out emails every day and I'm gonna have an opt-in page and I'm gonna do this. And meanwhile, they haven't even set up the account yet. So, they're behind the eight ball when they feel like they're ready to go. So I want you to just get the silly little administrative stuff out of the way. So it's there.

Holly:
Got it.

Michelle Leotta:
And when you're ready for it, you'll come back. Now since I brought it up. Do you have a domain email address already?

Holly:
I do. I do.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay, great. Can you just briefly tell everybody how you went about getting that set up?

Holly:
Sure. Yes. As I mentioned, I came from marketing that was sort of my previous life. And so, I did all the things that you said you don't need to do when you first launched your business because they were come for me. So I went and I came up with my business name and I had a logo and I got my website. And so as part of like buying my domain name through GoDaddy, I got my email name, email domain as part of that package. Yeah.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay, so that's one way to do it you guys. If you sign up, you get your domain, email, uh, domain from something like go daddy and you get the email package that goes along with it and it costs just like a couple of bucks a month, right?

Holly:
Yeah. Yep. And it was super easy to set up. I'm not very tech-savvy. It was very, very easy.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay. And I know some people use G-suite. Some people are going to like, there's, there are different ways to go about it, but it's a very common thing and something... It's like, put it under the, I can figure it out category. So you don't even have to worry about that, cause if you had only a Yahoo address, then you know, that does become one extra step. Um, whenever you're sending emails as you will in the future, but not yet. So don't worry. When you do send your emails, uh, your email service wants to make sure that it doesn't come across as spam. Like they're not gonna, they don't want you to send from a Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail or anything like that. It's supposed to come from a business. So that's why your delivery, your deliverability will suffer tremendously if you don't have that domain email. So you're good to go there.

Michelle Leotta:
Now let's talk about who you're gonna put on your list to start. You can't start a list without, you know, one or two names. It's not much of a list. So, who are a handful of people that you already just as a human being, as a person, you know, you contact them, you talk with them, you email them, maybe you talk on the phone, like are some of your closest friends and family?

Holly:
I mean, I would exactly what you just said. I would say that a handful of like my closest girlfriends and my sister and my mom and my husband and his family and things like that. So, I've got a, a healthy amount of those people. And again, if I'm just putting them on the list right now, and I'm not already thinking about what I'm gonna be sending them, then I'm okay with that.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay, good. And now you, these are people that you're friends with. So you could just shoot a text off to your friend. Hey, do you mind if I add you to your, to my list, I'm just getting it started. I need names comfortable.

Holly:
Yep. Yep.

Michelle Leotta:
I mean, even if you didn't, let's say you didn't would any of the people that you just mentioned, would any of them get mad or port you mark you with spam?

Holly:
No. No. Okay. Good point.

Michelle Leotta:
So, that's like, yeah, this is the litmus test of who, like I always tell coaches, you know, add your closest friends and family to your list to get started. Just so you have some people on there. Just like whenever I start a new Facebook group, I always start it with like a couple of my closest friends, just cause I need some bodies to make a group. And, it's the same thing with your, your email list. If, if any of these people are likely to hit spam on you or be annoyed that you're emailing them, then they shouldn't go on it. And I always say, don't put me on your list because even though I love all of you and I'm encouraging you to start your list, you would be surprised how many health coach email lists I end up on and I'm sorry, but I will unsubscribe right away. Cause that's ridiculous. We have almost 12,000 members in our health coach power community. Can you imagine so, so there you go. Those are the basics. Now, have you looked into different email services yet?

Holly:
Just watched the video and HPU is sort of the beginner's video. Um, and I, I was leaning towards MailChimp, but I haven't really looked into it beyond the video that I, that you shared.

Michelle Leotta:
Great, good. This isn't something that you need to scratch your head over forever. All the services are like fairly similar. They all basically do the same thing they all have. Well, I think every service I can think of has a free plan to start out with. So it's only once your list starts to grow or once you want to start doing like fancier things with your list that you need to start paying for it. And I always say like, it's the thing to pay for you? Like you don't need a website and you don't need to pay for, you know, your fancy client booking system or anything like that. If there's one thing that you spend money on, maybe it's gonna be 20 bucks a month for MailChimp at some point. Um, we always wanna keep cost down. So pick a service, go with it inside HPU, like you mentioned, we talk specifically about MailChimp and about Convert Kit. We are gonna, uh, be bringing in mail or light soon, um, because that one's become popular and seems like it's doing really well for some coaches. So that's another option that's available and there are many others there's Flow Desk there's Active Campaign. So, the point is, just pick one and you go with it, I've changed email services, like two or three times over the course of my 13 year career. And it's a little bit of a pain in the neck if you need to do it at some point, but no big deal.

Holly:
Okay.

Michelle Leotta:
So we're good to go there. All right. So, um, I know you mentioned that you don't have your signature program figured out yet. And a lot of coaches are where you're at, where you're like, I don't really know what I'm selling. I don't have a program. Ah, you're gonna get there pretty quickly, I think inside the HPU curriculum. But before we even get to what you're selling, do you have an idea of who you want to be selling to? Have you ever already worked through your target market?

Holly:
I have, I did some work on who I want to be selling to and wrote that down and interviewed some people to make sure that that was kind of in line with what people were in the market for. And, um, I got some really good insight from talking to some of the people in my target market and um, they wanted so different than what I initially thought I was gonna offer. So I've tweaked my target a little bit. Um, but I haven't formally marketed myself to that target market per se. What I have done is just put myself on social media and said, Hey, I'm a new coach. Here's my business. Here's what I've been doing. You know, I'm proud of myself, yay. That kind of stuff. And immediately got four private clients that do not really fit my target market. But I'm very thankful to be working with them. So, all that to say, I have a target market. I haven't, it might need to be refined. And I'm not currently working with anybody that kind of fits that

Michelle Leotta:
You haven't used it yet

Holly:
Correct.

Michelle Leotta:
I always think of a target market as a, a bow and arrow. So it's a tool that we would use in our marketing and whenever we're gonna do something, we have to figure out, well, where are we gonna aim the bow and arrow? Like I want to achieve this. I wanna get these people on my mailing list. I wanna sell, you know, this kind of package, which you'll figure out later, but first you need to know, well, who am I aiming this whole campaign at or who am I, you know, aiming my efforts at. So that's the tool that we create. Um, do you wanna share with everyone who your target market is going to be? What is your bow and arrow pointing at?

Holly:
Yeah, um, urban moms in their fourties. They have kids in elementary to middle school. They live in big cities. They're open-minded, they, they work have disposable income, love to socialize with friends and family over food and drinks. I thought initially that I wanted to help them solve their digestive issues, feeling bloated and things like that. But, after talking to quite a few of them, they just wanna lose weight. They wanna lose weight. So, I'm helping them lose weight through diet and lifestyle shifts.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay. So let's pretend, and this is not gonna happen because you're inside Healthy Profit University, but let's just pretend that you didn't figure out what you were gonna sell and package up your services and pick a price and all that kind of thing for like a year. Let's just say, you're not gonna do that. Sometimes I even have coaches who are expats or they have some sort of reason why they can't earn money right away. Or for example, when I remember when I was pregnant, I was like, okay, I'm not selling any cause I can't take on new clients because then I'm gonna have an infant. So there's always reasons. And so let's just pretend like one of those reasons apply to you. You're not selling anything for a while, but you're gonna have this chunk of time where you can be building a mailing list, getting to know your target market, building up that no like, and trust factor. So we know you're targeting these urban working moms who like to go out and socialize. You know, I can picture her in my head. I'm sure everybody can. So in the meantime, what would you talk to a woman like that about she wants to lose weight.

Holly:
Yeah. I mean right now I think what I would be talking to them about because it's what, um, what I'm hearing within my sort cool of friends is it's this, um, you know, this pandemic fatigue and they're kind of coming on the other side of COVID hopefully, and they're, they've all just sort of put on weight, feeling bloated, lost their energy. And so I think I would wanna talk to them about kind of a way to get their mojo back. You know, I, I don't know specifically if it's, I would say lose weight cause they're not saying like I've got 25, 30, 30 pounds to lose. They're all just saying, yeah, I put on some weight and I'm not feeling my best. I have no energy. I wanna get out of this kind of rut. So I think talking to them about sort of finding their, I don't know how to put it, but like kind of their pre pandemic, you know, energy, body mindset back. But I know people aren't thinking about Maybe not thinking about it in that way.

Holly:
Okay. So just from that stuff off the top of your head, I was just scribbling down some notes over here. Every time you write an email, every time you make a post on social media, you know, you don't have to talk about her entire life and everything about it. All you have to do is zero in on like, and actually it's much more effective this way. Zero went on one specific thing that she's interested in, that she will resonate with, that she finds funny. For example, I just shared something into my Instagram stories yesterday. It's a picture and Holly, I don't know if you're gonna, if you'll resonate with this, it will definitely work for who is my age, the, the black Steve Madden slides, those shoes that we wore around the year 2000 and they went clop, clop, clop.

Michelle Leotta:
Remember those? Okay. I shared a picture that I found on Instagram and it said, if you can... Something like if you can hear the sound of these shoes by looking at the picture, the super bowl halftime show is for you, right? So that's speaking to a very specific age group and you cannot believe how many people laughed at it wrote to me about it. Ha ha ha. I had seven pairs of those. Right? So even though that has nothing to do with the problem that I helped my health coaching fly and solve, I'm speaking to this exact demographic of women, right? Cause I know in year 2000 I was wearing those Steve Madden slides. I had black capric pants and I was going out clubbing on lands down street in Boston. I was in college. Okay. So, so when you share something you it's helpful to share something that it's real specific.

Michelle Leotta:
So you were talking about, you know, she just feels like she's in a rut, da, da, da topics that you could talk to her about in your emails when you're ready for it, you could talk about pandemic, fatigue, just call it out. You could talk about energy levels waking up in the morning. You still feel exhausted or going to bed at night and you're wired. Right? Cause that often goes along with it. You could talk about just the idea of being in a rut. You could tell a story about a time that you were in a rut and how you got out of it. Maybe has nothing to do with your health. Maybe it has to do with, you know, your career or something else entirely. Um, you could talk about pre pandemic.

Michelle Leotta:
Remember when, remember when we just went to the store and didn't have to, you know, mask up and all this sort of thing. There, there's all different topics within that. Um, you can talk about weight. Of course you could talk about it. Um, recent weight gain. You could talk about life long battles with weight. You know, there's so many different ways to talk about, uh, weight and dieting. How many diets have you been on in your life? You know, just opening up conversations that all, some of them are like very, very specific and are a little more tangential, but they're all gonna get at the right woman. They're all gonna be the Steve Madden slide, you know, for the right women to nod their head and be like, oh, she gets me, Holly gets me.

Holly:
Okay.

Michelle Leotta:
And if that's all you did for the next year, you'd be doing great. Like you would be setting yourself up so well for having an audience, that's going to be warmed up. As we say, as you know, cause you're in marketing this warmed up audience, when you eventually sell your services and your products, they're gonna be like, yeah, I love Holly. I wanna, I'm gonna buy whatever she's selling because she's so cool. Um, and, and remember we just got those topics that was like five or six topics from off the very top of your head you spoke for about 30 seconds. So imagine if you just did that for about 10 minutes, you'd have a year's worth of content.

Holly:
Okay. Okay. I like that.

Michelle Leotta:
All right.

Holly:
And so that would be across social as well as email when I'm ready for the email?

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, if you had a blog blog, it would inform what you blog about. For those of you starting podcasts, it would inform what you're podcasting about. It basically informs everything that you do, you figure out who am I helping? With what problem? Okay, what's she all about? Or what's he all about? What do they like to do? What do they interested in? What are their problems? What do they think about at night? What, what do they think is funny? And this is what you get your content ideas from and it's separate from what am I selling them? Like 90% of your emails, I'll say 75 to 90% of your emails are probably going to be of that nature. Just talking about topics, sharing, tips, sharing stories, ideas, um, maybe a recipe here and there, whatever. And then a small percentage of the time will be joined my thing by my service, you know, book the call like, you know, all the more the salesy stuff. But we are in, um, the coaching industry. So building a relationship is first and foremost and we never want to be pounding our list with sales messaging, which is why even if it is just your sister and your friend and your other friend and your mom, they're gonna get emails about interesting stuff. And it's not too annoying. And if they stay on your list, cause they can always on slip at the bottom. Right. If they stay on your list, they choose to stay on your list. Yeah. Eventually they'll get some sales messaging.

Holly:
Okay. So how often...

Michelle Leotta:
At your comfort level.

Holly:
Well, so how often in the beginning, I I'm, I'm thinking through this, this person now that I don't wanna target this woman. And I'm even thinking like as I'm bill... As I go back to build my list, only putting people that meet that picture, that target market on my list. Is that thinking too narrowly? Or should I open up to like all my closer friends and family?

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, sometimes we know a lot of people who fit the exact demographic that we wanna reach. And so like yeah. Ask those people if they wanna be on your list, but even other people can be really helpful to have on your list because I may not be that woman, but I know that woman, you know, so if I'm like your cousin and I'm happy to be on your list and help you start out when you're just launching your business. And I start seeing what you're writing week after week, it's funny cause your friends and family they'll just read it cause they're like, oh what's Holly doing? What's she up to? She's cute. You know, but then they'll go, oh I know someone who needs this. So it's not a bad thing to have other people on your list. And again, if they eventually don't wanna be there, it's not resonating with them. It's not helpful then they will unsubscribe.

Holly:
Okay. And in the beginning, is there a sort of a sweet spot on frequency to send these out when you don't have your offer or your program yet?

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I don't want you to worry about that quite yet. We will cover that inside HPU. Okay. The goal is just always to be consistent. Okay. So you literally really could start today if you want, based on what we just discussed.

Holly:
Okay.

Michelle Leotta:
And if you start in a couple weeks, that's okay too. Um, every from setting up the, the actual service to putting a few people on your list, to knowing what to write about, what's your comfort level on a scale of one to 10 right now

Holly:
I am a 10 on everything except knowing what to write about. I would probably be like an eight. I need to do a little bit of work on that. But as far as setting up...

Michelle Leotta:
That's perfect. That's right where you should be. And before we started today on a scale of one to 10, how comfortable with you were you with this whole content?

Holly:
Two, maybe.

Michelle Leotta:
Nice. You are a sponge. You absorbed everything that we just discussed. And now I feel like you're going to be able to act on it. So thank you again for joining us for coach the coach and being so very coachable.

Holly:
Thank you for your help and your insight as always.

Michelle Leotta:
And I'll see you next week for our mentorship call.

Holly:
Sounds good. Thanks Michelle.

Michelle Leotta:
You're welcome. And, and for everyone, if you would like to be part of our weekly mentorship calls, you do not need to be a Healthy Profit University member, although you could be, and we'll be opening up for new members later this spring. If you wanna put yourself on the wait list for that, you can at healthcoachpower.com/mentorship. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.