#182: Getting Into Corporate Wellness with Marcy Morrison

Michelle Leotta:
Hello there health coaches. So, I have something special for you today. Marcy Morrison is here to share her expertise around corporate health coaching. You know, that's when you're actually getting hired by the company itself, not individuals. So, it's one really cool way to build a healthcare coaching practice. And before we get into it, I just wanna plant a thought in everyone's mind, just because this has been coming up a lot lately. There are many ways to build a successful health coaching business. There's no one right way to do it that's gonna work for everybody all the time. And that means you don't have to do all the things. Can everyone just like exhale, you know, because you might find that one health coach is super successful. Getting tons of clients, really killing it with social media. Great. Maybe another health coach isn't using social media at all and finds success through something like core wellness.

Michelle Leotta:
So my point is there are so many different options. I am never here to try to overwhelm you with them or to tell you that you have to do them all and do them all at the same time. Absolutely not. But I want you to get a taste of what all your options are, so you can try it when it makes sense for you and see what works now that said, we're dive into a topic today. So many of you have had questions about, uh, I mean, for years, I don't really think we've ever hit this topic square on the head before. So if you're here live and you have questions about corporate wellness, please put it in the chat area. And thank you so much for joining me today, Marcy.

Marcy Morrison:
Well, thank you for having me, Michelle. I've I love your community. I love what you're doing. These people who health... If I had had someone like you, when I first started out in health coaching, it would've been so helpful. So I think you're, you're all in good hands.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh, thank you for saying that. Um, I was actually wondering, how did you get started as a health coach? And then how did you get started doing corporate work?

Marcy Morrison:
Well, I, um, like most, a lot of you went to IIN and I think, Michelle, I don't know if you did, when they, when they sent you like an iPod, like that little iPod that the whole class was on that thing.

Michelle Leotta:
Was, I was not, I was earlier than that.

Marcy Morrison:
You were, so you were actually live?

Michelle Leotta:
Yes.

Marcy Morrison:
Oh, okay. So I came the year after. So anyway, I went to IIN and I had had a, a series of very extremely traumatic events right before that. I had lost my entire family to different illnesses. Not necessarily preventable some, you know, anyway, I was obviously devastated and I had owned... Before I became a health coach. I had owned a personal training wellness center in south Florida for 11 years. And I took a huge... We had a huge, uh, number of clients because it was just right place, right time, you know, you just get lucky with something. I was very lucky there. So we took about 150 appointments a week. I had, I hired a bunch of people. I was on the news every week, cause I pitched them. I'll just do fitness tips, which exploded my business. And um, when I had my son, I could no longer work 70 hours a week.

Marcy Morrison:
So I sold my business and then I had some tragedy in my family and I decided to become a health coach. And I really wanted to reach more people because I didn't wanna see anyone else go through what I had just gone through. So, I just said, I'm gonna do corporate wellness. Didn't even know what it was. I had done it... I had had a corporate client before. It was a big one too. And I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a big famous sort of client who owned a company. But I didn't really know anything about it. I just said, oh yes, I do corporate wellness. So, I started really studying corporate wellness and I became a corporate consultant. And my first job, actual job where someone hired me was a, um, large insurance group. And in the United States, wellness programs are very tied to health insurance because our companies pay for the health insurance. And of course they want healthy employees cuz it's ridiculously expensive.

Marcy Morrison:
So, sort of baptism by fire. I had a hundred thousand employees that we were responsible for and um, I started wellness programs and after that I became a consultant on my own and I was hired off my LinkedIn page by a big fortune 500 company to do wellness consulting. And I have been doing that ever since I've never turned back. I've never done one-on-one health coaching. I've done a lot of one-on-one sort of wellness, weight loss, but it, I, I N and my, what I learned, I've always done corporate. So one of the things I do say all the time, and I really don't have to do all the things, but I think it's something that a lot of these health coaches are missing that they kind of, in my opinion, should take a shot at. And it's not as hard as they might think. And it's not as, as you know, into intimidating as they might think. So if I can do it, they can do it.

Michelle Leotta:
Well, what I love about what you just said, and everyone, you should hear this part loud and clear, regardless of where you go in your business and how you get there. You started before you were ready. You were like, yeah, sure. I do that. And then you figured it out.

Marcy Morrison:
Well, you know what I say to Michelle is that when you become a health coach, you have the title of health coach, whether or not you've ever coached anybody, you're a health coach. So I just said, I'm a corporate wellness consultant. I never, I had one corporate client, but it was so many years before. It wasn't even really the deal. But I just said, that's what I do. It's the, the title I put on myself and it's, it, it, I, at first I thought it was intimidating because of course we all sometimes have imposter syndrome, but for whatever reason, I was so ready to help people after what I'd been through that I didn't even worry too much about that imposter syndrome. I just said, I'm gonna do it. And, and it worked out. 150,000 employees later. I'm still in the corporate consulting business.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay. So, let, let's talk about this , cause I know everyone's interest is going to be peaked. When I started my health coaching business, I immediately connected with the people that I knew in HR, like from companies that I used to work at, uh, sometimes I would have a friend or a client of mine connect me with their company and with the HR people there. But I will say that pickings were kind of slim. And at the time I had no idea what I was doing. I was doing a thousand things at the same time and totally overwhelming myself. So I think that my experience with corporate wellness is like a good one to try to emulate, you know, I have done the workshops. I have been engaged with different corporate clients, but I wanna hear from you, how do you suggest that? First of all, we make contact and get a foot in the door with the right people.

Marcy Morrison:
That's always the first questions, always the best place to start. And what you did is actually correct. What I recommend is here's the biggest thing I recommend is that if you have any clients or friends who wanna be clients or, or they'll, most of them work somewhere, right? So that's the way to get in, like you said, you knew someone in HR, or you had a friend who worked at a company who introduced you to HR. Um, that is the best way to get in. And HR is typically going to be, um, who you speak to when you are promoting a wellness program. So not always though, if the company has a wellness program and a wellness director, that's the person you talk to now, you like, it can be hit or miss, but right now, especially what we have going for us, all right now, is that when COVID hit and closed everything down, now, everyone is used to doing things on zoom and via online course or, or hybrid of that.

Marcy Morrison:
You mentioned that in your group coaching podcast, that you did a highly record when everyone listen to that one. I think it's, you did it right before Christmas. Cause you can do hybrid. It's the same as group coaching. But now that no one's, the corporations are not expecting us to all come in and do the program live. It's open the door because you can. I mean, I have clients, I just got contact with a client. I don't need even know where they are. It's somewhere in Africa, but it's um, anyway, it's it's, I don't even know the country so we can do programs all over the world since COVID happened. So there are some silver linings like that it's opened our world up. So if you were trying and I do recommend trying to start in your own backyard because you can talk about the company, you know, the company, you might use their products or go to their bank or whatever they, their, their business is. So it's always good to start in your own backyard, but you don't have to maybe, you know, someone in California and you're in Colorado and you can work with that company, but you do start out with HR.

Marcy Morrison:
I always recommend coming in with a program that's specific. The one thing I'm gonna say is I'm always the one.. I say all the time when, when all the people who are teaching you like Michelle and you're teaching them one specific thing like niche down. This is where IAG, when you're saying Zig, because when you work with corporations, your new niche is employees and their family members. So, if you're, um, a coach who does female hormones with women over 53 kids, you know, your niche has to be much more broad. So, it's employees because in most wellness programs, they're not gonna wanna just have one demographic, women or men. So they wanna open it up to everyone. If you're doing level two or part two of your program, then yes, you can can branch off into something more specific. But you're gonna start out with something very broad. And I would say cast that wide net.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, that makes sense. Because I.. we talk about this all the time. So someone has that target market of, you know, endometriosis, you know, women with endometriosis. Well, you're not gonna walk into PepsiCo and pitch them a program that, but you could certainly walk in and maybe pitch something about women's health or like you said, general, you know about employees, families.

Marcy Morrison:
General, you know, what's interesting and you'll find, and so I wanna tell everybody who's feeling intimidated. Like here's what I think people think when they go into corporate wellness, you're gonna be sitting in front of the president of IBM and the president like the vice president and all the executives. And they're gonna be dressed up, standing there, looking at you. Well, those are very unlikely. The people who are gonna join the program because those people can afford all of those services on their own. So they're getting those services somewhere else. They're getting personal trainers and health coaches, home cooking and all that. The people who are most likely gonna join the wellness program are people who really, really need your services, but can otherwise not afford your services. That's what should light you up. You're not looking for people now who can afford your services.

Marcy Morrison:
I have done program. I could tell you story after story, but transformational programs from garbage collectors. And those are the people who always is come. I used to do very big programs in front of big audiences for say a municipality. I was working for city of west Palm beach. They had 1500 employees. They'd have sometimes 150 employees come to my programs and there would always be one time. And typically this would happen to be a little group of people standing in the corner. They were outdoor workers dirty and they would, after the, the program was over the first day, they, one of them came up to me and said, are we allowed to be here? So I know it was like a knife in the heart. Those are the people you get to work with. Those are the people. And then by the way, all your health coaches out here, your heads are gonna explode.

Marcy Morrison:
I finally was able to do a program separately just for them in their own area. And one of the guys who wanted me to work with him was eating a sandwich with, I think, wonder bread. Even they even make wonder bread anymore. It's white bread that has, you know, no nutritional value, a Coca Cola, some chips. And he said, oh, by the way, and I have diabetes... Mention what like, and I have, I cut my foot like two months ago and it's just not going away. You know? So it was like the, the transformation I saw with those wonderful people who didn't think they belonged, that's who you're gonna get to work with. I promise you. You're not gonna have these people were gonna be looking at everything you say going, oh, that's not right. I've had more people than not say, okay, what's a whole food. So, you get to teach basically 101. If you want, you can teach that basic stuff that we think everybody knows, but they might not. Those are the types of programs that are really gonna be transformational for a lot of employees.

Michelle Leotta:
That's an interesting way of thinking about corporate wellness as a way to reach people who are not Googling for you. They're not looking at, they're not listening [unintelligible]. Yeah. They, they really need it, but they're not ever gonna get exposed to it unless we get into their corporate setting or the municipality, which I'm never been considered as an option. When we think corporate, we think corporations always, but we could be working...

Marcy Morrison:
One of my specialties is corporations right now. I work with 7,000 corporate employees in the state of Massachusetts.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh my goodness. Okay. So, um, you mentioned that companies are not looking for, you know, very specific niche down topic to bring to their employees. They need something that's gonna work for everybody. Can you tell us a little bit more about what do we need to know about these corporate clients? What do they want, what do they not want? What makes that HR person say? Yes, let's do this.

Marcy Morrison:
Yes. Okay. So here's, there's some tips and um, I think these will help you agree. Great deal. First of all, the group coaching, it's, it's very similar to any type of group coaching you do. You're gonna have all different types of people unless you're group coaching for something very specific, like you said, like endometriosis or autoimmune. But think about this. If you're doing a program, a general like cast that wide net, half the people there will have have pre-diabetes type two diabetes, inflammatory issues, gut issues. So do a pretend. You have a bunch of people who know a little, but may not know a lot and teach a program that can transform their health from, Hey, what's a whole food to, oh my gosh, I am going to try a Mediterranean style plant or a I'm gonna get a plant based program going for myself and my family. So you take them from knowing very little to feeling confident about food and choices and feeding their families correctly. So, there are so many options for this, but one thing I will say that sells weight management.

Michelle Leotta:
Yes. I was going to say.

Marcy Morrison:
But, but here's what I do. And who has ever worked with me said, she said, she's a bait and switch queen because my weight loss program is basically optimal health, optimal, you know, exercising, personal trainer as well, exercise, gut health, you know, all dispelling, all the different, crazy diets. That's a good one to do. Talk about every crazy diet that's out there that people try to lose weight with the whole 30, which we all know is actually an elimination diet to determine whether or not you're allergic or sensitive to foods, not a weight loss program. You, you can take people through a true optimal health program disguised as a weight loss program, because if they're doing it right, you know, weight loss will come and it will come slowly and properly it's over a lifetime. So you're teaching, you're calling it weight loss. And of course you wanna put some weight loss, you know, information in there, but you wanna get... I say, and I hate to say it, but you sell them what they want and you give them what you know, they need when in the program. So you can always throw things like that in. So if you say, Hey, you talk to an HR person, just like that. Say, listen, I am a health coach. I really want employees to feel optimal health. What that feels like. And I'm gonna do a six week weight management program for your employees, because I know that something they'll join you. Can you use these words? I know they'll join a weight loss program, but I really focus on optimal health in every area, including gut health, including inflammatory issues, including disease management, like type two diabetes. You're not gonna teach them. Okay. You have type two diabetes. Here's your, here's your prescription food. No, but you're gonna say, hey, high fiber diets. You have to eat a lot of fiber. You have to eat plants. You've gotta watch starchy carbohydrates. Same thing. You're teaching basically everybody.

Michelle Leotta:
Yes. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And I think of any specific health topic that a company's gonna go for, we know they all already do Weight Watchers inside of a lot of companies. So is the next like a, an upgrade to their Weight Watchers program,

Marcy Morrison:
And you and I, and we all know weight Watchers. I'm sure it's very helpful. And they have re rebranded because they realize that you could have M&Ms all day and just have a certain number of points. The whole point of what we do as health coaches is help people with their overall health. Weight loss is one component of it. So it's one component. I just do weight loss programs because engagement is a big deal. So if you can get a lot of people to join your program, that will be helpful, but detoxing, anti-inflammatory foods, how to start a plant based diet, something, you know, a topic that's kind of interesting and something, you know, gets a lot of play either on wherever you see it on the news or on the internet, do a program like that, and then work in all the things you wanna talk about because here's now here's step two. Once you get in the door and we, we're gonna talk more about getting in the door, but after you do that first program, you're gonna say, Hey, to all the employees who participate, what do you wanna see more of? Because I promise you that once they find they're gonna consider you a trusted partner, they're gonna wanna keep you, they don't, I don't wanna keep searching for new health coaches to do programs for me. Once I get a good one, I'm keeping them. And I, if I trust them, I say, just give me the details once it's like, just send me when you wanna start, where you wanna do it and how long it's gonna take and what I'm gonna have to pay you.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. That's really good to know. Um, let's talk about the, the pay you part. I think this is the big question that, you know, we're always, even if we're just working one on one with clients, how much can we charge? How much can we charge? I, if we're gonna do like a one time workshop, for example, at some corporation, what you will charge can vary greatly. You could do it for free. You could make a couple thousand dollars, but maybe, you know, a couple hundred would be, would be average. What about this six week weight management program that you threw out there? What do you think an average size company would pay for something like that?

Marcy Morrison:
So I really think so. I have, um, I I'm helping some other people get into corporate and I have one person who she did a one off program and she was terrified. You know, we are all getting nervous about throwing these prices up. So she said, I'm just gonna do it over zoom. It's only for 12 people. That's the whole company, 12 people I said, but, uh, some companies with 12 people are extremely profitable. You know, they're doing, you know, if they're, um, a hedge fund, you know, they, or whatever, real estate company. So don't judge it on that. You don't wanna price yourself extremely low because there is some work involved with it. Of course. And you also don't wanna listen to those influencers who will say like $1,500 for one hour anytime you walk through the door. That's I don't believe in that either, because I think you'll, they'll close the door on you.

Marcy Morrison:
And then a lot of them talk to each other. I speak in front of big HR groups. They do talk to each other. So just, you know, I would say whatever you're charging per session for your, and I know you, you recommend they all do, you know, packages, but say, let's just throw out the first time you do it. Because the first price like we all know is not your final price, but what you to do is get your first one under your belt. Cuz then once you put that on your website or on your marketing materials, that I'm a corporate... I have corporate programs and this are the companies I've worked with. Then you start raising your prices. So if you're doing a six week program, I'd say between $2,500 and $3,000, and that's Zoom. If you're going in in person, it's different, cuz you've gotta add to it, travel time and things you have to bring in.

Marcy Morrison:
And you know, so the good news is, keep it on zoom. And here's the second reason you wanna keep it on zoom. The first one you create, just think about of the first group program you might create. That's a lot of work, but you can rinse and repeat that same program with numerous corporations. So, once you've got that program down, you can use it for group coaching program, but you can also use that program again and again. So the first one might seem like, boy, I put a lot of work in to this for $3,000, but once you start saying, Hey, this is now let's go to level two. I did, you know, nutrition 101. Now let's go anti-inflammatory nutrition or Nu you know, women's health, nutrition. And then you can charge a bit more for that. So you can see how it's the same in your practice. You don't start out at the price you wind up with three, three years later, do you?

Michelle Leotta:
Of course, but that's a, that's a good starting point for everybody to think about. Cause it's so helpful. I know when you're staring at a blank page and you're like, how much should I charge? Just sure. If you're gonna do a one time workshop, maybe it's a couple hundred, you're gonna do a six week program. Maybe it's a couple thousand and that's just like a ballpark to start with. And it will depend on the company. Um, every company has a different budget. So sometimes they have a certain amount budgeted for these things. I always found that I had a better, better luck with companies if I hit them up, um, for the next fiscal year. Because if I was trying to get them to do something like November, they're like, ah, we already blew our budget for the year.

Marcy Morrison:
Yeah. Well November's not a good time right now. We're heading into a sweet spot for purchasing for, for, um, corporations. Most who have a fiscal year that starts in January, municipalities have a fiscal year that usually starts in June. So a little different. Wow. Um, my, my municipalities, we do all our health fairs and um, that type of thing in may and June. But um, what I also want you to think about is if you go to these corporations, those people might wanna work with you outside of this. If they say, wow, you're doing something I love, I would now the company is not gonna have a problem with this. And I'll tell you why they pay a huge of money to have wellness programs for their employees. And I've had so many of those people say, you know what? I want them to have some skin in the game, but I want them to have some.

Marcy Morrison:
So if you say, Hey, I'm doing a program after and I can, I have a small group pro coaching program. I can do one on one off coaching with you. Just clear it with them first and say, no, I, I do this on outside of corporate as well. Some of your employees have wanted to work with me. They're not gonna have a problem with it. First of all, they can't tell their employees. They can't work with you. You're not soliciting their employees every minute. You're there. It's not like, but you will build the list. You'll be surprised if you have a hundred people there, they're gonna be enthusiastic members of a list that you create or a group that you create. You'll be surprised. You can build quite a little audience there.

Michelle Leotta:
I love it. And someone just asked yesterday something about how the question was essentially, how do we target people who have the money to pay for health coaching? And when you think about it in corporate, everyone, you're talking to, you know, they have a job. So, that's a really good starting point as opposed to doing something at the library where people go to the library to get free stuff, right? Like that's gonna just have a different crowd. Oh yeah. So you're right. You're gonna have people that you do this six week, uh, program with. They think you're great. They wanna work with you further on their own. Right? They refer you, you know, it, it's a wonderful way to build your network. And there's well, its quantity there. You're reaching so many people at once.

Marcy Morrison:
And that's the other thing that little think about this. And I always think about the got Curtis is one who walked up to me and said, are we allowed to be here? The garbage collectors? I mean, but think about the little, um, executive assistant. Who's barely, barely making it. Who's trying to figure out how to feed her kids. Cuz maybe she's a single mom. Like you get to work with her. She might not be able to work with you outside of that corporation. But that lights me up. That's that's what drives me. I work a lot and that's what key keeps me going is the people who could otherwise not afford my services, who need it and who have these big transformations that lights me up.

Michelle Leotta:
That's really beautiful. Marcy, this is such an important topic for health coaches to be thinking about. Obviously there are more steps in involved. How do I reach out to someone? What should I say? Oh my goodness. I have imposter syndrome. All of these things. Oh yeah. Where can our listeners go to learn more or to connect with you further?

Marcy Morrison:
So I am so soft sell on this. My big business is corporate consulting and now I'm continuingly bringing in... I'm starting... It's crazy. I'm starting a membership for corporations to try to help them get like the smaller of corporations that don't have $150,000 budgets to pay a wellness consultant. Um, so I'm trying to create a membership. So, but I also have, um, my corporate coach is collaborative. It's a very like, I am not Michelle. Let's be clear to everyone. I have what 90 people, but I put a lot of free stuff in this corporate coaches, collaborative Facebook group. And I also have, um, I have a membership where health and wellness professionals get into corporate. It's also very small because I, um, I'm just, it's not a part of my business. I ever thought I would start. But like you said, the questions I get, I, I did a big program with a guy named Stu McLaren. I don't know if you know who do is yes. I took his tribe and all I was trying to do was start a corporate membership and 50 people said, I wanna learn how to get into corporate. So I started a little membership. So those are the two ways.

Michelle Leotta:
Okay, fantastic. So Marcy has a Facebook group you guys can join. You can reach out to Marcy. If you have more questions about corporate wellness, thank you so much for joining us today. This is making me so happy that we could bring this topic onto the show.

Marcy Morrison:
I'm so happy I get to meet you. And this was great. And thank you. And yes, any questions they have just, you can send me any questions they have as well and I'll answer them.

Michelle Leotta:
What is your email address? And you just speak it for everybody?

Marcy Morrison:
Yes. It's Marcy@healthyfitfamily.com.

Michelle Leotta:
All right. Thank you so much Marcy. See you next time.