#199: 3 Free & Affordable Ways to Get Help With Your Business

Hello there, health coaches. You know, many years ago, I started the health coach power community Facebook group 'cause I was lonely, man. It was so lonely working by myself. I was just at my kitchen table. My babies maybe were napping in their crib or something. And I was like, this is the pits I missed having people. Do you ever feel that way? Well, that's, that's why we're here. We now have over 12,000 members in the group. The podcast is over 300,000 downloads. I was shocked. I just looked that up the other day and next week will be our official 200th episode. So thank you for joining me and thank you for being here throughout the past. Oh my gosh. 200 episodes... Well, 199 episodes as of this week. But even as we've grown, the goal is the same. I know that sometimes, or maybe a lot of times coaches are sitting at home and we're feeling stuck and we have questions and there's nobody to answer those questions.

It's really been the backbone of this community to provide that support. Even when, you know, if you're like me, you don't have thousands and thousands and thousands, thousands of dollars when you're just starting off to hire a business coach or even enroll in some kind of program. I know I started out. I was like, so boots strap in it. So today I wanna talk about some options that are free and that are low cost. So, for starters, and I know this must seem kind of obvious, but it's easy to overlook it. We have this Health Coach Power Community Podcast and in the archives, you will basically find anything that you're looking for. Have you ever just taken a scroll through the archives? You can do it on apple podcasts or Spotify or YouTube or all over the place. It is a treasure trove.

Seeking Vibrance is staying over here on Instagram, she loves the idea of working with others with similar business goals. Yeah, I mean, gosh, I would be, like I said, home by myself, sitting at my kitchen table, maybe, um, you know, my hu my now ex-husband my husband would come home from work and he was like the only person I could talk to all day long. And he had no idea what I was trying to do. I, I still don't think he ever figured it out, but here in the group here on this show, like we get it, we get it. So don't be shy about doing some digging back in the archives. You wanna find out more about how to price your services or about target markets or starting a group program or creating your signature program or mindset stuff, or literally like anything we've done a show on it. So, all you have to do is go and find it.

And that is my gift to you. I've been working on that gift for years, but even more than that, how about our Facebook group? So that's the other way to get support that is completely free. I started the health coach power community Facebook group, I think right. My second son was born. So we've been going for about nine years now. So are you taking advantage of it? I mean, we have quite a community built up of brand new coaches, sort of intermediate level coaches and also more advanced coaches. Are you in there asking questions, connecting with your fellow health coaches? I mean, that's what the group is for. We do so much work on the back end to make sure that we don't have spammers. We don't have bots. We don't have like a lot of people trying to sell a bunch of junk to you inside the group.

It is purely a group for health coaches. If someone tries to join and they're like, oh, I'm thinking about becoming a health coach. No, it's a group for practicing health coaches. So, if you're in school or you're already certified, get in there, create a new post comment on other people's stuff. And same as with the podcast, you can use the search function and you can go back through the archives and find conversations about literally anything . We have conversations about so many things in that group. Again, that we've been, we've been chatting about the business of health coaching for nine years in there. So don't be shy about utilizing this tool that is available to you, this resource. Oh my gosh. And then third, I wanna let you know that we'll be opening up enrollment later this summer for our very affordable weekly mentorship program.

And that like to me, is the epitome of what our community is all about. Like it's... If you take our Facebook group or this podcast, and it came to life, you know, like in some movie when you were a kid where like the snow globe came to life, if you took these things and you were able to jump inside of it, that's our weekly mentorship group. We're to get toge... We get together every week on zoom. Our members get to know each other and you know, I get to know everybody. Everyone's becoming friends and I'm able to answer your questions in real time and have a real conversation with you. And that I believe is the support that health coaches are so sorely lacking. So if you would like to be eligible for a weekly mentorship, you've gotta put your name on the wait list.

That's all you gotta do. It's not very hard. So do it now, before you forget, you wanna go to healthcoachpower.com/mentorship. Easy enough, right? Now, what kind of things can we talk about inside our mentorship group? How about this question from Angela now she posted it on Facebook. She posted it in the Facebook group and that's great. I'm really glad that you did that. Angela and I wanted to like answer her, but I realized sometimes the questions are, are bigger than something that can just be answered. You know, some questions are very straightforward and others it's like, well, let me ask you a few things first. So I'm gonna try right now and then you'll see what I'm talking about.

Angela said, I put together an eight-week long, one-on-one coaching program. That is a combination of health coaching and yoga. I was going to charge $997, but I'm worried that it's too much any advice of what a good price would be. I don't wanna scare people off, but I still wanna make it worth my time. So, Angela, I think you might be asking this question because you know, you like many people are gonna take $997. You're gonna divide it by eight weeks and you're gonna go, Ooh, that's $125 a week. And then you go, Hmm. I could probably join a yoga studio and have yoga all month long for $125 for the month. You know, why would I spend $125 for a week? And now you're like, oh, it's too much money. So what I wanna ask you about is who this program is for and what problem you're helping to solve with it.

Because if you are providing a service, you know, it's like how, like my lawn guys were just here and they just mowed my lawn. I can say, okay, this is how much it costs to mow the lawn. This is how so, so and so, you know, charges this much. And so, and so charges this much to mow the lawn. And it's very like cut and dry how much that should cost, same with like taking a yoga class, right? And maybe even the same if somebody thinks about, oh, I'm going to have a health coaching session or whatever, whatever they think that should cost. So we don't wanna sell our services. We don't wanna trade time for money in that way. What we wanna do is solve a problem and we wanna charge for how much it is worth to someone to have that problem solved.

So I think most of us can agree that $125 a week, and I don't know how much yoga is involved here, Angela. So, I mean, I'm just, I'm just riffing on this idea. So bear with me, but I think most of us can agree that $125 a week for yoga is pretty pricey. You know, maybe it's one on one yoga, in which case, maybe not as pricey, but still okay. That might be asking a lot of people. But if someone has like, think about somebody who has arthritis and it's really impacting their day to day, their quality of life, you know what their, you know, the pain killers or whatever their doctor's telling them to do is not really doing the job they're suffering. If in eight weeks, your yoga combined with health coaching helped somebody significantly reduce their arthritic pain. Would that be worth $997?

Like I would say so, you know, that's a major problem solve. That's a major quality of life issue. So that's the difference. Like pricing is such a nuanced conversation. And so it's less about like, should Angela charge $997 or should Angela charge less? It's really about who are we solving and what big problem are we helping them solve? Because it, that, that's it, if it's just somebody who like, kind of likes yoga and like they're kind of into nutrition. And so maybe they'd like to do a little bit of yoga and learn a bit, a little bit about nutrition, then $125 a week or $997 might be pretty expensive for that, right? 'Cause they're just like, oh, it's just fun. I just like to do that sort of thing sometimes, which is different from somebody that's like, I am suffering Angela, please help me. So we have more to talk about here than just the number, just the price point. And I think this is a good example of a question that I can't give a simple answer to. You know, it really warrants that larger conversation. So I would love to see Angela inside our mentorship group. I'd love to see all of you there, but remember you gotta put your name on the wait list at healthcoachpower.com/mentorship so that we can actually have these conversations now.

Sorry, a few of you have been leaving some posts. I think what's happening right now is that we're not broadcasting to Facebook. Although I checked and it said we were broadcasting. I apologize if we're not over on Facebook, but we are broadcasting on Instagram. So, hello everybody over there. What can you do? What can you do in the Facebook world? We've been having lots of trouble lately with that. It's okay. All of these episodes are always recorded and they're always published. Like I said to apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, you can always find them there. So I wanna share a couple questions that have actually been asked inside of our mentorship sessions lately. Just to give you an idea of the kind of support available. Here's one, we discussed one of our members. She said, people are not booking calls. She had, the emails are getting opened. Like she had a pretty good open rate, but then no one's taking that next step in booking a call. And so there's lots and lots of reasons for that.

Even like what we were just talking about with Angela, like why would they book the call? Because they just like kind of wanna do some health coaching or because you can help them with a big problem that they're struggling with. So that's like a larger question for this particular coach. We talked about maybe needing a softer touch and all of you, I think can benefit from this instead of a hard like book, a call, schedule a consult, uh, consultation, free consultation, click here. There's a time and a place for all of that. But sometimes you just wanna say, Hey, is this interesting to you? Do you wanna chat about it? Hey, is this something that you're struggling with? Let's chat and just keeping it like casual can sometimes be what somebody needs to take that next step, where they might be scared off by the book of consultation.

That just sounds like such a big deal. I even have in my system, I actually have two different types of like consultations that, you know, I can send a link to somebody. One is the more standard where it's pretty obvious that we're gonna get on the phone. It's gonna be a consultation, uh, for services. But I have another one that just says quick chat with Michelle. And sometimes those quick chats that get booked, that's all they are. They're just a quick chat, a quick, quick chat, just a touch base. But most of the time, if somebody's willing to get on the phone with you and put that on their busy calendar, they have a pretty big problem to solve and they're gonna wanna talk about it. And then before you know, it, it is a consultation. It really is. So that's something to try like a softer call to action in your emails, but also in your social media posts and things like that.

Okay. Another question that came up recently inside of our mentorship group was from one of our members who just moved. Actually, I hear this a lot. Why are health coaches always moving? You? You guys move a lot, but it's gonna come up either. You're brand new to your business and you're brand new to wherever you're living. And you're just like, ah, I've got nothing, got no footing here. Or sometimes I've done this multiple times in my business, you have a business running and you live somewhere and then you leave it cuz you move. And then also it can be very, very stressful. So the question here was how can I reach out to the new community? In this case, it was a very rural community. So sometimes your local area is important. Let's say, you know, you have a whole business around working with moms in New Jersey and everything you've ever written or published or done.

Every program you've ever run is for moms in New Jersey and you speak their language, right? And I'm a Jersey girl, so I could say this, right? Like mom, moms in New Jersey are a certain type. If you move to Iowa, that's gonna be difficult, right? So you would either want to adjust your business and you would wanna start reaching out to people in that new local area. 'Cause now you're gonna serve moms in that area of the country or you know what? You guys, we have this beautiful thing called the internet and you don't actually have to work with anybody in your local area at all. I mean, most of my clients do not live in my local area. So don't worry about it too much. If you don't know anyone where you live, it can be helpful. Don't get me wrong. If you get a friend and they run the Pilate studio and they offer for you to do a workshop.

I mean, that's fantastic. It's one way to, you know, have connections is based on this local bond that you have, but it's not necessary. And in this case, um, this particular health coach in our mentorship group is working with a group of women who have a very specific diagnosis. And I said to her, you live in a rural area. The population is very low, like per square mile or whatever. What are the chances you're gonna find women who have this diagnosis anywhere in your local area. It just doesn't make sense. So if you're working with a very particular type of woman, it has nothing to do with her, her location. You don't really need to do local networking unless you want to, but it doesn't have to be first and foremost, you probably get further, faster networking online.

All right. Lots of you are here with me on Instagram. I'm glad you found me here since we're having some trouble on Facebook, Hey, you gotta roll with the punches. Right? I think I should probably do an episode coming up soon called like when Facebook doesn't work or what to do when you're on a live video and everything goes wrong. 'Cause I think that happens probably more often than not. Actually that reminds me this weekend mentorship, we are talking about being on live video, so I'm sure this will come up. Okay. Here's another question that came up inside of our group recently. Again, I just wanna give you the kind of, uh, an idea, the kind of conversation that we're having. We have a member who said, she's trying to put together a workshop with a doctor. How many of you have tried to collaborate with the doctor or collaborate with anyone?

And then it just like, doesn't go anywhere. Has that happened? I mean, I hear that story more often than I hear the story. I set up a partnership or a collaboration and it's going swimmingly. I mean, very often there's this thing where it's like, yeah, we all said we were interested, but then it never came to fruition. So what we talked about in this particular situation is how she, how this coach can take control of the situation and make very specific plans and like a proposal on what she and the doctor could do together. And I always recommend that because if you're like, yeah, we should do something. And they're like, yeah, we should do something. But nobody actually says, let's do this. It will go nowhere. So you're better to be bold and make a proposal and you don't have to be rude about it.

You can just be like, here's what we could do and spell it out. All the details. It could be on these dates. It could be at these times, here's what we could charge or it could be free or whatever, spell it all out. And you say obviously open to your ideas and input, but the more you can be real specific with people then that busy doctor can just look at it and be like, yeah, let's do it. And didn't have to come up with the idea cuz that's like, that's a hard part. That's the heavy lifting. So in any kind of partnership situation, I want you guys to like, hold the reins, Hey, here's an idea of what we can do. The worst thing that happens is that they say no, that doesn't work for me. And then they probably will say, but here's what we can do instead.

And now you have a useful conversation going and that collaboration is gonna go somewhere. So we talked about a few more specifics with her. What's gonna make sense, uh, with this particular doctor so that they can get the most out of each other's audiences. And that's what those types of collaborations are always about. And I'm gonna tell you about one more conversation that we recently had inside of our mentorship group and this had to do with creating content. So how many of you are creating content either for your emails, your blog, maybe you have a podcast, um, or even a course, even if you're planning a course and you're like, well, gosh, what are we gonna talk about for each week of this course, we were talking about working with a group of women who have fibromyalgia. And this was a specific scenario that our coach had and what topics to cover with them.

So, you know, I think our health coach brain always goes to like dark leafy grains and healthy fats and movement and spirituality. And I was like, you know what? That's all fine and good, but what do these women really wanna talk about? Like, you know, and if you're here live, you know, tell, tell me in the comments, if you think about a woman who's about 60 years old and she has fibromyalgia, what are some things that she might actually enjoy talking about it, it makes your brain kind of go and you're thinking about things in a whole new light, because nobody has to show up for our marketing. Nobody has to read our emails. Nobody has to read our blog or listen to our podcast. So we wanna make it something that they are interested in, that they are like, oh yeah, that sounds good.

And sometimes when we're like today, we're gonna talk about whole grains. People are like snore, you know. They might listen for a few minutes cuz they know they should. But if we really wanna hook them, we were talking about how these women they're like in their sixties, they have grandkids, you know, who likes to talk about their grandkids, grandmothers. So maybe one of the pieces of content we talked about for this coach would be, let's talk about grandkids. Let's talk about, um, how it's hard to get down on the floor and play with your grandkids when you're in pain. Let's talk about having the energy to keep up with your grandkids, right? Like even though you feel like, oh grandkids that has nothing to do with fibromyalgia, it does 'cause that's her life. But if we go into it with like, let's talk about your fibromyalgia, that can be rather stale.

Or maybe she's heard that before. But if we're like, tell me about her grandchildren. That woman's never gonna stop talking. Right. And that's what we want. We want engagement. I mean again, emails, social media posts, however you're using this content. We always want engagement. Right? Um, another thing we talked about was that maybe she wants to talk about her social life, right? She's got kids outta the house. She's an empty nester. She wants to enjoy her social life now at the stage of her life. But of course it's being held back by her, her fatigue and her pain. So get her talking about her favorite restaurant, get her talking about the party that she's, she wants to throw, get her talking about something that actually is exciting to her and that's gonna intersect with fibromyalgia as well. And then we even had an idea that maybe a thing that she does wanna talk about is her pain.

She wants to be able to complain about it in a safe space. So, you know, we were suggesting that maybe there's a place for that too. Now you gotta be careful cause I can go in a real negative direction of course, but within a confined space to say here let's vent, let's vent about the pain. Let's vent about the, the BS that goes along with this diagnosis and get it out of our system. And then tomorrow we're gonna get back to being productive about it. So this was a very interesting conversation that we had inside of our mentorship group, picking apart somebody's business, their target market, a particular initiative that they were planning and saying, how can we do this better? Okay. Those were lots of examples. The point is when you feel stuck, it's because you're just one person with one brain. And when you have multiple people to bounce things off of when you have a mentor, someone who's been in your shoes to prompt you, you're gonna go further, faster.

You're gonna be able to see your situation in a much more holistic way. So when you're feeling stuck, three things to do first do not be shy about digging through the archives of this podcast. I can practically guarantee you're gonna find something related to what you're looking for. Secondly, start a post inside the Health Coach Power Community Facebook group. If you're not already a member, why? It's free go to Healthcoachpowercommunity.com join us. And once you're in create that post reach out for the kind of support that you're looking for, that is what the group is all about. And inside the group, once you're in there, you can also join me live during our weekly episode, recordings provided that Facebook is working that day. We're working on it and even better join us inside of our very affordable weekly mentorship group and get real actual FaceTime with me with a group of your peers and the wait list for that is now open it's at healthcoachpower.com/mentorship. So there's really no reason to stay stuck when you have free and inexpensive ways to get support. And that is what we're here for. I'm gonna see you next week to celebrate episode number 200. I'll see you then. Take care.