#288: Create and Share the Right Content for Your Health Coaching Business

Michelle:
All right. Hello there, health coaches. You know what? I took a scroll through my Instagram this morning, and since I follow so many of you, I can see what you're putting out there. And I saw a lot of quotes getting shared, some great quotes. I saw a lot of quotes. I saw lists like 10 plant-based sources of protein, stuff like that. I saw recipes, and I want to say I'm so glad that you're publishing content and you're making yourself visible. That's amazing. This is really good stuff, and I'm only seeing your Instagram, by the way. Then I know there are many of you who are blogging who are podcasting like Vicki. Shout out to Vicki, who recently restarted her fabulous and over 50 podcast.

Jana:
That's a great name.

Michelle:
That's great. I'm so proud of Vicki. She followed our free podcast, Quickstart Guide, by the way, to do that. And you can do the same. It's at healthcoachpower.com/podcastguide. But today's show is not about podcasting or blogging per se, or posting on Instagram. It is the larger overarching question of what should I write about? What on earth do I have to share? What sort of content can I actually come up with and should we spend our time on? And to answer that question, my friend Jana O is with us today. Jana is a content strategist and one of the smartest, most pulled together people I know in the online space. So Jana, thanks for being here. Introduce yourself to everybody.

Jana:
Oh my goodness, thank you. Thank you. That's so sweet. Hi, everybody. I'm Jana. Such a nice introduction. And like Michelle said, I'm a content strategist. I also teach people how to do Pinterest. I did that for about eight years, and these days I am really focusing on helping health and wellness and self-improvement coaches to create content that converts to clients. So yeah, that's who I am, and I'm excited to talk about this today. It's my favorite topic.

Michelle:
And you have so much to say about it. So I'm very much looking forward to this conversation because everything that Jana and I were talking behind the scenes the other day and everything that you were saying when I really thought about it and I went onto Instagram, like I said, I was like, oh yeah, this is exactly what we're doing. This is exactly the pitfalls that we're falling into. So I know you see what I see, which is lots of health coaches sharing quotes, sharing listicles, things like that. What's your take?

Jana:
Yeah, like you said, it's so great to be showing up at getting out there and making yourself visible. But the next step beyond that, once you have kind of gotten in the rhythm and you're showing up maybe a couple times a week or whatever your cadence is, to really think about maybe the difference between the things that you're posting now, like the nutrients and the sweet potato and the Brene Brown quotes and whatnot, thinking about that type of thing versus are these really the things that my ideal client needs to hear and learn and understand more deeply to actually be ready to buy, to be ready to hire me or book that call or fill out that application to work with me? Whatever that next step that you have in your process is to get them as a client. And I think when we're really thinking hard about it, if we really are honest with ourselves, we can all agree that it's really not the nutrients and the sweet potato or the Brene Brown quotes that are going to move people into action.

And so it's a little bit of tough love. I guess I have for your audience today, Michelle, to say that if that's you, great, I'm so glad that you're showing up, but now it's time to think about maybe just showing up and getting visible. Although that is an accomplishment in itself. Maybe that's not enough to really get you the signups, the discovery calls, the clients that you want to fill your client roster. So yeah, I would agree there's a lot of that out there. I'm glad people are doing it, but you need more than that in 2024 to sign clients. So that's kind of the overarching message here.

Michelle:
So let's keep that in mind. We're not just sitting around putting out content, whether it's on a blog or a podcast or whatever for fun. We're just content creators. We're not just trying to get traffic. We're coaches. We're trying to see that conversion from somebody who's reading our stuff or watching our stuff, and then they take that next step and they become a paying client. And that's where smarter content is going to ensure that you're not wasting your time. And I want to let you guys know that Janet and I are actually holding a follow-up training. It is entirely free a follow-up training to today's episode, and that's where we're going to share more about a content system to establish yourself as an expert in the health space, even if you're just starting out. This is really valuable stuff and I think we all need this, so it's completely free to join us. I want you to go to healthcoachpower.com/expert because at the end of that training, you're going to know exactly what it takes to start feeling like an expert. Janna Imposter syndrome is a really big thing for our coaches. You must see that with those that you work with.

Jana:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the ironic thing I think when I look at my students and my clients in the beginning when they're posting those quotes, posting those recipes and whatnot, is that they're such incredibly smart humans and they have such rich life experience and work experience. So many of them are coming out of backgrounds where they worked with people and got amazing results for people. They know so much about their space, but they don't necessarily what it takes to take that and turn it into their marketing content. They almost think of those two things as separate. This is your expertise over here, and this is your marketing content. Now, what in the world should the marketing content be? And so one of the concepts that I like to try to help people think about when they're thinking about how to create content that positions you as an expert, not just content that shows other people's brilliance, like quotes for example, is to think about this almost like a Venn diagram, those two overlapping circles.

One circle represents all the amazing experience and knowledge that you have, including the sweet potatoes and things like that, but also the mindset shifts people need to make in order to get the results with you and whatnot, all the things you've seen over the years of experience that you have. And then the other circle represents the things that your audience actually needs to, as I mentioned earlier here, learn and understand more deeply to be ready to hire you and to think about really finding that sweet spot in the middle of the Venn diagram, the part where the circles overlap to think about what content you should be creating. And we're going to be getting into this a lot more in the training that we're doing that you just mentioned, but instead of just thinking about the tips and the tricks, we need to also be thinking about what I like to think of as belief shifting. So what do they think is going on now that's keeping them from getting to where they want to get to? And what do you know about that that is true, and what do you know about that that maybe that're thinking that isn't true? So belief shifting, bringing people from thinking one thing to thinking, realizing something else. Those are the kinds of things people need to learn and hear and understand more deeply as an example. So yeah, it's really all about…

Michelle:
Do you do some examples of that, by the way? I think that sounds good. But then it's like, wait, how do I translate that to what I'm actually doing in my business? When you just said, what does someone, you could tell me if I'm getting this right, what does someone need to hear in order or understand in order to want to hire you as a health coach? One thing that came to mind for me was when we have women with autoimmune disease and they think of it in terms of it's just bad luck or it's just genetics. Genetics, there's nothing I can do. Maybe their doctor even told them that there's nothing you can do. There is no cure. So that's what they're living with. So they would need to hear and understand that no, there is so much you can do and maybe there's no cure per se, but we can sure as heck get rid of so many of those symptoms.

Jana:
And we definitely, we have to remember too that even though we already are well aware of that, a lot of the people in our audiences are really still so many steps behind us that they may still be thinking that this is just genetics and there's not much that I can do about it for an example. So that's a great example. Exactly. And so the idea is to mix that in with some of the other types of things that are more of the how-tos and the tips and the tricks. Some things show your expertise and some things are more about moving people kind of along on a conversion kind of track, if you will, getting them closer to the point where they're ready to take that action and to sign up with you or to book that call with you. So yeah, that's a great example.

Michelle:
Can we do an example of what you meant by mindset shifts?

Jana:
Yeah, for sure. So for example, I'm drawing a blank, sorry.

Michelle:
Just put you on the spot.

Jana:
No, it's alright. I got a lot going on today too. So that's part of it. Yeah, so let's think about, for example, let's say you are a coach that specializes in for some reason, I know you've got a lot of obviously the health and wellness coaches, but I'm thinking about the dating coaches. Sometimes people who are dating coaches realize that their audience are coming up against their thinking, that it's more about the external things and finding that person versus doing the work to be ready to find that person. And so talking a little bit about that, but also meeting people where they're at is really the key to it is understanding where they are now, acknowledging for them that you understand why they're there, what they've experienced before or read before or heard before that is creating that belief, but then showing them something new and explaining and backing up the reason why what they think is the problem isn't really the problem, for example. And then transitioning into how you help solve that problem. That would be an example as well of more of a belief shifting. You could think of it as mindset shifting too, but that belief shifting kind of content that we need in addition to the tips and the tricks and the how tos to really help people see us as the expert and be ready to hire us. Right?

Michelle:
So that made my brain go, oh, it's like when we have a health coaching client, or no, they're not a client yet, but there's somebody who has a problem with their health and they're going, well, I don't like healthy food. I don't like stuff like that. I could never get healthy because, or I don't like to exercise. They just have that, I'm not a person who does this.

Jana:
It's unpleasant.

Michelle:
Right. And so this would be us creating content that would help them go, oh, well that's true. I do like apples and an apple is produce and maybe I do like produce.

Jana:
Right. And then also there's something about the identity shifting as well. I don't think of myself as someone who likes healthy things, but actually when I start looking at the actual facts of the circumstances, for example, I do like apples, it can help shift that identity. So that's also the type of content you can be thinking about creating. Yeah.

Michelle:
Ooh. Alright. So for those of you that are here live with us, tell us in the chat, what are some of those beliefs that you see people getting stuck on? I could never, because I'm not that kind of person. It's too hard. I don't have time. We hear all of these as health coaches, so I'm curious what that's bringing up for everybody who's watching, because this is the stuff we hear every day. So if you think about it that way, it should be pretty easy to come up with our content. Can we just pull it from the conversations that we have?

Jana:
Yeah, and I think sometimes people are a little worried about being a naysayer or being polarizing in some ways, but I also think that you need to find some balance and be willing to state those opinions that you have that might go against the grain. And when we really start to think about what things do I believe that are different from what other people believe or the things, what are the parts of the approaches that I take with people when I'm working with them that are different from what others do? That's again where our content can start to position us as different than all the other people who are in our space or all the other people that our ideal clients might be thinking about learning from. Or maybe not even just hiring in this moment, but learning from. So those things also differentiate us, which is really important because none of us want to feel like I'm just one in a bunch of people in a space that are all kind of saying the same thing, look like I'm doing the same thing. We all want to stand out for the things that are different about us. So your content can help you do that too. But again, it's hard for you to position yourself as different or the right choice for someone if you're not sharing your own thought leadership ideas, if you're only sharing the things that are more of those generic tips and tricks and quotes and recipes and such. So bringing it back to that concept.

Michelle:
I think words when you said thought leadership, I'm not sure I felt like a thought leader when I started my health coaching business and I would pretty much bet my life savings that nobody is listening right now necessarily thinks of themselves as a thought leader. Can you normalize that or kind of break down with what you mean by that?

Jana:
Well, I think it's like, sorry, my nose is running. I think it's the difference between expertise and authority in the space. Those two words are, you hear them used in similar contexts, but they're very different in the sense that you can be an expert and have a lot of really important information in your brain and be able to share it with people in the moment when they need it, who are your clients already? But taking that expertise and turning it into content now gives you this authority online where people actually see you and they see your content and they think not just, oh, she knows her stuff, but also maybe not just she knows her stuff, but it's about that differentiation I think in the market as well. So being an authority...

Michelle:
This person knows their stuff, but they can help me. I know they can help me.

Jana:
Yeah. Yep. That's such an important part of the puzzle. So I think that authority and thought leader are similar in that way. You may not think of yourself as a thought leader now, but if you start mixing into your content, your own opinions, your own ideas, and start showing up more as an authority instead of just having your expertise kind of locked up in your brain, that's where you are, believe it or not, kind of stepping into that role of thought leader or authority in your particular niche or space. And again, I think that's so important for people for that credibility that you really need in order for people to take that next step and be ready to sign up to have you as their guide in some kind of change that they want to make, so.

Michelle:
I thought maybe we could do some makeovers of content makeover. How could we make it better? Yeah, these real life examples just drive the point home so much. So you've mentioned sweet potatoes a bunch of times.

Jana:
I don't know why I just have sweet potatoes in my head today.

Michelle:
I have absolutely seen that, right? And I've probably even written that in my health coaching career, so we can all see it now. It's like eight reasons to eat sweet potatoes or whatever the benefits of sweet potatoes. And it's like we got this vitamin, got that vitamin and fiber and whatever, this, that and the other. When you were talking about being polarizing or inserting your opinion, it got me thinking that for me was always the easiest way to make facts interesting to read was to not just relay the facts, but talk about how I thought about it. I always thought sweet potatoes were disgusting. I only ever ate them on Thanksgiving. Somebody would mix them with marshmallows and you can share some sort of humanity along with the facts.

Jana:
I like that idea.

Michelle:
So interesting. But I'm not sure that's exactly like an opinion. Where else could we go with sweet potatoes where it starts to work harder for us in terms of converting clients?

Jana:
Yeah, I think when you start to think about, for example, substituting sweet potatoes for other types of alternatives, like a white potato or whatnot, or that could be something not just as a tip, but talking about why you would do that, and sorry, how that, if you have particular opinions. I'm trying to think how to make a sweet potato spicy other than jumping spice on it.

Michelle:
That's a tough one.

Jana:
Maybe you have an opinion about sweet potatoes. It's actually different than what other people think. Maybe you think that sweet potatoes actually aren't that great and there's other vegetables or other things that are similar or that you can sub in for recipes that actually have a higher, more of the nutrients that your particular ideal client needs and your particular niche. It's all about coming back to what your particular specialization is, for example. So that might be an example, having a different opinion about sweet potatoes. I don't want to...

Michelle:
Keto coaches, our keto coaches are going to be like, don't eat sweet potatoes. It's way too many carbs. We're not doing that. Eat more meat, whatever. And that's where people start to pay attention, right? Like, oh wait, what?

Jana:
Yeah, yeah. A better example might be cauliflower now that I think about it, right? When people hear about like, oh, cauliflower steaks, one particular health coach might think cauliflower steaks are great, but another one might say, no, actually for autoimmune you really need to be eating a real steak. So let's talk about how you can do that in a healthful way.

Michelle:
My God, I always see that on the internet too, substitute a cauliflower steak and I'm like, where's the protein? Where's the protein?

Jana:
I was a cauliflower steak. Yeah, I think it's a lot easier to think about, yeah, I don't want to vilify the sweet potatoes, but I think that would be a good example. The cauliflower steak. Actually cauliflower steak isn't the right thing for this particular set of people that I personally help. That would be a great example.

Michelle:
Why I don't recommend this for my clients. That might be an easy formula to use when you want to just share information, couching it within why I do recommend this for my clients or why I don't talk to my clients about this or whatever. Because that is then putting into the context of your specific work. And also it underlines the fact that you work with clients and then the reader's like, oh, and I could be one of those clients. We got to keep mentioning that thing. Alright, what about this one? This was like, I love to poke fun at myself because you live and you learn, and I've been a health coach for so many years now that there's a lot to make fun of. But I remember at one point in my health coaching career, I created a lot of content around healthy holiday recipes. And I'm going to tell you people loved, I mean on the surface it was very successful. They all wanted my healthy holiday recipes. Who wouldn't want that? But lemme tell you how many clients I got from it. Big fat zero on that one. So I'm thinking like, gosh, maybe what people needed to hear was not just like, here's a recipe, but maybe it's like you don't actually have to gain 10 pounds during the holidays every year. Maybe you needed to hear that?

Jana:
Maybe, or even talking about some of these where the mindset comes in talking about how the social pressures that happen when you go places and you bring, or other people have brought their favorite recipes and people really want you to try something that you personally know is not going to be good for you, for example. So digging into the specifics of situations like that and thinking not just how can I show up with my favorite healthy recipes, but how can I help people with the actual problems that they experience at this time of the year when it comes to all of this that swirls around the drama around what we're eating and what we're not eating and what we're bringing and what we're not bringing. So those are the kinds of things that are more digging into those specifics. And when you create content around something like that, you're going to be one of not many people that have that kind of content in their feed.

Whereas everybody has their favorite healthy holiday recipes in their feed at that time of the year, and it kind of becomes almost like white noise. So thinking about how you can be different again, how you can change people's thinking around things, how you can get more granular around the actual problems that you're solving. I mean, one solution is to have a healthy recipe in your back pocket to bring, but there are all kinds of other problems that people are experiencing around the holidays when it comes to food. And if you can help with those because you have some expertise not just around how to prepare a healthy meal, but also around some of those mindset challenges that brings a lot of value to people in a different way and it hits differently.

Michelle:
And certainly depending who you're writing for, right? Just sitting here thinking, gosh, well, I was just sharing my recipes out to the whole wired world. I don't know what I thought that was going to get me. What if I specifically was that your, I think at the time I was really working with moms who had little kids, so maybe more for your picky eaters or if you're working with autoimmunity. Actually, I remember having client who had autoimmune disease talking about how at Thanksgiving she was going to not have the white potatoes. She was actually going to have the sweet potatoes and she was not going to have, we kind of went through all the things that were typical on the menu that would be triggering for her and helped her come up with alternatives. So it's not just like, because as we know, what's healthy for one person is not necessarily healthy for another person. So knowing exactly who you're talking to, the content can become so much more tailored and useful.

Jana:
Absolutely. Yep. Helps you get granular. Otherwise, it's difficult to get granular if you don't know who you're talking to and what their actual problems are and what their goals are.

Michelle:
And you know what it sounds like. It just sounds like blah, blah, blah, generic. I've heard it a million times and people click away.

Jana:
Exactly. Exactly. They keep scrolling. It's not the kind of thing that gets people taking notice or making moves, so.

Michelle:
So you have a system that actually helps us develop key pieces of content, and that's what we're going to be talking more about in our training coming up later this month. Do you want to talk a little bit about that now and why everyone should go hurry and sign up for that training? By the way, you guys, again, it's healthcoachpower.com/expert.

Jana:
Yeah, I think it's going to be really helpful for anyone who's feeling like, yeah, they're right. I really am posting a lot of things that are a little on the generic side, a lot of those tips, recipes, quotes from other people. So what we're going to do is we're going to start to talk a little bit about what that system is and how we start finding the middle of that Venn diagram that we talked about a little earlier today. So not just about your expertise, but also thinking about what are the things that people need to learn and hear and understand more deeply as they're getting ready to buy from me or hire me. So we're going to talk about the specific types of content that help you get paying clients as opposed to the kind of content like you were getting at Michelle earlier, where people are like, great recipe or thumbs up, I like it, but it's not really moving the needle in terms of actually bringing them closer to hiring you, right?

We're also going to talk on that day about why when you create content this way and you dig deeper, you don't actually need tons of content, you only need a little bit of content if it's more dialed in, if it's the right content. And so we didn't really talk about that today, but it's definitely a big part of having a system like this is making it so that you don't have to create 1042 different things before something hits, because you're much more specific about knowing what things are actually going to move people along and get people ready to buy. So we'll talk about that and basically just getting bigger results with your content in less time because you're being more specific and because you're not just, again, sharing those tips and tricks and how toss. So it's going to be a great training and I hope some of the folks who are listening will come and join us for it.

Michelle:
And I think I'm just going to be palm to forehead during the part like you just said, but you don't need to create that much content. You were talking to a woman who has been producing this podcast every single week for years and years and years and years. We have hundreds and hundreds of episodes and you're going to tell me I only need 10 or something and then I'm just going to die right here on my floor. But you're right, you can create, create, create, create, create, and it kind of goes nowhere. I mean, I'd like to think that mine has gone somewhere, but if you're smarter, if I could rewind time way back to when I was developing healthy holiday recipes for no reason, you can save yourself a lot of energy instead of doing more and more and more doing less and doing it better.

Jana:
Yep. Absolutely agree.

Michelle:
We like that.

Jana:
We do more clients, less content, less time. Sign me up.

Michelle:
Alright, so today we talked a little bit, I mentioned social media, we mentioned blogging, we mentioned podcasting. I don't think I even mentioned, but another form of content would be, do we say vlogging? Is that even a word anymore?

Jana:
Yeah, I think most people know what that is. I always think of, I say having a YouTube channel, and generally that's where people are going to do a vlog if they have a vlog, although there are other platforms, but creating long form video content of some kind.

Michelle:
Right? So we've mentioned all these different places that you might be creating content where it might live or maybe you have content. I do. It lives in a whole bunch of those places at once. Oh my God. So actually next week, Jan, you're going to come back on the show and we're going to talk about those different platforms. I know some of our coaches are already on maybe social media, but nothing else. Or maybe we have coaches who aren't doing any of this yet and they're like, I need to be creating content, but we'll talk about which of these platforms is right.

Jana:
Yeah. Yep, absolutely.

Michelle:
When you're working with clients, do you find that there's one that's more popular than the others, or what seems to be winning in terms of popularity?

Jana:
Yeah, I was going to say it's like your platform mix basically. So just a little bit of a sneak peek. I would say that most of my clients and students, when they think about where they want to create their long form content, their headquarters or their source content is sometimes what I call it. Because when you create long form content, it can inform all the other pieces and make it a heck of a lot easier to create the other pieces of content. Most of them like a blog, a lot of people like a blog, and I do have some students who podcasting as well, but most of them are blogging.

Michelle:
That is fascinating. I mean, blogging has been around forever now. I thought everyone had kind of moved on from that, but it's still going strong.

Jana:
Yeah, no, definitely. There's so many benefits of having a blog, and again, I don't want to get too much into what we're going to talk about next week, but it's also it important to remember that if you're a health coach and you have a blog, you're not a blogger, you're a health coach with a blog coach, and there is a difference. And we'll talk about that next week.

Michelle:
So good. And the reason we're doing this today to wet your appetite next week so you can think about a platform that makes sense for you, for your source content, so that by the time we all get together for our training later this month, how to establish yourself as a health expert. You'll better understand where you're starting from, how you can start to implement this right away. So we're looking forward to that. If you haven't already, head over to healthcoachpower.com/expert to get signed up for free. Jen Janna, thanks so much for being here.

Jana:
Thank you so much. This was fun.

Michelle:
We'll see you next week. Bye.