#303: September Ideas for Your Health Coaching Business

Hello there. Health coaches, Matt, I don't know if you realize this, but health coaching businesses comes in seasons. Our business goes through seasons. That's what I'm trying to say. And some are slower seasons like you might have been experiencing this summer, maybe, maybe not. Some are busier and full of opportunities like the fall. That's when our clients are getting back from their vacations. And maybe you are too, and everyone, and regardless of our age, kind of get that back to school vibe. You want to go sharpen some pencils and everyone's just ready to get down to business and handle the things that they've been putting off all summer in your client's case, various health issues. But what about you? Let's start there. Are you ready to take advantage of the motivation that's in the air today? My goal is to give you ideas that you can literally take and run with and at minimum spark inspiration for you to come up with other super cool ideas that make sense for you and wherever you're at in your business right now.

Maybe you're just starting out, maybe you're still in school to become a health coach. Maybe you're already working with a bunch of clients. If you are here live with me like I know Tim is and Linda is and a bunch of others, go ahead and tell me in the comments, what are you planning for the fall? What are you thinking is going to be the next best move for you come September, because the autumn just swoops in and everyone's firing on all cylinders. You want to make the most of it before the holidays hit and then we have another slowdown. Now, before we jump in, I want to give a shout out to Square Garden who left this five star review on Apple Podcasts and Square Garden said so helpful and candid. I recently discovered this show and have been devouring episodes. It's so nice to have a health coach talk candidly about the business and Michelle's information and advice has been invaluable as I carved my own path in the health coaching world. Well Square Garden, thank you so much. I'm so glad to hear that these episodes have been useful. We have a little gift to send your way. Please email support@healthcoachpower.com with your mailing address and reference. Episode 303. Oh my gosh, we're at 303 and for everybody listening, could you take a minute and leave a review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you are at? It is super helpful and it makes it possible for me to continue providing this free content every single week.

Alright, so we're getting ready for back to school or back to business. Let's see what you guys are saying here. By the way, if you need new shoes, if you need a new backpack, go for it. Post-it notes highlighters. Whatever's going to make you feel ready to take on a new challenge. I just bought my son size 11 sneakers. He is 13. What on earth? I couldn't even believe that these shoes fit his feet. Alright, let's see what you guys are saying here. Tim says, I work with grief, so I am planning group sessions with parents who sent their kids off to college. Yes, we're going to talk a lot about how to make sure you're messaging whatever you're offering and putting out in the world. Makes sense with the fall season. So that's a perfect example. Thank you Tim. Ellen says she's planning a three day challenge. She's going to write an article and finish her lead magnet. Good, good. Stacy says, I need clients to help me with my log for the N-B-H-W-C application. If anybody wants to be a client for Stacy to do her N-B-H-W-C requirements, hook it up in the Facebook group. Stacy's there looking for you, and Tara says Five day challenge at the end of September. Yeah, it's good to think about doing things and we'll discuss this a little bit at the middle and the end of September because that first week of September, everyone's very excited to jump back in. It's also like a super overwhelming week coming right off Labor Day weekend here in the States. I know that's when my kids go back to school that week.

So I really like the idea of starting a little bit later in September with whatever you're offering. So once you're hyped up for the fall, and I hope you are, even though I'm sitting here in a tank top and it's definitely still summer for a few more weeks, I got four areas for you to think about. So first is your mailing list and I'm talking about your current mailing list. Anyone who's already on your list, if you don't have a mailing list, you're going to want to start one. Maybe that's your project, but if you have one, I want to make sure you're staying in touch and you're providing value because all too often health coaches have a list that they are not using. Anyone guilty guilty with that maybe you were using it, but again, this summer you were away, things happened. Let's get back on track for the fall. Emailing our list, it is your business's most valuable asset. So like I said, great time to get back in and make sure you are doing this regularly. It is the equivalent of brushing your teeth in your business. You're going to just do it regularly. You're not even going to think about it. You send out an email to your list and it's okay if it's imperfect, better imperfect, but consistent than perfect, whatever that means, and inconsistent. So I have an idea for you if you're like, Ugh, I never know what to send my list, and you could take this idea and use it in lots of different ways, but what if instead of a random weekly newsletter, why not do something themed for the fall?

So this is going to apply to not everyone, but many of you. September could be a series of lunchbox ideas. If your audience is a group of moms and they're packing up lunchboxes for the kids every day, it could be around the kids' lunchboxes or maybe you're talking to a crowd who is packing their own lunch to bring to work. That's still cute. You can still talk about back to school or getting back into the swing of things and give them ideas. Maybe a couple easy recipes. Tell them why the food in their lunchbox matters for their energy and their focus. So I know whenever I would talk about packing lunches, I always talked about planet box. Again, this particular brand may be meaningless for you or for your target market, but the idea is going to hold true for everybody. So I would always talk about Planet Box, and these are stainless steel bento boxes.
I've always used Planet boxes for my kids. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but if you have a brand that you love, see if they have an affiliate program. So think what's relevant for the fall. What content can I provide and is there a certain product or a brand that makes sense with this conversation? Now, I believe Planet Box has an affiliate program, so if yours does too, you could sign up for their affiliate program and mention their products here and there within these emails and include affiliate links to earn a commission. So you're talking about something that is relevant to your audience for this time of year. You're offering a recommendation for a product or a service or a brand that all makes sense contextually and that they need right now. Why not make some money while you're at it? Yeah, go find out what brands you can become an affiliate for that would match up well with your content.

Like I said, if lunchboxes aren't your thing, if that doesn't make sense, if you're Tim and you're working with people going through grief and kids going off to college and not packing lunchboxes anymore, what is something related to the fall that maybe you could offer a special series of emails about? This is a great way to get your list engaged and paying attention. Again, that is the whole idea. Pay attention to the people you have right in front of you. This is like the pond that you're going to be nurturing. You're growing. You want to turn that pond into a lake and the lake into an ocean. These are your perspective clients. So we want to take good, good care of them. Is this making your brain think of different topics that you could write about. Tell me in the chat over here, if you're with me live, what would make sense for your people this September?
What's something that you could write about, do a little series on? And again, it doesn't have to be an email series, it could be something you're going to do on social media, whatever, but what's a really good relevant topic? And just jot down some notes. If you're listening to this via podcast later, all you really need it sounds complicated. Oh my God, a whole email series. What am I going to write about? All you need is one simple idea per email. I bet you could knock out five right off the top of your head. So if we go with the lunchbox theme, I could imagine covering a topic like getting enough protein in the lunchbox, like easy ideas for putting more protein in there. I could imagine something around vegetables, making vegetables appealing and easy to eat at lunchtime. How about something that leftovers? And by that I mean make a dinner that easily packs up for lunch the next day. I mean, that's a great tip right there. That's something that people don't always think about. My kids love when I make a big pot of chili. They're like, yes, we're going to have chili for lunch tomorrow. And then that's what they always take. How about tips and tricks for making sure that the food stays fresh and not soggy? Adding that little ice pack or a personal favorite of mine is like sprinkling cinnamon on the apple slices so they don't look brown and yucky at lunchtime. They look brown and cinnamon instead.

So that's one of my tricks. I bet you have tricks like that too. And then of course the lunch container itself, like planet box or a recommendation for a thermos. My son has one of those that the spoon folds up and fits inside the lid, although I think he lost it after three days. But anyway, you could do the idea of salad jars for adults bringing lunch to work. So we're just brainstorming. Just brainstorm on a relevant topic for fall and you're going to have email ideas in no time. Each email is just one simple idea. We're not trying to write an encyclopedia. Got it. Alright, so those are the people who are already in your world already in your audience. We want to take good care of them. Now let's talk about the people who are not yet on your mailing list, but they should be.

So the fall is an excellent time for you to build your audience. I mean, anytime is an excellent time to build your audience at any stage of business, and the sooner you start the better. But the fall is really great. Again, people are paying attention. They're like plugging back into life. They're ready to think about things that maybe they're putting off all summer long. So again, we want to create this pool of potential clients. We don't want to be standing in a very shallow puddle. We want a nice body of water down there where we can go fishing and find clients anytime that we need them throughout the year. So how can you build an audience actually in a couple of weeks, this is really exciting. This is new. You're going to be able to register for this Fall's Audience attraction. It is a virtual retreat that I'm running for health coaches. It's going to be completely free, a real community event, and we're working on getting that ready for you now. We're working really hard on that right now. So keep an eye out. Attracting an audience means making yourself visible to new eyeballs, people that have not seen you or your work before. So we're talking about everything from online activities like social media to offline activities like public speaking, writing articles. So check in with yourself, what would make sense for you this fall?

Maybe now that everyone's home from vacation and back in the office, now is a good time to connect with the local newspaper in your area. There's a newspaper, I think just about everywhere. Pitch a monthly column that you can write for them. That is visibility, that is audience building, that's new eyes on you and your work. And that's a real credibility building. If you're like, yeah, I got a column in the paper, that sounds pretty good, right? So maybe you do that. Maybe this fall, you finally start your blog or your podcast. Don't try to do everything but choose one or two things that will put you in front of new eyeballs starting this September, somewhere where you can be talking about health and wellness and be seen. And again, we're going to have a lot more on this topic coming during our audience attraction virtual retreat.

So fun and more info is going to be coming on that soon. Let's see what you guys are saying over here in the chat area. Oh, Tim said that he would be happy to help Stacy as being a client for her to get her log done for her N-B-H-W-C requirements. That's great. Linda says she wants to do some kind of reset program. Maybe a free five day challenge. Yeah, a free challenge. That is a great way to build your mailing list. So we love that. Pick a week. Like I said, we're getting pretty close to September right now. So just about the earliest you would want to run anything would be like the end of September if you haven't already started planning it, but also going pretty much to the end of October. You're good to go for the fall. November isn't bad either for the first couple of weeks, so pick a week, make it happen.

Running events is an amazing, amazing way to build your audience. Build your mailing list. Alright, are we ready to talk about money? I know, I know. As soon as I say money, everybody kind of cringes. We don't like talking about money very much. We are trying to run businesses though, right? Businesses make money. That's what makes it a business. Otherwise it's just a hobby. So how are we going to make some money this September? I'm going to tell you what I tell this to all my Healthy Profit University members. The more offers you make, the more money you will earn. That's it. So you have to offer your health coaching services before anybody can say yes. You have to have a phone call with them. You have to do a consultation before anybody's going to be able to actually sign up with you. So to make more offers, you're going to need to invite more people into consultation. So how can you do that this fall? Can you hold a workshop? Now is a very good time to get in touch with places. They may already even be booked up for the fall, but if not, they are currently booking for the fall. Yoga studios, gyms, anywhere that holds workshops on the regular. Contact them this week.

Okay, Hold a workshop. When you hold a workshop, you can say to everyone who participates that you'd love to have a follow-up session with each of them individually and offer a free consultation for everyone who was there. What a generous gift. Right? Now you have more consultations. This is how you get more clients. What about running something like I've seen so many health coaches do well with this. What about running a book club or a walking club before the weather gets too cold? You want to do that now and so you just do something very simple with your members. You're just the organizer. You don't really have to do much. Go out walking once a week. You're having conversations while you're walking, right? Health is going to come up. It is a walking club. It's like a perfect segue to saying, Hey, do you want to talk about that?

Hey, actually I do this kind of work. Why don't we set up a time to chat? Right? It's a very, very low pressure way for you to build relationships, make more offers. Okay, so there's some ideas. Health coaches always say, if I run a book club, what kind of book should it be? Should it be like a book about health? Probably. I mean, it could be fiction if the theme of the book had something to do with getting healthy or health or something. Self-improvement in some way. Or you could pick up a book by Mark Hyman or Aviva Rom or whoever your favorite health person is and get a group together to read the book and discuss another fabulous opener to telling people what you do and how you can help. And when you're the organizer of something like this, people are like, oh yeah, obviously you're the expert just because you positioned yourself as the person who's sending the emails and getting everybody together for these things.

Even if you just graduated from Health Coach School, you can do this, right? You don't have to use all kinds of fancy technology, just have people over talk about a book. You got this. All right? So make sure whenever you're doing activities like this, you're having conversations, your conversations lead to consultations, but you are not limited to working one-on-One, like I think Tim was saying he wants to run a group program or several of you are talking about challenges of some kind. Running a little online program can be super fun. Low cost for everybody, really easy for you to sell, really accessible for people. Sometimes we're worried about pricing. People out of health coaching offer a low cost group program. Get a group together, create some buzz. Even people who don't join are going to be like, oh, hey, I saw so-and-so's running this thing. That's cool that she's doing that. That's cool that he's running a group like that. They're going to remember for next time. The more events, the more things that you can put on the calendar, the more it gives people a reason to pay attention in the fall. Perfect time for that. So think about some kind of reset for everybody who just went off the rails over the summer. Maybe they were like me, they went to Italy, they were eating gelato every day. I don't know, maybe they come back and they want some structure. And if you don't have a program to offer, like I said, it's already the end of August, so you would be in a crunch to put together a real official program and have it all set with the materials. But no worries because you can be up and running with my five day jumpstart kit within two weeks. You could plan to run a five day jumpstart in the middle, the end of September, the early part of October. I have seen coaches go from zero. They got nothing to running. They're paid jumpstart and getting paid very quickly with the kit. It's available, by the way, it's at healthcoachpower.com/jumpstartkit. And that's something that you can use as is exactly the way that it's built.

Or you can customize it a hundred thousand different ways. Whatever you need to do to match your business in your target market. Alright, you still with me? We talked about giving value to your existing email list. Don't forget about those valuable people. We talked about adding new people to your audience to grow that list. We talked about making offers and focusing on earning what a concept with one-on-one and also with a small group program. But you know what it's really going to take to pull this off in September and all year long, A plan, like a concrete plan, like a plan that comes with a calendar with dates. Health coaches are always thinking just about the next thing, just as far as the end of our nose. What should I do tomorrow? What should I do next week? What's the very next thing that I should jump into?

Even though, oh no, now I got to get it done too fast. I don't really have time to promote it properly. I didn't plan ahead. Breathe. If you want to get ahead in your business, you really do need to have an overarching plan. We're talking about September right now, and that is coming up quickly. But I'm going to encourage you to sit down this week and at least roughly map out September, october, the rest of the calendar year. Okay? You don't have to plan out the next three years, but the next three months would be really helpful. What are you going to do every week? What are you going to do every month? At what points are you going to make offers and earn income? Where are you going to run events? How are you going to build your list? What activities? Where do those fall? Because everything we've talked about today, it's all these different things that can just feel scattered. You don't know what to do first, second, third, and they kind of all need to be done as you're running your business. You got to build your audience, nurture your audience, make offers to your audience, and actually work with clients. Sometimes we forget that part. This is something, this whole planning process is something that I teach really specifically inside our fast track program where I actually have a 12 week marketing plan that is entirely mapped out that our coaches follow week by week hitting on all the important areas that we talked about today. And in fact, again, I'm looking at my calendar. I'm like, if you start today, you'd have your entire fall season planned for you. That's an idea.

So if you're serious, go check out our free blueprint at healthcoachpower.com/blueprint because we already have all the materials done for you too. And like I said, maybe your fall is just ready to go with that whole plan. In any case, I hope you took a lot of notes during this episode and you can pick one or two ideas to roll with this fall while the energy is good and the vibes are high. And if you have any questions or if you want to brainstorm, join us inside our free Facebook group at healthcoachpowercommunity.com. I will see you there. And thanks to everyone who joined me live today, I'll see you soon.