#320: Create Additional Income Streams for 2025 with That Clean Life

Michelle:
Hello there, health coaches. Now, I suspect that many of you are into yoga as I am. I started practicing yoga in I think 2016 and before that when I was younger I was a ballet dancer, so I've always been able to touch my toes. That's the moral that story. But even if you're not into yoga or dance, you know that being flexible means that you can move your body in ways that other people can't. You can move yourself around easily in the world without hurting yourself, which becomes more and more important as we get older. I'm noticing, well, listen, flexibility in your business is just as important. I was thinking back to the pandemic for example. We saw so many businesses go from brick and mortar to online in a very short period of time, and some health coaches, you guys had never, in some cases never worked over Zoom before.
We're held an online workshop, but we all had to start doing things differently. That's flexibility keeps you nimble. You need that ability to change gears and try something new in your practice because life changes, the world changes. If you're flexible, you'll be much better able to bend in the breeze, which is why you're like, Michelle, what does this have to do with anything? Here's what it is. You have to have different income streams available to you to create a very smart business. This is the best way to run your business as a health coach. Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket and then waking up one day and realizing I can't make money that way anymore, let's diversify. So today we're going to brainstorm a myriad of income streams that you can easily add in the new year or anytime if you're listening to this episode later, to keep your business flexible.
This is yoga for your business. I want to set you up for success. That's what this is all about. In fact, I am hosting a free 2025 planning workshop for health coaches to do just that, and you are invited to join us. You can go to healthcoachpower.com/ 025 and you'll get your very own copy of my yearly planning template. When you do that, I'm going to be giving that out during the workshop. It is completely free to join us. So one more time. That's healthcoachpower.com/2025. Before we jump into today's topic, this episode is sponsored by That Clean Life. That clean life helps you share recipes and meal planning ideas with your clients, create lead magnets and free events to build your audience and all around look like the ultimate health and nutrition professional. I always loved using That Clean Life in my own practice, and you can get started with 20% off your first four months at healthcoachpower.com/tcl. That stands for That Clean Life. Today we're joined by Tabitha from That Clean Life to brainstorm lots of ways to add additional income to our businesses in 2025. Tabitha, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Michelle. I'm honored to be here. Now we know you work for That Clean Life, but you're a health coach too. We were talking about this just before I hit record. Can you tell everybody just a little bit about that background?
Tabitha:
Yeah. I ran a health coaching business for over five years, and most of my business was focused on running classes and events and bachelorette cooking classes. Mostly I focused in the pre-wedding space and just helped throw parties into the cooking space while helping people feel good leading up to their day.
Michelle:
Well, That's interesting. I haven't heard that one before.
Tabitha:
I also did your standard one-on-one coaching and providing health habits and health upgrades. But no, I liked a lot of the one to many in the event space.
Michelle:
Awesome. So I'm going to want to hear your experiences as we go into these different income streams. I want to share stories from my own practice so that all our listeners get a real picture of what it looks like to implement some of these ideas. Cool.
Tabitha:
Yeah, that sounds great.
Michelle:
All right, let's jump in and after we do some brainstorming, we're going to have a list of income generators for you guys. I want to leave some time at the end just to discuss scope of practice. So as we go through, if you're like, but Michelle, what about this? But what about that? What about my scope? We're going to get there. Okay, but first, let's just let the creativity flow. So I'm going to start us off. I did something way back in, I think it was 2012 or 2013, I started offering a cook along program. This was a paid program where I shared a week's worth of recipes with a group, and then we all cooked the same or a similar meal each night for a week, and it was really simple. It was really fun. I got a lot of new clients in the door and everybody would share how they modified the recipe for their family, or maybe they were vegetarian or whatever.
They would share pictures and get ideas from each other, and the best part it was that it really got people in the kitchen and showed them it wasn't that hard, but it was hard for me because I had to create a recipe book for each of those programs, which I did. It meant developing the recipes, writing them out super clearly, making sure I didn't have any typos or mistakes, taking pictures of the food it took forever. I even hired a private chef to help me at one point. That was expensive. It was worth it. I loved running this program, but I only did it a couple times because it was just so much work. If I had had That Clean Life, it would've been much easier, much less time consuming. So that's one way that I've used recipe books to grow my, bring more clients into my world and actually earn with, because I was selling these books as part of the program. So when we're thinking about recipe books, which is one of the main things that you can do with That Clean Life, how do you see health coaches using them? Or maybe how did you use them in your own practice, Tabitha?
Tabitha:
Yeah, we see health coaches using them as both lead generation tools. So you can put them on your website and have people opt in so that they're getting a freebie and you're offering really high-end content that they're going to get a glimpse of like, oh, wow, okay. This is the type of content that I would get if I signed up to work with this person. Gives them a nice glimpse into their business, but then also using the recipe books to list for sale on their website or perhaps support their one-to-one clients or perhaps support one to many, whether that be like you mentioned in a meal prep program. I really like it. I like to view recipe books as almost like a roadmap to your client's overall goal. So you can start at the beginning to sort of set those goals and understand where your client wants to be, and then that recipe book can be the steps that help them to get there.
So for example, maybe your client needs to add more leafy greens. That's one of the goals that you want to work on together. But this isn't innate to them. They don't know what to shop for. They don't even know how to cook, said leafy greens. They don't even know what falls into the category of leafy greens. So you can create a recipe book that maybe has some comfort recipes for them, meets them where they're at, but offers a couple of more leafy green opportunities and maybe you agree on they're going to cook two of these recipes a week, and that's going to be a little micro goal that they work on throughout each week, and they've got a roadmap to get them exactly there. They're not sat wondering, okay, I have to add leafy greens. What do I go shop for? How do I cook it?
How do I add it into my family's favorites without completely disrupting my life while still adhering to those goals? So that's one of the ways that I really love recipe books. I personally loved recipe books to hit on a main pain point. So working one-on-one with clients, you would often hear, I have the best of intentions come Monday, but by Wednesday I'm ordering dinner out every single night of the week, and that is something that I want to stop doing. And the best of intentions needs a follow through plan. So they need to know, okay, if I'm not going to be ordering dinner on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, what do I need to be doing? And a recipe book can play into that goal so they can say, maybe you're offering a book of 10 recipes and their goal is to cook at least four of those nights, and they are going to choose those recipes based on the amount of time that they have, and you as the practitioner can curate those recipes. So you can go into the software and say, I want recipes that take than 30 minutes and have no more than eight ingredients so that you're really meeting their busy ideals and lifestyle, and then they have exactly what they need to deliver on their goals.
Michelle:
You're exactly right. I mean, how many times does a client does zucchini count as a green vegetable? And I'm like, it's green. Yep, yep, yep. It just reminded me of a fun one that I did one year. Oh gosh, so many years ago for the holidays, I put together a bunch of clean holiday recipes, but again, I developed these recipes painstakingly in my own kitchen, but that became a really popular lead magnet for that season. So since we're in the holidays now, I just wanted to toss that out there, but there's so many ways to go with recipe books. I just wanted to give you guys some ideas on that. Now, I guess tangential to giving someone a collection of recipes. There's also the opportunity to go a little bit more into meal planning. And as health coaches, we're never going to tell people exactly what to eat. Here's a meal plan, I need you to follow it to the tee. Nothing like that at all, but maybe it's like, here's a meal plan for inspiration. So same question. How can a meal planning guide be used? What do you see coaches doing?
Tabitha:
I am a sucker for a meal planning guide because there are going to be those clients who need a bit more handholding and you also want to stay in scope of practice. You want to deliver on the items that they need to be successful while also remaining in your scope of practice. I like to think of meal planning guides as the proverb. That's like you give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime. It really kind just apple levels the recipe collection or recipe book experience. What you're doing is delivering a blank meal plan in addition to the recipes. And now your client, if they're that type of person who needs that sort of visualization of how their week's going to go, you put the power of planning into their hands.
They're going to choose the dinners that they want, add it to their meal plan. They're going to choose the lunches they want, add it to their meal plan, and they can do this all through the software. They don't need a login. They just simply use the shared link that you share them and then they can access what's needed. They have filters to find breakfasts. They have filters to find all of their main meals. And perhaps for them that doesn't look like a full meal plan. It might just look like plopping in three dinners that they could batch cook. And then that way they've got leftovers to lean on throughout the week or maybe a couple of new breakfast recipes that focus on nutrition goals that you have set together. Maybe they don't feel satiated after breakfast. So you want to make sure that you're adding recipes that focus on those things, maybe focus on more protein or more fiber in the morning.
And you're doing that with delicious recipes instead of just telling them focus on protein and fiber in the morning. So they get to slate those in. And it also allows them to work on how their week's going. Maybe there's one week where it's just not possible for them to meal plan, but they still need to lean on those recipe ideas. They have the recipe ideas there. Then they've got the blank meal planner to lean on when they need. You can also insert one of our templates as a sample meal plan to be like, this is what a fully finished meal plan might look like, that they can lean on and use as needed, but isn't necessarily the exact plan they need to follow.
Michelle:
So I actually see two income ideas there. Hope you guys are all taking notes. So one would be maybe you're putting together some type of service or product or whatever that's around like eating more protein, fat and fiber. And so a sample meal plan to go along with that or a meal planning guide to go along with that would make a lot of sense. And that can be something that you sell. And I think there's a service in there where our clients can, I mean, this is always true for health coaches. Even before That Clean Life came along, you can always do a meal planning session together. Let me tell you what we used to do. We used to take the cookbooks off the shelves, get in the room and start leafing through them. But now over Zoom, you could go into the software together.
Maybe that's a bonus that you give with your one-on-one coaching package. You're going to do a meal planning session together. You're going to show them how to do it because then they're off and running. You just taught a man to fish and your client is going to be able to do that for themselves every week moving forward. So it can be a one-on-one service, one-time service that you actually sell separately or in addition to a program. So I know when we hear meal plans, we're like, not my scope of practice, but it is always in our scope of practice to teach a man to fish. So let's do plenty of that. And you don't have to carry around any cookbooks anymore. I use my cookbooks to prop up my water filter in my kitchen. Hey, at least they're serving a purpose. You got to do something with them, you guys. You got to do something. Yeah, no, something that I've seen some of our Healthy Profit university members, I've seen run programs, something really simple like a smoothie challenge. And in a way, I guess it's not a meal plan, but it's kind of like, Hey, we're going to do this thing over these days. And you could have them choose from umpteen different smoothies. In this case, have you seen coaches do this type of challenge or a focusing on one kind of food for a certain period of days?
Tabitha:
Yeah, totally. We actually, that reminds me, we do airdrops, which is just free content to those who subscribe to That Clean Life. And in March we did a green smoothie challenge. So we created a green smoothie challenge that everyone could import the recipes into their account and then you could send that over to your client. And so for the month of March, or for three weeks in March, however long you wanted to make it, you had a green smoothie challenge. So the whole point is to show them that there is variety, even in this one form of drink or this one form of breakfast or snack, however you wanted to view it. And I've actually seen it that way. I've seen it as even further than that. Even a sugar-free dessert challenge. So reminding them that there's ways to enjoy, there's sweet treats after their meals and introducing new ways for them to do that in a way that their blood sugar is still balanced so they don't feel like they're missing out on things.
Michelle:
Oh, you guys want people to engage with you, you give them a dessert challenge. Exactly. I'll take that challenge. Thank you very much. Let me get on it right now. I love that idea. Sometimes it doesn't sound so fun to be like, we're going to do the whole grains challenge maybe, but definitely if it's something to do with chocolate or dessert, they're there. They're going to be jumping right in.
Tabitha:
I mean, I'm there too. I'm being honest.
Michelle:
100%. Okay, so write these ideas down. Again, that could be something that is paid, that it could be something that you do for free to build your mailing list. It could be something that you give to an individual client. It could be something that you give to a whole group of clients at the same time. So many ideas here. Remember, you can always find recipes in cookbooks, online, freely available anywhere, your own recipes. All of these ideas you can do. And I think I've done all of them in my own health coaching practice, like the old fashioned way that's still available to all of us. Just like any technology, you could do it old school on paper or you could use the computer and what we're talking about today can be done either way too. So take all these ideas and think to yourself, how could I make this work in my business? Would it be helpful for me to have a tool like That Clean Life just to make it faster? Alright, what about group programs? I mean, I spoke a little bit about my Cook Along program that was a group program. How else do you see recipes getting used inside group programs for coaches?
Tabitha:
Yeah, group programs have really boomed in the last few years, I would say. I really think Covid influenced this because it does allow you to take a one to many approach and scale your business in a much better, more efficient way rather than trying to work on one-to-one, especially if you have experience, long-term experience as a health coach, you've likely niched your practice so you have a very clear understanding of the steps that somebody needs to take to be successful in your niche. And so turning that into a group program is a no-brainer. You can charge a little bit less, engage a lot more people, and a lot of the hardest part of a group program is creating the content, but you can use That Clean Life to make it super easy to generate weekly nutrition plans with grocery lists and recipes that you can send to your participants all in an impressive professional document.
They're branded with your own branding. And I do mean nutrition plans. They don't need to be meal plans. They can be recipe books. As we mentioned before, there's different ways to deliver that nutrition. But I actually participated in one long before I became a health coach, and then the ones that I focused on primarily had to do with leading up to people's wedding day. So typically I would run a small one week one that would engage leads and it was free. So it was just a one week challenge where we focused on, again, those satiating meals in the mornings and focusing on mindful snacking in the evenings if that's what fed our body. And for that one week, we all participated at the same time, and then that fed into a larger group program that was paid. So you can sort of view it in a two-step way.
You can create that short-term one that people participate in for free. You're building community around that, and while you're in that one week, do all you can to deliver on value so that they understand what it's like to work with you in a paid capacity. And then you turn that into a paid capacity program, whether it's a longer stretch for the same task, or you can sell them on one-on-one services as well. So there's like, I've got a bunch of ideas floating around in here, but I really love the idea of a free group challenge to build community. And then if you're looking for a revenue opportunity, turn that into a paid offering, whether it's like a 30 day beat, the bloat or a 60 day beat, the bloat, or if skincare is your focus, you can focus on clearer skin. If you're focused on seasonal holidays, you can talk about it in the new year. It's always easier to focus on in season because then you can carry it over quarter to quarter. So you can have something focused on the new year. You have something focused on the springtime. There's always something there. So I never found you going to do a shortage
Michelle:
Bloat and beat the bloat in the springtime. And that comes with a series of recipes. You could do it again in the fall or the winter months. It would have a different set of recipes. So it could be the same program. You got the bones for it in place. It'd be very easy to just replace the recipe books that you share with that. And then it would make sense for someone to participate again, because getting new and different materials and people love to repeat things like this by the way. So put that into your income stream idea. You can sell one and it's
Tabitha:
Not cheating. You're just working smarter, not harder. Get on board with working smarter, not harder, because as long as you've done the work prior, you have so much knowledge behind that that you can continue to deliver to new sets of people and they need your product knowledge on
Michelle:
This. If you're going to run something twice a year or four times a year, you could sell it separately, you could sell it individually, or you could sell a package of all four at the same time. Yes. Love that. Love that. Then you know, have people enrolled way ahead of time. This is where you start getting really smart in your business. So again, we're just brainstorming today. Take what works for you, leave what, but I want you to have a ton of ideas, especially moving into next week's planning workshop. So you can be like, here's something that really sounds interesting to me. I might like to focus on this in March. That would be perfect. That's how you want to go into the new year, but we're giving you a lot of ideas now so you can sift and sort through them. Alright, talk to me about cooking classes. Did you ever hold cooking classes in your practice?
Tabitha:
Yeah, this is actually my main source of income in addition to corporate wellness. And I kind of meshed the two often as well. So we'd hold a cooking class inside of a corporate space or simply a lunch and learn where I prepared some goodies from the recipe book that I handed out as a lead magnet after so often my in-person experiences would look like in-home experiences for small groups, you can charge a high fee for this because this is like you are engaging with a small group of people, they're paying for your expertise and then you're leaving behind materials that they can use in the future. So it often looked like a group of girlfriends coming together. As I mentioned, I focused on bachelorettes. People who don't like to do the typical go out, get smashed type situation really paid a good amount of money for this because they want to enjoy the bachelorette experience without the stereotypical night on a town situation.
So I would design a menu based on their preferences. I started without That Clean Life, but then found That Clean Life and used their recipes to create a menu and it almost worked like a private chef situation. So sometimes they would want to cook with me and that would be part of the experience and I would teach them about the ingredients as we're using them. And then other times they just wanted essentially a private chef to come in and create food for them, which I love cooking. So that fell under my services of offering. But you can even translate this into a virtual experie as well. I've seen it offered on Zoom, especially during the pandemic. There's a lot of That Clean Life members running online Zoom cooking classes, so things like holiday prep classes or seasonal cooking classes to encourage others to cook seasonally or as you mentioned, a smoothie challenge. A smoothie making class is so fun because people think they've got their smoothie nailed down pat. You can kind of teach them some of these fun techniques that helps them elevate their smoothie and that becomes a habit for them because they've understood the why behind what's going into the recipe. So there's so much more empowerment behind a class because it helps people understand the why and it allows them to take those techniques they've learned and lead them in their day-to-day lives.
Michelle:
I love good cooking class, you guys. If you haven't held them, don't even be intimidated. I'm not a trained chef and I actually think that those who came into my cooking classes appreciated that because I wasn't, wasn't a hundred miles beyond them and my cooking skills, I mean I'm sure I cook more than most people, but it wasn't intimidating for them for, and I like to always do it as like we are cooking together so everyone's got a cutting board and a knife and everyone is contributing. Almost like when you're a kid and you're helping your mom in the kitchen and you know what happens, you talk when you cook. That's just what you do. And before you know it, someone's asking about this ingredient or this recipe and oh, this health issue comes up. Now you got somebody booking a consultation with you and it's just very non-intimidating environment where you're just like, we're going to make some yummy food. Suddenly they want to talk about all their health issues. I just think it's a really natural lead in for where you want to go with potential clients. So if you need recipes again for your cooking classes, you can thumb through those old cookbooks or you can pick a theme and you can very easily get what you need and figure out how much you need for a certain number of people in the class like that using a service like That Clean Life. So we love that.
Tabitha:
You know what seasons also worked well here seasonally focusing on things seasonally. Whenever I'm confused about what sort of aspect ratio to look at a problem with, I love taking a seasonal lens on it because that is what is readily available to the people around you. And so you can focus on seasonal ingredients that are easy for them to access and then how those relate to their overall goals. So I just love a seasonal lens. It's repeatable and it also just served people really well to help them understand what was around
Michelle:
Them. Love it. Ooh, do a farmer's market tour beforehand, get there, go home cook. Yes. That's so fun. I think we could probably go on for at least another 30 minutes just shooting out ideas and telling you guys stories about what we've done in our own businesses. I realize the time. In the interest of time, I just want to skip to this idea that you had mentioned previously to me and I thought we should definitely talk about it, is the idea of a subscription or a club. Can you say more about that?
Tabitha:
Yeah. This is really a great option for clients that you have graduated from maybe your one-on-one services or maybe even your one to many group programs, but they still want some sort of support, some of your awesome support, your nourishment. We've seen health coaches open up subscription services where they add new recipes monthly and then their participants pay a monthly fee to continue to access top notch nutrition resources. So it really is sort of a low lift project and acts almost like a passive income. Once you have your infrastructure set up to then graduate your previous clients and or your group program participants, it can also be a great entry point into working with you. I will say I do think you need a little bit of a larger offering to offer something like this. This is not in your first year of business. Don't be looking at this, look on growing your audience, but once you have that audience growth, they still want your support, but they might've already worked through all your program offerings. So this is a great way to support them nutritionally without having to book those one-on-one calls or anything like that.
Michelle:
Clients love getting recipes from us. You guys. Literally just yesterday I got an email from someone through my website contact form and she said, I participated in this program of yours, you guys, it was 13 years ago, and she said you had a recipe and she described the recipe. She said, I used to have it in this notebook, but our house flooded and I lost it, and is there any way you could send me that recipe you guys 13 years ago? I have no clue where this recipe is. I don't know where I typed it out. I could not tell you at all, but imagine that I had really professional recipe book saved or it was in my recipe collection inside That Clean Life. I suppose maybe I could dig it out for her, but alas, we will never know what this recipe was all about. I just wanted to share that because you don't realize the impression that you make on people until they email you 13 years later asking for that wonderful recipe that you shared
Tabitha:
Blew my mind. Food is so visceral, right? It's so memorable for so many people and it really is attached to a lot of those memories. So that's why you make people feel so good, especially when you give recipe guides as a roadmap. They have those visceral associations in their body with that good feeling time, right?
Michelle:
Such an impact we can make.
Tabitha:
Yeah.
Michelle:
I do want to just talk real briefly about scope of practice. Now for all of our listeners, I'm not a lawyer. Tabitha is not a lawyer. We're going to advise you to consult legal experts on all legal matters, but to the best of your ability, Tabitha, what do you have to say about how health coaches can support clients around choosing recipes and meal planning while staying within scope of practice?
Tabitha:
Yeah, as Michelle mentioned, you should always check with your governing body or your school, whoever it is that tells you the right thing and the wrong thing. But I always used the lens of recipes can never hurt. So if I am offering recipes to my client, that's going to give them some sort of a roadmap to get from point A to point B. I really sort of view, I think the number one mistake you can make is getting so afraid of scope of practice that you actually don't deliver any resources. And so you give all of these ideas to your client and then say, go on, implement it, but they don't have a roadmap to get there. It would almost be like going to a trainer and your trainer gives you a workout plan, you need to lift more weights for this, but then they don't give you the exercises.
You're like, okay, I'm just supposed to lift more weights, but I don't know what that looks like. So offering recipes as an opportunity to help them with their pain points, targeted recipes that they've explicitly said, this is my pain point. How can you help? Is never a bad idea and never outside of your scope of practice when you're working with recipes, it's just how you get into structuring those. If you're looking to offer meal plans, that's something you want to dig into with your governing bodies. So always with the scope of recipes in my lens, that's always how I leaned on That Clean Life.
Michelle:
And of course, we're assuming that our listeners, our health coaches, without further licensing. If some of you may be registered dieticians or doctors, and of course then you have a different scope of practice. But for those who are not, I just want to share that one thing I know helps in these situations. It helps to be working with groups versus one-on-one where it can be misconstrued as one-on-one nutrition advice. So consider that when you're working with a group and you're providing something as a resource for the group. It's clearly not one-on-one. You also can always offer educational materials. So if you have a blog or a podcast or whatever, or you're providing educational material for the masses, and that is also very different from one-on-one prescriptive advice or anything that could be misconstrued as such. But all of this does vary by location, so check your state laws. But I like what you said, people always love a recipe. We share recipes as human beings all the time. I send one to my mom, I send one to my friend. So if you're sharing a recipe that that takes into consideration something that your client was talking about, sounds like a very normal thing to do. So Tabitha, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. We're so glad you could make it.
Tabitha:
Thanks for having us, Michelle. It's so great to be here
Michelle:
And I hope everyone has jotted down a few new ideas for growing your business in 2025. Remember, we do have our free 2025 planning workshop happening next week. Please go sign up for free. It's going to be a huge help in keeping you focused, deciding which of these income streams to go after and using your energy efficiently in the new year, and it's all available for free at healthcoachpower.com/2025. Again, this episode has been sponsored by that clean Life. If I had this available to me back in 2013, lemme tell you, I could have run my programs so much more efficiently and frequently when That Clean Life came around, I jumped on it and I know you're going to love it too. Remember, you can get 20% off your first four months at healthcoachpower.com/tl. Thanks everybody. See you soon.