Bet you never thought being a health coach was going to involve so much…selling. Does it make you cringe? Don’t worry – in this episode, Michelle shares 3 reasons why you don’t have to become a used car salesperson.
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Transcript
Hey there health coaches! How are you doing? I bet that you got into this field for a similar, if not exact same reason that I did. We want to help people. Yes, we want to teach people the power of food. I mean, I still kind of like to nerd out over this and get excited about these topics. Even 10 plus years into my coaching practice, like Super Geek when it comes to all this stuff. But I bet that you never thought that you were going to have to be such a sales person. Oh, I know. I remember cringing like a full body cringe when I was a student at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and they taught us how we were supposed to close the deal. Ugh! I was like, uh uh, no way, not doing that. I am not going to start asking somebody how much they spend at Starbucks each week and what do they be better?
They invested that money into their health instead. Like I was not going to do that. I wasn’t going to read a sales script that didn’t feel like me. And I was like, listen, if somebody wants to be my client, awesome. And if they don’t, oh well I’m not going to strong arm somebody into giving me their money. I’m not here to sell used cars. So just like raise a hand or say something in the comments if you’ve had this same kind of conversation with yourself, like why does this part of the job feel so gross? When I ask health coaches what their biggest challenge is, I often hear you guys say it’s selling myself or as having to be a salesperson or it’s talking about money. And I know it’s the worst feeling because again, we got into this business because we want to help people, not because we want to trick people.
If we wanted to trick people, we could be selling like whatever diet shakes or something like that. But what I’ve learned, and this is so important to remember, is that you do not have to actually trick anybody. You don’t have to be a used car salesman. And today I’m going to tell you three reasons why. Now, if you really want to learn all of my secrets for signing new clients without being pushy, I want you to join my free five day event coming up soon this month. So if you are listening to this episode as it gets released, don’t wait, run over to health coach power.com/challenge and sign up. And I’m going to be walking you through the steps that I take with each and every one of my perspective clients so that I never have to do any hard selling. And that whole closing the deal thing just kind of happens effortlessly.
You’re going to learn so much and these five days you guys, so whether you’re brand new to health coaching or if you’ve been at it for a while, go to healthcoachpower.com/challenge and you can invite all your health coach friends to join us because they’re going to want to learn this stuff too. Promise. And then we can all stop cringing when it comes to the selling part. Okay? Okay. So let me prove it to you. Why we do not have to be salesy in this profession. Reason, numero uno, when we walk our talk, right? We are shining examples of health, right? People are drawn to us naturally. Like I never have to say, you know, look over here, a health, health and happiness. Talk to me about your health. I don’t have to say that people just see me and they’ll start asking questions. All right, so it might come in the form of physical attributes.
Like people say, Michelle, your skin looks so amazing. What do you use? How do you get your skin to look so great? Now we’re in a conversation. No, it’s not the night cream that I use because I don’t use a night cream. It’s something else. Let’s talk about it. Or maybe it’s more like mental and emotional things like my friends will notice, you know, man Michelle, you are so on top of your game. You have just got it together. Or Wow, you have such energy. Or people will say, you’re such a good cook. How on earth did you make this? Eggplant tastes so good. So, I don’t know about you, but this has been my experience. I get stopped and asked about these kinds of topics all the time. I don’t have to bring them up and I don’t have to hand out my card or like hang flyers or anything like that.
It just kind of happens cause I’m walking my talk. In fact, as I was praying, as I was thinking about this, I was thinking, oh yeah, the whole eggplant thing. Last night I made burritos for my kids and I, and I blend it up, eggplant with pinto beans. Have you ever done this? I never did this before. Apparently you can make like Paleo Pinto beans with just eggplant. But I decided I would just mix them together because my kids will never eat eggplant otherwise and they just like gobbled it up and it actually like really made a nice texture for the, uh, the Burritos in case you want to try it. But my point is that I made these burritos and we were out at a park with some friends and that’s where we were eating dinner. And naturally the other moms just started asking about what we were eating and then what do you know?
Boom. We’re having a really interesting conversation cause I’m sharing about how I put eggplant in the burritos. So my point is when you walk talk, you attract attention naturally. You do not have to buy a billboard on the side of the highway. You are a billboard baby. So have you guys had this experience? I would love to hear about it. So if you’re here live, just drop a comment and if you have any questions about selling yourself or about any aspect of your health coaching business, that’s what I’m here for. So put those in the comments too. Now another reason, reason number two that we don’t have to be salesy is because hello, our clients will do it for us. They really will and they do an amazing job. Most of the women in my target market, like if I just think about them and what they’re doing during the day and who they’re hanging out with, like they’re not sitting around and talking about the features of their new car or like what brand of toilet bowl cleaner they use.
You know. So for a company selling toilet bowl cleaner or cars, yeah, those companies really need to sell. Like they need to like run ads and they need to offer coupons and they have to do a lot of harder work than we do as health coaches because what my target market definitely talks about and they notice and they’re always bringing up with each other is how they look right. Or they’re talking about themselves or talking about each other. I had a client recently who dropped a bunch of weight in like three months and her skin cleared up and she did, I mean she did so well in her program so that everywhere she went people are going to ask her about it. And they did. She went to like the dentist and her hygienists asked her about it and you know, she saw an old friend and her friend wanted to know and so she started referring these people to me and I got to tell you, they were sold on working with me before we ever spoke.
You know, I didn’t have to, I could have said anything. I could have picked up the phone and spoken in another language and they probably would have given me their credit card because they saw the proof, right? So no sales stuff required on my end or your end when your client is basically doing the selling for you. Love that. And then last but definitely not least. This is a really big one cause I know what you’re thinking. You’re like, yeah, that’s nice Michelle, but even if we get a referral, even if people think we’re super healthy and awesome, whatever, we still are going to have to sell ourselves during that initial consultation. Right? Like it gets to that point where you have to name a price and it starts getting awkward and no like no, you don’t actually have to sell yourself during those sessions, and this is where my method has really started to deviate from what I initially learned back when I was in school.
It took me a really long time to figure this out, but here’s, here’s news for you. We are coaches, coaches, not sales people, coaches, so instead of tricking someone strong, arming someone into a sale instead of manipulating someone, why would we ever want to do that with someone that we’re all going to be in a coaching relationship with? That would be a horrible start. We can actually coach our prospective clients into making whatever the best decision is for themselves. In fact, I would say that if you gave me a room with 10 women inside of my target market who were ready, willing and able, I could turn that around and show you nine or 10 new clients of mine. Yes. My closing rate is 90 to 100% which means of all the women that I do consultations with, 90 to a hundred percent of the time they become paying clients.
That’s crazy good, right? Any sales person would love to have a rate like that. Now on the flip side, you give me a room of 10 people who are not in my target market or who have demonstrated that they’re not ready, willing and able, and I won’t close the deal with any of them. I won’t even try like not even going there. So the key is to find the right people first of all and then gently coach them to recognize and verbalize what they need, why they need it, and why they need it from you. Like why they can’t do it on their own and why they’re even talking to in the first place. Then they can make a decision without you having to do very much at all. Like you don’t have to skip spitting out features. Oh, you get this, are you going to grocery store tour?
Oh, we can do a payment plan. You know you don’t have to do any of that nonsense. No dog and pony show. They make the decision that feels a whole lot better than a high pressure selling situation. I have to tell you, it feels good. It feels calm. Again, if you want to learn exactly how I coach my prospective clients through that decision making process, I want you to go healthcoachpower.com/challenge go to that link and join me for a free five day event starting August 18th. Oh, and in case you’re listening later, that is 2019 so let’s see what other questions we have for today. You guys, there’s been so many new people in our group. We’re getting lots of good questions.
I have one right here from Crystal and Crystal said, what do your programs look like? Packages and such. Trying to get ideas.
Okay Crystal. So I started to read some of the answers that you were getting. I already know what everybody’s going to say. You know it’s all over the map. What people offer. You’re going to have six month programs, year long programs, one month programs, two day programs, you know, group programs, one on one coaching. It’s all over the board and prices are all over the board too. So I wouldn’t worry so much about what other people are offering, but what I would worry about is who are you targeting and just really think about that person and think about the big problem that you’re going to help that person solve. Okay. So like for one person it might be like, um, I help nursing moms who have low um, milk supply, increase their supply. Okay, look, that could be the problem you saw for particular type of person, the program you would offer that new mom would look very, very different than the program that you might offer.
I don’t know, the high-powered woman executive who is pre-diabetic. Okay. They have different lifestyles. They had different needs. They have different like schedules, different bank accounts possibly. So you really want to think about your target market and the problem they’re helping themselves. And then every aspect of your signature program, it should be designed to help move that particular person from point a to point B. Some people, some demographics, some target markets are going to do much, much better with in person meetings. Other people like maybe that nursing mom with our milk supply issues is going to do so much better if you offer tech support, right moms cause you’re sitting there nursing and you’re texting with one hand. Yeah I’ve been there. So think about all the aspects of the program from the price to the length of the program to what resources you provide all of it and package something up that makes sense for that person. Okay, let me know if you have questions about that.
Here’s a question from a Alexis. Alexis says, how do you plan holidays and vacation time when you’re working on a program basis? Eventually I’d like to take two to four weeks off and I’m a little concerned about how to carve that out. My first love has always been travel, so I’d like to get back to that at some point while still managing a business. What do you guys do for holidays and Christmas?
All right Alexis, so I think I understand your question. I signed somebody on for like a six month program, but like five months into the program you actually want to take a vacation. So what do you do? This is always going to come up. In fact, I was just talking about being a new mom with a baby maternity leave. Hello. It’s so going to come up. So it really helps if you can determine in advance as you would in any job when your vacation time is going to be right.
So if somebody signs up for your program and you know it’s going to run into your vacation time, you can just let them know in advance and say, actually I’m going to be out the country from this date until this date, but we’ll just, you know, pick up afterwards if that’s okay with you. And it’s going to happen on their end too because six months is a long time. Three months is a long time and somebody is going to have a death in the family or something comes up for work and people are going to sort of take breaks. It happens actually probably happens a little too often for my liking. But you always are going to find yourself kind of extending your programs to compensate for these types of things. You could try to say, well why don’t we meet just before and then we can meet right after.
But in short, don’t sweat it. It’s just part of life. So book your vacations, book your travel. Unless you are literally traveling like every month, um, and not able to take client calls during those times. I really wouldn’t worry about it at all. And same thing for holidays because you know, your client is probably also celebrating the holiday or a holiday around the same time. So it would just be the same conversation. If you have a client that’s like running through December, you can say, oh this is the week I’m planning to be off. What about you? And then you’ll negotiate around that, that calendar for you guys. Definitely schedule yourself time off though, definitely schedule yourself a lot of time off. Health coaching is a lot of energy, right? Like the energy is always going out, going out. It’s like a care-taking. Like I’m thinking of you, we’re checking in with our clients and you really do need time to recharge for yourself, so do not hesitate to take those vacations and travel time. Alexis, what else do you guys got for me today?
Here is something from Lydia. Hi Lydia. She says, I just graduated from IIN and I’m now thinking about my target market. I was wondering if you guys have done a market analysis before starting to target a specific group of people to know whether what you want to offer is actually needed?
So my guess is for most health coaches, no. Most health coaches have not done any market research at all. However, if you’re talking to a health coach who’s inside my program, healthy profit university, they will tell you, yes, yes, we do do some market research. And it’s so important for the reason that you just mentioned because you could have a target market in mind, but maybe they’re not ready. Maybe they’re not willing, maybe they’re not able. Maybe the problem you think you’re going to help themselves really isn’t that big of a problem for them.
So they’re never going to hire you to help them solve it. You want to figure that out first before you build a website all about it. And before you get business cards printed, saying that you’re like whatever, you know, an expert and a hi blood pressure, four parakeets or something like that just to find out nobody wants help with their parakeet’s high blood pressure. So the point is, yes, Lydia, I do think you should do some market research and one really good way to do this because there’s lots of different ways to do it. It’s hard. It’s hard sometimes to figure out like, how am I going to get this information? Should I just start talking to people asking people questions. Um, is there some website I can go to to download facts and figures about my target market? Maybe, maybe not. But one solid thing that you can definitely do, everybody can do this is figure out again, who are you helping, what kind of person and what big problem are you helping them solve?
And then pretend you are that person and go on Amazon and search. Just search. Because if you can find a book or books related to that topic, you know, some book that has already been published by some publishing companies to help that woman or that man with their big problem, then you know that the need is out there because publishing companies have already done the work for you. They will not publish a book that there is no market for. So if they’re putting something out there, they’ve already done the hard work for you. And if you can just go find the books, like are they kind of like from a reputable source is itself published. You know, if you can only find like one book and it’s like a cheapo eBook that somebody’s grandma made, like I don’t know, maybe that is not going to fit the bill, but if you can find like 10 books on the topic from top publishers, then yes you are onto something.
There is a need and there’s books out there and people are buying these books and you could very well target that population. Now that is not the only way to do market research. I’m just putting it out there because it’s, I mean it’s pretty easy, right? And it’s at your fingertips so you might as well start with that. So Good Luck Lydia. I hope it works out for you. And also don’t discount the power of also tapping into your intuition. I think it’s a combination of both. Yes, you want to use your head, use your brain, find a target market that needs help and is out there and is ready, willing and able, but also a group that you have heart for a group that you have experience with a group that when you talk about the topic, it sort of lights you up. That’s also very, very important.
Lisa saying, boy, I never figured this out. Well that’s why you’re here, girl. It took me a long time to figure this stuff out too. I’ve collected, you know, tips and tricks and practice and I’ve failed and I’ve learned from my failures and I’ve just kind of done that through the years. And what you guys are seeing is the end result. Definitely not where I started.
Alright. I’ve got a question here from Karen. She says, I am offering a couple of prizes through drawings at the end of my challenge. Okay. She says, would you reveal the prizes are at the beginning of the challenge so as to encourage participation or would you reference that there are prizes through the week and reveal what the prizes are at the end?
Hmm, you know, Karen, you can probably go either way with that, but I think if the prizes are good, you would definitely want to advertise them up front so that everybody’s into it, you know, and they’re a little more excited and they feel like, oh, this is like a higher end program.
Like, look what they’re offering. You know, it’s going to shine a good light on you if you’re offering some nice valuable prizes. Now if you’re giving away, you know, a sticker, then maybe you just leave it out. We’re going to have prizes. But the one thing I wanted to say about prizes for all of you listening it is, um, you know, and I’ll do prizes and even my paid programs, it can be really helpful to like get people engaged. If you offer, uh, you know, a group program and you’re worried they’re going to be quiet or they’re going to be shy with each other, you can offer some prizes for participation or for like the person who’s, uh… what have I done? I’ve done like most valuable player, you know the person who’s just really a positive shining voice inside of a Facebook group. Like I’ll give them a prize.
I’ve also done one for someone who like had the biggest setback. I think I called them to come back queen. So like the Comeback Queen, you know who had that big problem where she whatever went to a birthday party and ate the whole birthday cake. But then the next day she got right back into the group program or whatever it was. She’s the Comeback Queen and she can get a prize too. Anyway, I’ve totally done this. It’s a lot of fun and you do not need to buy your own prizes. You can actually secure some pretty nice prizes if you approach different companies. I always work with the same companies that I’m an affiliate for cause we already have a relationship. And then there’s also the opportunity to share like not only the prize and tell everybody about the prize but also a link with your affiliate link for anybody else who might want to check it out. Um, so I always suggest whatever the company is, you actually approach different places and explain what you’re doing, explain why their product is a perfect match for the people in your group and how you’re going to talk it up at the beginning of the program. Karen, you can tell your group all about this product and why you chose it as a gift. So it’s a little bit of free advertising for the company and they love that, especially if it’s a small sized brand. Well, good luck and I hope your challenge goes really well.
And here’s one. You know what guys? This is one that is not a question. I guess it is a question, but the reason that I wanted to share it during this episode is because I love seeing our community used this way.
So Reema wrote health coaches and nutritionists in northern Virginia. Hello, anybody in Nova listening, um, anyone interested and available the weekend of August 24th and 25th for a vendor fair and Leesburg. I’m unable to make it anymore and wanted to help find a replacement.
I love seeing posts like this. This is exactly why I started this group so that we could actually support each other, not compete, not try to like drag each other down and tell each other what we’re doing wrong and oh you shouldn’t be promoting the Vegan diet cause that’s bad, blah blah blah. I’m not into that. I’m into like no, let’s help everybody out together because the more we do that the more the whole field will rise.
And Reema thank you for posting this and yeah, for anybody listening there was a few weeks between now and then. So if you are living in northern Virginia and you’re interested, go to our Facebook group at healthcoachpowercommunity.com and just search for vendor fair in Leesburg and you can find this post and get in touch with Reema. So big shout out to health coaches who support other health coaches. High fives you guys.
And that, I believe is all we have for today. So thank you for joining us and make sure to join the five day, close the deal challenge at healthcoachpower.com/challenge keep asking all those great questions and I’ll be back next week to answer them. I’ll see you then.