Have you ever wanted to offer a program or an event but didn’t know how to get people to sign up? It doesn’t have to be that way. In this episode Michelle shares the #1 easiest, most elegant way to make sales.
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Transcript
Well hey there health coaches! Have you ever wanted to offer a program or sell tickets to an event? But you just did not know how to get people to sign up? I know it’s like the worst. And all too often when I see our coaches who are kind of running around like crazy, definitely driving themselves crazy trying to fill this program, trying to advertise all around town and convince folks to sign up and it’s just like, ugh. You know, you can just see the steam kind of coming out of their ears because they’re working so hard. And you know what? Sometimes scrappy works, I have absolutely been there, but I want to let you know that it just does not have to be that way. So today what I want to share with you is like my number one easiest. I feel it is the most elegant way to make sales elegant.
Meaning you’re not running from bulletin board to bulletin board, tacking up flyers. You know, we’re not talking about that kind of thing. And again, you could be selling your six month private health coaching program. You could be selling some sort of group detox, whatever it is.
But before we get there, I’m going to give a big old shout out to Wilson Marie who left this five star review on iTunes. Here’s what she said. She said, how do you know I love your podcast? Because it’s like you’re reading my mind. How do you know I’m scared and afraid to sell myself as a new health coach? Your podcast helps me see and understand what I’m doing so I can change my mindset and start acting. Also, I appreciate learning how I can take specific steps to make my changes. Thank you so much. Well, Wilson Marie, thank you so much.
I’m glad that you’re listening. I’m glad that you’re benefiting from this show. That’s the whole idea and actually there is a very real reason why you may think I’m reading your diary now. I promise it’s not creepy. I’m not actually crawling in your window at night and opening up your bedside table to get that diary. No, I don’t actually come up with the topics for these shows based on, I know what I think you want to hear or what I feel like talking about. It’s actually all based on you guys, my listeners, members of my free Facebook community and what you’re literally asking, right, and I’ve been mentoring coaches for so many years that I know when there’s a really juicy question that gets asked and I’m like, Oh yeah, we definitely have to discuss this during one of these episodes. So it really speaks to the power of knowing your audience, listening to your audience, and just really, really paying exquisite attention to them.
I’m very glad I’m able to read your mind, Wilson Marie, and anybody else who has ever thought that. Thank you for your review. By the way, we would like to send you a little gift, so email your mailing address to support@healthcoachpower.com and just reference episode number 74 all right, let’s get to today’s main topic.
By the way, if you’re here with me live, I am live streaming right now into Facebook. Ask me anything. There’s going to be time at the end. I will take any questions that you’ve got about any aspect of running your business as a health coach. Okay. All right, good. I’m counting on you.
So, here’s one. Um, today’s topic actually came from a question asked in our group, and this is someone who is doing exactly what I described earlier, planning to sell something and kind of scrambling to make those sales. Again, we’ve all been there. Let me tell you what she said.
She said, I’m hosting a one-day retreat in September and I would love some brainstorming for promoting this. So far, here’s my plan: blogs to my email list, which is a good size, but only one third of them are local to my state. One well known local blogger is going to blog about it. I will post to Facebook and local Facebook groups. I’m also offering a referral rebate. The collaborative practitioners, I guess other people involved in this retreat will share to their tribes. I’d love to get interviewed by a local podcast. Then she said something about hanging flyers. The Yoga Studio wanted flyers. Okay. She said, I plan on doing a quick Facebook live video, introducing the other practitioners and tagging them and mentioning my sponsors and how their sponsorship is relevant to the problem solved in the retreat and tagging them.
Oh I read this and I was just like, whew, that’s a whole lot of stuff. And I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s not like any of it, it’s a bad idea at all. Sounds like a lot of really good ideas, but it’s like a lot, right? Like yeah, just like raise your hand if you’re like, that sounds exhausting. And if you consider, in this case we’re talking about a local one day retreat and I don’t know what’s being charged for this retreat, but you know, it’s just one day and it’s local. So considering how much that would probably cost a couple hundred dollars, I don’t know. I think this could easily become more effort than it’s worth in the end. Like so many things in our businesses. So here’s the deal. When you have something to sell and right now, just bring to mind whatever it is that you are currently considering selling or are actively selling, it takes just as much.
I probably said this before, it takes just as much effort to sell a $10 product or service as it takes to sell a $1,000 product or service. Write that down. It takes about the same amount of effort to sell a $10 product as a $1,000 product. The price really doesn’t matter. You’re going to put forth the same amount of effort more or less. So first I want you to make sure that you’re focusing on selling something that is higher priced because otherwise it’s hard to justify the amount of effort that you are putting against it. It may not be worth your time. Secondly, what I want you to do here to as I do on the show like we just talk about, is I want you to listen to your audience. It’s really not worth doing anything. If you haven’t listened to your audience specifically, what do they want?
What are they asking for and then sell them that. Like it almost makes a little bit too much sense. Right? But I know that this happens all the time. I used to do this constantly in my health coaching business. Get an idea in my head. That’s something that like I’m interested in something. I want to talk about. Example, fermented vegetables, wow lacto-fermentation, how I love me some lacto-fermentation. I will sauerkraut the heck out of you. In fact, I just made a whole huge batch of fermented salsa last week. It’s so good you guys, you may have even seen me. I posted on Instagram. It’s just beautiful. So what would’ve happened to me like, I don’t know, eight, nine, 10 years ago is my brain would go, oh, I know, I know what I can do to make money. I’m going to create an eBook of fermentation recipes.
I’m going to put that salsa right in that eBook. I’m going to teach people how to make my ginger carrots. I’m going to sell that eBook. Oh yeah. And then I would like get to work and I’d be in the kitchen for like days and taking pictures and fermenting things and blah blah blah. So let’s just evaluate that idea. Okay. First of all, how much can you really sell an eBook for? Has Anybody purchased an eBook of any kind recently? I haven’t. I don’t think I’ve purchased an eBook and like a solid five to 10 years. But anyway, if you’re going to sell any book it’s going to cost like $10 maybe $20 I don’t know. Not that much as the point. Secondly, let’s ask, has my audience been asking for this? Have they been telling me that they really want to learn about lacto fermenting their own vegetables?
Nope. No, they have not. I mean I can’t speak for you and your audience, but I know that the women that I work with are super lucky if they have time to cook anything from scratch during the week. Right. They’re turning on their stove at home. So they, my people are definitely not up for like taking up fermentation as a hobby anytime soon. And actually, if they were to hear me talking about it or like if for some reason, they bought my eBook, they would become overwhelmed very, very quickly. That would be counterproductive, wasn’t it? So know your audience. I cannot stress that enough. I’m not saying, I guess what I want to say is anything else I say in this podcast is predicated on the idea that you know your audience really, really well. Okay. Nothing else will work. Nothing works after that if you’re just coming up with an idea out of your head and trying to sell it.
All right, cool. Cool. So the next thing is, and this is where we’re usually focusing, is you need to be able to reach your audience if need be able to reach the people that you’re trying to sell to. And one way to do that is to sort of run around town, hanging up the flyers, finding bloggers to partner with, you know, doing all the things that we mentioned earlier, finding sponsors, trying to get them involved, hoping, praying that they’re going to help you out. They’re going to have time and their schedule, they’re going to contribute to this effort and that you’re going to get some sales out of it. Right, but this is majorly inefficient. It is. It just is and I hate that because it means that we are losing more energy than we are gaining energy in the form of like actual energy in our bodies.
Energy in the form of our money, our time, right? Like we’re losing more resources than we’re gaining. So the best way to sell… The best way to sell is to have a mailing list brimming with your exact target market and I know please stay with me. I just said some very scary words didn’t I? I said mailing list like I know for some of you right there you just like walked out of the room. I also said target market and somebody just peed their pants. I know it is terrifying. Please don’t run screaming. Stay with me. We’re going to talk it through. Sometimes you just have to let go of the, how do I get there and just imagine what there is going to look like for a second. Okay. So imagine that you had a mailing list of, I don’t know, several, maybe many thousands of people who wanted exactly what you’re selling.
And we know this because they have said so in the past, they have taken actions in the past that lead us to believe and to know that they’re interested in what we’re selling. Now imagine that you from the comfort of your home, not running around town, not hanging up flyers, not trying to partner with so-and-so and so and so he just sat down. You opened up your laptop and you typed up a few emails. Could you do that? Yes or no? You read emails every day, so I know you can. Yeah. And would it be a lot easier than that whole list of activities that I read off earlier? Yes. Yes. So, so much easier. A couple emails, that’s all we’re talking about. And you offer your product or you offer your service in those emails. Don’t worry right now about exactly what you would say in the emails.
Just imagine the right words flowing onto the page because you know your target market that well and you hit send, boop, you all know how to do this. Nothing fancy about it. Nothing fancy about making sales. And here’s the thing. If you’ve done everything that we’ve talked about today, your email list is going to buy from you, probably not everyone, but a consistent percentage of them are going to open up your emails and a consistent percentage of them are going to buy what you have to sell. That’s it. Easy as that. And I know it doesn’t seem easy if you don’t know your target market, right? I know it doesn’t seem easy if you don’t have that awesome mailing list quite yet. But can you imagine? And if you’re here live with me, just say yes or no in the comments. Can you just imagine having the right foundation in place and then selling really wouldn’t be that hard because this is what I noticed.
So many health coaches just don’t have the foundation in place. So the reason that I shared this question from our group member, it’s kind of twofold. First I want to say rock on with your one day retreat. Use it to learn everything you can about your attendees. I mean you have a captive audience. I’d be passing out like all kinds of essays and quizzes and surveys. It’s excellent market research for sure and have so much fun. These things can be a blast. And the other thing that I want to say is that I’m seeing some strong indicators that you either need to tighten up your target market or put some extra effort into building a list that matches 100% with your target market so that next time selling can be easy. A few clicks on the keyboard and because you’ve laid that groundwork, sales just kind of happen.
And this is exactly what I teach by the way, inside my course, healthy profit university, you may hear me mention it from time to time, it’s my no BS blueprint for helping health coaches stop wasting time and money. Stop chasing their tail and start seeing results because I think that’s why we’re all here, right? To build a business. Anybody just want to build a hobby? I don’t know. Maybe you do, but for me it’s building a business.
I’m going to answer a bunch more questions before this episode is over, but first, here’s what one of our newest members of healthy profit university said about why she joined. She said, “I’m truly appreciative of all the free content you provide health coaches. I have listened to most of what you’ve put out and it has helped tremendously already and to finally get some more help from another coach who knows and has the same core values as I do. I trust you as someone who can actually help me reach my goals as a coach. I just really like Michelle. She is real and honest and understands what health coaches actually need.”
And I get to say, man, that made my day. So thank you to our member who wrote that and let’s move onto some other questions shall we? What do you guys have for me today? What would you like to talk about? What would be most useful for you?
I’ve got one here from Mindy. I always have some in the can in case those of you who show up live are shy, but I love taking live questions so don’t hesitate. This one came from Mindie though and she said I was listening to one of Michelle’s podcast and she spoke about posting what you’re up to in your business, like new blog posts, et cetera. On your personal Facebook page. I have been only posting new blog posts to my Facebook business page and wondering if I should start posting to both, but I don’t want to feel spammy. Um, so much of our Facebook feed, oh now so much of our Facebook feed, our ads and whatnot. Do you all post your business updates to your personal page as well or just your Facebook business page?
All right, Mindy, good question. I don’t actually remember in what context. We’ve talked about this before on the show, so I’m just going to answer fresh. I find the health coaches are, you know, we are all in a different place. Some are brand new and all you have as a personal page, some have a personal page and a business page. Then we also have a group. So where are you post your blog post is totally up to you, but I would maximize your reach by posting pretty much everywhere you can.
Now of course I get your point about your personal page. Does your college roommate really need to see every single one of your blog posts? I mean, no, of course not. And also she probably won’t because of the way you know the Facebook algorithm works is people who never click on your stuff don’t end up seeing your stuff. Have you noticed that as soon as you start engaging with someone, you get more of their stuff in your newsfeed. So that kind of does the work for you. People who have clicked on your links before, they will start seeing what you post and other people just kind of won’t see it as frequently. So wouldn’t worry that much about it. But still you’re going to want to strike a balance. So I definitely do not post five times a day to my personal page about my business, but I might post once a week or twice a week.
Right? So you want to find a space it out, use your judgment. Maybe you’re only going to share like your best blog posts, your most important podcast episodes, whatever to your personal page. Whereas inside your Facebook page or Facebook group, you could be posting much more frequently than that. The other cool thing to do is, you know you can experiment with, this is post to your fan page, which is public. You always want to do that and then you can share it from your fan page or your business page. Same thing to your personal page because then when it shows up, it’s going to show up that it came from your business page. So if someone’s interested in what you do, they’ll have an opportunity to click on that and hopefully like your page. All of this is kind of like a Facebook boondoggle and we all know because you’re still reaching like 2.5 people with everything that you post. But you know there’s something to be said for making the most of what you have and if what you have is has a bunch of friends on your Facebook feed, like by all means, I would be posting there somewhat frequently so that they can see what you’re up to and you can find the ones who might be interested in following you. I hope that helps. Mindy.
Okay. I’ve got a question here from Sarah. Sarah says, hey coaches, I’m working on creating an eBook regarding stress and what we eat. I was wondering what you all thought of this and any other ideas I can discuss in my eBook. I was thinking of having two parts, one about the science and one about building a healthier lifestyle.
All Right Sarah, so let’s go back to what we were talking about earlier. I bet all of you who are listening know exactly what I’m going to say about this. First of all, I personally am extremely interested in the connection between stress and what we eat. I think it’s a phenomenal topic. Something that I know a lot about. I would love to read this eBook if you were to put it together. However, and this is big, I am not your target audience. I am not the person who’s going to be buying anything from you. You know, private coaching, whatever it is that you’re selling. I’m one of your peers, right? So if you’re asking in our health coach power community group about who thinks this is a good idea and what would you like to see in a book like this? You’re asking the wrong people. Like it literally does not matter what we think at all because we’re not the people who you want to buy your book, you want people to buy your book. I’m assuming who are struggling with stress, they don’t know what to do. They’re still eating pop tarts for breakfast or whatever, and they’re the ones that are going to hire you for your private coaching or for Your Group coaching. Right? Am I right? Okay. So that being said, ask, ask others, and don’t ask your peers and think about not turning this into any book because I hate the idea of having such a much needed topic, right?
And all of this great information that you’ve bulleted out for us turned into something that costs again, like $10. What happens when you buy something for $10 you’re like, oh cool, I it. Okay, I’m going to look at that later. And then you forget about it. And then if anybody actually buys this book, who was somebody you might want to work with in the future? They’re just going to feel like, oh yeah, I never got around to reading that. That was a waste of money because it didn’t cost enough. Right? So when something costs more money, not only are you more efficient in your time that you spend selling, because if you make even just one, two, three, four, five sales, you’ve made a significant amount of money. But if, if this person puts down, let’s say $1,000 $2,000 to work with you and go through these topics with you and implement them and have their hand held the whole way and see results in the end, I mean they’re going to show up because they put down a larger sum of money so everybody wins.
You win in your business, they win in their lives. The end. Please don’t make any book. Or you know, prove me wrong, prove me wrong Sarah. I’m always very open to the idea that I may not have all the answers but that is my sort of off the cuff reaction to your question. I hope it’s helpful. Okay. Let’s see here. We’ve got time for a couple more questions.
I would love to answer this one from a Sarah. Sarah said, I just had my first consultation and totally bombed. I lost all my nerve trying to own the conversation and I wrapped it up real quick like 20 minutes. Any advice that maybe trying to redeem myself. Also any advice on taking a client that wants to become a health coach and is looking into going to a school?
All Right Sarah, I think you got some great support already in the group with like so many other coaches saying, Hey, I’ve been there. Don’t worry about it. We all have to start somewhere. We’re all going to bomb from time to time. And it’s true. So chalk that up to big learning experience and do not sweat it at all. But what I really wanted to address was the second part of your question where you said any advice on taking a client that wants to become a health coach and is looking into going to a school?
Yeah, yeah. I think I do have some advice around this, Sarah. I have found that when someone comes to me who is really just hiring me because they intend to sort of follow my career path in a sense, it’s a really different kind of client. It really is. There’s sort of two minds, like they’re always thinking in two ways. One is, oh, what can I be doing for myself and my own health? And the other side is, oh, like how could I be implementing this in my future business? Or do I like how Michelle is coaching me right now? And maybe I want to do something different in there. Judging, judging, judging the process. And I think it can be a little bit awkward. So what I want to say is go into your consultations with a very clear understanding of what that call is all about.
Is it about talking about becoming a health coach? Because if that’s the case, oh my goodness, become an affiliate for IIN whatever school you went to and refer people to that school, you will make money. You can help them decide if this is the right path for them. They’re going to be forever grateful that you took the time to talk to them. And you know, you’ll make that affiliate income such a win-win for everybody. But I think it’s hard to like have two conversations at the same time. So if anyone ever comes to me and this totally happens, um, comes to me who either is already a health coach or they’re thinking about becoming a health coach, I definitely separate the conversations and generally we’re going to talk about you and your health first and your commitment to changing things in your life first and that the end of this program, I’d be happy to talk to you about next steps for you, which may include a career change. So just a, it is about boundaries even defining why you’re having consultation in the first place.
Okay, here’s a quick one from Drea. Drea said, I plan on using video conference for clients. What camera are you using? It looks clear and good.
I’m glad to hear you say that. Drea because a lot of times I’ve got a big old fingerprint on my camera and it doesn’t look so crisp and clear. I just use the camera that’s inside of my laptop. I have a Mac book and that’s it. Nothing fancy. I have occasionally used my phone, my iPhone to do videos in my kitchen or something like that where I needed it to be up high. Um, you know, like a cooking class. I will use my phone, but I find that the built in camera works just fine.
How many more can we fit in here? Kylie says hi. I’m looking at getting started in the brain health Alzheimer’s space. Following the lifestyle aspects of the Bredesen protocol. Does anyone have any guidance on connecting with this target market?
Kylie, The first thing that came to mind for me with this target market is it’s kind of like working. It could kind of be working like with children, whereas the children themselves or the person who was suffering with Alzheimer’s, they themselves probably are not going to be your client. It would probably be their caregiver or like with kids, if the kids are your target market, they’re not really your target market, it’s the parents. So I would just kind of shift to thinking about who really would be making the commitment, who really would be implementing the changes and who really would be paying the bills. And then how do you connect with those people? I mean you might be thinking about people who are worried about their brain health. It’s not really that much of a problem for them yet, but I think that would be a very tricky way to slice the pie. I think you would really be better off talking to those who are caring for somebody in that position.
Angie asks, I have a question. Oh, okay. This is a good one to end on. She says, I have a question about your live podcasts. Are they only done on iTunes? Is there a specific day and time you do them or is there a way to get a notice? I struggle a little with technology and I’m not sure how to find the live dates and times.
All right, so here’s how it goes. This is very meta to talk about the podcast on the podcast, but I’m going to do it every Tuesday. I am live inside of our Facebook group. I am recording while I am broadcasting and you can join us and you can ask questions right here, right now, which is awesome. Then we take the recording, we put it on YouTube, we put it on iTunes, we put it on Stitcher, we put all over the place so that if you’d like, you can subscribe, you know wherever you like to get your podcasts or YouTube, you can just subscribe and then you will automatically get every single episode.
It’s a great way to know that you’re not missing any, but if you just show up on Tuesdays, you can join us live. So fun. The time for each week’s Q and a is usually posted in the group. I try not to change them too much, but it totally depends on my kids’ school schedule. So in the fall, I think we’re going to be doing 2:00 PM eastern time, but just go into the group and check it out so that you know for sure.
Oh, all right, you guys, it would mean the world to me if you are an iTunes person, if you would go over there and leave a star rating and a written review because so many health coaches are telling me, yeah, I found you through your podcast and that’s awesome. That’s what allows me to continue putting out all of this free content. So thank you in advance for that. And if you’re not already a member of our Facebook group, if you’re listening via podcasts, if you found us through iTunes, we’ll come on over. What are you waiting for? We are at healthcoachpowercommunity.com that’s where you can request to join for free and start asking your questions to be included in an upcoming episode. And I will see you all next time. Take care.