The FASTEST Way to Get Health Coaching Clients That No One Talks About

Michelle Leotta:
Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex-corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom.

I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

A very young woman once walked into my workshop, which I held at a local yoga studio. This woman was battling emotional eating, loneliness, and just a total lack of confidence. She was really quiet. I didn't think she was particularly engaged or interested in the workshop that I gave at all, but that one hour ended up changing the entire trajectory of her life.

She and I showed up in the same room, and today I wanna talk about workshops as one of the most powerful ways to grow your health coaching practice and change lives. Stay with me, and I'll tell you how you can put this into action with something that I've created for you. It's called the right room, and I've got a special listener thank you towards the end of today's episode.

So back to that workshop and that young woman, gosh, she was like in her early twenties. She was working security, I think, if I can remember correctly, at Saks Fifth Avenue. She was so sweet. She was so young, and she was so lonely. Living in Boston for the first time on her own, and I think emotional eating had become her go-to for comfort.

I'll never forget her after my workshop, which was like literally one of the first workshops I ever held. She surprised the heck outta me 'cause she just asked about becoming a client. I didn't even ask her, and she could hardly afford it. I was new, right? I needed clients. I was just starting out, and so I took her on at an intro rate, working together.

It was really cool. She was a really different kind of client, and I figured out, took me a couple sessions, but I figured out that she needed, as so many people need, she needed connection more than anything. She needed a friend. She needed someone to talk to, and since we both liked doing yoga, we talked quite a bit about the studios in the area and what yoga we were doing.

Now, she couldn't afford to take a lot of classes. That was a problem. So I suggested the work study program. I don't know if you have ever seen these, but at least back then, I knew some of the studios offered work study positions. And it was like a light switch went on in her life. She got that work study position.

She immersed herself in the yoga community. She found her people, she found her purpose. You know, it's funny how the food stuff resolves itself when the life stuff is in place. Anyway, fast forward 15, 16 years, maybe more. She must be nearly 40 years old by now, and I can see her smile on social media.

Guess what she's been doing? She's been traveling the world teaching yoga. My heart is like bursting when I tell that story, and I think about that transformation, which if we break it down, like it only happened because. I stopped waiting for clients to like find my website. It's very unlikely that she ever would have found my website or like paid attention to me on social media.

Instead, I stepped into a room where she was already showing up. It happened to be the yoga studio. I put myself in front of her and others like her and created that human connection. So here's what we have to do in order to find clients ready. Stop waiting. That's it. Two words. Stop waiting. Most health coaches are out there waiting to feel ready.

You're not gonna feel ready until you just start doing it, or we're waiting to get that certification or that fifth or sixth certification. You know what I'm talking about. Or we're waiting to get our website built or get that Instagram account going, and literally none of that is necessary. It is all a distraction.

This very young client of mine, she wasn't even looking for a health coach like most people. She had never heard of a health coach. She was definitely not online and searching for me. So workshops are how you can bypass all of that. You can stop waiting to be found, and you can simply put yourself in the right room in front of the right people.

I think workshops are like more important than ever before, and I've been in this industry for almost two decades, right? I can confidently say they're more important today than they were back then, because these days the coaching industry can feel kind of ick. Do you know what I mean? Icky, like social media, AI-driven tools, automations.

It's a lot of faceless contact, and these are people we're trying to reach who desperately need connection, but workshops, right, as opposed to all that techy stuff or AI-driven tools or whatever. Workshops are very human. Like you're in a room, you're in a real room with four walls, or you are, maybe you're in like a virtual space of some kind, a Zoom room, but either way, you're speaking with real faces, and you're answering real questions, and it's not edited or polished.

It's just you in real time or a concept, right? That's why it works. That's how you build trust with people. Now there are different kinds of workshops. I get asked about this a lot. So I figure today I'll just, real quick walk you through four different kinds of workshops and then you can decide which makes the most sense for you right now.

And I'm gonna give you my recommendation. So basically, you can do a workshop for your existing audience, and you could do it paid, or you can do it for free. And you can do a workshop for a brand new audience. So people who you've never met before, they don't know who you are, and that also can be paid or free.

So how do you decide? This is like the biggest question I get from coaches when workshops come up. I'm gonna make it really easy for you. Let's start by talking about a workshop for your existing audience. This one assumes that you have an existing audience. Think about that. It means you got an email list, you've got your social media followers, like a Facebook group maybe, or a book club, or your friends and family.

We all have somebody, people who already know you, people who already know about you. So these types of workshops that you're holding for your existing audience.They're great to find clients among that audience. You can charge for them. That would be a way to figure out like who's the most motivated, what potential client would spend a small amount of money.

Take that first small step with you, or you can also run them for free, just to warm everybody up to the idea of working with you, spending some time with you in real time. Right. But, and this is a really big but. If you don't have much of an audience to begin with, then that type of workshop's not gonna get you very far.

And I see coaches doing this a lot, that's why I'm calling it out. You're gonna do all of the work of putting a workshop together, and you're gonna be advertising it, trying to get people to sign up, get people to show up. Even if you're successful, if all of these folks in the room with you are already in your world, then you won't really be expanding your visibility.

And if they're already on your mailing list, you won't really be adding new names to your list. So the success of a workshop. For an existing audience is really about converting that warm audience to paying clients. I mean, which is great, and there's a time and a place for that for sure. I suggest these kinds of workshops for you.

If you have a decent-sized audience already and you get good interest from potential clients already, workshops are a really great way to move those folks closer to hiring you, and we love that. The truth is, though, that's not where most health coaches are, so just be honest with yourself. Maybe you fall into that category, and that's the right move for you.

You're trying to convert your warm audience into paying clients. Great. Most health coaches, however, do not have a sizable mailing list yet and very much need more visibility. They need to get new eyes on them. Does this sound familiar at all? Like, maybe you need to build that mailing list. You need to establish yourself as an expert with new audiences.

Maybe you're really looking to grow beyond your current circle. Yeah. If that's you, then what I would highly, highly suggest is that you think about holding a workshop for a brand new audience that you don't already have access to, for example. You could hold a workshop at the yoga studio like I did way back when I used to do a lot of those, actually.

Or a local gym, or a salon, or a spa, or a corporate office, or a church, or a community center. I mean, I can go on and on. It could also be a virtual setting. So you could do something over Zoom for a company that has a lot of employees who work from home, or a virtual gathering for some kind of virtual group that already exists, like somebody else's membership, somebody else's online community.

The trick is, and you might already be thinking this, Michelle, if I don't have access to these people, how am I gonna get access to these people? You know? And I think we just kind of get stuck right there. How do you get booked? To stand in front of that room, if you don't already have access to them. Now remember, it could be something you do paid or it can be unpaid.

I don't think it matters. I like you to just get it booked, whatever it takes to get in the door. You know, again, for most coaches, when you're looking to expand your visibility, that's the most important part. But the trick is getting that booked with someone else. And I have this laid out for you in an easy seven-day plan.

It's called the right room. In fact, as a thank you for listening to this episode and to reward you for being an action taker, because I love action takers, you can go grab it for a special listeners-only price. It's at HealthCoachPower.com/room. Now, quick story. Years ago, in my health coaching practice, I got connected to a very big consulting firm.

This was through a woman that I knew, and I went to do a workshop at her office. Well, after the workshop, which by the way, it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. One of the employees became a private client right away, and this is not uncommon. People will meet you. They will know they need this kind of help.

Boom. In the door. Anyway, she was a consultant, right? So she was constantly traveling. She was off the rails with food. I learned that consulting work is really, really demanding. Well, eventually down the line, she quit that job, and guess what she did next? She became a health coach. I know, right? Like a huge change.

A huge 180 in her life. And it's all because we were in that room together. I got in front of her on an average day at the office when she just happened to not be traveling, and it turned into this totally new direction for her life. Now, you might not realize this, but today, right now, I swear to you, you can go do this.

You don't need any kind of certification to hold a workshop. Boom. You don't, you're ready right now. Can you believe it? You can hold a workshop about whatever, you know, sugar cravings, how to bake sourdough bread, whatever. It does not require board certification. You don't even need to be finished with your health coaching school to be honest.

Anybody can hold a workshop. My mom could hold a workshop if she wanted to, right? It's just a marketing activity. One of the few perhaps that requires very little, like nothing else needs to be in place, so you don't have any excuses. Okay? You don't even need a slide deck, I promise. And I teach you how to get those workshops booked and even what to do once you get there inside the right room.

Because workshops for new audiences, which is again what I recommend for most health coaches, it can get you clients immediately. It can grow your email list. It can build your confidence very, very quickly. It positions you. As the expert in the room, even if you don't feel like the expert in the room, just by virtue of being the person holding the workshop, boom, now you're the expert and everybody believes it.

Suddenly, you might start believing it too, and it gets you in front of people that you would probably never meet otherwise. And then you create these unexpected ripple effects, like the stories that I've shared with you today. But over the years, even though I give this advice over and over and over, book a workshop, do a workshop, it's the easiest thing to do.

It's the best thing you can do. I've seen that. The hardest part for most coaches, really, it's not creating the workshop itself. I know you know a ton about health and wellness and nutrition and this, that, and the other thing. You've got content coming out your ears. It's figuring out. Where, where do I go?

Like, which room do I wanna get into? How do I get there? How do I pitch myself? Why would they say yes to little old me? Oh, we get that imposter syndrome flaring up, we think. How do I get the go-ahead and inside the right room? I'm gonna give this to you. I'm gonna give you my seven-step framework to identify the right room to get your foot in the door.

Know what to say, know what to pitch. And how to make sure that room is full when you show up. 'cause that's very, very important. I want you to remember there are people out there like that young woman working security, or that consultant hating every minute of the travel that she had to do for work. And they're not gonna find you on Instagram, and they're not stumbling upon your website.

You gotta go, go now. Go get in front of them. Go change lives. Okay. And if you want my full step-by-step framework for finding and pitching the right rooms, I have it at a very special listeners-only price. Remember, you want this; it's at HealthCoachPower.com/room. Check it out, and I'll see you next time.

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