Messy to Money-Making: Real Coaches Who Took Action Before They Were Ready

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.

This week, a health coach emailed me saying, I'm juggling trying to get all my automations going and launch some programs, but it's slow going because of logistics and getting all the platforms set up and working correctly, and this. This is a perfect example of what happens when you're trying so hard to appear professional and get things set up the right way and getting absolutely nowhere.

So today, we are gonna flip that whole approach on its head with three real stories from real health coaches who started a bit messy and took action anyway. Clients income opportunities all came because they acted before they felt ready. Now, before we dive in, here's a quick invitation. If you are ready to start earning with your health coaching practice, don't wait.

You can get started right now. I have 10 easy offers you can earn with right away. It's totally free. It's available at healthcoachpower.com/easy. See, the goal of this episode is to stop overthinking. Stop overplanning and start earning, start doing the work. So go ahead and download this free guide at HealthCoachPower.com/Easy.

That's the URL you need. Hit pause. Go get it. Come back and finish the episode, 'cause we are gonna get into it. When I saw that email saying it's slow going because the platforms aren't set up yet. I knew exactly what this health coach meant. I've seen it before, and she's not doing anything wrong. She's doing what most health coaches think they're supposed to do, and maybe that's you, and you're doing what you think you're supposed to do.

Build the platform. Set up the automations, create the online forms, set up Stripe, build a funnel, and design cute graphics on Canva that you can post to Instagram every single day. Get practice better organized, do all that stuff first, right? That's what we think. And then build up the courage, maybe along the way to offer clients an actual way to work with us.

Except it's kind of a procrastination technique, first of all, and that day never comes that you are quote, ready, because those setup tasks, they're like sand and they're gonna quietly fill every crack of your day if you let it until there's no space left for the big rocks, you know, for what actually matters.

Meanwhile, the only way to really get ahead in your coaching business is to coach people. Yeah. Because that's how you get experience. That's how you earn, and that's how you're gonna grow. Even if this coach who emailed me, let's say she had every single system perfectly set up, I guarantee that the moment she gets her first real client, she's gonna realize, oh wait, like I needed something different.

Or, oh no, that wasn't quite right, or she forgot a piece entirely. It's like, okay, I just moved into a new house, and on day one. We didn't think we needed an extra storage cabinet in the master bath. Why would we? But after a few days of getting set up and then actually living in the space, it became obvious, oh yeah, we definitely need that cabinet.

At first, we just filled it with towels, and then as more days went by, we realized it was also the perfect spot. Like we needed to put toilet paper in there, and you know, a few other things. In other words, it evolved with real use. So that's how we figured it out. And that's exactly how your coaching systems work, too.

You can't design everything perfectly up front. You have to use it. You have to live with it. So stop trying to front-load everything and get set up perfectly. I'm asking you today to decide to move forward, no matter how messy it feels, and it's going to, and just get to the part where you're actually working with clients.

So to bring this idea home, I have not one, not two, but three real-life stories for you. And these are from health coaches Inside Empowered. This is my small group mastermind. Hang with me on this because it's gonna bring to life exactly how coaches get unstuck in real life. And this is all happened in just the past couple of weeks.

So first, I wanna tell you about Stephanie. She's a pharmacist, she's a health coach, and she's also a pharmacist. And instead of trying to sell a generic, like get healthy, you know, health coaching program, she's leaning into what she knows best, other pharmacists. She created a new VIP program just last week to help pharmacists improve their work-life balance.

It is totally aligned with her expertise as a health coach and as a human, so it's not like traditional health coaching, but it's deeply useful. There's a real need, and she knows how to reach these people, which is amazing. Now. Stephanie has never sold anything at this kind of VIP price. Before, it felt bi,g and it felt uncomfortable, and she did it anyway.

She made the offer anyway, and someone said yes. Just days later, she's got her first VIP client. Amazing. Now, that person said yes, and Stephanie suddenly realized, here's the messy part. She goes, Oh no, I don't have like a payment plan set up in Stripe. She told this person they could have a payment plan, and then she's like, Oh my God, I have to set that up.

Funny, right? But that's how real business gets done in this industry. You figure it out, and that's what she did. She figured it out and collected the client's first payment, and boom. Her first VIP client is official, and we are very, very excited about it. So do you see the magic there? She made the sale first.

She made the connection, she signed the client first, and then she worried about like the tech stuff, the logistics after the fact, and now her client has the support they need because Stephanie didn't let having the perfect setup get in the way. And of course, when it comes to the next client, it will already be set up.

This is marketing and sales, and business happening in a way that actually works. You wanna lean into what you know, you wanna make the offers, and then you wanna figure it all out on the backend. You know, all those details can fall into place after someone says yes. Okay, now let's talk about Christina.

Another great story. When she joined Empowered, she wanted things to be all buttoned up. Of course, who wouldn't, right? Like she wanted her practice better set up, she wanted her client agreement, that sort of thing, which is fine. Accept. None of that stuff matters if you don't have a client, right? So we had to get her started with what I call five-minute mini offers.

This is something tiny, simple, something that is intentionally imperfect that you can put out into the world today to generate some interest. There's no funnel, there's no like professional graphics. There's no platform set up. Definitely not hours of prep. It's just something to generate interest, something you can share quickly.

And guess what? This is incredible to me. Her very first five-minute mini offer brought in a new paying client. I'm gonna say that again because that was really important. Her very first imperfect. Slightly scary, maybe very scary because you know anything new can feel scary. Five five-minute mini offer brought in a paying client like that.

No further marketing. That's the dream, isn't it? No technology layers, no autoresponders, none of that. Just a human connecting with a human. And here's something funny. So this client appeared so quickly. Christina hadn't even finalized her package or her pricing like. For both of us, it was a surprise that this client was like, yeah, I'm interested, so who cares?

Right? She didn't have her pricing set. We hadn't spent a lot of time on that yet. This was all happening so quickly. This is what you want. You want clients signing up quickly, and then you figure out those details. So the morning before that discovery call, you better believe Christina and I were figuring out a couple simple options that she could give this potential client.

And she ran with it 'cause she had to, 'cause she had this person on the calendar, and that's how you get it done in real time. And then she got paid. Awesome, right? Of course, then she very easily figured out all the rest of the stuff. The zoom set up the client agreement, you know that all falls into place quickly.

Clients do not need you to be perfect. They need you to connect with them. And finally, I wanna tell you about Heather. Now, if you want an example of how perfectionism can stall progress, Heather. Love her shining example of this. So for years, she was stuck. Not because she lacked, you know, passion or ability.

She's a brilliant woman, brilliant capable woman, but almost like to a fault, you know, she was trying to create these big, polished, online entrepreneur style launches for her health coaching business, her brand new health coaching business. She was trying to emulate what you see from people who have full marketing teams, designers, copywriters, you know, all that.

Heather works a full-time job outside of health coaching, and she's not in marketing, so this is not exactly in her wheelhouse. She doesn't have a team, and the complexity of that style of launching meant she would kind of start and then spotter out and never actually launched anything. So this went on for years working together inside. Empoweredin just like the past couple weeks. Now, we flipped the script.

We asked, okay, what comes naturally. What do you already know? What feels easy? And it turns out that she has 25 years of experience in the GIS mapping industry, and instead of forcing herself to become some Instagram-savvy marketer, she just started talking to people in her field. Like she's got lots of experience and credibility there.

So, she's talking to them first on LinkedIn, then on some market research calls, colleagues, acquaintances, you know, leaders in the industry, and guess who's showing the most interest right off the bat? This is wild. It's not what she expected going into health coaching, but she's got these CEOs of startups going, Hmm, what could you do for us?

What could you do for our company and our employees? She's got leaders, and you know, related industries. People who want her to support their teams. How exciting, right? Because she didn't even go into it looking for that type of opportunity. Shouldn't even know that existed, but they found her. 'cause she stopped trying to be someone else and started using what she's already amazing at and what she's been building.

Not in the past couple months or a couple years, but like a couple decades, right? She's just building on this huge amount of experience and network that she already has, doing the most simple kind of outreach and getting a bigger return than ever before. I love that. So let's tie this together. What are we talking about today?

I know you might not have 25 years of experience in some particular industry, you know, but hopefully one of these three stories hit home for you, 'cause they are all quite different. But they're all about starting messy, not trying to have it all figured out upfront. 'cause you simply can't. The coach who emailed me this week, again, she's doing what she thinks she's supposed to do, set everything up before she begins, but.

Stephanie didn't wait, right? She signed the client first. Christina didn't wait. She bravely took five minutes, put herself out there in a super simple way. Boom. Client. Heather didn't wait; finally didn't wait. She used conversations and her existing network, not a big, complicated launch that was never gonna get done.

So the messy, imperfect, human-to-human stuff. That's what's working right now, and that's the kind of marketing that you can actually get done. I'm sure you've heard this before. Done beats perfect every single time. If you want help taking those first messy steps, the ones that actually lead to clients, I have made it ridiculously easy for you.

With my free guide, it's 10 easy offers that you can earn with right away, and you can grab it for free@HealthCoachPower.com/Easy. These are offers that you can literally put out today. No platforms, no funnels required, and they certainly don't have to be perfect. Go for it. See what happens, and I will see you next time.

Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.