The 2 Things Every Health Coach Needs to Book More Clients

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.

Hello there, health coaches. You know, I recently had a private session with a health coach and in the last five minutes of our session, she came out with the big question. Can you guess what it was like? The one question that summarizes everything I'm ever here to talk to about, she asked me to summarize it all in five minutes.

She said, so how do I get more clients? How does this work? And somehow I very quickly on the fly, boiled it down to just two essentials, which are the only two things you need today. I'm gonna share those with you. After all, I've been in this industry for 16 years in private practice myself as a health coach, mentoring thousands and thousands of other health coaches.

So yeah, I've seen the same patterns emerge again and again. And getting more clients comes down to just two things. That's it. Now, if you are here with me live, and I see that a few of you are as I'm recording or if you're watching the replay later, tell me in the chat what do you think those two things are, or even just one of them, the essentials for getting more clients.

Before I lay it out for you. I just wanna say this, I don't wanna imply that every health coach is exactly the same or that there's only one way to become a successful health coach. That's not the case. Some of you are big into social media. Some of you are definitely not big into social media. Some successful coaches hold a lot of workshops and some of you write books, and some of you work locally in an office on Main Street and others only work online.

What I'm sharing today is a framework or a formula even that describes what's happening when a health coach is successful in any of those forms, no matter where they live or how they work, or what kind of clients they're going after, it's always just about. Two things, and I think you'll quickly see where you need to put your energy once you simplify your thinking around getting more clients, because typically it feels very overwhelming.

Yes. We're gonna simplify, simplify, simplify today. So again, if you're here with me live, tell me in the chat what's one or two things that you think is absolutely essential in order to get more clients. Ellen is over here. She says, energy and showing up consistently and passionately. Chicha is saying, be seen by the right people.

You're all in the ballpark. You're all there. I'm sure somebody would say, posting every day on Instagram. Someone's gonna say, knowing exactly who you serve, your target market, right? There's all these different things we was taught to think about. Let's simplify the very, very first thing that you absolutely need in order to sell your services or to literally sell anything.

I mean to sell lemonade from a lemonade stand. Now, when I was a kid, my parents live in like a pretty rural area and we're on a big hill. Didn't have sidewalks. Maybe a couple cars would pass by during the day, but no one ever walked past my house. It was pretty far out of the way. So if I put a lemonade stand out there.

It could have been the best lemonade in the world. I mean organic lemons. It could have been at the best price, and I could have sat out there all day like squeezing those lemons fresh. I would not have sold a single cup. Why no people to sell to? No one going buy. Whereas my friend who lived like closer to Main Street where the sidewalk had like trees, you know, up and down the street. A little grid of streets right down in the main area of town. That's where we had a movie theater and a diner. And like little shops, if she had a lemonade stand, people would see it and they would stop and she would sell lemonade. Even if it was from a mix, it wouldn't even matter.

Now we could go a little deeper here. Would she have had luck selling lemonade in the winter? Probably not. You know, winters in New Jersey were pretty cold. Nobody wants lemonade then. And even in the summer, would she be able to sell lots and lots of lemonade to like all the little kids playing on her street?

Probably not, right? Because little kids don't have any money. But as long as there were enough older kids or adults going by her lemonade stand, enough of them were thirsty and hot and had a couple quarters, yes, she would be able to sell lemonade. She was in business. 'cause that's what you need all this whole story is to say the first thing that you absolutely need to get clients is an audience You need people to sell to, not one or two.

You need as many people as possible to see your metaphorical lemonade stand to know about you and your health coaching services. Because even if you are the best coach in the world, and I know you are, if you don't have anyone to offer your services to, you're not going to have any more clients. Right?

Simple math. And we could go a little deeper because even if you have an audience of some people, not everyone needs or wants help with their health, I'm sure you've noticed, just like most people don't want lemonade in the winter time. And there are lots of people out there who can afford health coaching, but there are lots who cannot, right?

They just cannot in any way, shape or form afford your health coaching services. So when you're looking for more paying clients, you need an audience and you need an audience that's ready, willing, and able. That's the most important thing. Now, what most health coaches do is we play too small here. And I'm wondering if this is you, like you advertise your services to the people that you know, and then you expect them to either hire you or tell the world about you, like they're gonna do your marketing for you.

Sometimes that happens, right? Sometimes it does. But what you really need to be doing is getting yourself out there in front of new eyes, in front of the whole wide world. People you don't already know. Running workshops, hosting a walking club, a cooking club, a book club. I don't know any of these. Get yourself on somebody's podcast, write an article, speak in an event, do all of those things and then do it again.

Host a free mini program. Get yourself in front of new people. That's how you build an audience. In fact, this month I'm running a free health coach cook along to show you how to incorporate one of those mini programs, a simple cook along type program into your practice, gonna help you build your list and earn income.

So come see how it's done. It's exactly what I'm talking about here. You can register for free. It's at healthcoachpower.com/cook. No matter how you do it, right, because everyone has different preferences. Some of you love to write, some of you like being on video. Some of you would rather be out there in person no matter how you put yourself in front of new people.

When you do these things, and here's the clincher, I need you to collect email addresses. When I say audience, like what I'm really referring to is your email list. That's the gold standard in terms of building an audience as a health coach, not social media, not that kind of audience where half of your followers are probably like fake or bots or who knows what they are.

And then you got all those marketers that are following you and those aren't real followers. And then even the real people who care about what you're posting about health and wellness, they only see a couple of your posts here and there, depending on how the algorithm feels that day. So when you think audience think, build my mailing list, something like a Cook along or like any mini program, that works beautifully because what you're doing is you're gonna capture an email address when somebody signs up.

And if you're speaking at an event or if you're speaking on a podcast, make sure to offer something to that audience. Whoever's listening, whoever is watching, in order to capture their email addresses too. Now question for you if you're here with me live. Answer in the comments. How much audience building or list building have you done in the last three months?

A lot. A little None. Go ahead. Be honest. Let us know. This tends to be the thing that falls by the wayside. 'cause we're thinking about all the other things that we have to do for our business. Right? But we forget. It's so simple. There's just two things required to get more clients, and this whole audience building thing is half the battle.

So how much have you done recently? In fact, we could even back up. Do you have a mailing list yet? Yes or no? In my experience with this community of health coaches that we have here, I would hazard a guess that at least 20 to 30% of you don't have a mailing list yet. That's okay. 'cause then it will be very obvious to you what your next step should be.

Ruth says a little but just starting out and that's why I'm here. Awesome, Ruth. So now this is easy, right? You just know, okay, I need two things. One of them is building my mailing list. So those, uh, maybe 50% of your time should be going toward. Bulking up that audience, right? That's how you're gonna see that long-term success.

There's lots of things we can do to see like little successes, something that feels good today, but in order for momentum to build over time, we need the mailing list to build over time. Now, if your answers are like none, haven't done any list building, no, I don't have a mailing list. Like I said, there's no shame here.

It's just knowing where you need to focus. If you want more clients, none of the other stuff matters. If you don't have this, mark my words. All right, well that's one. But remember, there are two things that you need, and so the first is an audience to sell, to write that down, and once you have that audience.

Here's where health coaches really tend to miss the mark. Like last weekend I went to this new health food store and I was in my glory. I am reading labels like this, putting on my reading glasses so I can actually see the labels. I'm excited about everything they have on the shelves. The produce was organic and nice and fresh.

I bought three jars of Bubbie's pickles because they were on sale for like six bucks. Amazing. Right? I'm super excited. This is the kind of thing that gets my juices flowing, you know, and maybe yours too, but the average person walking down the street, or our average client or someone in our audience.

They don't care. They don't, they don't care about the things that we tend to care about. Like they probably don't wanna go to that store. It's weird for them. They don't wanna read labels and they've never heard of bies pickles, nor would they care about that either. I mean, why would they? So the mistake we make is that once we have an audience, we try to get them interested in what interests us.

I just want you to let that sink in, 'cause that's a big one. Can you think of a time that this came up that maybe you offered something and you just heard crickets. A paid offer, it could be a freebie, anything that you put out there, and it was like nobody cared. I. And assuming you offered it, you know, to enough varied people and you still got no response.

I know that doesn't feel good in the moment, but there is value, like the lesson is very clear, very valuable. They're not interested, they don't care about that. It's really simple. So I hear this a lot when health coaches are offering a gut health program. I got a newsflash. Nobody cares about gut health except you and me and you know the people who are eating bubby's pickles because of the probiotics, right?

Like no one else knows what gut health really refers to or why it's important or why they would even want it, right? That's not the term. That's not the idea that they have in their head of what they want in this world. Again, you might, I might, might want that, but they are not us. So as health coaches, once you have built that audience, which is what your mailing list, you need to offer them things they want.

That's it. That's the second part of the formula, and it's pretty simple. It's not always easy, but it's pretty simple. Offer them things that they're already interested in because then they're going to say. Yes. And that's what we wanna hear. You know? So we've established that generally clients don't want or they don't care about gut health, right?

That was one example. What else? Tell me in the chat, what else do clients not care about, even though we care about it? How about this one? They don't know or care about hormone health. Maybe some of them, maybe in some circumstances, but by and large, that means nothing to people. They don't care about fixing problems that a pill is handling just fine for them right now.

Thank you very much. Like high blood pressure. Again, you and I might be like, oh, well you gotta do something about that. They're like, what do you mean I just take this pill? It's fine. That means they don't care about fixing it. That's not on their radar, you know? They're just in a different place. There are things that they might care about a little bit.

This can get tricky, so I wanna call it out to you, like feeding picky eaters. Some people care about that 'cause they have picky eaters and it's an annoyance to. They don't care that much. It's not really something that they find so troubling that they're gonna hire you. They're gonna pay you to help them fix it.

So what will a client work with you for? Like, why will they say yes and join your course? When will they jump and sign up for coaching or even sign up for your free events? 'cause again, if they don't care about something, they're not gonna sign up and pay you money. They're not gonna do it for free either.

It's when you offer them something that they actually want. And I see that Ellen wrote over here, hacks, and I think she means that people like hacks and that's true, but like hacks for what if it's like hacks for gut health. Again, you're kind of just running in circles, chasing your tail, but if it's hack for something that they are actually after, you might get their attention.

Right. What do they want? What do they tell you that they want? Give us other ideas in the comments. If you're here with us live, what do you hear? Not other health coaches or health experts, but normal people in the world, what are they looking for, asking for, asking you about? What do you think they're Googling in their spare time?

The most classic answer of all weight loss. Women and men, they know what they have in their head is that they want to lose weight. And you know, whether we as health coaches think that that is the most important thing is completely irrelevant. It's what they want, it's what they're gonna stop and pay attention to and take out their wallet to solve.

And we know that because weight loss is like a gabillion dollar industry, right? The proof is in the pudding. Same thing for. Fatigue, right? They feel that they know they're exhausted. They don't like feeling that way, and they don't care if it's because of their gut or their hormones, or a magic voodoo spell that somebody put on them doesn't matter.

They just don't wanna be so tired. That's something they care about or they wanna get rid of. Headaches, maybe migraines are a problem. That's a big problem. They wanna look younger. Who doesn't want that? They wanna get rid of eczema and psoriasis and acne, like they want smooth, clear skin. And I could go on and on here, but I hope you're getting the point.

No one is gonna buy anything from you if they fundamentally don't understand it or don't want it. And I need to say this too, because we make this mistake all the time. They don't want. Health coaching, they don't, that's not what they want just for the sake of it. They don't wanna just sign up for health coaching 'cause everybody just wants to sit around and talk to a health coach all day.

That's not why people do it. Nobody does. They want a specific problem solved or a particular I. Outcome. Let's see what Ruth has to say. She says, I think many women are struggling with things that are hormone related. They just don't realize how it's connected to their changing hormones. Bingo. So we need to approach what it is that is bothering them and help them connect it to their hormones.

We need to approach. What it is that is bothering them. That's right. The way that they see it, the way that they talk about it to themselves or to their friends or whomever in their own language, it does not matter to them if it is connected to their hormones or not. All that matters is if they change something about the way they're eating, living, sleeping, moving, and that symptom, that problem goes away.

That's what they want. They don't even have to ever know that it was a hormone thing, like it really doesn't matter. All that matters is that they see an improvement in how they feel. So a specific problem solved or a particular outcome. And that's one reason that my kitchen together program was always so popular in my health coaching practice.

: I used to offer it over and over again. It always drew a big crowd because this is such a simple thing. But what do people want? They wanna know what's for dinner. You know what's for dinner, ma? And they want cooking to be easier and. They want it to be more fun, less of a drag, and they want to eat healthier, even if they're not sure why, you know, maybe it's because of weight loss or maybe just 'cause they heard that they should, but it's just hard for them.

This is a simple problem to solve and a little simple cook along program takes care of it. So that's why I'm gonna offer it this July for health coaches only this time around a health coach cook. Along this way, you can experience what it's like, and then my hope is that you'll turn around and offer it to your own clients because very likely it's something that they want to do, like people like to cook ttgether, right? It's way more fun than cooking by yourself. So remember, you can sign up for free to do that with us at HealthCoachPower.com/cook. And there you have it. My very succinct answer, I gave it to you in a little more than five minutes, but the very succinct answer to how do I get more clients?

And after 16 years in the health coaching industry, it is simply build an audience, sell them something they want. Repeat, write that down and make sure that anything you do in your business is fueling either that audience growth. Directly or figuring out what they want and how to give them exactly that.

I wanna thank Tristan for asking this question in the first place, and if you have questions you'd like me to answer on a future episode, there is a very, very easy way that you can send those directly to me. You can go to HealthCoachPower.com/text, send me a message, it'll come to my phone. And I will see you next time.

Thank you so much for joining. Bye everyone.

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