Transcription
Michelle, the last time we spoke on this podcast was August 2023. I looked it up. August 2023. I know, but we're like in each other's worlds. We're like adjacent. We adjacently, you know, hang around in the health coaching world. Just off the top of your head, what's changed since August 2023 in the health coaching space?
I feel like someone dropped a bomb and the whole world changed in that period, pretty much in that period of time. And it's really wild 'cause I've been doing this so long, 17 years now, and it's been more or less the same. I mean, sure, some platforms have come and go. Uh, video has taken a much, much greater hold than it once did. Fine. But it was like the whole world shifted in how we act online, how we behave when we buy, what we think when we see an offer. And suddenly, it wasn't just like me in my business. It was my peers and it was all the health coaches that I work with were like not getting the same results that they once did from the same efforts. And, you know, for a little while, we're just like, "Oh, must have just been a one-off," you know? And as time went on, I was like, "No, no, no. This is a pattern. This is really happening, you guys. Oh my god." So, I know like in the last 6 months, I completely changed my business model and have been working with health coaches to do the same.
Okay. Well, there's a lot to unpack. In the last 6 months, you completely changed your business model. Can I just share a quick anecdote? The year just wrapped up, right? I was going through my 2025 year, and the first half of the year, I had a good first half, second half of my year, bad, bad. So, I wanted to get into the weeds. So, I looked at the data and the data that I looked at was the intake forms of my clients in the first six months versus the intake forms in the second six months. What m what was changing about them? I thought that's where I'd look, where I I thought that's where I'd look to uh get this information. And what came up in the last six months of 2025 was uh a sharp J-hook increase in overwhelm and confusion. People were saying on the intake forms, "I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing." So in the last six months, something changed at the health consumer. I think so.
What did you change in your business model in the last six months as a business coach to health coaches?
I think the most significant change is shifting away from technology and automated solutions and toward one-on-one conversations and manual solutions. So, pretty much across the board from how I'm acquiring clients to how I'm servicing clients, like I was like, "What if we just stripped away all of the bots?" Because I think that's been one of the major things that has changed in the zeitgeist, you know, in the past year or two is this overwhelming increase of, "Is this a person or is this an AI? Is this a bot talking to me? Is this real, you know, somebody's actual language or did this get spit out of ChatGPT?" So, I'm like, "What if we just stripped back everything that could possibly lend itself to that?"
Wow. Become a person again. I'm feeling mildly triggered because, you know, I do use ManyChat automation sometimes. I actually hate it. I actually really hate it as as a consumer of the internet. Comment the word "whatever" below and I'll send you my handy PDF of hacks. I just, I don't know. It feels cringy to me, but sometimes it's useful. Like if I have a workshop, it's like, you know, "Comment 'link workshop'" and I'll send you the link to join the free workshop, whatever. But I just, I'm loathed to use it because I think for this exact reason people are getting, they're not only wisening up to the fact that they're speaking to bots and potentially AI deepfakes, but also I think humans are sick of, not that they're humans, miss the human-to-human piece. This is what you're saying is more one-on-one conversations, more manual solutions. And this is on the acquisition and the delivery part of the coach-client relationship, both.
Okay. So when you say manual solutions, what do you mean by that one specifically?
Well, ManyChat as an example, and I also use ManyChat, but for a while I was using it every single time. And I think there's a lot of good reasons to do that. Like, and which we don't have to get into right now, but like, "Leave a comment" or "Leave this word" and I'll get back to you. Like it works for a lot of good reasons, but what I've been doing is pulling back on how often I use it because now I'm noticing that if like eight hours go by, two days go by, and then because it's the weekend and I'm a human with a family and then on Monday I respond to a DM, people are like, "Oh, it's you." And like, then we have a conversation and it goes somewhere and it actually feels much better, like, just to me as a human and to them as well. So, like that's an example, not of like completely abandoning everything, but being more wise about when and how we use those automated um solutions.
Gotcha. Okay, cool.
So I think when when I think about this because I love this idea and I'm hearing this from a lot of people, which is like, "2026 is going to become the year of the personal brand." Have you heard this? Have you been talking about this too by any chance?
The personal brand. Haven't we been hearing that forever? I don't know. What's the difference between this year and every year?
Fair. Fair. Um, but I think where this comes in is like, is, you know, "Be real." If you're going to put it in stories, put it in your feed. Let people see you, you know, wrestling with the dishwasher repair that you're trying to do. Let people put it in your feed. It's just, "I'm a human doing human stuff, living a human life." Even if it's not on brand and it's not the viral hook with the B-roll, you know what I mean? It's the personal branding stuff. I like that. Um, I guess, but I think the previous years and this is kind of what we're talking about, it really, I don't know, this is my perspective, is really we got into this narrative around scaling, scale, scale, scale. You have to have automations and systems in order to scale, scale, scale, scale. And so manual conversations doesn't feel scalable. What would you say to that?
I scaled and I scaled and I added team members and I added tools and I added and I added and I added. And I was like, not wanting to get out of bed in the morning to deal with all that crap because most of my today was just like, "Why isn't this tool talking to that tool?" And these like, you know, people getting upset because they were getting the wrong emails and holy macro, like I just, let's scrap all of that. I'm going to just work more deeply with individuals rather than trying to reach the masses. And, you know, one thing that has always been like a strength in my business is that I have a large audience of health coaches simply because I've been doing this so long. But I realized I don't have to try to serve them all. If it's not even working, it's not working for them. It's not working for me anymore. Like, let's just change the approach. I mean, you can listen to my podcast. Everybody can do that. But if you want to work with me, me, these days, it's a lot more of a one-on-one experience.
I love that because one thing that you were saying when you were kind of regaling me with that story about how you grew and grew and scaled and brought on team, the team thing for me is always and forever going to be a massive point of friction that I don't see myself getting over, which is I love being a solopreneur. I love it. I don't want anybody else to do this with me. They'll screw it up. Like that's, that's again, limiting belief and I get that all the time for my business coaches. Like, "No, you're gonna, if you want to scale, you have to bring on team." Like, I really don't want to. I'm dragging my heels on that. I just, "What if I kept it simple? What if I kept it personal? What if I kept it like it was in the good old days when I was having one-on-one conversations with clients, you know?" What if? And so it seems like there's been this massive ricochet for you, anyway, in just, "I don't want to do it anymore," and coming back to ground level where it's these more meaningful mentorships of sorts.
Yeah. And that was the good old days. We'd get on the phone with a client, we'd talk about their health issues, we'd talk about their life issues, you know, back when I was in my own health coaching practice. And like that was most of the day versus most of the day being backend computer nonsense. Like, yes. And I think this is much more accessible because a lot of newer coaches, all coaches think they have to build that online course and they have to have that expensive client management system set up and they have to do all these things before they can start to help people. And it's like, "No, no, actually, it can be so incredibly simple. You can get your footing much faster when you don't get tripped up with all that stuff." So that's true, very true for new coaches. So, I'm really excited about this approach for everyone who can just drop all those extras, the extra expenses, the extra learning curves with the technology. And, um, I'm excited for people like me, too, because I cut my expenses by like half in terms of tools, software, subcontractors.
Amazing. I was going to ask that, like, did you unscale? Have you, did you cut it all the way back? You did?
I cut it really far back. Like, I actually just talked to my CPA because we're looking at, you know, next year and projections and stuff like that. And he was like, "Wow, even though, just like you described, income was a bit down in 2025, he's like, you cut your expenses so drastically, your profitability went up." And I'm like, "Yeah, I did."
Oh, yeah.
And with that comes not just savings of money, but savings of time, savings of energy, and just the simplicity that you mentioned. Sounds delightful.
What would you say to the health coach that has heard though that that is the time for money grind that you're in now? "Oh, you're going back to one-on-ones. Isn't that trading time for money?"
Well, who says that you have to just do one-on-ones? What I'm saying is it just wants to be a more manual process. So instead of setting up a big platform and a huge mailing list with automations and funnels and this Facebook ads, you know what? If you just talk to like five, 10 people and you invited them into a group coaching container, like you can still work with more than one person at a time. In fact, sometimes that group, you can charge more because there's the added value of the group in addition to people having access to you as their coach. You can scale beautifully. In fact, something I'm teaching now that's different than I ever taught before is what I call a convertible signature program. Meaning, you build a program, you can offer it to one client. You know, you have one client in the beginning. We've all been there. That person finishes, you have one more client. Great. Sell them the same program. But as soon as you can amass like one more person comes on. Oh, now I have three clients. Then you can start to segue, same program, but a slightly different container, slightly different features of the program to serve the group and ultimately serve the client better and your bank account.
I want to know more about that. I mean, just that that example you gave, so I can envision this where the coach starting out has their first client, then they, they work up to this three-client roster and you could introduce, "Hey, g- hey, hey gang. Um, I'm introducing this new thing. It's just a group office hours call or whatever we're going to call it. Group call once a week. There'll be an opportunity to come into a Zoom and we can chat amongst ourselves about whatever's on our mind." And so introducing like a group call, hybridizing kind of the one-to-one into group.
Exactly. That's the word, the hybrid.
That's cool.
Because then there's this whole spectrum of maybe you're just working directly one-on-one. Maybe there's a combination of one-on-one work and group work. Maybe there, at some point, you have enough clients that is solely a group offer and they don't do one-on-ones with you. Maybe there's a high-end VIP offer to go back to the beginning, you know, but if they want to be there, well, now, you know, it's a much bigger offer. Just depending on how many clients overall you have, what your capacity is, you know, we all have that limited capacity. And that's another thing I'm really hammering in for myself and everybody else is that especially as health coaches, we have to be able to make the salary that we need to make and want to make and deserve to make. And we have to do it with enough time to not burn ourselves out to have time for our own self-care. Like, I don't know, it just more is not more in this industry.
I love to hear that. I think that's a really important message when you talk about the container. So, the, we have, we have a one-on-one container, a hybrid container, a total group container. Just out of curiosity, how would you price those in terms, not not specific dollars, but would you say the one-on-one is the VIP white glove and the group is the lower ticket or vice versa? Like, what's your thinking on on pricing of different containers like that?
I think for that, when you are segueing into a group, the pricing doesn't change. In fact, I think that h like I said, having the group has its own value. And I see it as, um, it's optional because some people, some clients love the group container stuff. Like they live for it. They want to be on those calls. They got their hand in the air. They're like so into it. And other people hate it. Great. Because like, we're all unique individuals. We're all going to benefit from different features of the coaching container. So anyway, I see it as the same price. You're just selling a slightly different package. It's just like anything else, supply and demand. Once you have so many people that you cannot bring anyone else in and still service your clients the way you want to, then you raise the price.
I'm thinking through this because I, I moved to group about maybe four years ago. I dragged my heels on it. Moved to group away from one-on-one. And now, even before you and I talked about this, I got the sense that my clients would maybe like some one-on-one support. They'll get, they get it in the group calls to whatever extent I can go around the horn and give everybody in the group call their attention. But now I see, I see the val benefit of almost like pulling back into a hybrid, you know, once a month you get a one-on-one or once every two weeks or something like that, a quick little check-in one-on-one. I, I'm trying to think through how to, like that feels good to me. That goes back to what you kind of said earlier. At the end of the day, health coaches, we want to have an income. We want have an impact, but also we're humans having a lived experience. Like we can't just become business busy bees. So it actually feels good to me to get one-on-one with my clients again. In fact, I miss it and I'm resentful slightly that I move to the group model in a manner of speaking because I'm missing that really personalized connection. So interesting. But you're seeing this as a greater consumer trend. Sort of a consumer, the consumer moving back to wanting more of the human touch. Can you say more about that? What do you know about that?
I think, um, yes, wanting more of the human touch and equal to that, maybe even more than that, wanting what we want when we want it. And we can trace this back to the very first time you ever ordered anything on Netflix and got, you know, that DVD in the mail and got to watch what you wanted to watch within a couple days. And now, of course, we could do it instantly. And now beyond that, if you and I have a conversation right now about pineapples, I'm going to go on my phone later and on Instagram, I'm going to get ads for like pineapples, right? Like the algorithm, I think, is behind a lot of behavioral changes. It knows what we want before we even know that we want it. And so what, you know, people are like, "Gosh, no one's buying anymore. No one's buying anymore." But I'm seeing clients and I'm seeing through my, the coaches I work with, their clients dropping thousands of dollars and saying yes, like that to something that they, they really want, they really need right now. But it has to hit them on the right day at the right time with the right message. And I think people are less likely to kind of go along with whatever is being offered because they don't have to. They will literally open up Instagram and get an exact solution to an exact problem they have and they can click a little button on the side like this and it will be delivered to their house within hours. So I'm like, "Well, what can we learn from that?" Like, so back to this example of like offering group, a group container and a one-on-one container because people want different things. I have some clients who they never show up for the group calls, but they want to do our one-on-ones. They like the fact that we have, um, voice and text messaging, and they'll, you know, we use Voxer, they'll me quite a bit, but they, you know, they don't take advantage of some of the other aspects because because that's who they are, because that's what works for their life. So, I'm trying to offer touch points that fit with different people's existence. And it's so interesting to notice how they just want the parts that they want. I'm like, "Okay, I can do that. Like, let's do that instead of saying if I'm going to work with clients, they have to, you know, meet with this group and they have to do it every Tuesday at three o'clock." People are not having that anymore. They want what they want when they want it, how they want it.
So when you're in discovery with a prospective client, are you asking what would work for you?
I do ask what their preferred like learning method is or, um, their comfort with group versus one-on-one because, for example, if someone's like, and some people are like this, and honestly, I'm kind of like this where I don't really love a group setting. Call me an only child. But, so when I have someone like that, I'm like, "Cool. I mean, you know, you're going to get this one-on-one time with me." And I'm talking about Empowered, which is this small group mastermind that I've been running. You're going to get one-on-one time with me inside Empowered. If you're someone who really dislikes the group setting and you want more time with me, I do have a VIP option, and then we talk about that so that they can decide. But if they say, "I love a group. I will be there at every call. That energy gets me going." I'm like, "Awesome. Like, this is going to be perfect for you." So, not that it's not, you know, that I'm changing the package for everyone, but I am just also from my knowledge, what kind of person is this? How are they going to respond best?
Yeah, that's good to know. That's very good to know upfront. And so then the VIP option where they get more facetime with you is a, in some ways we might call it the price anchor. If you want, there's this VIP option or if you feel comfortable in a group, here's a group option. So the VIP option, I'm just curious, what are the extras there?
Well, I think this is evolving and it's a beautiful thing when you're only running one program because you can, instead of what I used to do, which I was constantly churning out a new group program, a new group experience, four weeks of this, eight weeks of that, six weeks of this other thing. Now I'm just offering one program. It is year-round. You come in, I offer the packages that are available because I have found them to work best at this time. They may change, you know, and it's much easier for me to, um, gosh, be flexible because I am just working with this one thing. I don't have to juggle multiple things. It's really access to me.
So, you know, access might include, um, you can email me. I will look at your Google Docs. I will read the email copy you have written and make direct comments in your Google Doc. If we are working together, you know, this is what I'm doing right now. If someone's listening to this podcast in three years, it may not be the case. But right now, I have found that to be so, so helpful to actually like feel like I'm on someone's team.
And not just advising them, but like getting in there, showing them, being able to, you know, do voice texts during the day and, you know, "Oh, you may need to hop on Zoom and talk about it." Most people these days don't need another Zoom call, but sometimes you do. So, sure, like, let's do that. You know, it's very much like acting like a team member versus an advisory role.
I love that. I think that's really, especially because, I mean, you describe the Empowered program as a mastermind. It's a mastermind and I love masterminds. I'll jump at any chance to join any mastermind ever. I am a mastermind addict, probably to like an unproductive level, quite frankly. But anyway,
There's a few different ways to think about mastermind. Like, there's a, there's peer masterminds where a bunch of peers get together and create their own mastermind group, which is great and really nice. And I, I like it because then it's like I have colleagues and I'm not just all by myself in my office, which I am most hours of the day. But then there's the mentor-led mastermind, which is what you got here. You're the mentor at the helm. And I think when I think about mastermind, I want to be shoulder-to-shoulder with every person in it, including my mentor. I want my mentor to be, you know, with me, walking with me on this journey. So, it sounds like you've really doubled down on that.
Yeah. I mean, of course, not everyone is working with me at the VIP level. I mean, honestly, I would never be able to. I don't have enough hours in the day.
But one thing we are doing, and, and you could do, you know, any health coach can do this. Any coach, um, who's acting as a mentor in this capacity, is I'm tracking everyone's progress week by week. We have, we have one-on-one touch points, if not a whole Zoom call. There are one-on-one touch points each week. The group is small enough that I, I could tell you what everybody is working on right now. And that's beautiful because not only does that like feel better as a coach because you're really intimately involved with everyone, but they're held more accountable. They're getting more done because of it. They know they are seen and you, you're not getting that drop off because, as we all know, people just do not complete online courses. They buy them and then they just, I don't know, they just collect them and do nothing. And I got so sick of my work just getting like collecting dust on somebody's virtual shelf. I'm like, "Scratch this. I'm only working with people who want to be held accountable and want me in their face going, 'How's that thing going? Remember we talked about that thing?'" Like, we just had one of our members publish her, and you can appreciate the significance of this, published her very first YouTube video. The cringe of hearing your voice and seeing herself on camera and, "Oh my gosh, I don't have a teleprompter. How do I do this?" And, you know, it's, she did it. She, she did it. She hit publish. It got done. And I was like, "So, it's going to get published today."
Oh my god.
You know?
Refresh. Refresh. Oh, amazing. That's a really nice level of support. So, is there an online curriculum though? And did you scrap that all together?
They want to talk to you. They want to be in conversation. They zone out if they put a video on. But other people really like that. My, you know, type A's, they like to sit down. They like to download the worksheet or the spreadsheet. You know, they're going to watch that thing. They're going to take notes. So, yes, people learn in, in different ways. So I think it's just important to serve it up in every, pretty much, you know, serve it up in every dish you can.
I love it. Very cool. So the people that are working with you now in your program, they're health coaches. You're still working with health coaches. And are they all at different stages of business? Where are they at?
My, um, interest is working with coaches who already have some experience. I find that they're able to accomplish much more. It's a better use of their time and mine. But, you know, it really also just comes down to personality because some people have been in this business for 10 years and they still going to drag their feet and have a hundred excuses. And other, I found other newbies are like, "Let's go. Let's go right now. I have no fear." So, um, it's a curated group. When I meet with someone, I'm not just thinking, "Is this program going to help them?" I think, "Are they going to help the program?" And if the answer's no, they're not invited to join at this time. I probably have a different option for them that I think might, you know, be a better fit. I have to think about, you know, you have to think about the vibe of your group and the energy of the group if you want the group to succeed.
It's really important. So I, for me, it's personality first.
Yes. Yeah. Fit. Well, so how can we extrapolate what you've done and I'm sure, I mean, I know you do this with your health coaching clients, health, sorry, health coach clients. How do we extrapolate this to a health coaching business? Like, so for, so, so my women's weight loss business, what is the equivalent, let's say for example, of what you've built in your business that I can now go build out on my business? What would that look like?
So funny. Someone asked me recently, Michelle, do you miss health coaching? And I was like, "What do you, what do you think I do all day?" Cuz like, you know, working with someone, I don't care if it's weight loss, I don't care if it's eczema, I don't care if it's business. So getting a full understanding of how you've rearranged your business, your business working with health coaches, how can a health coach listening to this extrapolate that to their health coaching business? So for example, my women's weight loss business, am I, you know, am I creating a mentorship? Am I creating a mastermind? How does that extrapolate into the health coaching business?
Um, I think it's exactly the same. In fact, recently someone asked me, Michelle, do you miss being a health coach? Do you miss health coaching? And I'm like, "What do you think I do all day?" Like, I'm working with women to become happier, healthier people, right? And sometimes that's, uh, their negativity is getting in the way or limiting beliefs are getting in the way or lack of self-care is getting in the way. And if somebody's end result is that they want to lose weight, they want to start a business, uh, they want to find their dream person and get married, I mean, I don't care. All the same things get you there. So, I feel like I am still health coaching. It's just a different niche.
Yeah, I think I, I talked about this when we spoke last time on your podcast. I did. I literally did because this was the clip that was posted, but it was the feelings. It was the feelings, right? So, the feelings that, you know, get in someone's way on a weight loss or health journey or eczema, whatever it is, of frustration, discouragement, disappointment are exactly what health coaches feel in their businesses. So anyway, to flip that now, every single thing that I feel as I try to navigate my business, my clients are feeling as they try to navigate health and weight loss. So all I have to do is take my own experience and make a small adjustment and create something that would help them the way that I could help myself. And if that makes sense. So it really isn't different. It really isn't different. The reason I asked that question is because we hear from business coaches a lot and sometimes the health coaches listening to the podcast will say, "Well, how do I apply this to my business?" You know what I mean? So that, I think that's kind of where I want to get some clarity.
Yeah. Certainly there are some specific topics that are going to come up if you're serving one niche versus another. But in terms of someone feeling seen, someone feeling like they're having a human connection, you know, like a very concrete way would, uh, like you asked about your own program. I don't know how you sell it now, but you know, for a long time, we were always shifting to selling through a sales page because of scaling, right?
Well, they get crap results. But if you talk to a person and they say, "Oh, I have to think about it. Oh, I have to ask my husband. Oh, I have to, whatever." And you say, "Of course you do. That's great. How much time do you need to do that? What questions do you think your husband's going to ask you? What would make him most excited about you getting this big result that we've been talking about?" You know, they're so much more likely to take that next step than someone who just clicks, sees a page, looks at the price, and goes, "Nah, I can't afford it." And they're out of there. So, that's true, you know, for any, any business, any, uh, you know, solopreneur online coaching business. I think all of us can benefit from that.
Interesting to hear you say that the performance of sales pages is crap because like, it's so funny. I hate landing on one. I hate receiving a sales page. I'm like, "Oh, this scroll, scroll, scroll. Yeah, I get it. Where's the button? I just want to know what." It's so funny. It's so interesting how your one's own consumer experience can, can and really should inform what they then create for their, you know, ideal consumer, in a matter of speaking.
Especially if you're tracking your numbers. Again, this is something that used to work well. There was a day when we were like, "Ooh, look at this pretty page. Oh, look, I could click here. Oh, a popup." You know, and it's old news now. We don't have time for it. I think people who are going to buy are going to buy and people who are just kicking the tires are going to kick the tires and it doesn't really matter if it's a beautiful page or just a functional page or, you know, the point is you will have more buyers, more people saying yes, more people get that means getting more people excited when you actually talk to them, you know, and you feel like you know them and they feel like they know you. And that's just never going to happen regardless of the kind of page that someone clicks over to.
Just to say one more thing on sales pages, my favorite, my favorite must-have on a sales page is that, um, that classic clip art where it's like a laptop and a monitor and there's an iPad and an iPhone and a printed book and it's got the logo. Like you get all this media. I, I don't, I, I have to at least scroll until I see that. Once I see that image, it's like, "Okay, I can, I can."
And I've made so many of those. And I should tell you, I am a trained art director. I mean, I like invented this crap. Like, I worked in advertising, copywriting, design. I mean, this is my jam. I've been doing it for years. My sales pages are freaking gorgeous. But it's not about that. And you know that mockup that you're talking about, I'm offering a digital something or other, but I want you to be able to like, feel like you could hold it in your hand. So, I'm going to show it to you on some screens. That was, um, you know, again, that's kind of cool the first, 20 times you see it, and then you soon realize it never actually looks like that, etc. Um, but that concept is still important because coaching is not something that, it's not tangible. You know, you can't hold it in your hand, you can't smell it. Um, so I think when we have conversations, that's another thing, you know, inside of those conversations we have with someone, how can we make their experience feel tangible? Because you hear a lot from coaches like, "Why would anyone pay this much money just to talk?"
Yeah.
And it's like, well, if you're telling them that what you're going to do is talk, they are absolutely not going to see the value. So, um, part of how I sell this convertible signature program is to make it sound as tangible as possible.
Anyway, so it's the same concept. Yeah.
But, you know, done in a one-on-one fashion and without the clip art.
No, that's good. That makes a lot of sense. And so, I'm wondering if, if you can lend some thought to this. So, if the day of the long scroll sales page is maybe hopefully behind us, the consumer just doesn't want to engage with the page like that anymore, is it simply, "Let's create a very simple fifth-grade reading level landing page with a very clear call to action button that's everything's above the fold and basically it drives to a call." Is that what we're looking for?
I think that could work very well. I think you could, you know, also depends what you're selling for like lower ticket stuff. Even that, I like having a back and forth email exchange with someone, getting their verbal yes before sending a link versus, "Here's the link. Here's the link. Here's the link. Here's an 18th email with the link." Just saying, "Hey, I'm doing this thing. I thought of you," or, you know, "Would you like me to send you the link?" You know, after they've already expressed interest, that getting that consent then makes the whole transaction much more likely to go through. So, in that case, yeah, instead of sending them to a big long sales page, it can just be a checkout page. They've already made their decision.
Okay. So, let's talk about, I want to talk a bit more about the, the health consumer, um, the person who ultimately will buy our health co, our health coaching services. How do consumers see health coaching? What do they, how do they categorize health coaching? Is this a must? Is it, "If I have the money and the time, I'll do it"? What do consumers think of when they think of hiring a health coach? What do you think they categorize us as?
I mean, I don't really think they think about us at all is the main thing.
Right. So, you know, for years we've been like fighting this battle of like, "How can we compete or how can we be seen as experts against registered dietitians?" Now we have this obstacle on the other side of there are so many health influencers out there. We can be grouped with them. We used to not, you know, it was more just like, "Oh, so you're a nutritionist." And we would say, "No, I'm not a nutritionist. I am a health coach." But these days, it, I think people are more likely to think that we're some kind of health influencer. I can't tell you when I was dating how many times someone, you know, I would try to explain what I did to someone. Maybe this person, this guy would check out my Instagram and they'd be like, "Oh, you're an influencer." And I was like, "No, that's not it at all." I think it, it starts to sound silly. You know, you're one more voice that's going to tell me how to, you know,
Build my.
Yeah, exactly. Manage my cortisol, build my booty, you know, whatever it is today. And, um, it's, it's so, it's interesting like now we're caught in between those two worlds.
Oh, that is frustrating. Like, and I don't want, I'm not here to disparage people who run an influencer type of business. I've got peers in my mastermind group that that use the influencer model, more affiliate codes, brand deals, what have you.
Right. And it's, it's just a different model. So like, why would someone hire you for this amount of money? You know, it's just, you're getting money in different ways. It's a different business. But if they think you're an influencer, I think you have a coaching package, especially a higher-end coaching package, it's seen as an, you asked, like a nice to have. I think a lot of stuff is seen as a nice to have, not a must-have when we're just talking about, "Sync your hormones" or something like that. Well, yeah, sure, that would be nice. But I have about 500 other things that I have to do and pay for and give my energy to first. And they're just not prioritizing that.
So to transition it from nice to have to must have. This is messaging.
Messaging. And it doesn't mean more fluffy language. I mean, every number of times a health coach tells me that they help women like live more vibrant lives and get back like themselves again. Yes. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. You know, I, I really think it's time, and this is really exciting for me. I think it's time for us to acknowledge the greater scope of health coaching. The last several years, we've been talking about our scope of practice as it got more and more and more narrow, and everyone got more and more scared about what we can do and what we can't do. But the truth is, and you know because you've worked with so many women, is that lives change not because of they eat this food or that food or they get rid of this symptom or that symptom, but because they have space and time to sort through their thoughts. They have a cheerleader. They have someone in their corner. Maybe they've never had that before. They have this opportunity to explore themselves. And I've had clients make enormous changes in their lives. You know, quit that job, start riding a motorcycle, cut their hair, you know, has nothing to do with their health symptom that they came to me for. And that has happened so many times that I started to realize this is about much more than health. And health in and of itself is good. It's nice to have, especially if you don't have it. I mean, it's good. We want it, but mostly we want it. Please hear me on this, everybody. So that, and then fill in the blank. That's the thing they care about and that's the thing you want to message around. Not the health, but the "so that" they can XYZ.
Oh, that's power. That's so good. I, I always forget that crucial little phrase, "so that." You know, I think about, uh, messaging. I think about messaging all the time because you kind of have to. I think, and I always think probably like a lot of people listening to this, that I, I suck at it. I think I suck at it. And then people will say, "No, Erin, your messaging is so clear." And I'll say, "It obviously isn't because I can show you my, I can show you my Stripe account. Okay, it's not clear enough." So, for example, I'm thinking of pivoting my messaging, my niche to women who are pre-diabetic range. So, literally, if your A1C is 5.7 to 5.9, like I'm zeroing in on these women, pre-diabetes, I got this data point. If you got your blood test results back and you're here and your doctor gave you a little bit of a little warning shot, I will work with you to bring that down. Two points into the normal range. Something like that. But that to me is like, there we go. Bingo. But there's no "so that." It has to.
Yeah. So like, I wanted to say when you were mentioning that so many times we, and it's possible because there are a lot of very damaging, suffering people out there, you know, health conditions that need to be solved.
Yes.
But no one ever got excited about like stopping that thing that's bothering them. Very, you know, it's like it's good. It just gets you back to baseline. Yeah. Yeah, it could just stop. If I could stop my blood sugar from being so high, well, then it wouldn't be so high. But if we could think about in our marketing, especially sometimes marketing to the "stop that thing from happening," but more often think about like, "start that thing."
Yes.
Yeah. What do you get? Start being that person, which is just the flip side of saying the same thing. Like often we say, um, you know, "Stop feeling so sluggish" or "Get rid of that brain fog." And on the other side of that, of course, is like, "Have more energy." That's very vague. Even better if you could like talk about, "Start salsa dancing in your 50s." Sell that program. If you're like a salsa dancer, that's all about energy, right? And mobility and all the things that somebody might go to a health coach for, but that's exciting. Oh my god, I could start something new in my 50s that I've always wanted to do. Oh, and you know all about it and you can help me get there. Now I'm excited and now my wallet is out. Imagine being the health coach that helps women take up salsa dancing. Like, hell yeah.
And who knew that a health coach could do that? But really, almost any aspirational, uh, end goal, if you break it down like to what someone needs to get there, it's all stuff that a health coach can do. And we're get way out of worrying about our other scope of practice problems because now we're not selling like a solution to a diagnosis. And that's a great place to be or to get away from that.
100%. Because just so we're clear, if I message to women with pre-diabetes, I'm operating outside of scope of practice. So I actually can't say that. I actually can't offer to bring people's A1C down from 5.9 to 5.6. I can't say that. But also, who cares? They don't even want that.
That's right. But maybe you're, um, you know, going to get women horseback riding who've never done that before. Like, "I've never done that before." And I would be like, "Wow, like that's a cool idea." And oh, wow. In this time of my life, I actually have money for something like that, but I don't know where to begin. And like all of a sudden, I'm like, "Oo, yeah, sign me up." I just got like excited about it. And and it's much easier to sell something that a person gets excited about.
Massively. And I think about this too, um, the illness-wellness continuum, which is kind of what we're talking about, the illness-wellness continuum. So, we've all seen this visual floating around, but in the middle, the midpoint of the continuum is is the word health. Health is in the middle. That's the midpoint. Illness is on the far left side. Don't want to be there. But there's a whole far right side of the spectrum beyond health that is wellness. So health is, you know, the absence of disease or whatever. Wellness is, what do you do with your body? What is your life like when you're absent of disease, when you're feeling amazing, you have access to all of your life energy. Wellness is, is not a diagnosable. So, health coaches, we have the opportunity. We have this incredible opportunity.
To to really exist on the wellness end of that spectrum. That's fully in scope of practice for us to help people with wellness. And it's also what excites the health consumer. It what gets them actually excited and engaged in the process, and it makes us so much more excited to do because now we're not just reaching into our health coach uh bag of tricks and our functional medicine and our this and our that, but like our whole life experience can come into what we offer and and that is fun.
100%. I I think about the women that I'm working with lately and so many of them want to date again, for example. I want to fix this and get feel better in my clothes and lose weight and get more energy so I can date again. They're, you know, they've they've left marriages or whatever and then the second half of their life, they want to date again. Now, I'm not a dating coach. I don't know how to help them date. I'm not going to become a dating coach. I don't know anything about that, nor do I want to. But helping them feel confident in their body so they can date again. And who's to say I can't help them? Who say we can't have conversations around where are you looking, who have you met, what are these conversations like, what do you know, who's to say we can't who else is she going to have these conversations with? Quite frankly, I don't have to be a qualified dating coach to help my clients become better at dating, I guess. I mean, a dating coach anyway, I mean, what are they? Just someone who's dated a lot or there's no qualification there. But someone who has energy behind their eyes and they're smiling easily because they feel good in their body and they c they have the energy to go out for dinner and maybe a drink afterwards and um they feel like they have interesting things to talk about because they're not mired in brain fog is someone who's going to be a great date. Aaron Power, the dating coach. We just invented that.
Ah, pivot. Here we go. You could you could do that a million different ways. you know, if it interests you, you have, you know, some lived experience behind it, make it happen.
Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, it becomes a really good talking point on a landing page. So, I'm here. I am your your metabolism coach who's going to help you resolve, you know, the symptoms of and so you can take up salsa lessons, start horseback riding, and really wow men with your vibrancy on dates. You know, there you go. that people are going to care more about that than their A1C quite frankly. And I think I think okay I want to validate that a lot of people listening or health we're a lot of us are health dweebs like we're we're constantly pricking our fingers and getting our whatever we're doing right. Yes we think it's very fun.
100% like I'm very focused on my HBO1C I care about it a lot um but I also recognize that I'm an outlier we are outliers and the language we use to motivate ourselves as health outliers health cons you know health nerds is probably not the same language that's going to call in the people we want to work And we have to think about this goes back to the entire crux of this conversation which is relationships which is conversations. You're in relationship with someone. It's not just two cyborgs, you know, extracting data from different platforms. We're having conversations. And by the way, that cyborg thing is what people are getting sick of. They're getting sick of looking at a video and not knowing if it's real or not. They're getting sick of getting a DM and not knowing if that was a bot that sent. Am I really talking to the person? So, we also have to I think there's a benefit to coaches extracting themselves from this datadriven approach to a certain extent and coming into the feelings of health because feelings of wellness that end of the wellness continuum is where we live and it's mostly based on feelings the outcomes that people get that improve their life. That was very beautifully said. You're exactly right. I mean these days you could just tap into you know chat GPT I'm having this symptom and it'll just tell you what to do or you know like that's not interesting you know and that's where we get into all that tricky scope of practice territory. Um it it's more exciting it is more valuable to the client you know you're going to get people's buy in much more easily and you're going to have more fun when we're act like yes speaking words that they care about.
Yes. When we were chit cchatting about this episode by email, you mentioned that coaches are doing better when they can think bigger than health. That's what we've been talking about here. This idea of well, the wellness end of the spectrum beyond simply health. And you said I can share some examples of how my coaches are activating clients in a bigger way. Would you be able to share a couple of examples?
Yes, I have two right off the top of my head that I think would be perfect to share. So, for example, um I'm working with a health coach for the past uh 6 months or so and she's a pharmacist and like so many health coaches, she is still working a full-time job. You know, her career, she would like to trans transition to full-time health coaching and that is difficult. So, it's very important that she's efficient with her time, etc. And it is more efficient for her to earn, we have found, by selling directly to individuals versus just sending out a link here, click and buy this thing, right? Anyway, is she selling health to pharmacists? Well, we found out they don't care about that. We actually do exercises to collect data and find out what people really care about. Not that they say they care about, but they actually take an action to prove it. Oh my gosh. Pharmacists, they don't really care. I mean, they kind of care, but they don't really care. You know what they care about? Finding a remote position.
Really, a pharmacist. And so that's I mean I don't know anything about pharmacy but I understand people they think health is boring. Health is I have to eat cardboard. Health is I have to be on another diet. That all sounds like I should do it or it would be nice if I did it. Finding a remote position. Oh my god. They are clamoring for it. They are out there seeking help with that so bad. That's what they want more than anything because they're exhausted. They want to be with their family. They're searching for work life balance basically and that's how they think they're going to get it. Which is probably true to a great degree. although there's other factors. So, she is helping pharmacists find a remote position.
Can you go on an interview if you look exhausted? Can you speak well if your brain is foggy and you haven't eaten anything other than like a bagel and a coffee for the last week. So, health coaching comes into play, but she's serving people at a much higher level. So, I think that's an amazing example because it doesn't sound like health coaching at all, but it's just like dating, right? It's just another thing someone wants to achieve.
That's cool. Yeah. Right. Like, and of course, she has had this experience herself. So, she does understand what it takes to get the remote job. Now, is she like writing their resumes for them? No.
Right. It's not employment coaching that she's doing. She she is health coaching them to help them be mentally, physically prepared to get these remote jobs that come up. But she also Yeah. bringing in, you know, bringing in whatever skills she does have. You know, maybe she doesn't, but if she wanted to write people's resumes and she was great at it, great. It's part of the package. How about that? That's within your scope. You never have to worry about that.
Oh, that's interesting. H, that gets my wheel to it. So, this is what I'm talking about. Um, we have another coach who's working with women who are going through or contemplating divorce, which is a very delicate place for women to be.
Yeah. They really need support in order to get to the other side. there's that dating thing, you know, right? They need to feel confident. Maybe they're already thinking ahead to that. But I mean, even in the moment, having gone through it myself, I could tell you I lost like 10% of my body weight like very quickly when I was going through my divorce. I was not sleeping. I wasn't eating. I wasn't like able to do anything. And so, she's able to work with these women on that physical health level. And well, are you going to call the lawyer today? How are you feeling about that? How are you going to decide? Is it mediation or you know all the things that come up?
Someone in your corner and she can design that to look however she wants using her own life experience. Never worrying about stepping out of scope of practice in terms of nutrition and helping that woman make the decisions that serve her best whether she decides to get divorced or not.
Oh my gosh. No, this is actually incredible. I'm so glad we went with these examples cuz it just perfectly exemplifies how you can bring in the totality of your life experience and your health coach training to create such a bespoke solution that somebody desperately needs. I think about a client I have right now who came to work with me for weight loss and she's also navigating advanced dementia with her mom. So, I know nothing about advanced dementia, but when she comes to the coaching calls struggling, having not slept very well, massive high quantities of stress. So, we'll we'll talk about some food stuff she can do, some stress management stuff she can do, and I'll say it, "Hey, by any chance is there any kind of like open up a Google window, try to find like a care organization in your city that can come and spend some time with your mom so that you can go off and have um a yoga class or something? Can we can we look that up for you? Some kind of a resource? Does that does that exist?" And then she'll say, "Actually, the Alzheimer's Foundation." And then she'll say, "Actually, I think the Alzheimer's Foundation has, you know, resources you can tap into." And I wouldn't know that. having a conversation about how she can get her how she can resource herself while she's managing her mom's advanced dementia so she can get her health and so her and how her health supports her in this really difficult journey of her life. Like it really is. There's a totality there that's actually very beautiful. And I think to your point, Michelle, it's like our this the potential scope of what we get to do is actually astonishingly beautiful. And we don't need to lean on things like tech and systems and blood tests and hair trace mineral analyses or whatever over stuffing our scope of practice and playing doctor or playing tech guru. There's so much in the in the analog conversation and lived experience that we can bring in and and collaborate with our clients. And when you do that, when you are offering, let's say, you know, you're offering something for uh women whose parents are going through Alzheimer's, let's just say, they're going to come to you.
They're going to hear about it for literally half a second and say, "I need that."
Well, now I'm excited. Now I'm excited for the potential of Beijing. You know, I'm excited to be a human in an increasingly digital world working with other humans. It's actually a leverage point. Let's do it. Let's like read books again and talk to people and you know like I say this is the you what did you say the personal brand I feel like this is the year of the the human connection.
Just human the analog human connection.
I mean we are on like some tech right now in order to talk to each other but true face to face. Yeah in small doses we'll use our tech but we're still being humans we're we're humans being humans and I think that's that's where the coach gets to shine. All right, Michelle, wrap us up here. Bring us through all the ways you work with folks where they can find more about what you do and where they can follow along with you.
I think the best entry point for everyone is the podcast. Health Coach Power Community podcast has been around for like I don't even know how many years, like nine years now. And we've got such an archive. It's a wonderful, wonderful place to begin. Um, for anyone who is brand new out there, I do have a guide to getting started. You can get that at healthcoachpower.comgetstarted and there is a companion podcast episode go along with it so you're like good to go. Um we have a Facebooker at the health coach power community. I mean any of these entry points are are perfect. And the most important thing is if you want to talk more about working together and you like what I've been saying today, email me. Just email me. It's michelle@healthcoachpower.com. That's it. And if you don't know what to say, you could just say, "Uh, I saw you on the podcast with Eron Power." And I'll know exactly what you mean, and we'll take it from there.
Amazing. Oh, how human you. Oh, all right, Michelle. It's always great to catch up with you. Thanks so much for everything.
Thanks for having me.