Tips For Becoming a Health Coach and Building a Successful Business!
hello guys and welcome back to my second channel today i wanted to answer some questions i get asked pretty frequently about becoming a health coach and also offer you guys some tips if you're interested in starting a health coaching business career side hustle any or all of the above and i've done a few of these videos in the past talking about becoming a health coach and i like doing them and sharing what i know because it's a pretty new field and i know when i was first getting started i had no idea where to start i had so many questions there wasn't really a set career path it wasn't like do this one type of study and you'll become a health coach and you'll have clients and you'll have a set income there was so much up in the air and this career is very much how much you put into it is how much you get out of it but that's not to say you have to work harder and harder and harder and be non-stop working and work yourself into the ground you need to be smart about how you're working anyways so i'm going to be answering some questions that i'm frequently asked and i'm going to put all of the questions on the progress bar with time stamps so if there's something specific you would like me to answer or that you're looking for an answer to you can skip ahead or watch the whole video because i'm gonna put a lot of helpful tips in here or i think they're helpful they're things that have helped me progress my career and get to the point that i'm at now if you are new to my channel or you're not really familiar with my journey and what i do i'll give you a little bit of a background so i first decided i wanted to become a health coach i can't in 2018 and like i said no idea where to start since then i've done one-on-one coaching i've done group coaching right now i have a few coaching programs that are sort of self-paced which i'll talk about a bit later and i also do a lot on social media obviously so i'm posting this on my second channel which is a bit more of a vlog style channel and a bit more casual on my main channel i post informational videos and i have my niche which i'll talk about a little bit later in this video as well so my career is a little bit different than i guess what most health coaches are doing actually i don't even know i was gonna say because my focus is mainly on social media and putting out free content and making an income that way as opposed to working one-to-one with clients and having i guess personalized coaching be the focus but nowadays social media is really really important so even if you're doing the focusing on personalized coaching route your social media is going to be a major outlet for how you can reach and meet potential clients but it does all go hand in hand and i'll talk more about how i do things as we go through this video but i also want to say that i started out doing this part-time and just trying to build up my business build up my career with the intention of it being full-time at some point now that happened a lot faster for me than i was expecting at the start of 2020 i was able to quit my part-time job and focus entirely on my business since then i've hired a few employees and i've switched from being a sole trader to a company so i now operate as the director of health coach kate my point is is that this can be a very legitimate career path and again i'll talk about this as we go through the video but there are so many different avenues you can go if you just want to do coaching as a side hustle and work with family and friends that's one way to do it if you want to build up a business and have coaches working under you that's another way to do it there are a hundred million different ways you can take this and there's no set path you have to take if that makes sense but anyways let's get into it so the first question i am often asked is how did i get started like i said at the start i had like i said earlier in this video i had no idea where to begin i originally heard of health coaching being a career through chris cresser's book called unconventional medicine in this book he really talked about how health coaches they're the people on like the ground floor who can actually work with um people who are sick people who are wanting to improve their health to make the necessary changes whereas doctors they don't really have the time for that they're booked with clients all day long they have 15 minutes to sit with them they kind of give these vague instructions and they don't set patients up with a plan really and they don't sort of help them through all those changes and so chris cresser's point in this book was that health coaches can be more hands-on they can work with other healthcare practitioners and yeah we need more of them what's the point of the book after i read that book i was like that's it this is what i want to do over the few years prior i've become really passionate about nutrition after seeing the impact it had had on my own health before that growing up i was always active i always tried to eat healthy i would eat whole grains and choose low fat options and this and that but i still would eat a lot of junk food and just kind of the standard american diet when i started getting more into nutrition for my athletic performance and for losing and maintaining weight that is when i started realizing the impact that what we eat what we put in our bodies how we fuel ourselves the impact that that has on our health day-to-day our health long-term our energy levels our mood everything and once i made that connection for myself i wanted to share that with everyone and that's originally why i wanted to become a health coach i was like people need to know this stuff people could be feeling so much better weight loss could be easy maintaining your weight could be easy if people only knew what to eat and mainly about food but obviously there's other components to health such as exercise and sleep and whatnot and yeah that is kind of how i got started i guess i think this leads into the next question which is do you have to be certified and is there a coaching program that i recommend so technically the title of health coach isn't regulated i don't think anywhere in the world anyone can technically call themselves a health coach but i think being certified and going through a coaching certification program is extremely beneficial for a few reasons first off it kind of gives you a template and a framework to work off of i'm sure you have your principles that you follow in terms of your own diet and lifestyle choices right now maybe you eat low carb maybe you eat keto maybe you eat paleo and you kind of have a bit of a framework already but depending on the coaching program you go through you can get a clearer sense of the lifestyle and how you can help clients if that makes sense and how to make it more approachable and practical for clients and a lot of coaching programs they also have a lot of really great resources so intake forms and just more information about i guess like screening clients and keeping track of clients and like checklists and resources for clients and all these things can be really beneficial beyond that though the first coaching certification i went through specifically had a whole component to it that was a business building component so each week there was a section and i think there was like one task you had to do to start to set up your business so i believe one week it was try out a few different website platforms like squarespace or wix and see which one is best for you and then there was another one that was like buy your domain figure out your niche just all these little things that helped you to set up your business so by the time you finished that certification your business was ready to launch you've had everything in place and i think that was so so valuable for me because like i said when i was first thinking i wanted to become a health coach i'm like okay where do i start i need to build a website i need to do this i need to get clients do i need an email list what should my business name be all of these things and i just had no idea where to begin and the coaching program i went through which i'm going to tell you about in one second it did all of this for me and it just made the process so easy to get started and on top of having really great information about how to coach and about the content and diet and lifestyle things that i wanted to promote so i have done two health and nutrition coaching certifications both of them i have done online and they are available worldwide the first one was through the primal health coach institute and this is a program that is based off the primal blueprint book and i guess framework created by mark sisson who has been really big in the primal paleo space for probably well over a decade he's been around a long time i'm sure if you've gotten into anything to do with low carb whole foods any of that stuff you've heard of marxism before and if you really don't know where to start i highly highly recommend this program it had absolutely everything i needed and let me tell you i was so hesitant to invest any money into a coaching certification at the start because i was really worried that the coaching certification i did would be i don't know follow the standard nutrition guidelines be about eating whole grains at every meal low-fat a lot of the coaching programs out there are also focused on plant-based diets which i personally do not follow and do not think is optimal for most people i've tried it in the past long story but yeah not for me and not what i wanted to be promoting and i didn't want to go through a coaching certification program and just go through the motions just to get a certification i wanted to actually be learning and be learning things that i could implement with clients and the primal health coach institute did all of that so the primal blueprint is based on eating all whole foods focusing on quality protein eating low carb to an extent it does recognize that carbs can be beneficial if you're more active and in certain situations but for the general population who let's face it a lot of us are metabolically healthy a lot of people want to lose weight low carb is more the way to go it has a strong focus on becoming metabolically flexible so being able to burn fat and being able to burn carbs just the information was top top-notch and it wasn't super i guess sciency in the way it was presented it was easy to understand and absorb and be able to relay to clients like i said they also had the business building component every week which like i don't know what i would have done if i didn't have that it would have taken me a whole lot longer to set up the program so it's self-paced you can do it in up to a year i think you only get one week released at a time and i believe there's 12 weeks in the program so the quickest you could finish it is three months but you can take up to a year to finish it and every two years after that you have to do a recertification exam so i think i've done that once and i think i have to do it again this year or have i already done it twice did i graduate in 2018 i think i've actually done it twice anyways the other thing i really liked about this program is that they were really flexible with payment options they had a wide range of payment plans and they were willing to oh my god look at that parrot oh sorry it's just a parrot on the roof and he was really colorful anyways um totally lost my train of thought thank you for distracting me parrot oh yeah they were really flexible with payment plans and paying monthly and not having to pay everything up front which i really appreciated especially at the time because i don't know i was so so nervous about it investing any money into something that wasn't going to take me anywhere i guess and if i could do it all over again i would 100 do the primal health coach institute program and certification because i was blown away by how great it was now a couple years later i wanted to continue learning and so i did the level one certification with precision nutrition which was also a really great course and program it goes a lot more in depth in terms of the science and understanding i guess how the body works and that sort of thing so it was definitely a little bit more full-on precision nutrition they pride themselves on being diet agnostic so they don't particularly recommend low carb or high carb or this and that there is still an emphasis on eating whole foods limiting processed foods and that sort of thing even though they said they were diet agnostic i did kind of feel like in some of the case studies and examples they were using that they did shine a negative light on low carb diets and it was a little bit more about eating balanced and whatnot but there was a lot of really great information in the course and i did really enjoy it as well i think it took about the same amount of time i think it was about 12 weeks they didn't have as much of a business building aspect although they did have a strong focus on how to coach and how to work with clients and that sort of thing which primal health coach institute also had so both of them were similar in that sense so yeah i do recommend both programs and i will put links to both of them in the description box down below i believe there's a promo code to save 500 on primal health coach institute which i can't remember off the top of my head so i'll put that in the description box when i look it up but anyways there's probably more out there i know chris cresser does have a coaching certification but i think the reason i didn't go with that one was because it was a lot more expensive and yeah i haven't looked at it for a while so i'm not sure how the price compares now but at the time it was the price was a lot higher than other options how do you get clients okay now this one is a little bit of a tricky question because uh depending on the way you set up your business you might have to be a little bit more salesy like i said before social media is a great way to connect with potential clients and build trust with them show them what you're doing provide free content through social media and show the value that you have to offer and through this you can get clients right now honestly i would say instagram is probably the worst way to reach people and i would probably say tick tock is the best way just because i don't know instagram's kind of all over the place right now they're kind of trying to copy tick-tock and they're making it really really hard to reach new people whereas my experience over the last six months or whatever that i've been on tick tock the reach potential there is massive if you create a video that clicks with people you can get hundreds of thousands of views within a couple of days of course not all of those views are going to translate into clients but a handful of them might depending on the kind of content you're putting out there and what i will say is anything you post on social media provide value don't make it like you're holding anything back or they have to sign up to get access to your knowledge so you can help them no put out the content put out things that are going to help people that's going to help you to build trust with them and from there if they're looking for more guidance and support then they will inquire or look further about working with you one-on-one or look at your coaching programs that sort of thing so i'm sure you've come across those people on social media where they're like do you want to lose 20 pounds and they kind of like hint at having this big secret and then they say sign up for my program and honestly to me that is such a turn off i'm like absolutely not you've just made me not want to look at any of your content ever again and i think that's part of the reason i have been able to build the community that i have is because i'm consistently putting out high quality content and trying to answer questions that my community has if you're stuck on what topics to make content about look at the questions you are being asked even talk to a family member or a friend and ask them okay what questions you have about health nutrition sleep whatever and answer those questions in a post because the questions they're asking lots of people have those questions there is so much confusion when it comes to health and nutrition and everyone has questions if you can provide the value if you can answer those questions for people that's all you can really do and that's going to give you a lot of leads for clients now there are a bunch of different ways you can go so obviously you can do one-to-one coaching you can do group coaching i have a few different coaching programs that are self-paced like i have a seven day insulin resistance master class so one day of content is released every day up until a week and obviously you don't have to do one chapter a day you can take longer to do it um if you choose and through that i do coaching through the facebook group so that's how i've set it up some people do seminars and workshops they do more corporate coaching so they approach companies and then they go in and talk to the employees do a presentation that sort of thing so many different ways to do it it really just depends on what your strengths are are you really good at working with people one-on-one if so then you might want to do a high ticket offer where your coaching programs are more expensive but you're offering a lot of personalized and one-on-one value if that makes sense now if you want to do a more generic coaching program that's less hands-on then you might want to do a low ticket offer it really just depends like there are so many different ways you can do it all right next question how do you build a following this is such a tough question and i think i already kind of answered it you really want to be providing value that's ultimately what it comes down to because think of yourself when you're scrolling through instagram where you're scrolling through tik tok youtube anything and you watch a video you look at a post what about that post makes you want to follow that person or subscribe to that channel it has to be providing you some sort of value it has to pull you in and you have to be like ah okay i've learned something this person might have more to offer i'm gonna follow them so flip it come at it from the opposite side and provide that value answer those questions don't do gimmicky things i mean to an extent you need to kind of play the social media game for instance on tick tock shorter videos between 15 seconds to 30 seconds perform better so you kind of want to condense your content and make it really quick and fast-paced whereas on youtube longer videos tend to do better people go there to watch a longer video and ideally you want to make it longer than eight minutes so you kind of have to figure out what the platforms are looking for and form your valuable content within the framework of what's going to perform well and when you hit that sweet spot with a post or video it's such a good feeling because you'll be getting the feedback from people saying wow this is amazing i didn't know this thank you so much this has helped me blah blah this has changed my mindset and yeah it's a really good feeling people subscribe people follow you when they realize you have value and they think you might have more value that they can gain i will also say don't expect your growth to be linear and don't expect it to be fast there are times where i am getting next to no followers next to no subscribers every day and i've kind of hit like a rough patch and i have to sort of adjust and then there are times on tick tock especially recently where i've gotten a lot of followers in a short period of time and it just kind of ebbs and flows so don't expect it to be linear put in the work if you're providing value it's going to help people and you will gain a community you will gain a following and the last question is how do you make money and can you make this a full-time job so i answered this a little bit earlier in the video yes you absolutely can make your full-time job but the thing is you're self-employed you are not guaranteed any income so this kind of comes back to as much as you put into it is how much you're going to get out of it and that can be very stressful at times but it can also be really empowering now i don't recommend quitting your full-time job right off the bat and going head first into your coaching business unless you have a good amount of savings and you can sustain yourself for a while knowing that it's going to take a while to build up your business start as a side hustle and kind of build it up figure out the way you want to take it the kind of coaching you want to offer and figure out your niche figure out what type of content is resonating with people on social media which of your posts are performing well and kind of zero in on that and your income doesn't just have to be from coaching as i said earlier in the video i focus a lot on providing free content through social media and i've been able to monetize that youtube videos such as these i make money off of i get a percentage from all the ads that play at the start and the ads that play in between that is a large part of my income so i'm paid directly from youtube from google every month for basically you get paid based on views because every time someone watches your video an ad plays and i get a few cents that might not sound like much but it does add up when you get a decent amount of views like with um your following growing your reach on social media it will ebb and flow the rate at which you get paid changes throughout the year as well so again it's not consistent but if you're getting consistent views if you're putting out valuable content then it's gonna pay off and you're gonna sort of end up with a baseline and there might be some bumps and it might fall a bit at times but monetizing social media is one way i make money i also do sponsored posts which i am very very picky about the brands i work with i only work with brands that have products and services that i know are going to benefit my community i get a lot of emails and offers from this gadget and that gadget and i really have to sift through and figure out okay like is this legit i always test everything before i post it on any social media but if you do get a little bit of a following that is an option i always try to tie the sponsorship in with the topic of the video so it's not completely out of left field and it could benefit the person who's wanting whatever i'm talking about in that video if that makes sense you can also incorporate affiliate marketing so for example i work with a handful of companies again who have products that i use and that i love and every time someone shops through my link i get a percentage of that i get a commission so bond charge is an example of this i'm a member of their affiliate program they have blue light blocking glasses which are top quality i've been using them for years they have red light therapy devices they have a bunch of other just devices and products that are focused around optimizing light for your health actually you can see my little red light therapy device right there and i try to do affiliate marketing with products that people ask me about all the time so i always get asked what's a good collagen powder and for example i love perfect keto's collagen they're unflavored ones and some of their flavored ones so i recommend that to people through the affiliate program i also get a discount code so it's not costing the consumer any more money i am recommending a product that i would recommend anyways and i'm getting a commission from that again i don't just recommend anything because that's when you start to lose trust and trust is everything if you want to have a community if you want to have clients they need to trust you because if they don't trust you then you literally have absolutely nothing anyways i think that was all the questions that i'm frequently asked if you guys do have any more questions about becoming a health coach or yeah i guess about becoming a health coach or anything related let me know down below i will try to answer as many comments as i can thank you guys for watching and i really hope that you found this helpful and i'll see you guys next time bye okay
2022-09-03 21:26
