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5 THINGS WE WISH WE KNEW AS NEW HEALTH COACHES
This episode is our top advice for new health coaches to have health coach success and getting started as a health coach. There is so much we wish we new when we were starting out like how does one go about making money as a health coach, how to create health coaching programs, how to make money online, how to become an NTP or even how to make money as a fitness coach.
Transcript:
Kendra: Hey, hey, everyone! Welcome to another episode of “The 360 Help Biz Podcast”, I am Kendra Perry and I am back from Costa Rica. I missed my beautiful co-host Christine, so we’re pretty stoked.
Christine: Likewise, my sister.
Kendra: Hello, hello. We’ve been apart and it was very sad but we’re back and we’ll be back together for the next bunch of episodes, so don’t worry neither of us are going anywhere. This episode I’m really excited to talk about, I think we both are because this is kind of like the hindsight episode. You know how everything is always more clear in hindsight? And we want to talk about some of the things we wish we knew when we were starting out as health coaches, so maybe that it well help you, the new health coach learn from our hindsight.
Christine: Yeah absolutely. It’s also diving into our reason for starting this podcast in the first place and basically it’s going to save you lots of time and money. It’s a good one to listen to even if you’ve been in business for a long time. Sometimes we’re just really great at having blind spots. [crosstalk].
Kendra: You know I’m really bad for not listening to my own advice. Sometimes I have an epiphany and I’m like, “Why am I doing that? I’m telling everyone not to do that and I just realized I am doing this.” You know it’s good to check in and remind yourself that-
Christine: You have to be on track.
Kendra: Before we get started I just wanted to read, we did get an awesome five star review. It was from “Anonymous”, so if you want to leave us advice make sure to leave us your name so we can give you a shout out. This one is a quick one, it just says “Thanks, Kendra and Christine for all the amazing content that helps building a health coaching practice less overwhelming.”
Christine: I love it.
Kendra: Thank you, Anonymous, we appreciate it. But yeah, we will read your five star review that you leave us on iTunes on air because we appreciate it so much because it’s the best way to help us get out there and reach more people. and if you want to support us that’s probably the best thing you can do.
Christine: Absolutely. Please go ahead there right now. You can press pause and just leave us an amazing review, and just say “This is a great show.” And recommend it, or just say “It’s great.” Doesn’t matter. [crosstalk] Just hit pause now and do it, it would make us very, very happy, genuinely.
Kendra: Very happy. Very happy. Like all warm and fuzzy inside.
Awesome, and so we actually do have a freebie for this episode. So, if you guys want to download that after the episode, you can just get that at 360healthbizpodcast.com/episode16. You can grab that there, and one more thing, we started an Instagram account and we only have 40 followers so far. We need more followers, so go follow us on Instagram if you’re an Instagram person. We’re posting our episodes, we’re giving you lots of help and business tips there, our best stuff, so definitely give us a follow and let us know that you’re there. Send us a DM or leave us a comment.
Christine: Yeah, and if you’re wondering how we’re doing all of this, stay tuned, we’re going to give a behind the scenes to all our posts at some point. I’m not sure when, but at some point. And I cannot believe it’s episode 16, it’s crazy! How’s that happened?
Kendra: I know, we’re kind of rolling along here and it feels really good!
Christine: Yeah, no it’s really good, and it’s going to be even better. Especially today’s episode, everyone. So, shall we get started?
Kendra: Yeah, lets get started. We’re going to be talking about five things that we wish we knew then, that we know now, right, Christine?
Christine:
Kendra: Yeah. And so, I think when you’re starting out, it’s overwhelming. You don’t know where to focus your attention, you hear people talking about all these different things, and in the end… I know, me personally, I spent a lot of time working on things that I never did anything with, you know what I mean? That were kind of pointless, or I eventually realized didn’t really matter.
Christine: Yeah, yeah.
Kendra: Just weren’t really what I should have been focusing on.
Christine: And I think we’re both very similar, in terms that we both love the online space, and we have the “shiny object syndrome”, where we go after really good [search pages, right]? Especially at the beginning when you don’t know what a search page is, what “copy” is, how you’re craftily manipulated into things, it’s just really easy to spend so much money on crap you really don’t need. So, I think we’re going to talk a little bit about that, and how we felt, how we’ve fallen- and still fall for things. I admire a great copy, it gets me every time. But I think we can help you a little bit by prioritizing what you really need and what you probably really don’t.
Kendra: Totally. And the first one we’re going to talk about actually may surprise you, because I think this is a cycle a lot of people get themselves into at the beginning, and it has a lot to do with imposter syndrome, I think.
Number one is your education, your health coaching actually matters less than you think it does. You’re probably like “What the fuck, ladies? What do you mean, my education doesn’t matter?” Yes it matters, you want to go get that education so you know how to be a health coach, but you don’t need more education to get clients. And I think a lot of us in the beginning, we’re like “Oh, well I just need to take this other course, I need to take this course in this, and this, and this, and then I can go out and get clients.”
Christine: Absolutely. I think you need to be very clear on what your mission is, what level of difficulty you want from your client, but if we stick to the basics, a lot of people were unfortunately just raised in a very unhealthy environment, they don’t have any good education. I always caught my clients who didn’t know that they were sugar and ketchup, right? It’s tomato [inaudible] So, I think you need to know what you want to do. But if you want to be a general health coach, you don’t need to know all the bells and whistles of the body, you know? You know enough with your health code certification, obviously you need to look where to get certified at. But if you have a decent school, you know more than enough to help your normal, average person get much, much better by just using common sense most of the time.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: And using your coaching skills and keeping them accountable. That’s all you need. You do not need a gazillion billion other diplomas.
Kendra: Yeah, you don’t need all those fancy letters behind your name. You love health, you’re going to upgrade your education as you go because you enjoy it, but it shouldn’t prevent you from going out and getting clients. Because the truth is, people don’t choose to work with you based on your education, they choose to work with you because they like you, and they trust you, and they maybe see their story in yours. They think you have a cool personality, and you’re fun, that’s why they decide to work with you. It’s not because you have 30 letters behind your name.
Christine: Yes. And I think you need to know what the level of your expertise is going to be, who you want to serve, and also nothing is going to trump the success that you will see with your clients. No course is going to give you the confidence that you would get after working with a certain number of clients in changing their lives. Doesn’t matter if you spent 10k on the bells and whistles course that is giving you all the templates that you will need, if you don’t have the experience working with clients and changing their lives.
So, having said that, Kendra and I have extensive education on different things. I think it’s also because we choose to deliver at this certain level, and we also know that we choose a target audience that has more issues than your average person that wants to get healthy, that needs the support. So I think you need to know about that, you need to be clear, but even still, nothing has ever been as educational as working with people. By far I think the eye opening moment for me was this year in August 2018 when I went to the Mind Share conference, a conference where you have loads of really famous health people like Dr. Aaron Christensen, Jamie Jo Bergen, Izabella Wentz, all of these people, Mark Hyman was there. Big, big people in our industry. But what I learned is that they’re all people. They’re literally all people, so it’s really important to stop thinking that you need to have a certain appearance somewhere, a certain matter that is going to elevate you to a certain status that is going to bring you more clients, because that’s not what it is, it’s the results.
Kendra: Yeah, and I love you bring that up, because obviously we get a bit nerdy on this podcast, we talk about some pretty nerdy stuff, but we do work with more complex cases. My typical client is the person who’s been in and out of the medical system for 20 years, they already eat healthy, they’re eating paleo, they’re eating organic. They do yoga, they meditate, they’re doing all the right things, but they feel like a pile of poo. So obviously I need a few more tools to help that person, over your client who’s like “What? Ketchup doesn’t have sugar in it? Huh?” Kind of a different clientele. And when you’re starting out it’s okay if you just want to take the basics, work with the people who just need to learn “Oh, going to bed at 3am is not healthy? What, Froot Loops for breakfast, that’s not fiber?”
Christine: Fruit?
Kendra: You know, there’s a big variability between who you might work with, and you want to know obviously who you’re working with, and that brings us to our next thing that we wish we knew was to narrow down and get a niche. Because I know when I started out, I did try to go too general. I made a lot of “Five steps to take your health to the next level” and the stuff that doesn’t really resonate with anyone.
Christine: No. It’s true. Yeah, I think it’s very scary, but truth be told “Health coach”, what the hell? It’s so bland and boring, and I know I’d probably be offending a lot of you, I don’t really care because I know what works and I know what doesn’t in the end. I’ve tried the whole thing, and it’s definitely that the more niche you get, every marketing expert will tell you this, and it so counterintuitive, but it’s absolutely true. You will be known for something, you can still take on other people, because people will notice that you can work on other things, and they will get in touch with you.
But especially, whether you are local or whether you’re online, let’s face it: Google is your best friend, and niching, that’s what’s going to get your clients. My organic reach is 80%, 80% find me from typing in “see expert” into Google. That’s priceless, but if you type in “health coach” there’s no way you’re going to come up. Niching is scary, it’s sometimes not clear, there are so many processes, and in that case I do advise that you work with someone who can bring you that clarity, because we sometimes don’t see, what is it, the trees through the forest? The forest through the trees? I don’t remember.
Kendra: Something like that.
Christine: So, sometimes it will help there. But for sure go with the niche. It might absolutely vouch for advice. If you’ve ever been doubting, go with niche.
Kendra: Totally. And we dug pretty deep into this, in I believe it was episode 3, our “Niche or Not to Niche” episode, so if you are still struggling at this point in your business journey, definitely go back and listen to that episode, because we kind of walk through the steps and dig a little bit deeper into it. You need to figure out who you’re helping and think about what those people are searching for.
They’re not looking for, like “I’m looking for a health coach to help me with my health.” They’re not searching for that, they’re looking for “headache relief”, they’re looking for “Why is my stomach so bloated?” They’re looking for “Why the fuck am I so tired all day?” That’s what they’re searching for. In Google or YouTube, wherever it is, in all their search engines, so you need to capitalize in all those search terms, and you can’t do that when you have a really general topic and you’re trying to help everyone. We mentioned it in that episode, I know we talked about how it’s not a death sentence, it’s not like “This is your niche and this is what you have to do for the rest of your life.” Right? [crosstalk]
And I just did this in my business, I just recently switched from “female hormone imbalance” to “fatigue and energy” because my interests shifted, and you can totally do that. Just try to pick something that you want to stick with for six months, maybe a year, and then see how things go, you might discover other niches within that niche, right?
Christine: Exactly. And I think that’s where the Golden Ticket is finally happening, when you know exactly “That’s the type of client, so I get the best results.” That’s how they tick, that’s how they work, whether it’s men or women, whether it is within the category of men and women, an age group, a certain type of person, position, whatever it is you’re golden.
Kendra: Yeah, totally. And you just gotta do it. You’ve got to rip the bandaid off, and yes it’s scary, yes you feel like you’re going to run away clients when you’re desperate for clients, but it’ll make everything easier. It’ll make your copy easier, your marketing, your videos, everything you do within your business to try to get clients, it suddenly becomes more easier when you actually know who you’re talking to.
Christine: Great.
Kendra: And I was very resistant to this in the beginning, too. So I know how you feel, if you’re feeling that kind of itchy, scratchy feeling right now, I felt like it too, but once I figured out who I was talking to things started to flow a lot better.
Christine: Yeah, and get in touch with Kendra, she’s had that experience. I was a little bit unclear on it but I think we’re different in that type. I would say get in touch with either one of us that you think is going to help you, if you need a little bit more “kickass”, maybe it’s me at this point. If you need someone who really knows the struggle, then it’s Kendra, but get in touch with us. Send us an email, connect with us, we’re normal people. [crosstalk]
Kendra: Totally, and I work with lots of practitioners that do a lot of practitioner mentoring in both the nerdy functional lab testing interpretation stuff, but also the business stuff, ultimately our conversations always go to business.
Christine: Exactly.
Kendra: Because people are always wondering “How do I get clients, how do I make a go of this? How do I quit my side hustle and make this a full time gig?” Right?
Christine: Yeah. We’re kickass coaches, really good ones.
Kendra: Yeah, and I love the next one we’re going to talk about, because this is one I always have to- even currently now- check myself on, is that your vanity metrics don’t matter.
Christine: Oh, fuck yeah. Oh, sorry!
Kendra: I think we swear on this podcast, I think we’re good. [crosstalk] I think we only dropped like 3-6 F-bombs
Christine: Yeah.
Kendra: F-bomb count: Ding, number three, we should get a bell!
Christine: Yeah, five cents in the cookie jar.
I love that you call it “vanity metrics”. Who cares, it’s so old school and I still remember this one person who’s been contacting me a couple of times, still for a summit where she insists on getting my list, I’m like “Why? It’s so antiquated. Who’s you’re coach, were they like 2005-2008?” It’s so old school, what worked in 2013 is not working today, and I think it’s like, your numbers, unless you have a very specific campaign, it doesn’t matter. I have a teeny tiny list, and I convert a [muhhfuckas]
Kendra: Ding!
Christine: [inaudible] Right, and I only have two sets of courses or so a week, and so it’s totally fine. So, yeah, I love that because it can give us an inferiority complexus, as in “My list is tiny, my Facebook page doesn’t have a lot of followers.” Let me tell you, a couple of years ago Facebook was promoting pages, it sent so many people there, stop doing that. It has nothing to do with you or your popularity, everything to do with the algorithm. There’s so many different factors, platforms that shift that numbers, indeed, don’t seem to really express anything.
However, I find it doesn’t hurt to sometimes invest for a short period of time in companies that can help you in a legitimate way, and in a way that is in alignment with you, build a certain following base on a certain platform. It doesn’t need to be 20k, it can be 6k or 5k, and it’s impressive enough for if you want to have media, for example, to go and look at your Instagram account and say “Okay, at least she’s got 4,000 followers, that’s more than your average person.” You can find people that do a really, genuinely good job without spamming you or having fake accounts online, and I think that sometimes when you have a good income already, it’s [then a good way] to sometimes spend money. It’s definitely not something you need in the beginning.
Kendra: No.
Christine: But as you are in the middle of the career, it might be a good idea when you budget, what you’re going to focus your marketing money on during next quarter, or during second quarter or third quarter, that you say “For one quarter I’m going to focus on that.” For example.
Kendra: Totally. And I think in the beginning, you might have 200 followers on social media, maybe you have 50 people on your list, but don’t look at it like “I just have 200 followers and I only have…” treat your list and your social media following as if it were thousands. Really try to get that mindset going, because the truth is 50 engaged email list subscribers is way better than 500 people who don’t give a shit- ding! About what you’re doing and about what you’re saying.
And you don’t need, I think this is a really good piece of advice, I know in the beginning I felt really overwhelmed, I’m looking at these other people out there who have thousands and thousands of followers and I’m thinking that I can’t make money or I’m not going to be able to get income until I get that amount of followers, but you can actually have a very successful and a very profitable business with a very small list and a very small following. Me and Christine are great examples of this, I generate six figures, I have 2,000 people on my list, I have 1,600 on Facebook I think I have 4,000 on Instagram, it doesn’t matter.
Christine: No, no.
Kendra: It’s because those people like what I’m saying, I nurture them, I treat them like humans. Remember, followers are humans, they’re not just numbers. I can have a five figure launch with a 2,000 person email list.
Christine: Exactly. And I have, I’ve talked with [inaudible] who was a coach of mine, and she has a tiny list, I think it’s also not 500 people, not even. And she just had $170,000 launch, or, yeah, a $70,000 launch that she didn’t spend any ad spend on. So everything’s possible, and I’m not in love with my list, I’m very honest about it, but I just need one person to convert and it’s a 10k day.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: Don’t plan on the number of people that you have on there, and communicate with them.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: Ask your client, if they do, tell them “I’m appreciating it, and the etiquette last week, and the protocol, converting to clients, there we go.” So, I’m not the one who’s having a gazillion billion files, or anything like that. I find that is also something that we spend way too much time on, having the perfect [email] sequence and all of that, I find that it’s not necessary. It can help if you have a product launch or anything like that, but anything else, if you’re consistently showing up and you show them who you are, you don’t need a $10,000 dollar [email] sequence that you pay someone for, you really don’t. Just be honest.
Kendra: Yeah, yeah. Just love the people you’ve got and really appreciate the fact that they’re there, because when I look at people who are buying something from me when I launch something, it’s the people who’ve been on my list for years. They may not even show up that much, they might not reply to the emails or even comment on my page, but I know they’re there, and they’re the ones who buy because they’re holding on to me, and it’s not even a big group of people in the end. It’s like this group of people who are my number one fans and they always buy, every time I release something they buy from me. Right?
Christine: Yeah. And I would even advocate to get rid of the rest. I purge my list religiously every two months, where I go through any people who have been inactive for three months, I delete them. Any unsubscribes, I delete them. And I also send out emails at least twice a year where I’m telling them “Do you still need me, yes or no? And please unsubscribe if you don’t.” And I literally tell them that. Please unsubscribe, and something that I would recommend there is the “nine-letter email”. Where you don’t have any formatting, you literally just say “Hi, I’m just wondering if you still need my services. Christine.” And then you can do a “P.S. If you don’t, please unsubscribe.” Or you just leave it.
And then you can see, people who don’t react, delete them. They don’t need you. They’re a waste of space on your email list, they cost you money, it’s giving you skewed data, it lowers your open rates. I just get rid of them, I delete them, they’re not going to buy from me.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: Because in the end a lot of people, especially at a certain price point, they are either in or they’re out. And the hackless, we don’t want them.
Kendra: Yeah, exactly. And I mean it’s scary to get rid of those, I remember at one point deleting 1,700 people from a 3,000 person list. And I was like “This is over half my subscribers, but they weren’t opening my emails, they weren’t high-quality leads, so there was no point in them being on there. And it does affect how your email provider views emails as spam, if you’re sending out emails and nobody’s opening them, Gmail is like “This person’s sending out spam.” So they will choke hold your open rate, so be aware of that, and it’s true like Christine said: Generally you’re paying for the more subscribers that you have on your list, you don’t want to be paying for people who don’t give a shit about you, or what you’re saying. And it’s scary but it’s all about engaged followers.
There’s a woman that I follow, I’m not going to say “I have such a crush on her”, but anyways, she has a really small list. I think she has 4,000 people on her email list, and she has multiple six figure launches with 0 ad spend because that’s how engaged her people are.
Christine: Exactly. And I find you need to work to your strengths. I’m not a writer, so my [inaudible] in the meantime I don’t even write them anymore. I’m going to write the next one because it’s going to be a [inaudible] email, but in general it’s not me who writes them, because I don’t like writing. My medium is speaking, I don’t like writing so I’m not going to expect my email list to convert like a motherfucker, because I don’t really put that much love into it because I don’t like Dammit. I don’t like writing. I want to tell you guys as well, stick to your zone of genius. Writing is making your eyes glaze over or spin around, then don’t do it, then don’t put more energy into it. It’s negative energy that you can use in your zone of genius, whatever that might be. Maybe writing is a zone of genius, then put extra effort in there.
I think it’s really, really important, but the old message of email marketing being the one and only tool is definitely over, and I know that people who have this golden age of infusion software where you have a list of 50-60,000 people and stuff are really struggling because Gmail is ruthless.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: It’s a real struggle all the time to figure out the algorithms and they hire multiple people to figure it out, which is costing them again.
Kendra: A lot of money.
Christine: So keep it simple, people.
Kendra: Yeah, keep it simple, love the people you’ve got, love the shit out of them. They’re listening to what you say, change that mindset around! Ungh! I saw some thrusting over there, Christine.
Christine: I’m loving you guys, oh my goodness.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: Get on there, go to [inaudible] dot com. I’m loving it.
Kendra: It’s so funny, but yeah, you’ve just got to have that mindset. Look at them, and like I said, remember they’re humans, they’re people, they’re not just numbers, they’re not just metrics, they’re not just statistics. They are humans and if they like what you’re saying, they’re reading all your blog posts or watching all your Facebook Lives or whatever, that is sweet. That’s a good follower and that is someone who is going to eventually buy from you when you have something to sell.
Christine: Yeah. Agreed. Alright, what do we have next?
Kendra: Number 4: Don’t reinvent the wheel, learn how to repurpose content. And this was a really big ah-ha moment for me, because when I started out, I was creating unique content for every single platform. [crosstalk] Instagram, it was just ridiculous. I remember the first time I was like “Oh, repurposing content.” I was like “Oh my god, how did I not know what that was a year ago?”
Christine: Yeah. And I think we have to say thanks to how amazing Jamie Palmer for that, right?
Kendra: Yeah, we did an episode with her, it was episode 2 on repurposing content, she has a really great content repurposing strategy that I know you implement in your business, Christine, and I actually work with Jamie in her agency so I know they’re doing it for my social media. But really all you have to do is create one high-quality of content like every week or two, like for me, I’m like you I’m not really into writing, I don’t care for blog posts, I’m good on video.
So I do a lot of Facebook Lives, I take my Facebook Live and then I transcribe it, I put it on YouTube, I pull the audio from it, it goes into a podcast, and then Jamie and her team they actually pull little blurbs from that video and the they put it on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and I turn that video transcription into something for my email list, as well.
Christine: Exactly.
Kendra: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Christine: That’s exactly the same process I use. I literally only do the Facebook video, that’s all I do, the whole rest is my assistant who takes over. She does all the rest, it’s a very simple system, it takes a little bit in the beginning to learn, but not that much, and now she’s done, in literally an hour she’s done. And I’ve seen numbers in this case, I think my organic search went up from 56% to now 80%.
Kendra: Wow.
Christine: Just because you are everywhere, and it’s no effort. I literally just do that video, I love doing them.
Kendra: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Christine: Once a week is not too much, you could even batch them if you wanted to.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: I’m not very good at that but sometimes I do, I know you are.
Kendra: I’m super into it! It’s changing my life.
Christine: So you do whatever calls you. I’m a spur of the moment person, I never script anything, or I don’t have [inaudible] notes, very individual. But no matter what, repurposing, it’s a golden thing.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: And also, you don’t need a new piece of content every year or month. I have a very particular schedule of what I see that I’ve done this year, doesn’t mean that I’m not going to use the same topic next year. Because you get the same questions over and over again and truth is people are not going to scroll through all your blog posts all the time, they’re going to that top five.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: So you can talk about the same topic, and you will have other clients who have had the same issue but dealt with it differently. You have learned more, you’ve experienced a lot more, so don’t think you’ll be boring. And we’ve talked about that, I always feel like I have a mug coming flying toward my forehead when I use the word “cortisol” because I think I use it too much, but it’s just not true! I’m like “cortisol”, ugh, people are going to chase me with sticks. It’s really not true, I’m talking about it in this weeks episode, actually. It’s not true, it’s in your head. It’s literally just the voices in your head that aren’t true.
Kendra: Yeah, and I love what you’re saying there, don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. You are going to repeat yourself, you’re going to say the same shit over and over and over and over again, but- ding! But it doesn’t matter because not every person is following every single thing that you do, they’re not reading your Pinterest posts, your Instagram your Facebook and reading your blog posts and going on your YouTube channel, they’re not. They’re seeing bits and pieces of it, but they also need that repetition, that’s actually really important, you kind of need to hear the same thing a few times for it to stick.
I’m the same way, when I say “detox” when I say “mineral imbalance” when I say “metal toxicity” I’m just like “Oh man, people are so sick of hearing me talk about this”, but they’re not. It’s so funny, the people I have in my membership, I feel like I repeat myself so much even within my small membership, and people are like “Oh my god, every time it’s so interesting.” And I’m like “Man, I just say the same shit three weeks in a row and they think it’s the best.” Because yeah, people need that repetition, and not everyone is remembering every single thing that you said, right? [crosstalk]
Christine: And you say that people get different things out of it, that’s just the way it works.
Kendra: Yeah. So I think that’s a big one, you can’t reinvent the wheel, you can’t make new social media content for every social media platform and then go totally cray-cray and burn yourself out, and then you get to the point where you’re like “I’m out of ideas, I have no ideas left.” You can reuse the same content, I’ve made a Facebook Live on the same topic probably like five or six times.
Christine: Oh yeah.
Kendra: I’ve spoken about it in a bit of a different way, maybe taken a bit of a different angle, but really when it comes down to it, it’s the same stuff.
Christine: I mean people ask you all the same questions all of the time.
Kendra: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s true.
Christine: You notice it when you do interviews, it’s the same question all of the time, and it’s just like “Okay, how can I make it more spicy?” It doesn’t even matter.
Kendra: Yeah. Just be okay with repeating yourself, right? Groundhog Day all day, every day. You know that movie? [crosstalk]
Awesome, and I love our final hindsight tip because it’s about outsourcing, it’s about not trying to do everything yourself, and yes when you’re a solopreneur in the beginning and maybe when you don’t have a lot of money, you are going to be doing a lot of things yourself, but we do encourage you to outsource just one thing. Because there is something that you suck at, that you absolutely suck at. Maybe it’s graphic design, you just make these shitty, clunky nineties images and you’re like “That’s not nice.” You can actually find someone for super cheap to do that for you.
Christine: Yes, and I would argue that that money is going to return to you so quickly because of two different ways; number one: It’s going to free up energy. When you do something that’s out of your zone of genius it drags negative energy out of you. It makes you twice as tired as anything else. So you’re not going to spend that energy on something that is in your zone of genius that would actually give you energy instead. So that’s number one.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: The second thing is, it’s a mindset thing.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: When you go and you consider yourself as a business, even if it’s a freelance [inaudible] employee, you’ve raised your vibe, you’ve raised your authority, and you’re a proper business. You’re not a haggler, you’re not a hustler, you’re like “I am the boss of my business, and I treat it as a business.” And you will appear that way, people who want to work with you will see that, you will have a different vibe around you and when you say “My assistant will do that”, it is a different ballgame. Most people now don’t even communicate with me personally anymore, it’s my assistant who does everything. I have an executive assistant, I have a speaker agent, most companies don’t even get to talk to me until I fly to the gig. It’s just a different ballgame, right?
Kendra: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Christine: And you need to step up to that. I find the time where the solopreneur is wearing a gazillion hats, like 17 is not even enough, it’s just “Why?” It’s not a sign of intelligence not to outsource things, because it’s not an impression of price, it’s totally affordable. Especially things that are draining you but can easily be outsourced, like processors, graphic design, transcriptions, other things we outsource, everything. Scheduling posts, answering typical questions from your website, sending out scheduling links, I don’t even schedule anything anymore. My assistant looks at other people’s scheduling links and does it in my calendar. So things like that, you don’t need to do that, you really don’t.
Kendra: Yeah, and really think about what doesn’t make you money because those are the things you should be considering outsourced. What are the things that you need to be doing? Obviously if you do video you’re not going to outsource video, if you are your brand and you need to get in front of people, you’re going to be doing your video, but you don’t need to be doing the transcriptions, right? Transcriptions you can get done really cheap. And I know you use Fiber, Christine. I use UpWork a lot, and I love UpWork, and it’s probably the same as Fiber, people have profiles, they have reviews, comments, you can see their history you can view someone who you think is a good fit.
Christine: I’ve used both, I’ve been massively screwed by UpWork, like 750 bucks worth.
Kendra: Oh, no.
Christine: Because I didn’t quite get the system and I had a really dishonest person there. So I’m a little bit bitter towards UpWork, but I’m just too thick to use it. I don’t understand all the plans they have, so I’m staying away from it. But it doesn’t matter, there’s another platform, I don’t remember the name, but yeah. Those are the main ones, you can find them in Facebook groups, if you look for “Virtual assistant” in Facebook you will find groups where they hang out. In any Facebook group you can ask for references, “Who’s your virtual assistant, do you like them, don’t you like them?” There’s agencies you can use, I know there’s one in Australia called Automation Agencies, they are like a concierge service where you pay a certain amount per month, and then they do all of those things for you.
So there’s lots of different options and lots of different price ranges. You can’t always go with a country like the Philippines and have a very cheap one for data entry. At the moment I do a lot of research so I have people that if I wanted to I could outsource there, just to go through [exercise] and pull out names and email addresses and things like that. But there’s different levels, I find.
Kendra: Yeah, exactly.
Christine: I do always find something. And test them out! Don’t be afraid to say “It didn’t work out, sorry.”
Kendra: Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s the biggest thing, give them a test project and then see how it goes. Because you don’t need to stick with them if it didn’t work. I’ve definitely had my share of experiences with outsourcing and I’ve had some that are just terrible, and I’ve had some that are awesome. But it really helps, I have a group membership and I want to be giving them good recipes every month, but I’m not going to make recipes. I love to cook but I never right down my measurements, so I have a woman who’s a professional chef, and she gives me 10 recipes every month.
Christine: Yeah. Deal.
Kendra: And then I give them to my group and they’re awesome, people love them and they feel like they’re being made specifically for them from this professional chef. And I don’t even see the recipes, they get sent to my assistant, she posts them in the Facebook group and people get stoked on it.
Christine: Love it.
Kendra: And when you’re new it’s definitely overwhelming, it’s this money thing, you don’t have clients yet, you’re not generating income, but there’s still something. There is something that you can spend, maybe you’re just going to spend 5 to 50 bucks on it but it’s going to make your life so much easier, and you’re not going to regret it. That money, like Christine says, is going to come back to you.
Christine: It will!
Kendra: Because if you want to grow quickly, if you want to make money and start turning this into a full time gig if it isn’t already, you need to be focusing on things that make you money. Which is getting clients, marketing yourself, talking to clients, working with clients. It’s not customer service, it’s not graphic design, it’s not admin, it’s not bookkeeping, it’s not making recipes or whatever. Depending on what your niche is, maybe it is making recipes.
Christine: Yeah!
Kendra: If that’s what you’re doing.
Christine: You can buy so many Done For You programs, Rachel Feldman is someone who has amazing Done for You programs for health coaches. Definitely recommend her, I love her. Good investment when you get started and you think you’re overwhelmed, it’s all done for you, you can tweak it and customize it, go and check her out, I adore her. That is definitely something that you can do, also just a side note, money is just money.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: It comes back to you. It’s not a good thing, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing.
Kendra: Yeah.
Christine: So don’t freak out when you invest it, it’s going to come back. It’s just a thing.
Kendra: It will be there.
Christine: Yeah. Because you will have that time, the way you spend 20 minutes a pro, who’s a VA, you pay them five bucks, they spend two minutes on it, it’s better than what you did, and those 20 minutes you might have a meaningful conversation with someone who then likes you and is going to pay you 5,000 bucks.
Kendra: Yeah. Exactly. I think money is just like this energetic frequency, and I’d love to do an episode, we should do one on “money mindset”. Because I feel like things for me really start to shift when I started dealing with my money shit. Because we all have weird beliefs around money, it’s this weird thing where we want it, but we almost feel dirty about wanting it. Especially when we’re making our money helping people, we feel like we want to help people but taking their money doesn’t feel as good as helping them.
Christine: Yeah.
Kendra: So I think we bring a lot of weird money shit into our relationships with our clients, with our business, and when you learn how to shift that, that’s honestly where the magic happens. That’s what I think anyway.
Christine: Exactly. Your business grows from the inside out. Your inside out. It’s the most magical sentence that once you get it, it will change your business. Yes, we will have to get a couple experts in here about money mindset. Kendra and I, we both have done massive shifts this year.
Kendra: Oh, yeah.
Christine: I’m not the same person I was six months ago. My prices have 10x’d, 100x’d, actually. I have my old pricing on another partnership side and someone got in touch with me today, “Are you still charging this?” I was like “Fuck no!”
Kendra: Ding.
Christine: Ding.[crosstalk] You have to take this down because this is no longer true, it’s now like 10 times the amount.
Kendra: Yeah. Yeah definitely. And I think it takes time to work through those blocks, but we’ll definitely get some experts on here and talk about it because I really think that’s a huge thing, is really learning how to have positive, happy, productive thoughts about money.
Christine: Yeah. It’s great, I love money.
Kendra: I love money, too. I want all the money.
Christine: It’s brilliant stuff.
Kendra: Awesome, well that was awesome. I’m glad we talked about some of the things we wish we knew and we do have a freebie for this episode. You can get it at 360healthbizpodcast.com/episode16. And it’s going to include all the five things we talked about today, plus five more. So it’s going to include 10 Must-Know Tips that you need to know as a new health coach. Or even as a medium health coach, someone who’s midway in their business, these are things we need to keep reminding ourselves about so that we don’t forget. Because sometimes we suck at taking our own advice.
Christine: Yeah. And leave us feedback on your biggest “Wish I had known.” So if you’re a more seasoned health coach or mid sized and you think “I have some experiences to share”, come over to our Facebook page, find the link and it’s Facebook.com/360healthbizpodcast and leave a comment below this episode and let us know what was your biggest “I wish I had known” moment. We love to read that.
Kendra: We would love to because we all have them, right? I think by sharing that and having that conversation it helps everyone else who’s still in that beginning mode making all the mistakes that we were making too, right?
Christine: Yeah.
Kendra: Awesome. Well that was fun, Christine!
Christine: As always, it was lovely.
Kendra: Lovely, good to be back, and we’ll be back again in two weeks time. And remember, we’re a broken record with this, leave us a review! Leave us a review on iTunes, it helps us get out there. If you want to support the show that is the best way to do it.
Christine: Thank you.
Kendra: Just by giving us your positive feedback. And that helps us know that you want more from us, and we will give it to you.
Christine: You want more? You get it! I love where this is going.
Kendra: I know, me too.
Christine: Alright guys, thanks so much for tuning in, check out our website 360healthbiz.com you’ll find all the information in there, our show notes, our links, our freebies, everything you need. And if you want to get in touch just shoot us an email.
Kendra: Awesome. Bye Christine.
Christine: Bye.
