How to Market Yourself as a Health Coach
When I was looking to buy a home, my realtor told me there were only 3 things I needed to consider:
Location! Location! Location!
Of course, that’s not really true. But I got the point. Location is the most important thing when you’re buying a house because you can change just about anything else about the house itself (if you’re willing to pay the cost).
Well, when it comes to building a successful health coaching business … and a successful health coaching brand … there’s something that’s just as important as location is to buying a home. And that’s:
Positioning! Positioning! Positioning!
Until you’re clear on your brand positioning, everything else about building your business will be harder to figure out … and harder to do. It will be harder to build a website … harder to market yourself … harder to get clients …
And it will be impossible to scale.
So here I’m going to tell you about 2 of the most frequent positioning mistakes I see health and wellness coaches make. That way you can avoid them and get your business started (or back) on the right track.
Here’s Positioning Mistake #1:
Most Health Coaches Aren’t Clear Enough About Who They Want to Help
You need to be clear about who you want to help. But as I’ve seen, what one person thinks is “clear” may actually be cloudy when it comes to marketing. Let me give you an example.
I met with a health coach recently who wants to build a scalable business. He said he was very clear about who he wanted to help: hypertensive people who want to lose weight and avoid kidney disease.
That, my friend, is an example of being clear as mud.
That coach wanted to focus on 3 different things. And it’s hard to see how they can all be linked together like the way brain fog and fatigue can be. For instance, I doubt people think to themselves “I have to lose weight because I have hypertension and want to avoid kidney disease.”
So that’s the first problem this coach had. But there’s another one.
One of the “problems” isn’t really a problem at all. Can you guess which one?
If you guessed “avoid kidney disease,” you’re correct!
The fact is, prevention isn’t a problem. And the vast majority of people don’t even think about prevention. That’s why they say, “People won’t spend a dime on prevention, but they’ll empty their bank account for a cure.”
Now if you’re naturally prevention-focused, like I am, that’s awesome! But that pretty much makes us unicorns.
When I became a health & wellness marketer, I quickly learned that most people don’t think about things until they become a problem. And that problem usually needs to be big enough to scare them or disrupt their quality of life before they’ll put the effort into changing it.
Back to our example, if we take “avoid kidney disease” out of the equation, that leaves us with lower blood pressure and lose weight. It’s true that one person could want to do both. But again, from a marketing perspective, trying to build messaging for both isn’t the best approach. You’d have a stronger message if you focused on just one of them. And chances are, there’s one that really bothers the person more.
So to help the coach get clearer, we talked through a few things. I asked him which problem he has more experience with … who can he get better or faster results for … and whether he prefers helping people with one of those problems over the other.
Remember, this coach wanted to build a scalable business. That means it was essential that he narrow his focus. But if you find you don’t want to narrow your focus, that’s fine as long as you fall into one of the 3 types of health coaches who should NOT pick a niche. I covered that in a recent article. Here’s a link to it.
Now let’s move on to Positioning Mistake #2. And that’s not having a Signature System as part of your marketing message. In fact, your Signature System is one of the most important parts of your marketing message … and your positioning.
The Most Important Part of a Health Coach’s Market Positioning
As a health coach, you “sell” transformation. And the best way to get clients is by focusing your marketing on that transformation. That’s where your Signature System comes in.
Chances are, the people you’re going to attract have already made a few unsuccessful attempts at the transformation they seek. In fact, they may have already bought coaching programs or other “solutions” that promised them results that they didn’t get, for one reason or another. So they’ll naturally be somewhat skeptical that you can deliver what you say you can (or that they can stick to it and get the results).
Not only that. People also have a natural “B.S. detector.” It turns on when someone makes a promise that doesn’t sound believable. Well, your Signature System helps to get you past their B.S. detector.
Now a lot of health coaches make the mistake of thinking their Signature System is the same thing as their program. It’s not.
Your program covers the detailed steps your clients will go through. But your Signature System is more about helping your future clients see their problem in a new light. Maybe it shows them why they have the problem in the first place … or why the other things they tried didn’t work.
That’s why your Signature System is really part of your marketing message. When it’s done right, it helps people see why they had trouble getting results in the past … and why this time things will be different.
If you’d like some help creating a strong Signature System, you can get more details from this free resource: How to Create an In-Demand Health & Wellness Coaching Business.
There are a few other things that go into strong positioning, but those two are the most important. If you get those dialed-in, you’ll have a scalable business that sets you apart.
Interested in an analysis of your business? Find out how to work with me on your marketing here.
