Health Coaches: Four Essential Skills for Getting Clients

Getting clients is a lot like dating.

And in a way, can be just as intimate.

You are about to spend a minimum of six months with this person and they with you. In truth, you are signing up for a potential life-long relationship. Case in point, I am still working with one of my first coaching clients, a touring musician in a successful indie band, ten years after our first session.

Here are three four essential skills for attracting and keeping clients in your thriving practice:

1. Value Proposition

2. Public Speaking

3. Support & Accountability

4. Money Conversation (Payment Protocol)

1. The Value Proposition:

The value proposition is a quick and almost surgical process for getting into the DNA of your business and giving it life. If you have been struggling to find your “niche” or “target market,” the value proposition makes it easy. In fact, it not only guides you efficiently and effectively to your target, but also to your passion, what you are good at, the benefits to clients, the unique need you fill and problem you solve, all in one tight-packed template.

Why is this important? Because it makes you attractive to your ideal clients. It gives you language to relate to your perfect prospect. It boosts your confidence and clarity so you can be the best at what you do.

See for yourself – Here is a recent example from a recent client in our Inner Circle program:

For women ages 25-35 who love to eat, who want to lose weight permanently and kick cravings to the curb. Emily Rose Shaw is a holistic nutrition coach that gives you creative solutions for making healthy food delicious and reveals the tricks and tools for understanding and managing cravings. Unlike short-term fad diets that leave you deprived, hungry and confused counting calories and fat grams, Emily Rose Shaw offers a transformational experience combining cutting-edge practical solutions for natural and sustainable weight loss, disease prevention and radiant beauty from the inside out. Because of Emily’s own success with sustained weight-loss, conquered cravings and life-long knowledge and training in holistic nutrition and lifestyle, you will experience a revived relationship with food that provides pleasure without guilt and a highly individualized natural health plan for life that tastes and feels divinely delicious.

Once you have a clear value proposition, it becomes a magnet for your ideal clients. You attract yourself to them and they find you. You become a lighthouse, shining a clear light for others to find the shore.

That leads us to the following…

2. Public Speaking

Public speaking remains the single most effective way to build your health coaching practice. And there are many ways that you can use speaking:

· Speak to groups

· Lead workshops

· Talk to people at networking events

· Have a booth

· Talk to people at social gatherings

· Find clients on flights

Your ability to communicate clearly and effectively determines a great deal of your success as a health coach. Unfortunately, many people overestimate their communication skills.

I know, because I was one of those people.

In truth, I was a very good communicator when I first started my health coaching practice. I had to be to get those first 25 clients by the time I graduated from IIN. But I let the good get in the way of great for many years. Then I got humble and decided I could learn more. I was open to new information. I began to seek ways to grow.

Find ways to improve your speaking. I recommend Toastmasters in my book, Indestructible Success and to all my program clients in my group coaching programs.

Something magical happens when you book a talk, show up, be authentic and shine your light. People trust you. And gaining the trust of another is better than selling them something. Because when you have my trust, I will want to learn more about how you can help me. And if you can help me, I will listen to your suggestions.

So public speaking not only works wonders for getting clients, it is the best way to build trusting connections with potential clients. And trust is better than gold.

But public speaking to build your business will push you out of your comfort zone and bring all sorts of irrational fear, resistance and inner confusion. That is why you also need…

3. Support and Accountability

This is ESSENTIAL. Don’t skip over this.

There are three potent reasons that the right support and accountability are essential:

• We can’t succeed alone
• We need a place where we can feel loved, supported and accepted in our vulnerability
• Accountability cancels payment on the insanity of our comfort zone.

We can’t succeed alone:

Working in isolation SUCKS your energy. It is one of the little known challenges of health coaching that you discover after working for a few years. We need help. We need the feedback, advice, guidance and just plain old companionship of other professionals.

We need a place where we feel loved, supported and accepted in our vulnerability:

As health coaches, sometimes we think we need to be perfect. And we get into the bad spiral self-criticism if we aren’t totally happy, healthy and dynamic. After a full week of supporting other people, sometimes you to need to be seen, heard and held by a group of compassionate peers who have your best interest at heart.

Accountability cancels out insanity:

Let’s face it; Our minds are like wild horses running here and there. How many times have you committed to make a change and then totally spaced on your commitment. Loving but firm accountability shows us where we are crazy and brings us back to action. And action is the ultimate measure of our commitment. Accountability with a group is the most powerful boost to effective action you can get.

4. Money Conversation (Payment Protocol)

So you invest all this time to get clear, get support, take action, share your message and you have a client in your office. You have connected on a deep level. You know they need your support. You are excited! They are ready.

It is money time!

And you freeze up. You avoid getting to the part where you exchange money. You keep talking. The person gets uncomfortable. You are sweating. You say, “why don’t you think about it.” And never hear from the prospective client again.

You know what, every health coach I have ever worked with expected to be good at the money conversation without ever practicing.

>REALITY CHECK <

How many times have you practiced having the money conversation with people?

This is the single most tangible skill that you need to practice.

Role-play with a friend the scenario of the money conversation. It will feel awkward. Better to be awkward in the role playing, not in real life. You will feel stuck, embarrassed and confused. Keep doing it anyway. Get clear about what you are going to say, how you are going to take payment, when it is due and how you handle cash, check or credit card transactions. Rehearse over and over until you can do it half-asleep.

These are the three four essential skills for attracting and keeping clients in your thriving practice:

1. Value Proposition

2. Public Speaking

3. Support & Accountability

4. Money Conversation (Payment Protocol)

As you can see, this article used to be just three, but I had to add in the insight about the money conversation. Like the natural unfolding of dating, each step in getting represents a stage of deeper commitment. Remember that through all of this, you are already beginning to help people heal. Just by making the commitment to themselves, via your work, they are taking a gigantic step in transformation.

Now, don’t just read about these, take action to put these into your practice so you can get results. Join us for the next webinar.