Health Coaching

Are You Taking the Lead with Your Health Coaching Clients?

If you’ve ever taken a ballroom dance class, you know the importance of having a strong lead. In dance, the lead is taken by the male partner. In your health coaching business, the lead must be taken by you.

A strong leader knows what steps they’ll take next, and confidently guides their partner to move with them. The results are beautiful and the dance feels good for both partners.

Without a strong lead, the partnership fails.

In marketing your health coaching business, you must take the lead. 

Starting with your first contact with a potential client, through the trust-building process, the breakthrough session, the payment process and in your coaching relationship (and beyond).

One place where too many health coaches fail to take the lead is on their website. It’s important to remember that your potential clients are just as over-stimulated as the rest of us. If and when they find your site, they likely have a number of other browser windows and tabs open at the same time, and so you have only a few seconds to capture their interest, and begin building a relationship with them.

If your website overwhelms them, and leaves them with more questions than answers, they’ll move on. If it’s unclear what you do, who you work with or how to get in touch, they’ll keep looking. Don’t be vague, don’t hide behind generalisms.

How do you capture your ideal client’s interest quickly?

With your words. You must let your ideal client know she’s in the right place. You must write in her language (not the language of your teachers and fellow health coaches) and you must demonstrate that you “get her” and that you’re the right person to partner with to solve her current challenges.

Get clear on who your ideal client is. Be as specific as possible. Design your homepage as a personal letter to your ideal client. Have her feel welcomed and understood with your very first words. Speak to her pain using emotional language, relate to her, and show her how you can help.

Review the first words of your health coaching website’s homepage. Do they speak directly to your ideal client in her language?

How do you begin building a relationship with your ideal client?

By leading her experience on your website and throughout every aspect of your health coaching business. What happens when your visitor reads to the end of your homepage? Are you guiding her to take an action?

Think of each page of your website like the page of a book. If you’re reading a book, you know what to do next: turn the page. On a website, it’s less obvious. Does your reader need to scroll all the way back up to your navigation menu and pick another page to read?

Or have you made it very clear at the bottom of EVERY page of your website what action you would like your ideal client to take next? This is known as a “call to action”.

Your “call to action” can be:

  • a link to purchase and schedule a Breakthrough Session
  • a link to join your ezine list and get a free gift
  • a link to “like” your Facebook page
  • a link to email you directly
  • a link to visit another page (from the home page to your services page, for example)
  • a link to your latest blog post

You can experiment to find what works for you and your ideal clients. The key is to be clear what action you want your ideal client to take, and make it very easy for her to take that action.

In most cases, the action you’ll want your ideal client to take is to purchase and schedule a Breakthrough Session with you. You can also have two “calls to action”: one to schedule and one to join your list (“if you’re not ready yet”) or to visit your Services page (“if you’d like to learn more”). More than two choices may lead to inaction. Keep things simple.

It’s essential not to leave your ideal clients hanging. Always give them a clear, easy way to take an action – on every page of your website, at the bottom of each blog post, in your newsletters, on your Facebook page, at the end of your speaking events and teleseminars, etc.

When you’re clear who your ideal client is, and you create products and services to serve her needs, follow through with good leadership to build your health coaching business and do the work you care about.

To your awesome biz,

Heather

Heather Cottrell

Heather Cottrell shows coaches, bloggers, wellness pros and other mompreneurs how to grow your business online. Get expert support and coaching around content creation, social media strategies and digital marketing specially designed for creative professionals with a mindset for success. Find Heather Cottrell Business Services at HeatherCottrell.com and on Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | LinkedIn.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below

Peg Ball - March 14, 2013

Great article! Simple, yet valuable advice that I plan to use to revise my website. I especially appreciated the importance of the call to action at the bottom of the page in addition to having action items on the navigation bar. Your article also make me think about the language I am using… I need to improve my ability to speak in the language of my ideal clients. Again… Great article; very helpful

Reply
    Heather Cottrell - March 20, 2013

    Thanks for the comment Peg! I’m so glad you found the article helpful. A lot of health coaches leave out “call to action” links and fail to speak their client’s language. Making these simple changes can really help make your website more client-attractive. Start by getting super clear who your ideal client is, and go from there 🙂

    Reply
Heather - March 14, 2013

Agreed, great reminder of simple & valuable advice. I definitely struggle with “speaking the language of my ideal clients (I struggle with words) so hearing this over & over again is much needed!

Reply
    Heather Cottrell - March 20, 2013

    Hi Heather – thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad you found these reminders valuable. We all need to hear things over and over again – including your clients! Keep that in mind when you write for them, and know it’s OK to repeat yourself. They’ll benefit from it, just as you did 😉

    Reply
Angela Gaffney - March 14, 2013

I enjoyed this article! “Update website”has been on my to-do list and your article arrived at the perfect time. I too need to include more client language and create call to action items on every page. Very much appreciate the tips you’ve shared! Thank you for helping me create more value for my clients.

Reply
    Heather Cottrell - March 20, 2013

    Thanks for your kind words Angela. So glad you enjoyed my article. A lot of health coaches struggle to find the right language to reach their clients. You must start with a super clear Ideal Client Profile. I’m going to write more about this, as it’s a really important topic. Please be sure you’re on my list http://bit.ly/ATezine and be in touch if I can be of any help with your website update 🙂

    Reply
Sonya - March 22, 2013

You are definitely speaking my language! I am using this article to refine my website!!!! Great article, informative and crystal clear! Love it!

Reply
    Heather Cottrell - March 27, 2013

    Thanks for the comment Sonya! Feels so good to know my words are helpful. Have fun updating your website and attracting more ideal clients 🙂

    Reply
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