How to Secure Clients As a Health Coach: 5 Secrets to Successful Sales

You’ve launched a successful marketing campaign that has attracted several new leads. The next step is to convert these leads into new clients.

Welcome to the world of sales.

For many of us, sales doesn’t feel natural and can at times feel a little intimidating. Don’t let self-doubt dampen your enthusiasm for sharing your skills as a health coach with the world.

It’s time to view sales in a new light.

The first step towards changing how you view sales is to truly believe that it isn’t scary.

Here are five tips to help you change your relationship with sales and money.

1. Debunking Sales and Money Myths

Let’s start by debunking some sales and money myths.

Myth 1: Sales is sleazy.

Instead, you can reframe as:

Sales is an amazing way to connect and serve people.

Myth 2: I’m not good at sales.

Instead, you can reframe as:

I’m getting better at sales and enrollment every day.

Myth 3: I love health coaching, so I should do it for free.

Instead, you can reframe as:

I am providing a paid service that is helping others live healthier, happier lives.

Myth 4: Health coaching is more like a hobby and not a real job.

Instead, you can reframe as:

Health coaching is a profession that I am passionate about.

2. Understanding Your Relationship with Money

The next step towards changing your views on sales is to assess your relationship with money.

Some questions you can ask yourself to help address your relationship with money are:

1. What are your early memories about money?
2. What was your parents’ relationship with money?
3. What have you heard people say about money?
4. What have you been told about money?
5. What are your personal beliefs about money?

Having a healthy view of money will go a long way towards feeling more comfortable with sales.

If you can pinpoint where your uneasiness with money stems from you can reframe your point of view.

For example: Let’s say your personal belief is that money is the root of all evil. Holding this belief will greatly affect your ability to sell your health coaching services with confidence.

Instead, reframe your view of money to something like:

Money is an powerful tool. How we use that tool is a reflection of our values.

You will find that by changing your relationship with money you will come to see sales as a natural part of everyday life rather than something that is stressful and intimidating.

3. Identify Your Roadblocks

For many of us, there are some major roadblocks that prevent us from feeling comfortable about sales and money and this can significantly stall the growth of our business. Identifying your own roadblocks will help you develop a healthier relationship with sales and money.

Here are a few common roadblocks that you may relate to:

Stalling

What we’re talking about here is procrastination and the excuses you make to avoid actually getting your health coaching business up and running.

These excuses can be extremely small and trivial such as “ I can’t start my coaching because I don’t have a website,” or “I don’t have a business logo so I can’t start my health coaching business yet.”

If this sounds a little too familiar, then you know it’s time to just go for it; the only thing holding you back is you!

Not Valuing Your Worth

Overcome your self-doubt and fear of rejection by truly valuing your own worth. You’ve done the hard work. You are prepared to help others. Your service is valuable. If you don’t value your own worth, neither will potential clients.

Not Investing In Yourself

You are the most valuable asset to your health coaching business, so make sure you continue to invest in yourself. This includes continuing to expand your knowledge in health, wellness and nutrition as well as investing into your own self-care.

Apply a Transformational Versus Transactional Perspective

When setting your coaching rate, think of your value based on the results you offer rather than the time your spend with clients. The value you bring to a coach/client relationship can’t truly be measured in hours. It’s measured in the impact you have on your clients’ lives. If you are able to help a client achieve their goals and move closer to lifelong health and wellness, you are providing a service that is of tremendous value and you should be paid accordingly. How much would you pay for a for a major breakthrough, or a complete transformation?

4. Service vs. Servant Consciousness

Understanding the difference between service and servant consciousness will help you feel more at ease with sales.

A servant is a person who perform duties for others, whether it be through moral or legal obligation. In other words, a servant acts because they are required to.

A service is an action involving helping or doing work for others. When you provide a service you choose to do so at your own will, and the focus is on assisting others.

The critical distinction here is in the choice. You choose to whom you provide your valuable services. You are here to help others. You are the benefactor, and your clients are the lucky recipients of your support and knowledge.

Shifting your mindset towards the service consciousness will help you become more comfortable putting a price on your services.

5. Securing Clients

So far we’ve discussed strategies to help you become more comfortable with sales and money.

Next, we’ll discuss the actual process of securing clients.

1. Make a Discovery Call

Offering a free discovery (or enrollment) call is a great way to secure clients. This call is about getting to know your prospective client, to assess their needs and to offer some preliminary advice to help them start their health journey.

The discovery call is a great chance for you to connect with your client on a more personal level, which will go a long way toward building trust with your client and will help you identify the best motivational strategies to use with them.

Here are some useful tips to help you prepare for a discovery call.

1. Before the discovery call, provide your potential client with a pre-consultation questionnaire. This will help you direct the conversation and provide you with some insight into what drives your potential client.
2. Schedule the discovery call with your potential client. You can use an automated scheduling service such as Acuity Scheduling, and an online calendar app such as Google Calendar or Apple Calendar.
3. It’s best if you initiate the call, rather than leaving it up to your prospective client to call you.
4. Allow 30 minutes for your call.
5. It’s important to remember that the discovery call is not a coaching call, so don’t spend time answering all of their health-related questions. Instead, get to know them and find out why their seeking a health coach.
6. Refrain from discussing pricing until the end of the call.
7. Record your session, with your potential client’s permission using freeconferencecall.com.
8. Practice the 80/20 rule. This means your client should be talking 80% of the time, and the other 20% you’re leading the conversation by asking questions and finding out as much as you can about your potential client.
9. Ask about their accountability and gauge their readiness to implement the lifestyle changes required for improved health.
10. The discovery call should focus on the client and not you, so avoid listing off your accomplishments, as it is highly likely they have already checked out your bio on your website.
11. The discovery call is just as much about you determining whether or not you and the client are a good fit for each other as it is about securing a client.
12. At the 20 minute mark, check in with your client and discuss what the next step would be if you were to begin working together. Recap the reasons why the prospect is seeking a health coach. State that you can help them with each of these problems, and then as whether working together is something they would like to pursue. This put the ball back in their court. If the answer is yes, then now is the time to discuss your packages and prices.
13. Acknowledge your client for having the courage to commit to investing in themselves and discuss any further details regarding a contract and other administrative information.

2. Post-Consult Communication

Immediately after getting off the phone to your new client, send them a congratulations email letting them know how excited you are to be working with them.

Attach a contract and any additional information such as a second questionnaire or even some testimonials from satisfied clients.

You could even provide them with a complimentary gift such as a link to a book or a video, as this will help build trust and get them excited to be working with you.

3. Dealing with Objections

Not all potential clients are going to sign up to your health coaching program after an initial discovery call, so it’s important to not hear “no” as a hard stop.

If you get a “no”, it’s still very important to send a follow-up email thanking your potential client for their time and you can even offer a free gift or book recommendation and an invitation to talk again.

You can also leverage a “no” into a coachable moment.

Here are some common objections you are very likely to face as a health coach:

1. “Let me think about it.”

If this objection arises, firstly acknowledge your client, but don’t try and convince them. You can get curious and ask what they need to think about.

2. “I can’t afford it.”

With this objection you can ask if money wasn’t an issue, would you want to do this? You could also ask for permission to explore how they could get the money. Your intention is not to close them but to help them get curious and creative with their own objections.

Of course, you don’t want to sign a client with money issues, but you want to make them aware that this objection can be turned into a possibility with the right outlook and strategy.

3. “Let me talk to my partner, as we share finances.”

With this objection, acknowledge that they need to speak to their other half, and arrange a specific time within the next 24 hours for you time call them back.

4. “I don’t have the time.”

Once faced with this objection, try and help your client understand that making time for their own health and well-being is an absolute priority. Ask them how how they could rearrange their schedule so that they could fit health coaching into their life.

5. “I’ve already worked with other coaches and did other programs and nothing worked.”

Ask your potential client how they are different now and how you can approach coaching differently to last time. Ask them what their accountability level is like now compared to previous coaching programs.

You can also share testimonials from other clients to reinforce in their mind that your program does work.

Lastly, it’s important to never take a “no” personally. People are ready when they are ready, and it’s important to respect that.

Remember who your ideal client is and trust that they will find you with the right marketing strategy.

Becoming more comfortable with sales takes time and effort, especially if it doesn’t come naturally to you. Here we’ve provided five handy sales tips to help shift your mind-set so you can confidently say that sales isn’t scary!