Healthcare and Wellness

Sample: Planning to Start an Online Health Coaching Service? Here’s What You Need to Know.



Not too long ago, doctors were the only experts trusted with concerns about wellness, fitness, and overall health. Today, as the health and wellness sector evolves, health coaches are fast emerging as a dependable source of guidance. 

And, needless to say, the demand for experienced and passionate health coaches seems to be rising exponentially. 

Source: https://medium.com/@judymolinaro/how-to-promote-health-wellness-in-your-community-3f41446e7ff

What does an online health coach do?

First things first. Understand that being a coach, not just a health coach, is not limited to helping others achieve their goals. It also includes understanding how to work with your client’s beliefs, behaviours and mindsets. All these are necessary for one’s transformation into a coach.

So, if you are thinking of starting an online health coaching service, you may need to know the basics in the first place. Here’s how you can get started. 

  1. Get certified as a health coach

It is sometimes easier to define what being a health coach doesn’t involve. To begin with, they are not dietitians or doctors. A health coach does not provide any sort of medical advice. Rather, a health coach inspires, motivates and keeps you accountable for your progress. It is similar to how a business coach might work with a CEO. 

This job may not require a degree. However, it is better to get certified as it validates your ability to provide competent health coaching services. Many online certification courses cover concepts including behavioural changes and motivational interviewing, which would help in developing business skills that are deemed fundamental to being a health coach.

  1. Identify your niche

By trying to help everyone, you will not help anyone. Instead, you must be clear as to whom your service is made for, who your ideal client is and what results you can help them generate.

Ideally, your coaching business should offer just one major result. Therefore, chipping your services down to a niche is vital. 

A niche would let you serve a specific group of people only, which keeps you relevant and lets you build authority.   

You may explain the details in your mission statement:

“I am a health coach who helps [ideal customers] who struggle with [this issue] to [service you provide] so that they can benefit [the value you provide]”. Just fill in the blanks.

  1. Define your programme 

The next step is to identify your goal with regard to the health coaching business. You have to determine what method would work best and how you’d prefer to work. Here are some questions to ask yourself: 

  • Does your programme give one-to-one coaching sessions or provide coaching sessions to a small group?
  • How much time does each session take?
  • How much support are you going to provide in between sessions?

Identify the strategies that fit well with the service you provide and which programme would have more scaling opportunities. Include low deployment and onboarding cost in terms of time and effort.   

  1. How much will you charge?

Next, depending on the plan you offer, decide on whether you would charge a monthly fee or an upfront set fee (i.e. 12-month muscle building plan). There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but it mainly comes down to the nuances of the programme. You may offer some additional perks along with the programme, such as body composition analysis, which will influence your sales during peak months.    

  1. Choose the right technology to simplify data collection 

Craft your programme in such a way that it helps you to achieve the stated results. Basically, you want to map the entire programme into a curriculum of bite-sized pieces and put them into a logical, cohesive order. You will also need to have an onboarding package and a way for you as a coach to keep track of your customers and their progress. 

Most businesses use some kind of health coaching platforms to streamline the process that would collect data, share live streams and capture feedback. Based on functionality, choose one which suits your needs.   

Putting it all together

Once you identify your prospective customers’ desires, find the type of programme which would be most valued or cherished. Put together all the pieces of advice mentioned above to map a suitable programme that improves the profitability of your coaching business. Start with some kind of upfront testing to benchmark client progress and use a touchpoint strategy to offer significant, scalable value to each client within every couple of weeks. 

Seeing your health coaching service through the lens of what the client buys actually will lead to more effective costing and pricing, and handsome profits. This will ultimately fuel your passion for providing a significant value that a coach provides.

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