Health Coaches Don't Need A New Idea To Scale Their Coaching Business (Here's Why)

Health Coaches, scaling your health coaching business rarely takes a brand new idea. It takes going deeper on the one thing that already works. In this episode, Valerie Feghali unpacks why so many talented coaches abandon a strategy right when it is starting to work, and what to do instead. Rather than starting over every time something stalls, the smarter move is to repeat it, refine it, and scale it, so one small tweak can turn an offer you have already built into real, repeatable growth.

✨ WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER
- Why friction in your health coaching business is a sign you're close, not a reason to quit
- The Repeat, Refine, Scale framework for growing a coaching business without burnout
- How a wellness challenge with a 15% conversion rate could become a 7x return on ad spend
- The three reasons coaches abandon what's working: novelty, fear, and the shiny object trap
- What to change (and what to leave alone) before you run an offer a second or third time

⭐ MEMORABLE QUOTE
"Friction is almost never a sign to stop. It's almost always a sign that you're getting close."
Valerie Feghali (3:49)

🔥 KEY THEMES & CONCEPTS
- Scaling a health coaching business by repeating what works
- Lead generation vs conversion rate in a coaching funnel
- Paid ads, cost per lead, and return on ad spend for coaches
- Warm audience vs cold audience conversion rates
- Collecting data and client feedback before changing your offer
- The discipline to resist shiny object marketing

⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 Why Friction Means You're Close, Not Done
1:03 The Coach Who Walked Away From A 15% Conversion Rate
4:38 The Ad Math: Turning One Challenge Into A 7x Return
8:15 A Quick Word From Wellness Vault
8:57 3 Reasons Health Coaches Keep Starting Over
12:20 The Repeat, Refine, Scale Framework Explained
14:59 The Mindset Shift Behind Real Scalability
15:27 One Question To Sit With This Week

⭐ ENJOYING FUEL THE FLOW?
If this episode helped you grow your health coaching business, please like and follow the show, then leave a five star rating. It only takes a few seconds, and it helps more health and wellness coaches discover the podcast.

👇 YOUR ALL-IN-ONE CONTENT HUB 👇
Juggling meal plans, guides, and social content? Wellness Vault is your ultimate solution. Start your 7-day free trial → https://wellnessvault.com/

⭐ ABOUT VALERIE
Valerie Feghali is a physical therapist turned software CEO, helping health and wellness coaches scale their businesses without burnout. As the founder of The Wellness Vault, she provides white-label resources and strategic coaching to help you grow.

⭐ CONNECT WITH VALERIE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.feghali/
The Wellness Vault: https://wellnessvault.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ValerieFeghali/videos

Disclaimer:
The Fuel The Flow Podcast is for educational purposes only.
The information provided is not intended to replace professional medical or business advice.

#HealthCoaching #HealthCoachingBusiness #WellnessCoaching #FuelTheFlowPodcast #ValerieFeghali #WellnessVault

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Friction is almost never a sign to stop. You don't need a new idea. You need to go deeper on the one that was already working for you. There's always a way. Sometimes the way is Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast. I am your host, Valerie Figali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. Welcome back to another episode of Fuel the Flow. Today I want to start with a question. When was the last time that you saw something through to the very, very end? I'm talking stuck with it, iterated it, made changes based on feedback, tried it again and again until it worked. The reason I'm asking is because I have seen so many coaches start something that has the potential to do really well and abandon it way too quickly. I have been coaching and working alongside health and wellness coaches now for about six years, a little more. And in that time, I've watched so many talented coaches whom I truly believe in spin their wheels, not because they've lacked the skill or even a strategy, because they've had a great strategy, but because they moved on too soon from something they felt wasn't working for them, yet they hadn't collected enough data, they hadn't pushed any money or budget to it, they hadn't tried it by getting collaborations and different people into their audience to really make an impact and effort. And here's the pattern, and here's what it looks like in real life. I have a coach inside of the wellness call who's a brilliant, motivated coach. And she started a challenge and it went really well. She got about 15 to 20 signups, and two or three of them converted into her higher ticket course. Now, when you look and say, wow, all that work for just like two or three people that converted, hmm, maybe that didn't go so well. But the reality is that's an incredible conversion rate. That's over a 15% conversion rate, which is amazing. So when we look at it objectively and we say, okay, well, the problem was not so much the conversions, the problem was more on the lead side. So what do we need to do for this challenge? What we need to do is we need to bring in more people to the challenge rather than say, okay, that was a bust. We're going to move on to a different challenge and try something new. So what happens is that coach then decides, you know what, maybe that challenge didn't quite hit the mark. I'm going to try a different topic. Now, it's a good idea to have one or two challenges or a couple of different ways of bringing people into your world. So I'm not saying you only need to have one strategy and one method. However, what I am saying is that what if we took that same challenge, ran it three months later, but made some fine-tuning and some tweaks in order to improve upon the parts that could have gone better. What result would we have gotten if we did that? And then we run it again in three months and three months after that. So I see this consistently. Coaches bouncing from one thing to the next, not because the first thing failed, but because the novelty of it wore off. They feel like, well, maybe I don't want to just kind of do that again. That would be boring for my clients. But the truth is you're going to get new clients and new people into the door. And the people who did join you and did come the last time will likely come again. And oftentimes they need that second introduction. They need to see it one more time in order to really buy in. And then once they've kind of moved on to your next level program, if they do decide to do that with you, you may have other VIP options or other ways to keep them on long term after that. So we don't want to be chasing the shiny object because it just appeared in the horizon and you're going after it. If there's a little bit of friction, we want to see what happened with that friction and how can we make a small shift or a small pivot to improve what we've already started working on. The reality is that friction is almost never a sign to stop. It's almost always a sign that you're getting close. So many coaches feel like if something isn't working perfectly for them right out of the gate, then it's broken. Something's wrong with it. But the truth is, nothing scales the first time you run it. The first time just gives you data. It gives you a baseline. It gives you something to build from. And abandoning it before you do anything with that data to make it better is the most expensive mistake you can make in your business, not just from a monetary standpoint, but from your time as well. So let's go back to that coach that had a 15% conversion rate on her first challenge that she ran. So if we take this conversion rate and we say, okay, well, we only had about I think it was between 15 and 20 people join the bootcamp. What if we put a little bit of money behind that and we started running some paid ads to the boot camp? So if we put $10,000 in ad spend, and again, you don't need to spend $10,000 the first time you run ads, but let's just use round numbers so you can see what's possible. So let's say we spend $10,000 on ad spend and we got leads for $10. So that would be about a thousand people joining the bootcamp or joining the challenge. So if we get a thousand people into the challenge and then we convert again at about a 15% conversion rate, that's 150 new people into the program. Now, depending on how much the program costs, that can be significant money in your pocket. So in this case, let's say the her program costs $500. That's a pretty reasonable amount for a wellness coach to be charging for a, let's say, eight to 12-week program. Now, granted, you could be charging a lot more, but a lot of newer coaches kind of fall within this area. And I would encourage you to consider charging more. But if you charge $500 for this program, got $150 people to convert, that's $75,000 compared to the $10,000 that you spent in ad spend. So can you see that that would be a seven times return on ad spend? Now, granted, we have to think about a few caveats here. So in this scenario, the coach who ran her challenge the first time was running it to more of a warm audience. So what I mean by a warm audience are these are people that know of her, not necessarily people who know her personally and not necessarily people who have considered buying from her in the past, but people who have seen her before, have maybe clicked on her website. She also did a presentation in a group setting for some of somebody else that she knows. So she was invited to do a presentation. So she was introduced to a particular audience where she presented her challenge and some people joined the challenge from that. Other people joined from a newsletter that she has, and other people joined from past clients and current clients that she works with, and they are friends of those clients who invited them to do the challenge with them. So she had a few different streams bringing these people into her challenge, but all of them were more of a warm audience, that they had some connection to her in some way. Now, if you are running ads, you likely are collecting a lot of people from a cold audience. And what I mean by that are these are people who have never heard of you before. So they may be seeing your ad for the very first time. And that is how they are introduced you to you for the very first time. Those people are less likely to buy. So with that in mind, we have to say, okay, maybe her conversion rate wouldn't be as strong. Maybe it wouldn't be 15%. Maybe it would have been closer to 5 to 10%. Even if she converts at 5%, that would still be 50 new people into her program, which would be $25,000. So that still is a 2.5 times return on her as bend of $10,000. So I'm just using this as an example so that you can see the math math. You want to be able to calculate from the initial thing that you ran, get some data from that, and then start to see, okay, well, what if I tweak the numbers a little bit? What if I brought in new leads? What if I put some money behind it? What if I converted at a higher rate because I offered a bonus? So when you start to play with the numbers, you can see what's possible. Instead of abandoning what you've already worked so hard on, let's just see how we can improve it. And maybe it's an improvement of the actual product itself, or maybe it's an improvement of marketing that product. Hey, sorry to interrupt, but if you are a health or wellness professional and you haven't yet checked out the wellness vault, you're missing out. The wellness vault is a content hub for coaches who create their own plans and programs for their clients, run workshops, create digital guides, and so much more. You can now do all of this in a fraction of the time so you can focus on your clients and grow your business faster than ever with more U time. The link to the Wellness Vault is in the show notes. So go sign up for your free trial today. So if this sounds logical, why do we keep doing the opposite? Why do coaches keep starting over? Well, there's a few reasons for that. And I want to be real with you about all of them because I felt every single one of them myself in my business at some point. The first reason is that the novelty starts to feel like productivity. Building something new is exciting. So when you start from scratch and all of a sudden you have this new product, something exciting to offer, it feels like you're being productive. It feels like you're making progress. Progress is what happens when you take what you've built and you learn from it and you build it better. So it's actually the opposite. Building something new sometimes takes away from your productivity, even though it feels like you are doing something incredible. It feels like you are doing something that's worth talking about. But the truth is, if you go back, even if it seems a little bit boring to what you know, to what you've done in the past, to what you've been doing for years, and just improve upon that, that's when real scalability happens in your business. The second reason is fear. So if you run the same thing again and it doesn't do better, that can feel a little bit scary. It feels like, okay, what do I do now? I made these changes and it did worse. That can happen. That's a possibility. However, the more likely situation is that it does much better the second time around. And when you run it again and again multiple different times, and you start changing small variables each time, you get to see, okay, what worked and what didn't. And over time, that product and the marketing sequence for that product gets better and better. It's almost like if we build something new for the first time and it fails, it doesn't feel as painful as if we run the same thing over again and it fails. But the truth is we have to sometimes get through that to know, okay, that was not the variable to change. People actually liked it better the other way. And now we're going to give it another try by changing another variable, but bringing back something older that you had before that was working. The third reason is simply just that shiny object trap. We are constantly being marketed to all day, every single day. There's always going to be something new out there that we can try. And it's really hard. It takes a lot of discipline and a lot of work to hold back from trying that new thing. I know I'm guilty about this. I see something new and I immediately say, oh my gosh, I gotta get in on that, or I want to try that, or I'm going to buy that course. And I can't tell you how many courses I've purchased that have just kind of sat in my library or I've gotten through half of them and realized, why did I buy this? I'm I'm realizing that I need to just continue doing what I'm already doing, but do it better, do it faster, and make sure that I'm collecting enough feedback and data to make the changes that I need to change. So I 100% am all for investing in coaching. I have invested a ton of money in coaching and it has more than paid off. But what you don't want to do is invest in coaching for one thing and then switch to a completely new direction and start all over again. That's when you're going to get mixed up and not know how to really scale your business. So here is the framework that I want to give you today. I call it repeat, refine, and then scale. The first thing is repeat. Before you build anything new, ask yourself whether or not what you've already built, you've run at least two or three times. And the answer, if it's no, you're going to run it again. Make sure that you are not building something brand new before you've tried running something at least twice. Sometimes there's an issue with the timing or an issue with the market, or maybe one of your emails, the link didn't work, right? All of those small things are going to affect how our product or our marketing strategy does. And so you want to run it at least twice to get good, clear data on it. Now, once you have some data, then we move into the refine stage. And during the refine stage, we're really combing through that data. What worked? What didn't? What feedback did you get from people? And I would always recommend sending out some kind of survey to collect as much feedback as possible. Ask for it on any kind of live calls. Have people reply to emails from you. You want as much data as possible so you can figure out where things broke. Maybe it was your pitch. Maybe it was that people didn't come live to your session. Maybe it was that you didn't have enough leads in the first place. So look at all of those numbers, figure out where you could have done better. And that's where you are going to change one to two variables before the next time you run it. If you change too many things and things break, then you won't know what broke it. So you don't want to change everything all at once. You're just changing one to two small things to make things better for the next time around. And you continue to iterate as you go and as you repeat the process. Now the next thing is scale. Once you have two data points and you've been running this product and then you try it over and over again, you're looking for more traffic, you're looking for should I be running paid ads? You're looking for partnerships and collaborations, potentially joint ventures, you're looking at a bigger stage. That's when you say, okay, how can I put some money behind this or trade do with some sort of trade where you are collaborating with someone in order to really scale that particular marketing stream or product? I know this sounds simple and it is, but it's not easy. It requires you to resist the pull towards trying something new. It requires you to sit with something that feels like it's not finished yet and keep going, anyways. But the discipline is what separates coaches who consistently are just busy from coaches who are actually growing and scaling without feeling completely overwhelmed. I want to leave you with a mindset reframe. And I think this will change how you look at this entirely. The reality is that running the same thing again with intention is one of the most sophisticated things that you can do in your business as the owner. It says I trust my work and I trust the process. I'm not chasing every new thing that comes along because I know that what I'm doing can work and I'm going to find out exactly how well it can work when I give it the chance. Can I give you something to think about this week? Just one question. What is something in your business that showed real promise, that got some results, and that you quietly walked away from because you didn't know how to scale it or you didn't know how to improve upon it? Go back to that, sit with it because I would be willing to bet that there's something there, something that's worth you taking another look at it and figuring out how you can make it work. You don't need a new idea. You need to go deeper on the one that was already working for you. There's always a way. Sometimes the way is back to what you've already built. That wraps up today's episode. And if it hit home for you, share it with someone who can relate, someone who might also need to think about this. Share this episode with a coach in your world who really needs to hear it. We all know someone who is in the consistent build mode, always starting the next thing. And this episode is for them and for you. Until next time, I'm your host, Valerie Figali, and I will see you on the next one. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.