Why Your Clients Aren't Getting Results

If your clients aren't getting results, the hardest truth in your health coaching business is this: being nice is not the same as being kind. Out of real empathy, most coaches soften the plan, accept the excuses, and quietly let clients off the hook.

This episode unpacks the difference between people-pleasing and real accountability, and why holding a client to a higher standard is the transformation they are actually paying for. If you care deeply about your clients but keep wondering why the results are not landing, this conversation gives you a practical way to have the honest, uncomfortable conversations that actually move people forward.

✨ WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER
- Why being nice can quietly sabotage your clients' results, and what genuine kindness looks like in coaching
- The real difference between people-pleasing and accountability, and how to tell which one you are doing on your calls
- The one onboarding question that earns you permission to give tough love from day one
- A come-curious-before-critical approach to calling out missed commitments without damaging trust
- Why holding clients to a higher standard is the transformation they are really paying for

⭐ MEMORABLE QUOTE
"Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a client is the most uncomfortable thing." (Valerie Feghali, 1:30)

🔥 KEY THEMES & CONCEPTS
- Kindness versus people-pleasing in coaching
- Client accountability and follow-through
- Holding clients to a higher standard than they hold themselves
- Onboarding: asking how a client wants to be coached
- Giving feedback with a come-curious-before-critical approach
- How tough love drives real client results, retention, and referrals

⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 - The Client Who Asks to Reschedule (And Why to Say No)
0:14 - What to Do When a Client Skips the Work
1:11 - Clients Don't Hire a Friend, They Hire Accountability
1:30 - Kindness vs People-Pleasing in Coaching
3:03 - What People-Pleasing Coaching Actually Sounds Like
4:23 - What Real Kindness in Coaching Looks Like
6:24 - Cheerleader Coach vs Real Coach
7:09 - Inside the Wellness Vault
7:45 - The Onboarding Question That Unlocks Tough Love
9:38 - Getting a Client's Permission to Be Honest
11:11 - Come Curious Before Critical: Handling Missed Goals
11:32 - When Life Genuinely Gets in the Way
13:22 - Why Results Never Happen in the Comfort Zone
14:09 - How Client Results Grow Your Coaching Business
15:04 - Why Not Every Client Needs Tough Love
15:34 - Why Honesty Is the Kindest Thing You Can Do

👇 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.

⭐ ENJOYING THE SHOW?
If this episode helped you, please leave a five-star review. It takes a minute and it helps more coaches find the podcast so we can keep bringing you real, honest conversations every week. Thank you for listening, and we will see you on the next one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How many times has a client called you and said, I didn't really get much done this week. Can we push our appointment back so that we can meet when I've actually done something? No, that's when you need to meet the most. Hold your client to a higher standard than the one that she is currently holding herself to. That is what your clients are paying for. The goal we're working towards is not going to happen. 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. I want to ask you something, and I want you to really think about this. When a client shows up to a session with you and they have not done the thing that you both agreed on them doing last week, what do you do? Do you get uncomfortable? Do you dig into it? Do you ask them the deep whys of the reasons they didn't do the work? Do you hold them accountable? Or do you kind of take the other route and do you say, it's okay, I understand. It was a tough week. I can relate. I know what you're going through. You had a lot going on. I can see how this got in the way. And almost help them make excuses in some ways. If you're nodding your head with the second answer, I want you to know something. You're first of all, you're not alone. So many coaches do this. And it might feel right. You're relating to your person, to the other person on the call. You're connecting with them. You're showing that you understand what's happening in their life. But the truth is that they didn't come to you because they needed a friend. They came to you because they needed somebody to hold them accountable for the goals that they want to reach. They need somebody to give them a little bit of tough love because they weren't able to do it on their own. They need help. And that's why they're hiring you as a coach. Kindness and people pleasing are not the same thing. In fact, sometimes the kindest thing that you can do for a client is the most uncomfortable thing. It's to ask them the questions. It's to hold them accountable. It's to tell them straight up, you told yourself, you made a promise to yourself last week that this is what you were going to do and that work didn't get done. Today we're going to talk about the difference between these two things, about kindness and people pleasing and why it matters more than you think. And I'll also give you one practical tool that you can start using inside of your business to make it feel just a little more comfortable. So let's start by naming something that does not get talked about enough in our space. A lot of us became a coach because we deeply care about people. And that's not a flaw. That's the beauty of what you bring. That is actually the foundation of everything. Your empathy is what makes you good at the work you do. And the ability to sit with someone in their struggle and make them feel seen is a skill that most people don't have. But there's a version of caring that actually holds your clients back. It does not look cruel. It doesn't look like it's wrong. It looks like you're doing everything right on, you know, the forefront, but really it's holding them back and it's giving them permission to make excuses for themselves. It's people pleasing, it's conflict avoidance dressed up as compassion. So you're showing that you can relate, you're showing that you care, you're being genuine, but you're choosing your client's comfort in that session over their transformation that you promised them and that they initially came to you for. So here's what people-pleasing coaching actually looks like in practice. It sounds like that's okay, life gets busy, we can try again next week. I don't want to push too hard or overwhelm you. You've been going through a lot. We need to, you know, manage your stress first before we tackle the hard things. Maybe the plan was a little bit too aggressive. Let's dial it back, right? All of those things, all of those things sound great and it's out of good intentions, but it's not holding your client accountable for what they're fully capable of. So let's be straightforward. When we avoid hard conversations because they make us uncomfortable, we're centering around ourselves. We're protecting our own feelings, our own need to be liked, and choosing our own comfort over helping them make the transformation. And then we're framing it as care and compassion. It's not about judgment. It's not about, you know, calling them out, but it's about keeping them accountable for the goals that they set that they said that they want to achieve. Again, they're coming to you for a little bit of tough love. So if people pleasing is not kindness, then what is? I think real kindness in coaching looks like caring enough about someone long term, about their outcome, to have the short-term discomfort in the conversation. You're holding the version for them when they have temporarily lost sight of it themselves. It looks like being the person in the room who refuses to accept less from what they are truly capable of. So think about a coach who changed your life in some way: a teacher, a mentor, a parent, whoever that may be, who made a difference for you. The people who you remember who made the biggest impact were probably not the ones who told you what they what you wanted to hear. They're most likely the people who saw something in you that you could not see in yourself, and they refuse to let you shrink into your comfort zone. That is what your clients are paying for, not just a plan. They're paying for the transformation. They don't want just information from you. They don't want to just set goals. They need you to hold them accountable to those goals. So here's a thing I say a lot, and I genuinely believe. So when your client skips the workouts or when she doesn't track her meals like she agreed to, whatever it is that you are working on that client for. When she's not showing up for calls, maybe she's rescheduling her appointments because she's been inconsistent. That happens all the time. How many times has a client called you and said, uh, I didn't really get much done this week? Can we push our appointment back so that we can meet when I've actually done something? No, that's when you need to meet the most. And you should be calling that person out and saying, Let's meet this week. This is what we agreed to. We're going to reset. We're going to talk about what we're going to do next week. We're going to talk about what stood in your way and how you could overcome that. And we're going to move on and do better next week. So, your job, a huge part of your job, is to hold your client to a higher standard than the one that she is currently holding herself to. It's not unkind. This is love. This is love in action. This is how you show it. The cheerleader coach, you might have heard of this, like being a cheerleader coach who says, Great job, you know, keep going. It's okay. We've got this, right? Like that's actually likely not the type of coach that you want to be because those types of coaches don't get their clients the real results. The coach who says, I noticed you mentioned the same thing last week too. And I want to talk about this because there's something bigger going on here. And it's two weeks in a row now that you haven't stuck to the goals that you committed to, that you haven't found yourself worthy enough of doing the real work. That's something we really need to talk about and we need to overcome because you are worthy and we are going to do it in week three and we're going to overcome this. That is real coaching. That is real work. 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 Vall is in the show notes. So go sign up for your free trial today. So let's shift because I want to give you something practical to use. One of the biggest things I see missing in how coaches onboard their new clients is a conversation about coaching style. So we spend a lot of time talking about their goals. We ask about their health history, their habits, what they've tried before, what they want to achieve. And all of that is important. But we rarely ask, how do you like to be coached? And that question can be more valuable than it sounds because the answer tells you so much more about just their preferences and their goals, but really how they like to be redirected. It tells you how they receive feedback and it tells you what their past experiences with authority figures was like. If somebody were to ask me that on a call, I would tell them straightforward that I need tough love and that each week, if they're going to allow me to give excuses that I'm not going to make progress, because I've met with coaches like that before. I think focusing on one thing at a time can actually be really powerful, one small goal, but you shouldn't take that goal and now break it down even tinier, right? Like, no, you've said you are going to do this. So let's do it. Let's not say like, okay, well, let's just start with three days this week and not five. Like, no, you said that you were going to achieve this goal, that you could do it, that you could manage it. And so let's do it. Let's get it done this next week. So some people grew up in a very critical self-voice in their house. And they, you know, now any direct feedback can feel like shaming. So some people you might be a little bit softer for, but for the most part, we really need to, again, hold our clients to the standard that we talked about from day one. We want to push them. They're there to be stretched. Again, they wouldn't be meeting with a coach if they didn't want to be stretched a little bit. If they felt like, well, I can do this on my own, or I can just have like a friend. Let's just, me and a friend are gonna kind of hold each other accountable on this one. No, they're paying a coach because they want to be stretched. And then you having that conversation with them in the very beginning while they're onboarding gives you the permission to give them a little bit of tough love. And you can always come back to that and say, hey, I know during the first session you told me that you want me to hold you accountable, that you that you want me to call you out when you're not doing something quite right. So I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna call you out because we made an agreement last week and we didn't stick to it. And so, what can we do this week in order to hit that goal? And so them giving you permission from day one and having that conversation around it can make it go a lot better at with you as the coach, both you feeling comfortable giving them the tough love, but then also with them in a place to receive it. And you just keep coming back to that and you keep telling them, I know that this is what you wanted. So I'm going to do it for you. Even if it feels a little uncomfortable, I know you're capable of this. And so I want to be the real person here in the room and make sure that you are feeling supported towards the transformation that you so want and that you are paying me to help you get. So let's say you have collected that data up front, you know their coaching style, you've gotten their permission. Now the moment comes when they've not followed through and you need to actually say something. How do you do it without damaging the relationship? Well, a few things that I have found really useful. First, come curious before you come critical. There's a huge difference before you said you were going to do this and you didn't, and I noticed this didn't happen last week. Help me understand what got in the way. The second opens the door, it puts your client first rather than putting them in defense mode. You are not there to catch her doing something wrong. You're there to understand what's happening and then help her overcome that. Now, sometimes what comes out of you asking that question is completely legitimate. Life genuinely intervened. Maybe, you know, a family member got hurt and they were, it's an emergency. If that is the case, then make the appropriate adjustments. You don't need to shame someone because they were in the hospital, you know, with their mom for the week. There are circumstances in which it is reasonable, but have that conversation about it. Okay, so next time something like this happens and something really big comes in the way, how can we make sure that you're at least getting some movement in? Can you ask, you know, your spouse to maybe stay in the room with someone while you go for a 10-minute walk, right? To discuss it, discuss some things that you can overcome because life will get in the way. And then sometimes something else comes from it. Maybe they just didn't feel like it. Maybe they just kept putting it off. Maybe they quote unquote forgot or they've been really busy. Those answers tell you something very important. And those answers are where you need to really do the work. When you hear something like that, here is a way to name it with care. I want to reflect back on something to you. I hear you saying that you didn't do this because you were afraid of messing up what's already working. Can I share what I notice about that? Again, you're asking permission to do the hard thing. And I would ask every time, can I give you some feedback? Is it okay if I give you a little bit of tough love here because I see something happening, right? Again, asking permission and clearly naming it, saying it, puts them out of that defense mode and gets them into receiving mode. And you can say something like, What I'm hearing is that you're protecting yourself from discomfort of trying something new. What makes a lot of sense is that you're trying to protect yourself because it's uncomfortable. But here is the thing the goal we're working towards is not going to happen in the comfort zone. That's why you are where you are. You're staying in the comfort zone. It's going to happen when we step outside and get into the discomfort that you're avoiding. You're not actually protecting your progress. You're protecting the feeling of safety right now at the cost of the result that you want later. Does that land? So again, you're having that back and forth conversation with them. You're showing them why this is important. You're not shaming them. You're showing them what's happening from more of a psychological standpoint. You're not threatening in any way. You're just holding up a mirror to say, here's what's happening and here's the honesty behind it. I want to zoom out for a second and talk about why it matters beyond any individual session. When your client gets results, they stay. They refer new clients. They come back because they want that next level. They become the kind of success story that you get a reputation for, that you can get testimonials for. So when your clients get the results because you were honest with them rather than being too hesitant to have the real conversations, then your business grows in skills and you can actually help far more people. The coaches who build the most loyalty and long-term client base are not the ones who made every session feel comfortable. They're usually the ones who became the trusted person to go to because they gave the real answers, because they were honest, and because they were upfront, because they pushed them to their full potential. So if you want to be that coach, you can take some of what you've learned inside of this conversation today and apply it to your client sessions. So I want to add one more layer here because I don't want to oversimplify this. Not every client is in the same place every week. The same person who responds well to directness this month might not need that approach next week. Sometimes they might see something softer. So again, I am not saying you need to be like forceful and rigid and tough with everyone, but you do need to realize what's happening in the moment and why they are not reaching their goals and then show honesty. Be genuine, be real, be honest, and also help the person who's paying you to help them get the result. Being kind and being honest actually are the same thing, even if the honesty can feel uncomfortable at the time. That is kindness, helping them recognize where things are not going in their favor, where they can do better. That is being truly kind. So if this episode resonated with you, go ahead and share it with a friend. And if you want to go deeper, stick with me every week. I can't wait to 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.