Three Tests to Make Your Coaching Message Clear

Someone lands on your sales page, reads that you help clients optimize metabolic flexibility, and quietly leaves. They came because they are gaining weight, not sleeping, and breaking out - and not one of those words was anywhere on the page.

The problem is not that your coaching is weak. It is that years of clinical training taught you to speak a language your buyer does not use.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
- Why years of professional training make your marketing harder to read, not more credible
- The clean glass test, for auditing any sales page, email or social post before it goes live
- Three clarity checks: the pause test, the fifth grader rule, and the mirror check
- How to trade a clinical explanation for a metaphor your client can repeat to a friend
- What your sales page headline has to do in a single line, and why most coaches waste it

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Sounding smart is costing you clients
0:28 Six years of medical school, one rule that stuck
0:55 How to explain an injury without saying labrum
3:11 Why your professional training is losing you clients
4:26 Real coaching website copy, and why it does not land
5:14 What your jargon secretly tells a buyer
6:06 The clean glass test for any sales page
6:46 Test 1, read your copy out loud and mark every pause
7:56 Challenge Builder Bootcamp, starts August 10
8:39 Test 2, the fifth grader rule
9:25 Blood sugar explained with a fire, not glucose uptake
10:33 Test 3, does your buyer see themselves in your copy
11:49 Nobody talks like that, what your client really says
12:37 Your sales page headline has exactly one job
13:24 How coaches lose clients who were ready to buy
15:23 Step 1, go listen to your people
16:00 Step 2, run the clean glass test before you publish
16:21 Step 3, build a shortlist of metaphors
16:51 Step 4, test the first line on everything
17:33 Simple language is not dumbing yourself down
18:40 Your homework, and what your buyer should feel

MEMORABLE QUOTE
"Their words are the words that we should be speaking back to them." - Valerie Feghali

CHALLENGE BUILDER BOOTCAMP - STARTS AUGUST 10
Build a challenge your clients actually want to join, and walk away ready to host it. Deliverables, promotional plan and engagement schedule, built alongside you.
https://wellnessvault.com/challengebuilder2026

THE WELLNESS VAULT - done-for-you content, programs and tools for health and wellness coaches. Start your 7-day free trial: https://wellnessvault.com/

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XupO3ELeoGU?si=X0t0cw8fYZTalrJt

CONNECT
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/v.feghali/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ValerieFeghali
Wellness Vault: https://wellnessvault.com/

Enjoying Fuel The Flow? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify - it genuinely helps more coaches find the show.

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

health coach marketing, messaging for coaches, client communication, health coaching business, coaching business, sales page copy, marketing copy, clear messaging, health coach, wellness coach, coaching clients, Fuel The Flow

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's almost like coaches want to feel smart. And this likely is not landing with your clients. And it's costing you sales. If a fifth grader could not understand the problem you solve in one sentence, then your copy is doing too much work. Using simpler language is not dumbing yourself down. The buyer is smart and you are smart. When your buyer reads your sales page, what they should feel is that. 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. In my six years of university training to become a doctor of physical therapy, there was one thing that I take with me every single day. And probably the most important thing that I learned in my entire six years there. And that one thing was that we should avoid all clinical language when we are speaking to our clients. Now, this makes sense in practice, right? So let me give you an example of myself as a physical therapist when I was practicing uh years ago. I would have a client come in to meet with me, and let's say they had a labrum tear, a type two slap tear, right? So this is when the biceps tendon is involved and it pulls the labrum off the shoulder. I could explain it in that way to my client. I could use clinical clinical terms and say the head of your bicep, which attaches to the labrum, which is part of, you know, the shoulder complex, and explain it in a complicated way that they are just kind of looking at me, really not understanding why am I in so much pain and do I need surgery? That's why they're there. They're wondering, can I heal this with the exercise and some manual hands-on therapy? Or do I need to go talk to a surgeon? Right. And so what we want to do is we want to focus on what is my client thinking and how can I explain this in a way to them that is going to make sense to them. So instead of using clinical terms, I could say, think of your shoulder joint as a plunger. So a ball inside of a plunger. And the plunger works because it deepens the hole that the ball is going to sit in and it also creates a little bit of a suction to that. So your labrum is like that suction that the plunger would get. Now think about if you have a small tear in the plunger, it might still work. And we can still use that plunger and maybe strengthen it, maybe put some tape, duct tape on it, or maybe just improve, uh, make sure that we are keeping it moist and not drying out. But if that tear gets larger and larger, at some point it's not going to work anymore. And this section is not going to work. So depending on how large the tear is in your shoulder, depends on whether or not we can rehab it effectively without it needing surgical intervention, without you having to go get it stitched up and to fix that tear. So they can now visualize what's going on in their shoulder. They can understand it much better because I'm using items or terms or metaphors that the average person is going to be able to visualize and understand. So the reason I'm bringing this up is because I see so many coaches that come into the business world carrying years of their professional training and they stop using words that their clients are using and therefore losing clients in that way. Not just with your actual coaching itself, but also with the sales process in order to get clients into your coaching practice to begin with. So we need to speak in our clients' words. We need to make sure that we are using clear messaging that they can understand in order to demonstrate whether or not we are a coach that can help them or whether or not they need to go seek help from somebody else. So the problem is that when it comes time to write your sales page or get on a sales call or just open your mouth about what you're doing in your practice, all of that clinical training starts spilling out. It's almost like coaches want to feel smart and they want to demonstrate to the client on the other end that they know what they're talking about and they have all these expertise and they really are well educated. But instead, what that comes across as is a disconnect and the ability for the client to really recognize whether or not you are going to be able to solve their problem. So think of it this way: I see on sales pages or websites all the time like we help you manage your cortisol levels or we help you increase your metabolic flexibility. We help you balance your blood sugar through optimized nutrition training. And this likely is not landing with your clients. Your buyer does not know what most of this means. Not because your buyer is not smart or intelligent, but because they're gaining weight. That's what they're seeing, or they're unable to sleep, or they have brain fog or acne or skin breakouts. That's what they are coming to you for. And that's what they want to talk about. They don't necessarily want to talk about metabolic flexibility because they don't know what that means. So their words are the words that we should be speaking back to them. So here's something I really want you to sit with. When we lead with clinical language, we are accidentally signaling to our buyer that this is going to be complicated, that this is going to take a lot of effort for you to understand. And that alone is going to send them packing and send them in a different direction. So the smartest, best paid communicators on earth, the people who fill rooms, who fill arenas, get paid to speak, they are not speaking in this type of language. They have mastered the ability to make complex things feel really simple. And that is a true skill. And that's what we need building in order for us to really scale and build our businesses. So I want to give you something practical to work with. A simple way to audit any piece of copy you write before it goes out. So any text you're putting on your sales page or on a social media post or any email that you're writing, look at it as through a plain glass test. Think of it as if you're looking through that clean, clear glass of water and you can actually see the thing that's happening and visualize the thing on the other side. So no cloudiness, no fog, complete clarity in where you're going. So the moment that your language becomes too heavy or too technical, the glass gets foggy and the buyer can no longer see what's on the other side. Here's three things that you can put on the checklist to make sure that you are giving a clear glass of water, right? That you, that your messaging is clear. So the first thing is the pause test. So read through your copy out loud. And every single time you pause, even just for half a second, to think about what that actually means, market. This is a fog point for your client and it's costing you sales. So here's a real example. I was looking at a website for a nutrition coaching company, and the first thing on their sales page said, we exist to simplify the path to your short and long-term goals through adaptive, sustainable, evidence-based coaching. We strive to be the antidote to misinformation extremes and one size fits all advice that saturates the industry. So if I'm reading that out loud, because you're hearing me, read it out loud right now. Are you pausing? Are you pausing to think, what do they actually do? What, what are they, what are they seeing here? What who do they help? Right. Instead, they should say something like, We help 40 plus women lose weight who are their diet that they used to do for years is no longer working for them. So that is something that the person who wants that service is going to fully understand. Like, oh, okay, they help people like me get this result, right? As simple as that. We don't want to get fancy and cheeky and smart with our headlines and with the words that we're using with our clients because we are going to lose them in the process. Let me interrupt real quick and invite you to our challenge builder bootcamp, which starts on August 10th. This is a massive opportunity. We are going to be building your challenge alongside you, including getting your deliverables done, creating your promotional plan, creating your engagement schedule, and so much more. This challenge builder bootcamp is incredible. And you are going to walk away with a challenge that you are ready to host. So don't miss it. Join us on August 10th. We'll attach the link in the show notes. The number two thing to look at is the fifth grader rule. So, can a fifth grader understand it? And this really isn't about dumbing yourself down or dumbing the buyer down. The buyer is smart and you are smart. But again, it's about radical clarity. If a fifth grader could not understand the problem you solve in one sentence, then your copy is doing too much work. So let me give you an example of this from the nutrition world because I know a lot of you guys are health coaches or wellness coaches of some sort. And so I think this is going to hit with you. So you could explain blood sugar and insulin regulation in clinical terms. So you could talk about glucose uptake and insulin resistance and glycemic response and the pancreatic function, but all of that is not going to make your buyer say, yes, this is for me. Instead, it's going to add confusion for them. So you could repurpose this into a metaphor. So you could say glucose, it's like a fire. So it's like a log on a fire. And if we keep putting in quick burning logs, so if we put in newspaper and the fire is going to expand very rapidly and get out of control. So it's going to have this big burst of energy and then a quick crash when all that burns out. So you can think of sugary products as those quick burning substances, as the kindling, as the newspaper that you're putting on a fire, a quick burst and then it dies out quickly. Or we can use a slow burning log. And this would be more like a complete meal that has fats and fiber and protein, right? All packed in with some carbohydrates. And this would be more like a slow burning log. It is going to give you energy, but it's going to be more sustained energy. It's not going to die out quickly and you're not going to continue to have to feed the log over and over or feed the fire over and over again. You're going to be able to sustain the energy for a much longer period of time, right? So when you explain it like this and you use a metaphor, people can actually start to visualize it. And it helps them better understand the process and better understand what's happening in their body. The last thing, number three, is the mirror check. So when you read your own text. So again, your sales page, your website, your blog post, whatever that might be, ask yourself does your buyer see themselves in this piece of text? So it's not about your credentials or your framework or your philosophy. Yes, those things should be tied into it, but it needs to be specific in a way that your client can say, oh, yes, those are my frustrations, those are my goals, my desires, reflecting back to me. So what does this sound like here? Let's use an example. So I looked on a wellness website recently, and it said, we help busy people build consistency and make informed, goal-specific choices while letting go of restrictive and unproductive mindsets and habits, right? Again, like, what? What do you do? You let me help me let go of restrictive and unproductive mindsets and habits. Like, what does that actually mean? No human is going to go to their best friend and say, I just really want to make more informed goal-specific choices, right? Nobody talks in that language. So instead, what that person might say is, I start strong every Monday and by Wednesday I've completely fallen off the wagon. I can't figure out how to stay consistent. So that would be more of a mirror back of what the client is actually saying. So look at your words and say, Is would my client verbalize this? Would they actually say this to a friend? And if the answer is no, you want to make an adjustment to that. Okay, so where does this show up? Because I want to be specific about how all of this plays out and where you are looking for these types of things and your messaging in these types of things. So this could show up on sales calls, on your sales pages, inside of your workshops. If you're doing any sort of presentations or any anything like that where you are speaking to a client and eventually hoping that they will sign up with you. Let's say on your sales page, the very first line of your sales page, the headline, has one job to do. And that job is to tell the buyer whether they are in the right place or not. That's the one job. If the line is abstract and vague, or if it's too industry heavy, meaning you're using language that people in your industry would understand, but not the average consumer, then they are not going to continue scrolling on. They are likely going to leave the page and just not come back. You've lost them at that. So it needs to be cleared. On your sales calls, this is where I see coaches lose a lot of people that really needed their service and would have closed and they would have done great with their coaching, but they lost them because the coach was overexplaining their program in a way that the client could not understand. So the buyer isn't necessarily interested in your frameworks and your philosophies. Now, yes, they they want to know a little bit about that, but you wouldn't want to tell them on a sales call something like, you know, in module three, we cover optimizing your nutrition and your macros and adaptive meal timing, right? Like that, that would not land with somebody. Instead, you could say, well, we spend a full week on why your energy crashes in the afternoon and exactly what to eat so that doesn't happen, right? That is much more clear. And somebody can relate to that and they can understand that. And that's why they're there. So when we are in a sales call with them, we want to spend most of our time listening. Let them talk, ask direct questions and get the ball rolling. And once they start talking, once you can pull that information out of them, once you can see what they are really interested in, if your program and your coaching does hit on those points and you truly think that you can help them, talk about exactly that. Don't go through your entire framework. Talk about the points they brought up, the things that they are most concerned about, and address only that. You don't need to talk about your entire program. Use their words back to them. This can also show up in your workshops. So when you're teaching and selling at the same time, the clinical language habit can really take over. If you are in expert mode, if you are trying to, again, teach something, you're trying to give value, oftentimes we want to show like how much we know about the topic, how intelligent we are about the topic. And we teach in a clinical way. But again, we want to rein it back and use that fifth grader rule to say, okay, would a fifth grader really understand what I'm talking about here in this workshop? So here's what I want you to actually do with this. Here's how I want you to take what we've learned today. So your step one is to go listen to your people. So find where your people are hanging out. This could be in your DMs. This could be in a Facebook group, the public Facebook group where a lot of the people who you would like to coach are located. See what they are saying. This could be on Reddit where people are asking questions and you're looking at what are the questions that people are asking and how are people responding and answering. Look at it in their words. What are people asking about? What are people emailing you, replying to your emails and asking questions about? Look at that language and see if you can use that language inside of your on your website or inside of your workshops. The second thing is to run the clear glass test on everything before it goes live. So before you publish anything, make sure that you are looking at it and say, can someone see right through this? Are people able to really truly understand what I am trying to verbalize on this page? Step three is find some metaphors that you can use with your client and you can get help with this. You know, go to AI if you need to and ask AI if it can help you with some metaphors to help explain things more easily and start training your brain. And then those metaphors will come more easily to you once you see some examples. You'll start to be able to understand, okay, this is this is what would land with my client, and this is the way that I want to start thinking about this. And so find metaphors to explain what you do so that somebody, the average consumer, can really visualize it. And then step four is to test the first line you have on everything. So this is your hook on your Instagram post. This is your headline on your sales pages, this would be the headline on any blog post that you use. Take a look at those pages and say, is this headline crystal clear? Does this tell my people whether or not they are in the right place or not? So here's something that I want you to hold on to after this episode. Using simpler language is not dumbing yourself down. It's not hiding your expertise or pretending like you in some way know less than you actually do. It's doing the opposite. It takes a real skill to take something complex and make it feel clear and easy to understand. And this is the work of a master communicator. So it does take work. This is a skill that you will have to build up. The most respected voices in any field are the ones who are changing lives because they are able to message and explain things to their clients in a way that the client can fully grasp it, fully understand it. When your buyer reads your sales page, what they should feel is that they're seen and not lectured to. They should feel like you already know them. They should feel like you've been in their shoes and you know what they're going through and you know what they need. So go ahead, take a look at all of your content and see does your content use too much clinical language, or are we speaking directly to the client and relating and connecting with the client? If you found this episode helpful, go ahead and share it with a friend or leave us a five-star review. I would be incredibly grateful. This helps us keep the show going, and I'll 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.