September 23, 2025 • 19 mins
Have you had a particularly slow month in your coaching business? Well, Erin Power is back to share five key lessons that she learned from her own slow month, emphasizing that these periods can be opportunities for growth, creativity, and improvement. Ultimately, Erin wants all you coaches out there to engage with their existing audience, improve client delivery, shift their perspective on growth, and create stability in their business in order to navigate fluctuations more effectively.
Episode Overview:
0:00 - Intro
5:06 - Engaging with Your Existing Audience
9:54 - Improving Client Delivery During Downtime
12:55 - Shifting Perspectives on Business Growth
15:32 - Creating Stability in Your Business
Connect with Erin on:
- Submit your questions to help@primalhealthcoach.com
- Website: primalhealthcoach.com
- Instagram: @primalhealthcoach
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Health Coach Radio is your backstage pass into the world of health and fitness coaching, hosted by Primal Health Coach Institute Coaching Director, Erin Power, and powered by the legacy of founder Mark Sisson. Each episode is packed with real stories, expert strategies, and practical inspiration to help you grow as a coach and make a difference.
Curious about what’s possible for your own health coaching journey?
Visit primalhealthcoach.com to learn how Primal Health Coach Institute can help you transform lives—including your own—through the power of coaching and ancestral health.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, friends. Welcome back to Health Coach Radio. And today, I want to pull back the curtain and talk about something every single business owner experiences in pretty much every category of business, even if nobody really wants to admit it. And that is, what happens when business feels slow? Lessons from a slow month in business, courtesy of me, Erin, a health coach who just came through a slow month in business.
(00:28):
Hi, I'm Erin Power. I'm a health coach, a health coaching educator and mentor, and your host of
Health Coach Radio. This podcast delves into the art, science, and business of health coaching.
Whether you're aspiring to land a coaching dream job or to embark on your own entrepreneurial
adventure, we cover it all. Our mission is to help you grow your career, elevate your income,
(00:50):
change the lives of the clients who need your help, and leave a lasting mark in this rapidly
growing field. It's time for health coaches to make an impact. It's time for Health Coach Radio.
What is a slow month in business? While your calendar feels quiet, nobody's reaching out,
no one's booking calls, no one's emailing, inquiring about your services, the inbox feels quiet,
(01:16):
except for the spam and the newsletters that you forgot subscribing to.
And I know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Oh, but the good news is a slow month doesn't mean your business is failing.
It doesn't even mean anything's wrong.
In fact, there's tons of opportunity here.
And some of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a coach and as a business owner
(01:39):
have come from my so-called slow months.
So today in this very quick, punchy little solo episode, I want to share with you
five lessons I've learned from a slow month in business and how I've come to see slow months as
fertile ground for growth and creativity and stability in my business.
(02:01):
Lesson number one, you are still in business. And here's the first thing I remind myself,
even if my calendar is empty, even if I have no Zoom meetings on my Zoom agenda,
that always throws me for a loop when I have no Zoom meetings booked inside Zoom.
I'm still in business. I know that sounds obvious, but it's huge because our brain
(02:24):
wants to catastrophize. Well, no one's signing up. That must mean no one will ever sign up again.
My business is over. But pause right here. You still have a program. You still have skills.
You have expertise. You have a solution that people need. You have a service.
A quiet week or a quiet month does not erase that.
(02:47):
What it does mean is that now your job is to remind people that you're here.
The thing about this is, and this sounds a little harsh, but stay with me.
Nobody's thinking about you as much as you think about you.
So nobody's lying awake at night wondering how your client roster is doing.
(03:10):
No one's observing like, uh-oh, Aaron hasn't gotten any comments on her Instagram post lately.
No one's thinking about that, but you are.
And it's very, very front of mind for you.
And I want to validate that.
But we need to remind people that we are still out here, still doing the work, not going anywhere,
not going anywhere.
This is my job.
(03:31):
I have to remind myself that this is my job.
My job isn't just in coaching conversations with clients.
My job isn't just on the sales calls.
My job is in these moments talking about what I do to the people who are listening.
Maybe they're not acting, but they're listening.
And this, folks, is why content creation matters.
(03:51):
There, I said it.
I know a lot of health coaches don't love content creation.
You don't feel good about putting yourself out there or you don't know how to do it or
it feels awkward or weird or goofy.
And I completely get it, please.
But this is not about creating viral content or spamming people.
It's simply about showing up and saying, yep, I'm still here. I'm available. This is what I do. This
(04:14):
is my job. Booked and busy, baby. Here I am showing up on Instagram, showing up on YouTube, wherever
you show up in your inbox. I'm here. I'm working. I remember once when I didn't have anything going
on. Nobody was booking calls. So I just took it upon myself to go through my own Instagram feed
(04:37):
and pull out from the last like five years, the best performing posts. And all I did was
systematically reposted them. I just reposted like three a day posts I'd already created. I didn't
create any new content. And in just putting in that work with all my available spare time,
since I didn't really have a lot of calls on the agenda, people started commenting and people
started to see me prolifically posting. Oh man, she's really busy. Like she seems like she's
(05:01):
really busy. I should get in her calendar. It just, it's sort of like nothing draws a crowd
like a crowd. Do you know what I mean? So put yourself out there like you are booked and busy
professional because you are you will be. Nobody knows in this moment that you're not. So keep
executing like you're still very much in business and you are part of your job is content creation.
(05:23):
It's not just getting on the phone with clients. It's reminding people what you do,
and that you're still out there. People forget, it's our job to remind them.
My second lesson from a slow month in business is to engage with the people who are already in my
list. And I'm sighing with resignation because I'm so bad at this, calling myself out. I fail at
(05:50):
nurturing my leads, nurturing my leads. I fail at this. These are the people who sign up for my
email list or in my email system, or they're my audience on social media or people who subscribe
to my podcast or YouTube channel. I have them and I should be engaging with them all the time. In
(06:12):
fact, I would argue I should be doing that more than anything. These are people who said yes to me.
The people who have engaged with me. Not only that, but even people who maybe had a DM conversation
with you six months ago, scroll through your DMs. Oh, hey, Sally, I noticed you commented on my
casserole recipe from six months ago. I'm just curious. Did you ever make it? How did it go?
(06:35):
Did the family like it? Just, you got time. You got time. Start having conversations with people.
Send a mass email to your list and ask your list to email you back. Let's have a conversation back
and forth. Start commenting back to people on your social posts. Be social in social media.
Because these people are literally saying, I want to hear from you. And yet so often,
(06:58):
and I do this all the time, I'm focused on acquisition. I need new clients. I need new
leads. I have all these friends. I have these people already in my orbit.
So during quiet times, I recommend doubling down on engagement. Now, you already know I'm not good
at it, but I'm naming and taming it here with you. Reply to emails with extra thoughtfulness.
(07:22):
take time. Send a check-in message to past clients. Ask your social audience a question.
Have them reply to you in the DMs. Have conversations in the DMs. Crowdsource things.
I have a couple of examples here I'll share. I was thinking on this idea of,
well, I'll share with you. Is it normal for a mom to weigh out a kid's food?
(07:46):
Like if the mom is weighing her food, tracking her food, is it normal or weird for the mom to
do that with her kids. I don't know. I really don't know. I was just thinking about it one day
and I posted it in my Instagram stories. I said, Hey, what do you guys think? Let me know. And then
people started replying to my story and I started replying back to them. And I got some really
interesting insights. Like it was kind of a little crowdsourcing thought experiment,
(08:06):
market research inadvertently, great conversations with people, really interesting perspective. I have
tons of fodder for content now. I could write a whole email series on this. I could do a whole
YouTube video podcast on this just by having a conversation because I had a bit of downtime.
Hey, it's Erin, co-host of Health Coach Radio. I've trained men and women of all different body
(08:28):
types and skill levels and take it from me, women are made for strength. They may just have a
different way of getting there than men do. With the Primal Health Coach Institute's Strength
Training for Women Specialist Certification, you'll be able to address the needs, challenges,
questions, and goals most relevant to women. You'll learn how to design a training program,
(08:51):
and then you'll develop one. You'll also learn how to co-create individual eating strategies for
clients and how to navigate potentially sensitive topics like menopause, reproductive cycles,
hormone-related dysfunction, and diet culture. If you want to empower women to become fitter
and stronger, then visit primalhealthcoach.com and learn more about our specialization in
(09:12):
strength training for women. And also the other anecdote that I will share that I'm sure you've
heard a million times before is I've had clients on team dozens of occasions who have said,
I've been following you for five years and I finally pulled the trigger.
Like if your calendar's quiet, the next person who books your call with you might have been in
(09:36):
your audience for five years, but not if you're not talking to them. This is the power of engaging
So you already have an audience, doesn't matter how big or small it is, they're already there
listening to you. And the more you say, the more they'll listen. And the more they listen,
the more likely they will someday press your book a call button.
(09:59):
Lesson three from my slow month in business is this is my opportunity to improve client delivery,
which I'm very passionate about. Client delivery, which is the client experience,
the customer experience. A slow month gives breathing room to just go into the program
that you've written for your clients. So instead of filling every single hour with sales calls,
(10:22):
or for me burning my retinas out on Zoom all day long, suddenly there's some space I can take my
laptop to a coffee shop and just dive into my curriculum and find holes, leaks I can fill,
right? Opportunities to make it more robust or more clear, more concise. What's the customer
experience like when they book a call? Is that obvious when they get the intake form? Is it
(10:46):
user friendly? When I onboard them, do they receive all the emails? Is the onboarding email sequence
clear? Do my clients have the resources they keep asking me for the recipe guide or the exercise
plan? That's for me because I don't have any of those in my program. My clients are always asking,
well, a slow month is a great chance to build that. By the way, I did. I used my slow month
to build a strength training program for my clients. That's 12 years in the making, my friends. I got
(11:10):
it done in a month. I could have taken that slow month and just wallowed. But instead, I built
something brand new for my existing clients and my future clients. I mean, amazing value add. Oh,
if you join my program, I have a brand new strength training program you'll get for free.
Pretty cool. I also think about, you know, delighting my existing clients. They're my people.
(11:33):
I love my clients. Like I have deep respect for my clients and I want them to have a truly high
value experience. So am I delivering an experience that they rave about with their friends? They
can't help but tell people about this amazing coaching relationship they're in. Because here's
the truth. Great customer support, great delivery delight is marketing. A raving client is better
(12:01):
than any Facebook ad. And I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads. And I will
tell you, a raving client review is worth its weight in gold. My fourth lesson is a perspective
shift. And I hope you'll indulge me this one, my friends. What I consider a slow month now
(12:27):
used to be a huge month. So three clients in one month used to be a big month.
I would fist pump, I would celebrate. Now three clients a month is like the absolute rock bottom
number of clients that I can get. Three clients a month is a very slow month for me. It used to be
(12:51):
an insane, unbelievable amount of clients to get in one month. That perspective has changed.
That's growth. That's perspective. And sometimes the lesson of a slow month is,
dang, my standards have risen because my business has objectively grown.
And that's the kind of thing you don't notice as it's happening. You don't notice the fact that
(13:15):
where every single client used to be like Christmas morning, you've now kind of mellowed out. And
because clients are coming in more frequently, it's not as big of a deal anymore. You get the
chance to notice when a month is a little quote unquote slower that, you know, this is still a
good month. 12 years ago, Erin would have never expected that she'd be panicking about a month
like this. And I'm not panicking, but I just want to, you know, the catastrophization slides in there.
(13:46):
Like every successful health coach remembers the first 500 bucks they made. You know, the first,
the first time I sold an enrollment into my group program, my little group challenge,
$69. And I put it out there and somebody joined. Somebody joined. One person joined. Actually,
like eight people joined. But the first person that joined, I thought, oh my gosh, somebody joined.
(14:10):
Like I still delight in remembering those early days. I think that sometimes having a slow month
gives me the space to remember how far I've come. And you will come. It's inevitable. If you don't
quit, just like anything, if you don't give up, you will grow. That's the spirit behind this whole
talk. Don't give up because someday you'll be further down this continuum and you'll still
(14:33):
have slow months. But I want you to recognize that your slow months are very different.
They become very different as you grow. So take the time in a slow month to just quietly
celebrate the progress of it all. Otherwise, you could lose sight of how far you've come.
My fifth lesson from a slow month in business is, okay, fluctuations happen, but what if they didn't?
(15:03):
So my slow month, for example, was August.
And we can create all kinds of lore around why that would be.
Well, it's the last month of summer in the Northern Hemisphere where I live.
People are squeezing every dropout of their summertime.
They're camping.
They're traveling.
Once they get back into the routine of September, the floodgates will open and I'll just wait until
(15:23):
then, which usually pans out quite honestly. There's a few months of the year that I feel
are consistently slow. For example, August, March, and like sometimes randomly May.
But I have enough years under my belt to know that. So I could prepare for that. I could have
(15:44):
something else in market in August, March, and May to shore up the lack of clients. Maybe I have a
flash sale on my fitness program, or maybe I run one of my little group challenges and get a little
influx of cash that way. There are busy times and there are slow times, just being more aware
(16:07):
of the patterns of those and having other products in your product suite to slide into these times.
So the fluctuations aren't, the amplitude isn't quite as dramatic between the good months and the bad months would be great.
Because I think that's one of the struggles, like somebody like me who came from a salaried job, you know, 12 years ago to working for myself, I'm used to getting the same amount of money in my bank every two weeks.
(16:31):
And now it's like chaos, utter chaos.
It would be nicer.
I'd feel a little more comfortable if I didn't have these big differentials between a good month and a bad month.
And also there's, I think, a perspective here just parenthetically about managing my nervous system state or my state of being.
Like, what if the fluctuations didn't feel like a crisis?
What if I didn't catastrophize them?
(16:52):
What if I planned for it?
What if I built systems that smoothed it all out so the year was more predictable?
Evergreen offers, launch offers, new product releases, group programs, you know, targeted email sequences.
I'm looking for five women to get started right now.
(17:12):
That kind of thing.
Because then a slow month wouldn't feel slow.
I would have stable months, predictable almost.
And I think that's probably the real goal for a lot of us.
Not to have big launch months or big months of riches,
but to have a business that feels steady and sustainable.
That just feels good.
I think that to kind of summarize this whole thing,
(17:33):
a slow month in business feels uncomfortable.
And a little more stability just feels more comfortable.
so here's the bottom line a slow month doesn't mean you're failing it doesn't mean you're irrelevant
it means you have breathing room breathing room to create breathing room to deepen connections
(17:56):
breathing room to improve delivery to notice how far you've come and celebrate that
breathing room to build systems that prevent panic and fluctuation. And so if you're in one of those
months right now, take heart, because you're still in business, you're still growing, and your next
wave of clients is coming. You just have to keep showing up so they can find you. And for those of
(18:22):
you brand new to your coaching business, who are listening to this with a mild state of horror that
this could actually happen. Wait, what? It's not going to be smooth sailing the moment I launched
my coaching business? It's not. But I think I've given you some really good actions here to
remember. And I say this to my peers all the time. My peers, I remind us all, myself included,
(18:44):
this is our job. This is my whole job. And every job has tasks that feel spectacular and tasks
that feel clerical. Nurturing your list, posting in Instagram, getting into the DMs,
getting in and fine tuning your curriculum, your client delivery feels very clerical,
doesn't feel very flashy or CEO ish, but still your job. So do your job, do your job,
(19:09):
you're still in business, baby, do your job, even in a slow month. Sometimes that's where
the best work gets done. This podcast was brought to you by Primal Health Coach Institute.
To learn more about how to become a successful health coach, get in touch with us by visiting
primalhealthcoach.com forward slash call. Or if you're already a successful health coach,
(19:31):
practitioner, influencer, or thought leader with a thriving business and an interesting story,
we'd love to hear from you. Connect with us at hello at primalhealthcoach.com and let us know
why we need to interview you for Health Coach Radio. Thanks for listening.
Hello, friends. Welcome back to Health Coach Radio. And today, I want to pull back the curtain and talk about something every single business owner experiences in pretty much every category of business, even if nobody really wants to admit it. And that is, what happens when business feels slow? Lessons from a slow month in business, courtesy of me, Erin, a health coach who just came through a slow month in business.
(00:28):
Hi, I'm Erin Power. I'm a health coach, a health coaching educator and mentor, and your host of
Health Coach Radio. This podcast delves into the art, science, and business of health coaching.
Whether you're aspiring to land a coaching dream job or to embark on your own entrepreneurial
adventure, we cover it all. Our mission is to help you grow your career, elevate your income,
(00:50):
change the lives of the clients who need your help, and leave a lasting mark in this rapidly
growing field. It's time for health coaches to make an impact. It's time for Health Coach Radio.
What is a slow month in business? While your calendar feels quiet, nobody's reaching out,
no one's booking calls, no one's emailing, inquiring about your services, the inbox feels quiet,
(01:16):
except for the spam and the newsletters that you forgot subscribing to.
And I know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Oh, but the good news is a slow month doesn't mean your business is failing.
It doesn't even mean anything's wrong.
In fact, there's tons of opportunity here.
And some of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a coach and as a business owner
(01:39):
have come from my so-called slow months.
So today in this very quick, punchy little solo episode, I want to share with you
five lessons I've learned from a slow month in business and how I've come to see slow months as
fertile ground for growth and creativity and stability in my business.
(02:01):
Lesson number one, you are still in business. And here's the first thing I remind myself,
even if my calendar is empty, even if I have no Zoom meetings on my Zoom agenda,
that always throws me for a loop when I have no Zoom meetings booked inside Zoom.
I'm still in business. I know that sounds obvious, but it's huge because our brain
(02:24):
wants to catastrophize. Well, no one's signing up. That must mean no one will ever sign up again.
My business is over. But pause right here. You still have a program. You still have skills.
You have expertise. You have a solution that people need. You have a service.
A quiet week or a quiet month does not erase that.
(02:47):
What it does mean is that now your job is to remind people that you're here.
The thing about this is, and this sounds a little harsh, but stay with me.
Nobody's thinking about you as much as you think about you.
So nobody's lying awake at night wondering how your client roster is doing.
(03:10):
No one's observing like, uh-oh, Aaron hasn't gotten any comments on her Instagram post lately.
No one's thinking about that, but you are.
And it's very, very front of mind for you.
And I want to validate that.
But we need to remind people that we are still out here, still doing the work, not going anywhere,
not going anywhere.
This is my job.
(03:31):
I have to remind myself that this is my job.
My job isn't just in coaching conversations with clients.
My job isn't just on the sales calls.
My job is in these moments talking about what I do to the people who are listening.
Maybe they're not acting, but they're listening.
And this, folks, is why content creation matters.
(03:51):
There, I said it.
I know a lot of health coaches don't love content creation.
You don't feel good about putting yourself out there or you don't know how to do it or
it feels awkward or weird or goofy.
And I completely get it, please.
But this is not about creating viral content or spamming people.
It's simply about showing up and saying, yep, I'm still here. I'm available. This is what I do. This
(04:14):
is my job. Booked and busy, baby. Here I am showing up on Instagram, showing up on YouTube, wherever
you show up in your inbox. I'm here. I'm working. I remember once when I didn't have anything going
on. Nobody was booking calls. So I just took it upon myself to go through my own Instagram feed
(04:37):
and pull out from the last like five years, the best performing posts. And all I did was
systematically reposted them. I just reposted like three a day posts I'd already created. I didn't
create any new content. And in just putting in that work with all my available spare time,
since I didn't really have a lot of calls on the agenda, people started commenting and people
started to see me prolifically posting. Oh man, she's really busy. Like she seems like she's
(05:01):
really busy. I should get in her calendar. It just, it's sort of like nothing draws a crowd
like a crowd. Do you know what I mean? So put yourself out there like you are booked and busy
professional because you are you will be. Nobody knows in this moment that you're not. So keep
executing like you're still very much in business and you are part of your job is content creation.
(05:23):
It's not just getting on the phone with clients. It's reminding people what you do,
and that you're still out there. People forget, it's our job to remind them.
My second lesson from a slow month in business is to engage with the people who are already in my
list. And I'm sighing with resignation because I'm so bad at this, calling myself out. I fail at
(05:50):
nurturing my leads, nurturing my leads. I fail at this. These are the people who sign up for my
email list or in my email system, or they're my audience on social media or people who subscribe
to my podcast or YouTube channel. I have them and I should be engaging with them all the time. In
(06:12):
fact, I would argue I should be doing that more than anything. These are people who said yes to me.
The people who have engaged with me. Not only that, but even people who maybe had a DM conversation
with you six months ago, scroll through your DMs. Oh, hey, Sally, I noticed you commented on my
casserole recipe from six months ago. I'm just curious. Did you ever make it? How did it go?
(06:35):
Did the family like it? Just, you got time. You got time. Start having conversations with people.
Send a mass email to your list and ask your list to email you back. Let's have a conversation back
and forth. Start commenting back to people on your social posts. Be social in social media.
Because these people are literally saying, I want to hear from you. And yet so often,
(06:58):
and I do this all the time, I'm focused on acquisition. I need new clients. I need new
leads. I have all these friends. I have these people already in my orbit.
So during quiet times, I recommend doubling down on engagement. Now, you already know I'm not good
at it, but I'm naming and taming it here with you. Reply to emails with extra thoughtfulness.
(07:22):
take time. Send a check-in message to past clients. Ask your social audience a question.
Have them reply to you in the DMs. Have conversations in the DMs. Crowdsource things.
I have a couple of examples here I'll share. I was thinking on this idea of,
well, I'll share with you. Is it normal for a mom to weigh out a kid's food?
(07:46):
Like if the mom is weighing her food, tracking her food, is it normal or weird for the mom to
do that with her kids. I don't know. I really don't know. I was just thinking about it one day
and I posted it in my Instagram stories. I said, Hey, what do you guys think? Let me know. And then
people started replying to my story and I started replying back to them. And I got some really
interesting insights. Like it was kind of a little crowdsourcing thought experiment,
(08:06):
market research inadvertently, great conversations with people, really interesting perspective. I have
tons of fodder for content now. I could write a whole email series on this. I could do a whole
YouTube video podcast on this just by having a conversation because I had a bit of downtime.
Hey, it's Erin, co-host of Health Coach Radio. I've trained men and women of all different body
(08:28):
types and skill levels and take it from me, women are made for strength. They may just have a
different way of getting there than men do. With the Primal Health Coach Institute's Strength
Training for Women Specialist Certification, you'll be able to address the needs, challenges,
questions, and goals most relevant to women. You'll learn how to design a training program,
(08:51):
and then you'll develop one. You'll also learn how to co-create individual eating strategies for
clients and how to navigate potentially sensitive topics like menopause, reproductive cycles,
hormone-related dysfunction, and diet culture. If you want to empower women to become fitter
and stronger, then visit primalhealthcoach.com and learn more about our specialization in
(09:12):
strength training for women. And also the other anecdote that I will share that I'm sure you've
heard a million times before is I've had clients on team dozens of occasions who have said,
I've been following you for five years and I finally pulled the trigger.
Like if your calendar's quiet, the next person who books your call with you might have been in
(09:36):
your audience for five years, but not if you're not talking to them. This is the power of engaging
So you already have an audience, doesn't matter how big or small it is, they're already there
listening to you. And the more you say, the more they'll listen. And the more they listen,
the more likely they will someday press your book a call button.
(09:59):
Lesson three from my slow month in business is this is my opportunity to improve client delivery,
which I'm very passionate about. Client delivery, which is the client experience,
the customer experience. A slow month gives breathing room to just go into the program
that you've written for your clients. So instead of filling every single hour with sales calls,
(10:22):
or for me burning my retinas out on Zoom all day long, suddenly there's some space I can take my
laptop to a coffee shop and just dive into my curriculum and find holes, leaks I can fill,
right? Opportunities to make it more robust or more clear, more concise. What's the customer
experience like when they book a call? Is that obvious when they get the intake form? Is it
(10:46):
user friendly? When I onboard them, do they receive all the emails? Is the onboarding email sequence
clear? Do my clients have the resources they keep asking me for the recipe guide or the exercise
plan? That's for me because I don't have any of those in my program. My clients are always asking,
well, a slow month is a great chance to build that. By the way, I did. I used my slow month
to build a strength training program for my clients. That's 12 years in the making, my friends. I got
(11:10):
it done in a month. I could have taken that slow month and just wallowed. But instead, I built
something brand new for my existing clients and my future clients. I mean, amazing value add. Oh,
if you join my program, I have a brand new strength training program you'll get for free.
Pretty cool. I also think about, you know, delighting my existing clients. They're my people.
(11:33):
I love my clients. Like I have deep respect for my clients and I want them to have a truly high
value experience. So am I delivering an experience that they rave about with their friends? They
can't help but tell people about this amazing coaching relationship they're in. Because here's
the truth. Great customer support, great delivery delight is marketing. A raving client is better
(12:01):
than any Facebook ad. And I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads. And I will
tell you, a raving client review is worth its weight in gold. My fourth lesson is a perspective
shift. And I hope you'll indulge me this one, my friends. What I consider a slow month now
(12:27):
used to be a huge month. So three clients in one month used to be a big month.
I would fist pump, I would celebrate. Now three clients a month is like the absolute rock bottom
number of clients that I can get. Three clients a month is a very slow month for me. It used to be
(12:51):
an insane, unbelievable amount of clients to get in one month. That perspective has changed.
That's growth. That's perspective. And sometimes the lesson of a slow month is,
dang, my standards have risen because my business has objectively grown.
And that's the kind of thing you don't notice as it's happening. You don't notice the fact that
(13:15):
where every single client used to be like Christmas morning, you've now kind of mellowed out. And
because clients are coming in more frequently, it's not as big of a deal anymore. You get the
chance to notice when a month is a little quote unquote slower that, you know, this is still a
good month. 12 years ago, Erin would have never expected that she'd be panicking about a month
like this. And I'm not panicking, but I just want to, you know, the catastrophization slides in there.
(13:46):
Like every successful health coach remembers the first 500 bucks they made. You know, the first,
the first time I sold an enrollment into my group program, my little group challenge,
$69. And I put it out there and somebody joined. Somebody joined. One person joined. Actually,
like eight people joined. But the first person that joined, I thought, oh my gosh, somebody joined.
(14:10):
Like I still delight in remembering those early days. I think that sometimes having a slow month
gives me the space to remember how far I've come. And you will come. It's inevitable. If you don't
quit, just like anything, if you don't give up, you will grow. That's the spirit behind this whole
talk. Don't give up because someday you'll be further down this continuum and you'll still
(14:33):
have slow months. But I want you to recognize that your slow months are very different.
They become very different as you grow. So take the time in a slow month to just quietly
celebrate the progress of it all. Otherwise, you could lose sight of how far you've come.
My fifth lesson from a slow month in business is, okay, fluctuations happen, but what if they didn't?
(15:03):
So my slow month, for example, was August.
And we can create all kinds of lore around why that would be.
Well, it's the last month of summer in the Northern Hemisphere where I live.
People are squeezing every dropout of their summertime.
They're camping.
They're traveling.
Once they get back into the routine of September, the floodgates will open and I'll just wait until
(15:23):
then, which usually pans out quite honestly. There's a few months of the year that I feel
are consistently slow. For example, August, March, and like sometimes randomly May.
But I have enough years under my belt to know that. So I could prepare for that. I could have
(15:44):
something else in market in August, March, and May to shore up the lack of clients. Maybe I have a
flash sale on my fitness program, or maybe I run one of my little group challenges and get a little
influx of cash that way. There are busy times and there are slow times, just being more aware
(16:07):
of the patterns of those and having other products in your product suite to slide into these times.
So the fluctuations aren't, the amplitude isn't quite as dramatic between the good months and the bad months would be great.
Because I think that's one of the struggles, like somebody like me who came from a salaried job, you know, 12 years ago to working for myself, I'm used to getting the same amount of money in my bank every two weeks.
(16:31):
And now it's like chaos, utter chaos.
It would be nicer.
I'd feel a little more comfortable if I didn't have these big differentials between a good month and a bad month.
And also there's, I think, a perspective here just parenthetically about managing my nervous system state or my state of being.
Like, what if the fluctuations didn't feel like a crisis?
What if I didn't catastrophize them?
(16:52):
What if I planned for it?
What if I built systems that smoothed it all out so the year was more predictable?
Evergreen offers, launch offers, new product releases, group programs, you know, targeted email sequences.
I'm looking for five women to get started right now.
(17:12):
That kind of thing.
Because then a slow month wouldn't feel slow.
I would have stable months, predictable almost.
And I think that's probably the real goal for a lot of us.
Not to have big launch months or big months of riches,
but to have a business that feels steady and sustainable.
That just feels good.
I think that to kind of summarize this whole thing,
(17:33):
a slow month in business feels uncomfortable.
And a little more stability just feels more comfortable.
so here's the bottom line a slow month doesn't mean you're failing it doesn't mean you're irrelevant
it means you have breathing room breathing room to create breathing room to deepen connections
(17:56):
breathing room to improve delivery to notice how far you've come and celebrate that
breathing room to build systems that prevent panic and fluctuation. And so if you're in one of those
months right now, take heart, because you're still in business, you're still growing, and your next
wave of clients is coming. You just have to keep showing up so they can find you. And for those of
(18:22):
you brand new to your coaching business, who are listening to this with a mild state of horror that
this could actually happen. Wait, what? It's not going to be smooth sailing the moment I launched
my coaching business? It's not. But I think I've given you some really good actions here to
remember. And I say this to my peers all the time. My peers, I remind us all, myself included,
(18:44):
this is our job. This is my whole job. And every job has tasks that feel spectacular and tasks
that feel clerical. Nurturing your list, posting in Instagram, getting into the DMs,
getting in and fine tuning your curriculum, your client delivery feels very clerical,
doesn't feel very flashy or CEO ish, but still your job. So do your job, do your job,
(19:09):
you're still in business, baby, do your job, even in a slow month. Sometimes that's where
the best work gets done. This podcast was brought to you by Primal Health Coach Institute.
To learn more about how to become a successful health coach, get in touch with us by visiting
primalhealthcoach.com forward slash call. Or if you're already a successful health coach,
(19:31):
practitioner, influencer, or thought leader with a thriving business and an interesting story,
we'd love to hear from you. Connect with us at hello at primalhealthcoach.com and let us know
why we need to interview you for Health Coach Radio. Thanks for listening.
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