Running Online Coaching Programs While Working 1:1 & With Groups

Online coaching programs provide health and wellness professionals with a powerful way avenue to broaden their impact, prevent burnout, and efficiently help more people. Compared, or in addition to, the traditional one-to-one care model, more practitioners are embracing the opportunities offered by online programs to effectively guide their clients, enhance their earning potential, and generate passive income streams. 

However, with numerous options available, it can be tough to determine which type of program suits you best. Do you provide a package with group coaching, an email-only program, or do you run a subscription service for clients? All of these options might be viable and beneficial, but only you can determine which setup is best for your practice. However, it helps to cut through the overwhelm when you know what’s worked for others, and that’s where this session comes in! In our Better Business Conversation with Lori Kennedy, we’ll dive deeper into Lori’s Fusion Method and present you with a step-by-step guide to implementing it in your coaching practice. Learn how to leverage online programs to future-proof your business and stay ahead of the curve in the constantly evolving online coaching landscape.

Breaking Free from the Traditional Practice Model & Exploring Online Coaching

In the traditional practice model, practitioners focus on a transactional relationship that ends after the 1:1 session concludes. The issue is that once the 1:1 is complete, there’s no structure in place for accountability, support, or ongoing coaching. As a result, practitioners often experience overwhelming frustration, while clients are left uncertain about what lies ahead. This model leads to price competition and trading time for money, leaving practitioners with limited availability and unable to dedicate themselves to their clients’ needs.

In this video, learn how Lori stepped outside this traditional box and inspires you to do the same! Lori gives us a peak at her “Fusion Method” and walks you through how it could fit into your business and help you reach your goals. 

What We Covered

• The benefits of combining 1:1 coaching with group coaching in the Fusion Method.
• The importance of creating a professional online coaching program that stands out in the market.
• The four key elements of the Fusion Method.
• The step-by-step guide to implementing the Fusion Method in your online coaching practice.
• How to create a personalized coaching plan that takes into account the client’s unique needs and preferences.
• The importance of progress tracking and regular check-ins to hold clients accountable and provide support.
• Creating a seamless coaching experience by choosing the right software.
• Real-life case studies of clients who have successfully utilized the Fusion Method to achieve their goals.
• Common challenges faced in online coaching and how to overcome them.
• The future of online coaching and how the Fusion Method can help coaches stay ahead of the curve.

Implement Lori’s Strategies in Practice Better

In this video, our Business Success Coach, Brittany walks you through how to apply Lori’s Fusion Method and build out each scenario seamlessly in Practice Better.

About Lori

Lori Kennedy is first and foremost a mom to her two kids. She’s the CEO of The Wellness Business Hub, the host of the Business Of Becoming podcast and the leader of the Take Your Health Practice Online Facebook Group and has been featured in Huffington Post, Fast Company and Inc.com. 

Using her personal experience of growing a multimillion-dollar company from her dining room table, Lori has a unique ability to empower, teach and motivate alternative practitioners and coaches to step outside of their comfort zones and build the business of their dreams. Lori’s tell-it-like-it-is style is a refreshing approach that allows her to connect with her professional colleagues. 

Her company, The Wellness Business Hub, exists to provide industry-specific business training and professional development to support health practitioners and coaches to start and grow their business online. They do this by creating high-value practical and applicable digital content like blogs, videos, the podcast and host live events with the intention of supporting their global community to reach for more and create an impactful business that changes lives.

Connect with Lori: Website | Instagram 

Better Business Conversations with Lori Kennedy (transcript below)

Take a moment to watch the session with Lori below.

Webinar Transcript

Brittany:
Welcome everyone. Thank you so much for joining today’s masterclass. We’re thrilled to have you here. Programs and courses remain one of the most popular topics amongst our community of health and wellness professionals. Excited to have you here today to learn about how to have a professional online coaching program working one-on-one or in a group. This masterclass is going to especially resonate with you if you are a licensed or regulated professional. Lori’s fusion method makes online programs and courses a possibility for everyone. There are lots of questions and considerations about where to prioritize your time, your money, and your energy. Maybe you felt like there’s too much red tape around running a program or course. Maybe you haven’t been sure about how to cover your bases legally or what content you’re allowed to actually share in use or things like whether you should be incorporating functional testing into your program.

There are obviously so many considerations like I said, but we are going to dive in and cover that all in the next 90 minutes as well as so much more. I do want to cover a few housekeeping items since we are live. Firstly, we are recording this session, so if you need to revisit it or step away early, no problem. We will be sharing the replay and kind of all the bonuses and links shared with you all. Your questions and engagements like Lori said are highly encouraged. So make sure you use that chat box to get the most out of today’s masterclass. So I want to kind of try that out with you all. Please head to the chat and share your excitement for today’s session with Lori. If you’re excited about learning about programs and courses today I want to see it in the chat so we have all that positive energy welcoming Lori in.

I’ll also be hanging out in the chat throughout the masterclass today, answering as many questions as I can just to help support. I will be answering questions as we go along. As I mentioned, this masterclass is scheduled for 90 minutes, Lori has tailored the next hour and a half to cover a lot of content. I’m going to quickly introduce and then I’ll let Lori take it away.

Lori, like many of us, is first and foremost a parent who wanted to do business differently and step outside the box with how she worked with clients and earned an income. As a former practitioner herself, she developed a method that allowed her to do just that while really recognizing the potential that we all have as health and wellness professionals and how we can take action and capitalize on that potential with the right business strategies and the right tools. So Lori has created the Wellness Business Hub and started the Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast. In fact, our CEO, Natalie was recently featured on one of those episodes, so you should go and check that out, and give it a listen. But notably today, Lori also founded the fusion method and that’s what we’re going to be learning about over the next 90 minutes. So welcome, Lori, we are so thrilled to have you here for this live Practice Better Masterclass.

Lori:
Thank you for having me. I see some of my clients are on here as well, so hello to everybody. I’m really excited to be here. I’m actually just going to spotlight myself. I’m actually going to leave my camera on as well so that you can… I feel like that’s just a little bit more of an intimate setting between you and me. I talk quite quickly. I also want to make sure that there’s time for questions. The content that I’m about to teach you is going to bring up a lot of questions because I’m introducing a new practice model to you. Just let the questions flow. If I’m not able to get to all the questions, I can go through the chat, sort of text stream after, and make sure that everybody has what they need.

If you need to jump off, this is being recorded. Otherwise, let’s rock and roll. I am going to share my screen. One thing about me is I require external validation, so I’m going to need you to participate because I already know this stuff, and so I’m going to be prompting you. So just keep that chat box open. Thank you, Martha, and Sabrina, and Ron for letting me know. Chrissy, Rebecca, Valerie, Natalie, Kelly. Okay, perfect. So Irene, Terry, thank you. I see all of you. So thank you for letting me know that I am good to go. Hey, Kathleen.

Diving Into An Online Coaching Business

This is the fusion method, and I teach this specifically for licensed and regulated professionals. We’ve worked with hundreds of them inside of Zero To Clients. Even if you are a practitioner and you’re not licensed or you’re not regulated or you’re a coach, also not licensed and regulated, this is still very applicable. What I found over the years is that a lot of practitioners and coaches still want to offer one-to-one sessions. Some of you are obviously required to do so as per your regulations, but there are a lot of practitioners who want to have an online program and don’t want to lose out on that level of personalization, and so they’re stuck because they don’t know how to put it all together. Type “yes” in the chat if that’s you, where you would love to be able to have some type of online program, free up your time, have some things more automated, but you just actually don’t know how do you put it all together?

I see a lot of you saying yes. Okay, fab. That’s what we’re going to do in this workshop. Turn off all distractions, be present here. Like I said, I have a lot to tell you. I speak quite quickly, and this is being recorded in case you miss anything that I say and you want to go back and listen after. Today’s agenda, we’re going to go through three considerations and then I’ll give you some exact next steps to take so that you don’t leave here feeling like you just drank from a fire hose. Consideration number one: the not-so-obvious secret to online practice growth. Consideration number two: the four elements to include in an online program. And then consideration number three: four different flexible practice scenarios. That’s really where I’m going to walk through the different ways that you can really streamline and simplify what it is that you do. The best part about it is that we use Practice Better inside of our own program. So inside Zero to Clients, which is the program that I offer, we recommend Practice Better as one of the tech tools that you would need. I can give some examples as I go through this as well in terms of how you can make this work using Practice Better. 

Get to Know Lori Kennedy

For those of you who don’t know who I am, and this is our first time interacting in this way, hello, it’s really nice to meet you. I am Lori Kennedy. I am the CEO and the founder of the Wellness Business Hub, which now works with thousands and thousands of practitioners and coaches from all over the world in every possible professional designation that you can think of. Before that, I was a personal trainer and then I became a nutritionist. A fun fact about me is I’ve never had a corporate job. I’ve worked in the alternative health and coaching industry my entire adult life since I was 19 years old. I love this industry. I love coaching, I love this industry. I would go to bat for any alternative health practitioner or coach because it’s what got me here. I think for a lot of us, we all have a history that got us here, whether that was because you had a health condition or a mental health condition or an obsession or a family member that you wanted to help. What I’ve come to learn about us as an industry is that we are here cumulatively to transform lives. Type “me” in the chat if you are here because you went through something or you knew that you could contribute to transforming lives where you went to school because you saw an alternative to mainstream medical whatever, therapy, coaching, whatever it is, right?

Yeah. Ramon is saying yes, Angie’s saying yes, Trinette, yeah, Valeria, Heather, yeah. That was really my journey was I was a personal trainer. I had horrible, horrible, horrible digestive system issues. I went to every doctor under the sun. I had every test that you could possibly think of from every hole in my body. Well, not every, but almost every hole in my body. And I was told everything was fine, and I was 23 years old and I was ill. Then I went to see a naturopathic doctor and turns out I had a horrible, horrible leaky gut and Candida, and my nervous system was a disaster, and I don’t need to explain any of that to you. I worked with her for a year to a year. I was 23 years old. I was away at university, and I followed that thing 100%, the protocol for a year to heal.

That’s when I was like, okay, all right, I can heal my body. Cool. Let’s go learn about this now. Then I went back to school to become a registered holistic nutritionist. I really wanted to become a naturopath, but I have I think a little bit of PTSD about math and science from when I was in grade nine. So that was out. The next best thing that didn’t require all of the science and all of the math was becoming a registered holistic nutritionist. That’s what I did. I became an RHN, and I struggled. After I graduated, I struggled. I struggled for two years, and it wasn’t until I actually stepped outside of the traditional practice box. We’re taught how to practice the same way. You have an hour-long session or 90 minutes, and I’ll go into that in a little bit.

Stepping Outside of The Traditional Practice Box

I stepped outside of the traditional practice box. This was in 2009. I created my very first signature program, and I called it WOW! Weight Loss. The reason that I called it WOW! Weight Loss is because what do you say to somebody when they’ve lost weight? You go, wow, you look so good. So that is what I did, and it very quickly grew. I was starting groups left and center. I was having people enroll in it all the time. I was working out of a gym. He asked me to expand in all the gyms. I had it in his four gyms, and then I had it in five other gyms. Then I was licensing it to fitness coaches and nutritionists and NDs all across Canada.

My peers started coming to me and saying, what are you doing? How are you doing this? So I started to teach them. I didn’t mean for it to turn into the Wellness Business Hub. I didn’t mean for me teaching how to create a signature program, literally almost 11 years later and I’m still here because clearly there’s still a lot more work to be done because your practice model hasn’t changed even though we’re now in 2023, and it should. That’s a little bit about me. That’s what makes me credible to give this masterclass to you. We’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of licensed and regulated professionals from Australia, New Zealand, California, all over the US, and over Canada. I’m very well-equipped to speak to the red tape and frustrations that y’all experience. That is enough about me. I already know this stuff. I am here for you. But I wanted to just give you a little insight in case we had never met before. And you’re like, what makes you credible to be talking to me about this? All of that makes me credible. 

The Old Practice Model

Why are we even talking about this? We are talking about this because the old practice model, the practice model that you are taught, the practice model that I was taught, it’s broken. It’s broken for so many reasons, and please don’t mistake what I’m saying in that one-to-one is not valuable. It is absolutely valuable, but the way that we are taught is broken. It’s actually not helpful for the client or the patient, and it is certainly not helpful for you.

The way that we were all taught, and it’s funny because it literally hasn’t changed since I was in school in 2007, is you were taught the practice model is individual sessions on a per fee basis, there’s 60 to 90 minutes, and then you have follow-up sessions, and it’s a transaction. It’s a transaction. The person, the patient, the client is coming into you and they are paying you for a dedicated amount of time. Type “yes” in the chat if that’s true for you, if that’s how you were taught, maybe you were taught to sell a bundle of sessions. But in essence, you’re transacting time, your time for their money, and it feels like a transaction, right? Okay, so Heather’s saying yes, Ron is saying yes. Luann is saying yes. Carrie’s saying 100%. Lynn is saying yes. Okay. So it’s a one-off. Maybe there are follow-ups, but even still, they’re paying for 30 minutes. They’re like, it’s 29 minutes, we still have a minute left. I want to get my money’s worth.

The Major Problems with the Traditional Practice Model

That’s what they’re paying for. It’s this very transactional way of operating and so you’re supposed to be reactive to them in the moment, you’re supposed to be a know-it-all of all things and you have to give them enough to be able for them to do it on their own and this is the really broken part because once they leave your office or the Zoom meeting or whatever platform you’re using to run virtual sessions, once they leave that there is no structure in place for any type of accountability, support, community or coaching. None. There’s no structure in place because it’s not built in. As I was saying, there’s no structure that follows… Hold on, let me just actually make sure that I’m on the right slide. There we go. As I was saying, there’s no structure out outside of that timed session.

So type “true”, if that’s true for you, where you have to answer the emails, you have to follow up, you have to hold them accountable, but there’s no system, there’s no actual structure in place for you to do that. And so it becomes exhausting for you. Honestly, pretty unfair for the client or the patient, because they don’t know what to expect. They have their own expectations in their mind of how they think that you should be and your level of availability to them. You know, you have a different level of expect expectation because in your mind you’re like, you’re not paying for this. I’m not being paid here. So there’s a mismatch in expectation, you become frustrated. If you’ve been doing this for any length of time, exactly what I’m talking about, if you’re still new, then you might not feel this way yet but if you’ve been doing this for any length of time, then you get it.

I remember those days where I didn’t have any sort of formal structure in place after they would leave. There’s no formal structure. There’s no formal structure, you’re also competing on price. You’re competing on price because when you’re selling a service, it’s easy to compare versus an outcome. When you’re selling 60 minutes or 90 minutes or testing or whatever it is, people are competing as if it’s a haircut. Well, a haircut from a junior stylist is usually $45. So why is yours 65? What makes you better? That doesn’t really feel good when you’re like, but I can help. What? We’re talking about your health here, we’re going to squabble over 10 bucks? You’re competing on price, you’re trading time for money. At the end of the day, especially if you’re really busy, your clients don’t get the best of you because you just don’t have enough time.

You don’t have enough hours in the day because when you leave your practice, whether that’s a physical clinic or your virtual clinic, you go home and you don’t want to deal with that anymore. You just want to be home and be with your family and be with your loved ones. At the end of the day, it’s like this cycle that you can’t seem to get out of. When I was experiencing that, that’s one of the reasons that I created that signature program so long ago was because I had a baby and I didn’t want to miss bedtime, and I saw the writing on the wall. When you’re a service provider, you have to be available during your clients’ or patients’ off hours. That means from four o’clock onward, weekend mornings, yes, some early mornings, some daytime hours, but at least my experience was is that everybody wanted to come to see me after four o’clock, after five o’clock.

That just wasn’t going to work for me. I had to figure out the best way to be able to give the level of results that I really wanted to provide, and not just the actual result, but an experience. I wanted my clients to have this beautiful experience with me where I transformed them and they knew it, where I could reliably get those results for people. I couldn’t do that if I was constantly having this revolving door of random people with random problems coming in through my office door, so to speak. The way that I combated that was by creating an online… Well, creating a signature program, which I later took online, but also through these considerations that I’m going to walk through with you now. Yeah, exactly, Mandy, right? It is. They don’t get the best of you, and that’s not fair to anybody. That’s certainly not why you went into this.

Consideration #1: Specialized, Scalable Systems with “In-Person” Trust

Consideration number one: specialized, scalable systems with in-person trust. When we think about moving online… Actually, what I would love to know from you, if you all are already online in any capacity, if you’re doing virtual care or if you have some type of digital offering, just type “online” in the chat. I would love to know sort of the mixture. When you move online, it’s a little bit different than when you are in a clinical setting. It functions differently. What I’m about to share with you is specific to online, although it would definitely help your clinical practice as well. When you move online and you have an online program, that online program is created to solve one specific problem for one type of person because you want to sort of attract all of the people that have that specific problem, and put them into your world.

I like to reference a duck pond. So you want all, I call them purple ducks. You want all your purple ducks coming to you because you are the leader of the purple ducks. All the purple ducks coming to you, they’re sitting in your duck pond. You do not want a duck pond with some pelicans, some pigeons, a hawk, a parakeet, a blue jay, each one of those birds should be sitting in its own duck pond. So your duck bond is filled with purple ducks because they have the problem you can solve. Does that make sense? Type “yes” in the chat, if that makes sense. You can help anyone and everyone in your clinical practice.

Build Trust and Intimacy Through Demonstration

But when we move online, because of the way that online is, we have to get focused and we have to get specific so that you are speaking about one specific problem, and then all of the people, all of the birds, all of the purple ducks that have that problem flock to you, and they sit in your duck pond and they look up at you and they go, can you help me? Can you help me? I have that problem. That’s me. You’re talking about me. We need to really know, in order to have a level of trust and intimacy, we need to understand what their problem is, how they feel about it, the devastation that it’s causing, and then you get to demonstrate your expertise and show them how you’re going to help them get rid of it.

You’re just going to keep saying the same things over and over and over again, and you’re going to keep demonstrating that you understand their problem, you validate how they feel about it, and you’re going to demonstrate through content, through webinars just like this, that you have a solution for them. The reason that you are repeating it over and over again is because there’s always new purple ducks coming into your pond. Some ducks leave because they’re no longer interested. Some ducks become clients and you’re constantly bringing new ducks in to fill your pond.

You’re going to be providing relevant information to them over and over and over again because they need to hear it multiple times in order for them to know you and like you and trust you, and look to you as the expert that can help them with their specific problem. You’re not just a naturopath, you’re not just a massage therapist, you’re not just a functional medicine practitioner. You are a functional medicine practitioner that specializes, that has a level of expertise in this one specific problem that your audience has, and therefore they’re going to want to work with you. Does that resonate with you? Does that make sense to you? Type “yes in the chat, if that makes sense. It’s how we streamline. It’s how we work smarter, not harder versus trying to help all the birds.

What Problem Does Your Online Program Solve?

We’re going to burn out if we try and help all the birds. You can’t do that, and that’s not fun, and you probably don’t even want to. The question becomes, and I know that this is something that a lot of practitioners and coaches, especially if you have experience struggle with because you’re like, I can help them with a lot of things. I want you to tell me in the chat, what’s one specific problem that your online program, don’t worry about one-on-one and how much and this and that. We’re not going to go there yet. Tell me in the chat, what is the problem that you can help people solve? Okay? Rebecca says, yes, I like this, adult female acne. Leah says, burnout prevention and recovery. Robin says, learning how to meal plan. Yep. Mandy says, PTSD and trauma recovery, yeah, metabolic health. Kelly says, exhaustion. Katrina disordered eating, Cora eczema. Lakia, please tell me if I mispronounce your name and correct me, PCOS. Brenda says, hormonal imbalance, Dr. Rupa, women over 50 who want to lose belly fat.

Yes. Okay, so you’re all getting this amazing, I love it. So here for it. Lara says RBS, women with low back pain. Okay, fabulous. So that is your area of specialization. So when somebody says to you, what do you do? You’re going to say, oh, I work with women who are pre-diabetic. It’s clean, it’s simple. You’re not going to say, well, I’m a functional nutritionist, naturopathic life coach, doctor who has 32 years of experience. You’re not going to do that. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. All they want to know is, can you fix my problem because I have this problem? Can you fix it? Are you sure you can fix it? Because if you’re sure that you can fix it, I’m in. That’s all anybody cares about.

We don’t have to go on with the long list. If people are interested, they will ask. But I would love for you moving forward to introduce yourself. When somebody says, oh, what do you do? Instead of saying, oh, I’m a naturopathic doctor, for example. I would love for you to say, I specialize in working with women over 35 to support their thyroid. As a naturopathic doctor, that’s such a better introduction. So I would love for you to be able to use that. Absolutely. And you know what? Some patients, client definitely care about your credentials specific to helping them. They want to know that you are credentialed to help them with their specific problem, it’s not just a general thing.

Lead With Your Speciality

They probably wouldn’t care if they didn’t think you couldn’t help them. So we’re not going to lead with that. We’re going to lead with, I can help you with, I can help solving your problem. This is the sentence: I specialize in working with people who have, because that is… Whoop, I’m just going to not touch my mouse. This is the sentence. We’re talking about moving online, that’s the sentence we lead with. Because if you lead with, I’m a naturopathic doctor, it’s general, it’s generic. They still don’t know if you can help them. We’re wasting time. I don’t want you to waste time. So in all of the places that people could possibly learn about you, I want you to give them an opportunity to self-identify. Can this person help me with my specific problem or not? It’s really important. It’s really important to lead with I specialize in working with people who, and then that way they can continue to learn more about you, but they need to know right off the hog if you can actually help them, right? If you can actually help them.

It’s a really important thing because people just want to know that you can help them. They’re not here to buy naturopathic services. They’re not here to buy you, you as a functional medicine practitioner. They are here because they believe that your skills and your education as a functional medicine practitioner can solve their painful problem. Does that make sense? Type “yes” in the chat, if that makes sense. They don’t want to buy you, right? They don’t want to buy you. Let’s just skip all of that and be like, yeah, I can help you. This is who I work with. Now we’re just getting right to it and we’re almost like bypassing that superficiality piece, and we’re getting right to the trust and right to the intimacy, which does matter.

How People Use the Internet

The other reason is because this is how people use the internet. They are searching for solutions to their painful problem. That’s what they’re searching for. They’re typing in suffering from anxiety motherhood? How to get rid of IBS naturally? How to lose the weight quickly? ADHD and gluten, supplements and eczema. I saw some of you do eczema there. Brain fog and aging. That’s what they’re typing in. You, as the professional and your program and your offerings need to pop up. They need to pop up. That’s why I start this masterclass with that consideration because we have to lead with the problem that they have, not necessarily with our credentials, right?

Fill Your Online Programs with Ease

A lot of people get it wrong and they do it the other way. These are just some of the professionals that we’ve worked with over the years, and I’m giving you these examples because they’re all licensed and they’re all regulated, and you can immediately go to their Instagram bios and know exactly what they do and who they work with, immediately. It’s really important when we’re talking about getting clients and getting patients and growing online so that we can free up a lot of our time. This is one of the strategies to be able to do that and to be able to fill the online program, to be able to fill those one-to-one sessions with ease. With ease. I wanted to just give you some of these examples. Dr. Kelsey Duncan, she’s a naturopathic doctor. She’s the founder of the Fertility Confidence Method. Natalie is a pharmacist, and she helps women naturally reset their metabolism.

The Creator of the ADHD Support and Parenting Method. It’s really important to recognize Dr. Danielle Watson, the mother doctor, right? Preconception, pregnancy and postpartum. Even though as a naturopath, she’s trained to help all the people, she recognized that that’s a lose-lose situation when you move online. She went and specialized, and that’s what I want for you, and it’s going to make it so much easier when you go and you create those online programs and we fuse together different offerings so that you don’t have 17 different things. You have one main offering that we then add these things into. It’s so much easier to grow it because you have the systems in place and you’re just funnelling all the people there, and it’s super streamlined and it’s really easy.

This is Tiffany, she’s also a naturopathic doctor. She specializes in working with people with eczema. She says, I went from not knowing about being online to building a program, enrolling seven people in it since and working with my ideal client privately. You go as a naturopathic doctor, for example, to not knowing a thing to then figuring it all out and being able to move online and see patients online. Then I got this screenshot from her when she had her baby, and she had her highest revenue month, the same month she had her baby. If you’re working in that transactional way, that’s not possible because you only get paid when you physically show up. This fusion method, the way that I’m going to teach you, is actually going to give you the flexibility and the freedom that you desire.

That’s consideration number one, in order for your clients and your patients to feel safe and feel validated and feel like, yes, this person, this stranger, because you don’t have the energy of sitting in front of each other can help me, we have to get specific and we have to streamline. You’re going to specialize in working in a specific area, and you’re going to demonstrate that you can help them and put all those purple ducks into a pond. Now you have all of those purple ducks in the pond, and they’re looking up at you and what you got from me? How can you help me? 

Consideration #2: The Fusion Method

This is consideration number two is actually having the fusion method, fusing online systems with one-to-one care to create this really flexible and freedom-based online offering. Who here has an online program? Type “me” in the chat if you actually have an online program.

Okay, fabulous. You’re building one in Zero To Clients. I’m going to explain this in parts. In order for you to offer the level of support and the level of care that you desire at the base of everything that you do online is an online program, one online program that is created, designed to solve that specific problem that your ideal client, that your purple duck has one program. We’re creating it based off of foundational things that that purple duck would need to know and do. It’s not an in-depth thing. It’s foundational content that all of your clients should be doing. Until they have the foundations in place, they really shouldn’t be diving deeper. When we think about what you’re going to offer online, you’re going to offer your online program.

The 4 Must-Have Elements in an Online Program

What’s an online program? Well, an online program includes these four things. Number one, after somebody purchases, what happens? You need to onboard that. You need to have a very supportive, loving, hypey, excited onboarding process because they’ve just now signed on with you and they’re scared, they’re nervous. Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes, yes, let me overhaul my entire lifestyle. I’m so excited. Nobody does that. They’re begrudgingly doing it because they’re in pain and they want to get better, but it’s hard and they know it. Most people know that creating this type of change is difficult to some degree. After they complete the purchase with you, you’re going to onboard them.

#1: Automated Client Onboarding Process

What that looks like is sending a dedicated welcome email, welcoming them, hyping them up, getting them super excited and laying out the entire itinerary for how they are going to work with you during your dedicated eight or 12 week or 16 week program, whatever that looks like for you, so that they feel completely supported so that they feel taken care of, so that they’re not having to look through their email for five different things, where the link to this and the link to that and the form to do this, and the thing to do that, it’s all in one place because you’re a professional and your job is to teach them that life can be simple and that creating change is not hard. You’ve thought through all of the experience that they’re going to have and so you’ve outlined it for them in this really easy-to-follow email that we call this onboarding process. You are onboarding them so that they have expectations set correctly from the start. They know exactly what to do next. There’s no guessing, there’s no frustration, there’s no angst. You’re also including access to your platform so that they can create their account, they can log in and they can on demand, start going through your content hub and start consuming your program content where they’re going to get a welcome module and then they’re going to get module one, and they’re going to start to actually take action. They don’t necessarily have to wait until an intake unless they do, in which case you would explain that to them.

You are literally explaining to them exactly how they are supposed to move through your program. Either way, they still get access to the content hub. Whether they can start or not is dependent on the way that you need them to move through the program. Does that make sense so far? Type “yes” in the chat. Does that make sense? So part of what they’re paying for is this experience. I think sometimes we forget that, part of what is going to get you word of mouth, part of what is going to help your business blow up is this word of mouth experience to be like, it was a phenomenal experience. Everything was easy, everything was smooth, I had everything I needed. So they’re logging into the Practice Better platform and they’re getting whatever content you want them to get at the beginning.

You are thinking through this systematically in the sense that if they have to wait to meet with you, what are they going to do in the meantime? We’re thinking these things through so that they have the best experience from the minute their credit card is charged, they’re not having to wait. Inside of Practice Better, you have all of these options to design this experience for them. So also in this onboarding, if they were to purchase supplements, if they were to purchase testing, if you wanted them to do anything, this is where you would instruct them to do that. Everything is laid out very clearly, very beautifully, and they’re on their way. In onboarding, they’re getting the links to whatever intake forms, whatever supplements, whatever you want them to buy. And they’re also being instructed to create their content hub account.

#2: Specialized Signature Protocol

They’re starting to go through your signature protocol, which is your pre-recorded lessons, your pre-made handouts that is all stored in the Practice Better platform that you can then give to them at whatever duration you want them to be going through the program. It’s all automated. It’s all set up for you. So at the core of what we’re doing online, it’s having that program. If you don’t have that program yet, I would say that that would be one of the things that you should be focusing on creating so that you can create the systems that I’m going to talk about and give yourself a level of flexibility and freedom that you will not ever have if you continue to just sell those 60 minute of time sessions. The other things that your clients or patients are paying for in as part of working with you in this offering, our client patient support and accountability and community.

#3: Client Support Options and #4: Client Accountability & Community

When somebody is paying you to enroll in your IBS be gone system and to work with you for the next 12 or 16 weeks, they’re paying for the experience. They’re paying for access to the protocol, they’re paying for the coaching, they’re paying for the accountability, they’re paying for the support. It is a offering. It is a full offering. Type “yes” if that makes sense to you, versus them just paying for 60 minutes. So it’s a full offering. So at the core, your base offer is this program. Now we get to the really fun stuff where you can start to add in, you can start to fuse together different methods of care. So this is Gillian, she’s a social worker. She’s heavily, heavily regulated, and she says, I literally sold three programs today, two earlier in the week and two the week before that. She’s a social worker.

She’s a social worker who sat in a room and had people come in on the hour every hour, five days a week. That’s exhausting. There’s no way she can bring her best self to those people who client number seven does not get the best, Gillian, right? It’s just true. It’s just true that way. We want to make sure that at the core, we have that program, right? We have the onboarding, we have the program, now we get to decide how to fuse these things together to create different enrollment offers. Without the base program, without onboarding and that base protocol, you can’t do this. We have to do that first. Now let’s talk about what this looks like. I’ll share what I did. When I had, WOW! Weight Loss, I had WOW! Weight Loss and people could enroll into it and they could come into my, let’s call it a group, but I had people joining all the time.

Lori’s Signature Program: Wow! Weight Loss

I had my weekly, I called them wow sessions. I had my weekly wow sessions. I had two in the morning and I had two at night. I had four a week that people could join ongoing. People could get started at any time and they could pick their coaching session. I didn’t call it coaching at the time because I didn’t know what that was, but it’s a coaching session. It’s a Q&A, it’s office hours, whatever, it’s right. People would enroll and they would pay the money and then they would get their materials. It was not online at this time. I gave them their coil-bound binder and all of the good stuff. They would start and they would be onboarded, and they would start and they would come every week. I would weigh them and I would answer all their questions based on where they were.

It was like this evergreen ongoing enrollment situation where people were constantly coming in and they were constantly leaving. I could do that because it was so systematized, it was not a big deal. They got their package on the first day that they showed up, I emailed them a bunch of stuff and away we went. That was one fee. That’s how I did it. Then I had other people, so that would be scenario two. Then I had other people who were like, I don’t want that. I want private. I was like, cool, it’s 12 weeks. We can do weekly sessions. It’s more money, but come on in and I’ll roll you through WOW! Weight Loss privately every single week. That’s scenario number one. So scenario number one is they’re still getting access to your online program. They’re enrolling in your online program, but the method of care is private.

They’re paying more, they’re seeing you every week, every other week, and they’re going through the protocol, and then when they show up to see you, you’re basically coaching them through the execution. They’re asking you questions, you’re checking in with them, you’re making sure that they actually do it. That’s scenario number one. Scenario number two is what I used to have, which is people coming in all the time. I would have these standard set weekly office hours. I called them just community check-ins. They would come and it’s coaching, its group coaching calls. They would come in every single week until their time was done, and if they wanted to renew, they could renew. I had to just show up and answer questions. It was beautiful. Scenario number one is just one-to-one, scenario number two is weekly coaching, scenario number three is where we fuse them together.

4 Ways to Offer Your Online Program

For those of you that are licensed and regulated, this is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to have a preset number of sessions, so maybe it’s a minimum three. Beginning, middle and end. They would come in and they would enroll into the program. You’re setting the expectation from the start that it’s 12 weeks, they’re enrolling into this program. With that, you were also going to get three one-to-one sessions and access to our weekly community coaching sessions. You’re going to get both. The fee is going to reflect that. That’s scenario number three. If you’re licensed and regulated and you have to offer how you do it, that’s how you do it.

Then scenario number four, this is for those of you who are licensed and regulated and want to offer your program outside of your licensed or regulated province or state, you do it as a full-on self-study, no coaching, no access to you at all. They’re just getting access to the content hub and because they’re being onboarded properly, they’re able to now go through it like a self-guided course. There’s zero access to you whatsoever. It’s like they’re buying a book, but it’s just on the internet. It’s a course, it’s an educational course, right? Educational course. These are your options. When I started to get really, really busy, of course I was pushing everybody into the weekly community coaching because that gave me the opportunity to have weekly calls, check-ins with 12,15 people at a time.

Then I had those people who were like, Nope, I want to see you privately and I’m happy to pay. I’m like, cool. But every single person was following my protocol. The emails, they got, the follow-up emails, the check-in emails, everything was the same because every single person that came in was a menopausal woman who just wanted to lose weight. They were all able to follow my program. It wasn’t like I was having to run over here and create a protocol over here and then run over there and create a protocol over there. No, I had my protocol. I could adjust as needed, but it was so streamlined that it was easy. It was easy for me to grow it, right? It was easy for me to grow it.

Jordan is asking a really good question. What if I’m providing a program outside of my designated profession? I’m a chiro and I want to offer a weight loss program, and I want it to be separate from my chiro practice. So number one, and again, I’m not a lawyer and I’m not obviously head of your regulated body. Whatever I’m about to say to you is from my own experience, your license will prevail. If your license prohibits you from providing nutrition advice, your license will prevail unless you drop your license. The way around that is you have to go get some additional certification that allows you to talk about and give recommendations around whatever it is that you want to do. Otherwise, if you don’t have that, the scope of your license prevails. I am allowed to provide nutritional recommendations. Then go and do that. Two separate businesses. That’s how you do it. Two separate businesses. 

Let me continue on because I can see all the questions. These are the scenarios.  I want you to picture in your head when somebody comes to you and they’re like, can you help me with such and such? You’re going to say, yes, I have a program called Weight Loss Connections. They’re like, amazing. Then you go through your consult and you’re like, you know what? You have a lot of contraindications. It would be better if I gave you the VIP package, which includes some one-to-one care and also weekly sessions because of your pre-diabetic state, because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How does that sound to you? They’re like, that sounds great. Now you have the flexibility to be able to offer what the client or patient needs and do it in a way that is automated and systematized because you have that baseline program created.

That’s the fusion method because you can literally fuse in any of these different scenarios without having to recreate the wheel. You don’t have to come up with new stuff, you don’t have to make stuff up on the fly, and you get to grow your business. You get to grow your practice and put all of these people who all have the same problem in a community with each other so that they can then benefit from accountability and support. It’s all baked into the fee. So you’re not resentful anymore and they’re actually getting results. You’re not working around the clock and you can show up as your best self. You can show up as your best self. And so these are just a little bit more details in terms of the scenarios.

Scenario #1: 1:1 Patient/Client Session Option

For those of you who don’t have experience, because I just saw a question, hold on. Who was asking it? Somebody asked how long you have to work with one-to-ones. Kiara, I think is how I say your name. How long do you work one to one to develop your signature program to know what worked for your clients? You don’t even have to because you have that knowledge of following a protocol. One of the things, and this is a side note, but I’m going to say it anyway, is we teach how to beta test something, like how to beta test your program to know. Even if you want to put together an online program and you don’t have any experience, that’s okay, you can still put together a protocol and test it. Scenario number one, again, it’s very easy to do. You’re getting people to enroll into your online program.

You are setting the expectation that it is X weeks in advance. So they’re not just like, oh, it’s 60 minutes of time. They’re enrolling into this, they want to do this. In the onboarding, you’re explaining to them how the sessions work that they need to go and they need to consume the content prior. They need to do the things you’re telling them to do. Then they need to bring their challenges to the calls. So you’re not having to repeat what gluten is a hundred times. You’re not having to educate them. You should never have to do that. That should all be recorded because it’s boring and it’s repetitive and that’s not a good use of your expertise. You can do it one time and record it, and then it’s in there. Then they can go and listen to how to read a food label or how much water to drink or what fiber is or how to breathe or whatever it is that you do with that.

It’s all in the content hub inside Practice Better. You can monitor and track them through Practice Better. You can say, okay, we only have two weeks left and you can choreograph this beautiful experience for them and everybody has the same experience. You standardize it. The only thing that changes is the support options. 

Scenario #2: Weekly Community Coaching Sessions

Scenario number two, no one-on-one, just weekly community coaching, eventually you can hire a coach to do this for you. You’re not even going to need to do it yourself. You can just stick to the one-on-ones and the really hard cases, if that’s something you want to do, they’re available in a group, and it’s added value. When you put people who are all suffering with the same issues together, they’ve never had anybody else say, me too, it is so powerful. So powerful.

When they’re enrolling into your program, you’re saying, absolutely, you’re going to come in and you’re going to get access to me every single week, and it’s Q&A. You can ask your questions and I will do my very best to answer them. Obviously, you’re not providing personalized recommendations. What you’re doing in these sessions is you’re basically just referring them back to the content. You’re saying, you know what? That’s a really valid challenge. Why don’t we try what I recommended in module two? Most people don’t consume the content. Most people don’t read, they don’t listen to things all the way through, and so you’re there just sort of referring back.

Now, if it happens that there’s a situation where they need more care, then that’s when you can say, you know what? I’m not equipped to answer this right now. However, there is an option for you to upgrade and let’s add on some one-to-one sessions. Again, you get to act in integrity. You don’t have to bend over backwards, you don’t have to be reactive, you don’t have to go outside of your scope. You can do it in this very professional, very systematic way, and it benefits everyone. You don’t have to break boundaries and it benefits everyone. That’s scenario number two.

Scenario #3: 1:1 Sessions + Weekly Coaching Sessions

Scenario number three, fusing it all together, right? Fusing it together. This is where those of you that are licensed and regulated, this is where you’re going to sit and you’re going to bring them in, and they’re going to have a set number of one-to-ones with you, whether it’s virtual or in person, or a combination of both.

They’re going to get access to the weekly coaching so that they can be inside of the community if they so choose. That way you’re able to really personalize it and you’re able to feel like you are heavily supporting them in this high touch environment. They’re having a phenomenal experience because for the first time ever, they’re actually being supported. They’re actually being supported, which is huge. Everybody needs accountability, everybody needs support, and you’re being compensated, and all the questions and whatnot are in the group. The members who’ve been in there for a while are helping the newbies, and you’re like, wow, I don’t even need to do much. I don’t even need to do much. This is great. This is amazing.

Scenario #4: Self-Guided With no Access

Then scenario number four, again, for those of you that are licensed and regulated, this is how you help people outside of your state or your province. I saw somebody say, how do we know? When they’re booking a consult with you to initially talk about the potential of you helping them, in the consult form that they’re filling out you’re going to ask them where they live. Then that way you have a screening process in place. For people that live outside of your regulated area, this is how you help them. Now, the practitioners and coaches that I work with, we don’t start with this. This is something that they add on after they’ve gotten everything established, and it’s another revenue stream for them. They work very much with people inside of their state or inside of their province. Then once they’ve got that down, now they go outside. It’s sort of like a two-step process because the operation of care is a little bit different and so we have to think about it like it’s two streams, right? It’s the same program, but two revenue streams. Does that make sense? Type “yes” in the chat, if that makes sense. I just want to make sure that you’re tracking with me. That makes sense? That’s the fusion method, and that’s what we teach and that’s how you’re able to do what you want to do in the exact way that you want to do it without it sucking the life out of you, which I think is great, which I think is great.

Examples of Scenarios in Action

This is Dana Kay, and I love sharing her success story because her business has blown up and she works with families who have ADHD. She said, I’m having a total freak out. It’s the 21st of the month and we have a week to go and I’ve already done $18,000. She came with nothing. She had no program, she had no list, she had nothing, nothing. She created her program to help parents who have a child with ADHD. She launched it and was immediately putting people in. And so ever since she’s grown it, and now she offers supplements, and now she has… As you grow, you get to add things on to expand the practice. It’s amazing. So the way that you’re able to do that is because you originally started with an area of specialization.

These are some of my other clients as well. I want to be cognizant of time, I’m going to read you Missy. Missy works with people who have a thyroid situation and want to lose weight. I love Missy’s story because she says, we didn’t make any of our numbers this month, but I spent half the month living in the hospital. I only worked one to two hours a day. My husband is still alive. He was going through I think his fourth round of chemo. She had a two-year-old. She says, my husband is still alive. So I’m pretty happy with the $23,000 I slid in with. I just want that to sink in for a minute. She was able to do that because her business was mostly automated and she showed up to coach. $23,000 helping women with their thyroid working one to two hours a week and still being able o support her husband. That is a very big deal. You can only do that when you work online in this way.

I’m just going to give you some examples too, of the practitioners who are selling the self-study, because often the self-study is sold at a lesser fee as well. This is Dr. Kelsey Duncan, seven low barrier sales. This is Louise. She says, I did my ever first ever paid workshop, two sales this week so far. Again, there’s options for you once you have all of this in place. This is Alicia, she’s a dietician. She said, I sold 12 and hoping for eight more by the end of the day. That’s for her self-study. She did the work one time to create the online program, and now she’s selling it over and over again. There’s no coaching. There’s no coaching involved because she’s a dietitian and she couldn’t work with these people outside of her state. There’s all of these options that you have because flexibility and freedom is possible.

You need systems that allow you to specialize. You need to have an area of specialization so that you can demonstrate that you can help people. That allows you to provide a feeling of in-person trust. We have to mimic that because they’re not sitting across from you. You’re a stranger on the internet and so are they, and so we have to mimic that in-person trust. The only way to mimic that trust is by speaking to them about what’s really going on and validating their experience. Doing the work upfront gives you that flexibility. It gives you that time freedom and it gives you scalable systems that allow for growth without you having to add more client hours.

It’s really fulfilling because you now have space, you have bandwidth. You’re not resentful, you’re not annoyed, you’re not bored, and you can see the potential of what you’re creating to make you as wealthy as you desire to be. I know sometimes in the alternative health and coaching space, that is a dirty word, but it is not a dirty word because you are transforming lives and you deserve that flexibility and the freedom and the finances to live your very best life. Now we’ve come to this place where it’s like, okay, you have a choice. I know this is all new information to you. I understand, it was to me too, and I know you have a lot of questions. You can continue down this path doing the same old thing, the same old thing, the same old thing, and getting the same results or you can say, you know what? Absolutely it’s 2023, this is available to me. This is what I want to do and I want to use Practice Better to do it.

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