Nicole Aucoin:

Today, we’re talking about five strategies to avoiding a challenge trap. And Ashley, I think almost every single gym has fallen for the challenge trap, every gym that we have talked to. For those of you who don’t know who we are, my name is Nicole Aucoin, founder of Healthy Steps Nutrition, where we believe something as fundamental as nutrition shouldn’t be complicated. And today, we have our director of nutrition education, Ashley Osterman with us. Ash, thanks for joining.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah. I’m also the lead nutrition coach at CrossFit HSN, where we have our own challenges usually once or twice a year. So, we’ve got a great insight for you today and good strategies to help you implement so you make sure that you avoid the challenge trap.

Nicole Aucoin:

Awesome. So, let’s go ahead and get started talking about the challenge trap. Again, if you have any questions at all, type those in the chat. If you’re watching the recording of this, awesome. Message us, we are happy to answer any questions that you have.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, if we think about the challenges, we think about nutrition challenges, it is not just the nutrition coach or the owner, it’s really about the team. Everyone has to be on the same page. And for you to have a successful nutrition challenge, we really want everyone to be on the same page. So, let’s go ahead, and this is our team, this is our HSN mentoring team. When we think about ensuring everyone’s on the same page, some of your team members might not really know what your nutrition program is about. Having them be test clients for your nutrition coach, especially if you have a new program that’s launching is a really great strategy. Who’s a better poster child for your nutrition program than the people who are standing in front of your ideal nutrition clients, your members every single day? So, think about that as we are going through this training. How can you get your entire staff on board to avoid this challenge trap.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, we are going to talk about Healthy Steps Nutrition just for a second because if you think about nutrition coaching and you think about nutrition challenges, they are a great way to kick start a program. But we know that people will regain the weight that they worked really hard to lose if they don’t have the accountability and the support of a nutrition coach. So, we need people, we need our entire staff to be on the same page.

Ashley Osterman:

And I think that comes down to making sure everybody understands the message of your nutrition program. And for us, it’s making simple habit-based changes to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely.

Ashley Osterman:

That’s our core message, and you can ask anyone on our team, no matter what their role is, they’re going to be able to tell you that.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely. So, I want to talk about why a challenge is a great way to kickstart a program and some of the common mistakes that we hear, like what is the challenge trap.shot? Well, the challenge trap is when you essentially run challenges, but your nutrition program ends at the end of a challenge. And we don’t want that. We want to make sure that everyone has the support they need to achieve long term success. I’m sure you’ve run challenges before, people have seen great results, they’ve lost the weight, they do everything that you ask them to do during a challenge. But then after the challenge is over, one bad weekend turns into a bad week, turns into a bad month. And we don’t want that to happen. So we have to avoid the challenge trap. Right?

Ashley Osterman:

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, before we get going with actually the strategy to avoid the challenge trap, let’s start off by talking about the client journey. So, it’s really important when we think about the client journey, and I even was on a podcast yesterday talking about scaling. You have to understand who your ideal clients are and what they want to accomplish. And when we look back at our ideal clients, they really want to increase their confidence. They want to lose weight, but what happens, why do they want to lose weight? Well, the end result is they want to feel confident, they want to feel confident in their skin, they want to take control of their health. So let’s work backwards from that.

Nicole Aucoin:

What problem do they have? Well, truthfully, there’s so much information about diet and exercise out there. Most people are so overwhelmed because they have no idea what diet is right for them. They’ve tried so many different things from multilevel marketing schemes to, goodness gracious, everything under the sun, and we want to give them a clear path for success. We have to be flexible with our approach, and really looking at a holistic approach. But we need to understand where they’re coming from. Most people try seven to eight diets before seeking a professional. So dieting is not something new for a lot of people.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, when you’re talking about your client journey, we want to make sure the problem, we position ourselves as a guide. And that really means that we’re establishing authority. How can you help someone and how can they know that you can help them with nutrition? That goes along with the free content that you’re pushing out. I have conversations with gym owners all the time about content that they’re pushing out or maybe they’re giving us so much free help. And if you’ve found yourself in this situation where you’ve given out all the free help to your clients to help them achieve their goals but they never really pay you for nutrition coaching, we have to have that line of the free content that you give out, and then the paid services that you offer for your clients.

Nicole Aucoin:

Ashley, we just did a webinar an hour ago, a nutrition talk on healthy meals made easy. And we’ll go ahead and we’ll put that link in the chat for you. But we did this free nutrition talk to the community just to give out information to provide free help. And when people are ready for individualized coaching, they know to come to us.

Ashley Osterman:

Like you were saying, Nicole, it really shows you have the authority, and you’re building rapport with a potential client before they even see you face to face. So think about what type of message you’re putting out there, whether it’s in your email and a blog, on social media, nutrition really needs to be a part of that, so people can understand and associate nutrition with your business.

Nicole Aucoin:

All right, so, let’s go ahead and let’s talk about really strategy number one. You have to create a clear client journey. We have to tell people exactly how we can help them, and that your nutrition program is not going to end at the end of a nutrition challenge. This is just the beginning. If you think about how we push nutrition information out and challenge information out, people know what happens after the challenge is over, and it starts by your marketing before your challenge.

Nicole Aucoin:

Hey, are you interested in kick-starting your journey to health? Are you interested in joining this nutrition challenge to help dial in your nutrition? Individual coaching is really where the magic happens but we would love to help you. Right?

Ashley Osterman:

Yes, absolutely. The challenge is that a kickoff, it’s the kickstart to someone’s health and wellness journey. Like Nicole said, we know that 75% of people who do a diet are going to gain the weight back. And the reason why is they don’t have that accountability and the support. So you need to be talking about what happens after the challenge before the challenge starts.

Nicole Aucoin:

So when we look at this client journey, I want us to really get a good visual of what this looks like. So, this is how it looks at Healthy Steps Nutrition. We have a nutrition challenge that’s one way for people to start. Then we also have phase one. It’s a three month commitment. And people go into ongoing coaching after the challenge is over. You want to really think about your pricing here because pricing is such an important piece of the puzzle. If you start your nutrition challenges really low and then it’s a higher price for ongoing coaching, it’s going to be tougher for you to convert people to ongoing coaching.

Nicole Aucoin:

So take a second to look at this visual because you really want to understand, all right, what is my challenge price going to start at, and then what’s my ongoing coaching price? And if you’re unsure even with these ranges, hey, what is my price, what should be the best price for me based on my membership pricing, that is what we do with HSN mentoring figure out exactly what price is. Talked to a gym in New Jersey today, and their membership rate was 229. My membership rate at my gym is 155. Our nutrition prices are going to be a little bit different because our gym membership, our personal training membership is a lot lower. He can probably charge a little bit more for nutrition coaching or be on the higher end of the spectrum.

Nicole Aucoin:

Conversely, if your membership rate is only $60 a month, it’s going to be tough for me to charge 299 or 199 for nutrition coaching. So you have to think about that when you’re framing your prices. When you think about nutrition pricing, you want to think about as individualized support. So you have to charge what you’re doing with the clients in-person as well as virtual. One of the things that we do with HSN, at the end, the wrap up which we’ll talk about in a minute, is have these price sheets. So it’s really easy for people to understand, what’s included with ongoing nutrition coaching?

Ashley Osterman:

It’s very clear when you look at our price sheets what is included with that individual customized support and accountability. Nicole, we did have a question. Someone asked, why do we have a three month commitment?

Nicole Aucoin:

Yeah, that’s a really important question. When you think about a three month commitment, as a nutrition coach, it takes time to build that relationship.

Ashley Osterman:

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin:

It takes time. I remember starting Healthy Steps Nutrition and I just met with people one time and then I would spew so much information out at them, and they would feel overwhelmed, and honestly, I don’t blame them. You need to help clients with one habit at a time. And by building a three month commitment, you don’t feel the pressure of telling them too much information at one time. You can focus on one thing at a time. Let them see success, build that relationship, and it’s so much easier to convert people to ongoing coaching. We’ve tried a lot of different things over the past 10 years in private practice. First we started with a one time consult, then a one month package, and this three month mark is really good, and you have that opportunity to convert people to ongoing nutrition coaching.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah, really building that relationship. We know to see results, it does take time.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, let’s talk about strategy number two to avoiding the challenge trap. And that is understanding the role of a nutrition challenge.

Ashley Osterman:

I’ve seen it several, several times where nutrition challenges are popping up every month at some locations.

Nicole Aucoin:

A nutrition challenge is one piece of the puzzle. It’s there to give your clients a kickstart. But if you are running challenges throughout the year, a lot of different challenges, it is going to be so much tougher to convert people to ongoing nutrition coaching. So, let me give you an example. At Healthy Steps Nutrition, we run one to two challenges a year. One’s at the beginning of the year, one’s typically in the fall after kids are going back to school. Now it’s a little bit different. But kids going back to school, parents are back into their routine before the holidays, get people dialed in before the holidays. That’s a really good time. So just two times and then we’re converting people to ongoing coaching.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, if someone wants to join a nutrition program when a challenge is not going on, they start off with individualized coaching, and that’s just the way they get started. So, when to run a challenge? January or February. I don’t recommend starting the first week of January.

Ashley Osterman:

No, no. We need a little bit of time.

Nicole Aucoin:

The thing is, people, a lot of people are still on vacation in January 1st. And also, people overspend during the holidays. So you want to give them a paycheck to catch up and then get them signed up for your nutrition challenge. With that being said, you want to market at least six weeks out. The goal of a challenge is really to kickstart your nutrition program. There’s a lot of details that need to be worked out with a nutrition challenge. You need to understand how you’re going to communicate with people. So how you’re going to talk to them. You don’t want them Facebook messaging, texting, calling you. You don’t want that. Especially with a challenge that’s large, you have to have one streamlined form of communication.

Nicole Aucoin:

Ashley, we did a podcast recently, and it was how to run successful challenges. And one of the things that we talked about was, hey, you need to figure out what your nutrition philosophy is going to be and how to help clients. If you offer a challenge and say, hey, pick from these 10 different diets what you’re going to do-

Ashley Osterman:

You’re going to confuse people.

Nicole Aucoin:

They’re already confused, they don’t know what they’re doing. So you want to keep it so simple for clients, focus on one thing at a time, focus on a habit-based approach.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah, and definitely talking to about having your staff on board, you need the time to let your staff know what’s going on so you have time for planning, time for marketing, and then time to get the staff on board, let them know. We typically have a meeting with our staff between two to four weeks out of the challenge letting them know exactly how the challenge is going to go. So, think about that when you’re doing your planning as well.

Nicole Aucoin:

I know a lot of gyms launching HSN will do a mini staff challenge first. And if you’re launching a brand new nutrition program that you built yourself, launching a staff challenge will be great because then people can talk about it from experience. It’s so much easier to talk about things and build rapport as a nutrition coach if you actually are practicing what you preach.

Ashley Osterman:

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin:

All right, strategy number three. And this one is so important and so often missed. So if you take anything from this webinar, this is a mistake that everyone makes.

Ashley Osterman:

Not doing this is going to set you up for failure if you’re going to convert your clients to ongoing, because if we don’t have these individual touch points, they’re not going to start having that relationship with you. They’re not going to have that trust in you. Yes, challenges are typically done with groups, but you have to have individual meetings.

Nicole Aucoin:

You have to. It is so important to meet with clients individually. And I want to talk about these meetings. So you meet with clients individually at the beginning. And what most people do, let’s backtrack a little bit, what most people do is they have a timeframe, let’s say, Saturday between 10 and 12, you’re going to come in and do your measurements, it’s like a conveyor belt. Everyone comes in, does their measurements, you have them on file, great. And then you do this kickoff seminar, and then you don’t meet with people till the end, same type of thing, conveyor belt. And then you wonder, why do I only have 50% of people show up for the end appointment? And it’s because there’s not that individualized attention. Yes, there has to be a line between individualized attention that you provide clients during a challenge and individualized coaching, but sitting down with people, helping them set realistic goals before the challenge starts is going to be so vital for you to build yourself into their long term plan.

Nicole Aucoin:

So if you take anything from this webinar, you have to do individualized appointments. So what does that look like? Before the kickoff of the challenge, have them come in, do measurements with them, and sit down and talk to them about those. What’s a realistic goal for them to lose over the course of the challenge? More importantly, what’s their long term goal? How long will it take them to achieve that long term goal? If someone’s at 40% body fat and their goal is to get down to 30% body fat, awesome, we can help you do that. And here, it’s going to take about at least 10 months for you to get down that 10% body fat. So, expect to work with us for 10 months with individualized coaching to really establish those habits, help you reach that long term goal. All right, now I’ve already built myself into the long term play with that client.

Ashley Osterman:

Yup. So when they think about that long term goal, they’re going to associate you with providing them with the help to get there.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely.

Ashley Osterman:

And one of the perks of HSN mentoring is that we give you the templates for these individualized meetings for the challenge. We have the beginning kickoff meeting and we have the wrap up meeting. And Nicole, one of the new things that we added to our platform are actually educational videos to help you maneuver through these meetings, because we know you have to practice these conversations. And one of the things that I do with our nutrition coaches at HQ is we role play and practice these conversations, because you have to be confident when having these meetings.

Nicole Aucoin:

So let’s talk about that ending meeting. So we’ve done the challenge, people have seen results, we’re testing their biometrics. We talk about how their progress was towards the end of the challenge or what they accomplished during the challenge, what their next goal is, all the awesome things they did.

Ashley Osterman:

All those bright spots, don’t forget those.

Nicole Aucoin:

All the bright spots. What struggles they had. And then we say, based on what you told me, my recommendation is that you commit to three months of individualized coaching. We need people to commit to at least three months so you’re not feeling like you have to sell them every time that they come in. We want it to be at least a three month commitment and then just membership renews.

Nicole Aucoin:

Nutrition memberships is so much easier than selling by appointment because then you don’t have to feel like you’re selling someone every single time they come in. People at a gym are already used to memberships, they’re already paying for a membership. So just make a membership option that has nutrition coaching for them to continue with nutrition support. The thing is, you need to have the systems in place to manage those clients. How are you going to communicate with them? What are you going to give them? You want it to be a streamlined process.

Nicole Aucoin:

Next strategy.

Ashley Osterman:

Don’t show all of your cards during a challenge. As nutrition coaches, we got in the business to help people, and we learned all this awesome information, all these strategies. And sometimes you want to feel like you just need to tell them everything they need to do during the challenge. But that’s a common mistake.

Nicole Aucoin:

Such a common mistake. You really ought to keep it so simple. Even with individualized clients when they come in and I talk to them and I ask them what does a typical day look like, when we go through all the initial consult, a lot of times we’re going back to what worked well or I’m giving them one simple strategy, and they tell me, Nicole, this is too easy. Awesome. I want it to be so easy because if it’s easy, you can do it with your eyes closed, you can do it no matter where you are, traveling, eating out. Anywhere you are, I want it to be so, so easy. And if you can get people to do something that’s easy and focus on one thing at a time, they’re going to be more successful long term, and they’re also going to know you can still help them, there’s still room for improvement. But if you give them everything, what happens is they think they can do it on their own.

Ashley Osterman:

Even though that’s not the case, typically.

Nicole Aucoin:

Most people need that support and accountability to achieve long term results. So, think about how you’re going to lay out your program so that you’re not giving out too much information but you still are providing the value. Really in a challenge, the value is the group atmosphere and the simple strategies that you’re keeping everyone accountable to in that group. One of the tips that we talk to our clients about, mentoring clients about, and I would recommend that you do it too, is doing mini challenges. So let’s say week one is posting pictures of your plate method, with 50% vegetables on your plate. And we put everyone in a raffle who does that and fills out the reflection form, and then we pick a winner. And that winner gets a prize that was donated from a local partner who promoted this challenge. So, it’s a really cool strategy to keep people engaged, giving out little prizes, and then you have a winner at the end. But you don’t want to show all of your cards at once, right?

Ashley Osterman:

That is so true. Big mistake.

Nicole Aucoin:

All right. Number five. Here’s the deal, people do challenges, they think they can handle everything on their own after, but you know that most people regain the weight that they worked really hard to lose. So we have to bridge this gap between the problem that they have with regaining the weight and the solution that you can offer with accountability and support. And how that works is talking about it multiple times. You want people to come into that appointment or reach out to you before you have that appointment, and say, hey, I need to get signed up, I’m ready to commit to ongoing coaching, I’m excited to continue this journey, this was a great kickstart.

Nicole Aucoin:

And that has literally happened to us where we have clients emailing us because we make it so obvious, this is the first step to your journey, but individual coaching is where the magic happens. So I really, really would recommend that you talk about this, you need to be talking about it during the kickoff seminar.

Ashley Osterman:

That’s what we do. How many people raised their hand last seminar we did when you asked, how many of you have done a challenge before? Everybody. How many you had seen results of the challenge? Most people. How many of you lost those results after the challenge was over? Well, we know this is because you need that ongoing support and accountability which we offer to you with individualized nutrition after the challenge ends. So they’re hearing about it before the challenge starts.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely. So, so important that you really think about and how to plan what happens after the challenge is over before the challenge even begins. So we had a question someone was, I would love to have more mini challenge ideas if someone doesn’t want to post any pictures. Well, maybe you have a Facebook group or maybe you have a group within an HSN app and they are posting pictures in there. So they don’t want to post it on social media, totally okay, post it in our group. Other ideas, [inaudible 00:21:24] sugar amount, also, meal prep, posting meal prep ideas in there. What are some other ones that we’ve done?

Ashley Osterman:

One of the things that we did for our last challenge is in order to be entered into the raffle, they just had to fill out a weekly reflection form. There’s a simple Google form that they would go to the Friday before we had our nutrition talk on Saturday, and everyone who filled it out with a simple reflection, how was your week, did you stay on track with the habits? Do you need any help from us? How is your stress? How is your sleep? And then they would get entered into a raffle. So they typically have to post a picture or be engaged in the group if that wasn’t what they wanted to do, just fill out our form.

Nicole Aucoin:

We want to keep it so simple, and people need to be told things multiple times and reminded. So just make it so simple for them to stay on track and provide them the accountability and support. And then clearly defining what happens next and what additional support you get with individual coaching.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, for those of you guys who have been using the workbook, I want to recap. So strategy number one when we’re thinking about avoiding the challenge trap is to create a clear client journey needs to be so obvious what happens after the challenge is over. Right?

Ashley Osterman:

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin:

Number two, we need to understand the role of a nutrition challenge.

Ashley Osterman:

Yes, we’re not going to be just having challenges as the only nutrition offering. Challenges are a great way to kickstart a nutrition program around times of years that people are going to be motivated and try to make a change or if you have a new nutrition coach that you’re hiring. But the role of the challenge isn’t to just have challenges. We just need to figure out one or two a year and then stick with that.

Nicole Aucoin:

Number three, schedule individual appointments. These should happen at the beginning of your challenge and at the end of your challenge. You want to get people signed up for individual coaching at that ending appointment. Another strategy we didn’t mention before is when you’re doing those individual initial appointments, go ahead and book the ending appointment during that initial appointment so that they have a little bit more accountability. Even if they have to change the appointment later, totally fine, we want something on the books. And if you’re doing individual appointments and are not using HSN, it’s a really good idea to schedule a follow up visit when they’re in that current appointment.

Ashley Osterman:

That’s actually on the form that we provide our mentoring clients with for the initial consultation for the challenge.

Nicole Aucoin:

All right, next strategy. Don’t show all of your cards at once. It needs to be really obvious what, challenge is a great way to kickstart a program, we’re focusing on healthy habits, but individualized support and accountability comes with individualized coaching.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah. Keep it simple, focus on one or two habits depending how long your challenges, but don’t show all of your cards during a challenge.

Nicole Aucoin:

The last one. Bridge the gap between the problem that your clients have and the solution that you offer with individualized coaching. So what is that problem? Regaining the weight after a challenge. Every single person who does nutrition challenges will regain the weight almost.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah, typically that’s what happens. And you have that solution. You can help them continue on their progress with that accountability and that support, individual coaching, where the magic happens.

Nicole Aucoin:

Where the magic happens. I say it multiple times. All right, so, now that we’ve done the recap, the five strategies for avoiding the challenge trap, I want to talk about some free help. And while we’re doing that, go ahead and type in your questions in the chat. This is such a popular topic. We had, gosh, almost 200 people register for this webinar. You’re probably watching the recording if you didn’t attend live. This is such an important topic, so many gyms, so many people run nutrition challenges, but their nutrition program ends at the end of the challenge and we don’t want that to happen.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, I want to talk about some free help. The first thing for free help is the Facebook group. So the Facebook group is a great way for you to get information to ask questions, we’re there to help other people who are running nutrition programs. This Facebook group is free for gym owners. If you are a gym owner, join that Facebook group. It is time to offer nutrition coaching. Number one, it could be your retention strategy if you have to go virtual again. Number two, it is a great added revenue stream. Number three, it’s a great way to get clients who are not interested in your gym.

Nicole Aucoin:

I was just talking to a gym who’s still closed, his HQ location is still closed due to COVID. And he hasn’t gotten one client since closure. And why is that? Because they’re not offering any nutrition. Now, he’s starting to offer nutrition because he’s realizing more and more people are interested in nutrition health. If COVID did anything, I think it woke people up to think, oh my gosh, I need to take control of my health, I need to dial my nutrition, and most importantly, I need help. And now is the time to be talking about nutrition with your clients, potential new clients, past clients. Maybe you have people who moved a little bit further away and aren’t close to your gym anymore, but they would be interested in nutrition.

Nicole Aucoin:

A question that we get asked often is, hey, I’ve been around for 10 years, and my members are used to me giving away everything for free or they’re used to me not charging nothing for nutrition. What do I need to do? Well, there should be a clear line between the free services that you offer, nutrition tips, email content, conversations, in a group class atmosphere, great, just getting people thinking about nutrition and associating nutrition with their brand, and individualized nutrition coaching. So if you’re sitting down one on one with someone, you should be charging them beyond a free intro. Free intro, great, sit down with them, find out about their goals. When it comes to actually helping them implement a nutrition plan, you need to value your time, because so many people want to move, so many people use a gym, coaches use a gym as a side hustle. But eventually, a lot of the coaches that we talked to, a lot of the nutrition coaches, their end goal is to get to the gym full time. So you have to be valuing your time.

Nicole Aucoin:

We all got in this business to help people. I want to provide everyone with nutrition education for free of course. But I also know that I have to feed my family. I also know that I needed to support coaches who are going to be implementing the program. So we have to be charging and valuing our time.

Nicole Aucoin:

The next thing, and go ahead again, ask any questions in the chat, we are here, or put the questions in, send them to us privately, we are here to answer those questions, however long this takes. If you haven’t listened to the podcast yet, thousand percent listen to the podcast, grow your nutrition business. A new episode comes out every single Monday available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple podcasts. It’s awesome.

Ashley Osterman:

Yes. And I think you guys will be happy to know that we’re doing a challenge series of podcasts because this is such a popular topic. So, if you guys want to learn some more about challenges, definitely take a look.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely. All right. One other thing, if you are realizing like hey, Nicole, all this sounds great but I don’t have the bandwidth to build a nutrition program by myself, or I’m ready to add nutrition as the missing piece of the puzzle and I just don’t know where to start, HSN mentoring has a turnkey solution for you. So we provide you with all the training, the resources, tools, online dashboard, everything you need to help you build nutrition into your business. It includes online modules, homework and mentoring calls, the initial training, and two subscriptions because we want the owner to go through the training and a nutrition coach.

Nicole Aucoin:

Ashley, we just got approved for the CrossFit preferred course, so we’re the second nutrition course in the CrossFit preferred courses. And that nutrition coaching information, we built it all this year. It’s awesome.

Ashley Osterman:

It is so incredible.

Nicole Aucoin:

We actually decided to take that course and put it in the mentoring program. So all of our owners and nutrition coaches got access to this amazing course for no additional cost because our mission is to empower gym owners to feel confident when talking about nutrition. I truly believe something as fundamental as nutrition shouldn’t be complicated. And we want to empower people to take control of their health. So, if you are looking for help, definitely let us know. It’s really easy to get started.

Ashley Osterman:

So easy. Book a free call.

Nicole Aucoin:

Book a free call. I want to talk to you. I want to find out about your facility, I want to ask you questions, make sure we can identify who would be a good fit to run your program, and then you complete the training processes in as little as three weeks and then you launch your program. Most gyms going right now are launching programs at the beginning, end of September, beginning of October. Gyms that are going through the training this week are launching challenges, they already have those challenges set in place.

Nicole Aucoin:

So, we had a question. Kara said, are challenges point-based? And if so, can you give an example of what members are trying to accomplish? So, I really like to look at a holistic approach. So, looking at, are we drinking water, are we moving, are we getting enough sleep, are we eating enough vegetables? Are we limiting the amount of processed foods? That reflection form is one piece of the puzzle. We want participation, essentially a point-based type of thing. But then we also want results. I don’t want to just focus on results because then people might do some type of crazy fasting at the end to get down and lose the most. So 50%, what we do 50% participation, 50% results, and we do it percentage-based. So what does that mean? If someone lost 5% of their body weight, even if it was only five pounds versus someone who lost 10 pounds but it was 2% of their body weight, of course people that are bigger have more to lose. So, I would try to make an even playing field for everybody. Keep it simple.

Ashley Osterman:

Some examples of things that you ask for food specific habits. So a couple of things that we’ve done in the past, maybe a week or two, we have our challenge participants eat half of their plate at lunch and dinner with non starchy veggies. Another one that we like to do is cutting back on the sugar and sweet. So, challenging people to actually measure out the creamer that goes into their coffee or looking at substituting a healthy sweet treat from our website instead of having those brownies after dinner.

Ashley Osterman:

We also do hydration goals. Seeing how much water we can drink throughout the day and if trying to add more water in might help you have less of those soft drinks and those sugary juices. So again, we look at adding things to the plate instead of taking them away. And when it comes to food base, we’re just looking at adding healthy habits that will kickstart their journey to health. Nothing specific, no macros, no crazy meal plans. Just have it approach.

Nicole Aucoin:

And I think people do like recipe ideas. In the HSN weekly content that goes out to clients, we do give them at least one recipe to prep, we recommend that they prep that recipe, super simple things, like egg roll in a bowl, it’s three ingredients, so, so simple. Egg muffins is a super popular one. So giving people ideas of what balanced meals look like. We talk so much about the plate method during challenges. I mean, that’s essentially the basis of it, focusing on eating more vegetables, more whole foods, cutting down on the processed foods. So, trying to keep it so, so simple. She said, great examples, thanks again. No problem.

Nicole Aucoin:

Any other questions that come up about challenges or just questions in general about your nutrition program? We are here to help. Okay, if you are still closed, how do you gauge results? I love this question. So, I would be focusing on participation if you are doing a nutrition challenge, if your facility is still closed. Because everyone’s skills are a little bit different, you could have them do measurements, absolutely. I would personally focus on participation for a nutrition challenge, especially right now, it takes a little pressure off of people to have to meet a number. You could have them do weight, when we ran a challenge during our closure, we had them do pictures within the app in measurements, at least he wight measurement on themselves. But we didn’t use that measurements as the indicator of who won the challenge.

Ashley Osterman:

Another great idea too, if you’re not able to see someone in person, is having to try on their favorite pair of jeans. And keep trying those jeans on every week to see if they’re fitting looser or tighter. So that’s another good one you could use as well, and the pictures are a great one too, because sometimes people have a hard time seeing the results when they’re looking at yourself every day. But if you can compare a picture from the beginning of the challenge to the end, those results might be a little bit more easier to spot.

Nicole Aucoin:

Someone asked, how do you price a challenge? You might have missed, at the beginning, we talked about pricing, I’m going to go over, I can go over again real easy. At HSN, we charge 129 to 139 for a 28 day challenge. The reason why we charge a little bit more, our ongoing coaching rate is 109. So we want to make sure we charge more than our ongoing coaching rate when we’re pricing a nutrition challenge. So let’s say your ongoing coaching rate is $99, charging 119, 129 would be good. What you wouldn’t want to do is charge $39 for a challenge and then go up to 99 for ongoing coaching. That’s a great question.

Nicole Aucoin:

Any other questions that have come up? Ashley, we did a webinar yesterday on increasing confidence as a nutrition coach. And I think this is so important because as a nutrition coach, you have to feel confident. Should we give them a couple of the tips so we talked about yesterday?

Ashley Osterman:

We definitely can. I think one of my favorite is practice what you preach. And we’ve actually been practicing what we preach lately. I don’t know if you guys follow us on Instagram @growyournutritionbusiness or @healthystepsnutrition, but we have been posting a day in the life. So what we as nutrition coaches and dieticians eat typically throughout the day. My day was yesterday, Nicole’s is today. So, really making sure you’re practicing what you preach. It’s so much easier to be relatable when you’re speaking from experience. I think this is why a lot of really great nutrition coaches have gone through their own transformations.

Nicole Aucoin:

Absolutely. Who’s more relatable than someone who has been through their own transformation? Definitely check that out. Having a presence of nutrition coaching is something that you should audit on your business. Now, if you’re trying to build a nutrition program, it’s so important that you’re talking about nutrition consistently. People are not going to associate nutrition health with their brand if you only launch nutrition challenges and you only talk about nutrition once a year. So think about that. When you’re trying to launch a nutrition program, go to your website. Does it clearly state that you offer nutrition coaching? What about email content? What kind of things are people seeing before they come into your facility? If they’re not seeing anything about nutrition, it’s going to be really tough for them to associate nutrition with your brand because you’re not talking about it, you’re not showing those transformations.

Nicole Aucoin:

We recently did a bunch of testimonials at HSN on our clients, and every single one of them talked about nutrition in addition to fitness. Why is that? Because we put such a priority on it. And if you think how are you getting referrals to your business, a lot of times the best referrals are your current clients because they can talk from experience. Are they talking about you offering nutrition or is it such a piece of the puzzle on the back burner that people don’t associate nutrition health with their brand? So go to your social media, put yourself in your sales funnel, enter into your email sequence. Do you talk about nutrition? If the answer is no or it’s only one email out of seven, not a 50/50 split, I would consider revamping. That it is a big perk of HSN because we give you all of the content to push out every single month. Nutrition tips, email content, video scripts.

Nicole Aucoin:

If you’re not with HSN, that’s totally okay. You have to do it though because people will not associate nutrition help with your brand, they’re going to think you’re just selling them something if you don’t talk about it consistently. And it needs to be a consistent message across the board with your staff. I mentioned it at the beginning, like hey, your staff is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to building your nutrition program. But if someone’s interested in nutrition and they are asking one of your staff members, are they going to explain your nutrition program the same or are they going to say, hey yeah, just reach out to Ashley and she’ll help you. What if that person never reaches out to Ashley. Then you’re never going to end up getting that nutrition client. You have to make it a streamline process so that it’s easy for people to get started.

Ashley Osterman:

Nicole, this is a really good question. How does HSN support multiple gyms? Do they all get the same content? How are they able to vary it and differentiate themselves from other clients on social media? Well, this is a great question. And you guys, we give so much content, more than a month’s worth of content goes out every single month. And you can go back to previous month’s content.

Ashley Osterman:

One of my favorite tips for our HSN mentoring affiliates is if you see a love letter, you see a nutrition talk, you see a video script that you really love, focus on that topic for the month. Break it down, make your own social media graphic using a quick little excerpt from that. Or do a video, write it into a blog, put it into an email. There’s so much content that you could utilize for your business throughout our platform. And for our nutrition tips and social media graphics, they’re unbranded. So you can brand it and make it your own.

Nicole Aucoin:

We use a system called Canva, and we give Canva templates, so you can add your own logo, you can change your own colors, you can change it up a little bit so it’s not the same exact thing. I just had a welcome call with a gym. When any new gym signs up, they talk to me, I give them a lay of the land, we set a timeline for training so that we stay on track and you can actually launch your program in a reasonable amount of time. But I showed them, hey, there’s nutrition tips back from January till August now. Use the ones that are the most recent since the pandemic because it talks about things that people are struggling with right now.

Nicole Aucoin:

But all of these are Canva templates, you can bring them as your own. We have two gyms within a few miles of us that run our nutrition program, and there’s never an issue. There are so many people that need help in your community. But I will say, if you look at the gyms that are around your facility, how many of them really do a good job talking about nutrition? I would say it’s a very small percentage. And when I look at our gym and I look at people coming into our facility, people seek us out because we offer nutrition. They come to our gym versus a gym down the street because we offer nutrition support. And we do have gyms not that they don’t run our nutrition program, but we have clients from gyms a couple miles away from us that come to us for nutrition coaching because their gym only runs nutrition challenges once a year.

Ashley Osterman:

I think that’s so important guys, because people know that nutrition and fitness is the combination. And if you’re not offering it, they’re going to go somewhere else. And I was recently talking with a gym owner who told me that they actually had members that paused their membership to go have nutrition somewhere else. And you don’t want to lose that business.

Nicole Aucoin:

And you want to look at how you can help support people who are not interested in your gym. Maybe you have past clients, maybe you have spouses, family members. We have a grandma, a mom, and one of our clients that all work with us with nutrition coaching. The mom and the grandma are not interested in coming to CrossFit, but they are interested in nutrition health. So you have to think you’re opening your horizon to different opportunities and building your business outside of just the people that are coming to your facility.

Nicole Aucoin:

The goal of building a nutrition program, and this is the thing that I’m probably the most passionate about, is helping gyms build nutrition into their intake process. So it’s so easy to get someone started with both. It’s a lot tougher to build a nutrition program when you’re having to resell people at the end after they’ve been sold on fitness and try to resell them six months, a year, 10 years down the road, some of the gyms signing up with us. But if you get people bought in on nutrition and fitness on day one, it’s going to be so much better for them to see results, and they’re going to become brand advocates faster because they are seeing results faster. So you want to think about that. What does your intake process look like? Do you make it easy for someone to get started with both, pay for both on day one, or do they sign up for CrossFit and then you try to resell them later?

Nicole Aucoin:

When we look at, gosh, we’ve helped thousands of gyms at this point build nutrition programs. And it is so obvious the gyms that do well build nutrition into their core offering. If I go to their website, if I go to their social media, if I’m on their emails, they’re talking about nutrition all the time. They’ve established themselves as the expert in nutrition. And if you want to build a successful nutrition program, you have to have people associate nutrition help with your brand. It just has to be consistent. Great question, Sarah.

Nicole Aucoin:

Any other questions that have come up, while you’re thinking, I want to talk about one other question because I think this is an important piece of the puzzle. Finding the right fit to run a nutrition program is so important.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah, because owners tend to wear all the hats. And I think sometimes we get overwhelmed and it’s too hard, it’s too hard without having a good fit to run the program. You need to do your job as a gym owner and have nutrition coaches handle the nutrition client.

Nicole Aucoin:

Unless your perfect day is not coaching fitness and coaching nutrition, awesome, that happens sometimes. But really what needs to happen is, owners go through the training, so you understand you’re the leader of your tribe, but then you have someone that runs the day to day operations of your nutrition program.

Nicole Aucoin:

Now, when we think about nutrition coaches, Ashley, you kind of touched on this earlier, I want to bring back attention to it, someone who has been through their own transformation themselves is a really great nutrition coach. Who’s more relatable, who has more empathy than someone that’s been through a transformation themselves. So, think about that when you’re looking at who would be a good fit. Don’t just pigeonhole yourself into your coaches. I would not put someone in that role as a nutrition coach just because they’re a good CrossFit coach. That doesn’t mean that they’re passionate about nutrition. Nutrition coaching is more about their relationship than anything else.

Nicole Aucoin:

If you’re looking to establish long term clients, you have to have good follow through, they need to know that you’re going to support them, you need to provide accountability. It has to be a really strong relationship there. And follow through is a big thing. And when I look at nutrition coaches that we’ve hired over the years, some of them have turned out amazing, and they move up within the company. Ashley, our director of nutrition education, sitting right next to me, amazing. And then some of them, I feel like I have to micromanage. And I do not, you don’t want to do that.

Nicole Aucoin:

So you need someone that’s going to be really good with follow through. If they are following up with our clients, they’re building that relationship, you’re doing surveys, you’re evaluating numbers, that’s a really important piece of the puzzle as a gym owner. But look for someone who has been through their own transformation, someone that’s really good with follow through.

Nicole Aucoin:

Nurses and teachers tend to make really amazing nutrition coaches because they’re good with step by step processes, they’re good with details. That’s an important piece of the puzzle.

Ashley Osterman:

Yeah, and they typically want to help people too.

Nicole Aucoin:

Exactly. Well, I don’t know if there’s any more questions but I just want to thank you guys for joining this webinar today. We had such an awesome time. If you have any questions or you are interested in running a nutrition program at your gym and want some help, book a free call with me, I’m happy to chat with you. If that’s all the questions we have, I hope you guys had an amazing day and enjoyed this webinar.