Nicole Aucoin (00:02):

Welcome back to the Grow Your Nutrition Business Podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Aucoin, founder of Healthy Steps Nutrition, CrossFit HSN, and HSN Mentoring, where we believe something as fundamental as nutrition shouldn’t be complicated. Our mission is to empower gym owners and coaches to feel confident when talking about nutrition to their members and their community.

Nicole Aucoin (00:24):

HSN Mentoring provides a turnkey solution to help gym owners save time and not reinvent the wheel. Most gyms using HSN launch with the nutrition challenge. It’s a great way to recoup the cost of the initial investment, and to get buy-in from your existing members. Today is the last of a three part series we did on nutrition challenges. If you missed the last two episodes, go ahead and check those out after listening to this one. In Episode 35, Ashley and I talked about how to effectively build and run a nutrition challenge. In the next episode we talked about the nutrition challenge trap.

Nicole Aucoin (01:05):

A challenge is a great way, again, to kickstart a nutrition program, but we know that individual coaching with clients is really where the magic happens. If you want to attract people that just do nutrition challenges, that’s pretty easy, but I think we’re all in the business to help people achieve lasting results. You really need to be able to create a clear client journey to what happens after a challenge if you want to help clients make meaningful change.

Nicole Aucoin (01:35):

Today, Jason and I talk about three strategies that we use at Healthy Steps Nutrition HQ, and that we teach our clients how to do with HSN Mentoring. Listen to number three. The key to building a successful nutrition program and building a program beyond just your existing clients comes from building nutrition into your brand.

Jason Aucoin (02:02):

Hi, guys. This is Jason Aucoin. Not your normal host for this podcast, but I’m excited to be speaking to you guys today. I have Nicole Aucoin here, and I wanted to get a recap over the past two episodes for anybody that might have missed what you’ve talked about. Today, we are going to talk about three strategies to market a challenge. Is that right, Nicole?

Nicole Aucoin (02:27):

We are talking about marketing a challenge. I think so many gym owners run nutrition challenges, but their program ends at the end of the challenge. This series was to really help gym owners kind of walk through how to … The first episode, episode 35, how to successfully build a nutrition challenge. What to charge, how to talk about a nutrition challenge. Then we talked about the challenge trap last week, and what the challenge trap was. So many gym owners launch challenges, they help their clients with the challenge, but then their nutrition program ends at the end of a challenge, and we know that people need accountability and support to achieve long term success.

Nicole Aucoin (03:03):

I’m sure all of us can think of someone who’s done a nutrition challenge in the past. They saw great results, and then at the end of that challenge, on day 31 of their 30 day challenge, they have a whole package of double stuffed Oreos and they are eating that entire package.

Jason Aucoin (03:19): 

You’re not talking about me, are you?

Nicole Aucoin (03:21): 

I don’t know, maybe.

Jason Aucoin (03:21):

Okay, well. I couldn’t agree more, and I think that we’ve both witnessed it, where people have such great success during a challenge and then as soon as it’s over they’re like, “Okay, well, let us know when the next challenge starts so that we can do that one as well.” Going into that, what would be I guess three strategies to market that challenge? What would be number one in your opinion?

Nicole Aucoin (03:46):

No, I think you have to understand where the challenge is placed in the client journey. It’s a kickstart to their journey, it’s a great place to get started, but individual coaching in regards to nutrition is where the magic happens. The past two episodes, we talked about that. You have to first understand how you’re going to position this challenge, not as a standalone nutrition program, but the kickstart to your real nutrition program. Once you understand that, then we can talk about how we’re going to actually market this challenge.

Nicole Aucoin (04:14):

I think the first thing we need to think about is the physical presence of nutrition in your gym, or if you’re a virtual company, the virtual presence of nutrition in your company. Let me give you an example. If you walk up to HSN HQ, on our windows it says CrossFit, personal training, nutrition coaching, weight loss help, individualized support, team nutrition. It’s physically present on the outside. Then you walk in and we have a nutrition board, has some success stories on it, right?

Jason Aucoin (04:45): 

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (04:45): 

Then we have a fitness pyramid that’s bigger than you and I standing on top of each other.

Jason Aucoin (04:50): 

I remember painting that.

Nicole Aucoin (04:51):

That was an adventure. It’s really clear that nutrition is a part of our program. We have success stories all around. I think it’s so important that there’s physically a presence of nutrition. You know, Jay, we do a few different things. One of the things, we do questions of the day.

Jason Aucoin (05:08):

Absolutely. At least once or twice a week we have, if not more than that, something related to nutrition.

Nicole Aucoin (05:15):

It gives us a great opportunity to get the conversation going in a group class about nutrition. What’s your favorite breakfast protein? What’d you have for dinner last night? What’s your favorite healthy restaurant to eat out in? The other day we were in a class, Saturday, like, “Nicole, what’s the question of the day? You wouldn’t have changed it from what was on the board.” Of course I’m like, what’s one healthy habit that you want to start? Let’s bring in nutrition, let’s bring in healthy habits the conversation as much as possible, so that people understand that they can come to you for help.

Nicole Aucoin (05:47):

I think it gives a really cool opportunity to have a consistent message. If you’re running a class, there’s hopefully coach’s notes somewhere. We use CompTrain. There’s coach’s notes in our SugarWOD. There’s CompTrain, that gives an example of, okay, what’s going to happen for the warmup? What’s going to happen in the workout? What can you expect? The same thing can go with a nutrition question of the day. You can have a couple nutrition tips in there so it’s a consistent message. You don’t have to have a nutrition coach teaching a class to ask a question of the day about nutrition.

Jason Aucoin (06:18):

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (06:19):

Anyone can do that.

Jason Aucoin (06:20):

Sure.

Nicole Aucoin (06:21):

It continues the conversation. Physical presence in the facility, and then that should be all year round. We do that whether we’re running a challenge or not.

Jason Aucoin (06:30):

Yeah, even … I have examples of some of our clients that after you the workout, I mean you and I are both athletes. We know when we’re fueling our bodies properly. I know when an athlete who shouldn’t be struggling is struggling, my first question when I walk up to them after the workout might be, “Hey buddy, how are you feeling? Did you drink enough water today? What’d you have for breakfast this morning?” It’s a great opportunity for me to kind of bridge the gap in what they’re doing in the gym, and then also finding out what’s going on outside of the gym.

Nicole Aucoin (06:59):

I think that’s an important piece of the puzzle, because you can always integrate nutrition into a conversation with your members.

Jason Aucoin (07:04):

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (07:05):

There’s always a potential for that.

Jason Aucoin (07:06):

All day long.

Nicole Aucoin (07:07):

We’ve got this ongoing, this evergreen nutrition presence, but then during a challenge you can have even bigger presence. What that can look like is a physical signup board. We have that huge whiteboard next to our TVs where we have the WODs, and we put nutrition challenge signup on there. It starts off always with our coaches’ names and our names, because no one wants to sign up for something that no one else is doing. 10 spots left, 30 spots left, however many spots you’re opening up for your challenge, write down people’s names, and then when people are interested in the challenge, just have them write their name on that board and then the nutrition coach, whoever is signing people up for that challenge, can actually follow up with them, get them physically signed up and paid for the program.

Nicole Aucoin (07:52):

Having that physical presence, people have a fear of missing out. They see their friends doing it, they see other people doing it, they’re going to want to do it too.

Jason Aucoin (07:59):

Not to mention the fact that when they start seeing the results, I mean how many times has that happened? All of a sudden clients are seeing other clients doing well and they’re like, “Hey, what’s going on? Why is this person beating me? Why is this person doing this?” It’s great, because it helps bridge them to nutrition.

Nicole Aucoin (08:16):

Absolutely. I think, you do a really good job highlighting that. “Man, Susie is kicking butt and doing so good with nutrition. Awesome job, Susie,” and bright spot, show her awesome hard work behind the scenes. And that sees other people, a question we get asked often is, for these gyms that have been around 10 plus years, how do you change the culture? It is so much easier to get someone bought in on nutrition on day one than day 1000 of their journey with you.

Nicole Aucoin (08:48):

But it’s doable, and one of the ways to do it is really highlighting the heck out of the people that are doing awesome with nutrition. Whether that’d be nutrition only clients or people that are doing nutrition coaching and fitness. We’ve got this physical signup board. Question that I’ve gotten asked a few times, do I erase the people’s names after they pay?

Jason Aucoin (09:06):

No way.

Nicole Aucoin (09:07):

No, no way! You want to leave them on there. Leave as many people on there, and then doing the 10 spots left, 5 spots left, crossing that off is really important. We also do it in the SugarWOD note section. Like, hey, 10 days left to sign up for the challenge, challenge launches this day, so that it’s a constant presence. People need to be told things 7 to 10 times to take action. If you’re only mentioning a challenge one time, you’re probably not going to get that many people to sign up for this challenge.

Nicole Aucoin (09:35):

Physical presence, other things like making a flyer, putting it in the bathroom, putting it on the front door, putting it everywhere. Putting it on the welcome desk. Making it a common thing to be talking about, knowing that people have to hear it multiple times.

Jason Aucoin (09:48):

Absolutely. I think having your staff being bought in on it, I know that we just got back from a mini vacation in Tampa and we got to visit a couple of our clients while we were in Tampa. Not only did we meet some of the nutrition coaches but we met their team of nutrition coaches. It was very refreshing to go in and have everybody on the same page, and it was like … Wow, this is impressive when the whole staff is bought in, on board, and even if you don’t know exactly what to say during those staff meetings, our Slack channel, we communicate really well with the staff when it comes to the challenges.

Nicole Aucoin (10:22):

For sure. Shoutout to Burg CrossFit, because they do have an awesome nutrition program. In Cigar City, we got to meet both the teams there. They’re doing an amazing job, so shout out to those guys. You’re right, having the whole team, having a consistent message with nutrition is so important. Even if the nutrition coach is only one person, everyone on the staff should be talking about nutrition in the same way. You don’t want someone in class to say, “I’m interested in the challenge,” and a coach say, “Oh, go talk to Jason, he’s the nutrition coach.”

Nicole Aucoin (10:50):

You want to say, “Awesome, we’re so excited, it’s going to be a great challenge. Write your name on this board and Jason’s going to follow up with you.” So that it’s a consistent message, you can get people moving the needle forward faster.

Jason Aucoin (11:01):

Sure.

Nicole Aucoin (11:02):

All right, let’s talk about number two.

Jason Aucoin (11:03):

Ooh, this is one of my favorites.

Nicole Aucoin (11:06):

Your members, I think we sometimes get in the rut of things. Day to day routines, and … Setting up goal setting sessions with your members is so key. When we’re doing goal setting sessions with clients, we bribe them with an InBody scan. I’ll admit it, it’s totally fine. We bribe them with an InBody scan, and we do those InBody scans for a few reasons.

Nicole Aucoin (11:31):

One, only nutrition clients get monthly InBody scans, so most clients at the gym, if they’re not doing ongoing nutrition, they’re not going to get InBody scans. If they haven’t gotten an InBody scan for a while, they might not know if their hard work is paying off. This is going to show them, heck yes, your hard work is paying off, or hey, you’re working really hard in the gym and you’ve hit a plateau. Now it’s time to level up your nutrition. Let’s get you started.

Nicole Aucoin (11:59):

The cool thing about a scan or doing biometrics, if you don’t have an InBody, is helping them set realistic goals. Not just for one month, but for six months, a year. If someone’s body fat percentage is 40%, a guy, and they need to get down to 20%, they can expect to work with you for two years to help them get down 20% body fat. But if you’re not talking about that, if you’re just saying, “Hey, you can lose 1% per month,” they’re going to probably think that they can do it on their own, versus building yourself into that long term plan of those clients.

Jason Aucoin (12:31):

Yeah. I especially like doing that at the end of our … When our nutrition clients leave phase one and go into phase two, we’re continuing the nutrition and we’re just setting new goals. Because they’ve hit maybe their goals after month one, two, and three, and then it’s setting that goal for, okay, well what does the next six months look like for you? What’s our next achievement that we’d like to do?

Nicole Aucoin (12:54):

Clients, retention is so big and if you’re looking at how to figure out how to bridge that gap between these one month clients and long term clients, you have to help them achieve long term goals. You have to set long term goals with those clients, and help them understand no matter what’s happening in life, I can help you make sure that you’re staying on track. It’s so easy when life gets busy to put yourself last, and if you’re able to help them keep their nutrition a priority, they’re going to stay on track. Your job as a nutrition coach is to help clients stay accountable.

Nicole Aucoin (13:24):

We need to set goal setting sessions, before goal settings sessions happen I think it’s important as a nutrition coach or gym owner, whoever is doing these, coach in general, to do some background. Have they gotten a new job? Have they bought a house recently? Have they been consistent in the gym? Have they not been consistent in the gym? What’s going on, so you can highlight the bright spots. I think the cool thing about having a smaller gym is, we know everything that’s going on with everybody. That’s awesome, because we have that relationship with people, and they know they can count on us and that we’re cheering them on no matter what happens in life.

Jason Aucoin (14:03):

Absolutely. It’s funny you mention that. We use PushPress, and we get alerts. We have red flags, for example, so if somebody hasn’t been in the gym in a week, it’s an automatic for us, it’s a red flag. Hey, we need to check in on this person. Ironically, this morning we’ve got a client that hasn’t been in the gym a little while, and I picked up the phone and called him. I said, “Hey, listen, I would love to get you back in the gym,” and right now the situation, he’s just not comfortable coming in the gym because of the climate right now.

Jason Aucoin (14:31):

I said, “How about I get you switched over to nutrition, so that we can still help you and when the time is right,” which he said he’d be back in mid September, the time is right, I’ll be back. He said, “I would love that, great idea.”

Nicole Aucoin (14:41):

I think this is an important conversation we’re having with gym owners all the time. If you are in a place where people are pretty scared of COVID and the situation that’s going on right now, why not give them a solution that can help them solve the problems, and give them support that they can take advantage of? There’s only so many months that someone’s going to continue to pay you for a gym membership that they’re not attending. Are you identifying those red flag clients and calling them and saying, “Hey, I know that you might be in a high risk household. You might not be able to come to the gym, or maybe you’re not loving Zoom classes, I totally get it. Not a big deal, but we can help you with nutrition to help you stay on track.”

Nicole Aucoin (15:24):

Kids are being homeschooled, work is crazy, life is crazy. Let me help you get set up with a plan that’s realistic for you so that we can still help support you in just a different aspect of life. Now they’re not going to resent you for paying for services that they haven’t been receiving for months.

Jason Aucoin (15:39):

Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (15:41):

I’ve heard of gyms, not any of our gyms, but some gyms on affiliate owners’ pages, people asking, “Oh, can I get a refund now that you’re back open? Can you give me something now that you’re back open? I paid you and I supported you.” Why could you not nip that in the bud and give them, pivot to a different type of support so that they’re getting the value that they’re receiving?

Jason Aucoin (16:02):

That’s exactly what we did at HQ. I mean, to a certain degree at HQ, as soon as we decided to shut the gym down, we said, “This is what we’re going to do.” We had a plan of action and yes we switched to Zoom, but we also helped out with some nutrition.

Nicole Aucoin (16:15):

It was the individual coaching that really at the end of the day helped people stay on track. I mean, goodness, we had clients lose 20 pounds during our shutdown.

Jason Aucoin (16:23):

I lost 13.

Nicole Aucoin (16:25):

Yours might have been a little stress for a few weeks. But a lot of them were, hey, we’re cooking at home. We’ve got a nutrition coach following up with us regularly. We’ve got recipes that we’re finally using that have been on the website for years, and I’m finally actually spending the time in the kitchen and making them.

Nicole Aucoin (16:41):

Goal setting sessions are really really key. If you haven’t done goal setting sessions, essentially what you’re going to do, do some prework. Find out what’s going on. You’re going to have clients come in, talk about all the awesome things that have happened. What struggles they’ve had, where they see themselves a year from now, what does success look like to them? Test some biometrics, and then based on where they’re at, what their goals are, you’re going to guide them to whatever support.

Nicole Aucoin (17:06):

One of our mentors was talking to us about goal setting sessions, and she’s like, “I always do a good, better, and best option. There’s three paths for these goal stetting sessions.”

Jason Aucoin (17:17):

Ooh, I like that.

Nicole Aucoin (17:18):

She said, the first path, the good path is always something that’s free. I’m like, okay.

Jason Aucoin (17:23):

I like free.

Nicole Aucoin (17:24):

Great. Now they’re not going to feel like they’re getting sold on every time they do a goal setting session. I think that’s genius. What kind of free help can you provide? Well, at HSN HQ, we do nutrition talks every single month. If someone’s goal is weight loss, or reduce body fat percentage, or increase their performance and their nutrition’s not dialed in, could we register them for the nutrition talks so they could either attend live or get the recording?

Jason Aucoin (17:49):

Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (17:50):

There’s our good option, every single month. No matter when we do a goal setting session, that is the good option. Or, we’ve got mini cookbooks, or five recipes, different free help that we can give them. Better option? Hey, join this nutrition challenge, and let’s kickstart your journey to health. Individual coaching is really where the magic happens, and you can get started with that after, but this is the most financially feasible way to get started with nutrition coaching.

Nicole Aucoin (18:14):

Then the last option and the best option, hey, just start off with individual nutrition coaching now and let’s get you set up with an individualized plan. Good, better, best option, always provide some type of free help, have them walk away … One of the things that we give all of our clients that do goal setting sessions is a quarterly goal sheet that we actually made for the Nutrition Business live workshop and ended up making it a template, so that gyms could use it for their clients, but then we could give it to our clients.

Nicole Aucoin (18:43):

They physically, tangibly are walking away with something that they can post on their fridge, that is a physical reminder of what their goals are and why. When you’re setting goals for clients, you really need to get to the why behind the goal. It doesn’t really matter if they want to lose weight. Why do they want to lose weight? Do they want to feel more confident? Probably. Do they want to be a better example for their kids? Probably.

Jason Aucoin (19:06):

How about one of the most important things going on in our current culture right now? Do they want to not have underlying conditions, maybe and be more fit for something that might be out of the control of their hands, correct? I mean, we’re living in a day right now where being healthy from a fitness and nutritional aspect is so, so important.

Nicole Aucoin (19:27):

We know the best way to treat chronic disease is to prevent it. Can we get someone set up with healthy habits to prevent some of these issues? I think it’s something that’s not being talked about enough, but we know that people who are super sick and dying from COVID are the ones that are obese, with underlying conditions, have some type of immune compromised situation. Some of those are out of your control, absolutely, but a lot of them are in your control.

Nicole Aucoin (19:56):

Set yourself up for success. I mean, we have had the busiest couple months of new clients for nutrition coaching in quite some time, and it’s because people have realized now more than ever that they need some help with nutrition and that they can’t do it by themselves, and they need someone to keep them accountable.

Jason Aucoin (20:15):

Wait a minute. You mean all the commercials on TV that see fat-free or low-fat or organic, you mean that’s necessarily true?

Nicole Aucoin (20:23):

Our goal is to teach someone how to create a healthy lifestyle through a simple habit based approach. If you can do that with clients no matter what situation they’re in, they’re going to be able to feel confident that they’re making the right decision and not feel guilty for having a little bit of ice cream, because it’s just one time and then they’re moving on. They’re back to a simple habit based approach, and it just becomes part of their life.

Jason Aucoin (20:49):

For sure.

Nicole Aucoin (20:50):

Super super important there. Let’s talk about the next one.

Jason Aucoin (20:56):

Ooh, okay. I did a little bit of this this morning, and I’m going to do a little bit more tomorrow. Calling past members. I know we’ve been saying this essentially since COVID started, I think around in March. We’ve always done it, we’ve always done a good job of it, but more now than ever, and the gym’s busier than it’s ever been. Our nutrition clients are busier than we’ve ever been, and I think that calling past members has been huge for us, as well as leads.

Nicole Aucoin (21:20):

I think you can treat it the same way as a goal setting session, just checking in on people. Inviting them to a free nutrition talk that you’re doing. If you’re not doing nutrition talks yet, I would highly recommend it. I’ll actually link, if you click the link below on the blog for this episode, I’ll put a recording of one that we did in August at our HSN HQ on healthy meals made easy. These nutrition talks are a really great way to reengage past clients.

Nicole Aucoin (21:47):

Again, free help. Then you call them to action at the end. This is something that we give to all the mentoring clients, those nutrition talks. Comes with speaking notes, slides, a recording, everything is done for you. This is a really great way to get past clients reengaged with their brand, who maybe are on your email list but that you haven’t had a two way conversation, or they’re just looking for help. They already know you, they already trust you, they left for a reason. Maybe they moved or maybe it just wasn’t a convenient time for them, but they would come back for nutrition coaching.

Nicole Aucoin (22:19):

If you’re a gym who’s been around for a while, or you have a large email list, or maybe you don’t even have a large email list. Maybe you don’t even have emails organized. Dust those things off, and email people. Invite them to come in to a nutrition talk, or even better pick up the phone and call them, and just check in. Saying, “Hey, miss you. How are you doing? How are you holding up? How are you getting adjusted with kids being back in school? Is there anything I can help you with?”

Nicole Aucoin (22:44):

I think people want to be heard. They want to know that people care about them, and you could be a really great resource.

Jason Aucoin (22:53):

Absolutely. I think too, this could be another good, better, best thing. A coach that calls them, yeah, maybe good. Better maybe, a nutrition coach that’s worked with that client in the past. Best is, who do you think should be calling these people? You and I both know the answer to this. The owner. When the owner picks up the phone, when I pick up the phone and call a client, and the first thing is, “How are you? How can I help? Is there anything that I can do?”

Jason Aucoin (23:20):

I’m not selling them on anything. I actually truly care about them and I want to see how I can help, and that’s been your motto from day one. How can I help you? What can I do for you? I love that, and I think they love it when they hear me call. I spoke to a client this morning, he hasn’t been in the gym, and I just said it earlier. He picked up the phone, and I could tell he was smiling on the other end of the phone, because he’s being heard. We care about him. We did not forget about him. And we have a solution to help him.

Jason Aucoin (23:51):

We’re trying to get that solution to him, and he was very appreciative of it, and took us up on it.

Nicole Aucoin (23:57):

Yeah. I think at the end of the day, we all got in the business of helping people, and if you’re strategic with your marketing of your program and your nutrition challenge, you’re going to hit home, especially right now. We’re in a climate where people are realizing they need help. They’re realizing they can’t do it alone. Be strategic, and I think it starts … One of the things that you should do even before you market a challenge is you have to provide free help related to nutrition. People need to start associating nutrition with your brand, not just saying you’re running a nutrition challenge.

Nicole Aucoin (24:30):

Going back to some of the things that we do at HSN HQ, those nutrition questions of the day I think are really key. Posting nutrition tips. If you’re not following @healthystepsnutrition on Instagram or @growyournutritionbusiness on Instagram, go follow those two channels right now. You’ll get so many ideas on how to just talk about nutrition and make it easy. Because if you make it easy, clients will stick with it. It has to be a consistent message, you can’t just talk about nutrition during a challenge.

Nicole Aucoin (24:59):

Before you even start marketing your challenge, and this is one of the reasons why we give monthly content to mentoring clients the day they sign up for the program. Because I want them to start pushing out nutrition tips to their entire following, so that people start associating nutrition help with their brand. If you’re not helping people with nutrition and you’re only trying to sell them on nutrition challenges or individual coaching, you’re not going to build a successful program, and people aren’t going to come to you or think of you first. They think of people that are helping them first.

Nicole Aucoin (25:29):

Can’t you provide free help? Hey, here’s one super easy recipe. Ham and egg muffins. Put ham in a muffin tin, then put some cheese on the bottom, then put an egg and bake it for 20 minutes. Super easy, but people will start doing it. Posting pictures, tagging you in it, and then you start getting nutrition associated with your brand. If you want to build a program long beyond a challenge, you have to get people to associate nutrition help with your brand beyond a challenge.

Jason Aucoin (26:01):

Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.

Nicole Aucoin (26:03):

If you guys are listening to this and you’re trying to run a challenge, planning to run a challenge, you want to market your challenge. Before you start marketing your challenge, start providing free help. If you don’t know how to do that or you need some ideas, go follow people that are doing awesome, posting nutrition help, and put your same spin on that … Get inspiration from that. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. If you’re an HSN mentoring client listening to this, you better be using the content we provide you, because we’re trying to make it so that it’s super easy for you and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Nicole Aucoin (26:36):

Post nutrition content regularly. Start getting people to associate nutrition help with your brand. Start building nutrition into classes. Build a physical presence, and not even physical in the location, but if you’re a virtual business, we didn’t even get into this. Go to your website. Does your website accurately describe the services you offer? Does it say nutrition in the header? Does your social media talk about nutrition at all? What about email content that’s going out to people?

Nicole Aucoin (27:02):

If you’re not having nutrition to be a part of your message, don’t expect people to buy nutrition from you, because they’re going to think you’re just selling them on something. But if you talk about nutrition consistently, then people are going to start associating nutrition help with your brand, and understand that you can help them when they’re ready.

Jason Aucoin (27:18):

Absolutely. I mean, we’re in south Florida. In a 10 … Let’s say 5 square mile radius, how many CrossFit gyms do you think there are?

Nicole Aucoin (27:29):

I honestly don’t know, but a lot.

Jason Aucoin (27:30):

Okay. Let’s just-

Nicole Aucoin (27:32):

I would say at least 10.

Jason Aucoin (27:32):

Okay. Let’s say 10 to 20, somewhere in that range. The nutrition expert in our area, we get members from all over the place in south Florida, and where do they come for nutrition expertise? They come to HSN, because you put yourself out there as the expert, as the nutrition coach. We offer nutrition, it’s written all over, it’s on our website, it’s everywhere. Word of mouth. We’ve done that over the years, and it’s been huge for us.

Nicole Aucoin (27:56):

Don’t expect when you launch a brand new program that people are going to run through the doors and you’re going to have a full roster. It probably didn’t happen with your gym, it’s not going to happen with nutrition. You have to be consistent with your message, and start providing free help so that people associate nutrition help with your brand. If you do that, consistently, you will eventually start building up a following and getting people to come to you for nutrition only.

Nicole Aucoin (28:20):

I think now more than ever, gyms are realizing, hey. I have to diversify my revenue streams, and if I’m forced to shut down again, I don’t know that people will stick with me through another shutdown and pay for virtual coaching when that’s not really what they signed up for. But would they be happy with nutrition coaching instead? Probably. You have to think about, all right. How am I going to create a more diversified business, a sustainable business?

Nicole Aucoin (28:49):

And having nutrition coaching is not only going to allow you to help your clients see better results long term, but it’s also going to be a way for you to help reach clients who aren’t coming to your gym to begin with. One of the other strategies when you’re even doing goal setting sessions, could you ask your current nutrition clients, “Hey, do you have a spouse or a friend or a coworker who’s also looking to lose some weight, or get healthy? Why don’t you invite them to do this challenge with you? You guys can do it together because we know that people that do things together, if you have an accountability partner, you’re going to be more successful.”

Jason Aucoin (29:21):

Huge.

Nicole Aucoin (29:23):

Lots of things to think about when you’re launching a nutrition challenge. If there’s anything that we can do to help you, let me know, but definitely go click the link below this episode, and check out the nutrition talk that Ashley and I, our director of nutrition education did, in August on healthy meals made easy, so that you can get an idea of one way to market your nutrition program. Whether it be in a challenge or beyond.

Jason Aucoin (29:50):

Nicole.

Nicole Aucoin (29:52):

Yeah.

Jason Aucoin (29:52):

Yeah. We had some pretty exciting news last week, and I think it’s been something, I’m going to say give or take, that’s been in the works for several years. It’s something you and Ashley and the whole team have been working so hard on. What dropped last week?

Nicole Aucoin (30:10):

Yeah. It’s something super exciting. The CrossFit Preferred Course, nutrition course.

Jason Aucoin (30:16):

Ooh!

Nicole Aucoin (30:16):

Basics of Nutrition Coaching is a standalone nutrition course. We’re so excited about this course. Teaches you how to become an effective nutrition coach, and how to apply those principles to actually coaching clients. We built this course from scratch. It’s been in the works for a long time. I realized it was actually better than the nutrition coaching in our mentoring program. The nutrition coaching education piece, I’m like, “You know what, Ashley? Let’s just give all of our mentoring clients this exact course material, because it’s so good.”

Nicole Aucoin (30:47):

We ended up taking up all the mentoring nutrition coach training in the mentor training, and-

Jason Aucoin (30:53):

And replaced it?

Nicole Aucoin (30:54):

We replaced it with the Basic of Nutrition Coaching course because it is so good, and our goal is to empower coaches and owners to feel confident when talking about nutrition, and this is a great step in the right direction. Yeah, the course released on Tuesday. Super excited to finally be officially a part of CrossFit’s Preferred Course curriculum. All of our mentoring program, you get CEUs for it if you’re level three. This is also, you’ll get CEUs for it through CrossFit. Super, super excited about that, could not have done it without our amazing team.

Nicole Aucoin (31:28):

Ashley, our director of nutrition education, is incredible. All of our mentors are incredible. Yeah, we’re excited.

Jason Aucoin (31:35):

Yeah. I mean, you’ve spent a lot of time out at HQ, and going to the MD level ones, and I couldn’t be happier for you. Congratulations, mazel tov on such a big achievement. What’s the future hold for HSN?

Nicole Aucoin (31:49):

I think there’s a lot of different things in the works, but one of the things that I’m really passionate about is empowering people to take control of their health. I see us doing more charity work in the future. Not going to release any details yet, but lots of cool things in the works to empower people that might not be able to pay for nutrition coaching. We want to give them the support that they need.

Nicole Aucoin (32:16):

As far as the mentoring program, we’re going to continue to provide all of the gyms that are running our program every resource and tool that we can possible to help them become successful at nutrition coaching.

Jason Aucoin (32:30):

That is good stuff. I’m excited.

Nicole Aucoin (32:33):

All right. Until next week, guys. Thanks for joining. Definitely check out the last two episodes in this series if you are planning on launching a nutrition challenge, and remember, a nutrition challenge is just the first step to a client’s journey to health.

Nicole Aucoin (32:47):

If you are looking to run a nutrition program beyond a challenge, Healthy Steps Nutrition and HSN Mentoring can help. HSN Mentoring provides a training for an owner and a coach to successfully build the nutrition component of your business, and how to effectively coach behavior change through a simple habit based approach. We provide you online modules, we provide you client resources, an online dashboard. Everything is done for you so that you can save time and not reinvent the wheel.

Nicole Aucoin (33:21):

The first step to get started with HSN Mentoring is to book a free call. Go to growyournutritionbusiness.com and book a free call today.