Nicole Aucoin (00:02):
Welcome back to the Grow Your Nutrition Business podcast. At Healthy Steps Nutrition, we believe something as fundamental as nutrition shouldn’t be complicated. We help gym owners and coaches build successful nutrition programs without reinventing the wheel. I’m your host, Nicole Aucoin, registered dietitian and founder of Healthy Steps Nutrition, CrossFit HSN and HSN Mentoring. I’m also the author of the Basics of Nutrition Coaching CrossFit Preferred Nutrition Course. I’m going to teach you how to take one step at a time to build a successful nutrition program where you finally feel confident talking to your members and communities about nutrition.

Nicole Aucoin (00:45):
There are countless diets and diet experts out there. If you are a nutrition coach, it is easy to get lost in the crowd. How do you stand out? Let me give you one guess. It is not by posting half naked pictures of yourself or your six pack on Instagram. While you might get a lot of likes on that, people will not know how you can help them with your six pack. In today’s podcast, Ashley and I are discussing exactly how to stand out amongst all of the nutrition coaches out there. There are so many amazing coaches out there, but in a sea of coaches, we need to stand out.

Nicole Aucoin (01:29):
If you are listening to this, you are passionate about helping people. You want to inspire others, but you need to bridge the gap between the problem that your ideal clients have and the solution that you offer. Trust me, this is not easy. You don’t learn this by taking an online nutrition course or becoming even a dietician. I didn’t. In fact, I spend as much as my grad school education annually to understand how to do this better. That’s why I became a StoryBrand Guide, and one of the reasons why we provide so much free help to gym owners and coaches; to help them understand how to take knowledge and actually help people transform their lives. No matter how big your nutrition program is, these three things that Ashley and I are going to discuss in this episode are going to be relevant. Take notes. We will get to this episode on three tips for making your nutrition program stand out right after this message.

Nicole Aucoin (02:30):
Did you know the HSN Mentoring has a turnkey solution to save you time and not reinvent the wheel when it comes to building a nutrition program from scratch? That’s right. HSN Mentoring starts with the training process. It includes online modules, homework, and six, that’s right, six one-on-one mentoring calls. It’s a time for you to talk to a mentor one-on-one and dial in the details for your facility and for your program. The training teaches you how to set up your program, how to price your nutrition program, how to market your nutrition program, how to coach clients using a habit based approach that we focus on at Healthy Steps Nutrition, and most importantly, how to retain your clients.

Nicole Aucoin (03:12):
Lastly, we discuss how to build a successful nutrition challenge and convert those clients to ongoing coaching after the challenge is over. It’s easy to get started. You just book a free call so that we can learn more about you, and from there, if it’s a good fit, we give you the link to sign up. You go through the training and you launch your program in as little as four to six weeks. All right. Let’s get to this episode. Ashley Osterman, welcome back to the podcast.

Ashley Osterman (03:40):
Well, thank you, Nicole. Always a pleasure to be on and chat with you.

Nicole Aucoin (03:43):
Today we are talking about how to make your nutrition program stand out from the crowd. There are so many nutrition programs out there now. How do you make your stand out so people can come to you over Weight Watchers down the street or any of the other Instagram celebrities with six packs that now are claiming they have the best nutrition diet out there to help the followers that they have?

Ashley Osterman (04:07):
Yeah. Google right now nutrition programs near me. How many are there? I can tell you there are probably at least five within a five mile radius from our HQ location here.

Nicole Aucoin (04:19):
If you don’t have a way to have your nutrition program stand out from the crowd, it’s going to be really tough for you to grow your program.

Ashley Osterman (04:28):
Yeah. You need to make sure that people know that they can come to you because you can help solve their problem and you’re the best person to do that, but how exactly do you do that? How do you make your program stand out? Well, we have three tips for you today.

Nicole Aucoin (04:44):
I think all of these tips really come down to one thing. As a coach, as a nutrition program, you are in the relationship business. We’re not in the product business. We’re not just giving someone a supplement and telling them to go on their way. We’re in the service business where we have to have a relationship with people so that they know they can trust us. All of these three tips come down to helping people build trust in you.

Ashley Osterman (05:09):
Absolutely. Nicole, we always say that nutrition coaching is 90% relationship, and that relationship starts with trust and that relationship starts with you having personal branding for your program. Tip number one.

Nicole Aucoin (05:26):
What does that really mean? We hear personal brand kind of like insider language, but really it comes down to one thing. Your face of your nutrition program needs to be a face, not a logo.

Ashley Osterman (05:39):
Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (05:40):
You have to have someone that is the head of your nutrition program that people start associating nutrition help with that person, and you build authority for nutrition coaching with a person. It might be a team of people. We have a team of nutrition coaches, and they all play a part in helping our community, but it’s not Healthy Steps Nutrition. It’s, hey Amanda, it’s Ashley, it’s Liz. It’s all of these people to help our clients.

Ashley Osterman (06:12):
This is because people buy from people. They don’t buy from a brand. They don’t buy from a website. They don’t buy from what they’re seeing in their ads. They buy from people.

Nicole Aucoin (06:25):
This has been an interesting topic. In the past week, we actually had a few past clients from mine years ago call us. I don’t even think I told you this, but they called us and they’re like, “Hey, I want to work with Nicole. My husband’s the one that answers the phone. He’s like, “Well, Nicole doesn’t have any more clients, but Ashley and Amanda are awesome dieticians, and I know that they can help your son, daughter, family member. Here’s a video of Ashley talking about new year, new you. Here’s a video of Ashley.” It’s so important that your face, especially if you have a nutrition team, that it is a team. You don’t just want one person as the icon of your nutrition program if you have a nutrition team.

Ashley Osterman (07:06):
Yeah, because like you said, we can get overbooked. We have only a certain amount of spaces and we need to make sure that one, people see those other people who are part of our brand so they know, love, and trust them, because they’re going to see them as the face. Two, we start to build that trust, that rapport, from the day that they see the face of the brand so people feel like they know you before they actually talk or meet you.

Nicole Aucoin (07:34):
When we’re talking about building a personal brand, how can you do this? I think the first thing is really being open and sharing your story. What tips have worked well for you? Do you have a sweet tooth? What do you do to overcome it? Do you run out of time meal prepping? What are some quick and easy tips that you use? What are some quick and easy snack options that are balanced that you like? You have to be relatable as a nutrition coach.

Nicole Aucoin (07:59):
Ashley, you and I did something last year with a day in the life. We showed everything that we did and I think that’s one actionable tip that nutrition coaches could do on the brand social media account is do a day in the life. Hey guys, it’s Nicole. I just wanted to share everything I eat in one day. I always get questions about this and I’d love to just show you, give you an inside look on exactly what I eat throughout the day. Follow along with me. Let’s go. Then you make little video clips and you can do this on your story, you could do this in your feed, but I would do it in the story and then make it a highlight so that people can go back. That’s a way for you to start building trust with your community so it’s not, oh, I have to spend one million hours in the kitchen prepping all this food. It’s like, hey, here’s something that’s actually easy for you to do and see success with.

Ashley Osterman (08:49):
Yeah. I love to always think about what problems, what constraints, what roadblocks do I deal with? Then think about that on your scale, and people probably deal with the same thing. Are you rushed in the morning and have limited time for breakfast? Are you a parent trying to cook a quick meal after a long day of work? Take those things that you have overcome and share from experience, because again, most likely other people have the same problems and by you sharing from experience and being relatable, that is going to help your nutrition program stand out amongst the crowd.

Nicole Aucoin (09:30):
Absolutely. That’s tip number one. Let’s talk about tip number two, because this is probably my favorite tip. You have to share stories about your clients. Of course, you need to get their permission first, but you sharing stories about people that are like your ideal clients are going to help those people that are listening to that story understand how you can help them. If you are trying to get more at home moms that are just struggling to balance all the things, I’m not going to share a ton of stories about my elite athletes in the gym. I’m going to share stories about my moms who are overcoming all the things and able to eat healthy while trying to manage picking kids up, working, taking kids different places and keep it super simple for them. Shares stories of people like your ideal customers.

Ashley Osterman (10:23):
You know, Nicole, we just recently did a lot of great story recording and sharing this weekend. You and Jason actually went to Tennessee to go start the Campbell family on their family nutrition journey.

Nicole Aucoin (10:38):
Oh my gosh, that was so much fun. We went up to Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is awesome, and we brought the Campbells through what it looks like for family nutrition and documented the whole thing. We’re actually in the show notes. If you click the link, we’ll put that video that we made. It’s about eight minutes, just documenting how it looks like for our family nutrition program. Nutrition coaching is so new for most people. They don’t understand the value of a nutrition coach, but if you can capture the story of how you were the guide and you help someone achieve what they were looking to achieve, you will relate to other people, and that was really the goal of a story. Man, did the media team do such an amazing job to capture that. That’s really just the beginning of the story, because they’re documenting the entire journey for eight weeks. It’s going to be so much fun.

Ashley Osterman (11:30):
Yeah. It’s so amazing to share stories like that because, really, people get so inspired because there are other people like them out there. We talk to clients all the time and we say, hey, would you be interested in coming on our Nutrition Made Simple podcast? You’ve seen such great success. Your story would inspire so many people, and nine times out of 10, people are excited. They want to inspire other people. We want to help other people. That’s a question I get quite often when talking about sharing your client’s stories. Oh, are they going to want to share? I’m not sure if they’ll be comfortable, but if we talk to them in a light where they’re going to perhaps motivate and inspire other people, of course they’re going to want to share their success and help others.

Nicole Aucoin (12:10):
Absolutely. When you’re thinking about sharing success stories in a gym setting, you don’t just want to share how the gym has helped me working out with the type of classes that you offer at your gym. If you want more nutrition clients or nutrition and fitness clients, you have to be sharing the stories of the people that are doing that. If you want more nutrition only clients, you need to share stories of nutrition only clients. If you’re just talking about fitness and you’re only sharing stories of fitness clients, it is going to be so tough for people to understand how you can help them with nutrition.

Ashley Osterman (12:47):
Absolutely.

Nicole Aucoin (12:47):
You have to think about that. Honestly, when you’re doing these stories and yes, the Campbell family, we had a media team that covered the whole thing, but you can do this at a very small scale with an iPhone, asking people, what was the problem that you had when you signed up for CrossFit, blah, blah, blah? What was the problem that you have? What did success look like for you? What did you try in the past? How did nutrition coaching at CrossFit X help you? What would you say to someone considering nutrition at CrossFit X? You can guide the questions to make sure that they actually talk about nutrition, but you want to make sure that you are highlighting people who are like your ideal clients.

Nicole Aucoin (13:36):
Again, if you’re looking to get more nutrition only clients, highlight your nutrition only clients. If you’re looking to get more nutrition and fitness clients, highlight those kind of clients so that people understand how you can help them. What I find a lot of times when gym sign up and we look at their social media, we look at their website, and we see that they only talk about fitness and they’re like, Nicole, I’m not growing my nutrition program. I’m like, well, if I came to your gym, I would think that you could help me with fitness, and if you sat down and talked to me about how nutrition would help you, I would honestly feel like you were trying to sell me on something, but if you really built it into your message so that people saw nutrition and fitness when they looked at your social media, when they looked at your email content, they would understand and actually seek you out because you offer both not because they think that you can just help them with fitness.

Ashley Osterman (14:30):
Nicole, that is how we’ve gotten so many of our local nutrition clients from around the area. Even though there are other nutrition programs so close to us, miles away, people come to us because they see how we can help them. They see that consistent message of nutrition in our brand and they know that when they’re ready, we are for them to support their health and wellness goals. I challenge you if you’re listening and you’re a gym owner or a coach, take a look at what your content is as someone from outside eyes. Look at your social, subscribe to your email. What are your client, potential clients, seeing from you? If nutrition isn’t a part of that, then you’re not going to make your program stand out among the crowd.

Nicole Aucoin (15:14):
What’s the problem with that? They’re going to find somewhere else to get this nutrition health.

Ashley Osterman (15:19):
Absolutely they will.

Nicole Aucoin (15:20):
They will, and I can tell you from experience, we’ve had multiple, I would say 15 just in 2020 alone of a local client to go to CrossFit gyms that are within five miles of our gym, and they come to us for nutrition because their gym hasn’t really built nutrition as a core offering. Some of them even offer nutrition, but they don’t really make it a priority. The people go to who they think can help them the most. Then they ended up coming to us. It’s unfortunate because you know if you are able to help someone with nutrition and fitness they’re going to see the results so much faster. Think about that when you’re figuring out your message and how you’re sharing stories of your success clients. You have to talk about nutrition and fitness. All right. Let’s go to the last tip.

Ashley Osterman (16:07):
You have to offer free help, and consistently.

Nicole Aucoin (16:11):
That’s the deal. Right? We have to give out free help.

Ashley Osterman (16:15):
Yes.

Nicole Aucoin (16:16):
I’m all about giving out free help. Ashley, you and I spend 25%, I would say, of our week giving out free help.

Ashley Osterman (16:24):
Easily.

Nicole Aucoin (16:25):
Making free help, at minimum. I would say for me it’s more like 75 because I do every single free call with gym owners, but we give out so much free help. Why is that important? I’m slowly building the relationship with people so that when they are actually ready to invest in their nutrition or their gym, they know to come to us because we’ve helped them already. One of the best ways to do this and one of the easiest ways, it was actually voted the number one way to re-engage past clients and get new leads in 2020, is nutrition talks.

Ashley Osterman (16:57):
I love nutrition talks. This is one of the things that we started at the beginning of last year during the pandemic and realized how valuable it is. We’ve kept it going for mentoring clients. Every month they get a nutrition talk. When I say a nutrition talk, what exactly do I mean? Well, they get slide templates, they get speaking notes, they get a video of myself or someone on our team giving the presentation, and they get a workbook that they can use as a template to help their potential clients. We do nutrition talks based on common topics that our clients have. How to meal prep, how to survive the holidays, how to goal set in the new year. These things that you can do and give out to your clients to show them that you are here as the guide, and then have a call to action at the end. I think it’s really important, Nicole, when we talk about free help that you really need to have a differentiation between what you’re giving away for free and what you’re charging when you have paying clients coming on.

Nicole Aucoin (18:01):
People will get the most that they can for free.

Ashley Osterman (18:06):
Yes, of course. Why not?

Nicole Aucoin (18:08):
Exactly. You have to have this differentiator. If you’re having someone pull you aside after every single class and ask you questions about nutrition, there needs to come a time where you’re like, hey, Susie, it is time for you to sign up for nutrition coaching. I would love to help you to create a customized plan. Here’s the link to sign up when you’re ready and you’ll be prompted to book an initial consult with me. Same thing with your nutrition talks. You’re right. These were an awesome way to re-engage past clients, to capture new leads, establish yourself as expert, but you really have to have a call to action at the end.

Ashley Osterman (18:39):
Yes.

Nicole Aucoin (18:39):
I just had a welcome call with a 24 hour gym actually, and he has 10 to 20 new signups per week at his gym.

Ashley Osterman (18:48):
Wow.

Nicole Aucoin (18:48):
Which is a lot.

Ashley Osterman (18:49):
Lots a lot, yeah.

Nicole Aucoin (18:49):
Right, for this 24 hour fitness. For him, he’s like, “Nicole, it just does not make sense for us to do free one-on-one consult for every single person that comes in.” I’m like, okay. What you could do is when they sign up, automatically register them for the next nutrition talk that you have in the books, so you should be hosting one a month. Automatically register them for the next one and then that’s a way for your nutrition coach to establish herself as the expert. Give free help, and then have a call to action at the end. Either join your challenge, which are going to launch the program with a challenge or join your individual nutrition coaching program, which will be the call to action for every other nutrition talk when you’re not running a challenge.

Ashley Osterman (19:29):
Yes, absolutely. Having that differentiation between the free help and what is paid is so important. You don’t want the lines to be blurred because you start giving too much free help and blurring those lines, people aren’t going to understand the value and why they should pay for your program.

Nicole Aucoin (19:43):
This is a conversation that comes up with, I would say, at least 60 to 70% of affiliate owners who we work with who’ve owned CrossFit gyms for 10 plus years. Nicole, I know nutrition’s important. We talk about nutrition all the time with our members. I have these conversations on a regular basis, but we don’t charge for nutrition, and the problem is people don’t value what they don’t pay for. You can capture all the free help or give out all the free help, and yes, people might take a little bit of action, but they’re not going to be as committed as if they actually weren’t financially invested in the program.

Nicole Aucoin (20:23):
You have to have this differentiator. For us, the differentiators, we provide those nutrition talks, you can get recipes, we have emails that go out every single week, we have free tips, we have nutrition questions of the day that you get nutrition tips at the end of that question that’s consistent with our entire staff, but when you want a customized plan, when you want individualized attention for your nutrition journey, you have to sign up for nutrition coaching, and here are the options. It really comes down to, I guess, being confident in the value that you’re providing your clients.

Ashley Osterman (20:58):
Yes, absolutely. Nicole, I love that you brought up the other examples of the free help that we can give out or you can give out if you’re watching. If you are not sure about nutrition talks, you’re not an HSN Mentoring client to get all the awesome free help that we give them to utilize, you can start as easily as posting a recipe or sharing three tips. Maybe I share on my social three tips to drink more water, and then I turn that into a video and I put that in my reels, and then I write a blog about it, and I direct people to that free help. You just have to start somewhere.

Nicole Aucoin (21:29):
Consistency at the end of the day is vital to make your nutrition program stand out among the crowd. If you do a really awesome job the first month of the year talking about nutrition but then you don’t talk about it anymore, it’s going to be tough for people to associate nutrition help with you and your brand. As you go into 2021, think about how can I intentionally make nutrition a priority in my message, and if you’re looking for some free help, if you want a nutrition talk, click the link in the show notes and we will actually give you one of the nutrition talks that we made available for every single gym owner so that they could make it easy to make nutrition a priority in their message.

Nicole Aucoin (22:10):
Sharing your story and putting yourself out there is key to establishing expertise. People buy from people, and they want to buy from people they trust. When you put yourself out there and you are consistently providing free help, you are the person they trust. Beyond just providing free help, you really need education and systems to back your processes up, to back your program up.

Nicole Aucoin (22:33):
Did you know that Healthy Steps Nutrition launched a new podcast for the public? That’s right. It’s called Nutrition Made Simple. In this podcast, every single week we provide free help to the public to help them take one step to becoming a healthier version of themselves. This week’s podcast is one of my favorite to date. I interview Mary Cook. Her and her husband own CrossFit Swarm. She talks about her journey to losing 200 pounds and how she’s turned this story and all the ups and downs throughout the process into a passion for helping others. She launched a nutrition program using HSN Mentoring, and within two months she has 18 individual clients and it’s continually growing.

Nicole Aucoin (23:16):
She has a story. She shares that story. She also provides free help consistently and through all of the tips that we provide through this podcast and through mentoring, she has been able to turn that passion into an actual program to help our clients. I am so proud of her and you need to go listen to this story. Head over to wherever you listen to your podcasts and type in Nutrition Made Simple and subscribe. It will be released this Wednesday. Did you enjoy this podcast? Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss another episode. Until next week.