As we approach 2024, it’s a great time for gym owners to reflect on where they are currently with their business, and where they want to go. Helping people reach their health goals, and live a healthy lifestyle is why most gym owners started. Along the way they realized they needed to generate revenue if they were going to be able to stay in business. There are so many ways within the fitness industry to make money, and a nutrition program is one of the best.
If you are a gym owner, with or without a nutrition program, this blog post is for you!
We will show you four ways having a nutrition business allows you to have multiple revenue streams, help the community live a healthy lifestyle, and provide nutrition coaches a way to have their own business within your gym.
What Is A Nutrition Program?
A nutrition program is a structured coaching program with a personalized approach to helping individuals, or groups achieve their health and wellness goals through improved lifestyle habits, and nutritional choices. Nutrition programs have certified nutrition coaches or a wellness coach that provides guidance, support, accountability, and education on various aspects of lifestyle and nutrition.
At Healthy Steps Nutrition, we teach a holistic habit based approach to nutrition coaching. We believe that so many factors play into nutrition decisions, so we train our coaches to look at their clients entire lifestyle in the wellness coaching journey.
Our holistic pillars are:
Nutrition
Sleep
Stress management
Exercise
Lifestyle
Here are some key components of a nutrition coaching program:
Assessment: The program usually starts with an assessment of the client’s current lifestyle & nutrition habits, health goals, and medical history.
Education and Guidance: The nutrition coach provides information about the principles of nutrition science, including the importance of balanced nutrition, portion control, understanding food labels, and making informed food choices.
Goal Setting: Based on the assessment, specific, realistic, and measurable goals are established. These could include weight loss, muscle gain, improved energy levels, or simply adopting a healthier lifestyle.
Personalized Plan: A customized plan is created to help the client meet their specific goals. This plan takes into account factors like individual dietary preferences, cultural considerations, and lifestyle constraints.
Behavioral Change Strategies: A nutrition coaching program often includes strategies to help clients overcome barriers to making healthier choices. This may involve addressing emotional eating, stress management, or other psychological factors that impact eating habits.
Communication and Accountability: The client’s progress is regularly tracked, and adjustments are made to the plan as needed. This helps to keep the client accountable, and motivated.
Support and Motivation: The coach provides ongoing support, encouragement, and motivation to help the client stay on track, and overcome any challenges they may encounter.
Empowerment: The goal of a nutrition coaching program is not just to provide a temporary fix, but to empower the client with the knowledge and skills they need to make sustainable, long-term changes to their diet, and lifestyle.
Overall, a nutrition program aims to foster a positive, and supportive relationship between the coach and the client, with the ultimate goal of promoting improved health and well-being.
Running a nutrition business inside your gym provides an additional revenue steam that coincides very well with the fitness coaching offered. What many gym owners don’t realize is that their nutrition program can also have several revenue streams within itself. These additional services can make a big difference in the program.
Here are the 4 main ways a nutrition business can generate revenue for your gym, AND help people live a longer healthy lifestyle:
Revenue Stream #1 - Nutrition Challenges
Nutrition challenges are a great way to get current gym clients, and potential clients working to improve their overall health. Additionally they provide parties interested in your nutrition coaching program a taste of how these services work.
If you are not an HSN Mentoring client, we have an entire platform dedicated to teach gym owners and coaches how to run a nutrition challenge. We call this our Nutrition Challenge Intensive Program, and it offers a turn key solution that includes, set up, marketing, and nutrition coaching best practices during a challenge.
This online training can be coupled with a live interactive training at no additional cost. To find out when the next live date is after November 30th, 2023, please email consulting@healthystepsnutrition.com
Nutrition Challenge Basics
Nutrition challenges are typically 28days to 6 weeks in length and offer group accountability and support.
We suggest pricing to be higher than the gyms ongoing nutrition rate so when clients move into the ongoing coaching program after the challenge, the price is lower, not higher
Meeting with clients before and after the challenge individually to discuss goals & setbacks sets the client up for success, and helps develop a relationship so the conversion to ongoing coaching from the challenge is much smoother
Keeping the challenge habit based allows for more success, and engagement
Weekly group accountability meetings are a great way to encourage engagement, and answer questions.
Revenue Stream #2 - Ongoing Nutrition Coaching
Ongoing nutrition coaching is the lifeblood of a nutrition business. Nutrition challenges are a great way to get people interested by showing them how to create healthy habits, but ongoing personalized nutrition coaching is what gets the client long lasting results, and generates consistent income for the gym, and nutrition coach.
Ideal clients for your program are people who are motivated, and determined to reach a health goal. They appreciate the health coaching relationship, and take their accountability meetings and action steps seriously. Many of them will have a personal trainer too, or attend your group fitness classes because they understand that nutrition and fitness together can help them live a healthy lifestyle.
An Ongoing Nutrition Coaching Program Key Characteristics
Structuring your nutrition coaching packages.
We suggest structuring your nutrition coaching packages to be based on tiered accountability. Everyone is different, and one person may need more support than another
Start with a 12 week commitment.
Nobody reaches their long term health goal, or understands how the process works in one month. It takes more practice than that.
Having a great nutrition coach
A great coach doesn’t have to start off being certified. It’s great if they are, but don’t write potential coaches off just because they are not certified yet. HSN Mentoring provides an amazing nutrition coaching certification and training process.
People in “caretaking” fields make great coaches. Look for:
Teachers
Nurses
Former clients
Fitness coaches
The entire gym staff is onboard with the nutrition business
This doesn’t mean everyone of your fitness coaches has to become a nutrition coach. It simply means that all the coaches in your gym know how to refer clients to the nutrition program coaches in the event they show interest in the nutrition coaching program. The referral process needs to be seamless, and all staff members should know enough about the program that they can recommend it to others.
A clear consistent message
When new and current members walk into your gym, they should be aware there is a nutrition program available to them. The physical presence should be there meaning, there should be success stories posted somewhere, and a nutrition board highlighting the nutrition program details.
Create a content engine
It’s not enough to just share your nutrition business internally. Using all social media accounts to showcase your program will help you reach more potential clients. The more you post about your program, the more expertise you will show in the field, potentially reaching more new clients. This can help grow your client base.
Revenue Stream #3 - Employee Wellness
Workplace wellness is a great way for your program to reach more people at one time, and generate a significant amount of revenue while you are doing it. The goal of many employers is to create productive employees, and demonstrate an emphasis on health and wellbeing in the process. The program will benefit both the employer and the employee.
The employee will get healthy and have options to improve their health, and the employer will have a happier, more productive employee because they are healthier. It’s a win win!
Characteristics Of An Employee Wellness Program
There are two main options we offer in our employee wellness programs:
A wellness challenge
This is almost identical to our regular challenges however we perform the in person, and post challenge checkouts onsite. Additionally we work with an HR rep to promote the challenge, and sign ups usually run through the employer. Check out this blog post to learn more about running an employee wellness program.
Nutrition seminar series
Although a seminar series will not get the clients results like a challenge will, there is still great benefit in being able to get in front of people to teach them about health and wellness. As a nutrition professional, you will get the opportunity to help employees understand many different aspects of living a healthy lifestyle through nutrition seminars.
We offer one off lunch and learns, or in packages of four over the course of the year.
Revenue Stream #4 - Teens And Kids Nutrition
Obesity in the Unites States affects 14.7 million kids. Now more than ever nutrition coaches are needed to help these children. TV and social media platforms drive so many of our youths nutrition choices that it is hard for parents to keep up with all the noise. Putting a focus on healthy eating is imperative if we are going to serve this population.
Typically teens and kids don’t shop for their own food so working from the top down when working with this demographic is the first place to start. We involve the parents with ever new client that joins our youth program. And although we offer online nutrition for our adult clients, we try to focus mainly on in person coaching with the younger ones.
Making sure your nutrition is certified to coach teens and kids is the first step in adding in this revenue stream to your gym. From there they offer family nutrition coaching, individual youth nutrition coaching, and also sports team nutrition coaching which is a huge value add for athletes, the gym, and the nutrition coach.
Read the teen and kids nutrition coaching blog post to learn more about offering this service in your gym. And definitely reach out to us! We would love to help you get started.
Wrap Up
The success of a well run nutrition program lies in the consistency of best practices by the owner, and coaches in charge of the program. All the revenue streams in the world will not make a difference if the basics of business are not being followed.
If you are a current HSN Mentoring client and need support in any of these areas, talk to your mentor on your monthly calls. They can help you determine the best course of action given your current situation. And, if you are not a client of ours, we offer a ton of free help on our YouTube channel and blog.
You can also book a call to learn more about us and if our program is a good fit for you!
