Practitioners’ Business Essentials Program

Jenn Malecha 

I’m so excited to be here, Reed, and thank you so much for putting on such a wonderful summit and providing so many resources for, I think the health coaches and health professionals that are out there that have been looking for the type of information that you’ve been sharing with all the interviews. So, I’m excited to share some pearls with them today about, you know, how to really create a successful business and how to implement systems and automation. So, that, like you said, what I do is so they can work less, make more and really enjoy life because what’s the point of working so hard if you don’t ever get to enjoy the money or the life that you’re creating. Right. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Hey, tell me about it. You know, I got a new rule, Jenn Malecha, I’m going outside two hours a day, no matter what, I mean, it’s a little hot right now, but, yeah. I’m spending more time outside and I work hard, but I make good money, but I want to enjoy it, like you said. Otherwise it’s kind of useless. 

Jenn Malecha 

Exactly. And that’s the same reason why I got into health coaching, Reed, when I came across functional diagnostic nutrition and your program and saw what I could learn and then do and realize I didn’t have to be, you know, stuck in the corporate world, working for other people. I could create my own rules and my own freedom. That was really inspiring for me. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. And that’s what I try to enable others to do is, you know, how do you run an efficient business that allows you to really have that freedom? I love to travel, you know that I love to travel all over the world, all the time. And so, I want my business kind of running for me in order to do that. And I needed to be organized and part of what I help health coaches and health professionals do is implement the systems to do that. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. And isn’t it appropriate that with the current crises, you know, in the country going on all the lockdown or, you know, sequestering and isolation that we’re doing, that we’re in a perfect business. Like you probably haven’t skipped a beat cause you already work from home. Right. 

Jenn Malecha 

Exactly. I actually enrolled a client, probably about an hour before we jumped on this call, consultation that I had with somebody on Tuesday, enrolled in my $4,000 coaching program. And I don’t have to lift a finger when I enroll somebody, I’m here talking to you because I have that freedom and structure in my business and that’s, you know, Reed, one of the questions that I always ask people is once you enroll a client, what’s the very next thing that you should do? So, I’d love to hear what you think the answer to that question is. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

What’s the next thing they should do after they enroll? Well, if they enroll with me the next day, they do, they got to get their lab tests done and fill out my intake forms. But, so I’m not sure if that’s what you mean. 

Jenn Malecha 

Right. Well, that’s what the client has to do. But you, as the practitioner, you, as the person running the business, once you enroll a client, what’s the very next thing that you should go out and do? 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Go put the money in the bank. 

Jenn Malecha 

Close. Yes. The money should automatically be deposited in your bank. And most people, when I pose this question to them, they’ll say kind of what your response was about the client is like, oh, well I need to go send them an email. I need to send them the client agreement and the answer, and that is not what you should be doing because that is kind of a waste of your time when we can implement systems that do that stuff. So, I say that when you enroll a client, the very next thing that you should do is go out and get your next client. And when we have systems in place and business structure going on, your business is set up the way that it should be, you should be able to enroll a client and walk away and go focus again on your marketing, or your projects, or your sales, or whatever it is that you’re looking for or to do, to create a steady, you know, income and foundation of revenue for your business. 

If you enroll a client and then you’re distracted with all of the things that you have to do right after that, then you’re not going out and looking for that next client to create that steady, you know, stream of income essentially. And I just see so many health coaches and professionals kind of struggle with this piece of their business. They go get all these wonderful trainings in business and marketing and they’re left kind of wondering, well, what does it actually look like? Like what are the steps in the process when I onboard a client, what are all the things that I need to be thinking of? And then when you actually write out that list of things, it can be really time consuming and your time is best spent either face to face with your clients working with them or out there putting your message out into the world so that you can continue to get new clients. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. Okay. I get it. Now let’s say you’re new though, because we have here a chance to provide some leadership, direction, guidance, and a lot of support for the newbie, as well as the experienced practitioner. Experienced people usually when I talk to them, they want to know more about the science, the labs, the protocols, the thing like, they’ve already got their business going. Let’s say there’s someone who’s changing from another career or maybe they’re just coming out of, you know, having raised kids and they want to do something purposeful with their life or, you know, it’s just someone who’s always wanting to be in the health coaching business. What would you say to them in terms of like getting their first client? I mean, before you get your second one, you got to get your first one. Right. So, what about that? 

Jenn Malecha 

Yeah. I love to give some guidance on this because I think getting your first client is a lot easier than we think. And I’ll just share my story about how I got my first clients as an example, because I think that we all have clients within our immediate network within, you know, three degrees of separation potentially. Right. And so, most of us, you know, we have our own personal health story that we can share. And I say that your health story holds the secrets to actually marketing and getting your clients. Because one of the things that’s going to help you get clients is being able to have instant rapport with them. And so, rapport is essentially trust if you’re not really familiar with what rapport is, but being able to build instant trust with them. And one of the ways that we can do that is through sharing our story. 

So I, suggest that new health coaches or health professionals go out there and they start sharing their personal health journey. How their trainings and how the work that they’re doing has influenced their personal health and has helped them to get success. You are your own testimonial. And what I found with this was, as I got into this world and through the training with FDN, I started sharing with my friends and family, what I was doing. I came into the training as a personal trainer, wanting to break free of some of the limitations with personal training, like, you know, having to be in person with people. There’s kind of a ceiling when it comes to your pricing and, you know, having to be in a physical space as well. And so, I started talking to my personal training clients about what it was that I was learning and doing. And I actually got my first couple of clients through there. And then also I sent out an email to my entire list of friends and family once I decided that I was going to change careers and I let them know what it was that I was doing, this new training that I had done as a health coach. 

And I was very clear in there about what type of person I was able to help, what were some of the problems that people we’re experiencing and the solutions that I had for them. And as a result of that email, you know what’s kind of funny, Reed, is two of my first kind of clients was my stepmom and my stepsister and they paid me. They both paid me $3,000 to be a client. So, I didn’t give them a family discount. Like they didn’t get it for free. They actually invested in my business because I shared my story with them and they believed in the work that I was doing. And so, that first kind of, couple of clients that I got through personal training, through just networking and referrals and through family and friends, then they started referring to me. And when you can deliver exceptional customer service, when your messaging is really clear, when you’re organized, when you’re confident in the work that you’re doing, the referrals are really effortless. They just come to you. You know, the client that I mentioned that I signed up actually an hour before our interview today, she’s actually a sister of one of my other clients that’s been referred over to me. And 95% of my business is referral based like that. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Which is the perfect kind of business. That’s what makes it kind of stress free. Now I know that you do a lot of good writing and you’re good at digital marketing and these sorts of things. You can go out and give public talks because I’ve known you for years and I’ve seen you do it, but, you know, not, everyone’s going to have that mindset at first. So, again, trying to break it down a bit, what are you considering when you’re onboarding a client? Are you like, you know, cause there’s like, please, please, please work with me. Or there’s like, yeah, I might work with you if you’re lucky, you know. Like those are two extremes. And I think there’s probably somewhere in the middle that you have to share with us. 

Jenn Malecha 

There’s a couple of things that are… Yeah. So, I think what is important is that you need to present yourself as being organized and confident. That is the most important thing. If you are lacking confidence in yourself, if you’re, if you don’t come off organized to that potential client, the chances of them trusting you are going to like diminish drastically, right? Like we’ve all, maybe have experienced this. Like if you have a bad experience with a massage therapist or with a product that you purchased, because there wasn’t good customer service, they weren’t competent in what they were doing. They are questioning, you can pick up and feel it, they are questioning themselves. You’re less likely to go back and invest in that person or to purchase with them initially. Right. And again, I think this is where I see a lot of those new health coaches and even health professionals out there that come out of their trainings. And one of the things that holds them back from getting started is they just don’t know what the next step is, they don’t know what, how to price themselves and how to, you know, be confident in their pricing for their services that they’re offering. 

And then what they have is fear, they’re after like, if I enroll this client, what happens next? Like what do I do? And, you know, I think that one of my super powers in a sense is I’m just very process oriented, not a lot of healer types are, have the process type of mindset that I do. So, when I got started in my business, I really mapped out, like, you know, back to that question of once you enroll a client what’s everything that needs to happen there moving forward, is really mapping out every single step in the process. And then how, you know, are you able to follow through with every single step in the process in order to deliver that exceptional customer service? Because when you can create an amazing customer experience, that’s what helps to get the referrals for the next client. 

So, really all you have to do is get one client. And if you deliver exceptional customer service and deliver on your promise to that client, then you’re going to easily get the second client. It becomes so, so much easier when you do it that way. And we can take, you know, I think Steve Jobs is a great example of this that I use all the time. I’m a huge Apple user. I have Mac computers. I have, you know, iPad, iPhones. And when I read Steve Jobs book, it really made sense to me that he, you know, people love his product because he controlled the user experience. He wanted to, you know, be able to, for people to be confident for it to be user friendly, like easy to use kind of stuff. And as a result of that, they’re one of the biggest, you know, brands out there in the world. Right. And we can even see that being duplicated in other areas like, look at Target. 

Target is another first-class kind of service brand. It’s very like predictable. You can walk into a store and most of their stores are designed in the same way. So, no matter what city you’re in, you know exactly where to go to find the product that you’re looking for, or Nordstrom is another favorite of mine. I love Nordstrom because I can order clothes from them online. And if I don’t like something I can easily, the return process is so easy. It’s a great customer experience. They have been known for their returns, that they will, I think I’ve even heard that they’ve accepted returns of like a spare tire or something that wasn’t even, you know, there’s, but the point is is that the customer service is what really matters. And so, getting your first client is about being really clear on who you want that first client to be having confidence in yourself. And I think a lot of that confidence comes from knowing what your prices and your packages are going to look like, knowing what you’re going to be offering to the person when you talk to them. And then also having an understanding of what the next steps are, so that you feel confident in that you know what you’re doing. And then also, so you can deliver on that service as well, too. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

You know, it sounds like you truly understand the difference between a, what I call a hobbyist and a professional. You know, we probably have had this conversation a number of times where, you know, people love being in the health business. They just love helping other people. And, you know, they just want to do some good in the world. Look, we all want to do some good in the world, but the way you can do the most good in the world is by really being professional, using systems and being on time. And don’t try to do it out of the trunk of your car type of a thing, you know. And I love what you said about Steve Jobs. You know, he, he, wasn’t known as a really nice person, but he was a really smart person who very, very successful. So, some of his stuff I think we can get and, you know, he was let go by the company.

He was considered to be bad for business after a while. And they fired him, you know, and he’s, and it was devastating to him cause that was his baby. And at the same time, he said, look, I just got creative. You know, I got really creative. I just started to create, create, create, and come up with new stuff that was even better. You know. So, it’s a word to the wise that if you come up against some adversity, you better just get creative, you know. So, now, tell us some more about this professionalism. Like what should, and again, I’m trying to bring it back to the beginning. You don’t have any customers or you’ve got very few customers, what’s that onboarding experience supposed to feel like, you know, for the client and for the person delivering it? It’s kind of, what should they feel when they’re delivering that client onboarding experience, if it’s going to be exceptional? 

Jenn Malecha 

Yeah. So, let’s actually talk about it, I think the starting point comes from, you know, even the point where you, it really starts from the beginning of where you schedule a consultation with them in the first place. So, being organized when you schedule that consultation is the beginning point of their experience. So, when somebody finally musters up the courage or they get brave enough to ask you for help, and then you want to be able to provide a clear path for them. So, and what I help people do is like they set up, you know, a form on their website that is asking a few questions about that person before they schedule the discovery call with them, I call it a discovery call, is a consultation. And then immediately after filling out that form, they get access to a calendar link where they can clearly see all the available appointment times, they schedule an appointment and then they get sent a confirmation email where they can add that to their calendar. And this all is going to help to ensure that the person is going to one, you know, show up for the call. 

But also it helps to ensure that they are having like a guided experience. Right. And helping with some of the languaging too, that you might be putting on that form. So, on my website, for example, when they get to that page on my website to schedule a consultation with me, I’m letting them know what’s going to happen in that consultation. So, I say, you know, during this 45 minutes, we’re going to explore exactly what’s going on with your body, what it is that you want with your health. And then, I will share some insights with you about what recommendations I have for you. And we can talk about how I work, and if we’re a right fit for each other. And I say the right fit part, because I actually learned this from you, Reed, in the course, is that we should be, you know, interviewing our clients just as much as they’re interviewing us. And it is important to feel like you have a connection with somebody, like, that’s that rapport piece.

Right. And so, then you have, then you have the consultation with them. And in my business essentials program, we really talk about how do you structure the consultation in order to, you know, back to your question, kind of give them great customer service, and at the same time, how does the practitioner or the health coach want to feel on the other end? And I want to feel at ease. I want to feel like I’m meeting the needs of the person that’s on the phone. So, when they come to us, as you say, like, there’s usually three things that they are wondering is, you know, can you help me? Have you helped others like me and what’s wrong with me? Right. So, we kind of want to address their concerns, right. And so, the way that I like to structure consultations, just as an example of how we deliver on this service and based on how I want to kind of, feel as the health coach delivering it as well, is that first 15 minutes is really about information gathering. These people that are coming to us, they’ve been through the ringer, they’ve been through what we call in FDN, the cycle of trial and error. 

They probably have lost a little bit of trust or faith and the traditional medical system, or even in the functional health system as well too. And they just want somebody to listen, to actually listen to them and understand what’s going on with them. So, that first 10 to 15 minutes is where I really try to focus my attention and energy when talking with somebody. And then the next 10 minutes we really talk about, well, what is it that they want to be experiencing instead? And this is where some of that transformational coaching component comes in, is this is how we build value and the services that we have to offer for them because they will come to us. And they’ll say that their main complaint is weight loss, or that they have eczema, or skin issues. And, but we want to get to the deeper parts of that. And this is also what helps them feel heard. 

So, I will ask them, you know, what would having that do for you? And then they’ll start to open up a little bit more and share more about how it would give them more confidence. It would change their life. And then I say, well, what’s really important about that for you? And then what it really boils down to is something related to joy and happiness and feeling like themselves again, oftentimes. And that’s really the diamond in the rough, like that is what we want them to connect with. And that’s part of building that rapport piece. And then the last portion of the consultation, the last 10 to 15 minutes is where I answer some of those other questions that they had. 

So, after understanding what it is that they want, I kind of circle back and connect the dots for them based on their health history, and where I think that I can help them where some of their healing opportunities are. And then from there, we talk about what packages I have that are going to meet some of their needs. And so, this goes back into like, we want to be organized. We want to be confident and clear on what it is that we’re offering somebody. It makes it easier for us to share the information. It also makes it easier for them to make a decision. If we are creating custom pricing, and it’s kind of like all over the place, or we’re not clear about what the offer is, if it’s disorganized at all, they’re immediately going to put up a wall about investing, right. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yes. 

Jenn Malecha 

So, so you clearly communicate. And I find that, you know, when you build value in that kind of way, when you can clearly communicate, the client will typically please say yes to one of those options. And then I think it’s really important to set expectations with clients. So, once they say yes to explain to them, what’s going to happen next. Great, here’s what’s going to happen next. We’re going to do your payment, which is going to initiate the shipping of the test kits to you. You’re gonna immediately get a welcome email that’s going to have instructions for, to do the intake forms online. Once I get all of your results back from your tests, and then I’ll be in contact with you, we can set up your results review session. And then from there, we’ll set up your reoccurring coaching sessions to guide you through the process, to make the changes, to build your health. And so, that’s just an example again, of, of that customer service and what it should look like from your first client, all the way to your last client. Like that’s how we should be delivering. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, I think so one of the things that’s coming through for me, Jenn Malecha, is the consistency. You know, like this is how you do it. You don’t meet one person and you’re doing work this way with that one. And then you work with another one this way. It is really hard to get referrals. Cause they, they kind of a sense that you’re just winging it, you know. So, you can’t wing it in this business. You have to have your packaging and your pricing and your, you know, your onboarding sessions. You got to know what questions you’re going to ask, how you’re going to interview and decide if number one can even help the person. I mean, that should be the first consideration I would think is like, gee, can I really help this person? Or are they some person I need to pass on to someone else if it’s not your wheelhouse? But you’re very systems based. So, how does one create a workflow like that and efficient workflow? 

Jenn Malecha 

Well, there’s a lot of different tools that you can use that are out there. And I think the, you know, the first thing in order to know what systems you need, you need to understand what it is that you’re trying to achieve. And so, this is where, when I built my, when I put my business systems in place, I really sat down and I mapped out like, what are all of those steps in the process? What are all the things that I need to be paying attention to, to make sure that the client is getting great service? What are the things that are maybe important to the client? So, for example, one of, kind of the bonuses that I include in my programs is when a client enrolls with me, they get a, a welcome gift. It’s a secret surprise and like they are so excited when they, get this package in the mail and it kind of instantly solidify some of that rapport that we built already. And that welcome gift will include, you know, tools or resources that are going to help them along their health journey, like a supplement organizer, things like that. 

And so, you really want to map this out, you know, from point A to Z, like what are all the things that need to happen? What do I want this to look like? And then based upon that, you can start looking at different systems out there that are going to meet those needs for you. And, and I really expand upon that as well too. Cause there’s more than just the client onboarding part of your business. You know, if you think about your business, you also have, you know, marketing and sales, right? So, if we think about the customer journey from the beginning part, like you’re out here on the internet, on Facebook, Instagram, you have a website and the whole point is to draw people into what we call your funnel. So, get them onto your email list. You nurture them through your email marketing, and then you make offers through that for an opportunity to schedule a consultation and they eventually buy from you and then you have to deliver on the service. And so, when you’re looking at business systems, you want to look for something that’s going to meet, all of those needs, because if you are working in multiple systems, like you’re doing your email marketing over here, you’re doing your sales and payment stuff over there, client management over here that can also be very time consuming in your day. 

So, I’m very, I’m attuned to efficiency. I’m the kind of person that wears my castor oil pack, sits in the sauna, and meditates at the same time. So, I can kill three birds with one stone. So, again, it’s really looking at your business on a bigger vision level, you know, kind of zooming out and going, okay, what are, I have this client management stuff, the onboarding things, here’s the map that I want. Like, here’s all the things that I want to have in that process. And then what else do I need in my business? And then you can start looking for systems and tools that will help to facilitate all of those things for you. So, again, you can create efficiency. I love that you commented on, you know, like something that’s duplicatable. You want to have a duplicatable process. If you’re creating custom programs and things like that for clients all the time, it’s going to become time consuming. It’s not duplicatable, it’s not predictable. And so, that’s going to suck up your time. 

So, you really want to have like in business, in marketing, we call this like your signature system for your, the way that you coach or you practice. It’s really important. And, just understanding that. So, once I mapped that out, I literally had like a word document where I connected dots and I have a diagram of like, here’s all the if and what then happened. And then I started looking at what are some systems that are going to meet my needs. And then I selected one and started implementing, building a process there, that now I get to share with other health coaches and practitioners too, which is fantastic, to help them on the journey as well. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

So, it sounds like you’ve kind of automated things a little bit, and I know that’s kind of your specialty cause we’ve worked together a lot. And it helps to be organized. I wanted to just jump back for a quick second and say another thing you got to be consistent in is your pricing. And if you are building a referral based business, they know what you charge the other person. So, it’s okay. Don’t feel, you know, like, you know, if you worked for the other person for a thousand bucks, they’re gonna want it for thousand. If you charge another person three, they’re going to be ready to shell out three grand or five grand. Like I know some of your packages are even higher than that because you are a professional and you have a system and tell us about the streamlining automation. And you also, what I like you just said is, you combined, it’s like you have, I try to keep it simple for people. 

So, you’re always going to have your sales and marketing or what you call promotion. You’re going to have to promote yourself. If you work for yourself, you’re going to promote yourself until you can hire other people to do it. It might turn out that, although you’re always like the best promoter of yourself, because you’re excited and you know all your stuff, you know. So, you got promotion time and then if you got, well, you got to deliver your product, you got to delivery or production or whatever you want to call that side. And, you can get really, with all the things, not to mention accounting, you know, and you know, you’re ordering, your, you know, delivering on a lot of things. So, how do you keep that automated and lined up? Like what’s… 

Jenn Malecha 

Yeah. So, I have a program called the Practitioner’s Business Management System that I’ve created as a result of this. And it really started from me automating my personal business and then recognizing that there was a huge need for this probably with other functional health coaches and practitioners. And so, there’s a couple of different tools out there that have some of these capabilities, Active Campaign or Ontraport is one of them. You’ll hear a lot of people talking about Practice Better as another option as well. And then there’s also Infusion Soft. And I use Infusion Soft to automate my business. And part of the reason why I use Infusion Soft, why I selected that as a program is because it does all of the things that we’re talking about. 

So, most people know Infusion Soft as a business and, or a marketing and sales tool. They’ve never seen it used as a client management system. So, what’s really cool about Infusionsoft is it’s highly customizable. And that’s basically what we, what I’ve created in my business that now I share with others is when somebody, it, Infusion Soft collects the payment. So, when I enroll a client payment gets collected through Infusion Soft, there’s order forms in there, the program will then recognize which, or Infusion Soft will recognize which program that person enrolled in. So, it sends them the specific welcome and instruction emails with the things that they need to know. And then the system is helping me to track and document what is being received back by the client, what intake forms have been completed, what lab tests have been done. And also when all of those things are turned in, the system will recognize that, and it will automatically create a task for me, to sit down and do my results analysis and put together my dress protocol. 

And when I mark that task complete, it then automates emails to the client to book their results review session. And it recognizes when they do that to move them forward again in their program. And it helps me keep track of what session they’re on. Like one of my larger packages has 21 sessions, which is a lot to keep track of and Infusion Soft I’m able to see exactly which session they’re on at any point in time. It’s also where I log all of my client notes from our sessions or document anything in there. We can see all orders that the client has made. And because it is an email marketing system, all emails are sent through there, whether they’re marketing emails or specifically for the client and their program. And you can see their history, their email history in that entire system. Now it took me six months to build this thing, Reed. And then once we built it, it took us another six months or so to test it and kind of work out the kinks. 

So, that is kind of, one of the benefits is that we have, an already kind of templated system for people to use out there. Active Campaign and Ontraport are both capable of doing a lot of these things, but as I like to explain it, you know, it’s a fixer upper home. So, a lot of people watch HGTV and you know, the term fixer upper and turnkey, and the fixer upper is basically, you want to break the house and you just want to keep, you know, the frame of the house, but you probably want to redo the whole entire thing. And that’s kind of what you get with Ontraport or something like Active Campaign is there’s no structure already there for you. It’s like a blank slate and you have to learn, you have to create it yourself. And then you have something like Practice Better, which Practice Better does some really great things on some of the client engagement side of your business, but it doesn’t have your email marketing and it doesn’t have a lot of the other sales and marketing tools that you would need. So, then you end up working outside of that in other systems that don’t actually connect and talk with each other, right. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah.

Jenn Malecha 

So, our system is what I call turnkey. It is that home that has 90% of all the touches and finishes that you want. And we copy that into your system and into your Infusion Soft account. And then from there, we take you through a process of putting the finishing touches on it, you know, personalizing it and making it your own, painting the walls. So, we teach you to put your logos and your branding into the emails, and how to modify some of the email templates that come over for you. So, then it becomes yours. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

So, it is a totally branded thing, which I like because you know, everyone’s unique and wants to have their own, their logo and identity and things. At least the health coaching that we teach is mostly entrepreneurs. Matter of fact, this morning, I gave a masterclass to the Holistic Entrepreneur Association. It was so much fun and so well received, you know, and, we’re spreading a lot of good education and, you know, vehicle for health coaching to become just an amazingly professional, elevated profession. It’s not just, I’m a health coach, you know, I can help you pick out some supplements if you want, you know, like, or something silly like that. We actually know how to find out what’s really wrong with a person. 

If you want to put it that way, you know, what are the healing opportunities and then walk them through that journey. So, how many, you probably couldn’t handle more than four or five clients, the old fashioned way, you know, or you’d be maintaining an awful lot of paperwork. So, you talked about this organization and automation, things like that. How do you translate that to, like referrals and retaining clients and things like that? Cause we all know how hard we work to get a client and we don’t want them going away. So, can it help you with that too? And then how would it translate into… 

Jenn Malecha 

Yeah. So, the engagement piece is really important. That’s what we call like the post-purchase experience is how do you, so the client invested with you now, and as we’ve been talking about is how do you deliver on that service and how do you engage them in the program? So, for, you know, us as FDNs like myself, you know, there can be a period of time in between when we ship the test gets out and we actually get the results back. So, in the, in my program, in the system, there are reminder emails that are going out every so often that are nudging the client to make sure that they’re completing their test kits, that they’re completing their intake forms and it will continue to nudge them until we receive all those items. So, that’s where it’s not me sending an email like, you were exactly right, if you’re doing this stuff kind of manually and monitoring it manually, that would take up time in your day to do that. 

So, the system is doing that, you know, basically for us, it’s helping to nudge and encourage the client. And then the client actually really appreciate that. You know, they appreciate the reminders that they’re getting. So, this is part of how we’re building that really great customer service experience. Right. And then we do have, there’s other, um, email reminders and ways to keep you organized. Like I mentioned, the welcome gift. I also halfway through their program, I do an encouragement gift as well. So, system is tracking when they get halfway through their program and it will create a task for my team to send out an encouragement gift of some sort to that client. Cause I find that once I get to about session six or seven, they start to lose motivation because they’re feeling really great and they forget how crappy they used to feel. And then the gift kind of re-motivates them. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah.

Jenn Malecha 

Exactly. There’s also milestones and benchmarks in there that remind me as the health coach to do reassessments with them using some of our intake forms that give us like a score so we can track and monitor their progress and give them feedback about where they are too in that health building process. And so, the clients find that super insightful. And again, it’s all a part of being organized. There’s at a certain point in their program, the system is automating a task or triggering me to do that next step with them. And so, when they’re experiencing that, they’re like, wow, nobody’s ever really paid this much attention to me. And that is what is incentivizing or inspiring for them to create, you know, send us referrals, right. And then actually at the end, towards the end of the program, it does automate like a testimonial collection as well as a referral suggestion. 

So, once they get towards the end of the program, it will ask them to automatically submit a testimonial. And again, the system kind of reminds them to do that until they complete that task. And then it will also let them know, you know, to kindly send any referrals my way. And if they do send referrals, like here are some of the benefits that they can get from sending referrals over such as getting more, you know, getting a free session. So, they continue doing this valuable work together, or they get a free bottle of like, you know, my favorite, one of my favorite supplements or whatever that might be. So, it’s that referral piece as well, too. And then for those people that are running like group programs or bigger types of courses and things like that, Infusion Soft itself has a whole affiliate marketing and referral system. So, I actually utilize that for when I run my cleanse challenges. There are some affiliates that I recruit some of my colleagues in the industry that help me to promote it. And I’m able to get referrals from them using the referral tracking system and affiliate set up that’s in Infusion Soft as well. And I can give them referral bonuses for the work that they do also, which is cool. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, Jenn Malecha, something just occurred to me cause, you know, I know a lot about what you do and I, that’s why you’re here. We’re trying again, to provide the leadership and support for the whole health coaching industry. That’s why I put together all the top leaders in the industry and put them all in one program, you know, and we’re, some people say, well your competitors. No. We’re, we call it coopetition we know that we want to make the pie bigger. Just make the pie bigger. I’ll take a small piece of a big pie any day versus all of the little pie, you know, like, ah I want it all. You know, so we just can’t think that way. And so, I love that you’re here and that’s always been our ambition is to get more people to become health coaches. So, for those that, you know, are sort of way behind you, so to speak, you know, like they may, they may know their stuff. They could know how to fix people and do all that stuff, but give us some more words of encouragement because when people hear, Infusion Soft, they think when I first heard of it, it was called Confusion Soft, you know. So, let’s just hit that nail on the head. Let’s take that bull by the horn and tell them that it’s not, not so hard. 

Jenn Malecha 

It’s definitely not so hard. And here’s the great thing about everything that I’ve been sharing with you guys today, you can still do manually. But as we, you know, mentioned, you may only be able to maintain that manual work up to a certain point. You’re probably going to hit a threshold with it, which is exactly where I got to as well. I had about four or five clients. I had an Excel tracking sheet where I was like tracking where, you know, all the client things that we’ve talked about today, like did emails get sent out, did test get sent out? Did I schedule appointments with them? Where were they at in their program? So, every single thing that we’ve talked about today is 100% doable on a manual basis if you’re not ready for systems. And, if you’re looking to take it to the next level, because you want to like hit the ground running, you want to be able to free up your time. 

Then you look to invest in something like Infusion Soft. And to your point, yes, any system out there can be confusing. All of the systems out there that I’ve mentioned, whether it’s Active Campaign, Ontraport, Practice Better, Infusion Soft, there’s, you’ll see people talk about Kartra or Kajabi. You know, all of them have their pros and cons. And there’s some things about them that are user friendly and some things about them that are not. As I heard, somebody once say it’s the devil that you know that’s the best one. So, they all have their quirks about them. And I even remember experiencing this, like years ago when I worked in corporate wellness and we were using constant contact for email marketing to like clients at that point in time. Cause all this online stuff was really new. And I just remember like cussing at that thing for, you know, all the time because the drag and drop builder or something about the email thing wasn’t working. And then we moved over to MailChimp because we thought that was going to be better. 

And we ran into similar but different problems. They all have their little things about them. But I think at the end of the day, Reed, what we want to keep in mind is that any successful, like substantial business out there runs off of systems, you know. Everybody, like there’s a system behind any kind of successful business. Like we can look at all different types of businesses. Like I think that even, you know, I think about going and getting my oil changed or when I schedule an appointment to get my oil changed that they send me auto reminder messages on my phone, you know. So, there’s a system that’s behind that. They’re using something that’s doing that once they book the appointment. Is it Infusion Soft? Maybe not, it may be something else. So, I just picked Infusion Soft because as I was mentioning earlier, it’s a one stop shop. 

It does all of the things for you. And that was something that was important to me was having everything in one location. And for, you know, the people out there that are hesitant of something like that, because it does seem, it’s a big powerful system. That’s where we provide ongoing training and support for the people that are going through our program. It’s not like we just dump it on you and say, see you later. I think what’s important is getting ongoing education and training about it. I think that with health coaches and health professionals, they tend to focus a lot more on the science, you know, the clinical aspects of their business because the other stuff is, you know, I’m a little bit scary, a little bit overwhelming, but to have a successful business, you know, you are the CEO, you are the marketing executive, you are, you know, the content creator. 

You are all the things in the beginning. And even when you get to the top, when you are the, you know, just the CEO and you have people working for you and you have systems in place, it still is important for you to basically, you know, at least on a surface level, understand what the systems are doing or what’s running your business so that you can point out any blind spots or something that’s going wrong. So, we 

do as you know, true like entrepreneurs, like true business people. This is where we do need to invest a little bit of our time, and understanding, and money and these things in order to create the success that some of us want. Definitely. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, absolutely. You know, there’s such a thing as return on investment and I’ve never known you to be shy to invest, you know, and I feel the same way. Which raises the issue of money management. Cause, you know, that’s something, some of us, I think I’m pretty good even by the seat of my pants. But when I started, when I had, say a hundred students and we were using, like you said, Excel spreadsheet or something, and we were tracking them across as they completed something, we changed the color code or checked the box or whatever. But when you have 3000 students, it’s just stupid to do it that way, you know, and you’re wasting money like crazy. And I, but I think for the beginner, even what you said is, is imagine like you’ve got every, all the ducks are in a row, your clients are all in there. 

They’re all automatically getting their email reminders. They’re all automatically getting, you know, suggestions or requests for referrals or it might be, but you’re also getting your reminders. You’re getting tagged, it’s saying, hey, today’s the day you call this or you do that or you send them a gift or it tells you to do. And that includes money. You said Infusion Soft collects the money. I know you worked through a third party for that, because we use it, and the money is there, every, and then, then you see what’s coming in. You can, you can start to organize and maybe even pay yourself a paycheck. Imagine that. When I wrote myself my first paycheck, it was a long time ago, but I was like so happy. I don’t even know if I cashed it. I just, you know, put it on the wall for a while. Something like that, you know. 

But, yeah, getting a regular paycheck is also really important in this business. And I don’t know any other way to do it, but to be really organized so that you, and pay yourself first. First check that gets written to Reed, you know, or to Jenn Malecha or to you, and then the bills get, it’s just a bill like another bill. You can’t do that if you’re not a professional, organized, using a good system, automating as much as possible. And Jenn Malecha, you really brought a lot to that. You’re so organized that when you said that you took care of three birds, you said you did a caster oil pack and took a sauna and something else, three birds with one stone. I bet you also… 

Jenn Malecha 

Meditate, yea. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Meditate. I bet your dog was taking a nap, so you were taking care of that bird, your husband’s cooking dinner. So, you take care of that stone too, you know, and there’s probably two other things that were going on while you were getting, you know, your meditation, sauna and caster oil pack out of the way. 

Jenn Malecha 

Yup. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

So, I know you.

Jenn Malecha 

You know me pretty well, Reed. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

So, you probably had given me something to do too. Now I want to talk about the last couple of things here, Jenn Malecha, and they’re really, really important. And it’s about, again, this idea of leadership. And why would I invite a bunch of my so-called competitors to all talk about health coaching and offer their programs freely, like there’s no holds barred. Everyone’s going to get the links to everybody’s, you know, website and contact and things like that. It’s why I want everyone to go ahead and purchase the program. So, you don’t have to keep notes on every single speaker you can watch next week, you know, tomorrow speaker, whatever it might be. And on that, on that leadership thing, besides you, like, you know, you’re a great practitioner, but you also created this really neat program that other people can use to run their business, you know, and that makes the pie bigger. That’s why you’re here. What else could we be doing to provide leadership in the area of health coaching, do you think? As professional leaders working together. 

Jenn Malecha 

Yeah, I definitely think that the business piece is so important. So, when I went through and started my business, I had invested in some additional marketing and business trainings, and there’s not really a ton of stuff out there that is tailored to a health coach. And specifically, even to narrow it down from there a functional health coach and the type of work that I specifically do, which as an FDN running lab tests. So, when I was even going through some of the sales and marketing trainings, I was having to take that and go, okay, how do I augment or evolve that to actually fit my business model? Fit like what I do is as a health coach. And I think that that’s where we see people. Like they go through some of these trainings where they’re getting a ton of the science out there, but then they come out of the training and they kind of get stalled because they don’t know what those next pieces are. And really, I think this whole client onboarding process is a big part of that.

Cause I took some sales and marketing trainings, which helped me to kind of understand how to put packages together. But then it was like, well, what happens next? Like what does that workflow look like? What, what does it look like through every single step of the client process? And I think that’s where we could all get a little bit better. And I love to see, like I know, you know, FDN is starting an internship program. I think RitaMarie has been on as a speaker and she has an internship program for some of her practitioners. And I do think, that the internship programs or another area of, to really focus on like, because they’re going to help the health coaches that are coming through, the practitioners that are coming through some of those trainings to actually apply what they’ve learned a little bit more and experience what it’s like to work with a client. 

So, then they have that knowledge and they can go out and duplicate it in the world. And at the same time when we’re doing that, we can also service the public a little bit more too, because there’s people that are coming out of all, you know, walks of life that are looking more for functional health coaches, health coaches in general, health professionals. And it would be great for them to be able to go to a credible reputable source. It’s like, let’s just say FDN for example, and say, I’m looking for a health coach, you know, how can you help me? And then we can, you know, they can go through an internship program and then that gets, they get a solution, the health coaches get the experience and then it’s a win, win for everybody coming out of that. And and maybe even that helps those health coaches to actually get clients like they can renew the clients out of that process. Cause that is the hardest, hardest part. Help them make some money initially, so they can invest in building systems for their business and things like that. Like I’ve done too. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. Fantastic. I’m just going to ask you one more question and it’s not a trick question or anything like that. Matter of fact, we’ve been, we’ve been kind of talking about it, but I want to tell the folks that, what Jenn Malecha is talking about is pure gold and pure truth because if you do it right, you’ll have a customer pretty much for life, you know. If you handle them right, and really deliver your product, and again, using all the modern tools and things is critical these days, especially since we worked so far apart from each other people aren’t coming in the office anymore. I’m not taking notes like this like I used to. But this is the absolute truth. This week, I got a LinkedIn message. 

Like, will you be my LinkedIn buddy, whatever you call it. And I’m like, oh, I know that guy. Yeah. Okay. Sure. And I did. And the first thing he said was, hey, I don’t know if you remember me, but you helped me back in 2008 and now my wife needs help. And so, sure enough, I had him in my records. I can’t give his name up, but he’s pretty famous author in the business building world. And I remembered his wife’s name. Isn’t that remarkable? So, he remembered me and I look him up and I go, oh yeah, you, you know, like he had written a book and in 2009 was the last contact I had with the guy. 2009, that’s 11 years ago. And when he needed somebody for his wife, guess who he called upon, you know. It’s really remarkable when you, when you do it right, and how long those relationships can last. Customer for life. Here’s the final question, we really covered a l lot of it already, but again, I’m trying to separate the hobbyists from the professionals. What would be your number one tip or qualifying factor? What separates the pros from the hobbyists? 

Jenn Malecha 

I think it’s having a vision for your business. You know, what is really sitting down and thinking about what do I want to be doing? What does this look like and writing or journaling it out, you know, knowing and looking at all aspects of this, it’s not just about like the business, like, you know, logistics. But it’s also about what do you want as a person, that was huge for me is, as I shared a little bit earlier was I was so tired of working in the corporate world. I wanted to get out of it. I had tried changing jobs a couple of times thinking that, you know, if I got out of fitness, like when I was working in the fitness world, I knew that I had to get out of there cause I would go out running in the morning, and when I would turn around to run home, I would start crying because I just, I was so stressed and kind of hated my job so much. 

So, then I got into corporate wellness thinking that that was going to be better and, um, worked in a place where it was really restrictive. Like my mom got sick and they were not very compassionate about me needing to take off work. And so, then I changed to another corporate wellness job and ran into a lot of those same obstacles. So, I think that’s really important too, visualize and write down what it is that you want to be experiencing in life. And then also, what do you want to be experiencing in your business? And hang on to that vision. I do a vision board every year and I journal fairly regularly about, you know, my intentions and what I want in my life and in my business. 

And that is the guiding, like the North star all the time that leads me, you know, to the solutions or the opportunities. And I just think that that is so incredibly important. Like if you don’t have a vision of where you’re going or not going to go anywhere, you’re going to stay exactly where you are. Right. And as I mentioned earlier, like, you know, when it comes to systems, you need to know what you’re trying to achieve in order to know what systems that you’re going to need. So, you really have to have that vision for your business, no matter what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Well, so glad you said that, you know, cause visioning is everything and you might not think you’re a visionary, but if you get out of your whatever zone you’re in, like everything’s all busy and stuff like that, you got to get by yourself, put your, put your bare feet on a rock like I do, or in the sand, or in the dirt, or weeds, or grass, or whatever, you know, and do that. What you just said. Paint the ideal scene in your head, or you’re never going to get there. So, perfect. And thank you so much. Thank you for being here. I want everybody to go out now and cash in your VIP pass. We’re going to put all the Jenn Malecha’s information in the show notes so you can reach out to her and all the other speakers too. So, uh, go for it. And Jenn Malecha, you keep up the amazing work. Thank you. 

Jenn Malecha 

Thanks for having me Reed. Appreciate it.