How To Ease Your Fears Of Promoting Yourself As A Health Coach

It’s not surprising that the fear of self-promotion is so common.

It’s scary to put yourself out there!

If you want to have a successful business (and I know you do!), then one of the most important things to learn isn’t social media strategy or how to launch a group program, rather it’s how to ease your fears.

In last week’s post I talked about why the common advice to ‘bust through’ or ‘push through’ your fears actually is NOT the best approach…

…and how amazing things happen when you LISTEN to your fears.

As I shared last week, there are 4 big reasons you may fear promoting yourself:

• Lack of confidence in yourself or your knowledge
• Not having a plan of how to put yourself out there
• Not wanting to feel ‘salesy’
• Fear of rejection

Today, I’m going to get tactical and share very specific ways to ease each of these common fears.

Let’s break down each fear and discuss how you can create a plan to promote yourself.

1. Lack Of Confidence

A lot of new health coaches experience a lack of self-confidence at some point. This usually comes from a feeling that you don’t know enough, or that you aren’t good enough to get results for your clients.

Honestly, every entrepreneur struggles with this at some point in their career.

There are a few strategies to help you ease this fear:

Look back at your own story

Start by looking inward at your own story. Have you overcome health challenges? Look at all of the people you’ve helped deal with their health challenges, too. It could be friends, family or clients. Everyone that you’ve helped, including yourself, contributes to your strength and know-how as a health coach.

Make a list of what you teach

Write down everything you know about your the areas you help (or want to help) people with. This will remind you that you know A LOT more than people who aren’t in the health and wellness field. It can be easy to forget that most people don’t have the same expertise and knowledge that you do.

Look at emails and testimonials

Give yourself a boost by looking at all the rave reviews people have given you after you’ve helped them. Create a folder or document where you can save every great email, Facebook message or testimonial you receive. Refer back to it when you need a boost (or when you’re writing a sales page!).

2. Not Having A Plan

There’s nothing like winging it to make you feel anxious! Having a game plan can make a huge difference in overcoming and managing those fears.

Create outlines for your conversations and templates for your emails

Knowing that you have a game-plan for what to say (or write) can be a game-changer when it comes to easing fears.

Write a template email that you can use to reach out to potential promotional or referral partners so you aren’t starting from scratch every time. Personalize it with how you found them and a compliment on their work or a question about them. It will warm them up and feel more genuine than a cold email.

When drafting an email template to potential clients, determine ONE specific offer you want to make. This could be an offer for an initial consultation to determine how you can help them… or it could be for a group program you’re offering.

Sharing general information about yourself and your services is great for getting your name out there, but it won’t compel people to take the next step with you.

Just like you can create email templates to reach out to new people, you can also create an outline for the conversations you will have with them.

For clients, this can be creating an outline for your discovery session. Write down the questions you’ll ask and the offer you’ll make. Practice your discovery calls to get the flow down.

3. Not Wanting To Feel ‘Salesy’

The fear of selling is a very real thing for a lot of health coaches. You got into this business to help people, not to be a salesperson.

To help with this, reframe your thinking.

The programs and services you offer truly help people. Rather than thinking about “selling”, use the word “inviting.”

You’re inviting people to work with you so they can finally [insert whatever result(s) you help people with].

Remember, you’re not trying to sell someone a used car that’s on it’s last leg. You’re offering something that people want and need!

Marketing is simply sharing how you can help someone. They’ll decide if it’s right for them.

4. Fear Of Rejection

Rejection hurts. And it can feel really personal even in business because you put so much of yourself into everything you do. You are your business!

To help with this, turn the tables for a moment, and think about everything that you say ‘no’ to and why.

Maybe you were approached by another wellness professional about promoting each other, but you passed on it because you found it just wasn’t a good fit for your audience.

Maybe you recently received emails promoting a program to help you grow your business. You thought the program sounded interesting, but it’s not the exact thing you need right now… or maybe the timing isn’t right.

When you make the list of things you’ve said “no” to lately and look at it objectively, you’ll likely see that it’s not personal.

All this being said, getting a “no” always hurts a bit. To take the sting out, it helps to have a a few irons in the fire.

For example, if you want to book 2 speaking gigs next month, reach out to 6 potential groups/venues. This way, if you get turned down by a couple of places, you know there are other possibilities in the works.

If you’re continually reaching out to more people and getting in front of potential clients, you won’t be putting all your eggs in one basket, so hearing a ‘no’ right now won’t hold as much weight.

 
As you start to understand what you’re fearful of, you’ll be able to ease your fears in ways that are extremely effective.

That means that you’ll feel more and more comfortable promoting yourself. And this is what’s going to allow you to create a sustainable business for yourself.

 
Now I’d love to hear from you!
What fears have you had about promoting yourself? If you’ve gotten over these fears, what advice would you give to other coaches?