Booked Solid: How to fill a cancellation spot in under 5 minutes

BOOKED SOLID:
How to Fill a Cancellation Spot in Under 5 Minutes

Written by Jennifer Broxterman, MSc, RD
Registered Dietitian, Founder of NutritionRx
Two-Brain Coaching, Nutrition Coaching Course creator

Imagine being a personal trainer where you’re flipping through your calendar, and every PT spot (3-4 per day), is filled with clients, week after week. You’re fully booked up for this month, and only have 4 remaining spots open for next month. You are BOOKED SOLID.

Now imagine that you make way more money helping people change their lives for the better. Imagine what a $10/hr, $20/hr, heck, even a $30-$60/hr raise would feel like. Imagine charging between $100-$200/hr for your time, with no gaps in your schedule between clients.

Oh, and no more crappy work hours working really early mornings, or late into the evening. Imagine working from 8:30am-12:00pm, Monday to Thursday, week after week. Your afternoons are yours to do creative work, catch up on admin, and grow your business, and your evenings and weekends are free and 100% yours to do as you please.

That my friends is my reality as a nutrition coach with a thriving nutrition practice. 

As I sit here, I don’t have a single opening left for September, and as I look ahead to October, I only have 4 openings left for the entire month. I currently have 14 people on my cancellation list, waiting to move up to a sooner time slot to start working with me. The moment that I have a cancellation, I send the opening out to my cancellation list, and the average time it takes to fill the spot is 5 minutes. No wasted gaps in my day, and I work on the schedule that works for me (mornings, Monday-Thursday from 8:30am-12:00pm). It really is my #perfectday.

The coolest part – it’s been like this for YEARS, being “sold out” of spots for people wanting to work for me for nutrition coaching, to the point where I’ve had to bring on not only one, but a second nutrition coach, just to help me with overflow demand at NutritionRx.

You might think I’m a master in marketing to have so many clients flocking to work with me. Nope. I’m actually pretty terrible at marketing, and haven’t spent even a single penny on Facebook ads or any kind of formal advertising. My advertising comes entirely from word of mouth happy clients, and I’m at the point where I’m very selective of who I work with, turning away almost as much business as I accept and only working with the clients I know I’m an amazing fit for and that will bring me joy to work with.

The biggest game changer when my business really took off is when I attended a training seminar on Motivational Interviewing, and completely flipped the way I talk to and work with my nutrition clients. I dropped macros and meal plans, and began to master the art and science of nutrition counselling by connecting on the more human level of helping people master behaviour change. 

I did a lot of UNLEARNING as a Registered Dietitian. I read books and studied from master coaches who were wizards in helping people change their behaviour and form lasting habits that supported their long-term health goals. I met my clients where they were at, and stopped trying to force my own nutrition agenda on them. I threw out all of my Food Guides. Well, technically, I recycled them, but they no longer sit in my nutrition office and I definitely don’t hand them out anymore.

I helped my clients increase their curiosity, kindness, and honesty with themselves. We did more work on inner self-talk and less work on counting calories, hitting Food Guide target servings, or finding the perfect macro balance and asking my clients to stick to it by tracking every bite they ate in MyFitnessPal. We focused on making their calories count by taking a habits-based, whole foods perspective, instead of counting calories, while also taking a more holistic approach and connected the dots between nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and inner self-talk and body image.

Today, I’m paid better than I ever thought I could be! I love going into work, and I feel like I get to work with the best clients who are grateful for my help. They respect my time and expertise, and tell all of their family and friends about how well they are doing thanks to our nutrition coaching sessions, effectively doing the marketing for me.

The biggest difference isn’t that I’m smarter than when I came out of school as a Registered Dietitian. The biggest difference is that I sought out the right kind of learning post-university to be the most effective nutrition coach I could be. By improving my coaching skills in the areas it counted most, the benefits have been extraordinary:

• I’m able to achieve way better client results, meaning I have happier clients who stick around for longer, and I get more 5-star Google reviews and word-of-mouth advertising
• I have a BOOKED SOLID schedule, for years now
• I get to work my perfect day, on the schedule that works for me
• I earn way more income per hour
• I work with better clients who are great humans and who make me happy, and I have the luxury of choosing who I want to work with and who I have to turn away because I’m at capacity
• I’ve been able to bring on a team of caring and wonderful nutrition professionals to support the work that I do, plus, having great coworkers only make the job even more fun

When you know better, you can do better. I wish I would have had these skills coming out of my university Foods & Nutrition degree and dietetic internship that was supposed to prepare me as a Registered Dietitian to work with nutrition clients, but unfortunately, that education fell short of the skills I actually needed in the real world to be a world-class nutrition coach.

However, thanks to some pretty awesome books I’ve read and continued training and practice in motivational interviewing, I was able to teach myself and fill in the gaps to become extraordinary at helping my clients change their own behaviour through habits-based nutrition coaching. 

That’s exactly why I created the self-paced online Nutrition Coaching Course for other nutrition coaches working in this field. I would hate to hoard this knowledge in my own brain. To me, if I can teach other nutrition coaches to be more effective, to sell out their schedules, and to help more people eat healthier and change their health habits for the better, everyone wins. You win, you clients win, and the world becomes a better and healthier place overall.

Plus, I want to save health coaches and personal trainers from burnout who eventually quit the gym and leave for a job that offers “more security” but doesn’t light their soul on fire, because we need more leaders LIKE YOU helping our society to live a healthier life through exercise and better eating habits!

So, if you have between 10-15 hours to invest in your own training and upgrade your nutrition coaching skill set, especially when it comes to mastering motivational interviewing and helping clients change their behaviour and habits, I’d love to teach you the skills I’ve learned to sell out your own nutrition counselling practice and create your perfect day. It’s not as hard as you think.