As an advocate for healthy eating and an active lifestyle, your health and wellness career is incredibly important to you. With your passion for healthy living, you know that you must constantly work to grow your business and career—standing still is not an option.
There are countless ways you can boost your health and wellness career to benefit your clients and continue expanding your business. Here are seven of the best options to do just that.
1. Get Career Certified
It might seem obvious, but the best way to enhance your career in health and wellness is to get certified. You’ve got the passion, dedication, and maybe even the knowledge, but you can only go so far as a health and wellness professional without certification. Not only will it raise your earning potential—as most gyms and other business won’t hire you without certification—but it will give current and potential clients a new confidence in your experience and ability.
2. Follow the Trends
Staying up to date on current health and wellness trends is critical to staying relevant to your current and potential clients and will set you ahead of the competition. After all, best practices and recommendations in the world of health and wellness change seemingly every day. Staying on top of trends means you can tweak your offerings and deliver what your clients are looking for, which will give you better retention.
One good way to follow trends is to sign up for the newsletters of major health, wellness, and fitness brands and organizations. It might crowd your inbox, but it will be worth it: Major brands are always at the forefront of industry trends, and what they send out can help you stay ahead of the curve. Also, industry Facebook groups, relevant podcasts, and blogs by health and wellness professionals and experts are great avenues for keeping tabs on health and wellness trends.
3. Get Business Savvy
When you launch your career in health and wellness, it’s important to make sure you’ve taken care of the nitty gritty legal items:
- Lock in business insurance: Having professional liability insurance will protect you and your business in the event of a lawsuit.
- Identify your scope of practice: Laws about how you can legally provide nutritional and health advice vary from state to state, so be sure you know what your state’s laws are to avoid any potential issues.
- Secure your business name: Trademarking your business name guarantees that the hard work you’ve poured into your career and brand are secure.
You also might look into having an accountant and lawyer in your back pocket to help you with anything that comes up as you work on taking your career in health and wellness to the next level.
4. Continue Your Education
Your education shouldn’t stop the moment you receive your health and wellness certification. There are countless specialist health and fitness certifications you can receive to take your resume to the next level. Having a specialist certification means you can provide an important niche service and ultimately boost your earnings. Depending on your specific interests, you could pursue specialist certification in back or knee injury prevention, focus on working with clients in a specific sport such as golf, or become certified to work with individuals living with illnesses like multiple sclerosis (MS).
Additionally, making sure your current certification is up to date is important, so take the time to maintain your fitness certification by taking continuing education courses.
Become a Certified Holistic Nutritionist Online in 6 Months or Less
5. Use Digital Tools
Having plenty of digital tools can help you streamline your consulting business, not to mention connect you with your clients in order to improve client relationships. By encouraging your clients to use food-tracking and activity-tracking apps such as:
- MyPlate by LIVESTRONG.com or MyFitnessPal: You can better connect with your clients through these apps, which enhances their experience and can lead to great online and word-of-mouth reviews and more business for you.
- Evolution Nutrition: This app has mobile and desktop functionality, making it easy to expand your nutrition and fitness career by enhancing your offerings and connecting with clients from anywhere.
- NutriAdmin: Another powerful business management solution, NutriAdmin offers customizable client profiles and questionnaires, appointment scheduling, meal planning, online payment options, and more.
There are countless apps and digital tools that we love, and you can check out our top 10 list here.
6. Market Like a Pro
Your health and wellness business can’t run itself—you need marketing chops to pull in clients and keep the ones you have. The best way to do this is to develop a marketing strategy. Here are some tactics that will boost your health and wellness career in no time:
- What sets you and your talents apart? Your story will always be more compelling than facts and figures, so use your story to sell your services.
- Who are your ideal clients? Whether you want postpartum moms or the retirement crowd, make sure you know who you are marketing to so you can target your messaging.
Once you know who you are and who your ideal clients are, make sure you’re on social media, building an email list, and communicating with clients past, present, and future on a regular basis.
7. Find a Mentor
Once you’ve got the training, the marketing, the clients, you might think you’re golden. But it’s important to continue growing your health and wellness career. One of the best ways to ensure that you’re always moving in a forward direction is by having a seasoned mentor familiar with the industry who can ask the right questions, provide constructive feedback, help you network, and dish out wisdom.
8. Embrace self-care
Last, but not least, don’t forget: You’re only human. Your passion for guiding others on a journey to healthier, happier living is the driving force for your health and wellness career, but don’t forget that you need to take care of yourself, too. Taking time for self-care when you’re wrapped up in the lives and challenges of others on a daily basis can seem like a bottom-of-the-list priority, but you won’t be a good health coach if you’re not at your best. Schedule time every day to rest, recharge, meditate, read, relax, and make sure that your own health and wellness is a top priority, too.
Want to learn more about how you can succeed with a career in health and wellness and what the pros use to enhance their business? Download our AFPA graduate success stories.
