Category Archives: Lifestyle Design

Your Wellness Business: Stay Local or Go Global?

When starting your own wellness business, it’s helpful to do some thinking around if you want to stay local or if would you like your business to be more widespread. A lot of it depends on what your life preferences are and what kind of business you would like to run. Here are a few key questions to ask yourself as you consider:

What is Your Ideal Lifestyle?

Do you thrive in being active in your community or would you like to travel the world? If you’re a homebody that likes to keep a tight knit circle of close friends nearby, you may do well with a business that mainly local. If you love to travel and live in different parts of the world, you might want to consider designing your business in a way that allows you to live that lifestyle. Considering these things up front can save you a lot of time and effort later on. It’s often easier to structure your business from the beginning according to what you want than to change it once it’s up and running.

What Kind of Marketing are You Comfortable With?

Are you a real people person who loves face to face contact? Or do you prefer online networking? Some of us thrive on personal connection to those in our immediate surroundings. There are others that are comfortable establishing connections on line first before meeting in person. Then there is a mixture of both. Deciding what kind of marketing tactics you enjoy can help you decide if you’d be better suited to staying local or going global with your business. If you enjoy attending local conferences, events and gatherings and really getting a feel for your community, a local business is probably your best choice. If you love to travel and enjoy networking with people from various parts of the world, a more expanded business may be your cup of tea.

Who Will be Buying Your Services?

What is your business and what are you selling? Is your expertise is best suited to those living in your local area or can people everywhere benefit from your services? Think about who you are targeting and what is the best way to reach them. Then you can decide if you have enough potential clients in your area or if you need to branch out. For example, if you are a personal trainer, your business will most likely be local. If you offer wellness coaching however, this can often be conducted over the phone or via Skype.

Where Do You See Your Business in the Long Term?

Where do you see yourself in one year and in five years? Where you’d like to end up in your business can help you decide where you like to start. If you’d like to have a business that serves clients all over the country or even globally, go ahead and set up your business with this goal in mind. If you’re pretty sure that you’d like to stay small and local, keep this in mind when setting up things in the beginning.

That being said, you can always start small and expand. All that really matters is that you start something.

How To Avoid Burnout When Running Your Wellness Business

Image from iStock photo

Starting and running your own health and wellness business can be fun, invigorating and interesting. It can also require a lot of work, long hours, and self discipline. It can be easy to slip into burnout before you realize what’s happening. Don’t let this happen to you. Be aware of how you’re feeling and what you’re doing from the beginning and you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever challenges come your way. While you may not always be balanced, being aware will help you realize when you need to take some time to re-energize. Here are some tips:

Budget Your Time Wisely

If you’re used to getting up and getting to an office every day, working from home will force you to self discipline. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself wandering around in your pj’s at 3:00 p.m. wondering where the day went and what should you have for dinner? Not that I would know of course…  Find out what your most productive time of day is. Is it first thing in the morning? Later at night when the kids have gone to bed? Once you’re aware of this, try and get the most important things done during this time. If you’re working with clients, you don’t have to schedule them back to back. Allow yourself a breather between clients to clear your head and prepare for the next one.

Stay Healthy And Happy

It’s really important to take good care of yourself when starting and running your own wellness business. If you work online a lot, be sure and take time away from your laptop. I have noticed that my creative energy flows more freely when I am away from my computer. If you’re training or working on clients each day, be sure and get plenty of rest and down time. Exercise, eat right and do things that make you happy. Your energy will be better and you’ll present yourself better in your business.

Taking care of yourself also means things like working with the kind of clients you enjoy. Doing this makes your work more meaningful, and joyful. If you’re not in a place yet where you’re only working with your ideal clients, be sure you’re working with kind people that don’t drain you. Have the courage to say no if it doesn’t feel right.

Find Ways To Get Un-stuck

Sometimes, a task can seem so big, that it’s easy to not do anything at all. There are also times when you’re just not sure what to do next, and are lost in a swirl of thoughts. When this happens to you, have some things you can do to remedy the situation. If you need someone to bounce things off of when you get stuck, call up a good friend or colleague. Hire a coach to keep yourself accountable to goals and actions steps. I’ve personally found this to be very helpful. Reaching out for help doesn’t make you look weak or incompetent, it actually shows that you’re determined to get things done, whatever that takes. And taking action feels so much better than doing nothing at all.

Set Up Systems

Learn how to set up your office so that it allows you to work efficiently. This may take some time to learn but that’s o.k., the payoff will be worth your effort. If you can set things up right at the beginning, it will save time and frustration later. Streamline your e-mail accounts, social media, and payment methods. Have everything ready before working with your clients. We’ll be talking about this more in future posts so stay tuned.

Delegate

If there is something you really hate doing or just don’t have the skills for, consider hiring someone else to do it. You can spend weeks or months learning how to set up and design a website or you can hire someone to do this for you and concentrate your efforts on helping your clients. This might require some money up front, but you can usually find a good website designer for a reasonable price. And having a professional looking website will be worth what you’re paying.

Not good with accounting? Hire an accountant to keep your books straight. You’ll feel confident that your finances are being taken care of and won’t spend energy worrying on if they’re incorrect.

Bottom line: Focus your efforts on your strengths and the core of your business, and delegate the rest.

Remember Your Purpose

When you’re feeling stuck and frazzled, it may be helpful to physically leave your office and clear your head. Remember why you decided to work in the wellness field and what feelings you wanted to experience by taking this journey. It’s easy to sometimes get caught up in the day to day things that you forget why it is you wanted to start your own business. Remember that this too will pass and if you keep working towards your goals, you will get there.

Why Extreme Self Care is Crucial to Building Your Business

So you’re happily humming along in your normal health and wellness routine. You eat yummy, nourishing food, exercise regularly, spend time with loved ones, get plenty of sleep and feel great! You’re so energized and ready to start helping others feel the same way that you have decided to start your own wellness business/practice.  And you’re raring to go.

All of a sudden, there are umpteen items on your to do list and your new venture is taking up more time and energy than you originally planned. You’re spending hours on end at the computer doing all this social networking, marketing, tweaking your website, setting up invoicing and finances, while at the same time trying to focus on your new clients. The next thing you know your energy is sagging, your neck is stiff, you haven’t exercised in several days, you ate yet another Lean Cuisine for lunch today (ick), and you can’t remember the last time you went out and cut loose.

Do not let this happen to you.

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The Journey Of A Fledgling Wellness Entrepreneur: Part 1

pathtolight

I am in the early stages of starting my own wellness coaching business as a Vibrapreneur. For those of you who are on the same path, I thought it might be helpful for me to document my journey along with all the ups, downs, successes and failures encountered in the process…

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