You have dreams.

Chief among them is your dream of a rolling hot business, making money in your sleep, that you love to run.

If this dream feels like a million years away, you’re not alone.

When your business is young, it can feel like you have a million things on your plate at all times. Entrepreneurs in the early stage of business tend to feel a lot of pressure to get off the ground, and often, they don’t see gains right away. It takes a little bit of patience and a lot of strategy.

A wise business coach, John Bulman, recently told me that launching a business is a lot like launching a space shuttle. At first, the pressure builds. You see a lot of fire and you hear the roll of thunder. The pressure builds and builds, but the rocket takes a while to get enough force behind it to move anywhere.

Eventually though, there’s enough force pushing the rocket up into the frontier of space.

In a world where so many business owners feel a fire under their butts to get stuff done, growth can feel scary, confusing, and sometimes even impossible. You have a vision of where you want your business to be someday, but it feels impossible to get there. Sometimes you just don’t know the next step.

Scaling a business might be the hardest thing you ever do.

Why Scale My Health/Nutrition Business?

If you stay the way you are today -- just you, all by yourself, working on your business in complete solitude -- you will never grow.  

You won’t be able to make much more money than you are now.

Years from now, you’ll still be churning through your days, bracing yourself before checking your bank balance, and scrounging up new clients. You won’t have a strategy or a plan, and you likely won’t have effective systems in place to get things done.  

Here’s the truth: scaling your business allows you greater freedom FROM your business. Scaling means that you’re setting up the right systems to get things done, with as little effort as possible.

You’ll have greater capabilities to deliver the best possible nutrition guidance to your clients because you’re not chained to RUNNING your business. Imagine: less housekeeping, more changing lives.

Without further ado, here are five challenges nutrition professionals face when it comes to scaling their business, and how you can overcome these common challenges.

Challenge #1:  Scaling too soon

So many small business owners -- health coaches, nutritionists, and dietitians  included -- feel inspired when they’re growing their business. They can see where they want their business to be in the future, and they want to get there as fast as they can. But scaling too soon can mean chaos, overwork, burnout, and major cash flow issues.

How can you tell if your business is ready to scale?

Your business is ready to scale if:

• You have a system for everything
• You’re bringing in significantly more than you’re spending to run the business
• You have a strong team you can rely on (even when you’re not around)

It takes time, but once you have a solid sense of how your business runs best, what your purpose is, and if you can rely on your business model to pull in money for the long haul, you’re probably ready to scale, you rockstar!

Challenge #2: Not having a process for everything

Newbie nutritionists and veterans alike tend to go “warp-9” through their work weeks, being worker bees and putting out fires.

Remember:  just because you sped through it, doesn’t mean you saved any time.

Finding the right tools to automate your business processes is essential.

Without automation, you’re wasting your time filling out invoices, scheduling meetings, tracking finances, and other such drudgery.  

The fix? Automate everything you can!

According to Forbes, “78% of business leaders posit that automation can free up to 3 hours a day.” What will you do with those extra hours?

It might take a second to get used to technology doing everything for you, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be so glad to get back to working directly with your clients and not being chained to your business all day.

Automating processes in your business is the ultimate way to work smart, not hard. Whether you’re sick of spending hours crafting meal plans for clients, or tired of losing track of your multiple client needs, investing in the right tools can make your business run smoother, become more lucrative, and give you an edge as a health coach.

Are you ready to make the meal planning process so much easier for your nutrition clients? Sign up for your free trial of our Meal Planning Software, so you can easily find, personalize, and share professionally-created meal plans with your clients.

How to set up a process for everything in your business

Setting up processes for everything in your business can save you hours of precious time every week. But where to begin?

It’s all about finding the right tools to support your mission.

If you’re tired of spending hours on meal plans, be sure to sign up for Meal Garden Pro -- so you can create delicious and nutritious meal plans quickly with a specific client’s needs in mind. Be sure to use Canva or Designer to pop out some professional-level designs for social media, e-newsletter, or your website. To read more about essential tools for your health coaching business, be sure to check out our articles “Awesome Apps for Health Coaches” and “Health Coach Essentials: 9 Tools to Upgrade Your Business”.

Without the right tools, it’ll be very difficult -- if not impossible -- to take your health coaching business to the next level.

Challenge #3: Finding the Right Team Members

Chances are, you’re the only wellpreneur in your business. And chances are, you think you can do everything -- from emails, writing blogs, to bookkeeping -- all by yourself.

As your business grows, it’s going to become more and more obvious that you need to find people to help you.

It’s tempting to hand off work to the closest person. Maybe you handed off some email copy to a high school friend who worked for a marketing agency for a spell, but you’re realizing he never gets work to you on time. Or maybe you decided to hire a freelance designer friend of yours, but she never has time to work on your business because he’s too busy slaying his full time job.

So what gives? How can you find skilled, trustworthy team members to help you with your nutrition business?

How to find the right team members for your nutrition business

First, figure out what you do on a weekly basis that you can hand off to someone else. Sit down and write a list of weekly tasks you either don’t enjoy doing, or don’t do well. For example, maybe the very thought of bookkeeping and staying on top of finances freaks you out a little bit as a small business owner. All that stress and anxiety would disappear as soon as you hired a trusted bookkeeper to handle things.

Or, maybe you love writing but you just don’t have time anymore to sit down and write your blogs for the month. Maybe it’s time to hire a writer to tackle those for you. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help! In fact, the smartest business owners understand they can’t do everything alone.

So how do you find these amazing freelancers to help you out? Sites like Upwork and Fiverr allow you to find skilled contractors who can accomplish anything you need -- from design work, to writing a sales funnel, to being your personal assistant to help with scheduling. Whatever you need, you’ll be able to find the perfect person for the job.

Challenge #4: Not having enough cash flow

Even if you’re making good money, it’s possible that you don’t have nearly as much available cash as you’d like to have. Running a business is expensive, and cash flow issues are a major challenge for many wellpreneurs. You’re not alone!

There’s no reason to go deep into debt just in order to run your business. Getting your finances in order is essential now, before your business gets too big and your financial picture looks like a mess.

How to get your cash flow in order so you can support scaling your nutrition business

Raise your rates, if you haven’t already. (Chica, you should NOT be charging $20 an hour. You are a professional.)

Find more clients by clicking your heels together three times! Just kidding -- there are tried and true ways to gain more clients so money can start effortlessly streaming to you from multiple sources. Check out our blog article, “How to Get Clients for Your Wellness Coaching Business” to learn how!

Secondly, it’s a good idea to get a credit card for your business to help free up some cash every month. Just be sure to pay down your credit card every month so you don’t end up with a mountain of debt!

Challenge #5: Dealing with sub-par services and business results

Before you consider scaling your business, you need to make sure you have a strong, effective business that’s worth scaling.  

If your clients aren’t seeing the results they want, if you’re getting a lot of confusion from your clients, and if they’re not as happy as you’d like them to be, you have some kinks to iron out before you can move forward with scaling.

How to Improve Your Health Coaching Services

Be honest about your weaknesses as a wellpreneur. Which areas of your business need some help? Which areas need a better process? Which areas of your business give you the most stress? Address these areas now before they become amplified by a bigger business with higher demands.

If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to improving your business, it’s always a good idea to hire a business coach! There are tons of business coaches that focus only on helping health coaches like you, who can give you a roadmap to success. After all, in the wise words of Althea Gibson, “No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.”

Don’t Let This Article Scare You -- Meal Garden Is Here to Help Wellpreneurs Grow and Become a Smashing Success

You’re a nutrition entrepreneur because you want to help people become the healthiest possible version of themselves. Here at Meal Garden, is here because we want nutrition professionals to become the best possible version of themselves. From the first day you open your business to fifteen years and running, Meal Garden can provide you with invaluable meal planning tools,  business tips, and a client portal so you can connect with your clients easier than ever. Click here to sign up for your free trial. Meal Planning and client engagement has never been easier.

business growth, entrepreneurship, scaling business, wellpreneurs

‍