How To Guarantee Your Nutrition Clients Better Results

...The Real Secret of the Hybrid Check-In System

Written by: Dr. Marc Morris CSCS

If I told you three years ago, I made one small change in my nutrition coaching that doubled my income, in half as much time and left my clients happier than ever, would you want to know about it? 

In today’s blog, I’m going to show you what this change was and how you can take your nutrition coaching check-ins to the next level—delivering your clients better results, in less time, so you can make more money and create more impact. 

To grow your nutrition coaching business, you already know you need to be a good coach. 

You have to be able to get clients' results, but also be someone that people want to work with. 

But you also have to deliver a high-quality, professional service. 

What I’m going to show you today is called the “Hybrid Check-In” and it’s going to really impress your clients, but also blow away your competition. 

Here’s how most nutrition coaches correspond with their clients. 

After they onboard their clients and set them up on a plan, they’ll check in with them on a weekly basis. 

The frequency of once per week is the sweet spot. This gives the client enough time to put your feedback into action and not so much time that you aren't close to the process. 

The best practice in this area goes as follows:

Your client submits some pre-determined data and fills out a feedback form that gets sent right to your inbox. 

Then you review the information, provide detailed feedback and any adjustments and action items and send it back over. 

This process is efficient and effective. 

The process is streamlined, so you don’t need to meet with your client. 

But you can still coach and describe all of the important things necessary to deliver client results. 

And truthfully, clients like it better this way. 

Although we do develop relationships with our clients, live meetings can contain too much small talk. 

Or discussion that is unrelated or unnecessary. This gets right to the point and it's best for everyone involved. 

You don’t need to do live check-ins, and you certainly don’t need to do them in person. 

Almost 10 years ago, even when I was working with 50+ in the same city, and I saw them in the gym we would still do all of our correspondence online. 

The best system, it’s effective and streamlined, and it’s a great set-up for both parties. 

What I’m going to show you today, is how you can make this process even better, with my “Hybrid Check-in Strategy.” 

With Hybrid Check-ins, you’ll be able to infuse more of your personality into the check-in, by using technology to do more talking instead of writing. 

Making it easier to communicate key points and with practice, ends up being a lot faster. 

Plus, the client gets to feel like they’re being taken care of by THEIR coach. Because they get to see and hear you. 

Now, you can’t just take a video of yourself and send it over. 

You want to address things in a step-by-step manner, so it remains effective. 

Plus still, leverage some written communication so you never have to waste time re-watching yourself week to week. 

Step 2: Video and Clear Action Steps

Here’s the game changer. 

We want to work an element of video review into the check-in. 

Having clients see your face, talk about their week and review, is one of the smartest things you can do. 

And you don’t need to do it live, or in person, to make it effective. 

Doing a video review will take you less time (once you get comfortable with it) and you can communicate so much more clearer. 

Especially when using screen capture/screen share technology and you can point to what you’re seeing that needs to change.

Here’s what you do in the video. 

• Start with pleasantries.
• Talk about what you’re seeing positively about what happened in their week. 
• You need to find this and talk about why it’s important and how far they’ve come. 
• Then talk over how well they stuck to their plan, with how you’re measuring adherence. 
• Then we can point out areas to improve. 
• Make any adjustments or keep the plan the same. 

Regardless of any changes we make, then we’ll make 1-2 clear action steps for what they need to do this week. 

This could be the same thing if it’s work, or something different to keep them engaged. 

We want to talk this all over in a 2-3 minute review. Maybe closer to 5 mins if you’re new. 

We use software called Loom. It’s the best for a few reasons: 

The screen capture is very fast and easy to use. 

PLUS, you can send over direct links, meaning you don’t need to download files and attach them (although you can download and post places). 

You can check out a free trial here: Loom Free Trial

Incorporating video in “Hybrid check-in” fast is going to save you time, PLUS giving your clients access to you. Hear your voice and feel like they are really working with their coach. 

This saves time on both sides. And is VERY effective. 

This is the BEST practice for check-ins for online coaches. 

This leads to better client results and thus the ability to make more money. 

Ok here’s how we make it even better, with the right delivery:

Step 4: Clear Communication And Getting Them Involved. 

To get great client results, you need to be prescriptive. 

So you want to identify areas for improvement and prescribe how the client will fix this. 

But, you also want to use some motivational interviewing techniques to get them involved in the solution. 

For example: 

If protein intake was an issue, you could pose the following as an action step: 

“I made note of protein intake as the biggest room for improvement. What are two things you can do this week to improve it? 

“Being prepared seems to be your biggest issue. On a scale of 1 to 10. How likely are you to prepare one batch meal this week?”

Then you can go back and forth communicating about the best course of action.

This gets your client to agree to the solution, which means they are going to do something because they know they need to, not because you want them to.

This type of self-efficacy is what will get them results in long term.

Next, I want to show you how this works in practice. 

Darren has been my client for the last 6 years. He’s a busy Dad and physiotherapist and has lost 35 lbs and kept it off for 5 plus years. 

He’s got a Fall wedding coming with his fiancee Morgan and wants to manage his weight for that. Here’s what our check-ins look like, starting with the video review: 

Then I insert this into an email that has brief notes on what was changed and action steps. 

This is the hybrid check-in and it’s completely taken my nutrition coaching check-ins to the next level. 

Use it to save time, provide a better service and make more money in your nutrition coaching business. Let me know how it goes. 

As great as all these tips are, if you’re really serious about starting a nutrition coaching business then the next thing you’re going to want to do is to check out "How To Get More Clients on Social Media" I have linked below. 

So make sure to check it out now and I'll talk with you soon.