by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
What is a Wellness Business Marketing Strategy?
When you set off on the start of this wellness business journey, you did it because you had a passion and you wanted to share it with your community. You found the building, the staff, and the products, and put everything in motion. However, turning your knowledge and dedication into a profitable wellness business requires a marketing strategy.
What is a Marketing Strategy?
A marketing strategy is a plan designed to promote a company’s goals to garner a profit. It encompasses a company’s marketing goals and objectives and streamlines them into one plan. Once a good marketing strategy is developed, all of a company’s best marketing methods can be rolled out.
What are the Benefits of a Marketing Strategy?
As a wellness business owner, taking the time to develop a marketing strategy can benefit you in many ways down the line, including:
Developing sustainable growth for the company
Hearing what the customer wants
Meeting the customer’s needs and expectations
Strengthening relations with the target market
Brand recognition
Increased sales
Marketing Plan vs. Marketing Strategy?
Many times, people confuse the marketing plan with the marketing strategy. When you are marketing your wellness business, your marketing plan is how you roll out your marketing strategy. In other words, your marketing strategy is the ‘what’ you roll out, and the marketing plan is the ‘how.’
How Do You Create A Marketing Strategy?
Determine customer groups
Position yourself
Promotions
Assessment
Characterize your customer groups – Do your market research and see who your customers are and how you meet their needs. Are you matching their wants? Are you doing it more effectively than your rivals? Building customer loyalty is critical to long-term success.
Targeting the correct market segments – Are you positioned correctly in the market? Are your products and services reaching the correct market segments that you have chosen as your profit leaders? Marketing your wellness business to the correct audience is critical.
Advertising and promotions – Once you know your target group, how do you let them know about your product and services? You also have to let them know how your wellness product and services can meet their needs. Think about advertising, digital marketing, giveaways, and other methods of alerting the community to your wellness business.
Evaluation and assessment – Make sure to review and assess your marketing strategy to determine if your wellness business marketing is working as you envisioned. Once you have, you can see if you can utilize it as a template for future marketing strategies or if you need to refine your marketing wellness business plan.
A marketing strategy can take marketing your wellness business and grow your business beyond your wildest dreams. It has the overarching vision of where you want your wellness business to go and then allows you to take your marketing plan and make it actionable. If you’re unsure how to make a marketing strategy to take your wellness business to the next level, consider hiring a wellness business coach who can assist you with making your dream a reality.
by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
How to Create a Wellness Business Strategy
You know what your goal is business-wise because your work is your passion. You’ve found the perfect location, hired the best employees, and you believe in your product. But what’s next? How do you bring your wellness business to the heights it can achieve? First, you need to create a business strategy.
What is a Business Strategy?
A business strategy, or roadmap, is a plan that establishes what your action steps are to achieve your end goal. These action steps are your guiding principles and should be shared throughout your wellness business to help your company reach its objectives.
9 Steps to Creating a Wellness Business Strategy
- Crystallize your vision
- Review the competition
- Set clear goals
- Focus on growth
- Think long-term
- Stay flexible
- Be inclusive
- Do homework
- Have measurable results
- Focus your vision– Look at your wellness business and articulate your future vision. Unlike a mission statement, this goes beyond what your company does and looks to where you want your company to go in the future.
- How are you different?– Look at your competitors, see how you can stand out from the pack, and focus on what makes your wellness business special.
- Refine goals– What are your specific targets? Ensure your goals are identified, so your marketing and sales team will be closely aligned and avoid miscommunication.
- Healthy companies grow– For your wellness business to succeed, it needs to have a clear plan on which areas it can achieve growth so that it can take the yield from that growth and invest in other departments.
- Don’t get caught thinking short-term– It’s dangerous only to think quarter to quarter. Indeed, things are constantly changing, but you want to think of a strategy on an annual cycle rather than as a one-time event.
- Be prepared to pivot– Even with thinking long term, be open and flexible to pivot, depending on outside forces to your wellness business. Consider having regular meetings, perhaps quarterly, to review your strategic plan and adapt after reviewing any new information that may impact your strategy.
- Include your team – Review your team and include those individuals whose input may bring new ideas to your strategic bottom line. More diverse voices and thoughts can open up avenues of expertise previously unrealized. Your team’s genius zoneis a resource for tapping!
- Take the time to do pre-work – Have the employees working on your strategy sessions with you do research before putting together your strategy plan. The more pre-work done gathering relevant information, the faster your strategy meetings will go.
- Have measurable results and follow-up– A strategic plan puts you and your wellness business on the road to success. It is up to you to ensure your strategic action plan has KPIs (key performance indicators) that align and that you can easily follow. In addition, you want to track your plan often, usually monthly, and promote ownership across all departments.
Having a well-defined business strategy for your wellness business ensures you and your team are all working toward the same goal. It helps to target the development of your business as you grow and gives you ample check-ins to ensure your growth is on target. If you are looking for a coach to help you design a business strategy, I can help you. Reach out today.
by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
Delegating 101: How Delegation Improves Efficiency
We have all heard the word “delegation” and know that it’s the magic key to running an efficient workplace, but when you’re the one with the dream, it can be hard to let go of the reins. It’s time to trust in the decisions you’ve made in hiring the right team for your wellness business. Let’s take a closer look at what it takes to delegate appropriately and make your workplace efficient.
9 Steps To Delegating Efficiently
- Start gradually
- Balance tasks
- Choose employees carefully
- Explain choices
- Communicate
- Keep things moving
- Give authority
- Supply resources
- Show gratitude
- Ease into delegation– Look for small items that you feel comfortable giving to specific employees, such as reports, running meetings, and ordering items. Once you feel comfortable that they are handling these things to your satisfaction, you can move more things off your desk and onto your employees’.
- Keep things balanced– Ensure you don’t only hand off non-essential tasks. People like to be challenged and to feel that they are making a difference. In addition, when you are working with delegation, you want your employees to feel that you trust them, so delegate some of the less routine tasks.
- Match the tasks to the employee– A big part of workplace efficiency is ensuring the delegation matches the right person to the right task. When looking to delegate, keep your more straightforward tasks for your newer employees and the more complex tasks for your veteran employees. Contemplate whether the employees prefer simple or multiple-step tasks and whether they require oversight or do better independently.
- Clarify the delegation– When delegation occurs, explain to your wellness business employees why you selected each employee for each task. Letting them know that you trust them to gain new skills, advance in their positions, and support the wellness business will lend greater loyalty to the team and help build self-confidence.
- Make objectives clear– When delegating, trust your employee to perform. To that end, rather than discuss methods, let them know what objectives and measurable outcomes you expect.
- Timelines matter– Make sure you have a timeline with reasonable deadlines, giving your employees ample time to learn new skills. This is an area where you might fall into micromanaging – avoid that temptation! Two people working on the same thing is the opposite of an efficient workplace. Set up a timeline with set updates and allow your employees to confront issues on their own before coming to you.
- Loosen the reins– Allow the employee to have autonomy. Give them all the authority needed to complete the task without coming to you. This will free you to do tasks needed at your level and allow the employee to have confidence and motivation to complete them at their level. This is how an efficient workplace is created.
- Provide all needed resources – With delegation, ensure all the resources are at your employees’ disposal, so they don’t need to come back to you with requests.
- Say “thank you”– To keep your efficient workplace humming, it is vital to communicate to your wellness business employees how much you appreciate them. When they have stepped up and performed well with delegation, it is worth your time to recognize them personally and publicly and let them know.
Often, we think we are the only ones who can do all the tasks in our wellness business, and that remains true as long as we are doing everything. So, take the time to explore your employees’ Genius Zone, and, with delegation, you will find your efficient workplace will free you up to reach bigger and better goals!
by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
What’s a Wellness Business Consultant and Why Do I Want One?
Every day it seems a new term or business role is developed in the wellness business world, so how can you know what’s necessary and what isn’t? You started your wellness business because you’re a professional, so what can a consultant do for you? Let’s explore what a wellness business consultant is and how they can change the trajectory of your business.
What is a Wellness Business Consultant?
A wellness business consultant is there to help you make the most of your business, bringing it to levels you might not have considered. They can assist you to:
Find strengths
Work smarter
Help plan and strategize
Discover your strengths – A wellness business consultant will help you find your team’s strengths – ones you might have overlooked – and develop them to their full potential. In addition, they will help you build up your genius zone, which is the skill set you naturally have.
Teach you how to work smarter – Sometimes, we need someone to look closely at our business and evaluate where we are spending the most time to ensure we are utilizing our time and focusing it where it benefits us the most. A wellness business coach will analyze where your money is being spent to ascertain that it is being spent in the most advantageous manner possible.
Helping plan and execute strategy – A solid business plan and strategy execution are imperative for a successful wellness business. A wellness business coach can put this into action, seeing things that can be overlooked when you are mired in your own company. In addition, they can help you with your exit strategy.
What is an Exit Strategy?
An exit strategy is a timeline or plan with actionable steps to get you to your long-term goal of retirement or the business endgame. A wellness business consultant can be a critical partner in putting together this most exciting of strategies for your company. You’ve had this dream for a long time; now let someone help you see it through to fruition.
Is a Wellness Business Consultant Worth the Cost?
In a word, yes. A wellness business consultant can help you identify business costs that you can easily trim, showing avenues for bringing in new revenue. Also, finding more efficient work methods will maximize output while minimizing the resources needed.
Additionally, having the outside perspective of the wellness business consultant will assist in tightening your business to stem any excessive loss you might be unknowingly experiencing. The wellness business consultant can review your current pricing set-up and see if you are underselling yourself in the market. Do you recognize your worth?
The wellness business is a cluttered field, and you need to stand out. You know your stuff, and the market should recognize you as the expert you are. Hiring a wellness business consultant ensures that your business is as streamlined as possible and that it is positioned well in the market and set up to sustain you now and positioned well for the future.
by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
The Importance of Developing Strong Leaders from Within Your Business
Developing strong leaders from within your business has been talked about for years. There are several benefits to this process not only for the employee but for the business owner as well. As a healthcare business coach, I can help you understand the importance of developing strong leaders from within and how utilizing your team’s genius zone can get you there.
Why Are Strong Leaders Important in Business?
Strong leaders can promote teamwork, create a positive work environment, and motivate other team members. Strong leaders are motivated and, more importantly, are great at motivating others. By having strong leaders in your healthcare business, your business will run like a well-oiled machine.
5 Benefits of Developing Strong Leaders from Within:
Retention
Efficiency
Loyalty
Communication
Revenue
Why Employee & Customer Retention is Crucial for Business
Employee turnover is one of the key factors in decreased productivity. Not only does it cost companies about 6 to 9 months of an employee’s salary to replace them, but it also costs your business around two times that employee’s salary when you lose them. When strong leaders foster a positive working environment, they are investing in their team’s growth and boosting morale.
By creating an environment where people thrive, where people feel appreciated, and where people are inspired, employees will be happier and want to stay at their current job. They will also create a positive experience for their customers, helping your customer retention.
How Strong Leaders Help with Business Efficiency
A team with strong leadership skills allows employees to work together collaboratively to improve efficiency and productivity throughout your healthcare business. Efficiency is about getting the most out of your resources, meaning your business can produce more with less. If your team is struggling to accomplish all the tasks, bring your strong leaders up, and let them assist in improving efficiency throughout your business.
Why Loyalty Matters in Business
Customer loyalty is one of the most important pieces of business. Customer loyalty increases profits and improves sales and sustainable growth. In addition, by creating an emotional connection for your customers to your business, they are more likely to be repeat customers.
Studies show that repeat customers have a high ROI. But, just like employee retention, customer retention is expensive as well. On average, it costs five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one.
How Effective Communication is Crucial for Strong Leaders
Effective communication inspires changes and gains trust. While a strong leader will have their own ideas, they will be able to focus on their team’s genius zone to ensure everyone is performing at their best. In addition, strong leaders that already exist within your company are great at communicating with others within your business, which allows you to focus on working smarter, not harder, and letting your strong leaders do the job you hired them for.
How Strong Leaders Will Help Increase Business Revenue
All the above reasons help increase your business revenue. However, by developing strong leaders from within, your team will understand how your growth works, what your goals are, and what areas need more attention. Knowing this information, how it benefits your business, and what the long-term goals are is why strong leaders can help increase revenue.
Several other benefits come with promoting strong leaders from within, but I’d be here all day if I listed them out. However, the importance of strong leaders shouldn’t be underestimated, as they can make or break your business.
-Dr. Jennifer Bonde
by Dr. Jennifer Bonde
Why It’s Important to Learn from Failed Strategies in Business
Failure isn’t an easy thing for most people to accept. While we all fail at things in life, not everyone bounces back from failure the same. Therefore, in order to move your business forward, you must learn from failed strategies.
What is Failure?
Failure is defined as the inability to meet an expectation or a lack of success. While many read too much into failure, if you take the opportunity to learn from that failure, success is usually right around the corner.
3 Lessons You Should Learn from Failed Business Strategies:
Accept help
Plan
Reassess
Why You Should Accept Help & Take Advice from Others
No matter how long you’ve been in the healthcare business, there is always something new to learn. Seeking guidance from others, asking questions, and having people you trust who can help you when you need it and offer sound advice is crucial to your success.
While you may know everything about the healthcare aspect of your business, those who have failed in the past have learned that it takes a village. Your village can include an accountant who will help assess your financial state, a lawyer to help with logistics, and a healthcare business coach who can help you work smarter, not harder, and plan your exit strategy.
Plan for Every Outcome, Failure, or Success in Business
Those who have had failed business strategies in the past have spent time reassessing the lessons they can learn. While knowing how everything will play out as you run your wellness business is impossible, most have learned that preparing themselves for best- and worst-case scenarios is crucial to their long-term success.
You must make sure that your business is equipped to handle failure. For example, do you have an emergency fund or a cash reserve? A backup marketing strategy? A way to increase traffic and implement updated strategies when change is needed? As a healthcare business coach, I can help you prepare for the worst, learn how to cut back on business costs when necessary, and ensure you know how to evaluate the profitability of your business.
Reassess Your Business Strategies Consistently
Another major lesson learned due to failed strategies was that healthcare business owners should reassess their business strategies on a consistent basis. The healthcare business changes daily, and it is crucial to stay on top of your business strategies and, more importantly, be willing to change them whenever necessary.
This is also beneficial when things you planned may not have worked as expected. Whether that is scaling back, adding a new revenue stream, or an accidental splurge. By keeping track of everything, you can identify what’s working and what isn’t anymore. There is always room to bounce back.
Every successful wellness business owner has experienced and learned from failure. When someone learns from failure, they develop the mindset that allows them to push forward. Even from a young age, we are pushing ourselves forward. Think of a little kid who learns how to ride a bike, a teenager who learns how to drive, or a boxer getting knocked down in the ring.
Business is no different; what we choose to learn from our failures will set us apart from the competition.
-Dr. Jennifer Bonde
