Hey there wellness entrepreneur!
Before we get into today’s blog, I want to make sure you’re aware of some time-sensitive bonuses for you. As my birthday approaches in May, I’ve been reflecting on what brings me the most joy and that’s helping wellness practitioners like you create a business and a lifestyle that you truly deserve.
So I’ve filled all my one-to-one coaching spots and right now I have two final openings for clients starting late May and then after that I will have a couple spots in June and they are first come first serve. The timing of these spots is actually perfect if you want to avoid the dreaded summer slump. If you actually want to grow your business during summer without overworking and having to spend precious moments with family.
So starting in May means we’ll establish your summer proof revenue systems before the slowdown begins. While other wellness entrepreneurs watch their calendars empty out, my clients who start in May consistently report their best summers ever, growing their practices while others are struggling even in uncertain economies.
So for limited time, if you secure one of these final May spots before May 8th, so you have to book your consultation and then commit to working one-to-one with me before May 8th, you’ll receive the Instagram Message Makeover Clinic Program valued at $1,500. If you’re tired of posting contents that gets no likes, you feel like you might be wasting time on social media, this system shows you exactly what to create to attract your ideal clients online without spending hours on social media. This is the key. It’s so powerful to have an online presence in combination with your in-person marketing plan and I’ll show you how.
Plus, if you commit to work with me prior to May 8th and you pay in full, you also receive a 30-day Personalized Message And Content Plan. This is specific for you. It’s worth $1,000, if not more, because you’ll receive personal content plan that eliminates the guesswork of, “What should I post today?”It’s specific to your audience. You get 10 custom e-mail topics, 20 attention personalized grabbing hooks, 15 ready to implement templates specific for your business. It’s having a content roadmap that naturally leads followers to becoming clients as well as growing that audience.
And the third bonus is getting your personalized Online Wellness Business Launch Kit. It’s valued at $1,200. If you ever thought I can’t help people with my hands, this is for you. It contains proprietary framework for translating your hands-on skills to profitable online earnings. It’s showing you how to set up the online business, how to market it and get people in the door as well as get confident in your practitioner skills of helping people online, allowing you to help more people, preserve your body and create income that doesn’t depend on your physical presence.
So together, these bonuses are worth close to $4,000. It’s only available until May 8th. To save one of these spots, just book your consultation. The link is in the show notes. And now we’ll dive into today’s episode.
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Hey there, wellness entrepreneur. Welcome back. In today’s blog, we’re talking about how to bring your personal life into Instagram, into your content, so you can build an audience that connects with you as well as differentiate yourself from all the other wellness practitioners on there.
And this is not to be done that you have to share everything every single day and be on social media 24/7. I for sure am not. It’s sharing what you feel comfortable with and learning how to expand into your growth edge of not just being a robot and posting generic cookie-cutter content. It’s actually giving them a sneak peek to your personality, your beliefs, your values, how you live your life because it is inspirational. You’re going to take them on a journey.
And so today’s blog is covering how to do this in an aligned and authentic way. Because what if your most powerful content on Instagram isn’t your perfect yoga pose or your client transformational photos, and you still want to share those. But what if also it’s the story of you planning to work out yesterday, but your child was home sick, so you had a workout fail? Or what if it’s learning how to navigate an anti-inflammatory diet, despite having back-to-back family gatherings and holidays with lots of delicious food that is not right for your diet and what you do during that.
Or for me, as I record this, yesterday was my brother’s birthday. And if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know he passed away unexpectedly two years ago. And I still grieve his loss tremendously. I miss him tremendously. And I brought a little bit of that story onto Instagram. And in relation to how it impacts me as a human showing up as an entrepreneur in business, and also just saying I miss him.
Today I’m going to share how stories we often are afraid to tell is actually exactly what your audience is waiting to hear. And why sharing your personal journey might be the missing piece to growing an Instagram audience that connects with you, finds you relatable.
And then when you are using a combination of framework outside of just your personal journey and stories and you are sharing the client transformations and the work you do in your programs, they will be ready to purchase and work with you when you do bring that work as well into your Instagram content strategy.
The Defeat of Mass Marketed Generic Content
I was listening to a podcast episode with the creator of the Account Instagram for Business. You can go follow them on Instagram. They have 20 million followers and he was comparing what is trending right now for corporations and big businesses and gone are the days for them and especially for us, solo small businesses, entrepreneurs of polished content, mass marketed generic content, even the big businesses are going grassroots style.
Having their clients create content for them, having their employees create content for them. And this is good news for you because you don’t have to spend hours creating beautiful educational content about your services. Yes, you still want it to look aesthetic and natural and organic to the platform, but you can create the perfect caption explaining the benefits of your program. You can use all the right hashtags and yet it will be crickets.
Also Read: From Overworked to Thriving: How Katy Scaled Her Wellness Business & Instagram
Think about it. Think about that random post or reel where you mentioned something personal. Maybe it was about your morning routine or a challenge you faced or like my client Sally who gained a thousand followers or more off of one reel where she was raw and honest and authentic about talking about her relationship with her mom, her connection with her mom, going through and experiencing loss and transition and the reel went viral. She had no plan for it to do. She was just sharing from her heart.
It’s confusing, right? That you want to create polished content so you show up as a professional, but when you’re doing these other reels or content that is more on the fly or speaking from the heart, it seems to get more engagement and you’re thinking, “Well, I’m supposed to be the expert. Why do people care more about my coffee habit than my expert advice on healing?”
The problem is that most wellness entrepreneurs are creating content that focuses solely on their expertise while completely missing the connection piece. You’re trying to build a business on a platform that’s fundamentally social. That’s why it’s called social media and you’re forgetting that social part. This is where personal storytelling comes in. I mean, there’s a whole brand created upon storytelling and that is because it is so powerful and on Instagram, it can be your secret weapon.
I’m not talking about random oversharing or turning your feed into your daily diary. I’m talking about strategic, intentional storytelling that builds genuine connection with your audience while positioning you as both relatable and an authority. And within this, you get to choose what you want to share and how much you also get to decide when you want to share a story.
Must Read: Joe Clarke’s Path to Loving Marketing and Growing His Wellness Biz
How I Shared My Own Story
So for example, if you’re in the middle, then you might not decide to start sharing that story right in that moment as it unfolds. So when I was diagnosed with stage one rectal cancer in 2017 and Lynch syndrome, I was so in shock because as a wellness entrepreneur, truthfully at the time, I didn’t realize that I had a mindset that was doing all these wellness practices that I might be invincible to this. Or maybe it would happen later down the road as I got older, not when I was 38 years old. And I didn’t know how to share the story. I felt so much shame. I felt so much embarrassment and posture syndrome. Like, “How can I show up as a wellness practitioner if I have this diagnosis?”
Like, “I’m not well, I am a fraud. I cannot share the information.” It’s really what I thought at the time. So I kept showing up sharing my expert content, how I help people, all that kind of other content while I was going through all my many doctor appointments and surgeries and figuring things out.
And then I’m not sure how long afterwards, if it was six months, nine months, maybe a year or a little bit longer. I slowly started to integrate it and was getting my learnings. I was working with a lot of practitioners at the time outside of Western medicine with Western medicine to heal my body from the inside out, nervous system, mindset, and of course the physical taking care of the cancer.
And so during that process, especially of healing my nervous system, working with my mindset, I started getting the courage and feeling the nudge that, “Oh, other people need to hear this. Other people need to hear how you can run a business while going through scary times. Other people need to hear how wellness does not mean perfection.”
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Wellness is individualized. And in fact, if I hadn’t been doing all my wellness practitioners, I had several Western medicine practitioners tell me it could have been stage three, not stage one. So I started sharing my story and my audience, they love it. Even to this day, whenever I share going through a cancer scan or a cancer scare, my audience is there to support me. I am so grateful for that. It keeps me going and it keeps me connected to them.
So in the beginning for me, that’s how it started was when I got the learnings, when I felt inspired and courageous, then I would share the story. And a couple years ago, when my brother passed away unexpectedly, I was in a different place. I started sharing in the moment and I felt ready to do that. And that’s currently, for the most part, what I do now. If life throws me a curveball where I feel like I need to integrate it more than sharing in the moment, then that’s what I’ll do. You can find flow with this. Don’t feel pressured to share something that you’re not ready to share yet.
Also Read: Develop Your Client Attraction System
I think it’s Amy Porterfield who says this. She shares from scars, not the festering wound. Sorry for the graphic. When you share, you want to connect your personal experiences to your audience journey and in relation to the work that you do as a practitioner and your programs. You want to provide the bridge between your story and how it informs your work. And this makes you an expert that no one else can replicate. No one else can copy because no one else has your story.
This approach works because it triggers what psychologists call neural coupling. When someone hears a story, their brain activity starts to mirror the storytellers. It’s literally the fastest way to create connection online. And truthfully, that’s what people are seeking.
Also Read: Grow Your Wellness Business on Instagram with Simple Content Strategies
The Benefits of Integrating Personal Storytelling Into Your Instagram Strategy
When you integrate personal storytelling into your Instagram strategy, amazing things start to happen. First, your engagement will go from crickets to now people starting to comment and engage and interact. And for me, this happened slowly. I went through a period of having a very engaged Instagram when I wasn’t selling anything, when I was an employee. Then I transitioned to, I took a break from Instagram for almost two years. And when I came back, I transitioned as an entrepreneur and my audience was crickets for some time. They didn’t know who I was because I took a break and I had completely rebranded. So I had to rebuild my audience. And for me, it took time to go from crickets to then people starting to engage and interact with my content.
And I noticed the more vulnerable I am, the more honest and raw I am, combined with messaging that relates with my audience, that works so powerfully.
My client, Katie, when she started working with me, she was at 2,000 followers. And just a few short months later, she’s now at almost 10,000 followers. In fact, I bet she’s going to surpass me now. And she does a beautiful job as showing up as the expert, as well as storytelling and bringing her own story into her content. And she talks a lot about trauma, so it’s very vulnerable for her to share. But she does it in such a beautiful way. And you can go check her out on Instagram at Katie, K-A-T-I-E, Delimon, D-E-L-I-M-O-N.
Also, when you are sharing your story, you attract the right clients. You attract those that resonate and relate to you. And third, you build unshakable trust. I just came back from a business retreat in Panama City, Florida. It was gorgeous. It was with my Instagram coach, actually. And one of the themes throughout the weekend was how there is such a lack of trust right now online and through social media. Just a lot of uncertainty and people really hesitant to work with people online. And one way to fix this problem for yourself is to create trust through your own stories.
When you share your personal story, it differentiates you from someone that’s just posting generic content like drink water, happy Fourth of July, get out there and move, to someone who truly understands what they’re going through because you’ve been there. Share your health journey. Share your imperfections. And finally, the benefit of doing this work, and this one surprised me too. You create a healing space for yourself. Sharing stories, especially difficult ones in a strategic way can be profoundly therapeutic while simultaneously growing your business.
I’ve created so many connections with people and I’ve been given so many opportunities like I taught yoga at a Lynch syndrome nonprofit retreat slash conference. And that was so healing for me. I’m still connected to those people to this day and I wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity if I didn’t show up and share my cancer story and my own Lynch syndrome story.
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How Do You Actually Do This?
Here’s my one tactical strategy that you can implement today. And that is using your hero’s journey as it’s sometimes called Instagram story template.
Step one is to choose a personal experience that connects to your work. For example, yesterday was my brother’s birthday. He would have been 39. That loss connects deeply to my work helping wellness entrepreneurs build sustainable business that honor that well-being because here’s the truth. The goal is not to have a business that only runs when life is perfect. That’s not reality. When you do that, you set yourself up for unsustainable growth. The year my brother passed away at that time was also the biggest year my business has ever seen. And I had time to grieve. I had time to be with family. And some days I still grieve heavily now and my business has continued to grow in these last two years.
Now sharing your story, you can do what works for you if it’s just finding flow. If you would like a framework you can try this. So starting with the context of how the story relates to a health challenge or wellness challenge that someone’s going through.
Then you can also share the turning point for you the lesson learned and connect with your audience. You can say maybe you’re going through something difficult right now. Maybe you feel like you can’t implement the health and wellness tactics I would be as specific here as possible because of XYZ. You can say these challenges can actually be the foundation of growing a strong health and wellness daily habit routine. And then you can give them a call to action to the next step. Or you can just leave it there and tell the story.
And once you have this framework or you have the outline of the story that you want to share then choose the format. Decide if you want to share it through Instagram story. You can decide if you want it to do it as a reel or as a carousel or even an Instagram live. Any of these will work. You can even repurpose it so for because my brother was birthday was yesterday. As you can see I’m sharing the story here. I shared it on Instagram stories and I also shared it as a reel and on Facebook too.
I really wanted to honor his memory and truthfully I have had so many comments and people reaching out and sharing their love for me. I felt so supported. In fact, I still feel very supported to this day. Like I feel all the hearts all the hugs all the messages is like a warm embrace for me. I don’t feel alone.
Now if you’re thinking, I don’t want to exploit my personal tragedies for likes. I get it. And that’s not what I’m suggesting. There’s a massive difference between exploitive sharing and strategic vulnerability. The key is intention. Are you sharing to make your audience feel something for you or to help them feel understood by you? The latter builds connection. The former can feel manipulative.
Must Read: Create Financial Stability in Your Wellness Business During Uncertain Times
Another thing I hear is my audience doesn’t care about my personal life. Actually they do. Not just the mundane details but they care about your human experience that makes you relatable. Your audience wants to work with a person not a perfect wellness robot or for sure right now not a big brand or corporation. They want to feel seen and heard and understood and they want to make sure the practitioner that they work with gets them, gets what they’re going through and is not going to give them a cookie cutter approach.
Conclusion
If you’re not implementing this, this might be hard to hear but the cost isn’t just financial. Although I’ve seen practitioners double their consultations more than double their audience implementing this strategy the real cost though is an energy leak and the emotional drain because the truth is it’s exhausting pretending to be perfect in your health and wellness all the time and perfect in your life. It’s draining creating content that doesn’t feel authentic and ultimately it’s unfulfilling to attract clients who don’t really know the real you.
So your story does matter not just for you but for the people waiting to be impacted by your work.
So here’s what I want you to do today. Choose one personal experience that connects your work as a wellness practitioner and share it using the framework I outlined. You can tag me at Ignite Ur Wellness Business in a reel or in a story and I’ll cheer you on. Remember your stories aren’t just content they’re the bridge between your expertise and the people who need it most.
And of course if you want my eyes on your work if you want my help then just book your consultation call and we’ll go over your next best steps. All right! Good luck with this.
I can’t wait to hear your stories and get to know you better and I’ll see you next week. Bye for now!
Important Links to Visit:
Instagram Content Strategy: How to Show Up Consistently and Attract Clients
Mastering the Art of Growing Your Online Program
How to Confidently Sell Your Wellness Services Without Feeling Salesy
How to Navigate the Messy Middle in Your Wellness Business and Client Journeys
Discover How Understanding Your Emotions Can Propel Your Business Forward
