Social media is a tool that almost every online business uses to build, grow, and scale and if you’re a health coach, there’s a good chance that you use social media in your business. But posting daily, creating valuable content that resonates, and keeping up with the constantly changing social media strategies can be exhausting. If you’re experiencing burnout, adrenal fatigue, or any other health issue, social media is the first to go.
So how can we approach social media for our business sustainably and enjoyably so we can stay healthy and help our clients with their health, too?
In today’s episode, I am talking to Sarah Hagstrom, founder of the Coach + Grow Co, a coaching company that empowers entrepreneurs to connect with their inner guidance and live the life they’ve been promised. More specifically, Sarah helps health and wellness coaches enjoy creating and becoming health coaches by teaching them how to build their businesses in five hours each week.
Today, Sarah and I are diving into the ins and outs of building a business using social media, how to do it in only 5 hours a week, things we can do to avoid being frazzled or overwhelmed by social media, and how to adjust the way you show up so you can build a sustainable health coaching business (and enjoy it).
Connect with Sarah:
Website: https://www.thecoachandgrow.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecoachandgrowco/
Podcast: https://www.thecoachandgrow.co/podcast
Rachel: Hey guys, I’m so excited for this. It is legit off the hook. I was saying to Sarah, my good friend, that I’ve asked to be here today on this episode, that we have to talk about social media. There are so many coaches that are burned out, you feel that adrenal fatigue, it’s the last thing you want. Being healthy and your own health is so important.
So today, we are going to dive into social media, we’re going to also dive into the in and out of building a business and how to not do it and be frazzled. So Sarah, can you tell everyone a little about you before we dive in?
Sarah: Yes, I’m so happy to be here. Rachel, thanks so much for having me and for the warm welcome. So my name is Sarah Hagstrom. I am the founder of the Coach + Grow Co., where we help health and wellness coaches enjoy creating and becoming a health coach. One of the ways that we do that is we help them build their businesses in five hours a week.
I know that is something that a lot of coaches are like, Wait, how do I do that? What is the process? So I’m excited to talk about that today, talking about how to use social media. And spoiler alert also, if you don’t want to use social media, how you can grow your business without social media, because that can be done too.
One thing that we are all about at the Coach + Grow Co. is helping health coaches build their dream business, and that is going to look different for every health coach, that looks different for all of us. I’m sure a lot of us in the coaching space got sucked into this “do more, be everywhere.” But that is such a masculine way to be and it doesn’t serve you. You were saying for health coaches who really care about our health and well-being, it doesn’t make sense so I’m really excited to be here and talk about a different way to run your business.
How Doable Is A 5-Hour Social Media Work Week?
Rachel: I love everything that you just said. Clearly you’ve made this totally doable. Let’s talk about how it is possible to actually be doing your social media in five hours a week.
Sarah: So to take you back, I started out health coaching in 2014. But 2015 is when I was like, Okay, I’m serious. This is what I want to do. I see myself doing this. And from 2015 to 2021, I was in hustle mode. I was in grind mode.I really felt I had this mentality of, I can have everything I desire. But I have to work really hard. There’s a few things that I have to do to get what I want.
This year, we’re recording this in 2022 and I had a health –I’m calling it an opportunity now, instead of a challenge –a health opportunity that forced me to slow down. I think we all had those health challenges and days because not only were these last few years stressful for everyone, but I think when you get to that stage four or five years of business, you have to re-evaluate and restructure how you’re doing business. So you don’t end up in a complete flatline or burnout.
Rachel: Yeah. It’s crazy. Because when I was health coaching, I sometimes worked with entrepreneurs, and I would just be like, oh, man that’s never gonna be me. They were so burned out and they didn’t have this health knowledge. But yeah, at the beginning of this year, I definitely was burnt out. But it showed up differently than what I was used to. It didn’t show up as adrenal fatigue, it showed up as back pain and limited mobility. And so that caused me to really think about the coaches who are in our community, who are moms. I’m not a mom, yet there are moms dealing with different health concerns and they can’t keep up with the experts saying you have to post a Reel every single day, or this year.
I don’t know if you guys noticed this year, people are saying you have to post multiple Reels. Who has time for that? So, this year, it made me look at things and how we were teaching at Coach + Grow Co., and how I was running my business and really step back and look at what actually works, what actually gets clients, what actually grows my business in a way that I want it to grow. And that’s really where the five-hour week came from. So I just wanted to backtrack because I haven’t always been doing business this way. This is definitely new and it is working and it feels really good.
Different Places The Hustle & Working In Overdrive Comes From
Rachel: Do you think that part of that hustle, that overdrive is part of the process of figuring out what actually works and what doesn’t? Or do you think that that can be lessened by hiring a coach or hiring a coach that actually implements a method you are joining your program? A lot of what my hustle on overdrive came from is not knowing what to do. And then once I didn’t know what to do, that got fed into it will never be enough, there will never be enough.
Sarah: I don’t think that it’s necessary. I don’t think that we have to struggle and try to figure out all of these things. I think that that is the matrix. That’s the conversation that was going on when we built our businesses. I noticed that new health coaches coming into this, a lot of them have strong boundaries, they’re like, I’m not doing that. I don’t want to do it that way. I really respect that.
I think that us having conversations like this is shifting the narrative and showing another path. We’re waking up and being like, Oh, actually, the masculine isn’t serving us anymore. We’re shifting. We see what’s available to us. So that is part one.
Part two, one thing that we teach at the Coach + Grow Co., and I really believe myself is, it might be a struggle for those who have growth to do and opportunities to learn. If it’s not, coaches will come to me, and they’ll be like, okay you say, I can do what I want, I don’t want to share my story, I don’t want to talk about what I’ve been through. Of course, I support that. But what’s coming up for you, if you don’t work through that, there will be opportunities for you to face your fears and struggles and hardships in your business that will allow you to grow and work through that. For myself, I had a lot of growth to do. I had a lot of growth to do and those struggles and those challenges in that hustle allowed me to get to where I am today.
Rachel: Well, and it’s the thing when you’re really young, and you’re like, I just want to get older, but you get older and you’re like, I just want to be young when things were easy. It’s going through this business. Each time there’s growth, each time there’s a new expansion, it challenges the very mindset and the core beliefs that we have. It brings up all those limiting beliefs.
We all have gotten to this different narrative. Now we’re talking about how masculine energy didn’t work. But we’re so grateful that it also got me here.
In the beginning, as entrepreneurs, we do have to put in the work. It can be lessened by joining a program yourself, or hiring a coach or making sure that you are taking things piece by piece. How are they showing up in social media for five hours?
Sarah: Yeah, let’s talk about that. I will say the hard work. It might not look what my hard work looks like, or what your hard work looks like, Rachel. One of my clients has been doing this inner work and working with a therapist. So I see her growth, and it’s so quick. All of a sudden, she’s like, I want to work on this product. I want to sign clients, she’s signing clients before we talk again in two weeks. Some people would think, Oh my gosh, her success is so fast. But she’s had 30 years working on all of these limiting beliefs and self-worth and all of that. So that can be hard work. Remember that your journey is different from everybody else and that’s okay.
Rachel: Well, we need to do both of those kinds of works. It’s the showing and doing that work. And it’s the inner work. When I really pulled back the layers of why I was overworking it was to get approval. It was all that self-worth stuff that I didn’t have. That full bucket. And it was all tied to old trauma, old stories. So I really get it.
So for that health coach that started the profession with a bag and a suitcase of stuff, and why we’re so called to this. I love that we’re having this conversation because I really feel that coaches need to hear in order to be successful and not overwork and not go into overdrive that there needs to be that inner work as well.
Why Expectations Can Throw Us Off
Sarah: Yeah. And the cool thing about us health coaches is we actually doing this work. Most of us were like, Okay, here we go. When we’re in the thick of it this year, I was like, Okay, I think I’ve learned enough lessons. I think I’m good. Let’s press pause. But for most of us, we liked it, I think where we get in trouble is expectations. We think we should be somewhere where we’re not. I should be further ahead, I should have more clients, I should have more money, everybody should know about me.
Rachel: I had those for sure. I was like, my content is the shit. Why don’t I have millions of dollars or millions of clients? But that is not my path right now. I have work to do. I have growth to do. Another thing that I really want to stress is if we truly believe that the universe has our back and is looking out for us, that possibilities are endless –we can relax a little bit. We can realize like, Hey, I’m here to be supported and to do my work. It seems challenging or hard right now. But actually I know, deep down in my core, that I’m always supported. When you have that type of faith, it gets a lot easier to do this work and navigate the challenges.
Sarah: I totally agree with that. It’s a practice to have faith and step back, be able to show up, do that inner work, do that work that we need to do as far as the opt in pages and the social media and email list building. But knowing that you’re in the right place that you’re meant to be is such an important thing.
Rachel: Let’s talk about doing five hours a week and how you are building on social media.
How To Build Your Social Media With Only Five Hours A Week
Sarah: So it’s a mindset shift that we teach right away. We’re not trying to do the most. We’re no longer trying to check everything off of the to-do list. That is the old method. That’s something that definitely for me, I’m like, Oh, I’m doing less, but I feel I’m doing nothing compared to what I used to be doing. But the results are what I’m focusing on, and those are what I’m achieving.
We just get so stuck in doing things to be productive. My worth is tied up in how productive I am. I work with my husband and we have to be careful because we’ll check in at the end of day, how was your day? Oh, it was really productive. And that feels really good. But I don’t want my worth and how good my day is based on how much stuff I do. That’s a recipe for burnout right there.
So we’re really shifting that. Say you’re a coach, you’re coming to us and you’re like, Okay, I want to learn this method. I want to sign clients using social media, but I don’t want to be posting all the time. So before we show up on social media, we’re getting really clear. And this could be the five hours for the week –just getting clear on your desires and your intentions. What is the outcome that you want from your social media this month? What are we working with? What are we working on? That’s the first step.
Then once it’s actually time to go and be posting, we’re asking ourselves, How much content feels good to be putting out? If you could only do one post a week, would that feel good enough? And if so, we’re focusing on that one post, who it’s for, and really breaking all of that down. So one post can land you 100 new leads for your email list. That can turn into clients or coaches showing up, they do a Reel, they get two clients from one Reel, and then they feel good, not showing up the rest of the week. They’re like, I hit my goal.
Rachel: That makes sense. Would you teach to repurpose that one post, or you keep your clients really insane if I only post once or twice as long as I’m hitting my goal I don’t have to do anything the rest of the week?
Sarah: Exactly. So it’s kind of this mentality of getting really intentional on what your goal is and who your client is and what does she need? Tying it back to your story because we don’t want it to be just anything. We want it to land. So we’re getting really clear on that before we’re creating then we’re creating it. After you do that, what happens is a lot of coaches are in their flow state, when you’re just jamming in. It’s feeling really good, things are coming together. You’re in life.
Then a lot of times, they want to post it somewhere else. They want to talk about it in stories. And when that’s when either time is slowing down, and they’re getting so much done, they don’t even realize it or time is speeding up and the day flew by and they feel really good about themselves.
Rachel: I love talking about that flow state. Because I think once you’ve come out of the overwhelm and those to do lists, and thinking you need to be posting a certain amount, you get into that flow and really get concerned about who that post is for instead of, Oh, my God, I need to do XYZ. Where are your clients mostly posting for social media? What are your favorite platforms these days?
What Social Media Platforms To Post On
Sarah: I personally like Instagram, it’s fun. For me, I fall into this area of doing reels and video sometimes. I don’t put myself into a box and say I have to do one every day.
Our students currently are having a lot of success with Instagram, TikTok, Facebook still and also email. And, honestly, all of a sudden, we have other students who really like podcasts.
Funny story, my friend had an energy reading done and they’re going through her chakras and they’re like, blocked, contaminated, blocked, contaminated, all of them and they’re all like, overconsumption, too much social media, you need a detox. I asked my friend, how was your experience? She’s like, I really enjoyed it. But like, what do I do now? They opened my chakras, but how do I avoid them getting contaminated? I was like, Well, what about the social media detox? I could never because of my business and I’m like, okay, but like, how much business are you getting on TikTok? How much are you posting? I know she’s not posting at all. She’s like, no, it’s the ideas for the content, I’m eventually gonna post. I’m just like, oh, my gosh.
So some people get really addicted. They get really afraid that if they get off of these platforms, their business will stop. And I have felt that as well. But there are so many other avenues. Again, I really want to stress the importance, and it seems too easy, I know it does, it seems too easy and until you experience it, you might not believe me, but I’m okay with that. But really thinking about what you want to call in.
If you really want to call in five new clients this month or 10 new students to my program, really sitting down and visualizing that and writing down how you’re going to help them, how you’re going to be of service to them, the qualities that they have, getting into that energy, and then asking yourself what action feels good to take.
We’ve had clients send emails to past clients asking if they know anybody or if they would like to resign. And that works. It’s so easy just sending that one email. They’re inspired to send an email, and then they get these clients. So email can work for signing clients. Podcasts can work, just message or email your favorite podcast, see if you could be a guest. Let them know how you can bring value to their audience. You don’t have to get on Instagram or Tik Tok.
Rachel: I love it. I think there are so many people that feel massively overwhelmed, or they just don’t have that personality for social media. I love that you just talked about a few others because I always say that, at the end of the day, you have to be talking about your story. You have to be speaking about your own experiences and the experiences that you want that ideal client to identify with.
If you are scared to do a podcast, practice. If you’re scared to do a Reel, practice. It doesn’t mean that you have to do a Reel. Similar to you, I went through this time of burnout where I was like, I can’t go live in the same way that I used to. I started putting my energy into intentional social media posting or repurposing. If I really wasn’t in the flow that day, and I felt that I needed to have a post there, I would just go and repurpose and make it super simple. That lessened the amount of time that I needed to be showing up. It also gave me time back to work on my health. Work on just resting. Work on napping. Work on those things to rebuild.
Getting Clear On What You Want & Adjusting Your Social Media Strategy Accordingly
Sarah: It’s so important and honestly, if reposting feels good, I think we’ve gotten away from trusting our own inner guidance. Obviously, we’re both coaches, we help health coaches and so on. Obviously, we can be of service. But I always want to really let coaches know that you have the wisdom inside of you, and you have these urges. If you’re overwhelmed one day, and you’re like, I don’t want to show up on social media, you don’t have to. The universe is abundant and will send you what you want if you’re clear on what you want.
Now, if you’re like, I can’t rest and sleep unless I put a post out, well, let’s unpack that. What is going on? Why do we feel that is something that we have to do? Repurpose it if you’re feeling called, and that will make you feel better. And then you can get in that energy.
Honestly, I noticed this when I was first building my health coaching business. Something was off with me when I felt I would join programs. They’d be like, okay you need to do a three-part video series, you need to do all these emails, you need to be on site. And I would have to force myself. I don’t want to do this; it doesn’t feel good. I would fight with my husband about it and I was not in this healthy energy, and it felt really draining and it didn’t feel natural. But I forced myself, well, then I would be working.
I remember a time when a girlfriend was like, Hey, let’s go out to lunch. I was like, oh emails work. I don’t know if I can. Well, I went to lunch and I came back, and two amazing opportunities came through.
Rachel: The thing that I’m really hearing from you is that there’s this energy shift. And it’s really about visualizing and manifesting what you want. And so when you show up, you’re really in that space to attract your ideal client. Because there were times the same experience would happen, I would be working, working, working. And I really needed a break. I’m gonna go take a break, or I’m gonna go book a massage. I would come out and all of a sudden, somebody would buy something that would equal that massage. It always would get paid back in a certain way.
I really hear that for that coach listening right now. You can’t be in the flow if you’re constantly feeling pulled in different directions that don’t feel in alignment.
Sarah: Yeah, the overwhelm just puts a big X on that creativity. So, one thing that I’ve been doing is, instead of a to do list, I create a possibilities list. Whatever’s on my brain is kind of the brain dump. If you guys are familiar with that, you do a brain dump and get everything. All right. So I’ll just do a possibilities list. I’ll write everything down. This is all my brain, this is what I feel I have to do. It’s possible.
Then I’ll just look at which of these do I feel most called to? Which feels the most fun? I think where we get in trouble is when we are thinking too far down the line. We’re like, okay, next year, I’m gonna have this and this, and this, I gotta do this. And it feels really heavy. It’s really hard to be in the flow to be excited about your business.
Social media, honestly, it’s a creative platform. It’s a social platform. And for me, when I’m burnt out, I don’t want to be creative. I don’t want to be social, I want to be in my house by myself. So, really thinking about it that way, how can you show up as yourself, as the person who’s going to create the business and life you want? If you are not feeling creative, if you are burnt out, we have to move out of that state.
I really think a lot of it is this mindset work. And hopefully, us having this conversation shows coaches, this is possible, because a lot of us, myself included, for a long time thought this isn’t possible. It can’t be this good. But also, I’m not going to create it being that good if I’m stuck in the old mode of masculine and do more and do more. And that didn’t feel good. And always I’m coming back to what feels good, what feels good in my body.
Rachel: So in your group in your coaching, because you have a coaching school, do you guys teach a certain type of list building? Or have you really left it up to people to see what works?
Sarah: Yeah, so we have different models, different things that they can try. But it’s more so like, these are the ones, what do you feel called to? What are your strengths? Because you mentioned some people not having the personality for social media or wanting to show up. And, that’s okay. I think for so long, where like, in order to have a health coaching business online, you have to show up on social media, but what about those who are great writers and they want to write a book and that’s how their message reaches people? So really, it can look so many different things.
Rachel: When I built an online coaching business, people would be like, Oh, you must have built so much online. But I did workshops left and right offline. I was scared to go online. I was actually scared of doing videos. I put myself on a 30 day video challenge where I did a video a day on YouTube kept it unlisted. Finally I said, Okay, this is good enough. I’m going to actually put this public. And that’s how I got used to doing video. I think that we all have gotten scared. I need to take that back about not having the right personality. I think anybody can be on social media. But you definitely need to work on how to get your message across.
Sarah: Yeah. And that’s a practice that you talked about, right? When I first started on social media, I forgot that it wasn’t my personal blog. So I was just posting what I had for lunch. My favorite protein bar and all these things, which now we see people doing that in the influencer space, but I was a coach. I wanted to coach people. That’s a different way to show up. But thinking about how this can serve others. How is this in the highest good for the people who are consuming this content? So really having to shift to and a lot of times, we get in trouble when we think we should be really good at social media from the very beginning. But it takes some time to find our groove.
Rachel: What are the things that save you? Because I do see you show up on Stories. I see you show up with images on your social media. What are your time saving hacks?
Time Saving Hacks For Showing Up On Social Media
Sarah: Honestly, what we’ve talked about I don’t feel pressured to show up when I don’t want to show up. And that took some time. Because experts will tell us there are certain times to post based on certain things. You can look at your insights, you can see, this is when the most amount of my people are on, this is when it’s a good time to post. But that doesn’t feel good to me. Because what happens for me is in the morning, I take time in the morning. So if I feel I have to post in this certain window, I’m skipping my morning routine. I’m thinking about it right away. I’m not meditating, I’m not doing that. And so for me, one of my time-saving tips is to post when you want to post. Post when you feel good, and it works for you and you have the energy,
But set your intention before you post. What’s your intention? If you want this Reel to reach 20,000 people, visualize the 20,000 people and think about how it’s going to help them. If you want to sign a client, think about that. Keep in mind that if your goal is to sign a client, the post might not have the most comments or the most reach but that doesn’t matter because your goal is to sign a client from it.
So making sure that we’re in alignment with that. That’s something that I really work on myself is hey, I don’t need to post at 10am. I get to post when it feels good. To me, that is a big one. Another time-saving is knowing who my people are and what they want. If you really know your ideal client, that’s huge. If you don’t know them, that is something I would say get on calls with them, reach out to them, do some of your story work. So you can identify a demographic, do your market research and see who your graphic is. That makes a really big difference too.
Rachel: When we build a brand that is really solid, we have people that will continue to follow us and actually go to our platform and see when we’re posting. I know that I love to hear your story. So I will go intentionally and see what you’re doing. Before we wrap up, is there anything that you feel, if you could go back in time and say to the coach before, what would that be? What would some advice be?
Sarah: My advice for you would be to be okay, doing it your way. Don’t feel you need to follow a certain model. If you get advice and deep in your core, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t resonate with you, let it go. If there’s something that we teach, teachers take what they need and leave what they don’t. I really am excited about where the coaching industry is going. And all of the possibilities. I think we’re gonna see more coaches doing business in a way that serves the life that they want. And I’m really excited about that.
Rachel: I really appreciate you being here and this deep raw truth that you shared about your own experience. And I think the biggest takeaway that I got is really practice that visualization. Practice that manifestation. A lot of coaches just show up and they post something just to post something instead of really thinking, is this going to touch the soul of my ideal client? Am I going to actually get into her head today and have her say, I need to hire this person?
Sarah: When you do that, you don’t have to post as much, you don’t just show up as much. One post could land you a connection that takes your business in a whole new direction that you didn’t even imagine. Or maybe you did? Because you’ve been visualizing and that was where you were going the whole time? It’s really, really magical.
Rachel: Can you tell everyone where to find you?
Sarah: Yes, of course. So you can find me at the Coach + Grow Co. You will see resources, freebies, all sorts of fun stuff. I’m also on Instagram. It’s just my name Sarah_Hagstrom. And I also have a podcast it’s called Why Can’t I? The Coach + Grow Co. podcast where I share health coach success stories. I talk more about this five hour a week model, how to build on social media, signing for your first client and so much more.
Rachel: All right, guys, make sure you follow this amazing lady. I’m sure her resources are outstanding.
