Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Heather Lynn Darby and Michelle Johnson Jerome, Founders of Balanced Healthstyles, located in Richardson, TX, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We have two customers - one is the general public, those who are interested in developing and maintaining healthy habits, and the other are independent health coaches, which include nutrition coaches, personal trainers, and all aspects of health, fitness, and wellness. The coaches inspire the public to live a life that meets them where they’re at so that living healthy is fun, enjoyable, and daily habits stay doable. All coaches offer many ways for the public to connect with them.

Tell us about yourself

There was a very apparent gap between learning the skills to be a coach and actually having a system to get clients. Michelle and I have always been fans of collaboration. As Master Health Coaches themselves, it was a no-brainer to develop a website to support coaches in their efforts to get more clients by having a central location, balancedhealthstyles.com, for coaches to share recipes and write articles that will not only help potential clients solve their most pertinent problems but also to have real estate on a searchable site that is open 24/7 that includes the opportunity to build relationships with the public as a credible and hireable source.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Helping to shift the narrative in the nutrition and fitness industry away from the idea that food and movement are for more than losing weight or getting muscles and toward a Deep Health perspective… how it makes people feel better.

Collaboration of coaches - rather than considering other coaches and trainers as competition, we choose to view collaboration with our peers as our unfair advantage in the marketplace. We like to “Get It Done Together” on monthly zooms to brainstorm trending topics and keywords. Together we can leverage SEO on one site to rank content high in Google and reduce everyone’s work on filling their social media content calendar.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Work/life/health balance. As business owners, the duties are never done, and the ideas never stop. Keeping life in balance truly is the hardest thing. That is also why we called our business Balanced Healthstyles, a take-off of a balanced lifestyle.

One of the reasons duties are never done is that you feel like you have to wear all the hats. Why not band together and share the load? Even though we are independent practitioners, why should we have to do all the work all by ourselves? When we are all contributing content, we each only have to write a few in order to have several articles a week publishing to the site. Since Google ranks the site with strong domain authority, all the articles have more potential to get seen than if they were all on separate blogs. As they say, “When the tide rises, all boats rise.”
And since you might be all by yourself, feeling like a lonely island makes it hard to stay motivated. When you work with a group of people, you can gather inspiration from doing the same thing as you. Participating in a community bonded by attitudes, values, and goals is an essential ingredient to enjoying a fulfilling life, especially when you are the only employee of your business.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Know your ideal client. Have an offer (product or service) that solved that person’s problem.
  2. Be intentional with your effort, time, and action steps. Think the process through from the perspective of the client to build the processes of marketing, sales, and delivery from the technical perspective.
  3. Have patience; play the long game. Get started now building a body of work that is searchable on Google.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

We look at the whole person; health is not just how you work out or what you eat. So life, how your energy and pain level matter. Do you give yourself time to recover? How’s your mood? Are you calm or anxious? Do you feel focused, confident and capable? Do you understand the bigger why for your choice of actions? Do you know what you value? Does life look hopeful? Are there people to support? Do you, do you feel like you can be your authentic self? What surrounds you? Is your environment safe? Does it contribute to your well-being and healthy behaviors? These are all aspects of Deep Health. We believe that in order to be of value and be the change that our world needs, we must address health in this way.

We accept original content (articles and healthier recipes) by qualified nutritionists, health coaches, and personal trainers who take a Deep Health approach to work with their clients.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://balancedhealthstyles.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthstylecoaches
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthstylecoaches/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BHCoaches
LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3v7fvM7

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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