Can a VA help health and fitness coaches?

You became a coach or trainer as you have the innate ability to help people improve their health, fitness, and lives. And as an entrepreneur, you probably feel like you should be able to do everything required to run your business. But the reality is that we are not all skilled at every single thing. And that’s okay! While you can manage in the beginning, there comes the point when you feel frustrated at not getting everything done, or you feel exhausted by trying to get it all done. You know you need someone to help will all the tasks you don’t enjoy and take so much time. Or those tasks you dread that take you away from coaching your clients. Where do you turn to for help? Many people will recommend getting a VA.

You've heard of a VA, but not sure what a VA is?

The term ‘VA’ gets thrown around a lot in Facebook groups for health and fitness professionals. Who am I kidding? It gets thrown around in many business Facebook groups. But what is a VA?

VA is short for Virtual Assistant. So, in basic terms, they provide virtual support to businesses. It works very similar to the way you may provide virtual coaching to health and fitness clients. A Virtual Assistant will work remotely and are typically small business owners. As independent contractors, they provide a service in exchange for a fee. They are not considered your employee.

In the health and fitness industry, there are many job titles that each business owner may give themselves — Online Trainer, Health Coach, Wellness Coach, Chief Motivation Officer, to name a few.

The VA industry is similar as there are many job titles that a VA may use. Some examples are: Virtual Assistant, Freelancer, Online Business Manager, Social Media Manager, Website Manager, Graphic Designer, Product Launch Specialist, and the list goes on.

So can a Virtual Assistant help health and fitness coaches? And how?

Absolutely! There will be a Virtual Assistant out there that can help any business owner with any task that needs completing.

As you would imagine, each VA is different. Virtual Assistants provide services based on their skills, experience and specialty or preferences. Sound familiar?

Some VAs will specialise by the specific task, product (i.e. Active Campaign) or service offering (such as Email Marketing Management). Others will specialise in an industry as we do for the health and fitness industry. Each VA will have their defined niche, as you do.

Services that a Virtual Assistant could provide are as follows:

Administrative Tasks

A VA could manage your email inbox and calendar to keep you organised and look after your customer service. If you’ve ever worked in a corporate role, this would be like the traditional secretary or executive assistant.

Client Onboarding

There is so much to consider when onboarding a client. A VA could help you set up processes and automation to ensure that the onboarding of your clients is seamless. They could help wow your clients with perfectly timed (and formatted) communications before you exceed their expectations with your coaching!

Email Marketing Management

Setting up and maintaining your email marketing software is another offering. If you’ve got emails written and ready to send, a VA could set up the automation and send out your weekly, fortnightly or monthly content or newsletter. They could build your email sequences to nurture the leads for your business.

Graphic Design

Do you have a consistent look and feel for your brand? Do all your documents, website, social media pages scream ‘YOUR BUSINESS NAME’? A VA with graphic design knowledge can take your bland documents or templates and make them look schmick.

Online Community Management

If you’ve got online communities, such as Facebook groups, a VA could help you manage them. They could moderate comments, interact with members, help sell you and your business to your audience. And be there to remove those that are tarnishing your brand.

Online Program Management

A VA with a background in health and fitness could assist with setting up and maintaining your online training software. They could onboard clients, set them up with the program and ensure that it runs as expected.

Research

If you’re working on a new project, like a blog, program or course, you could use a VA to do some of the research for you. It may be researching content for your blog, competitor analysis for a program you are considering or software options to host the course you are designing for your members.

Sales or Landing Pages

There are VAs that can create great-looking sales pages that are consistent with your brand. Some VA’s could also help with writing the copy (the words) of the sales pages. Just make sure you have someone with experience in copywriting, as this could be the difference between making sales or not!

Social Media Management

A VA can help you set up your social media accounts and consistently post on your business page or in your groups. Social media can take so much time from your schedule and could be the perfect task to outsource.

Studio Management

Have a brick-and-mortar studio? An experienced VA could assist you with the running and management of the studio. The list is endless: staff scheduling, training manuals and programs, recruitment, sourcing and maintaining equipment, and facilitating in-house education seminars.

Tech Software Support & Troubleshooting

If you’re not all that tech-savvy or don’t want to spend the time figuring it out, there are many VAs (like us) that love working with technology. They can help you set up systems, troubleshoot issues or keep all the tech parts working properly.

Writing Blog Posts

A Virtual Assistant with some experience or a keen interest in the health and fitness industry could write blog articles for you. If you’ve got the ideas and your notes or key points, they could turn them into a great blog.

Webinar Assistance

Whether you want to host a Facebook Live or use a program such as Zoom to host a webinar, a VA can help set up and moderate the event. They can take on the stresses of any last-minute tech glitches that could occur, so you can concentrate on delivering the best webinar experience for your audience.

Website Management

I know! I know! There is a lot of contention in the health and fitness industry about whether you need a website.

If you are in the yes camp, there are VAs that specialise in websites. They can design, manage, and update your website and post content like blog articles, client testimonials or member resources. If you’re in the no camp, these VAs can still help with sourcing domain names for sales or landing pages.

Video or Podcast Editing

So much time lies in the editing of videos and podcasts. If you’ve created videos or podcasts that you haven’t got around to editing, or don’t have the skills to edit, a VA skilled in this area could turn your materials into a professional-looking video or podcast.