Health coaching used to be an obscure field, but it’s since found mainstream acceptance. There are now lots of exciting new possibilities for sharing your coaching gifts! From small businesses to major corporations, health coaches are in demand. Read on to discover where to get a job as a health coach.
What Types of Businesses Hire Health Coaches?
Due to a troubling increase in chronic diseases and stress-related conditions, there are now more employment options available to health coaches than ever.
In 2016, the average cost of a family health insurance plan rose faster than wages and inflation, which was the most dramatic rise in over three decades. That’s why the need for your services is ever-increasing. Here are some areas where you can find health coaching jobs:
- Fitness Industries – Besides personal trainers, gyms such as LA Fitness, Equinox, Anytime Fitness, and the YMCA often hire health coaches because they recognize that exercise alone isn’t enough to optimize health and wellbeing. A health coach can offer nutrition and lifestyle guidance that augments a gym’s fitness services. They also employ health coaches to stand out from their competitors.
- Training Centers – Health coaches can work at training centers for professional athletes, amateur athletes, and teams. The job entails implementing a wide variety of solutions, including better nutrition for improved performance, recovery strategies, and stress management.
- Doctors’ Offices – Doctors often spend a meteoric 15 minutes per patient before rushing on to the next one. This fast-paced exchange makes it impossible to truly understand patients and their medical needs. A health coach can partner with doctors to pick up where the physician’s visit left off by spending the time necessary to help patients improve their overall wellness.
- Corporations – In 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported employer losses of $225 billion, or $1,685 per employee, due to absenteeism. This figure doesn’t include lack of productivity due to on-the-job illness or stress. To counteract this, companies now enlist health coaches to lead wellness programs for healthy habits, such as smoking cessation or clean eating. A company may hire you to conduct group coaching, one-on-one sessions, or both.
- Colleges and Universities – There are many colleges and universities that hire health coaches full-time to help students and faculty counteract stress and instill wellness habits.
- Restaurant Chef – As a health coach, you can parlay your love for healthy food and mindful eating into a career as a restaurant chef.
So where can you find health coaching jobs in industries like these? One way is to scour job boards…
Health Coach Job Boards
While not specific to health coaching, most of the best-known job boards offer plenty of onsite entry-level jobs at companies looking for health coaches. Here are a few to check out:
As you’d expect, you’ll be asked to submit a résume and cover letter to apply for most of these jobs. Need help writing them? A great way to quickly put together a great looking résume and cover letter is by taking time-proven templates and customizing them to your needs…
LiveCareer is an awesome service that allows you to do just that, and their 14-day trial period only costs $1.95 (you can download an unlimited number of résumes and cover letters during that time). Want to give it a try? Click here to customize a health coach résume sample or here to customize a health coach cover letter sample.
Keep in mind that not all health coaching jobs require you to be tied down to a physical location. There are many opportunities to work remotely via coaching apps instead…
Where Can You Find Remote Jobs for Health Coaches?
A health coaching app is a great tool to remotely connect with clients. It partners you with a user whose goals and needs pair well with your skills and specialties. There’s virtually no overhead and you can make a decent amount of money doing it. The following three services may be worthwhile exploring to make money as a health coach:
Noom
Noom is an iPhone and Android-compatible weight loss app that encourages habit change. Rather than merely throwing a diet plan at your clients, Noom addresses the underlying issues that led them to weight gain.
Your clients are given a daily list of to-dos, including detailed food logging, exercise tracking, and weighing in. They’ll also be quizzed about their food and healthy choices. To promote even more accountability, the app gives users 24/7 access to a live health coach to keep users on the right path.
Noom’s pricing starts at $59 per month for the monthly plan, up to a yearly plan of $199, with a 14-day free trial.
If you want to become a Noom coach, you must finish the “core lifestyle coach training” at “Noomiversity,” which is recognized by the International Consortium for Health and Wellness Training. You must have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, as well as 2,000 hours of practical experience. You’ll also need to be available 40 hours a week and participate in weekly training sessions. The salary is $36K or $38K per year depending on how many clients you have.
Optavia
Optavia, a subsidiary of Medifast, is a meal-delivery system that sends ready-made meals (called “fuelings”) straight to your clients’ door. Optavia sends food, but they don’t actually teach long-term healthy habits, so users’ weight loss will probably be temporary.
They offer more than 60 “fuels” and three meal plans. However, the kits aren’t cheap, and users will also spend money on meals they cook themselves:
- 5&1 Plan: $392.15, 30-day supply, 119 servings – This plan serves five daily Optavia fuelings and one Lean and Green meal (that users prepare themselves).
- 4&2&1 Plan: $435, 140 servings, 30-day supply – This plan serves four daily Optavia fuelings, one healthy snack, and two Lean and Green meals.
- 3&3 Plan: $309.55, 130 servings, 30-day supply – This plan serves three daily Optavia fuelings and three Lean and Green meals.
Optavia pairs users with a live health coach to work closely at achieving their goals.
While a popular option, aspiring health coaches should probably avoid Optavia because it’s merely a multi-level marketing (MLM) operation where you earn commissions from the amount of “fueling” products your downline buys. Still, if you want to try it out, all you need to qualify is $199, which includes their mandatory “Health Coach Business Kit.”
Vida
Vida is an iPhone app that provides one-on-one interaction with a live health coach. Unlike one-size-fits-all apps, Vida is highly personalized. First, it allows users to select their health goals, such as managing stress or losing weight. Then they’re asked to select the coaching style they prefer, from someone who kicks their butt to someone who’s a friendly motivator.
Next, users are shown bios of potential coaches who match their requirements (hopefully that’s you!) Lastly, they make their selection where they’re assured their health coach will be available on-demand.
The app is super simple to use for setting goals, checking in and developing habits, via video consults, phone consults, and messaging. It works well with over 100 apps and devices, including MyFitnessPal and AppleHealth.
However, Vida has a few issues that hinder its performance. If users want to switch coaches, they first need to directly ask their current coach, which could be awkward. Also, you can’t delete messages.
Vida offers three membership plans for users:
- $75/month
- $210/three months
- $780/one year
The average salary for a Vida coach is $55,000.
If you’d like to work for Vida, you need to meet the following requirements:
- Certification (check out our dedicated guide to the best health coach certification programs for a detailed discussion)
- Coaching experience
- Knowledge of motivational interviewing
- Experience with CRM software (check out our dedicated guide to the best health coach software for a detailed discussion)
View Vida’s full job listing here.
Want to throw off the harness and be your own boss instead? Here are some ways you can do just that…
How Can You Make a Living as an Independent Health Coach?
Working for a company is a great way to get your foot in the door, gain experience, and make money. However, to truly have a flourishing health coaching career, you’ll need to break away and start your own business. Here are four ways you can make a living as an independent health coach:
1. Do Private and/or Group Coaching Consultations
Coaching and consulting are often used interchangeably, but the two are actually quite different, namely that coaching helps you find solutions on your own while consulting tells you what to do. Put simply, it’s guidance versus instruction.
Consultants focus on prevention, through healthy thought and lifestyle changes, that can thwart future illnesses. They analyze the habits of groups and individuals and give advice about exercise, diet, stress reduction, and overall health. Sometimes this guidance involves general recommendations, and it can also involve targeted advice.
There are a number of consulting specializations you could focus on, such as fitness and exercise, spiritual or psychological needs, homeopathic lifestyle changes, and nutrition. For more information about identifying a target audience to work with, check out our niche guide for health coaches.
Some of the consultant’s main goals are:
- Empowering and educating clients
- Proactive prevention education
- Conducting a life assessment
- Progress tracking
- Supporting self-awareness and growth
Above all, you should be able to guide clients toward their best possible answer regarding behavioral changes.
See some of our examples of successful health coaches who’ve adopted this model.
2. Conduct Wellness Workshops
A well-done workshop is a great way to increase your credibility as a health coach and turn attendees into clients. If you love interacting with a group, your contagious enthusiasm will motivate your audience.
Being face to face with participants humanizes you and you’ll quickly create a bond with your audience. As a result, they’ll be more likely to attend future workshops, sign up for your email list, buy your products and services, and draw future attendees through word of mouth.
As you consistently hold workshops and build your reputation, you’ll establish a presence in the community. This will make it easy for you to forge connections with places to hold regular workshops, such as health food stores, yoga studios, gyms, community centers, and other wellness-oriented establishments.
If you want to increase your following, you can offer a freebie, such as an ebook or a collection of recipes, at the end of your presentations.
You can offer your workshops through your website to get a longer reach. People who don’t live in your area may travel to learn about a specific topic or to meet you – or both!
3. Create and Sell Products and/or Online Programs
Products that you create differ from the income you’d earn when actively holding face-to-face coaching sessions. Once you create a product, you can draw passive income from it, which means it basically sells on autopilot. Digital products, in particular, are a great option because they’re easy to access and give users instant gratification. You can sell digital products such as:
- Ebooks
- Worksheets and checklists
- Eguides or how-to’s
- Tools such as affirmation cards
- Email courses
- Audios
- Videos
Online programs are another option. These can include webinars or virtual courses that are delivered as one session or as modules released over the course of several weeks through email. Within these formats, you can offer valuable information to hundreds or even thousands of people. Online programs are ideal for moving beyond serving one client at a time.
4. Blog and/or Write for Established Online Publications
Most blogs serve as hobbies for bloggers but they can also be full-time money-makers. For starters, you can make some money simply by placing ads on your website, such as Google Adsense. With enough traffic (10K+ page views per month), you can sign up with a great ad platform like Ezoic and increase your revenue by 50-250% (it happened to us!)
You can also make money from your blog with affiliate marketing, which is a method of promoting someone else’s product or service on your blog in exchange for commission (that’s one of the ways we monetize this website and here’s the awesome course that taught us how).
Another option is to write for well-known online publications as a freelance writer. This can be a powerful tool to grow your own blog and gain recognition. And no, you don’t have to worry about whether you can write. If you can write well enough to have a blog, you’re a writer!
If you’d like to start a health coach blog, our detailed website guide can help you get set up.
Conclusion
Health coaching is a wide-open field where employment options are almost limitless. You can get a job as a health coach working for a company, or you can spread your wings and work independently. Either way, you’ll be doing what you love for the people you love to help!
So, what are your thoughts about getting a job as a health coach? Leave your comments below!
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I am glad I came across your site. I am at a point in my life where I want to shift my career to a health coach. I spent over 10 years working in the hospitality industry. The hours were crazy and from that I developed many health issues.
I quit last year (bummer since money was great, but my health comes first). I decided to make my health my priority and I can see the results already! I suffered from high cholesterol, insomnia and depression. I finally found a balance in my life and I want to share that with as many people as I can.
However, will it be possible for me to get a job since I didn’t graduate in this field? (My degree is in International Business Management). If so do you have any suggestions where I can get certification? Online preferable. Thanks in advance 🙂
Hi there, sounds like you made a good move! Glad to hear that it’s working out for you. In regards to certification, yes, it’s important. You can practice as a health coach without one, but it will be far more challenging to get clients etc. without having credentials. As far as online courses go, you can’t beat Health Coach Institute! All the best 🙂
Hi Debbie. Thanks for sharing this in-depth information. It is not surprising that there is a demand for Health Coaches, with all the obesity in the world and the availability of fast food. Coupled with the fact that usually most couples work outside the home and just are too tired and don’t have the time to eat nutritionally plus sometimes they have to deal with a lot of stress. I can see a health coach being very beneficial.
While this is not something I can see myself doing, I have a couple of friends who are in the health care industry and are at a crossroads. This would definitely be something they would be interested in so I will be sure to pass this information on to them.
Thanks Mary Ann.
You have given a thoughtful, complete review of what is available for someone who would like to be a health coach. I had no idea there were so many opportunities. I especially appreciate your leaving information about health coaching in remote areas. I am glad to know such job choices are out there.
Do you think this job market is one that will grow? People do seem to be more in tune with their health needs these days. I think it is good that so many of these new avenues for learning/teaching wellness are opening up. Thanks for supplying the information to your readers.
Will it grow? Absolutely, Fran. We explain why here.