Connecting with Clients: How Building Relationships Can Build Your Client List feat. Kasey Orvidas

 

Kasey: Thanks, Katie! Oh, man, where should I start? Well, my name is Kasey. I have a PhD in psychology, so that’s where I was coming from as far as an educational perspective as I started thinking about my business. I am also a health and fitness coach, so I have this blend of the psychology of health, behavior change, and how mindset plays a role in how healthy you eat and how often you exercise. My business is half and half, so one half is still that one-on-one health and fitness coaching. We work with people on an individual level: on their health, fitness mindset, personal development, and of course the body composition changes that come along with that. And then the other half of my business is coaching other coaches. So I mainly do that now through a certification program that I have that is accredited by some of the governing bodies in the nutrition and fitness space. Like if you are familiar at all, you would know who NASM, ACE, AFAA, and ISSA are. Those are the four that I am accredited by for continuing education units. So that's the setup I have now.

Katie: So, Kasey, before we talk about connecting with clients, I want to give you permission to take us on the journey of your business and feel free to take your time telling the story. What led you here, and what do you do now?

 

Kasey: Well, as I was getting my Ph.D. in psychology and understanding specifically how mindset and health behavior change comes into the realm of health and fitness coaching, I began to see that there was a big gap in both realms. When we're talking about health behavior change, no one's really talking about the role of health and fitness coaches in health behavior change and how that could potentially make an impact. And from a coaching perspective, there's a really, really big gap when it comes to psychology and mindset and behavior change for clients.

 

So I saw the gap between these two areas, and I really wanted to close that gap. I worked in the Mindset Lab at NC State for four and a half years when I was getting my PhD., and I wanted to bring that science into the health and fitness coaching space. So that was my main goal. During my Ph.D., I was nutrition coaching and fitness coaching part-time, and that was just a nice little augment to the lack of salary that I had as a Ph.D. student. I never really saw myself taking a full-time position in that part-time work that I was doing, knowing that I was getting a Ph.D. in psychology. I figured I would be a professor or something. But the more I saw this gap between these two worlds, the more I wanted to do something about it instead of just creating research that no coach is ever going to actually read. So fast forward to finishing my Ph.D. I decided to take the leap and go full-time into my business and really grow that health and fitness coaching business that I had. And I also had aspirations to help other coaches really start to grasp these aspects of science when it comes to mindset and behavior change and psychology, and really wanted to show them how they can leverage this stuff with their clients because I could make a bigger impact that way too, versus just having what I currently do is a staff of five assistant coaches who all take on clients and help them. And with that growth, eventually, I needed Katie to help me organize all of this!