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Yes. The key is to stop selling your time one client at a time and instead build a repeatable transformation that several clients can experience together.
NBHWC specifically identifies group coaching as a health-and-wellness coaching specialization and has highlighted business design, positioning, marketing, and logistics as core considerations for building a group program.
1. Start with a narrow transformation
Don't build a program around:
"8 weeks of health coaching." Build it around:
"I help [specific person] achieve [specific outcome] through [specific process] in [timeframe]." For example:
- Busy women who want to establish sustainable healthy habits
- Professionals who want to improve energy, sleep, movement, and nutrition routines
- Women 40+ who want a structured approach to healthier lifestyle habits
- People who have tried multiple diets and want to build sustainable behaviors
The narrower the audience and problem, the easier it is to market the group.
A useful formula
Audience + Problem + Desired outcome + Mechanism
Example:
"An 8-week group coaching program for busy professionals who want to build consistent nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress-management habits without following another restrictive diet." Notice that you're selling a journey, not individual coaching sessions.
2. Turn your coaching into a curriculum
Your program should have a beginning, middle, and end.
A simple 8-week structure could look like:
| Week | Theme | Client outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baseline & vision | Define goals and starting point |
| 2 | Habits & environment | Identify barriers and design easier habits |
| 3 | Nutrition | Create realistic eating routines |
| 4 | Movement | Build a sustainable movement plan |
The important distinction is that the curriculum provides structure while coaching provides personalization.
You don't need to individually teach every person what to eat or exactly how to exercise. Instead, you facilitate reflection, goal-setting, accountability, problem-solving, and behavior change within your professional scope.
3. Design the group around interaction—not lectures
A common mistake is turning group coaching into an online course with a weekly
Instead, make the group itself part of the value.
A 60-minute session could be:
10 min — Check-in
"What worked? What didn't?"
10 min — Teaching
One focused concept.
20 min — Coaching
Participants identify obstacles and work through them.
15 min — Group discussion
Members share strategies and learn from one another.
5 min — Commitment
Everyone chooses one action for the coming week.
That makes the program feel like coaching, rather than another course people have to consume.
4. Create a repeatable client journey
I'd build your delivery around five components:
Before the program
- Application or enrollment questionnaire
- Health/coaching intake
- Goal-setting assessment
- Program orientation
- Community access
During the program
- Weekly group coaching call
- Weekly lesson/resource
- Weekly action commitment
- Group/community discussion
- Accountability check-in
Between calls
Keep this lightweight.
For example:
Monday: weekly lesson Wednesday: accountability prompt Friday: reflection/check-in You don't want to accidentally create a seven-day-a-week private coaching service.
5. Decide what happens individually
This is where scalability gets really important.
You could offer:
Group only
- Weekly group coaching
- Community
- Resources
- No private sessions
Group + limited individual support
- Weekly group coaching
- Community
- One individual onboarding session
- One individual midpoint session
Premium
- Everything above
- Additional private coaching
This creates a natural value ladder without requiring you to provide unlimited 1:1 time.
6. Choose your economics before setting the price
Start with the business math rather than picking a price because it "sounds reasonable."
Suppose you want:
$10,000/month
and can comfortably run:
2 cohorts/month × 10 people = 20 clients
You need an average revenue of:
$10,000 ÷ 20 = $500/client
That could be:
- $500 one-time
- $250/month × 2
- $175/month × 3
The important thing is that the delivery model works before you start marketing it.
Also calculate your effective hourly rate.
If 10 clients pay $500:
Revenue = $5,000
If the cohort requires:
- 8 group calls × 1 hour = 8 hours
- Preparation = 4 hours
- Admin = 3 hours
- Marketing/sales = 5 hours
That's roughly 20 hours for the cohort.
$5,000 ÷ 20 = $250/hour gross
That's dramatically different from selling eight individual sessions for $150 each.
7. Keep the cohort relatively small initially
For your first version, I'd favor something like 6–12 people rather than trying to put 50 people into a group.
You are learning:
- Which people get the best results
- Where participants get stuck
- Which curriculum is unnecessary
- Which questions repeatedly arise
- How much individual support people actually need
- How much time the program consumes
Your first cohort is essentially your prototype.
Don't try to perfect it before you have participants.
8. Build a simple sales funnel
You don't necessarily need a complicated funnel.
A simple version:
Free content → free workshop/call → application → enrollment → group program
For example:
Free workshop
"The 5 Habits That Make Healthy Living Easier for Busy Professionals"
At the end:
"If you'd like support implementing these habits, applications are open for my 8-week group coaching program." Then have interested people complete an application.
The application lets you determine whether they're appropriate for your program and gives you useful language for future marketing.
9. Sell the outcome, not the features
Weak:
"8 weekly Zoom calls, worksheets, a Facebook group, meal-planning templates and accountability." Stronger:
"Over eight weeks, you'll build a realistic set of health habits that fit your actual life—and learn how to maintain them when work, travel, stress, and setbacks happen." The features support the promise. They shouldn't be the promise.
10. Give the program a name and framework
A proprietary framework makes the program easier to understand and market.
For example:
The Sustainable Health Method
Assess → Simplify → Implement → Strengthen → Sustain
Then every week fits somewhere in the framework.
This is useful because eventually you're no longer selling:
"Health coaching with me." You're selling:
"The Sustainable Health Method." That is much easier to turn into a repeatable business asset.
11. Build boundaries into the program
This is especially important in health coaching.
Define exactly what you do and don't provide, your communication hours, cancellation rules, group confidentiality expectations, and when someone should be referred to an appropriate licensed healthcare professional.
Also pay attention to health-data handling and marketing claims. HIPAA does not automatically apply to every health coach simply because health information is involved; applicability depends on whether you're a covered entity or business associate. However, the FTC says businesses handling consumer health information still have obligations around privacy, security, and potentially deceptive practices.
So don't casually collect sensitive health information in a consumer app and assume "I'm not a doctor, therefore HIPAA doesn't matter." Your legal/privacy obligations depend on your particular business structure and relationships.
12. Your first version could be surprisingly simple
I'd build Version 1 like this:
Program: 8 weeks Cohort: 8–10 people Call: 60 minutes/week Community: Private online group Support: Weekly accountability prompt Resources: One workbook + weekly worksheets Individual coaching: One 30-minute kickoff Price: Based on your current 1:1 economics and desired capacity Enrollment: Application + short enrollment conversation
Then run it once.
Afterward, ask every participant:
- What was most valuable?
- Where did you struggle?
- What should we remove?
- What should we add?
- What changed for you?
- What almost stopped you from enrolling?
- What would you tell someone considering the program?
Those answers become the raw material for Version 2 and your marketing.
The scaling model
Ultimately, you want this progression:
1:1 coaching → proven framework → small pilot cohort → repeatable cohort → multiple cohorts → facilitator/team → scalable group program
Don't jump straight to "How can I coach 100 people?"
Instead ask:
"How can I create a transformation that works repeatedly for 8–12 people without requiring me to reinvent the coaching every week?" That's the foundation of a scalable health-coaching business.
"If you'd like support implementing these habits, applications are open for my 8-week group coaching program." Then have interested people complete an application.
The application lets you determine whether they're appropriate for your program and gives you useful language for future marketing.
9. Sell the outcome, not the features
Weak:
"8 weekly Zoom calls, worksheets, a Facebook group, meal-planning templates and accountability." Stronger:
"Over eight weeks, you'll build a realistic set of health habits that fit your actual life—and learn how to maintain them when work, travel, stress, and setbacks happen." The features support the promise. They shouldn't be the promise.
10. Give the program a name and framework
A proprietary framework makes the program easier to understand and market.
For example:
The Sustainable Health Method
Assess → Simplify → Implement → Strengthen → Sustain
Then every week fits somewhere in the framework.
This is useful because eventually you're no longer selling:
"Health coaching with me." You're selling:
"The Sustainable Health Method." That is much easier to turn into a repeatable business asset.
11. Build boundaries into the program
This is especially important in health coaching.
Define exactly what you do and don't provide, your communication hours, cancellation rules, group confidentiality expectations, and when someone should be referred to an appropriate licensed healthcare professional.
Also pay attention to health-data handling and marketing claims. HIPAA does not automatically apply to every health coach simply because health information is involved; applicability depends on whether you're a covered entity or business associate. However, the FTC says businesses handling consumer health information still have obligations around privacy, security, and potentially deceptive practices.
So don't casually collect sensitive health information in a consumer app and assume "I'm not a doctor, therefore HIPAA doesn't matter." Your legal/privacy obligations depend on your particular business structure and relationships.
12. Your first version could be surprisingly simple
I'd build Version 1 like this:
7. Keep the cohort relatively small initially
For your first version, I'd favor something like 6–12 people rather than trying to put 50 people into a group.
You are learning:
- Which people get the best results
- Where participants get stuck
- Which curriculum is unnecessary
- Which questions repeatedly arise
- How much individual support people actually need
- How much time the program consumes
Your first cohort is essentially your prototype.
Don't try to perfect it before you have participants.
8. Build a simple sales funnel
You don't necessarily need a complicated funnel.
A simple version:
Free content → free workshop/call → application → enrollment → group program
For example:
Free workshop
"The 5 Habits That Make Healthy Living Easier for Busy Professionals"
At the end:
"If you'd like support implementing these habits, applications are open for my 8-week group coaching program." Then have interested people complete an application.
The application lets you determine whether they're appropriate for your program and gives you useful language for future marketing.
9. Sell the outcome, not the features
Weak:
"8 weekly Zoom calls, worksheets, a Facebook group, meal-planning templates and accountability." Stronger:
"Over eight weeks, you'll build a realistic set of health habits that fit your actual life—and learn how to maintain them when work, travel, stress, and setbacks happen." The features support the promise. They shouldn't be the promise.
10. Give the program a name and framework
A proprietary framework makes the program easier to understand and market.
For example:
The Sustainable Health Method
Assess → Simplify → Implement → Strengthen → Sustain
Then every week fits somewhere in the framework.
This is useful because eventually you're no longer selling:
"Health coaching with me." You're selling:
"The Sustainable Health Method." That is much easier to turn into a repeatable business asset.
11. Build boundaries into the program
This is especially important in health coaching.
Define exactly what you do and don't provide, your communication hours, cancellation rules, group confidentiality expectations, and when someone should be referred to an appropriate licensed healthcare professional.
Also pay attention to health-data handling and marketing claims. HIPAA does not automatically apply to every health coach simply because health information is involved; applicability depends on whether you're a covered entity or business associate. However, the FTC says businesses handling consumer health information still have obligations around privacy, security, and potentially deceptive practices.
So don't casually collect sensitive health information in a consumer app and assume "I'm not a doctor, therefore HIPAA doesn't matter." Your legal/privacy obligations depend on your particular business structure and relationships.
12. Your first version could be surprisingly simple
I'd build Version 1 like this:
Sources5
- nbhwc.orgQuarterly Connect: Group Coaching: Business Skills | NBHWC
- nbhwc.orgNBHWC CE Petition Requirements
- hhs.govCollecting, Using, or Sharing Consumer Health Information? | HHS.gov
- hhs.govCovered Entities and Business Associates | HHS.gov
- ftc.govCollecting, Using, or Sharing Consumer Health Information? Look to HIPAA, the FTC Act, and the Health Breach Notification Rule | Federal Trade Commission
