I said something on my podcast… to thousands of people… that I now have to eat. Publicly. With hot sauce on it.
I said, “I will never do a sales call again.”
And here I am. Doing sales calls. Because the market looked me dead in the eye and told me to sit down and humble myself.
And you know what? That humbling was the best thing that happened to my business in the last two years. Because it forced me to pay attention to what’s actually working right now… instead of clinging to what used to work.
So if you’re a health or wellness coach sitting behind a funnel wondering why nobody’s buying… this one’s for you.
The “Automate Everything” Dream (And Why It’s Probably Keeping You Broke)
Somewhere along the way, the online business world sold us all a very sexy fantasy.
Build a funnel. Record a webinar. Set it on evergreen. Let the tech do the selling. Remove yourself from the process. Sit back, sip your coffee, and watch the Stripe notifications roll in while you hike or do yoga or whatever wellness coaches are supposed to do on a Tuesday afternoon.
And look… I bought into this dream too. I lived it for a while. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t.
But here’s what nobody tells you when they’re selling you the “automate everything” model:
Automated selling requires a level of messaging precision, authority, and trust that most coaches in their first few years simply don’t have yet. And that’s not a dig. That’s just math.
When you completely remove yourself from the selling process… when a stranger has never heard your voice, never felt your energy, never had a real conversation with you… your WORDS have to do all the heavy lifting. Every single word on your sales page, in your emails, on your webinar slides. All of it has to be so dialed in that someone who doesn’t know you feels safe enough to hand over their credit card based on text on a screen.
That takes years. Years of testing. Years of refining. Years of building a reputation that precedes you.
So if someone is selling you the “automate everything” dream and you’re not yet consistently making $100K a year in your business? Take that advice and set it gently on fire.
Not because automation is bad. You CAN move toward it. But it’s not where you start.
Why Automated Selling Is Failing Even Harder Right Now
Remember everything that’s happened in the online business world over the last few years. The oversaturation. The broken promises. The $2,000 programs that turned out to be recycled PDFs and two group calls where the coach was clearly reading off a script.
People got burned. A lot.
And burned people don’t hand over money easily.
Your dream client is sitting at her kitchen table at 11 p.m. She found your sales page. She’s reading it. And she WANTS to believe you. She’s tired. She’s been dealing with this health issue for years. She’s ready for help.
But the last coach she trusted? Ghosted her three weeks after she paid. The one before that gave her a Dropbox link and disappeared. The one before THAT made a bunch of promises on a webinar that sounded incredible… and then delivered something that felt like a watered-down version of a Google search.
So she’s sitting there, reading your beautifully designed sales page, and there’s a wall up. A thick one. Because she’s been here before. And she’s not going to get fooled again.
A countdown timer isn’t going to break through that wall. A “only 3 spots left” banner isn’t going to do it. An automated email sequence with her first name awkwardly jammed into the subject line isn’t going to do it.
What she needs… what burned, skeptical, been-there-done-that people need… is to FEEL you. To hear your voice. To get a real sense of what it’s actually like to be in your world. To know that you’re a real person who genuinely gives a shit and isn’t going to disappear once the payment clears.
And you can’t automate that. At least not yet.
The Shift: Less Automation, More Human Connection
The shift is simple in concept but requires something most coaches are resisting: showing up.
Not showing up on a Reel that gets 47 views and then disappearing for a week. Showing up in ways where people can actually interact with you, feel your energy, and experience what it’s like to be coached by you BEFORE they ever pay you a dime.
More human touch points. More real conversations. More moments where someone thinks, “Okay… she’s the real deal.”
Let me walk you through five strategies that are working right now. Not in theory. In practice. For me and for the health coaches I work with every day.
1. Live Experiences (Stop Calling Them Webinars)
Live webinars are having a massive comeback. But we’re doing them very differently than we used to.
The old webinar model was: teach for 45 minutes, pitch for 15, do a Q&A, and pray that someone buys. You’d cram as much how-to content as possible into the teaching section because you thought that’s what would impress people.
The problem? When you teach a bunch of how-to content in a webinar, you give people the illusion that they have everything they need to go do it themselves. And then they leave. Without buying. Because they think, “Cool, I learned a lot. I’ll just go try this on my own.”
And we KNOW that information alone doesn’t get people results. If information was enough, everyone would be healthy and thriving. We live in the age of Google and ChatGPT. We have access to more information than any generation in human history. And yet? People are sicker, more stressed, and more confused than ever.
Information isn’t the problem. Implementation is. Accountability is. Support is. Personalization is.
So the new model… what we call a live experience… isn’t about teaching how-to content. It’s about creating micro-shifts. Moments where you shift someone’s belief. Where you challenge an assumption they didn’t even know they were carrying. Where something clicks inside them and they think, “Oh. OH. I’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
You’re not educating them into a sale. You’re helping them see their situation clearly. You’re shifting the beliefs that are keeping them stuck. And then you’re showing them what the next step looks like. Not convincing. Not arm-twisting. Just showing them the path and giving them enough information to make a real decision.
That’s it. Clean. Simple. Human.
And when you do this live… when people can feel your energy in real time, ask questions, and experience you as a real person… the trust that builds in that 60 minutes is worth more than six months of automated emails.
2. Open Houses: The Group Sales Call Nobody’s Talking About
This one is especially powerful if you’re newer and you don’t have hundreds of people showing up to your live events yet.
Instead of ending your live experience with a generic Q&A where people type questions into a chat box and you read them off a screen… you let people unmute. You let them talk to you. You have a real, actual conversation.
We call this an Open House.
It’s a group sales call disguised as a coaching experience. People hop on. They ask you questions live. They get a taste of what it’s actually like to be coached by you. They feel your warmth. They experience your expertise firsthand. They leave thinking, “Wow… if THAT was free, what would it be like to actually work with her?”
And THAT is what closes sales.
Because what burned, skeptical people really need is to get a sense of what it FEELS like to work with you before they commit. An Open House gives them that without you needing to hop on a one-on-one sales call with every single person who’s curious.
Here’s the part most coaches get wrong: they think they need a big audience for this to work. They don’t. Smaller rooms actually feel MORE connected, not less. If you have 8 people on an Open House and you give each of them a few minutes of your time? Those 8 people leave feeling like they just had a private coaching session. And half of them will sign up.
3. The High-Value Low-Ticket to High-Ticket Bridge
This is one of my favorite strategies right now because it works SO well for health practitioners specifically.
Instead of trying to sell someone straight into your $3,000 or $5,000 signature program from cold… you offer a high-value, low-ticket entry point first. Something that gives them personalized, one-on-one access to you at a price that feels like a no-brainer.
A $97 consult. A 30-minute lab review. A quick health assessment call. Something small enough that the risk feels almost nonexistent, but valuable enough that they walk away genuinely impressed.
One of my students does this beautifully. She offers a $97, 30-minute lab review. She looks at whatever labs someone has done in the past year. She pulls them up on screen, walks through the results, and tells them what she sees.
And almost every single time… the client’s jaw drops. Because they get more insight and clarity in that 30 minutes than they got from YEARS of appointments with their primary care doctor. Years of being told “everything looks normal” when they knew in their gut that something was off. Years of feeling dismissed and frustrated and like nobody was connecting the dots.
And then… in that 30 minutes… someone finally did.
The conversation naturally flows into, “So… do you want to keep going? Because here’s what I’d recommend as next steps.”
It doesn’t feel like a sales pitch. It feels like care. It feels like expertise. It feels like exactly the kind of personalized attention people are starving for right now.
You’re not going to get rich off the $97. That’s not the point. The point is it builds a bridge of trust between “I’m curious” and “take my money.” And it converts at a WAY higher rate than sending someone a sales page link and crossing your fingers.
4. Office Hours: Just Show Up and Be Available
This one is so simple it almost feels too easy. But don’t underestimate it.
You set a time. You hop on a Zoom. People can join, ask questions, hang out, get a feel for your vibe. There’s no pitch. No slides. No agenda. Just you showing up and being helpful.
Think of it like a virtual open door. A group hang with someone they’re curious about working with. It removes SO much of the friction and awkwardness around selling because there’s literally nothing to sell in that moment. You’re just being you. Answering questions. Being generous with your expertise.
And the people who show up to Office Hours? They’re warm. They’re interested. They’re paying attention. They’re the ones who are already thinking about working with you but need just a little more time to feel safe.
When you DO open enrollment… those people already feel like they know you. The sale is practically made before you even ask.
5. DM Conversations: Actually Talking to People
This is the simplest strategy on the list. And the one most coaches resist the hardest.
Instead of just posting content and hoping someone magically clicks the link in your bio, finds your sales page, reads the whole thing, and buys… you create content that’s specifically designed to start conversations.
You post something that invites a reply. Someone DMs you. And then… and this is the revolutionary part… you have an actual human conversation with them.
You ask questions. You listen. You learn about their situation. You figure out if they’re a good fit. And if they are, you invite them to take the next step.
No copy-paste scripts that feel like they were generated by a robot. No “Hey girl!” energy. No 14-message automated sequence that tries to convince someone to book a call they didn’t ask for.
Just… talking to people. Like a human. In the DMs.
I know. Groundbreaking, right?
But in a world where everything feels automated, impersonal, and AI-generated… a real conversation is the most powerful sales tool you have. One genuine DM exchange where someone feels heard and understood will outperform a hundred automated messages every single time.
The Common Thread in All of This
Here’s what all five of these strategies have in common: YOU.
Your voice. Your presence. Your expertise. Your energy. Your ability to make someone feel like they’re the only person in the room.
A single live experience with 15 people on it can generate more sales than a thousand-dollar ad spend driving traffic to an automated funnel… if you actually show up and connect with the humans in the room.
People don’t buy from funnels. They buy from people they trust. And trust is built through connection, not automation.
I know that might not be what you want to hear. I know you got into this business hoping you could build something that runs while you sleep. And you CAN get there. Eventually. But not by skipping the part where you actually connect with real humans.
You ARE the Selling Process (And That’s Your Superpower)
Here’s the mindset shift that changes everything: stop trying to remove yourself from the selling process. You ARE the selling process. At least for now.
And that’s not a limitation. It’s your biggest advantage.
Because nobody can automate what YOU bring to a conversation. No funnel can replicate the moment when someone hears your voice and thinks, “Oh… she actually gets it.” No email sequence can recreate the feeling of being truly seen by a real person who cares.
The big brands can’t do this. The coaches with massive teams can’t do this. But you… sitting in your home office with your messy desk and your cold coffee… YOU can hop on a Zoom and make someone feel like they matter. And that is worth more than any tech stack on the planet.
You Earn the Right to Automate
One more thing. And this is important.
I’m not saying automation is bad. I’m not saying you should never build a funnel or record an evergreen webinar or set up an email sequence. You absolutely should… eventually.
But you earn the right to automate.
Once you’ve done the live selling… once you know exactly what words make people lean in, what objections come up, what stories land, what micro-shifts create the biggest “aha” moments… THEN you have the data to automate. Then you can record that webinar and put it on evergreen. Then you can build the funnel. Because now you know what works. You’ve tested it with real humans. You have proof.
But you don’t start there. You start with connection. You start with showing up. You start with being a real human in a world that’s drowning in automation.
And honestly? You might find that you like it. That the conversations energize you. That watching someone’s face light up on a Zoom call when they finally feel understood is the best part of your whole week.
That’s not a stepping stone to automation. That’s the whole damn point.
If you’re a health or wellness coach who wants to learn exactly how to sell your signature program without feeling sleazy, pushy, or like you need a $10K tech stack… that’s what we teach inside Health Coach Accelerator. Real selling strategies that work for real coaches with real-sized audiences. You can learn more and apply at https://kendraperry.net/apply
