We’re seeing a shift in the nutrition industry toward more personalized services. With this shift comes the reaction of some nutrition professionals to provide more 1:1 services; however, this model just won’t work. 1:1 services demand a lot of time from you, and at some point, you won’t be able to support additional clients. As a result, these services will create a glass ceiling that can inhibit growth. However, services and programs that can adapt to many clients can shatter this glass ceiling and provide exponential potential for growth. One of these includes an accountability program, and if you aren’t implementing one in your business, you’re missing out! Here’s why.
What Is an Accountability Program?
An accountability program is a nutrition program designed to help keep clients on track with their diet and lifestyle. You may wonder if accountability is enough of a selling point to get people signed up for the program in the first place, but in reality, accountability is what people need to be successful.
The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) did a study on goals and accountability. They found that individuals who committed to someone that they would complete a goal increased their chance of achieving it by 65%. And that’s not all. Individuals who had a specific accountability appointment with the person they committed to increased their chances of success to 95%! So, accountability is the key to achieving various goals.
While people may be interested in other services you provide, the honest truth is that they can find recipes and meal plans for free online. What they can’t find online is someone who can hold them accountable while also giving tailored feedback to help them continue progressing.
Structuring an Accountability Program
With that in mind, let’s discuss what an accountability program could actually look like. We’ve broken down the program into several different pieces that will be crucial to its success:
- Onboarding
- System for accountability
- Other offerings
Let’s dive deeper into each of these elements.
System for Accountability
We want to start with the system for accountability because that’s where the meat of your program is at — it’s an accountability program after all. There are several ways that you can hold clients accountable, and it’s up to you to decide what will be most effective for your clients and for your business.
- Private messages
- Group messages
- Phone calls
- 1:1 sessions
- Group sessions
- Group emails
- Personalized emails
- Private Facebook group
To make your program successful, you need to balance your accountability services with the amount of time it takes to complete those services. For example, if your program offered 1:1 sessions for 30 minutes each week and you had 10 clients sign up for the program, that’s only 5 hours of your time. And that seems reasonable. But if you expand your program and offer that same service to 80 clients, that’s a full 40-hour work week!
We recommend a balance of group activities and tailored 1:1 services so that clients hear from you regularly but you don’t have to spend a lot of time tailoring each communication. For example, your accountability program could offer a weekly personalized message or email along with several posts a week on a private Facebook group. Writing a tailored message could take 5 to 10 minutes per client, while writing a message for your entire group of accountability clients could take 5 to 10 minutes per week. This combination of accountability services is much more saleable and allows you to also focus on other aspects of your business.
In your communication, you should remind your clients of their goals and provide tips to achieve them. These could be general motivational tips, like if you were talking to a group of clients, or they can include a personalized review of goals along with tips to stay on track.
However you choose to offer accountability to your clients, just keep in mind that it should be scalable. You want to be able to continue offering this program to 80 clients just as you would be able to for 10 clients.
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Other Offerings
Now that we’ve covered the accountability piece, let’s explore some of the other services you can provide within an accountability program. These pieces should include things that will support your clients in their goals.
- Meal plan or recipe ideas
- Fitness routine
- Signature curriculum
- Educational content
- Food log review
- Cooking demos
- Requested webinars
Again, these offerings should be scalable as well so that you can continue to add clients to the program without causing extra work for yourself.
If you are a member of EatLove, our platform can provide many of these offerings automatically, so you just have to sign your clients up. EatLove provides personalized meal plans that match a client’s health condition along with lifestyle and food preferences. And we generate these automatically, so your clients will always have meal recommendations without any extra work on your end. We also offer a 23-week educational program that covers basic nutritional information, tips on building healthy habits, and more. Plus, our program has a food log and a customizable care plan. And you can create recipe collections, which you can share with group members currently in your program or with new members who join down the line.
Onboarding
Finally, let’s talk about getting new clients into your program. This may include an initial 1:1 visit or phone call to discover your client’s goals and their nutrition baseline. You could also have new clients fill out an intake form. You might want to send out a welcome email with details about what services clients can expect from you while they are signed up for the program.
And, of course, you’ll want to add clients to any of the platforms that you use, like EatLove, Practice Better, Healthie, Private Facebook group, etc. If you’re using EatLove, you can easily add new clients to the platform in just a few minutes. Our new Save and Invite feature lets you get clients started with just a name and email address. Then, they can onboard themselves.
On your end, you need to make sure that these new clients are included in your service offerings, like a weekly email, and that you have time scheduled to provide any of their 1:1 offerings. This will help ensure that no one gets forgotten. You may also require clients to sign agreements for their participation in the program.
Pricing
Pricing this program correctly is just as important as what the program contains. Your accountability program should be priced so that you can earn your value and clients are willing to pay for that value.
Ultimately, there’s no magic number for what you can charge for an accountability program. Variables include where your business is located, what your niche is, and how many 1:1 offerings as well as additional services you provide.
However, we’ve seen successful programs priced as low as $75 for a membership-style accountability program and all the way up to $350 for coaching-style accountability programs. So it’s up to you to determine the sweet spot in your niche.
that focus on 1:many offerings that start around $100 per month. We’ve also seen other accountability programs that offer more 1:1 services that are $350 per month. So, it’s up to you to determine the sweet spot between your time, what you’re offering, and the nature of your niche.
Benefits of an Accountability Program
If done right, an accountability program can be a great source of revenue for your business. Here are some of the benefits of well-structured program:
- Scalable — more clients without adding a lot of extra work for you
- Increase your value in the eyes of your clients
- Recurring revenue
- Improved outcomes for your clients
But don’t just take our word for it! Lesli Bitel, MBA, RDN, LDN and Master Coach and Business Mentor for Nutrition Professionals, interviewed Cari Riker, RDN, LDN, CDE. Cari has earned over $2,000 extra each month with an accountability program using EatLove. So if you want more insight on how she structured her program, check out the interview here. Our own Ale Zozos has also created an accountability program, which she talks about in this video.
We hope you’ll start an accountability program if you don’t have one already. In today’s changing environment, it’s crucial to focus on programs and services like this that can serve many clients instead of just supporting 1:1 interactions. To see how EatLove can support your business in an accountability program, sign up for our Free Basic Membership.