4 Easy Ways to Include Essential Oils in your Health Business
Feel free to pin me for later 👆🏻
You're probably reading this because you're either really interested in essential oils as a healing modality and want to start using them with your health coaching clients, but have no idea how the business side might work OR you're already sold on the business side but you have no idea how to bring essential oils into your client work without looking like you're jumping on a trend. That or you see all the health coaches around you starting to use them and you're like "what is up with these essential oils? They're like the green smoothie of 15 years ago!". Amiright?! No worries, because I'm here to help with 4 easy ways to naturally include essential oils in your health business without feeling like a sell out.
Full disclosure: I'm a Diamond Leader with doTERRA, which is a network marketing company that shares essential oils and other amazing wellness products through relationships rather than advertising. You can read allllll about how I despised network marketing and how I got over it over here, and in this article over here I share how I've used my doTERRA business to go from making $5,000 a year (yes, I actually share all my business financials back to 2008!) to $5,000 a month, with me surpassing $11,000 a month on average so far this year. So you could say that I know a thing or two about incorporating essential oils into a health business in a non-icky, non-MLMy sort of way.
At least two of the strategies I outline below are specifically related to a network marketing model, but the others are not, so there's something for everyone here.
Now, you might be wondering why you would even want to use essential oils with your health clients in the first place, and it comes down to 2 things:
1. When they're actually pure, essential oils work quickly; and
2. They help with client compliance.
There needs to be a whole other post educating you on why you need to use a 3rd party tested and verified pure brand like doTERRA, but that's not what this particular post is about. However, the part about how essential oils can help with client compliance is super important.
You might be reading this as a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (or a Certified Holistic Nutritional Consultant if you live in Alberta or the Canadian Atlantic provinces), a Holistic Health Coach, Registered Dietician, yoga teacher, Naturopath, or anything in between. If you've been coaching people in their health, then you already know that client compliance is everything.
If people won't do what they need to do to get healthy, they generally don't blame themselves. They usually blame the person they're paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to so that they can avoid taking personal responsibility. It's just human nature.
They don't completely understand the how and why behind the fact that yes, they DO need to eat real, actual food (and not in the car or on the run) for at least a month to see improvements in their IBS symptoms.
Yes, they DO need to stop saying yes to everything and chill the eff out, along with supporting their digestion and up-regulating their liver detoxification if they want to balance their adrenals and thyroid, which will help get rid of their PMS or menopause symptoms in 3 months.
Yes, they DO need to stop eating all the processed foods, and introduce a probiotic, digestive enzyme, and anti-inflammatory omega 3's for about 3 to 6 months if they want their eczema to go away.
They sure as hell don't want it to take 6 months, but it might. They probably don't want it to take 3 months to get better, or even 1 month. They want to feel better NOW, and the more they see improvement, the more they'll stick with the program you designed for them. Enter essential oils.
One of the huge benefits of using essential oils is that you can see improvements in some symptoms in as little as 2 minutes, I kid you not. You can use them to get your clients over the hump where they're making major lifestyle changes and not seeing a ton of immediate improvement, but you can also continue to use them in the long-run to reduce dependence on more toxic solutions (like Advil or Tylenol for headaches).
Plus, essential oils are backed by thousands of peer-reviewed and published scientific research, which I absolutely love. There's no trying to talk people into believing in essential oils when you have the studies to back it up! This is not a religion, it's science.
The faster your clients feel better, the better they'll think YOU are, and they'll start telling everyone about you. For FREE!
For me, it's a no brainer that there's an incredible opportunity for you to help your clients get better quicker AND for you to create another stream of (probably much needed) income in your business. In fact, I got a text last week from a fellow practitioner who is trying out essential oils personally for a few months before she starts bringing them into her current business that said "I started seeing clearly how incorporating EO can change my business in a profitable way". Hells yes, it certainly can!
Below you'll find 4 easy ways to include incorporate essential oils in your business:
1. Straight up classes
In doTERRA, we have a huge focus on educating others about safe usage of essential oils and other wellness products (like supplements, clean skin-care, and non-toxic cleaning products). While other network marketing companies (like Tupperware or Avon) have "parties", we have straight up classes. Science filled classes (at least mine are, but I'm a nerd).
This is what actually drew me into sharing doTERRA in the first place, because I didn't feel like I was selling. I felt like I was doing what I already did in my business, which was educating others on new ways to live a more natural life while helping to balance health issues.
Classes can be taught one-on-one either in-person or long distance, through in-person group classes (my favourite), Facebook classes, online webinars, or even automated funnels. Us in the online world know that there are so many ways to educate others, and the most successful way will be whatever way your ideal client wants to learn!
Some niches are super comfortable coming to in-person classes, some want 5 minute videos in the comfort of their living room, and some want to read emails. Everyone is different, and so every niche or ideal client base is different. This allows you to flex some of your creative muscles (everyone has them!) and think up of ways to make it easiest for the particular group of people that you have a passion for helping to learn about essential oils.
For class content, I love to focus on the top 10 essential oils that doTERRA carries, but I've also done and seen classes like:
- Managing your mood with essential oils
- Pain management and essential oils
- Cleaning DIY recipes
- Clean and non-toxic skincare
- Cooking and essential oils
- Babies and Mama care
- Back-to-School with essential oils
Some classes are great for first-time customers, like the top 10 class, and others are better for existing customers, but either way the focus is on educating others in a more natural lifestyle. I already know that you're into that if you've read down this far!
2. Your existing programs
When I still worked with one-on-one nutrition clients, I offered a signature 6 month program for $2,000. I outlined my entire program in this blog post over here, so I'm not going to totally repeat myself, but there are multiple opportunities during that 6 month program where I can recommend essential oils or other doTERRA products. If you run a multiple month program like I used to, it's really easy to envision essential oils in there once you start to research their uses and applications.
To spell it out super simply, especially for those of you just starting your businesses, here is my 6 month program broken down with the matching doTERRA products:
Month #1: Basic nutrition - what are whole foods, healthy fats, number of servings each day, basic water intake, how to meal plan.
doTERRA products:
- LifeLong Vitality Supplement pack (30 day supply with guarantee that if you don't feel more energy and less pain in 30 days, you get a full refund) - available in regular or a vegan version, and consists of 3 supplements: MicroPlex VMz (whole food multivitamin), xEO Mega or vEO Mega (animal or plant-based omega 3's), and Alpha CRS (antioxidants and cellular vitality complex)
- citrus oils, like grapefruit, tangerine, or straight up lemon for adding to water for flavour (great for those clients who hate drinking plain water) and gentle liver stimulation before we get to the hardcore liver detox in month #4
Month #2: Advanced nutrition - optimizing stomach acid levels, food combining, what to eat organic versus not organic (dirty dozen and clean fifteen).
doTERRA products:
- Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack (30 day supply) - I've had many people give feedback on this product that it helps to reduce bothersome digestive symptoms
- lemon essential oil for making DIY produce wash (if they didn't already purchase it)
- TerraZyme - full spectrum digestive enzyme that includes hydrochloric acid plus essential oils that have been scientifically proven to reduce bothersome digestive symptoms
Month #3: Colon cleanse - using real food and superfoods to support the function of the large intestine for super regular bowel movements.
doTERRA products:
- Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack (30 day supply)
- Zendocrine - Detoxification essential oil blend that gently upregulates kidney and liver function
- GX Assist - GI Cleansing formula including specific essential oils and caprylic acid. This is a pre-made supplement, but you could also use a custom made blend from individual oils. Recipe for this is in the free protocols below.👇🏻
Month #4: Liver detox - using real food, superfoods, and select supplements, one week would focus on supporting Phase 1 liver detox, followed by a second week focused on Phase 2 liver detox.
doTERRA products:
- Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack (30 day supply)
- Zendocrine Detoxification Complex - whole food supplement (including specific herbs like milk thistle and burdock root) that specifically upregulates kidney, liver, colon, lung, and skin detoxification
- Clean skincare - I always touched on clean skincare at this stage, since we were working so hard to remove toxins from the body and I didn't want to keep adding more in! doTERRA has amazing skincare lines that are rated no higher than a 2 on the Environmental Working Group's SkinDeep Database.
Month #5: Adrenal/thyroid balancing OR gut rehabilitation - depending on that particular clients' issues, they would get either an adrenal rebalancing protocol focusing mainly on their lifestyle and stress levels OR a major gut rehabilitation protocol using select supplements and fermented foods.
doTERRA products:
- Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack (30 day supply)
- PB Assist - double-encapsulated probiotic
- essential oils for hormone balancing by topical application or aromatic exposure, such as Wild Orange, Basil, Clary Sage, and Clary Calm
- essential oils for sleep, such as Lavender, Serenity or Balance blends, or the Serenity Restful Complex Softgels if sleep is a major issue
Month #6: Going forward - Depending on the progress that we've seen together so far, I would make recommendations for ongoing body support, including what kind of "diet" I think their body responded best to, any supplements that I think they need on a regular basis, how long they should continue the hormone balancing OR gut rehabilitation protocol, and how often I recommend them repeating the colon cleanse and liver detox.
doTERRA products:
- Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack (monthly going forward)
- PB Assist + TerraZyme (added to their Lifelong Vitality pack at a discount)
- Non-toxic cleaning products, like doTERRA's On Guard Concentrate Cleaner and On Guard Foaming Hand Wash
- Non-toxic skin and body care
- Their favourite oils from month #1 for adding to their water on an ongoing basis for liver support, as well as oils for diffusing on a regular basis for the sleep and mood management
Now, depending on your programs, it might not match up to mine exactly, but I think you can see here that there are many, many options for acute and chronic healthcare support with your clients with doTERRA's products.
The best part is that many of them are pre-made for you, with no need for your clients to put together different essential oils for protocols like gut cleansing. The supplements are already made and easy to take, which increases their compliance.
Less steps for your clients = better chance of them keeping with your protocols. Plus, the products get delivered directly to their house, with no logistics for you to organize or pay for.
3. Online programs
We just went through what it might look like to include essential oils or other items like doTERRA's Lifelong Vitality Supplement pack into your existing programs, and you could do the same thing with your online programs. However, I have a different idea for you.
I've launched online programs before that didn't make me the income that I thought they would. I, and online friends of mine, have struggled through a multiple weeks or month-long launch process for a $147, $297, or even $497 program that ultimately only ended up selling a few thousand dollars.
That's all well and good, but when you figure that few thousands of dollars represents months and months of income, it's not actually that great, especially if you want to stop working 1-1 with clients altogether and just work online (the holy grail of health coaching!).
There are lots of different reasons why your online programs might not be selling exactly the way you want them to be, but I think one of the major reasons is that our audiences aren't used to spending hundreds, and especially thousands, of dollars on an "online program" that ultimately might seem like some magical, not really "for real" product to them. They just don't see the value!
Yes, we might all be used to completing programs online, you might have even gotten your health certification online, but your clients might never have even heard of an online program.
To ask them to spend $100, $200, or $500 on some electronic PDF's, pretty videos, and a Facebook group might make total sense to us, but to them, it might seem crazy!
Enter essential oils.
Imagine you charge the same amount for your course, maybe $50 or $100 more, but they get an entire kit of essential oils that help with the specific health issues that they're purchasing your course for included in that price! #winning #easychoice
If you're a part of a network marketing company, like doTERRA, that offers kits like this, here's how you do it:
They must not already have an account with the company. If they do, they can purchase their own products on their own account (whether they're on your team or not). More ideas on what to do if they already have an account below.
Pick a kit or customize an order that includes some or all of the products you're going to use in your program. Make sure the total cost, including any taxes and shipping AND the percentage that will be taken from your payment processor, is less than what you're collecting from them. For example, let's say that the kit they'll receive totals $150 with taxes and shipping, and your online program is $250. Your payment processor will usually take 3-5%, so you'll end up with $237.50 in your bank account, which is more than the total cost of their kit.
During checkout, you collect the extra information that you need to input when you sign them up as a customer with you. For example, when we have a new customer sign up with doTERRA, we're required to collect their date of birth, since doTERRA uses that as a security question for customer service. If you use something like SquareSpace to collect payment from your customers, you can just add a custom form at checkout that collects this information from them.
You take their information and sign them up as a customer using your own credit card. You make a payment for the total amount of their first purchase from the proceeds that you collected when they processed their checkout on your program sign up page. In doTERRA, your credit card information won't be saved in their shopping portal, so there's no worries that their next purchase will be accidentally charged to you. They'll never see your information!
More than likely, especially if it's doTERRA, they'll be re-ordering throughout their year membership, so you've just converted a potential one-time customer to a long-time customer that you will statistically have for years. For example, on my team, almost 30% of customers order on a monthly basis (out of almost 4,000) ... that's a LOT of repeat customers, especially when compared to re-launching the same online program over and over, and a customer only needs to purchase once because they get lifetime access.
If someone wants to sign up with your online program and they're already a customer on your doTERRA team? Offer them a steep discount! I wouldn't offer them your program for free, because when people get things for free they don't value them as much as when they actually pay for it, but give them a great discount where they only end up paying $20, $50, or even $100. You'll know that they're invested at some level, you still make some cashflow, and they'll probably have to re-order some or all of the products that you're using in the program through their own account, so you're making extra income from that, too.
If someone already has an active account on someone else's team in the same company you're a part of, unfortunately they can't sign up with a new kit under you (check with your own company, rules might differ). You can decide if you offer them a discount, but personally, I'd keep that discount for loyal customers on your own team. That person can decide if they want to pay full price for your program, because I bet that your program is so kick-ass that it's worth every penny no matter what the price!
I hope that this section makes sense to those not already a part of a network marketing company, this is where it can get complicated. However, know that you can use a network marketing income to provide you financial freedom so you can create the programs you've always wanted to create, but didn't think it would sell or you were afraid you wouldn't make enough money.
You can use your online programs as value-added services or educational opportunities for your current customers on your network marketing team to engrain them further into your team wellness culture.
For example, my doTERRA upline offers a twice yearly cleanse that she used to sell to the public. Just like any other program, she offers a private FB group for community and accountability, recipes, and videos. She offers this for free to her 40,000+ person downline, and the more she offers for free to her own community, the more people outside of her current customer base ask to be included and are totally willing to pay for it.
4. One-on-one support only for loyal customers
As a total introvert and empath, I couldn't wait for the day when I could stop taking 1-1 clients. Don't get me wrong, I loved the friendships that I created and seeing my clients rock their goals, but it was freaking draining. I simultaneously loved and hated seeing my clients, especially when I was pregnant with my son, had all day morning sickness from 6.5 weeks until I gave birth, and couldn't talk about food with anyone.
When I started the doTERRA side of my business, it took off so quickly that I was able to give up 1-1 clients, but lately I've re-introduced it to very select customers.
In most network marketing companies, there's an auto-ship option. In doTERRA, customers can choose their own customized order each month called the Loyalty Rewards Program (LRP). There's no minimum value they have to spend each month, other than one product has to be shipped, there are no entrance or cancellation fees, and all their wellness products get shipped to their house. All that in exchange for 10-30% points back on stuff that they'd be buying anyways (like toothpaste, skincare, and supplements). For myself, this means that for every $100 I buy of all those products mentioned above under section #2, like the supplements, probiotics, non-toxic skin care and cleaning products, I get $30 back in points to spend on more free stuff.
Every month, I used to buy my necessities from:
the organic section of the grocery store, that usually wasn't that non-toxic and sometimes didn't even work, like "natural" cleaning products.
the health food store, where I had to drive to one particular store for one product, and another store for something else ... or pay for shipping from multiple online stores for one particular product from each one.
the pharmacy or Sephora for my skin care that was DEFINITELY not "clean" or "non-toxic".
All that got replaced with one shipment, directly to my house. And I get all my essential oils for free. I'm not going to lie, it's pretty sweet.
Well, like I said above, almost 30% of our customer base does the same thing, at least on my team. On other teams, that percentage is upwards of 50-70%.
These are our most loyal customers who I LOVE to take care of, so I recently started offering 1-1 health coaching with specific people. I reached out to them and offered that if they put in a minimum size of order for 3 months, which includes all the products I was going to recommend for their specific health issues (similar to my program outlined above), I would give them my health coaching for free.
They still had to spend money on the products, and the investment works out to $150 minimum a month, but they get a customized program from me, including the entire intake, recipes, lifestyle recommendations, and any cleanse or detox instructions. By the end of 3 months, they'll have a 60 to 100 page document to keep and refer to until the end of time, and I have clients come up to me every now and then that, going on 5 years later, share that they still keep my wellness plan on their kitchen counter and use the recipes on a weekly basis.
I don't offer this program to everyone, since working 1-1 with people still drains me, but I can choose to offer it those people who I feel drawn to serve, who I know are ready to take their health to the next level. The people who are tired of their own excuses and are truly ready to feel better.
I don't have to deal with the pain-in-the-ass clients (PITAS) who you see once and they never come back (or send you a billion and one questions NOT related to the program you gave them), only because I'm desperate to pay my bills. I finish most calls feeling invigorated and like I'm meant to work with these particular people, instead of feeling recently that I have to keep calling so-and-so because she paid me hundreds of dollars.
This is a fabulous way to work with people who are begging for your help but can't afford both your services and the supplements or other products you require for your program.
Yes, I'm not collecting actual payment from them, but I'm more than making it up in commissions in products, as well as other commission types from doTERRA, and they're still invested (as opposed to getting something for totally free) as they've still had to pay some sort of payment to the company.
If you know me at all, and even if you don't, know that I'm all about the science. It's all well and good to want to use a remedy that is easy, fast, and cost effective, but if science doesn't back it up? It's a no-go for me.
I've spent hours and hours putting together an instant download with science backed essential oil protocols for some of the most common health issues that holistic practitioners experience in their clients, including:
digestive issues, including acute and chronic issues, plus Candida and parasites
stress and mood issues, including adrenal support
weight loss and blood sugar balance
There are 31 studies included, and each one is linked so that you can click on them and research for yourself.
Whether you decide to use essential oils or not in your health business, be prepared if clients ask you about them. With the rise in essential oil research, and the quality and popularity of companies like doTERRA, more and more of your ideal client market will be hearing about and using them.
This "trend" isn't going anywhere, and is poised to grow tenfold over the next few years. What side are you going to be on?
