Here’s what happens when your pivot becomes your purpose

If you’re an online coach, practitioner, or service provider, you know what it’s like to spend hours every week creating content hoping the right person will see it, love it, and want to work with you.

And yet, with every new article, podcast episode, or social media post you publish, the clients just aren’t coming.

Or maybe they’re slowly trickling in, but not at the rate you’d like. Or maybe, you’re so busy serving clients these days (go you!), you can’t keep up with the content marketing machine your business relies on.

Either way, you know what it’s like to DIY your content, usually within the margins of an already full life.

And the longer you spend trying to crack the content marketing code, the easier it is to lose sight of why you’re doing it all in the first place.

I know because I’ve been there. This is the story of how I burnt out from marketing my first business and through that journey, discovered my true calling.

Before I became a copywriter, I was an aspiring health coach

My online business journey began in 2018, when I became a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

When I started the program, I had no intention of becoming a coach. In fact, the idea of running my own business felt incredibly foreign and unattainable.

I just wanted to explore my passion for holistic health, and see if there was a potential future there. But as I progressed through the program, I realized something that started opening my mind…

I was actually good at coaching. And (spoiler alert) I loved it.

I was so inspired by everything I was learning, and desperately wanted to quit my job so I could work full time in the health and wellness space. But because I lived in a rural town with no juice bar, yoga studio, or functional medicine practice in sight, my options for breaking into the health and wellness world felt…slim.

So I did what most new coaches do—I started sharing my passion for health and wellness online instead.

Introducing The Homemade Sage: My OG health coaching blog

I launched my health and wellness blog in January 2018, building my website from the ground up. I spent weeks tweaking and perfecting everything on my site—the photos, colors, and layout—all with zero experience in web design, copywriting, or graphic design. Let’s just say it was a very slow and frustrating process, but we got there!

Once my website was live, I started brainstorming all the things I wanted to teach people. I worked on informational blogs and inspirational Instagram posts on topics like:

How to make homemade kombucha
Pantry essentials for a sugar-free diet
The benefits of healthy fats
How to manage stress better
Meal prepping and eating health on a budget

I also developed a six week coaching program highlighting the most important things I’d learned at IIIN.

But before we go any further in this story, I should point out one small detail: I didn’t have a marketing strategy.

I thought if I just copied what other successful health coaches and wellness influencers were doing, people would simply ask to join my program. I had no sales page, no Discovery Call link, and as a result, no potential clients knocking on my virtual door.

Entering my content marketing era

I soon realized if I wanted to make money doing what I loved, I needed to share more than a few helpful blog posts, generic health tips, and a killer smoothie recipe. (But seriously….ask me about my smoothies!)

I needed a strategy that helped me show up consistently without burning out, find people who were interested in working with me, and confidently sell my programs.

I took an email marketing course and started studying funnels from online business coaches. I became obsessed with Canva, created my first lead magnet, and set up the forms inside Mailchimp (a nightmare experience I’ll never forget).

I also started reaching out to local yoga teachers and practitioners so I could teach workshops in my community.

But even though I was learning everything I could about content marketing, my momentum was still slow. I really enjoyed writing my blog and teaching workshops, but it wasn’t enough to quit my job and become a fulltime coach.

Instead it was slowly becoming a second job I wasn’t getting paid for.

The unexpected magic of pivoting

Everything culminated on a Thursday night in December when I went to teach a holiday-themed workshop at a local physical therapy office. I’d been developing this workshop for weeks—writing the material, hanging up posters, and chatting with community members trying to get them to come.

But when I finally set up my table and laid out my free recipe cards, no one showed up. And looking back, it’s no surprise. There were a million reasons why this class didn’t work out (a different post for a different day).

But at that moment, I felt like I’d finally hit my wall. I loved health coaching, but I was burnt out and knew things needed to change, I just didn’t know how. What followed was a series of events that led me to the copywriting business I have today:

I quit my job, went back to school to get my masters in nutrition, took some classes, decided that wasn’t my path, and then got a series of part-time jobs…all during the pandemic. And even though I wasn't actively working on my business, I couldn’t stop thinking of ways to make it work.

One day, I came across a post inside a Facebook group about becoming a virtual assistant. I couldn’t believe there were women just like me, who knew how to write blogs, design lead magnets, and create email sequences, who were getting paid to help other people do just that.

It was like someone turned the lights on after years of scrambling around in the dark.

I took a virtual assistant course and started using my skills to help other health coaches market their business. In the beginning, I thought it would be a great learning opportunity (one that actually paid me this time) that I could use when I was ready to return to health coaching.

But along the way, something shifted.

I started caring less about growing my own health coaching business, and more about helping other health coaches find the words, strategy, and confidence to share their mission instead.

Just like the beginning of my story, I realized that I was actually good at creating content and writing copy for other people. And considering my background in health coaching and digital marketing, paired with my Bachelor’s degree in theater, it all started to make sense.

A message from my first client that let me know I was on the right path

When your pivot becomes your purpose

These days, I’ve traded my smoothie bowl recipes for content calendars and Google docs. I’ve supported coaches, practitioners, and online service providers with their marketing, helping them clarify their message, connect with dream clients, and create content that communicates the value of their work.

I’m now offering the support I wish I’d had all those years ago when I was struggling to market my business.

If, like me, you're being called to build something bigger, I want to help you communicate that mission with the people who need it most. Because somewhere out there, the right people are looking for exactly what you have to offer. They just need to be able to find you.

And that’s what creating good content is all about.

It may feel like the bottleneck of your business or the one thing that you dread doing.

But at the end of the day, content is the bridge that connects you to the people who need what only you can provide.

And that's the bridge I’m here to help you build.

“Keriann’s communication, creativity, and ability to write in a way that sounds like me (but better) has made marketing a lot less stressful and my outreach more consistent. She has decreased the amount of brain space I have to put into my marketing efforts and that feels wonderfully freeing.”

—Julia Martin, Functional Medicine Practitioner

If you’re looking for a strategic partner who understands your vision and can help you communicate it with the world more clearly, book a call with me to learn how we can work together.

I’d love to help you spend less time marketing and more time making an impact.

Book a Discovery Call

How I Turned a Struggling Health Coaching Blog Into a Thriving Copywriting Business

Here’s what happens when your pivot becomes your purpose

Before I became a copywriter, I was an aspiring health coach