How do you continue to be there for your clients, or students, when you can’t be present physically for them?
Maybe it already happened to you when you wanted to travel a little bit or you didn’t have a place to welcome your student/clients?
Or the whole world has stopped for a while and you’ve not been able to go out of your home for several weeks (yeah, I’ve heard this kind of stuff happens sometimes…), and you ask yourself, “how can I continue to consult my clients online?”
Maybe you just want to develop a new path for your business…
Anyway, how do you continue to help people when you can’t do it physically as you did it normally? How can you use the internet to continue to consult/teach/heal?
Let’s see all of that in this little guide to help you put in place an online system for your activity!
The advantages of online consulting and teaching
Before we look into how you can have a part of your business online let’s talk a little bit about the advantages to start this new way!
Adaptation
The first advantage of having, or knowing how to continue, your business online is to be able to adapt easily to any situation! The possibility to talk to people online give you new tools, especially when it’s not possible to do it in a traditional way. It becomes easier to adapt to your clients and you will be more flexible to big changes in your life.
Saving time
You can consult from anywhere, you just need an internet connexion and there you go, you can consult. You don’t need to go to your client’s home or your workplace, you can work from home directly! So much time saved…
Fewer investments
Online means that you only need a computer or a phone to continue your activity. No more dependency on paying an expensive place for your activity. No need to invest a lot to be able to help people and continue to share your message and teaching.
But, I don’t like to consult my clients online, I prefer real contact…
This is a point that I completely understand, some of us want to keep having direct contact with our clients because it’s just different… It’s totally understandable! Also, maybe you are a massage therapist and it can be hard to massage someone through a computer, right? 😉 But it’s not about replacing all your practice with online stuff!
This article is made for opening new ways, new possibilities, and new opportunities for your client and your business! It’s just something that you can add in your business to replace some parts of your current activity or to create new opportunities!
It’s always better to avoid putting all our eggs in one basket, right?
Okay, so now that you know why it can be interesting to be able to keep in touch with your clients online, let’s see how to do it in a practical way!
What can you do online?
A lot of people don’t have a very good idea about what they can do online, so here are some ideas about what way you can use the internet for your business and start to earn money online.
- free Live classes
- free recorded classes
- private teaching
- private consultation
- group classes
- etc.
How to talk with your clients online?
Which app to use:
To be able to exchange with your clients, you will need to use some applications. You will see that most of them you probably already use for contacting your friends.
We are looking for apps were you can have at least sound and video to speak with people.
Zoom:
Zoom is an awesome app where you can call people with sound and video in a very easy way. The advantage is that people don’t need to download anything to be able to use it. When you want to call them, you just send a link and it’s down. You can also do a group call if you want to have a lot of people in the same conversation (free under 100 people and less than 45 min conversation for the group call).
Click here to get Zoom
How to use Zoom : Click here to see all the zoom tutorials
Facebook:
With Facebook, you have the option to call or video chat with people. It’s very good and very easy to use because most people already have Facebook. They just need to add you and you can call them. You can use it on your computer or on your phone.
Skype:
I used Skype for a very long time and it was my favorite. You can share your screen, make video calls, and use the chat very easily. It’s a very good app BUT, lately, I found that it doesn’t work that well if you don’t have a very good connexion. Also, a lot of people don’t have skype so you need to ask them to install it. Sometimes, for certain people who are not comfortable with technology, they have trouble installing it and you will lose time explaining to them how to do it. So, for me, I found it a little bit too complicated for consulting my clients. But don’t read me wrong, it’s still a good solution if you like it.
WhatsApp:
Another very easy app and a lot of people have this app on their phone. You can video call very easily and it’s very simple to use. The big issue is that you can’t use the video call on your computer, so it will only be on your phone. It can be an issue for some of you.
Which materials to use?
Basic equipment:
The good news is that normally, to start to consult your clients, you already have all you need. Indeed, you just need your phone or your computer and the app that we saw together before.
That’s all… With that, you can consult your client online… Awesome, no?
How can I receive payment for online activity?
You can use a lot of options to earn money for your activities. The best is to offer different payment options and to adapt to the people. So here are some options that you can suggest.
We will see together the most simple ways to start earning money for your online activity. They aren’t all the possibilities that exist but maybe the simpler ones.
I just want to give you some quick and simple ways to start making money with your online business. These apps need hardly any time to install and no big knowledge in computers to make them work!
PayPal
Paypal is a very safe and common way to exchange money on the internet, it’s very easy to use and very convenient. If you want to cash in the money on your bank account, you will need to link it with Paypal. If you don’t do it, the money will stay on Paypal, that’s all.
You can transfer money with a simple email address, so it’s very convenient, but, take into consideration that people need a PayPal account to give you money in that way.
If you already have a blog or a website where you offer your product or activity, you can also add a direct payment button with PayPal that will directly transfer you the money when people click on it and pay it. Then you will receive a notification and you will just need to contact this person by email to make an appointment. But it’s not the goal here, we keep it simple!
Create a Paypal account
Old fashion bank transfer
You can also ask people to transfer the money directly to your bank account and when you receive it, you can do the consultation. I will not offend you and explain how to do a bank transfer payment I think 😉
Direct payment on zoom with PayPal
Zoom is a possibility to make people pay before joining your appointment, so it takes care of everything. To be able to join your video call, they will need to make the payment first. You don’t have to use Zoom in this way, it’s just a possibility that this app has to make it easier for you to consult.
What if I want to do online classes to teach my students?
So if you want to do online teachings like yoga, breathing techniques, meditation, or whatever, you will probably do it for several people at the same time.
So for online classes, it’s a little bit different than consultation, you can use different apps to share your content.
Best app for online teaching.
Youtube
Youtube is by far the best platform to give online classes. People can follow it in their own rhythm at home and repeat it anytime they want. On these platforms, you can also do live videos. They’re a very good tool to maybe do live weekly online teachings. People can follow them and react or ask questions, it’s very convenient for you if you are a teacher. After the live video, you can also stay on Youtube for people who weren’t there for the live session.
On Facebook, you can also do the same as Youtube, you can put videos or make live sessions .
Zoom
This app is amazing when you want to do live sessions with a group of students but it’s not made to do videos that last in time, they are mainly made for live sessions. If you want to record your classes on Zoom, there is a recording button and after you can put your classes on your social media if you want.
The advantage of Zoom is that you can make paying classes. Like this you can have exactly the same system that you would have when you do your yoga class in your studio for example.
Which equipment to use
Again, there are a lot of possibilities here. From the very basic tools to the more “professional” options. I will give you different possibilities and you can choose from them.
For starters, I strongly advise you to invest the least possible. You can buy good equipment when you start earning some money with your activity. So first, it’s better to use equipment from the “basics” section below.
Some of these links are amazon affiliate links so it means that if you click on the link and buy something I will receive a little commission. You don’t need to buy by this link but it will not change the price or anything at all for you. It’s just a way to support this blog easily so thank you 😉
Basics:
- Just your smartphone
- Your smartphone + microphone + tripod
- computer
- computer + mic
Advanced option (professional camera + microphone):
Just start!
Now you are ready to start your online activity! If you have any other advice or app that you like to use don’t hesitate to share it in the comments section! See you soon and I wish you a great day!
