How to Stand Out in a Saturated Market + The AI Tools Changing Coaching Businesses

In this episode of Do The Work, we’re diving into two massive topics that are shaping the future of online coaching businesses right now:

1. How to stand out in an increasingly saturated market
2. How AI tools are changing the way businesses operate

We start by breaking down one of the most powerful positioning strategies for health professionals:

👉 Market to the person you used to be. 

Ruben shares a behind-the-scenes client example showing why practitioners who niche down around a specific diagnosed problem (PCOS, endometriosis, Hashimoto’s, menopause, gut health, etc.) often grow much faster than generalists trying to help “everyone.” 

We unpack:

• why problem-aware clients convert faster
• why specificity creates trust
• how your personal story becomes your biggest marketing advantage
• and why trying to help everyone usually causes you to blend into the market. 

Then Terri dives into the AI side of things including how the CCI operations team is now using Claude Workspace to automate manual admin tasks, streamline workflows, and rethink how online businesses scale. 

We also discuss:
• how AI may reduce the need for junior admin roles
• why human connection still matters deeply in coaching businesses
• how coaches can use AI to improve content, systems, and client communication
• and some of the AI tools CCI is currently building behind the scenes. 

This episode is part strategy, part future forecasting, and part practical business advice for coaches who want to grow smarter.

In this episode, we cover:
• Why niching down helps you stand out faster
• The power of marketing to who you used to be
• Why diagnosed/problem-aware clients convert more easily
• How storytelling builds trust in crowded markets
• Why trying to help everyone hurts your positioning
• How Claude Workspace is changing operations inside CCI
• AI automations that can save coaches hours every week
• Why AI won’t fully replace human coaching and leadership
• How content and messaging become stronger with specificity

Free Resources
Want our free DM Strategist GPT or Content Audit GPT?
DM us on Instagram with “AI” and we’ll send them over.

About Us
Coaches Creating Impact helps health professionals scale to $10K–$20K+ months using proven systems for content, lead generation, and sales.

Connect with Us
Reuben IG: https://www.instagram.com/reubendriedger/
Terri IG: https://www.instagram.com/terridriedger/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Where your host, Ruben, and Terry, use the ideas guide, use the system bring. And together we help you get clients, grow your audience, and actually run a business network.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Expect real talk, tactical strategy, and the kind of perspective you can only get when you're building two things at once a company and a mayor. Let's jump in. Hey everyone, welcome to Do the Work Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Welcome!

SPEAKER_00 0:27

We're super excited to help you folks. Um, I know most of you listening are nutrition, health coaches, wanting to grow your business. And if you have actually listened to a lot of our podcasts, Terry and I would love to know which one you found most useful actually and most helpful.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

And which one of us you find more attractive. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

This is good.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

This is very good. Because here's the truth we oftentimes come up with ideas and different things that we think are very interesting and very helpful. And frankly, they are helpful because our clients are crushing it. But we want to know what's actually helpful for you folks. So if you ever have like, hey, I'd love to hear more about this, like AI this or Instagram this or YouTube that or email this, please reach out because we would love to help you folks out. Right, Terry?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Terry was distracted. Oh, so we have a fun episode for you today. So, first of all, I'm going to be sharing with you one of the things that we've actually been helping our clients with recently, which is learning how to stand out in the marketplace because there is a lot of people in the marketplace. And then Terry wants to talk a little bit about uh some of the AI stuff she's been like learning about. And by the way, a lot of this AI stuff we're new to some of this AI stuff, but it's crazy what we can already make happen. So Terry had some things that she was like mind-blown about. So that being said, Terry is still distracted, and I'm just gonna be diving into the podcast. So here's what happened. So last Friday, which was super fun, Terry and I got to actually work in person with two of our employees. Why are you laughing?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Because you're so against in-person. And now you're acting like it's the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, we built a business remotely for a specific reason, but we have two of our employees, Kat and Cam, who live relatively close to us. So we went and rented a boardroom in a city nearer to us, and it was such a fun day. It was such a fun day. Such a fun day. We went on for lunch. But one of the things that I was chatting with with Cam, one of our employees there, he is a consultant for some of the clients who work with us. We were talking about a specific client scenario and just talking about how powerful it is to basically market to the person you used to be. And this is what we do with a lot of our nutrition coaches, is a lot of our nutrition coaches, they've been through a nutrition journey themselves, and they are so powerfully positioned to serve who they once were. And so we were talking about this, and this just helped me see, and I've I've seen this many times in the years, but just see how to stand out is by utilizing your story. Yeah. Right? Because, for example, this client had gone through some pretty hard stuff themselves in their health journey, and they had gotten diagnosed with stuff, but they were scared to niche down to it.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Which is so normal.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, it is so normal. And so I wanted to walk you folks through just a couple things that are gonna help you stand out further in the marketplace because Terry, have things gotten more saturated?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yes, yes, substantially.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I feel like when we got started almost 10 years ago, you almost not for sure, but you kind of knew like almost most of like the big players or the people doing well.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Oh, absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Like it was like you kind of were like, oh yeah, that person, that person, that person.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

And it's it's actually hilarious whenever we connect with someone who also got started a decade ago. We we can still riff and talk about all the same names. Like everyone knows everyone who started back then, which is just so fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I know. But it obviously exploded, COVID exploded the online space. And since then, there's been a lot more people coming to the space as well. Um, and frankly, there's a lot of coaches who are really good and like they're coming into the space and they are taking market share. Absolutely. So I want to teach you nutrition coaches how to stand out because most of you have great hearts, you love the work you do, you love working with clients, you want to impact them, but you're not really getting clients, you're not standing out. So the first thing that we help this client understand is that how to stand out in a marketplace like this is that you need to have an ideal client who has a very clear label of what they're struggling with. Absolutely. And basically, like a lot of our clients, let me give you some examples. They work with people who specifically have PCOS, or who are in menopause, or who have endometriosis, or Hashimoto's, or gut health issues, or all these things that are very specific labels, right? And I find it's so, especially if you've been on a health journey yourself, is you want to go after people who also have this label. One of the things we kind of got pushback on was like, oh, but there's so many people in this specific situation, I won't name names, but they're like, there are so many people who have this condition but aren't diagnosed yet, and I want to help those people as well. One of the things we have to realize is that there are some people who are very close to looking for a solution for their issues, and there are some people who are very far away. Yeah, yeah. And so the way that I describe this to this client was hey, the people who are not diagnosed yet, they don't label themselves as this yet, they are probably six to twelve months away from even looking for a solution.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

So if you market to them It's kind of like it's similar to if us as business coaches would market to people who are still in school.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Exactly. Yeah, that's that's a great example. And we've actually we tried this and it didn't work very well. Yeah. We've actually tried to partner up with some different like certification schools, and we just kept on getting people who like weren't even sure they wanted to build a business. Like they were too early. They were like on chapter one when our ideal clients set like chapter 50.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

So this is the same thing with you, health coaches and nutrition coaches, is you want people who are already what we call problem aware, they're already like they label themselves with something that you can help them with. And so what I helped this person realize is that hey, you want to just market to people who are basically already kind of diagnosed. Because if they aren't diagnosed and they don't know what's going on, it's they're they're not as looking for a solution.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

And so that's the first thing I wanted to talk about is just number one, how do you stand out? How do you get out of the saturated part of the market? How do you position yourself powerfully? Is go after people who have a diagnosed label of something, and it's usually the most powerful if you've lived through it yourself. Yeah. And so, and actually that's what you did back in the day with your own practice. Like you kept on getting certified for things that you went through.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

And that's what, frankly, I think made your work powerful with the clients that you did work with.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah, exactly. Like my first years of college, I'm trying to remember, set me up with health coaching and nutrition counseling certifications. And then when I went back to college, then that set me up in Manitoba to be a registered holistic nutritionist, um, not in Alberta. Regulations are fascinating. And then, yeah, as I went along, I had my own journeys in different arenas, like going through an eating disorder and super fun stuff like that. And so I kept on going back to school to keep up my education so that I could keep helping the person who was me a few years ago.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, I love that. And I find if you're able to do that as a nutrition or health coach, also like your storytelling ability or ability to market is so powerful as well. Absolutely. Because not only can you speak to a specific individual who has a specific label, but you can also say, I have legitimately been there, done that, and this is how I did it. Yeah. Right? Just in the same way as like you and I can tell people exactly how we started our business and how we built our business and all that kind of stuff. So basically, the whole idea is like how to stand out in the marketplace is yes, we talk about niching down and becoming a specialist oftentimes. This is just a continuation of that. Make sure your audio clients have a label that they label themselves with and that they're already diagnosed. Yeah. Like it's yeah, you don't want to catch people who are so early on the journey that they're not even sure if they have an issue, they're kind of maybe in denial about it. They're not sure if they want a solution because they are in denial about it. That's just it's hard to sell to those people.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Never mind the legality of it. Like, as a nutrition coach, whether you're a dietitian or you're a nutrition counselor, you can't diagnose someone. Yeah, and so there that's the other component.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

That's the other component. Yeah. The cool thing is, quick results, this client that we talked to on Friday, who we were like, yeah, shift it to this, this, and this. She got up a new mini ad and it is working gangbusters. No way! Like it is like she messaged me, I think it was yesterday, and she's just like, it is working so, so well. Oh, I love it. Because this is this is the beauty of getting clear on this, is that not only do you stand out, but then you put this type of language in your mini ads, in your DM conversations, in your freebies, and you even name your program after it, and all of a sudden you become the go-to for these types of people instead of one of the options. Yeah. Right? Because like, let's say someone wants to get, I'm just trying to think. Like, let's say someone wants to run a marathon. I always go into running. I don't know why I go into running. But, anyways, like let's say someone wants to run a marathon. There are some coaches who are like, yeah, I will help any runner, beginner runners, a lead runners, da da da da. And then there's a coach who's like specifically, if you've already ran a half marathon, you want to run a marathon, you want to run it at this pace, you want to run it like with this, these different things, they're gonna go to the go-to. They're gonna go to the person who specifically calls them out. So, anyways, this client implemented it, their ads are working way better. And so um, not only is this just a good idea from a theory standpoint, it also in real life is a good idea as well. So I wanted to quickly chat through that for you folks. So hopefully you found that helpful. Now, Terry, let's talk about some of the crazy AI stuff that you've been learning about. And like, yeah, we're not fully implementing all of this yet. We are getting there. But I want you to like kind of start hinting at some of the stuff because I think I think we feel sometimes like we're a little bit behind the curve. And so, like, I think just talking about our journey is gonna help other people.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Yeah, so I would have described, like coming into 2026, I would have said from an ops perspective that we were a Chat GPT company. Like all of my direct reports, they already know if they come to me with a question, my first question is, did you ask Chat GPT? Like they're they're very, very used to that. Um, so we have quite a few bots in different arenas in our company.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Um, but as you mentioned, we have a newer employee. His name is Cam. And he uh is a clawed dude. And so he came in and for himself, like for himself and his clients, he's been doing all of this cool claude stuff. So I'll talk to him and I'll be like, how's this and this going? And then he'll be like, Yeah, I just I built out a claw project where when I'm done a call, I just run it and it automatically sends notes to my client, it automatically drops the video recording into that client's folder, it automatically updates the dashboard. Like, like he has automated things that we have been doing manually since the dawn of time. And so it really got us thinking. So I was like, okay, how am I gonna get my ops team onto this? And so just in the last, yeah. So we first had a meeting with Cam to just like share with him our day-to-day operations what our lives look like and to just get his vision, and he blew our minds. He was like, automate this, automate that, you could do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I challenged my whole ops team, okay, let's all watch a Claude uh training, which we all did, and now we are all in a claude workspace. So there's five of us on the team who are all part of this claude workspace, and we're starting to just one manual task at a time that takes a ton of time from our admin team. We are we're calling it, I don't know how other people say it, but we're clotting it. So we'll be like, what are we clotting today? Yeah, and it's it's just mind-boggling. Like, even this morning, I'm working on a playbook project um because we want to make sure all of our playbooks are audited every single month to make sure that they're up to date. And I was just going back and forth with Claude on what it could look like, and it just built out this incredible template of like how we're going to be running playbook audits. And yeah, it's just if if you're a Chat GPT person, um, make the jump. Specifically into Claude workspace. I have to admit, me personally, I just downloaded regular Claude. I challenged myself, I think it was the month of April. I stopped using Chat GPT and I just used personal Claude. I actually didn't fall in love with it to be completely truthful. Um, but from a work standpoint, and then using Claude Workspace, you can connect your Gmail to it, your Slack to it, your Zapier to it, like everything you could possibly, your Google Workspace. Um, and what that can allow you to do is just absolutely mind-boggling. And especially like the amount of times I've been thinking, man, as a new nutrition coach, if I could have used Claude Workspace instead of having to hire my first VA, like that would have done wonders for my profit margin. Um yeah, so I I would encourage anybody to just get messy with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

That's fascinating. I'm curious, and I don't know if you know off the top of your head, like if there's a nutrition coach who has been thinking about hiring like an admin person, what are some of the things that you're like Claude could easily do that an admin person doesn't use?

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I would gather your list of what you were hiring a VA for, and then I would open Claude Workspace. I want to reiterate workspace because me and one of the girls on my team, we both had downloaded different versions of Claude. Like I had downloaded one version, she had downloaded another version, and then there's Claude Workspace yet. So Cam was working in Claude Workspace, and me and her are having these completely different experiences in other. So Claude Workspace. What I would do if I were you, I would literally take your list and just one by one by one, like drop it in, be like, I need to hire a VA to sort through my emails every day. How could you help me with that? And just ask it that. Um, and then I would just go through every single thing because your mind's probably gonna be blown.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Yeah, 100%. You were sharing some of the stuff that it can do, and it's just it's mind blowing. Yeah. I bet you nutrition coaches, health coaches who are very like AI, like okay with AI, will probably because most of our people hire an admin VA around like 10k months. Yes, like as they grow to 20k months. I'm guessing a lot of them won't need another person in even up till 20k months.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, I agree. I I really like as I was sitting back and looking at our org chart, like to me, it could be okay, because a lot of people who are very into Claude workspace specifically, you will hear them talk over and over about the million-dollar business of one, as in like one and and that I just think is massively exaggerating. Like, I think you will always need a senior setter, someone who is amazing at having conversations. You will always need someone in finance who is amazing at those conversations. You're always gonna need someone in customer service, like you're always gonna need a consultant or a practitioner, like like those human-to-human elements, I don't think we're gonna get rid of. But I do think we are gonna get rid of a lot of junior admin. Right. Um, yeah, we're gonna see those people promote into probably AI positions, like being able to build out projects. Um, yeah, I I see org charts for our own clients looking very different than what ours originally did.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

That's so fascinating. We should tell them all about the claw tool that Cam did create.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Which one? He's created so many.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, he's created so many. So the the one that he's created that I'm really stoked about. He showed it to me on Friday. So when our clients come into our program.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Does he want you talking about this one yet? Because the vibe I got yesterday was this is very secretive still.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah, no, I'm gonna talk about it. I'm gonna talk about it. I'm sorry, Cam, I tried. It's it maybe it's not released yet, but it's exciting, anyways. So basically, our clients come into our program and they fill out a niche and offer document. Basically, we just want to make sure they're very clear, like we talked about earlier on the sculpt, that they're a specialist, yeah, they're they have a really good niche, um, they have a signature offer, etc. So we get them to fill out this PDF workbook. What we're doing is they can drop this workbook into our claud and it will spit out for them the next 31 days of content perfectly. Well, not perfect. I think like though the goal is that we get it like 90% perfect um to the place where like this is basically good to post. Like it's like the done for you content for the next 30 days.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

And again, for those of you who have used ChatGPT for your content, which we have, like yeah, everything prior to this, we or not everything that's massively exaggerating, but we have massively used ChatGPT in our marketing. Yeah, using Claude is like I can't even describe the upgrade that it is. It's insane.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

It is insane. I've only used it a little bit and it was very cool. Yeah. So AI folks. Now, actually, I wanted to plug a couple of our AI resources that people can have for free to try out. So, number one, we actually have a Diem Strategist GPT. This is still on chat GPT, but basically, if you're already having conversations but struggling to book calls, this is a really great GPT. Yeah, I've literally literally given it to so many people for free, and they're like, Reuben, I literally booked a call today off of this. Like it, like you feed it your conversations and it will help you understand how to shift the script and how to have the conversation to book calls. So if you want that, you can message Terry or myself and just ask for it. Um, and then the second um GPT that we have is more of a content audit, where basically we will look at your last couple posts and we're gonna give you um a rating, like one to four rating as far as stars go, and like what you need to work on, whether it's your hook, your visual, your delivery, your call to actions, etc. So if you want a content audit, you can message me and we'll get you over that GPT as well. So those are kind of some of the cool things that we're working on right now, and I'm really excited about them. But, anyways, folks, that's all the time we have for today. We are rocking, we are rolling. It is such a beautiful day. It is, it snowed a bit, but now it's really sunny. Yeah. Classic mountain weather. So I hope you folks have a great rest of your day, and we'll see you on the next show.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Thanks, guys.