Four Critical Lesson for every Wellness Entrepreneur w/Jenn Trepeck

This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and our medical community . This podcast is all about closing off that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaging information in the health sciences , and to do that , in episode 125 , we're joined by Jen Trebek .

Now , jen is actually a business person by academic training and throughout the early part of her career that's transitioned into a career as a wellness entrepreneur , and this podcast is going to blend her two areas of knowledge and her two passions , which is business and wellness , to teach a little bit on how to become a successful wellness entrepreneur .

She's built her own wellness business , she's grown it over the years so much so that she's able to do it full time now and she has a very interesting perspective on some best practices to grow your fitness and wellness business . As I say many times , although we talk a lot about science on this podcast .

We also have to talk about the business element of things , because that is a big part of making sure you could provide your services to the people who need them the most . Any information we'd like to share with you from today's episode can be found on the show notes page . It's been going to wellnessparadoxpodcom forward slash , episode 125 .

Please enjoy this conversation by Jen Trebek . Jen , thank you so much for joining us . Thanks for having me , so I'm super excited . Found out before we got on the air that you are a fellow Michigan alum who's now based in New York .

So we're going to dive into an interesting discussion around building a business and I love business topics . On the podcast , we spend a lot of time talking to other people in the exercise , physiology , exercise science realm about the nuts and bolts of how to do programming and work with people .

But I've said this many times if you don't make money , you have a hobby , you don't have a job and you're not going to be doing it for very long . So it's very important that we talk through some business aspects on this podcast and that's what we're going to dive into .

But before we get into that , jen , why don't you give our audience a little bit of an idea of your background , just to provide some context ?

I grew up in Michigan suburbs of Detroit and went to the business school in Michigan I studied marketing and organizational behavior and then moved to New York , worked in an ad agency that specialized in catalogs , went in-house with one of my clients as a photo shoot producer and then kind of made my way into hedge funds on the administrative side , which ,

considering business school , the hedge fund thing actually made more sense than , like , the ad agency thing . But you know , nevertheless .

So I was like , okay , I know what to do . I watched my family do this my whole life and I did every diet under the sun , gained and lost up and down , lived on that roller coaster . And then I graduated from college , moved to New York , I'm working in these crazy jobs and realize I don't know what I'm going to do .

I just know that I can't work for somebody else for the rest of my life . And I was looking for something to do in my spare time , to eventually just take all that money and invest it and be able to retire early or come up with something my own business or whatever . And then worlds collided when I learned about the curriculum that I based my practice on .

So , as I said , I was looking for things and at first I learned about the curriculum and I was like , no , no , no , that's okay , I don't need your thing , right ? I thought I had all the answers as my own weight management guide .

And then there was this woman who told her story of removing like 150 pounds and , honestly , everything she said after that I didn't even hear . I was staring at her . I'm having like a conversation with myself in my own head of , like Jennifer , they know something you don't know , because with everything you know , that doesn't make any sense .

She's saying the equivalent of another human was attached to her , and so I worked with a coach . I followed the program myself Completely changed my life . Like the only thing that allowed me to say I'd kick my food issues . And I really felt like it was the nutrition education we're all supposed to know and no one ever taught us .

And I was like , well , why isn't this what we learned ? And everybody deserves this information ? So I was like , okay , this is my thing , this is what I'm going to do outside of my full-time job , and so I launched my practice on the side . This was late 2007 .

So before health coaching was really so mainstream , before side hustles were so much of a thing , and I built my practice nights and weekends , and then , july of 2019 , I left my full-time job , launched my podcast Salad with a Side of Fries in August of 2019 .

And since then I have a few ventures in the wellness space and I get to be here talking to you , wow .

It takes a lot of courage , fortitude and skill to be able to particularly living in a place like New York completely move out of the business world into the fitness and wellness space and be successful .

So that's really what we're going to dive into on this podcast is kind of how you went about building your business as a wellness entrepreneur , and I'm sure there's so many lessons that we could unpack here , so I'll just let you teach on this lessons that we could unpack here . So I'll just let you teach on this .

What are some of the big lessons that you learned that you think could be valuable for our audience ?

Right , owning our own job means that , still , if we don't work , we don't get paid , versus having a business versus having a business means that there are revenue streams or other people right . A revenue stream , right when it's okay if we aren't physically there or physically showing up to work .

So the first piece that I would say to everybody is fundamentally , consider your multiple streams of income . How can you create leverage ? How can we take even a single existing relationship and build on that so common phrase in business ? There's market share and then there's share of customer . Market share is much more expensive to create than share of customer .

So share of customer is basically like , let's say , you sold toothbrushes , right . Market share is trying to find every person on the planet who needs to buy a toothbrush and convince them that your toothbrush is better than somebody else's . Share of customer says , hey , you're already buying your toothbrush . Let's talk about your dental floss .

Let's talk about your toothpaste right and selling even though that can be an ugly word right , but selling another product to an existing customer , leveraging that relationship that already exists .

So we're seeing it all the time in medical practices where they're bringing in cosmetic elements whether it's teeth whitening to the dentist or injectables , into the dermatologist . Right , it's all of these pieces of how can we share one more thing with an existing relationship .

So for a lot of people that I work with in the you know I come to all this from the nutrition side right , I end up partnering with a lot of fitness professionals , right , and then we have a way that we can work together so that it benefits both of us right financially .

And then what we see also in the research is that by combining modalities , clients have exponential improvement over any single modality on its own .

And , by the way , if you're a health professional or in that space where you are making a recommendation and not helping ensure that your client or patient is finding a quality product , let's consider where the negligence is , not to say anybody's negligent , but you know what I mean , right , like , let's make sure that we're helping people because they might go to

the drugstore and be wasting their money or not getting the benefit that they could be from your recommendation .

a big difference between working in the business and working on the business , and so often so many entrepreneurs in so many spaces this is not unique to our space get trapped in their business because it is literally a linear revenue generation model you put in one more unit of effort , you get in one more , you get back one unit of money and there is no

passive revenue stream .

So I think that is it's such an important starting point because I'm sure you've seen this as well so many fitness and wellness entrepreneurs just get stuck in their business Like it's going as long as they're going , but if they want to take a break , a vacation or whatever , then the revenue that they're generating just grinds to a halt .

So , taking care of ourselves so that we can show up for the business , show up for our clients , and then the other thing is , you are your best billboard , right ? So if we aren't taking care of ourselves and saying you know , do as I say , not as I do , right .

There's inherently going to be a disconnect in terms of growing and saying you know , do as I say , not as I do , right . There's inherently going to be a disconnect in terms of growing your business , growing your practice , as you're meeting new people .

We all did right , yeah , so I feel like I was helping a lot of other people get in really great shape and I was working 110-hour weeks and I was three steps away or sometimes on the workout floor but couldn't find the time to do the workout . How have you found that you prioritize that for yourself ?

I'm a big time blocker in my calendar and I wasn't always this way , but now I am , so my workouts go in my calendar first . Basically they are in their standing appointments . I also have other things in there that I need to do for myself or for the business that are time blocked in there and I might move it , but I can't delete it Right .

So the workout piece is huge , right For me to get that in every morning , protecting at least one day a week to whether it's catch up on things or do nothing or travel and those kinds of things , because a lot of us , especially in this space , can end up working weekends , working nights and weekends .

So it's about finding the times in the day that you can take to be yours . Is it a walk in the afternoon because you're working all night , because our clients want to see us after business hours ?

It's very funny we do the same thing . My rule with my workout and my calendar is it can be moved , it just can't be deleted , and I think that's a really powerful message for people listening to hear .

Is it making sure that you can , you know , eat and go for a 10 minute walk ? You know those kinds of little things . You know what you need to feel like yourself .

One of the keys is to get out of your space , like go somewhere else . Maybe there's some nature involved , right , six hours , all the phones off , the computer off , all the things . And it's a time to look at what are all of the things that I've committed to doing . What are the things I will do ?

What are the things I won't do , even though I've committed to them ? I need to now apologize . What are the things I won't do , even though I've committed to them ? I need to now apologize . What are the things I can delegate and what are the things that can be moved to a later date ?

So the first you know , admittedly , like I have to start this , it takes me a little bit to get into it . Like I got to do a bunch of things , right . Then I'm finally ready to sit down , because everybody's like six hours , it does not take six hours to do that , right , but it does , right . It's getting into that mode .

Then sitting down , and the first is like brain dumping all of the things that are on our to-do list or that we've committed to do . So , for example , another friend of mine is a practitioner and she wanted me to do a sample of her program and give her feedback and it was something I was interested in for myself personally .

And then it was like I had to watch these videos or read the thing and it was never happening . And I sat down at this I will day and I was like I'm not , I'm just not , and I had to send her an email and say , hey , I'm really sorry , I know , I told you I would do this , it's just not happening .

But I think those of us who are entrepreneurs , we're doers and we tend to say yes far more often than we say no , and I try to remind myself saying yes to one thing means you are saying no to other things , or at least you should be saying no to other things .

So six hours in the woods might be a good way to contemplate how you decide what you do , in fact , say yes and no to .

Right , If we look at the bottom line , what is working ? You know , where are , where am I in relation to the goal for the quarter of the year , whatever it is , and what's working in getting me there ? Yeah , what's not working ? What am I spending my time and money doing that is not contributing to the mission , vision and bottom line ?

Right now , not everything has to go to the bottom line , right , Like , there are some things that we do because we're passionate about it . That's amazing . It doesn't mean don't do those things , but it's sort of looking at the balance of where our time , effort and energy is going .

And then that gives us a little bit of space to step back and say , wait , a minute . There are projects and things that I wanted to do this year and I haven't even started them because I've been so involved in the day-to-day right . What am I saying yes to that . I need to delegate so that I can then work on these other things .

You need to find like-minded individuals that are willing to go on that crusade with you , and that's exactly what I found at the MRF Institute . The team over at the MRF Institute creates educational content for fitness and wellness professionals who are serious about becoming a part of our healthcare continuum .

Getting on the healthcare continuum is all about leveling up our skills to be looked at as that valued resource provider . The wellness paradox is certainly an avenue for you to do that , but we need many different levers to pull if we're going to get there , and the MRF Institute is definitely one of those levers .

You can go to their website , mrfinstituteorg , to find all kinds of great , informative , free , informational content and if you choose to engage with any of their paid content , they've created a coupon code specifically for Wellness Paradox listeners .

You can enter in WP2022 , that's WP and then the number 2022 , to the website at checkout to receive a 15% discount on your purchase . I highly recommend you go check out mrfinstituteorg . Now back to today's episode . Yeah , you said two things there that are really important .

One and this is just an observation to make and then we can move past it is setting goals for the quarter , for the year .

It's very interesting how we go through the process of goal setting smart goal setting with our clients and then when it comes to our own business success , sometimes those don't get set , but I think that that's a good point to mention , but we probably don't need to dive into it more .

The thing I wanted to dive into for a second is you talked about delegating and delegating kind of presupposes you have somebody to delegate to . So talk about that for a second , because I feel like that is a big step that solopreneurs sometimes struggle to take and that's a lot of what we see in our field .

It's the individual wellness coach , the individual exercise professional who's doing all the training themselves and they think , well , delegate , you know , delegate to who . I'm the only one . How have you thought about that ? How have you gone about that and how could our audience think about that ? Absolutely .

And not in the realm of fantasy land where we think something's going to take five minutes and it doesn't like even taking out the trash , like let's be clear , right ? Maybe it takes it's a five minute , you know , endeavor once I get up to do it , but it takes me 15 minutes . So then I need to block 20 minutes , right ? So whatever .

So , realistically , where's our time going in the day and then being able to look at at any given time ? Do I have more time or more money ? If we have more time than we have money , then we're probably going to keep more things doing it ourselves .

Yep , if we have more money than time , or if the cost of delegating this task is less than the amount of money that I could earn by working with a client for that same amount of time , then it makes sense for us to delegate it .

So delegating something doesn't have to mean all of a sudden we hire a staff right , and I think that's one of the things that over the last few years , has become much more common in terms of freelancers and virtual assistants and all these resources that are out there right .

And then there are also professional agencies that do almost anything we could think of we need done right . So if bookkeeping is the bane of your existence and it takes up all your time , then that might be something we want to hire some help for .

It might be a bookkeeper who's doing a couple hours a week right , and it saves us a whole lot of headache and anxiety . Great , I have a business , not in the wellness space . I own a property management company in New York . I do the invoicing myself . I do it once a month . It takes me like two to three hours . Could I delegate it ?

Yes , is it worth it to me ? Not right now , because the system that I have in place for it it's easier for me to do than to try to explain it to somebody else . Or , you know , get them involved in figuring out how much time something took Right , and it's two to three hours a month to bring in the revenue . Yeah , right , that to me was too .

If they made a mistake . It was too costly to me . Yeah , so I'm willing to do those two to three hours one day a month . Fine , there are other things , like my social media right . I have people who I delegate that stuff to . We have systems in place .

We have , you know , we created a structure that worked for us because it was something that needed to be done , but my time and money were better spent or my time was better spent elsewhere it made sense for me to pay the money for the support . You and me both on that . Right .

Right , you know , even in terms of a podcast right , for a long time I did it all myself and then it got to the point where there were certain pieces I wasn't willing to let go of . Right Like , I still do all my own prep , I do all my own guest booking because I do like a little bit of a pre-interview with them .

There are certain things , right , that I still do on my own , but now for the last few years , I outsource the post-production right , the editing , the episode notes , those kinds of things . So I think , when it comes to delegating the things , to remember that it doesn't have to be all or nothing and it can start really small .

It's about choosing the things that you're willing to let go of , where your time is better spent elsewhere , and then , once you know what you're looking for that person to do , you can go out and find them right . It might be a virtual assistant .

It might be interviewing a handful of virtual assistants and looking for somebody who has the expertise that you're looking for . You know it might be talking around to people's kids and saying who wants to learn something . You know , I could teach you how to do this and it'll take a weight off my shoulders , you know .

So it doesn't have to be full-time employees , the way we think delegating used to look like .

Contemporary networking is more about building real relationships with people . People by building real relationships and getting to know people , you become a referral machine and in turn it comes back to you . So , my friends , all sort of joke that like I got a guy right , they need somebody for something . I'm like I got a guy .

You have these people in your phone , in your old Rolodex . We have these resources . So we build relationships with people and we make referrals , we connect them to each other and what happens is that that comes back to us . Two things that need to happen . One , we have to be good at making those connections .

So sending those connection emails or text messages you know , michael meet Jen . Jen does X , y , z , jen meet Michael . I wanted you guys to connect because right , and tell me what Michael does , right , I'll let the two of you take it from here . Let me know what happens , right ?

Can't wait to see what comes from this , making those connections , letting them know why you thought they should meet each other , or you know , hey , this happened the other day my friend Dawn bought an apartment . And the other day my friend Dawn bought an apartment , bought a new apartment . She needed an architect . I sent her three or four names separately .

I sent those three or four people text messages that said , hey , I just gave your name to so and so you know , gave her a few people , but let me know if you talk to her . You know , hope it works out . It's just about building those relationships and being giving in those relationships . And then we want to listen .

We want to listen for people who say they're looking for something . Right ? So Dawn bought her apartment Awesome , what are you going to do with it ? Right , she's like , oh well , I need it . Okay , I know an architect . Right , I can be of service , I can help in this way .

So it's about how we're listening to make those connections in our space with our clients , listening to what they're sharing . Right , we're always having conversations with them that aren't necessarily about the thing that we work with them on . Right , I know somebody , if you want a name , just throwing it out there , planting a seed , and practice saying that .

And then the flip side of all of that is to teach people how to refer you . Teach people the phrases that they're looking for someone to say , when that would be a great time to refer you , right ? Let's say you're a trainer and this person ? Right , like , letting people know , I want to meet everybody you know .

Or the next time you hear somebody say they're just sort of bored with what they're doing , I want to meet them , right . Well , what do I tell them ? I want them to meet a trainer , right ? No , tell them you have a trainer who's willing to talk to them 15 minutes , no charge . They're bored . I want to see how I can help , right .

Oh well , now I know what to say , I know what I'm offering that person . And it makes a no brainer connection Right now , when that 15 minute call happens . You got to show up , right , you got to do the rest of the work .

But teaching people how to make those referrals right , like even with some of my clients , if I'm working , I work with clients both one-on-one and in groups . So when we're working on forming a group , I'll say to them too , we can actually start the group sooner . If we have the people . Who do you want to do this with ? That's more fun with a buddy .

I'm happy to talk to them and we'll do it together , right ? And then we're teaching them how to bring people into the fold and make those referrals to us .

I think we forget that step in the process and just assume that inherently but somebody knows us and kind of what we do that they're going to be able to articulate it . Yeah , jen , this has been a masterclass in a really short period of time of how to grow your fitness or your wellness business .

If our audience wants to find more out about the stuff you're doing and the great work that you have going on , where can they go to find that information ?

And , yeah , that's a great opportunity to unpack a lot of the things that we talked about here in a lot more individualized context , because all this stuff sounds great when you're having a conversation on a podcast but at the end of the day , where the rubber meets the road is , you know , how does this , how does this help your business ?

So this has been very insightful . And the last question I'd like to end the podcast with is the question I always do , which is I view the wellness paradox as the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and the medical community .

You come at this from a slightly different perspective , with this with a business lens , although you are a practitioner in the space . If you could give our audience one piece of advice as to how to close off that gap , what would it be ?

That's the key to forming that relationship , and I'm sure there's probably much more that you can dive into on something like that , and we'll leave that for the discovery calls that the audience can have with you . Jen Trebek , fellow U of M Wolverine , thank you for joining us on the Wellness Paradox .

That's been going to wellnessparadoxpodcom forward slash , episode 125 . Please be on the lookout for our next episode when it drops in two weeks , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform . Until we chat again next , please be well .