Today I am back on the podcast with another great interview. I’m going to be chatting with Laura Rimmer, the author of The Alkaline 5 Diet, who is a fellow Hay House author (like myself).

Laura has had an interesting journey. At one point, she was a smoker, she was overweight, unhealthy—and over the course of about ten years she became an ultra marathon runner. So, obviously she got pretty fit and healthy. That started her on the health and wellness path and today—outside of being an author—she is a natural health coach, plant-based nutritionist, and speaker. She is also a former medical research manager for the UK’s Health Organization, a qualified advanced gym instructor, and organizer of The Natural Health and Vitality Conference.

Clearly, she has a lot of qualifications and a ton of knowledge to share. We’ll be talking a lot about how she got her book published and how her business has evolved over the past couple of years. If you’re writing a book or even interested in writing a book, this is a must-listen episode. Outside of books, there are also a ton of nuggets about some recent changes we’ve seen in the world of online health businesses. So grab a notepad and tune in.

In this episode Laura and I discuss:

  • The story of publishing The Alkaline 5 Diet
  • High touch, low volume
  • Creating a business that fulfills you
  • SEO challenges and the ever-changing Google algorithms
  • Some excellent phone-selling tips
  • Keeping your funnels simple

 

3:30 – 10:30 – Laura’s Hay House story

10:30 – 16:30 – The evolution of Laura’s business (as well as online health businesses in general)

16:30 – 24:00 – Turning the old sales model on its head

24:00 – 27:00 – The SEO challenge

27:00 – 28:30 – Persistence and confidence

28:30 – 35:00 – The Rapid-five questions


Transcription

Hey, guys. Welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast! Yuri with you. Hope you’re having a great day.

For today’s interview we’ve got a really cool guest, all the way from the UK—England’s south west coast to be exact. Her name is Laura Rimmer, and she is actually a fellow Hay House author, which is always great.

She has a great book called The Alkaline 5 Diet, and I’m excited to talk with her not about the diet, but about her journey. She’s been online for quite some time now—over 15 years, I believe. And the cool thing about our conversation is that we’re going to talk about not only how she went about getting her book published by one of the top publishing houses in the world … But also how her business has transitioned over the past couple years to a business model that is more fulfilling for Laura andmuch more meaningful to her customers and clients.

It’s a really interesting trend that I’m noticing right now in the industry, and I think you’ll get a lot of cool insight from this interview. Let me give you a bit more background as to who Laura is. She’s a natural health coach, plant-based nutritionist, speaker and author of the acclaimed book, The Alkaline 5 Diet, which was published by Hay House back in 2015.

Her journey started by being overweight and unhealthy. She was a tired smoker as a student in her 20s and she became a lean, fit and vibrant ultra marathoner in her late 30s. She has researched and applied the true principles of optimum nutrition for 15 years and coached hundreds of people around the world to great health and permanent weight loss.

She’s also a former medical research manager for the UK’s Health Organization, a qualified advanced gym instructor and organizer of the Natural Health and Vitality conference. Lots of great stuff that she’s up to—you can learn more about her over at laurarimmer.com.

Without any further ado, let’s bring Laura onto the show and let’s get into it.

Yuri:                Hey, Laura. Welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast, how are you doing?

 Laura:             Hello, Yuri. Yeah. I’m doing great, thanks.

 Yuri:                That’s terrific. And you are over in the UK, is that correct?

 Laura:             I am. I’m in England. I’m by the sea, so I’m in the southwest of England in Devon.

 Yuri:                Very nice. Southwest, is that a pretty big summer hotspot for a lot of Brits?

 Laura:             Yeah. It is. I live in Devon, which is near Cornwall and both of those counties are kind of like the UK’s south of France, I guess, but maybe slightly less warm. But when there’s nice weather, it’s glorious down here, beautiful beaches. Yeah. I feel really blessed to be down here.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Very cool. It’s always great to connect with people across the pond and also a fellow Hay House author, which is very exciting.

I want to talk about that, because Hay House, for me, they were always the publisher that I wanted to be with. I just loved everything they stood for and continue to stand for. You’ve got a book called The Alkaline 5 Diet, how did you go about getting published with Hay House?

The story of publishing The Alkaline 5 Diet

Laura:             Well, it’s interesting because I wrote my book, The Alkaline 5 Diet, in about 2011, I think it was. And it just sat on my computer hard drive for a couple of years. I wrote the whole thing in advance.

I don’t know what it was, I just thought I’ll get around to publishing it at some point. And I had always thought that I was going to self publish it. And then when I read the thing back—you get a bit of perspective on it, don’t you, when you leave things for a while?

When I read it back I was like, “Actually, this is pretty good. It’s a pretty good book. Why don’t I just go for a major publishing deal? I’ve got nothing to lose. And if not, I can just go back to my original plan, which is to self publish.

And I guess like you, in my mind at that time, I thought Hay House was instantly the publisher I had in mind. I was like, “If I’m going to get published, Hay House would be brilliant.” I just approached them, and having read a lot of their books and looked at their website, looked at the types of books they like to promote and publish—in the natural health space, especially—I just contacted them.

I contacted the editor—one of the editors up in London—and just pitched in a very natural way. It was funny because I got an instant email back saying, “Can you come up to London for a meeting?” And I don’t know why Yuri, but I just thought, “Okay. This is a standard response.” I emailed back and said, “I’m quite busy, can we just do a Skype conversation.”

Yuri:                Nice, playing hard to get.

Laura:             And so I then got an email back saying, “Well, actually, we’d like you to meet with our managing director, our chief editor, our publicist.” And I said, “Okay. This sounds like the real deal.” I thought, “I should probably make space in my diary for this.”

I went up to London, had the meeting and was pretty much offered a book deal there and then. Yeah, I didn’t go through an agent, I didn’t approach hundreds and hundreds of companies or anything like that—it was my first stab at getting a major deal and I got it. I’m really thankful for that.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Yeah, Hay House was a very similar process for me because I was actually in the same room as Reid Tracy at a mastermind. I didn’t even know that ahead of time, I was like, “Well, this is amazing. I have this idea, what do you think?” And then it kind of just went from there.

They’re really good like that. Because you hear a lot of stories of people like, “I had my book turned down by 50 publishers, and then finally self-published,” and all this stuff. What advice would you give?

In that whole publishing journey from the time you sat down on your computer for about two years, you finally got the deal with Hay House … What were some of the obstacles and challenges that you dealt with going through the published routes?

Laura’s Hay House story

Laura:             Well, I think firstly, like I said, I guess I didn’t have belief in myself to start. I didn’t believe that this thing could actually get published by a major publisher. Going back and reading the book again and getting that perspective, gave me the perspective that this is actually a pretty good book.

I would say to anyone who’s wondering whether their book is good enough, just go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose by trying to get a major publishing deal—that’s what I would say. Now, I guess I’m not in a typical situation, most people produce a proposal and then write the book. So you might want to do it that way, but I would say just go for it and have fun with it, number one.

Number two, when I actually got to that meeting with Hay House, I had done my homework. And with that initial email that I sent to them, again, I’d done a lot of research. I wasn’t coming in cold or blind.

I knew the type of people they like to publish, I knew what they were looking for. I knew they were looking for people who had a platform already.

When I got to the meeting, they wanted to know how big my email list was, how big my social-media followings were and things like that. I really had to be on it.

Don’t just go in there with a book. A book is part of the process, and it’s part of the thing they’re looking for, but they’re also looking for how personable are you, if you can promote this thing, if you’re speaking already at different events, and will you continue to do that? Have you got an email list that you can promote your book to? etc.

You really need to go in with the whole marketing plan. If not completely fleshed out, at least a good idea in your mind. And to be honest Yuri, and you probably know this as well, you need to be able to pitch it. You need to be able to present in front of three or four high-powered people and say why you think your book needs to be out there in the world.

Yuri:                That’s really good advice. The funny thing is, for health and nutrition people like ourselves there’s always this apprehension of selling where we say, “I don’t want to feel like a salesperson.”

But at the end of the day, you’re always selling yourself. You’re selling yourself, you’re selling your idea, your book. You mentioned not having that belief in yourself for the book initially and building that belief to the point where you’re just kind of like, “Listen, you guys have to publish this thing. It’s amazing, it’s going help a lot of people.”

It makes a big difference, because a lot of times they’re just buying your confidence.

And as you said too, another great point for our listeners is that a lot of publishers are simply looking for a good book, but they want to see that you can sell the books, because the publishers are not going to move a lot of books by themselves.

You have to go into that thinking, “All right. I’m going to show you how I’m going to sell this book and in return you guys are going to hook me up with a cool deal.

Laura:             Yeah. Exactly.

The evolution of Laura’s business (as well as online health businesses in general)

Yuri:                Yeah. Awesome. Outside of the book now, so for our listeners who aren’t familiar with your business, what does the rest of the business look like? When someone buys a book, what’s the next step of engagement with that reader or how do you kind of cultivate your tribe through your business?

Laura:             So, I have moved. My business model has slightly changed over the last couple years, since the book came out actually. I used to focus a lot of my business online. Most of it, from my point of view, as the business owner and content producer was kind of hands-off.

I had things like eBooks and online courses that I would just sell. I’d have an automated marketing and sales process and sell those online, really without too much engagement from me. What I found was that it was kind of like the low ticket model and high volume.

In the UK, we’ve got a really cheap clothing store here called Primark. I always think of it like I used to be in the Primark model, shift a lot of product at low price.

What I discovered though, after selling lots of things and connecting with people who’d bought my products and books and saying, “Hey, I see you bought my course. Have you gone through it?” And I’d get an email back saying, “Your course is wonderful, your book’s great.” And I’m like, “Okay. Cool. How has it changed your life?”

And then I’d get another response saying, “Yeah. I haven’t actually started it yet, I’m going to start it next week when I’m less busy,” or, “I need to go and get the foods.” There would usually be excuses.

I knew that if people would actually follow the advice in my courses they would get great results. But because there wasn’t that accountability, that one-on-one support, they weren’t getting the best results they could.

Since my book’s come out, now I’ve got a really easily accessible product. My book is $14 USD. That’s a really low barrier of entry price point product. Anyone can buy that book. And if they’ve got the willpower, the determination to go and read that book and put it into practice, great. And obviously, there will be a certain proportion of people who will do that.

However, my business model now has moved into coaching one-on-one and in group programs with people, and there’s a lot more accountability factored in. My signature program, called Alkaline Slim and Energized is eight weeks and it’s one-on-one.

There’s eight online modules that they get every single week with just two simple actions. And it’s based around forming habits. Then at the end of each week, I get on the phone with them and say, “Right. Okay. Have you done these two habits this week? Where have you struggled with them? What have you done well?” And really hold them accountable and they get far, far better results.

It’s still on the premise of my book, it’s all in line with my book, but it’s just got that added layer of accountability. And so, that’s the model that I’ve moved into more over the last couple of years.

 Yuri:                That’s so smart. That’s great.

Have you noticed a shift in the market? Because you’re not the first person I’ve spoken to about this. And maybe you can speak to this in terms of how you feel about your business now. A lot of other people that I’ve spoken to who have been in the same thing, high volume, low touch—they get to a point where they’re just like, “I’m not really fulfilled doing this work anymore.”

Did you have that moment in time where you were like, “I actually really enjoy connecting with people and that’s why I want to build up more of a coaching model”? Was there a moment or a transition, or was it just a gradual thing for you? Did you more fulfilled with his current model?

Turning the old sales model on its head

Laura:             Yeah. You’ve hit the nail right on the head. That’s exactly what happened. Yeah.

I was feeling unfulfilled and frustrated that I had this great information and I knew this stuff would work for people, but not many people proportionally were doing it and getting those results.

You know what it’s like working online, even sometimes if I get emails from people saying, “This has really worked from me,” it’s not quite the same as actually speaking to people and getting to know them and hearing their struggles and hearing their successes in a more personal way.

So, yeah. Absolutely. Since I’ve moved to a much more high touch model, I feel a lot more fulfilled. And I think one of the things that prevented me from doing that in the first place—because I set up my website originally in 2008, I’ve been in business almost 10 years now—part of it was confidence, to be completely honest.

The thought of, “Oh, I’ve actually got to get on the phone and coach people and speak to people and sell over the phone” was quite daunting for a few years.

The other thing was that I spent a lot of time in the beginning year or so of my business going to events which were trying to sell the laptop lifestyle—work from anywhere, sit on the beach, work for two hours and then take the rest of the day off. You’d never have to speak to a customer. You just make sales overnight and that was it.

I kind of bought into that model and part of that can work I guess—and by all means I make sales overnight and while I’m not there or on automation. I’ve certainly got that passive income arm to my business, but that’s only a piece of the puzzle in my mind. And it’s not going to give you, as a business owner, the real fulfillment that you can have in business. In my view, I think there’s a place for both of those things.

Yuri:                Yeah. I totally agree. And what I’ve noticed online in the past decade is this price erosion—when I came online, it was a lot easier to sell eBooks at a higher price point. Now, because people are publishing all this stuff for free on a blog, people are less willing to spend that kind of money.

People are still buying information, but I think there’s a shift in the fulfillment of business owners like yourself who want to feel more connected to their customers and really just feel more fulfilled with their work.

But what I’ve also recognized is that there’s much more profitability in a service based component to your business, because it’s obviously your time that you’re putting in, but if you set it up in a leveraged fashion it can become a lot more profitable than selling 10 to $20 dollar eBooks or even courses of 50 to $100.

So if someone was setting up a coaching model, what advice would you give them based on your experience? What has worked and what are maybe some of the lessons that you’ve had to learn the hard way?

 Laura:             I would say keep it simple. I’m just thinking maybe six, seven years ago, I used to have a long protracted sales funnel. I followed some advice which said you should have a low-end front offer and then be adding value and then offer people a high end offer, kind of once you’ve built rapport.

That process could take maybe weeks or even months, and it’s on the basis that people sign up for your email lists—for your free product on the front end—then they buy a low ticket offer product. And then once you’ve nurtured that relationship, eventually they might buy something like my eight-week coaching program.

I’ve turned that on its head over the last couple of years and it works much better because the reality is, especially in our business where people are struggling with health issues, if people want to lose weight or reverse diabetes or get out of pain—if they’re serious about it, they’re not going to want to wait two months and go through this whole buying a $7 product process.

It doesn’t make too much sense to do it that way.

Now, a simple sales funnel, for example, would be traffic to your website, some kind of easily consumable front-end free offer … I don’t know, a test, an assessment of some sort. So on my new branded website, laurarimmer.com, my front-end lead magnet offer is a scorecard—an optimum health scorecard which is literally just 30 questions, yes/no questions so it’s easily consumable in five minutes or less. And at the end of that, you get a score. So, here is your health score.

It’s a lot simpler. It’s a lot cleaner than this long protracted 10-day video series, which can still work for sure, but it’s easily consumable on the front end. And then from there, maybe the offer something like a webinar or a video series, I guess, but keep it short so that whole process is done in less than a week.

And then at the end of the video series or the webinar, invite people. In my model, I then invite people onto a one-on-one call with me. It’s so much easier when I’m on the phone with them, I’m speaking to them, I’m asking them about their struggles, their fears, the things that they want to achieve, their goals, their dreams, their frustrations.

And it’s such a faster way to build rapport, hear their intimate struggles and problems, which then I can use to re-engage with my audience because I’ve got a real pulse on what’s going on and what people want, what they need.

And then I can just make a very simple sales offer, “Look, this is what I’ve got. I believe this can help you, do you want it or not?” And it’s really a case of, “Yeah. Let’s do it,” or “I don’t think this is right for me.” And that’s the simple process really.

 Yuri:                It’s so good. I love it. And that’s such a proven model too. For everyone listening, that free initial thing. I love the idea of an assessment health scorecard because it’s so personalized and people want to know, “Okay. What’s my score? What box do I fit into based on my responses?”

I think that’s just such a smart way to begin the dialogue because people want to know about themselves. That’s really smart.

So, assessments to webinar or video training series and then invite them onto a strategy/onboarding/initial call and then making the offer from there. Simple. I love it. It’s elegant. And it makes sense if you’re selling something that’s more expensive than a $10 ebook obviously.

The other thing too, and I’m sure you’ve noticed this, is because people are spending more they’re paying more attention to actually doing the work and getting the results. It’s like we value what we invest in. If someone invests $10 in you, there’s not a lot of skin in the game. But if they’re investing $1,000 it’s a very different response.

Is that something you’ve noticed with your clients as well?

 Laura:             Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. And, in fact, since I’ve raised my prices from $1,000 up to $2,000 for my eight-week course, I’m getting better results from people.

 Yuri:                That’s awesome. A lot of people in our space have this notion that no one’s going to spend that kind of money on their health. How do you help them overcome that? Or was that a limiting belief that you had when you were looking at pricing your coaching back in the day?

Laura:             I probably did have that limiting belief for a little while. And then it dawned on me really, when I started getting on the phone with people and hearing the details of how day-to-day ill health affects every aspect of life—happiness, job, family, social life, the ability to enjoy sport or fitness—the fact that it’s such an all-encompassing thing if you’ve not got great health…

It made me realize that, of course people should and would want to invest in this area because it does affect every other area of life. And my experience has been that those people who say they haven’t got the money or they’re not willing to invest, they’re not actually that serious. That’s been my experience anyway.

Yuri:                That’s good. I would totally agree with you. I think it’s funny because those same—and this is a generalization—those same people might have three flat-screen TVs, an iPad, an iPhone and all the latest gadgets, yet they don’t have the money to invest in their health.

It’s always, I think, a reflection of their values. It’s a good point.

You’ve been at this for a long time helping a lot of people, what’s been your biggest challenge that you’ve ever faced in your business?

SEO challenges and the ever-changing Google algorithms

Laura:             Biggest challenge. So, when I started my website initially in 2008, I very much focused on search engine optimization to get the majority of traffic to my website and spent quite a long while doing SEO on my website and building up my rankings in Google.

And I was never getting hundreds of thousands of visitors to my site. I’ve always looked at what you do, Yuri, and really admired it. I remember back in the day looking at eating for energy and just really loving the way you were doing things. And I don’t know whether you were using SEO, but I used to see you on ClickBank and was in some ways modeling what you were doing, but very much using search engine optimization.

And that was working well for me. And then I think it was 2010 or 2011 when Google’s algorithm had a major algorithm change with Penguin, Panda and then finally Hummingbird and it just cut my traffic overnight.

I was getting about a quarter of what I was getting before. So, my income just plummeted overnight, because at that time I was doing the ebook model. Yeah. That was a real struggle.

 Yuri:                It was like a digital hurricane. Yeah. It’s funny because back in the day before I really understood SEO properly, we would do all sorts of stupid things. We had seven different blogs and all sorts of link wheels and crazy stuff.

And then I remember all that work we had done was just washed away, it was gone overnight and I’m like, “Wow, that sucks.”

For you, what did you learn from that experience, and then how have you kind of maybe set things up to prevent that from happening again?

Laura:             Well, I’ve probably learned not to rely just on one traffic source. And I learned that I was at really at the mercy of Google to a large extent, at that point, and social media marketing was really coming into its own at that point as well.

To me, it just said, “I need to be factoring in other ways of generating traffic and leads and customers into my business.” I started doing some paid advertising, social media marketing, speaking at events. And now, one of my strategies that I’m going to be doing is a podcast like you.

Yuri:                Awesome. Very cool. And what do you think is the number one skill that entrepreneurs must possess for success—that lasts?

Persistence and confidence 

Laura:             I think there’s tons of skills, but I would say the number one that’s seen me through is persistence. And if I can have two, but it’s linked with persistence, is just confidence to keep going in the face of adversity, in the face of setbacks and disappointments, things not going quite how you wanted, and frustrations. Just to keep going.

I wouldn’t even say necessarily belief in yourself—I think we focus too much on “just believe in yourself and everything will be fine.” I think it’s a belief that if you do the work and keep going, you will get good results.

Yuri:                That’s good. I love it. It’s so funny because I think the vast majority of goals that I’ve set have never been realized. And just like you said, you have to kind of say, ” All right. That didn’t work out, let’s just keep going. And it takes a lot of muster, just internally to keep going.

That’s great advice, persistence and just keep on going when crap hits the fan. Laura are you ready for the rapid five?

The Rapid-five questions

Laura:             Yes, I am.

Yuri:                Here we go, so this is the five rapid-fire questions, you have no idea what they are. Whatever comes to the top of your mind, tip of your tongue, is the right answer.

Here we go. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Laura:             Oh, I guess weakness, food. I like to eat and I focus on food a lot.

Yuri:                So let me ask you this, because I’m very much a believer of the same kind of dietary approach as you, but I’m also a healthy foodie. I love going to restaurants. Are you liberal or do you really follow the alkaline plant-based approach with all that your meals, for the most part?

Laura:             Well, I’m completely vegan, so completely plant-based. In terms of the alkaline diet, I work on about a 70/30 ratio. I will eat things like oven chips, and I have dark chocolate pretty much every day.

But on the other hand, I eat loads of raw vegetables, fruits, whole grains. I would say it’s a balanced approach, but I’m always vegan.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Actually, as we’re talking here, I’m drinking a green juice. I guess I’m on par here with that whole alkaline mission, which is so important. If you’re listening to this and you’re not greening it up, you’re missing the boat big time.

All right. Cool. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Laura:             My biggest strength. Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this lady, Sally Hogshead has got this book. She originally wrote a book could Fascinate, but her newest book is called How the World Sees You.

And it’s got a “strength finder test,” but instead of classic ones like Colby or Myers Brigs—which is how you view the world—this is how the world sees you and your biggest strength. And I, having done that Fascinate assessment, I came out as having two major strengths.

The first being mystique, which says that I’m great at analyzing facts. I sit back, I listen, I take in everything, I consolidate the evidence and then I form a decision. That’s my number one.

And closely related to that is power. Once I’ve analyzed all those facts, I’m very certain with coming out with an opinion that’s well thought out.

Yuri:                That’s great. What’s one skill, you have become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Laura:             Phone sales.

Yuri:                Very nice. And are there specific references or teachers that you learn, from so that our listeners might be able to pursue that, or is it just trial and error?

Laura:             It’s spending ten years part-time working as a cold telesales consultant for an insurance company.

Yuri:                Oh, that will do it. That’s awesome.

Laura:             Yeah. I was one of the top three in my company of hundreds of people. Cut my teeth in the sales industry in there.

 Yuri:                What do you say to someone who doesn’t like sales? Is this a learnable skill or is it you either have it or you don’t?

 Laura:             Oh, for sure it’s a learnable skill. I was shy, I was quiet. I didn’t have good communication skills. And in my early 20s when I left University, I made that my mission to master those skills.

With the job that I had, I was on the phone for four hours a day cold calling people. And I did this for years. Cold calling people, selling insurance and you get to know, “Okay. If I use this inflection in my voice at this point in the script, that doesn’t work. People will put the phone down on me. Oh, if I ask these type of questions, that works.”

That really generates rapport. It was completely a learnable skill.

Yuri:                That’s so good. That’s such a great skill set to develop. And I know we’re going off on a tangent here, but I’ve got one more question related to that. For someone who is getting into more phone sales and strategy calls to get people into their coaching programs, what would you say is the number one thing they must do to improve their conversions on the phone?

 Laura:             Ask really detailed questions, because that shows that you care. If you just get on the phone and try to speak and sell, two things will happen. Number one, you’ll burn yourself out. And number two, the person will just feel like you don’t care and you’re just here to sell them a product.

You need to spend the majority of the time listening and really getting into the details of that person’s life issues, problems and doing it in a really empathetic way, in a compassionate way.

 Yuri:                That’s great. And it’s just such good advice, it’s just how we would communicate with a normal human being in-person that we care about, I guess. That’s great. I know that’s going to be super helpful for people listening. Back to the rapid five, question number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

 Laura:             I read my Bible and pray, first thing every day.

 Yuri:                Cool. And finally, complete this sentence, I know I’m being successful when ____.

 Laura:             That’s a difficult one, Yuri. I know I’m being successful when—I’m going to say something which is a little bit out of left field—when my husband’s happy. Because everything else can be going right, but if my relationship with my husband’s a bit off, then I don’t feel successful and the rest of life grinds.

When him and I are getting on well, other things tend to follow.

 Yuri:                Awesome. I love it. This has been so good, Laura. Thank you so much for sharing everything you’ve shared with us here. Tons of great nuggets and inspiration to help our listeners.

What is the best place for people to stay in touch with what you’re up to and check out your work online?

 Laura:             Okay, If you go to laurarimmer.com, you can get my free optimum health scorecard there—where you’ll get an assessment and see how healthy you really are and tips on how to improve that. I’ve just launched my podcast as well called Eternal Health, which can be found on iTunes.

Yuri:                Beautiful. Awesome. Well there you go guys. Laura once again, thank you so much for taking the time and joining us all the way from the UK. It’s been a lot of fun connecting and chatting and hope to have you back soon.

Laura:             Thanks, Yuri. Thanks for the great work that you do too.

Yuri:                Thank you.

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Yuri’s take

And we’re back. I hope you’ve enjoyed this interview with Laura. And I want to leave you with another thinking exercise, as I’m starting to do more and more with these episodes.

I want to leave you with this notion of your business or your business model. We talked about how a lot of business owners in our space who have been doing this for a while get to the point where they’re less fulfilled with their business. And I want to help you avoid that—and it’s not to say that that’s never going to happen because I think it is part of the journey and I think there is value in having that realization.

But I want to ask you a question, and I want you to really think about this and reflect upon this. Is what I’m doing truly fulfilling me? Is it nourishing my spirit? Is it nourishing my soul or am I solely looking to make money? Is what you’re doing nourishing your soul, really fulfilling your true life’s purpose, or is it simply a way of making money for you?

And I would strongly, strongly hope and suggest that what you do should fulfill you at a deep level. Because if you’re chasing money or if you’re just worrying about the dollars and bills—and believe me, I’ve been there more than enough times. I understand we have to worry about payroll and paying ourselves and making ends meet, but we also want to build a business that we love.

So what does the business model look like? Is it selling eBooks or is it building out a coaching program? Or do you not like working one-on-one with people and maybe a group coaching program is better for you? Maybe it’s virtual?

And this is the realization that I’ve had, and it’s the reason that Healthpreneur is very high touch, low volume. I’m not selling $10 eBooks with this business. The way I best serve people like yourself is in person—small, connected, intimate implementation workshops, through our yearly healthpreneur live events and through our luminaries mastermind. That’s the best way I work with people like yourself who want to grow their business using the internet.

So leverage your awesomeness.

And yes, we have a couple courses online and we do have people that buy those and go through those. But for the most part, the most impact I can have in someone’s business and their life is through that connected, in-person work.

Now, it’s a very different business model than selling eBooks and online courses—which has been the foundation of my health business. However, I’m much more fulfilled doing this because I love that human interaction.

I’m not saying that you have to replicate what I’m doing, I’m just asking you to be honest with yourself. What is the type of life you want to live, what is the type of feeling you want to experience on a daily basis? And then designing your business around that.

Okay. Those are my thoughts to ponder for this day. And just a couple announcements before we finish off. As always, remember to subscribe to the Healthpreneur podcast on iTunes. While you’re there, leave a rating or review. That’d be awesome.

And if you haven’t already grabbed your copy of Health Profit Secrets, you can do so today. I’m basically covering the cost of the book and you can just cover the cost of shipping, which is a couple of bucks. You’ll discover the four underlying secrets that all health businesses have in common and how you can score yourself in those four areas, which will help you start to really bridge the gap. You can grab that over at healthpreneurgroup.com.

And that is all for today. Once again, thank you so much for being awesome, for committing your time, for being with me and indulging in my nonsense (sometimes) and obviously these great conversations.

I really appreciate you, I appreciate the work that you’re doing in this world because it does make a difference. Never forget that. Fall in love with you, fall in love with what you’re offering—because the more you do, the easier it is for you to generate that enthusiasm to serve more people.

Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our next episode.

 

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https://www.laurarimmer.com/

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What You Missed

The last episode was a solo round that may have ruffled a few feathers.

In this episode, I spoke about about importance vs. impact. While a lot of people think they are focused on creating an impact, a lot of times they are actually focused on making themselves seem and feel important. And there’s nothing wrong with that! But at the end of the day, the stuff that makes you feel important isn’t going to impact people’s lives.

So, not only do I go over the difference between importance and impact, but I show you how you can gain tremendous amounts of profit while still creating tons of impact.

Like I said before, this may ruffle a few feathers because I go over some hard truths—but I am doing this with your best interest in mind, and I promise that you will get some insight out of this episode.