How to Build a Health Brand That Stays True to It’s Roots with Lance Roll

Transcription

We’re talking with Lance Roll today, who is maybe arguably the godfather of bone broth. Bone Broth is all over the place nowadays. You see them in powders and you can buy them from supplement store. But where did it all start? Well, this gentleman, this chef, Lance Roll, is going to walk us through how he really started this whole movement, more or less in the bone broth space.

What’s nice is that he hasn’t deviated from his initial plan. His core values are staying true to his roots of producing an amazing high quality product without compromise anywhere. Is still true to this day as it was when he started more than a decade ago.

I’m excited to have him on the show because he’s doing some amazing things. If you have a following and you’re always looking for something cool to the let your list know about, something you’re not going to do yourself, you can let your people know what Lance is up to.  It’s pretty awesome stuff. He’ll tell us a little bit about that in this interview.

I’m not going to do a huge spill about Lance. He’s a pretty amazing person, as you’ll discover in this episode.

Without any further ado, he’ll actually give us a good rundown of his bio. So I’ll just kind of bring him right into the show if that’s okay with you. But again, if you want any of the links that we talk about or any of the references, head on over to the blog healthpreneurgroup.com/blog for the show notes and any of those links. Without any further ado, let’s welcome Chef Lance Roll onto the show.

 

Introducing Chef Lance, bone broth, and the seasonal aspect of his business

Lance, how are you my friend? Welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast.

Lance Roll:                           It’s good to be here Yuri. I’m doing pretty well down here in Vista, California and things are going well. The summer is almost over. So that’s been a nice summer.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well does the end of summer mean in California? I mean, isn’t it summertime all year round for you guys?

Lance Roll:                           Sort of, yeah. I mean, the fall definitely, the temperatures here in Southern California, we get our hot spell. So end of summer means it will cool down and pretty close to the coast here, we get pretty moderate temperatures so it’s not really that bad but we complain anyway.

For me and my company, the Bone Broth company it means fall is coming. And it means that bone broth season is coming back in. So it’s a little bit seasonal work we’re going through and so that’s kind of the exciting part for me. And school returns so you get kind of a little back to normalcy in terms of having your son in school or whatnot. So the kids are at school and you get a little more time and you’re just always at home trying to figure out what to do, especially when you’re entrepreneur.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well, you brought up initially a point of bone broth being seasonal. I think I can relate. I mean, most people drink warm soup when it’s colder outside, right?

Lance Roll:                           Sure.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So that would make sense that more people buy in the fall. What did you see historically in your business with the sales from season to season with bone broth?

Lance Roll:                           Yeah, for sure. The season’s definitely bring on sales because mostly … Our business is both online at BoneBroth.com and it’s in retailers here in Southern California for the most part and a few outside of Southern California.  We do see the summer season, I kind of like to say like this, “They probably sell more ice cream in the winter than we sell bone broth in the summer.”  Ice cream is just a thing that people eat all year round no matter what the season. People don’t want to drink warm bone broth so people can have bone broth smoothies. And we definitely see the trend over three years of keeping an eye on it, that the sales drop in the summer for sure.

Yuri Elkaim:                         I wonder if for a green juice companies, it’s probably the same thing in the winter. I would assume that their sales of fresh pressed green juice go down in the wintertime, at least up here in Toronto, where it’s like frigidly cold.

Lance Roll:                           Right. Of course, people just associate things with what’s going on in their bodies and what’s going on outside. So yeah, in Toronto we’d probably have a good bone broth company for … We had a buy the cup program up there somewhere. I’m sure they do really well. When it’s cold because people want to have that warm up feeling and they don’t necessarily want to have when it’s warm.

But one of the things with healthpreneurs and with us, we are trying to focus more on the people that need bone broth no matter what time of year it is. People need green drinks. I mean, you know for sure, the green drink advocate, that the green drinks are good every part of the year. I mean, your body doesn’t ever stop being your body so you need to take care of it either way.

 

What sets The Brothery apart

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. So let’s talk about bone broth as a business because a lot of people are not running bone broth type of businesses. And you guys are doing an exceptional job and you’ve done so for so long, about ensuring quality, is at a premium. You’re not cutting corners. It’s not like you’re weight labeling a capsule and sending it in a bottle to people. This is like an actual food. What do people have to know about what goes into running this type of business?

Lance Roll:                           Well, yeah. This has like definitely been a labor of love, as we like to say, because the commodity market itself is a very low margin. So in terms of selling food in the stores and online, there are some challenges shipping frozen bone broth around the country, which we’ve been doing since 2013. So we’ve had to face some of those, but the business itself. Yeah, it’s a labor of love. It’s more of, we’re crafting our mission to help heal the planet one GI tract at a time. We’re associating with a lot of doctors and trying to reach people that need our product at this point.

After three years in the business, we’ve seen some things come and go. We do have, like you said that capsule, white label capsule pill is now out there with the different products. So the whole industry, in terms of the liquid bone broth, liquid gold as Dr. Kellyann likes to call it, is challenging right now because people are confused. We have a whole group of Healthpreneurs out there that are selling food as medicine and most of them are selling nothing … They’re not selling any food. They’re telling you to eat food, but they’re telling you, “Hey, don’t eat food, but drink my … Take my vitamin.”

And of course, nothing against supplements. Supplement industry is a multi billion dollar industry and people are doing really well with quality supplements. And of course, our bodies, at this point in time, need quality supplements. But we do claim food as medicine. So that’s our trick to the whole thing. That’s the way we roll over here. Again, we think about the beginning of the trend in 2013. Bone broth has been around for centuries and we have a lot of information on the internet. Now if you type in bone broth you’ll find tons of information about the benefits and the historical uses and all these different things.

And before that, there were no bone broths on the market in a sense. There were none commercially available. You couldn’t go to the store and buy bone broth unless you were in San Diego, where I was selling bone broth. And you couldn’t really even get an online up until then. And then between then and now, so quickly you’ve gotten pretty much a whole powder market out there. And interestingly enough, again, the powder people are very tricky. They’re just trying to sell their product. But they made the big jump from … You mentioned fresh pressed green juices versus a really well made, quality, dehydrated green juice, but I’m not sure that you would make the claim that they are the same thing, that they’re exactly the same.

In bone broth it’s the same thing. The bone broth powders are made in a certain way, high heat, high pressure. They’re heated to extremely high temperature to dry them. Imagine taking a gallon of green juice … And somebody told me recently that it’s about 10 gallons of liquid to make a one … Just big a powder reconstitutes to a gallon of the product. So it’s kind of interesting. But I mean, I don’t know much about the green juice industry. I feel like because they do a low temperature dehydration and they capsule the nutrients, it’s different than bone broth. Where the bone broth people are …

And the thing is, it’s interesting because if you ever tasted one you’d be like, “There’s no way it’s the same thing”. And there’s no way you could take the product I make, this traditional 24-hour simmer on the beef, 18-hour simmer on the chicken with vegetables and all kinds of beautiful traditional bone broth. Imagine this pot of soup on your grandmother’s stove and then translate that to the brothery.  I produce about 20, 24 gallons at a time. So I would be able to produce two gallons of powder out of that and it would take me weeks and weeks and weeks just to make enough to put it in a box to sell.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure. How was-

Lance Roll:                           So …

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sorry.

Lance Roll:                           I just was going to say, I think all of the liquid bone broth companies are challenged right now. Because the assumption is made, “Hey, you can mix powder with water and have bone broth.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure.

Lance Roll:                           You might have some of the similar qualities, but it’s not bone broth.

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s why we have you here. It’s to bring us the real deal.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah, the real deal is that-

 

Recommendations and the benefits of bone broth

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. How much bone broth does somebody needed to experience healing in the GI tract?

Lance Roll:                           This is definitely bio individual theory. I mean, you know everyone is created differently. So if someone comes to a doctor and they’re experiencing tremendous symptoms that indicate gastrointestinal problems, GI tract problems, the doctor, if they’re familiar with bone broth and using traditional healing methods may put them on a two or three day bone broth cleanse where they’re drinking nothing but bone broth for two or three days. And they’ve seen a lot of really tremendous results quickly.

And then, from then it’s a doctor telling a doctor, naturopath, the clinician, nutrition expert, acupuncture, Chinese medicine specialist, who is then telling somebody, “Yeah, you need two cups a day to really make an impact or a pouch a day.” Which, for us, is three cups.  Right now for me, feeling pretty good so I’m doing about a cup a day. There’s a lot of great principles, the collagen and gelatin and a lot of the amino acids are helping you repair your system, help detoxify your system. So that’s the way the bone broth is working.

So for someone like yourself, who’s super healthy and your family and you’re always optimizing your health. I’d say having a pot of bone broth on the stove and drinking a cup or so a day for each member of your family would be a great regimen to just keep optimal health, immune boosting and all that stuff. So it really depends. Nutritious we’ve worked with and people I’ve talked to, it’s a couple of months. We had one person a while back tell us that they started drinking our bone broth for leaky gut and it took about six weeks before they saw some real significant improvements in their gut lining.

So we like to say that bone broth heals and seals. That’s the magic of it. So imagine this liquid gelatin just kind of flowing through your system from top to bottom and just sort of doing its thing in your system.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s like a liquid band-aid.

Lance Roll:                           A liquid band-aid. I’ve never heard that one before. So that’s a good one.

Yuri Elkaim:                         There you go. You can use that if you like.

Lance Roll:                           I use liquid band-aid. It sounds good. The liquid band-aid. I like that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well, you definitely inspired me to get back on the bone broth. Again, summertime here has been so hot and the only thing we want to drink is like ice pretty much.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It’s a simple visual, what you just said is have a pot of bone broth on the stove. Just have it sitting there and then just take from it on a daily basis. It’s almost like going to the well to get your daily water.

Lance Roll:                           Sure. And with you guys at home, it could be something simmering on the stove or it could be a simple slow cooker.  I can’t ship to Canada unfortunately, however, there’s a bunch of Canadian companies that have started and there’s companies all over the world that have started bone broth companies. So we’ve seen that as well in terms of an entrepreneurial journey from 15 to 18, there’s just every corner or butcher shop, seems like, in America, is making their own bone broth now.

So people got hip to it, “Hey, we’ve got these extra bones, we’re throwing them away. Let’s throw them in a pot, bring them to a simmer, throw them in a glass jar or a pouch and put them on the shelf.” So that’s happening. But again, you really got to be careful with the quality. If you’re going to make your own bone broth and any Healthpreneurs out there that are making their own bone broth, just be sure you’re using great quality water, like we use the Palomar spring water. We’re using great quality bone, certified organic or higher, your local butcher, however the case may be. It’s certified organic vegetables.

I won’t give a recipe because there’s tons of them on the Internet, but basically carrots, celery, onions that go in there and some people say whatever you want in there. Louise Hay used to say, “Just take whatever veggies you have, put them in there with your bones and simmer for 18 to 24 hours.” On the timing-wise too, I figured the main thing is this little low simmer that we get, and which is simmering for a while. I think 18 to 24 hours is plenty.

 

Filling in skill-gaps, scaling, and getting distracted

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s awesome. That’s great. So Lance, let’s talk about your journey. What have you learned as an entrepreneur having this business? What are some lessons you can share with our listeners about your journey, about being an entrepreneur?

Lance Roll:                           I would say my biggest lesson right now has been determining in the beginning what your gifts are, what your talents are, where you want to focus and then being sure that you fill in around you the people that you need to help run your business, that fill in those skill gaps. So if I could do anything … Again, for me, I’ll be honest with everyone, I would not be the CEO. I like to be the chef. I like to talk on podcasts. I’m really good with people. I like to make recipes and cook.

So I’ve sort of been missing that lately. And a good CEO to sort take care of things. And the way you get organized in the beginning is really important, I would say the journey as well. If you’re going to be able to grow a business at a point that you could have investors, I would be sure that you vet everyone really carefully in the beginning. And I’ve heard this story over and over and over again. I just talked to someone about a couple restaurants they opened and this guy had, I won’t mention the name, but he had super powerful internet presence, super powerful presence in general, got a partner who claimed this, that and the other thing. They opened up two restaurants and I asked him, “Hey, how’s it going in the restaurants?”

And he said, “Hey, the restaurant is closed. We were losing X amount of money a month. We predicted to spend this much to open the restaurant, it costs double. And then we opened the second restaurant.” So again, he kind of … basically at the end of the conversation, he said, “Basically I picked the wrong partner” This is a super smart guy too who’s really vetted and everything. So I’d say, as entrepreneur, that would be a really key choice. Figure out exactly who you want to be and what you want to do.

And if you want to scale and grow and build scale and sell, then just make sure that’s your model and you stay true to that model. If you want to stay local and you can create a nice lifestyle and living for yourself and that’s what you like to do, then that’s a place you could go to as well.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, I think that’s a really good advice because there’s nothing wrong with either one. There’s nothing wrong with being on paper a smaller company revenue-wise, but maybe you have a great connection with the local people around the area and you have a very fulfilling business and it’s giving you the cashflow that you need. Because I think a lot of times, especially in this day and age, where everyone sees the shiny objects, the fancy cars, the money. That’s what you think business is about. And I don’t think that’s right for everyone.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, again, a place where I’m at right now. When you get to this level, you’ll get to a certain level where you really need to make that clear decision. And if you’re going to make a clear decision to build, to scale and to eventually kind of sell, there’s plenty of VC money out there. There’s food companies in my industry that will take you on. But real important to get super clear on that and determine exactly where you’re going to be down the road. So that’s a really clear distinction you need to make as an entrepreneur.

 

Navigating the retail and online markets and targeting the right clients

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. What’s been a lesson that you’ve had to learn the hard way?

Lance Roll:                           Well, I’ve mentioned a few of them already kind if. I definitely feel like I chose partners that, even to their own admittance, it wasn’t probably the best partnership for me. I sold my catering business a little prematurely. That’s what I really love to do. So I made that mistake in a sense of like I’m longing to go back and be a chef again. So that’s something we’re working on right now, to figure this out. But that would be a couple of key areas. I think it’s really important to … One key mistake we made, I was so wound up … And what happened in that, Yuri, was I was a little distracted between the two businesses, you know?

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah.

Lance Roll:                           And I did see the shiny object of the bone broth company and not having to work as hard and essentially being more of like what I’ve been doing the last couple of years, CEO and podcasting and try to create recipes and different things like that, versus being in the kitchen. Hindsight’s 20/20. So you just got to make sure that that’s your clear vision for you and your family.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, and that’s just very true. Because it’s tough …

Lance Roll:                           It’s tough to go back.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. If you’ve got attention … There’s a saying that goes, something along the lines of like where energy goes, attention flows. Or where attention goes, energy flows and results show. And I’ve noticed this too because we’ve got two companies. Now, when I stepped away from my first one for the most part, I started to see what was happening, even though nothing else was really changed. Other than energetically, my focus was not there anymore. So I can definitely relate to that, that it’s tough to juggle and just like the power of focus is so important.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah. And again, we made this decision in the beginning and we had to run the company for a while, while I was taking on the broth company, to bring it to a place where we could … Because, again, it was one of the things I developed over nine years. So I had a lot of my heart into it and the bone broth company was a newer company. So again, so we ended up moving that off and it’s still in existence. It’s doing great. So that’s good thing.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. So talk to us a little bit about the business model. How do you get the word about … BoneBroth.com, by the way, is like, what a URL. So how do you get people to buy your stuff?

Lance Roll:                           Again, right now we are … We have BoneBroth.com and we’re selling through that website. We did, again, with the partners we had chosen … So they were really focused on retail. And so the bone broth, right now I would say we’re doing emails to our list and we’re trying to reach doctors right now. Basically, like I said, we’re fighting the bone broth in the retail is really not working as good as we’d like because of the amount of competition. For instance one of the companies is bought by, one of the broth companies. One company created broth, added their other products and they’re owned by General Mills.

So it’s hard to compete with some of the companies. Most of the major retailers have come out with their own white label boxed bone broth and even the big producer of the boxes of bone broth, a company was bought by Campbell’s. So there’s such huge markets and the marketing behind their products is so huge that you can’t … People come in all the time, they’re like, “Oh I got my broth over at Sprouts. Which one did you get?” “Oh, I got the Sprouts brand for 2.99 a box.” Oh, that’s great. But you’re not drinking bone broth.

You’re drinking something that was made into a brick of paste. Picture a big giant black brick or brown brick of paste and then it’s reconstituted with water in a plant, brought to 275, 295 degrees to sterilize it and then it’s done inside the box itself, which is like with plastic, polyethylene and aluminum. And it’s shelf stable for two years.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sounds good.

Lance Roll:                           Here I make this fresh, beautiful bone broth and they’re standing at the store going, “This is the same thing.” That’s what the marketing’s doing. So it’s been a little bit of a rough ride at this point.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. That’s why it’s so good to have you on the podcast. In fact, you’re doing other podcasts as well because not everyone is going to know about the difference between bone broth. But I think the people who get it, get it and they will seek out the best option, which yours would definitely be one of them.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah, for sure.

Yuri Elkaim:                         We’re definitely happy to have you on the show. If you’re listening to this, go to BoneBroth.com and order some. It’s friggin amazing as you can tell, it’s the real deal. There’s no cutting corners and that’s why it’s just so great to be able to showcase an artisanal business. This really is like the local French bakery with the freshly made bread type of … But that’s kind of what this is and I think it’s great to be able to support that.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah. But wonder bread’s made of the same ingredients, Yuri.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, I know.

Lance Roll:                           I was going to sequel on that note to just to kind of finish up a little bit. Oh I’m sorry, I-

Yuri Elkaim:                         The brick?

Lance Roll:                           The brick, yeah. The brick, the broth. That’s why, again, we’re targeting. So our strategy is moving to targeting, really laser targeting on the doctors. Because we have 30 plus testimonies on our page. Most of them are from doctors, some huge doctors. Dr. Tom O’Bryan is one of them. And we’ve got a bunch of other doctors online right now to start coming online. We’ve had our broth tested for other things and we’re finding that we’re very clean because of our Palomar water.

So our focus right now, for the rest of this year is to get our product in front of the people that really need our product and will know the difference. So we don’t have to sell millions of units of bone broth. We only have to sell a couple thousand units of bone broth and to reach those people should be easy enough. So that’s our target. That’s our entrepreneurial tip, like really just trying to laser focus who is our audience. Defining who those are then figuring out ways to get to those people, because then we’re not in the competition. We’re not in the mileage of a giant stadium of people that are just broadbrushing the whole thing.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri Elkaim:                         I totally get that. Awesome, Lance. This has been awesomely insightful. Are you ready for the rapid five? The five rapid questions?

Lance Roll:                           Sure.

Yuri Elkaim:                         All right, my friend. So whatever comes your first answer is probably right answer. So number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Lance Roll:                           Organization.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Lance Roll:                           Doing live podcasts.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Nice. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Lance Roll:                           Dangerously good at. Demos and making really good bone broth.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Very cool. Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Lance Roll:                           I drink 32 ounces of beautiful warm lemon water with a little salt in it.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Nice. That’s a very common answer we’ve had on the show. It’s good.

Lance Roll:                           Yeah. I do kundalini right after that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Oh sweet. There you go. And finally, complete this sentence. I know I’m being successful when …

Lance Roll:                           When people come up to me and say, “Your broth has helped my grandmother heal from this.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s awesome. That’s great. Lance-

Lance Roll:                           Or helped me.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. That’s tremendous.  Such a simple solution that you guys are making more accessible in a great clean, high quality way. Lance, thank you so much for joining us on the show and sharing your wisdom, your journey, telling us more about the benefits of bone broth, what to look for and what to look for. And guys, if you’re interested, not even if you’re interested. I’m going to make a very strong suggestion, is go to BoneBroth.com and friggin order some. Aside from that Lance, is there anywhere else that people can follow you online?

Lance Roll:                           Oh, yeah. We’re @TheFlavorChef on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. So @TheFlavorChef. And that’s where they can follow us and that’s where we’re at.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Beautiful. Awesome. Lance, once again, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Hope you guys have enjoyed this one.

Lance Roll:                           Take care.

 

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Yuri’s Take

So one of the things I admire about Lance was his honesty. He was very candid about some of the stuff he’s gone through and that’s the whole point of this podcast, guys. It’s not about showing all the glitz and glam. There are times where shit hits the fan and things don’t go as you want them to. I’m really grateful that we have guests like Lance, who were willing to open up and share that, listen, it’s not all that great all the time. There are times where things are tough and I thought they’re going to work out better and they didn’t. But you know what? You just keep moving forward.

So I want to really acknowledge Lance for being able to share that and I hope he gave you a sense of realism of what goes into building a successful business online. And what is success? It doesn’t have to be a hundred million dollar company. For Lance, he’s extremely happy creating amazing, high quality product that that doesn’t compromise on what they’re set out to do. For him, and obviously there’s probably a couple nuances within the business that he would like to see a little bit more built out, but it just reminds us that success is different for everyone.

And I think success and fulfillments, they’re not necessarily the same. I mean, you can have success without being fulfilled, but I really do think that it’s a nice blend when you can have that sense of fulfillments. And I think when you feel fulfilled, success is kind of a byproduct of that. And I think that’s kind of what I got, or hopefully you got from this interview with Lance as well. Again, if you’d like to learn more about what he’s up to, you can check out his website. It’s really, really great stuff. And one of the final parting messages I want to leave with you is whatever it is you’re setting out to do, whether it’s coaching clients, creating a product, is have very strong values.

Really kind of put that foot in the sand and say, “This is what I stand for. This is what I stand against.” And share that, be vocal about that because that’s a hundred and attract and polarize people. You’re going to repel the wrong people from you and you’re going to attract the right people to you simply because you’re sharing your Kool-Aid. You want people to drink the Kool-Aid because you want people on the boat, who’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid or getting behind you and that’s how you build the tribe of ravenous followers and loving clients and that’s what it’s all about.

If you continue to put out the me-too stuff that everyone else is doing, how to lose 20 pounds in 30 days, top 10 ways to use coconut oil. Who cares? Nobody cares about that stuff. There are millions of pages of content already around that. Be different. Be you. Take a stance. Share your points of view. Talk about what you believe more than what you know. I guarantee that will make a big difference in how people respond to you.

So that’s my lesson for you today. Again, if you’re serious about taking your business to beyond six figures, we’re talking about coaching clients, not in a one-on-one scenario, but really coaching clients that are deep level.

If you’re a health expert, coach, practitioner and you want to take your business, whether it’s starting or scaling into the next level, you got to check out the training. Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint.

Head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/training. 75 minutes and that will open your eyes, that will expand your horizons and show you what is possible a lot more quickly than a lot of other business models out there.

And if you truly want to build a life built around your passion and truly serve people at deep level, I’ve not seen a better way to do so then what assures you in this free online training. So check it out today. It is awesome.

Once again, I want to thank you for joining me. If you’re new to the podcast, remember to subscribe if you haven’t already. We have tons of amazing episodes and great interviews coming your way, so you don’t want to miss anything. So that’s all for me today. Thank you so much for taking the time for joining me. I’m Yuri Elkaim, signing off.

Continue to be great and do great and I’ll see you at our solo rounds on Monday.

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