From Stuck to Strategic with Lisa Franz | Casual Babble Episode 71

Lisa Franz: Foreign. This

Brandon Cassiano: is casual babble. Okay, welcome everyone back to this show. It's Casual Babble. I'm your host BC Babbles and today I'm here with Lisa Franz. She is an incredible uh, fight thought leader and entrepreneur in the health and wellness and mindset space. Uh, welcome Lisa. Thank you so much for being here today. Happy to have you.

Lisa Franz: Thank you for having me BC it's going to be a great conversation. I hope.

Brandon Cassiano: I think so too. So I'm looking forward to diving in here. So to kick off before we get into our main topics, talk a little bit about your pre entrepreneurial journey. What were you doing before launching your business? What kind of inspired you to, to move from where you were if um, it was, if it was a different place into that entrepreneurial venture?

Lisa Franz: Absolutely. So yeah, I have probably not the most conventional path towards entrepreneurship and to be honest bz, I would never necessarily thought I would be or become an entrepreneur. Um, I think often we hear stories where people are like oh yeah, even when I was like 5 years old I sold lemonade out on the street and blah blah, that was not me. Like I'm, I've always looked at myself more as a number two. I'm a good implementer, good executor, good follower. But um, while I have creativity I never necessarily wanted to step into that leadership role role. Um, and I didn't actually think too much about like my specific positioning too much as I was growing up or as an adolescent. But I always just knew I was very passionate about um, physiology, anatomy, helping people live a healthier and better life. So out of college, uh, or out of high school, I studied exercise science and nutrition and promotion. But I didn't really know what to do with that. I was like I don't want to be a personal trainer. I just feel like I'm lacking life experience. And so I actually joined the New Zealand police because I was living in New Zealand at the time I joined the New Zealand police and became a frontline police officer for uh, several years. And while I quote unquote enjoyed that to an extent in the sense of learning a lot about myself, learning a lot about human humanity and so on, I was always, even while at work thinking about uh, training how to help other people with their training, uh, how to help other people with nutrition and I was going through my own nutritional struggles as well, which when I figured out how to solve them I was like, I want to make this my main mission. I'm going to transition out of full time employment and start Well, I didn't necessarily think I wanted to start my own business, but I was like, I want to be a nutrition coach. So while I was still in the police, I was actually, um, connecting with a nutrition coaching company which is located or was located in Seattle, Washington.

Brandon Cassiano: Okay.

Lisa Franz: And started working for them part time as I was still in the police. And like, for anyone who's hesitant about starting a business or transitioning from one business to another, I would always recommend doing that, like a slow transition. I know often people say like, you need to pull the trigger fully, you know, just quit, just go all in. But I believe for the majority of people that also have bills to pay or perhaps a family to look after or so, uh, it just provides a little bit extra security if you know, by the time you leave one job, you at least have a foot in the door for another job. And so by the time I left the police, I had already built up to part time coaching with this company. And I'm, I also say to people that are brand new at something or people that are brand new out of college or so I think it's great working for someone else at first. Uh, there are certain people that are born entrepreneurs and they're just like their action takers. They know what they want, they go for it. That wasn't me. Like, I was just like, I kind of feel lost. Like, how do you even use Excel spreadsheets? Like, what would I use for payment systems? I have no idea. How do I collect this? And nowadays with AI, I mean, you can figure things out even more easily.

Brandon Cassiano: Very true.

Lisa Franz: 2018. And I am not a tech savvy person, so was just like, I just want to coach. I just want to be a better coach and connect with people. That's literally all that I was thinking about. So these first, um, two years that I was then working full time for that company were incredibly helpful. Uh, because I had a leader, someone to guide me that I could direct my questions to when I had issues with my clients, but also just someone who would show me their systems. And I was learning from that. And after two years I was like, you know what? I feel like I've learned everything I can from this person. I now feel confident enough to go out on my own. And he was very kind in letting me take a few of the clients that I had at the time with me. And then from there it just took a few more months essentially to build my client base back up. And yeah, so, um, I've been running my own business since 2021. Now in 2022, I brought in, um, the first coach that worked for me. I now have three ladies that, that work for. Still like, to my earlier point of like, not necessarily seeing myself as a number one. I still see it more as a collaboration rather than me just being there telling people what to do. I'm a, I'm a very like, uh, I don't like to micromanage at all. Unless someone is doing something that's not aligned with my values or the company values. I much prefer they kind of do things their own way while, while following our methods, I guess.

Brandon Cassiano: Right. And now let me go ahead and reiterate some things that you said. Firstly, second year into my, into my entrepreneurship and I still do not use spreadsheets. I will do everything in my power to avoid using spreadsheets because that is not my area. It will never be my area. I'm waiting until I can hire someone who can handle that, who likes to handle it, because that is just. That doesn't sit well with my heart, with my soul. That's just not me. Um, and then also to your point of view, that transition that you chose to have, I will, I will reiterate that too because that is definitely the smarter route that you took Moving into first, finding a mentorship, staying on with your job and developing this, this side hustle so that when you transition fully, you know, this is established, this is a platform that has some footing and you can operate pretty well moving on into that full time. I did not do that. Granted, I was let go from my last full time job, so I didn't have a lot of preparation for that. But even then, instead of looking for another, more consistent income avenue, I just went full time. And I'm like, hmm, this hm, is dumb. Put a bit more forethought into this, but it still provided a lot of beautiful, uh, educational moments. I did get a lot of time to learn how I like to develop relationships and build networks and find people, connect with people. Um, so there's a trade off for everything I'll say in that regard, but

Lisa Franz: for sure, m. Yeah. So I, I think, I do think there's the other end of the spectrum of the majority of people, unfortunately, that do want to build a side hustle or they're like, oh, this is my actual passion. But then they never pull the trigger. And unfortunately their normal life, day to day life, consumes them so much that they only devote like an hour a week to their passion project. Like, that's not the point either. Like you in that Case you can't complain that nothing ever changes because you, you actually like. I, uh, uh, for. For instance, I had a specific date I was like, with, uh, in five and a half months time at this and that date, I have handed in my resignation with the police already. There is no going back. I need to build up. By then I was working on the weekends as well. Like, I was right. Pretty much working two jobs in order to get to that place, as opposed to just saying, oh, I'm gonna start hustle and then never actually going all in. I think that that is probably the more common one. And I would probably prefer your route of like, oh, over. Over the person that never actually does anything.

Brandon Cassiano: Uh, I mean, if. I'm not sure if you, if you really feel that way, because there's some things I would not have, um, preferred to avoid, especially when it comes to, like, I think for the first four or five months, I was only making like 700 bucks a month.

Lisa Franz: Wow.

Brandon Cassiano: Yeah, that was rough. And I kind of feel what you say too, when it comes to your home life kind of consumes a lot of things. So, uh, and I don't know if you've had this habit. Let me know if you have where as a service provider that an, uh, entrepreneur that provides a service, I find it so much more easy or so much easier for me to focus and give that 100% to my clients, but I can't reciprocate that for myself and make sure that I take care of me 100%. And so it just comes down to, like, why is my client's marketing so much better than my own? Like, why does their stuff look so much better than my stuff? Um, but that's also something that I've had to learn to move past. But loving it so far. And so now you are the owner of Nutrition Coaching and Life. So talk about what was your initial concept for you? Talked a little bit about how you found certain solutions for yourself and you wanted to kind of build this around those solutions for other people who were facing them. So talk about how you, you took that and then built that foundation for yourself.

Lisa Franz: Yeah, so, I mean, for the people listening, um, all of my work is online. I'm actually a digital nomad. I travel around the world. Um, I'm originally from Germany, so I left Germany in 2009, moved to New Zealand until 2019. And for last six years I've been sort of globetrotting. And that was a big incentive for me to be able to work location free. Like at first, when I said, I mean yes, I want, I have a passion for anatomy, for the gym, for nutrition. That it was 100% true. But at the same time I was like, I need to make this work to be from anywhere in the world, regardless of time zone. So yeah, I have calls and I have record podcasts, etcetera, Where I set a specific time. But generally speaking I don't always on Mondays want to have, have a meeting at 9am, uh, because perhaps I'm in Thailand and that's my 4am the next day. So I don't want to get up. So I just knew that that was the freedom I wanted to create and I sort of rolled up my systems and how I wanted everything set up from that place. So even with my nutrition coaching clients, many people have their business set up where they only do phone consultations. For me, almost everything is voice messages, emails, text messages, and only very rarely, aside from like an initial phone call will I have, have a face to face, zoom or whatever conversation with that person. So again, that provides a lot of freedom. There are amazing platforms these days where you can create training programs without having to necessarily facetime that person at the gym or whatever. Um, and so that is a big part that provides liberty. Now many people after like a year or so in my business have said to me, oh Lisa, you should start creating group coaching programs because of course you can. You know, um, less time, more people in one bucket. That is something I have never wanted to do. I think that applies to any, any business. You know, if you're uh, or if you're a service provider, most people either increase their price or they uh, want to serve more people at the same time. And um, I chose to go the prior route because I have just found nutrition to be something that is so personal. Um, and like the people that I work with, they also, they struggle with emotional eating. Perhaps they um, have issues with their husband and that causes them to overeat. They have stressful uh, lives and that causes them to have certain eating patterns. So it's not as easy as like, oh, we're gonna bunch the same 10, 10 people in a group because they all want to lose weight. For me, yeah, that's not something where we get to the end goal when my end goal anybody is long term sustainable habits as opposed to just short term weight loss. So um, yeah, that, that's, I mean again, I've worked with various business coaches as well and some of them have said to me, lisa, that's a stupid approach, um, because you're Limiting yourself in terms of the people that you can service because obviously my day is limited. But for, in order to like compensate for that a little bit, I do have the three ladies that work for me. So whenever I feel like my bucket is getting full and I do want to keep making myself a priority also to your prior point, then I just hand off the client to one of the other coaches. So yeah, that's been um, very helpful just to like think about it in that way. And I, I do think sometimes money is not everything we need to think about. Like, what kind of service do we want to provide? Do we want to be a higher end or lower end? Or like how many people do we want to serve? Yeah, I, I believe every entrepreneur probably gets to the point where they're like, yeah, what' next step?

Brandon Cassiano: Right. And I was gonna say the second you mentioned, um, uh, someone pitching to you doing group work and having perused your site, I was already thinking, she seems to really, really appreciate the individuality of health and wellness. So I was, I was pretty on track with you when you said that was not going to be route, uh, that you took. Now regarding how um, kind of little ones, one on one time you do have with your clients. So is your, is your work kind of built around making sure understand, uh, their not culpability, what's the word I'm looking for? Their um, m. Um, accountability and taking what you provide and then them following through on it to ideally hit you up, um, every now and then with successful updates.

Lisa Franz: Yeah, no, you're nailing, you're hitting it on the head there. Because truly I think the accountability part and the part that I am like, even though I'm not jumping on a phone call with them, I am available to them essentially 247 via text or email. And I just like the only rule that I have for myself and for my coaches is we have to get back to our clients within 24 hours. Even like if it's the weekend, I might just say to that person, thanks so much for your message. I'm excited to do, um, to respond to you in detail on Monday. But you know, I hope you have a lovely weekend or what, like people just like, like feeling heard and knowing that there's someone there. Like, especially when it comes to something like food and you're, you know, you're bloated right now. It doesn't help you if I respond a week later and tell you, oh, I'm so sorry you were bloated a week ago. Like, they're like yo, you know, this is not anything. So essentially when someone uh, starts up. So I guess going back to m the the story of my own struggles, I just always thought life, you should be able to enjoy life and at the same time enjoy the body that you have. And I was always sort of caught between the two because like I love traveling, I love being social, I love uh, a nice date night meal or whatever. But at the same time I want to look good, I want to feel healthy. And initially that meant for me going through various diets. So like I was always restricting myself with going through paleo, high carb, low carb, whatever. And so that's sort of the person that I work with now also people that like, they live an active life, they think they're eating well, but they just don't look that way or they feel very restricted. And so eventually I learned that essentially it comes down to calories, um, balance. So what's going in, what's going out. And it doesn't necessarily. You can easily incorporate a glass of wine and some pizza on Friday when you know how to balance that out with some healthy food as well throughout the rest of the week. And so I really try to approach um, nutrition from a very, very um, sort of like open moderation, balance perspective with my clients because I think there's so many people out there that tell you this is good, this is bad, you can't have this, you can't have that. You, you feel guilty if you eat this, you feel guilty if you eat too much. And like life is too short to be constantly uh, in a state of guilt and life is too short to not have like food should be something that enriches your life. That's essentially like my mission so that you can perform well in, in your business with your family and you just feel good. And um, yeah, I think approaching it from that educational side and like, um, as opposed to more of a moral side of you, um, with people it really, really helps. And then basically on a weekly basis they, we have like a mandatory point of contact where they check in with me and reflect on their week and tell me what went well, what didn't go so well, what's coming up in the next week. But yeah, in between those check ins points they often reach out as well and just say like hey Lisa, I'm going out for dinner tonight. I'm thinking about having the steak. What do you think? Is that, is that a good choice? Or how can I navigate my day around that? So that's kind of like the Process of the coaching.

Brandon Cassiano: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you so much on there. I'm still in my, my fitness journey, trying to figure out, okay, what can I. I know how to make healthy stuff. It seems harder to afford the healthy stuff. So how do I, uh, Especially with me being still kind of developing the entrepreneur side and my primary income, um, but I do it. I definitely agree that having that accountability and having someone willing to approach you from the educational standpoint but still be available even if you're not in their space every single week is a very awesome approach. Now, um, overall, you're currently in an industry that one might call saturated. Uh, definitely pretty crowded. So moving into your, your entrepreneurial venture or when did you start kind of deciding how you wanted to go about kind of cutting through that noise? I think we're at a point now where on any given social platform you're seeing like every fourth or fifth video, someone showing off their body, talking about their, their health routine or their, their services. Me, probably more so because I do appreciate a solid thirst trap. But, um, what was, what was your approach to this, to deciding, okay, how do I, how is Lisa going to establish herself within this, again, kind of saturated industry?

Lisa Franz: That's such a great question BC especially like, ah, at this time in the industry. And I am so fortunate and thankful that I got into it like before the big boom and before the pandemic as well. So like, I mean, 2018, 2019, full time, then that was like, literally enough time for me to ease into it. And, and when the pandemic then hit, I had so many people reach out like, oh, I too want to become one, want to go online. How did you become a digital nomad? Like, I heard that from so many people and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Number one, I don't think the majority of people would actually enjoy a, ah, nomading lifestyle. Like, it looks cool on paper, it sounds cool, but it's not always, um, bubbles and unicorns and rainbows like it. I would say that actually, like, it requires almost even more self discipline because, you know, I literally have a beach in front of me and I still need to get my work done. And that's actually a mistake that I made in the early months of my, um, entrepreneurship where I was like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll go surfing and then take a yoga class and do my work later in the day. And then after a few months I was like, number one, the work I'm producing is just way lower quality than if I actually work at more productive hour because I'm more of an early bird. And number two, I'm not going to be able to grow my business. And number three, many of the people around me actually had to go back to their home country because they were running out of money and they're sort of like failed entrepreneurs. So you do learn or you, you do need to get into the habit of like setting your own times when to work and not just trusting like, oh, I feel like doing this right now, I feel like doing that right now. If you want to be successful, that's not going to be a good strategy for you. So I'd had all this learning basically before the pandemic even hit. I think that was, um, very, very fortunate. And then given the industry that I'm in with in fitness and nutrition, actually we had a big almost you. I almost want to call it a boom 2021 or like 2020 and 2021. Because I think like many people realized, okay, I've got money burning in my pocket that I can't spend on travel, etc, now is a good time to really focus, uh, on me. I can't eat out anyway. I can't do anything else. You either had the one extreme where people just completely let go and gain more weight and neglected any kind of physical activity. And then other people that really utilize that time in terms of their own health. And so I profited from that side. And that was also when and why I then was able to start my own business. Now since then, I will be honest, probably the last year and a half or two has been more stagnant, if not at times going down. Like, for me, business wise, the first few years was like, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. And I was just like, whoa, this is amazing. If this keeps going, you know, I know I'm not going to complain. But then probably, I mean, since inflation has increased, um, even like the majority of my clients is in the US the whole like, not knowing what's coming up in terms has really put a damper on things. And then on top of things of that, um, AI does play a make make a difference. Because, for example, people are just like, uh, AI, give me a lunch with 30 grams of protein. I have chicken in my fridge and it should be less than 500 calories. And boom, you have a recipe. And it's like, okay. So they don't see the point of the accountability that obviously AI doesn't provide. But it does hold some people back from investing in a proper coach and uh, then throw in a Zenpig and the rest of it. So that is why the last few, or last year and a half or so, things have stagnated, slash, gone down a little bit. And um, I have seen that amongst like other people in my network as well, where the big companies, they're not, you know, they're not suffering too much from that, but it really is like solopreneurs or smaller businesses like mine that have suffered a little bit from that.

Brandon Cassiano: Yeah, I feel that so deeply right now. And currently I'm pursuing, uh, my master's, uh, in digital marketing. And we're talking so much about the implementation of AI and how that is, um, convincing a lot of people that it's, it's somehow the end all, be all solution. And outside of marketing as well, um, in the health and wellness area too. And what I keep trying to remind people is that like, look, yeah, it does spit out information pretty quickly and you can even ask it to take on a certain role so that it's focused on a particular niche or a particular industry, but there's still a lot of human nuance that it does not know how to convey yet. So, sure, you'll get a lot of dietary information supposedly, but unless again, you have someone providing you that accountability, which AI will not do, or unless you have someone helping you to look at what was given and kind of really, uh, rehash it and really kind of, um, work it into a more proper set, you don't really know if what you're truly getting is quality. Right.

Lisa Franz: Yeah, no, that's, that's so true. And like, to your point of the, of AI with marketing, I think it transfers over to like content creation as well. Because yes, you can use it, um, or I do use it. Let's just say for my own podcast, I use AI as well to help me create, um, a description below on YouTube and whatever like that sort of, of stuff. Um, but I have also, like, I have never used AI to help me write a newsletter, maybe give me some prompts if I'm stuck on ideas or even captions on, on Instagram. There's nothing wrong with using AI. But I do think to your point, I think people note, um, also if it doesn't sound authentic, they note if, if it's not really your words, even if not at first instance, on a deeper level, like there's some sort of energy that's being carried from you just speaking your own truth. And I do think that uh, the, the right people will, will will notice that.

Brandon Cassiano: Yeah, especially if they've been following you for a while and they know what Lisa usually sounds like. Like, what's Lisa's usual voice compared to this new bit of content? This doesn't sound like her quite right. Um, and something I'll let you know about too, with AI as well. Um, and this is something you might want to bring up to any of your clients who are trying to find that kind of easy, um, way with AI as, um, a guy named Chris Carr talked about AI in a podcast interview a little while ago and he talked about this, uh, phenomena called hallucination, where generative, uh, AI, AI like Gemini chatgpt can be given a prompt and it'll rattle off a bunch of information about something and sound very educated in the subject, but a percentage of it is made up. It doesn't actually know what it's talking about. So to back to your point about potential clients or people in your space getting dietary information from generative AI, a lot of what a, uh, percentage of what they're being given could be dangerous statistics.

Lisa Franz: Yeah. Wow, that's shocking.

Brandon Cassiano: That's. I thought that was crazy hearing about that because of course, uh, to your point, I've used it to help remind me of things that I know, give me a couple of points of reference and whatnot. But it's also like, wow, you really have to focusing on.

Lisa Franz: The sad thing is that a lot of people don't know how to, to dissect the truth from the untruth and they just tested blindly and, and going back to my point of like education based, I truly want people to understand, like what is a high protein food or how many calories roughly is in this and that, as opposed to just typing it in somewhere and then getting the numbers spit, um, out. Because then 10 years later you might be somewhere without your phone. Like, I don't know what's happening in 10 years, but you might not have a phone. And then you're like, well, I don't know what to choose now. For me it's more about gaining that knowledge, that security for yourself as well, so that no matter what situation you're in, you feel confident with your own choice.

Brandon Cassiano: M. Absolutely. Um, and then we're getting a little bit close to our time here, so I'm going to go and move on to my final question for you, Lisa. Um, through your journey thus far, and both as an business owner, as a business owner, and as a health and wellness and mindset thought leader, how thus far would you go about defining success in your world.

Lisa Franz: Great question. Um, I was actually speaking to someone about this yesterday and just sharing that that's actually both of those aspects have really changed for me over time. So my first, first mentor, he was amazing, but really, really numbers based and focused and always saying like, you know, next month you should aim to have this much more income. And then in six months time, another 3% on top and like, was always up and up and up. And I was, I was truthfully very caught in that probably the first two, three years as um, as an entrepreneur or business owner as well. And that's how I would almost define, would have defined my success at the time. And I, um, of stuck in that. Unless I'm um, unless I'm falling into bed really exhausted at the end of the day, having checked off all my to dos. It wasn't a successful day. And fortunately, unfortunately, at some point I realized that that's A, not sustainable and B, um, it's not a me. Like, money is not everything, numbers are not everything. Just because you have five new clients or more clients than the previous month. Were you happier that month? Probably not necessarily. Like, uh, you know, there, there, there's got to be some give. And so over the last probably two, three, three years, I've really shifted that and almost forced myself to learn to also enjoy the times of doing nothing, which comes really hard to me. Like, I'm naturally like the way that I was brought up and like, I'm just, I'm a newer person. But it, you, if you're that person, of course, yes, it allows you to be quite successful sometimes, but you might also miss a large part of your life because you're always just thinking about tomorrow or worrying about yesterday. And so yeah, leaning into that present moment and just sometimes, like a couple of weeks ago, I had an afternoon that was completely empty. And of course I was tempted to be like, oh, I could work in advance and create more content for this, but this and that. And I literally had to force myself and just, I was like, I'm gonna try and see if I can take a nap. I'm not a napping person. I didn't fall asleep even just, just the thought of like, I'm gonna see if I can take a nap. Um, that would have never even two years ago. So, yeah, I think, um, probably everyone goes through these, through different stages in their career, entrepreneurship, but it might also have to do with like maturity just in general in life. Um, but I think that, I do think you notice at some point that work is not Everything. Like, I mean, I, I, I live on my own, I don't have any kids or family. And so, so you need to actually make time and invest in social connections as well. I think that's something that I have learned. Even though I'm someone like, I'm more of an introverted person. I love being alone, but, you know, where am I at in 50 years? I don't want to be just sitting alone in my own, in my own, uh, so that takes some effort as well. And I think that's something I have also learned from my clients, like when I hear them, because it's always easier to spot something in other people, right? Like if they tell you about their contact, stressful life and you're like, oh, why are you binge eating because I'm alone and blah blah, blah, and you're kind of like, pity that person. Then you're like, oh, hang on. In some aspects, I'm not that different from you. I also work 14 hour days, so why can't I preach to you if I'm not implementing on my own? Um, so yeah, I would say my success definitely has shifted and nowadays, um, I would define it more as in like being content with the present moment and with like doing exactly, like enjoying almost every moment of your day. Yes. Granted, there are going to be times where you need to write invoices or perhaps use an Excel spreadsheet if you really have to. But aside from that, for me success is just if you can, you know, enjoy ah, really a large part of your day and be happy with the small things like get excited about a good cup of coffee in the morning or the fact that you can go for a walk in the sunshine and um, let that be the highlight of your day.

Brandon Cassiano: That's such an awesome answer. And I, and uh, I've previously found I was in a real rut in my undergrad where all I had to do, I realized I just kept letting myself sit in the same rigid little schedule. And when I finally diverted from it and did take a walk and did enjoy the sunshine, it, it in that moment made things a thousand times better. It felt like so good to be divergent for a few minutes. It feels so good.

Lisa Franz: It's so hard to take to do that though, to break out of that M cycle. You're like, oh, I should and no, I could. But then once you're actually in it or, or at the very latest afterwards, you feel good about having done it.

Brandon Cassiano: Exactly. And it's always that transitional from beforehand to that successfulness. It's that in between that's always a pain in the butt.

Lisa Franz: Totally, absolutely agree.

Brandon Cassiano: Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being on. For those of you who enjoyed this show, be sure to check out Lisa's website, nutrition coachingandlife.com if you want more insights from her, check out her show, Nutrition and Life Podcast with Coach Lisa on your favorite streaming platforms. Thank you again, Lisa for being on the show and I think I would love to have you on again down the line. For sure.

Lisa Franz: Would be my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me BC thank you.

Brandon Cassiano: And we'll go ahead and end the recording. I think.