One of the best ways to get inspired is to learn from others’ successes.
That’s why in my Elevate online training program, we spotlight one of our members during our member Access Calls.
Elevate Coaches James Roche and Joy Chudacoff, and I select and interview one Elevate member who is making great strides with the program.
Some successes are large, some small, but it’s all about taking steps forward and making progress.
Today, you’ll meet Elevate Advanced member Melissa Lanz, founder of TheFresh20.com. She was our spotlight during our July 2013 call.
Enjoy our quick interview with Melissa below, and be sure to take notes. There are several golden nuggets you can apply to YOUR business right away!
James: Hi Melissa, let’s talk about you and your business here. First, give us a little context here, and then specifically, some of those results that you’ve been getting, especially since being in the program?
Melissa: I started my business in 2010, in April. I have an online subscription site that—essentially it’s meal planning using unprocessed ingredients. It’s a content driven subscription service that is primarily for families that are looking to get off of processed food, reduce their consumption of bad food and get healthy, and get back to the dinner table.
I I started my business from my kitchen table with a list of 400 people. Three years later I have over 90,000 monthly subscribers to the service, and we’re growing at a very rapid pace. I now have a team of people that work with me, and we’re developing new products and getting rewarded by the feedback that we get from families that we’re helping all across North America, and now globally as well.
Because of the business, I was approached to write a cookbook. I just published the first Fresh 20 cookbook in April through HarperCollins. That was a lifelong dream.
When I started I was alone, so I was doing everything by myself and working long hours and weekends, and everything else.
I think that one of the most important things that Elevate taught me, and it continues to teach me, is that you have to get outside of yourself. I work directly with Ali, and there’s other women in our Elevate Group, and we support each other.
The things that we talk about that make a huge difference is delegation, learning how to give up things and let go of the control of the need to do everything, because my business didn’t grow until I delegated out the first task. Then it started to grow exponentially because I had time to work on my business instead of working every day.
The first hire that I made was customer service, because I realized I can’t answer 50 customer service emails a day and grow my business. That was my first hire, and ever since I made that hire it’s just been growing ever since.
Ali stays on me. Even now, she’s always whittling down my stuff. She’s like: You can’t continue to do this. There’s no reason for you to be doing this. You are running a successful thriving business and you should not be doing this. She’s always still teaching me how to give away tasks.
Joy: Just so everyone on the line knows, Melissa is in Ali’s Premier group, so when she’s talking, she’s working directly with Ali and there are some other women in the group as well. That’s great.
I love everything you’re doing. I love that you’re talking about delegation to the group, because I can honestly say that that is when my business started taking off.
Melissa: Delegating and doing things that are investments in your business are the same thing. It really makes you become conscious of how you’re positioning yourself in your day-to- day business dealings. It’s just amazing what it can do.
For me it gets to the second point of what’s so important about delegation, and how it helps my business grow. I can’t automate my process and procedures unless I have help.
Automation is so important. Just little things like an automated time that you’re doing the same task every day. I don’t know about you guys, but I waste a lot of time if I don’t have a specific process for correspondence, for email and phone calls.
Joy: Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Creating systems and organizing and delegating, that’s what you’re talking about, I think that’s what helps every entrepreneur take the business to the next level.
Melissa: In working with Ali and working with Elevate, the thing that became clear to me was that my business really is a series of processes and procedures. Those processes and procedures can be broken down into resources.
When I was working as a solo-preneur, only having a couple of team members, I wasn’t looking at it like that. I wasn’t looking at everything that gets done in my business as a process and procedure that can be broken down into different tasks and resources that then become identifiable––there’s so much clarity in realizing that.
It’s always a constant revision of processes and procedures and looking at: Are we doing things efficiently? Because as my business grows so does the amount of work that needs to get done. It’s such an important part.
Joy: Oh, wow. It’s really awesome to see how you’ve taken this concept, something that you saw as the need for families, but really people, and it’s grown so much for you.
Melissa: Thank you guys so much, I can’t recommend Elevate enough. I was in business for 15 years before I started my own business. I was in a corporate world, and even though I brought a lot of knowledge and skill set and everything else, the training is amazing.
Sometimes when I can’t sleep I go and listen to the Elevate trainings––I hear James’ voice in the middle of the night. I’m putting on headphones and I’m listening to some of the Access Calls. It’s always this reiteration of the things that I need to hear.
It’s very step-by-step, and it’s amazing how if you just get outside of your head and follow some very simple business rules what opens up for you.
I just want to thank you guys for the work that you’re doing in Elevate because it’s helping a lot of people, especially me. I can say as the proud owner of a seven-figure business, I couldn’t have gotten there without Elevate.
Joy: Wow, that’s great. Thank you so much.
James: Wow, thank you. That’s wonderful.
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© 2013 Ali International, LLC
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