Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Liz Powell, founder of Yaletown Nutrition, located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
At Yaletown Nutrition, we offer a variety of nutrition counseling services, including one-on-one or family-based consulting, group presentations, and grocery store tours. Health and wellbeing are very complex and individualized. Our goal is to help people discover what healthy eating looks like for them in the context of their life using evidence-based strategies.
Trying to improve our eating habits also shouldn't be a source of any stress, guilt, or shame. This is why we are very passionate about providing weight-inclusive care and do not encourage dieting or restriction for the purposes of weight loss. We see from the research that the majority of people who lose weight through dieting regain all of the weight back within a few years, with many of those individuals gaining back more than they originally lost. It has nothing to do with a "lack of willpower" and everything to do with our bodies working hard to keep us alive and counter periods of restriction and/or starvation. Knowing that diets don't work, we help people shift their focus away from weight and onto health, using strategies that have been shown to improve their relationship with food and their bodies.
Tell us about yourself
I started Yaletown Nutrition in 2017 after having worked in the clinical hospital setting for a couple of years. While I love acute care nutrition, I wanted to also work with people in the community who may be in a more stable position and mindset to make long-term changes to their eating patterns. Shortly after starting my practice, it was unsettling to see how many individuals struggled with disordered eating, a negative relationship with food, and a negative relationship with their bodies. With so much nutrition misinformation out there and the rampant diet/wellness culture on social media, so many people associate "healthy" eating with restriction and deprivation. This encouraged me to quickly shift my practice focus to intuitive eating and helping people reconnect with food and their bodies in a positive way. I also work with people to help improve their unwanted digestive symptoms. Both of these areas of practice are extremely rewarding as I get to see clients slowly feel more at peace with food and feel physically better over time.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Last year, I launched an online, self-paced nutrition course that combines all of the strategies that I use most often with my one-on-one clients. It includes strategies to create balanced and nourishing meals on a regular basis, how to incorporate filling snacks into your routine, how to incorporate mindfulness into the eating experience, how to feel more neutral/positive towards your body, and more. Seeing the course finally complete and hearing positive reviews from clients has been by far my biggest accomplishment so far as a business owner.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
One of the hardest things that have come with being a business owner has been managing my time. Since I started the business as a side passion project, it was very easy to spend all of my free time outside of my regular day job working on it. Over the years, I've had to learn how to set boundaries with my time so that I can create a better work-life balance. Setting weekly time limits for client sessions, marketing, finances, social media, blogging, and more has helped to make things feel less all-consuming.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Don't wait to get started. You'll never feel 100% ready, and there's so much that you'll learn as you go; the best time to start is now. I wanted to wait until my website was perfect, my handouts were all designed and created, I had blog posts all lined up and ready to go, my email nurture was set... but I'm not sure that I would have ever felt 100% ready and am so glad that one day we decided to just go for it!
- Stay organized. There are so many moving pieces with running and growing a business, that it can be very easy for things to quickly feel disorganized and chaotic. From the get-go, keep track of all income and expenses, use a client management system (if you work with clients), organize your files to easily access business documents (insurance, licenses, registration), client handouts, etc... it will all make your day-to-day life so much easier and less overwhelming later on.
- Have a clear vision, values, and goals. Use them to guide all of your business decisions. You won't know exactly where your business will take you when starting out, but you do know why you're starting it, what is important to you, and what you're hoping to achieve. Being clear on these before starting out will make decision-making easier and have your online presence (website, social media, etc...) be more representative of you who you are and what you're hoping to accomplish.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://yaletownnutrition.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yaletownnutrition
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaletownnutrition/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-powell001/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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