"The best way to stay ahead of the noise is to be the "obvious" choice and then deliver such good service that word-of-mouth spreads."
Juliana Leamen Tweet
Juliana Leamen (MSc, BFRP, FDN-P), founder of Naturally Joyous Inc, is a Board Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, specializing in empowering women transitioning through menopause with mindset support to optimize their weight release efforts. She is the author of ‘Release – A Woman’s Guide To Releasing Weight In Midlife Through Becoming Your Body’s Best Friend’ and the creator of the Release Method™.
Her journey of overcoming many health issues, including a spinal surgery in 2012 and persistent weight struggles, drives her passion and mission to change the weight loss conversation in midlife, so women can age gracefully by becoming the leaders of their own health. Juliana hosts the Confidence From Within podcast, has been a guest on several podcasts, and has been featured on Rogers TV, CityNews Everywhere and Thrive Global. She lives in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, with her husband.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Juliana Leamen: I am Juliana Leamen, the founder of Naturally Joyous Inc. I am a Midlife Weight Release Expert, the host of ‘Confidence From Within’ podcast and author of the book ‘Release – A Woman’s Guide To Releasing Weight In Midlife Through Becoming Your Body’s Best Friend’.
I am a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, Board Certified by The American Association of Natural Wellness Practitioners, University- trained with a Masters degree in Science, Registered Bach Flower Practitioner and trained in human behavior by the Demartini Institute. I am on a mission to provide a new model of care for weight loss for women during menopause transition and post-menopause, what I like to call weight release, helping women become the leaders of their own health.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Juliana Leamen: At the start of the pandemic, I was building an in-person business, renting a space at a clinic and seeing clients one-on-one. I am located in Ontario, Canada, so with the prolonged closures, I made the decision to shift my business model to a fully online business in October 2020. With this transition, I was able to revisit all my offerings and services and decided to add a group component, via a premium online program, with the goal of eventually reducing the amount of one-on-one coaching I do. I started to build a team and I now have 2 other practitioners coaching under my program. This has freed some of my time so I can work on scaling the business.
The main lesson I learned is that even during very challenging times, there are always opportunities. In my case, I was forced to pivot into what is now a much more scalable business, which the potential to impact a much larger number of women.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Juliana Leamen: My goal is to continue to refine my messaging, so I can became the obvious choice for the clients I am here to serve. Yes, there are still challenges, but consumers are now a lot more comfortable with technology, with the explosion of Zoom and e-learning. I know the “noise” is louder online than before, so getting better and better at communicating our message, staying true to the purpose behind our businesses and adapt to market changes are my focuses and what I recommend to other business owners.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Juliana Leamen: By speaking with other health and wellness practitioners, those capable of moving to an online model are doing well, but the ones resistant to technology I believe are struggling to adapt. Consumers are a lot more comfortable with e-learning and online coaching, which was not true pre-pandemic, so I feel our industry received a great boost in ability to reach clients internationally and serve them in group format, more so than before 2020.
As I mentioned before, it all comes with some challenges, such as more competition online for customers’ attention, as they are bombarded with content, so I focus on the less is more mentality. I post less, but what I put out is of high value and high impact, no more batching content “just to stay consistent”, which used to be the advice out there.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2022?
Juliana Leamen: I wish I had been told to focus on my messaging before all the fancy tech automations. Having things automated is great, but I think messaging comes first and I had to make significant changes to mine when I went from a local in-person business to a fully online global business.
My next goal is to scale, so taking all the lessons I learned and now work on lead generation, both organic and paid. My main area of improvement will be on how we capture and nurture leads by adding the right resources in place.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Juliana Leamen: I do expect some consumers will eventually feel the need to return to more in-person services, but it is not something I will be offering, especially as we expand our global reach. Since most people are now used to working with international business, the opportunities to stay fully online I believe will continue to be strong in the future.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Juliana Leamen: In my case, most of the day, probably around 10 to 12 hours, but since I make my own schedule, I have the option to stop and go outside any time I desire. I also have the flexibility to work from anywhere, so I do move locations often and sometimes work outside, which helps quite a bit.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Juliana Leamen: The principles I use are the same with clients or my team, I spend time learning about them first, what is important to them, what they care about. Once you know what is important to someone, the final step is communicating in their values.
For stories or even projects, if it is phrased in a way that is relevant to them, their ability to absorb the information and engage increases drastically. For example, if I am speaking with a team member that is not a mom, using motherhood stories as examples will not be effective. I use a lot of metaphors in my communication style, to make complex ideas relatable, so I am quite careful picking them to match the person’s interest.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Juliana Leamen: Lead generation is, in my opinion, the biggest challenge right now, especially as the online space continues to get more crowded. It seems that everyone has a book, a podcast and an online course (mind you I’ve launched all 3 myself since the start of the pandemic!), so there is a lot of competition for the online consumer.
I think now more than ever, quality over quantity/consistency will be key. The best way to stay ahead of the noise is to be the “obvious” choice and then deliver such good service that word-of-mouth spreads. Fine-tuning their messaging for online sales and continuing to build the best product available in their category are the main opportunities businesses have right now to stay ahead of the competition.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Juliana Leamen: I am most interested in online lead generation and high-ticket closing. I believe both go hand-in-hand. Bringing leads in is important, but if we don’t have the right team to close the sale, then we can’t grow a sustainable business. These are the 2 areas I am most interested in, so we can gather enough data to make repeatable decisions on the lead generation front, knowing the right team is in place to convert those leads.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Juliana Leamen: In some cases, that is possible, but I think an important part of leadership is looking at data when making an assessment like this and also understanding that an employee’s satisfaction will vary from person to person. As we discussed above, if someone is motivated by a flexible work schedule, they will have a very different experience than someone motivated by money. The pandemic made a lot of people contemplate what was important to them and the old assumption that everyone is motivated by money was proven false.
If a leader is struggling with employee retention, I would start there, looking at what motivates each employee and looking for ways to satisfy that and if not possible, be okay with letting them go.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Juliana Leamen: If I could, I would become a lead generations magnet! I have learned a lot as I transition to a fully online business model in the last year and a bit, but there is lot’s more to learn. There is some art to communicating with people online while breaking through the noise. I would put it into practice in literally every interaction with my audience – when writing an email to posting on social, to running a Facebook Ad. I believe once you hit the right note, it all starts to flow, so all we have to do is keep current and keep at it.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Juliana Leamen: Success for me is to publish my first book, Release – A Woman’s Guide To Releasing Weight In Midlife Through Becoming Your Body’s Best Friend [www.naturallyjoyous.ca/book]. The book is scheduled to launch by end of June, 2022 and I hope it will help me grow my reach and impact.
With every book sold, I feel another woman is getting the tools she needs to get back in control of her body and become the leader of her own health and that is very fulfilling to me. The big vision is to see the book propel me into larger stages, helping corporations bring awareness to the impact of menopause transition in their workers and have more knowledge and tools to do something about it. On the consumer level, my vision is to see more and more women empowered to make midlife the healthiest and happiest phase in their lives, it is possible and my book is a guide on how they can do so.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Juliana Leamen for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Juliana Leamen or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.