Creating a Fitness Business that Isn’t Weight Loss Centered
In this episode, I’m talking to Allison Mosso, owner of Mosso Nutrition and Fitness. She’s a certified nutrition counselor and corporate wellness speaker, and we’re chatting about creating a fitness business that isn’t weight loss centered.
We discuss:
– The challenges of launching a business that goes against the common messaging in your industry
– Why you need to talk about your business more than you think
– Why new entrepreneurs need to be patient with their growth
– How money mindset impacts your growth
…and more.
Listen to the full episode here:
Here are some highlights:
How Allison Got Started in the Fitness Industry
“I fell in love with just the way that movement and nutrition can affect our quality of life. As that innocent hobby grew, I escalated into an eating disorder. Because of that experience of just wanting to innocently improve my health and wellness and then having it turn into obsession, I dove in into the world of nutrition and nutrition without restriction.”
“And that’s how I came across this concept called intuitive eating. Fast forward, I’m an intuitive eating counselor, I am a personal trainer, and then I also do corporate health and wellness seminars. Virtually these days, but that is a new avenue for me, a new route that I’ve been taking in the past year!”
Allison On Getting Into the Nutrition Coaching Space
“I think what’s interesting is my social media is primarily educational content on Food Freedom and eating without restriction and body respect, but I will still get some DMs from time to time from individuals who will say, ‘I’m thinking about entering into the coaching space, do you feel like it’s too overwhelmed right now? Do you feel like there’s too many coaches out there?’ And I always say ‘No, there’s billions of people out there that need help, there’s more than enough space. But the question I would ask yourself is, once I get started, how am I gonna keep going? You know, like you said when nobody’s signing up for the courses, when you’re only talking to your mom on your Facebook Live, she’s the only one in the audience, when your post doesn’t hit the way you thought it would.”
How Allison Stuck to Her Guns when Diet Culture Said Otherwise
“Yeah, it’s absolutely diet culture that really lures people in. It’s attractive, it’s sexy to say “Hey, change your body if you work with me.’ Because I experienced an eating disorder, that never sat right with me. When I read the book ‘Intuitive Eating’, it felt like for the first time in my life, I felt truly heard and seen, and so I knew… I knew that there was other individuals out there who felt that way. I’m a pretty strong-headed person and when I decide that I have a value in life, I’m gonna keep running with it.”
“And that doesn’t mean that I haven’t gotten really down at times or I’ve fallen into the comparison trap of ‘look at this fitness pro on Instagram showing of her body and getting a ton of followers, and probably people buying her programs.’I definitely have fallen into that comparison hole, but for me, it’s always just felt like the right thing to do.”
“I had to make this big acceptance with myself of, I truly believe, yes, in this intuitive eating profession, there’s billions of people to help and you can make really great money, and that’s the path I’m heading towards and it’s this acceptance of, well, you’re not going to get the clients that are still headstrong with just wanting to lose weight.
Staying consistent with your messaging
“Regardless of what your message or your values are with your business, you have to keep running the course for probably longer than you think. It takes time for people to start clicking with it, especially if it’s something that’s not conventional, such as weight loss culture.”
Normalizing Working Multiple Gigs as You Build Your Business
“Let’s also very publicly normalize that you may work a lot of gigs along the way,” said Lindsey. “People do not talk about this. And do you think that their business is all they’re doing, when in fact, they’re shopping on Instacart for extra cash, they’re teaching at a gym on the side, they go work for insurance, like at some point, you have to make a living and you’re not going it in month one of your new business. It is completely normal to do other things along the way.”
“Yes, it is beyond normal to have a side job or even a full-time job that subsidizes your business for the first couple of years,” Alisson responded. “I did not go full on in my business full-time until two and a half years down the road. I needed to work side jobs, I needed to work full-time jobs and yes, the amount of energy I have for my business today isn’t what it was in the beginning, but that was something that was just necessary and it was a safety factor too. Feeling like you had some type of stability in your life as well, ’cause it’s hard, and it is expensive to own a business.”
Lindsey’s Take On How Business Coaches Can Mislead You With Their Marketing
“There are people out there who are like ‘you just need to build a signature program and charge people 5000 and you will be making 50,000 a month and you’ll be a millionaire. And I’m like, that’s not how this works. You might do that, but you have not experienced working with clients. You have to work with clients. I just wholeheartedly believe: under charge, over deliver and get as many clients under your belt at first, so you understand what you’re doing. You really get to know your client this way and you have all this information and then you can increase your prices. Then, you’ll become more confident that way in raising your price, you will become confident that the service you’re delivering is worth the price.”
“The marketing of just ‘build this expensive product and sell it’ is so backwards, and the thing that really gets me is the coaches who are making that their service, they’re helping you to develop your program that you can charge a lot of money for, that is not how they built their business.. If you ask them, Well, how did you build your business? They would say the very same thing that we’re doing, right? The very same thing that every single person does when they start out is their mom is the only one on their Facebook live, their neighbor is their first client, and then they built their way up.”
The Importance of Money Mindset
“I know money mindset work was one of the most pivotal things I did for myself as a business owner, ’cause I very much grew up thinking I always had a struggle for money. That was my attachment. It was easier for me to talk about how we’re struggling than it was to say I am headed towards richness, I’m headed towards abundance, whatever it might be,” said Alisson.
How to Know When It’s Time to Raise Your Prices
“I was getting just almost resentful. It wasn’t anything to do with my clients. But the time I was giving wasn’t feeling like an equal energy exchange. I was also getting frustrated because I am a person where I give up my all. I really care about my clients like it is a huge deal to me that somebody is trusting me to work with them and to help guide them through their Food Freedom and body respect journey. And so because of that, I know how much effort I’m gonna put into this,” Alisson said.
“Any of my clients, if they would ever listen to this right now, they know that I am answering their Voxer or calls throughout the week, and that they come before my social media posts, etc. And so because of that, I said I need to charge higher. I found when I charged higher, I attracted the people that were going to show up more for themselves. Once again, I’ve never had a really shitty relationship with a client, but there is a difference between those that pay more for a service and how they’re going to show up for it.”
Why Lindsey feels testimonials are so important
“When you feel like an impostor, when you feel like: ‘why am I even doing this?’ You can look back at testimonials for a reminder. This happened to me the other day. I was thinking about this program that I’m doing, and I was feeling all in my feels about not being qualified and nobody’s gonna sign up and all these terrible things, I was like, ‘every single person you’ve worked with in this capacity has written you the most incredible review and testimonial.’ Every single person had success, every single person wrote the most touching testimonial, and yet… I’m over here like, ‘I’m not qualified to do this, I can’t do it.’ Get the testimonials and you put them in a folder on your computer and you call them love notes or whatever you wanna call them, and you read them all the time and use them for marketing!”
Alisson’s Take on Mental Health and Entrepreneurship
“They say that the body whispers before it screams, and that truly is something I believe in. And I believe that our bodies are very adaptable, just scientifically, they will adapt to our lifestyles, but if we don’t listen to it, it will make us listen to it. Our bodies will make us listen over time through symptoms like anxiety and panic attacks.”
“How this ties into business is that because I have a personality type that can experience anxiety and still tend to this day, I know for myself, I have to recognize where I’m building up a lot of internal pressure. Where I’m building up the ‘all or nothing’ mentality, and it’s interesting because my business does do a lot better when I am taking care of my mental health, when I am looking out for myself more readily. because energetically, I’m just able to. I believe also, when you have your own business, there’s a lot of unknowns that you’re going to navigate through… My first year of business, I probably could have saw a therapist… I wish I did see a therapist.”
Connect with Alisson: mossonutritionandfitness.com
Get started with Alisson’s How To Ditch Food Tracking and Calorie Counting 101 – click here to learn more.
If you enjoyed this episode, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and connect with us on Instagram too!
Ready to find your next client? My simple guide will lead you through 3 simple strategies (and yes – I promise they are simple) to getting the word out about what you do and bring in new clients.
Don’t forget to check out our sponsor – The Buzz Coffee & Cafe
Click here to shop!