#132: How Running a “Cleanse” Changed My Business with Julia Sarver

Michelle Leotta:
Hello health coaches. We are back with another episode. And today we are talking about how running a cleanse changed my business and not just my business, but also the business of my good friend, Julia Sarver. Julia, thank you for being here.

Julia Sarver :
Thanks for inviting me.

Michelle Leotta:
This is great because we have lived sort of parallel lives and we both started our business in like 2009. If you can remember back to that time, like, what were all the different things that you were doing? Do you remember like what your weeks look like?

Julia Sarver :
I mean, for me, I was not scrolling Facebook nearly so much

Michelle Leotta:
Or ranting or doing any of that.

Julia Sarver :
Or ranting or Instagramming or now club housing, which is my new obsession.

Michelle Leotta:
Cause I remember back in those days I was like, well, I got I'm blogging and I'm doing emails. I'm going to make cooking classes and I'm going to do workshops. I'm going to do this, this, this, this, I had like a thousand things I was doing and none of them really seem to like be catching. Like they were all okay.
Julia Sarver :
Yeah.

Michelle Leotta:
It was like, I was burning myself out.

Julia Sarver :
Oh yeah. I mean, I was there, you know, and I, you and I were living such parallel lives that I was also doing workshops and teaching, cooking classes and being like, I just going to, I'm just going to keep sending this email and posting this blog, inviting people to join me. And, somehow, you know, it didn't quite work the way that I thought it was supposed to.

Michelle Leotta:
I think just like yesterday, we had a thread in our group from someone going like this just isn't working. And how does anybody make this work? And I'm like, Oh, no, no, no. We all feel that way.

Julia Sarver :
Yeah, I feel like that's a rite of passage, but also one of the things that we're wanting to talk about today, right. Is how to transition that because we don't want y'all to stay stuck there.

Michelle Leotta:
No, and I think that hands down, I mean, there were a lot of things I did that added up to success over time. But the first thing I did that I felt like, wow, this, this worked, this stuck was when I ran my first detox or cleanse. And I feel like we've talked before and it was similar for you.

Julia Sarver:
It was absolutely game-changing. I mean, I remember sitting in my office and thinking I'm going to have to quit. I'm going to have to go back to a job. I can't figure out how to make this work. I remember feeling just super embarrassed about it because everyone in my life was like, you can do this. You, you can do anything. And I was like, but I'm not doing this. And then I ended up launching this five day, whole food based detox. And in a week 37 people signed up and I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. So that was the thing that like, it really stuck from the first time I offered it.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. That's so cool. And it's such a good feeling, right. I feel like we all need, we all need the universe to say yes at a certain point. So, it was so exciting for me. I remember, um, when I ran my first and by the way, we both like, did this from scratch, like started with a blank page in a word document or something like, what the heck am I going to do? And just kind of made it up out of thin air. There was no support, like, like this available.

Julia Sarver:
No, not really very much. I mean, there really wasn't. So yeah, I remember just what I did. I don't know if you did this Michelle, but I did a pre-sale because I'd been doing this thing where I was like, well, I wrote this workshop and I wrote this cooking class, and then I did this and people weren't buying it. And I was like, I'm so sick of making stuff that people aren't buying. And at the time people were asking me about detoxes and, and kind of what was available on the market then was the master cleanse. Do y'all remember the master cleanse and then, also Gwyneth Paltrow stuff, which people were like that feel like, where do I buy unicorn tears? Like, I don't know how to find that. So, I was like, I need to build something that's like reasonable that, that, that a normal person can do.

Julia Sarver:
Right. Um, and what happened was, I thought, I'm just, I'm not going to make it, I'm going to sell it. And if anybody buys it, then I'll make it. And I was sort of shocked that so many people bought it. I pitched it in this really casual, like, I'm thinking of making this, like, if you want it, please pay me and then I'll make it. You know, I said that in a very nice kind of marketing way. And like I said, 37 people signed up and then I was like, Oh crap, I have to make it so then I was like furiously typing and testing recipes and making it happen. But it all worked. And I did it. But just like you, I started with an actual blank word document and being like, well, now what?

Michelle Leotta:
So that's a big shift in a business to go from, like, I'm going to build it and hope that they come to, like, I'm going to make people commit to something. I'm going to ask for the sale up front before I invest all this time. So they're right there. You guys, that's a great lesson. That's a great takeaway. I love that. Let me ask you this. Had you ever done a cleanse before, like yourself?

Julia Sarver:
Okay. So, I was cracking up when I heard this as another place that you and I are the same that, um, no, I had not. And so, when my clients started asking me about cleansing, like any other good health coach, I was like, well, I better test this stuff before I offer it to people. And I wasn't willing to do the master cleanse. So I tried a couple of other things, but I have this really embarrassing story where I convinced my husband to do the cleanse with me. And I was hating it. I was miserable. There wasn't enough food. The food tasted terrible. I was hungry all the time and I didn't think he was going to like come home from work. And he caught me in the kitchen with like my head in the bag of tortilla chips basically. And he was like, "what are you doing?" Like, I've been sticking to this. And I was the one who cheated and he's not even a health person like that. And so I was just like horrified. So I knew I had to, like, they didn't work for me. What was your experience? What did you do? You didn't detox before either, right?

Michelle Leotta:
No, I never had, I was pretty staunchly against it and I think it's interesting because all these years, I mean, I still am kind of gets the idea of a quick fix against the idea of restrictive eating and it's counter-intuitive I see this from a lot of coaches who are like, well, I don't know if I want to hold a detox, cause that's not what I'm all about. But, the way I've come to think about it is there's a difference between like detoxing with a capital D when we're talking about the detoxification pathways in the human body, that is one thing, yes, your body does that automatically. But in like health coach parlance, when we say run a detox, I think you're running a short program, five days, 10 days, whatever, where you're setting some sort of parameters around, Hey, we're all going to eat this. Or we're all going to not eat that. Or we're all going to try this certain habit and we're going to do it for this period of time together, whatever it is.

Julia Sarver:
And the reason it's so funny that you bring that up because I got some pushback on the word, detox and cleanse as well. Excuse me. And for me, the reason I use that language is it's, it's because it's the language that other people understand, right? Like I'm not in this place where... I'm like you, I'm not super restrictive in my diet. I eat, you know, there's some things I don't eat, but otherwise I try to be more flexible, but being able to, because at the time my clients were specifically talking about a detox. They were like saying, Hey, what do you think about that? And then when I was using that language back to them, what if we all did a detox? What if we did, um, actually a whole foods reset. And one of the ways I started talking about it, that people really liked, and that this might be helpful for people.

Julia Sarver:
If you're thinking of, ah, detox doesn't feel right. That that feels, um, really like a mismatch for my, for my morals and ethics around how I do this work. One of the things I say a lot is let's reset our eating habits together. And most people are like, Oh yeah, like I'm aware that I am in the tortilla chip bag, like me, or I'm aware that I'm, you know, dipping into the Halloween candy or whatever's leftover. Um, so that's a great way to engage people is to talk about it, just reset your habits. And I found that that's really successful, but I don't know. I don't know if that's something you do as well.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I've gotten away from the word detox it's changed through the years, but it's really, it depends on who, what type of people you're working with. I think for my target market, that word is not something that's resonating with them today in 2021. But back in 2010, when I did this for the first time, 100%, 100%, they all wanted a detox. So the reason I put quotes around the word cleanse and the title of this episode is because that again can be any kind of program you want any kind of led group. It doesn't even have to be group any sort of led program that you want to help somebody through as a way to reset their habits or try something new. So I think that's super cool these days. Um, you know, I'm running right now, I'm in the process of promoting and next week I'll be running a five day program that you could call a detox. I call it 'Lift'. You know, what is it? It's, there's suggested recipes, they're sample meal plans. There's a couple of lifestyle habits for each day. And I wrap it all up in this sort of a feminist take on women's health and stress management, you know? So that's how it aligns with my brand. I bet you see people doing all different variations, so that aligns better with their own brands

Julia Sarver:
All the time. I mean, the coaches who work with me, we talk about this a lot. Do you want to call it a detox? Do you want to call it a reset, a cleanse? I mean, we, we think about what is right for your brand. I will say if you're just starting out running something like this can be really helpful to just kind of like, if you're like, well, I don't know. I don't know what my take is on a detox yet. Or I don't know if I want to do it from a feminist stance or a reset stance, just doing anything, honestly, like this can be really helpful because it helps you get in the practice of explaining the benefit. It helps you get in the practice of explaining why people might want to do this. And so then in that case, you might want to choose some of the more common language around it to get started, and then you're going to learn if you like it or not. But, um, I love the idea of, I saw your, I saw your post actually about, um, Lift. And I was like, Oh, that looks really good. I like it. I liked the, I liked the whole feminist smash, the patriarchy, and also let's feel better.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. Those two things go totally hand in hand. I mean, we need energy to do that, right? We do. So for all you guys listening, if this is something that you want to do and you want more of like the step, like the, how do I do it? Cause you're going to be like deer in the headlights. Like we were, um, if you want to know how to run a cleanse, Julie and I are offering a training with that exact title, 'How to run a Cleanse,' very straightforward. Um, and that is happening when next Thursday, the 21st,

Julia Sarver:
Next Thursday, the 21st at noon, Pacific and three Eastern. And, there's a link to register.

Michelle Leotta:
Put that in the comments right here. And for those of you listening, it is healthcoachpower.com/cleanse. And you can sign up for free. Julia gives so much away in this training that you're going to want to show up and just take copious notes. Even if this is something you're not ready to do right away, maybe you're thinking in the spring or in the fall or whatever, come and learn how to get this done because we've been doing it a long time, right?

Julia Sarver:
I mean, and I think like this, this, first of all, it's always fun to be able to teach together with you because we have similar, but obviously different experiences. But one of the things that is really important when you're, when you're looking at this, as you want to create a program that people are actually going to buy, right? So don't do what Michelle and I did and create stuff that people were like, no, thanks. And then you're sitting at home like, well, that's depressing. Um, what I talk about and how to run a cleanse is really the five steps that you need to take to sell out your next group program. So even if it's not going to be a cleanse, there are some really key things that you need to do to make sure that people are going to actually buy what you're creating.

Julia Sarver:
And I, I try really hard not to be, um, to like negatively market, but a lot of people get this wrong and it's not your fault. You're getting it wrong. You just don't know how to do it. Like I got a lot of things wrong when I first started out, I followed the advice. My nutrition school gave me. And I was like, this is what they told me to do. Why isn't this working? And then I realized it's because it just wasn't very good advice. So I've had to find other ways to do this work. And like, like Michelle and I were talking about the first time I ran a cleanse, I had 37 clients the second time it was 40. And so to be in a place of transition and to see like, Oh my gosh, here's this thing that's going to work. I had to figure out how to grow it. And eventually it grew to over a thousand clients. And now I do a lot of work teaching health coaches and wellness practitioners, how to do this work. And so that's exactly what we're going to talk about in that class. Um, but really with specific exact steps, go do this now. Um, and people find it so helpful.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. I love that. What I really want to get into today is all the different ways that this changed our business. So like you already spoke to one lesson, which was the idea of selling something before you spend the time to create it. And then we just talked about this other idea of like using the words that your people are using to describe what they want, how to describe their problem, how to describe what their experience versus the words that we might use as like certified health nerds. So that is very important. One thing that I definitely learned through this process in my business was that for better, for worse, people want it fast and people want it easy. And we have to reconcile that with the fact that healing takes time and it takes time to change the body. So we can either fight that notion and that desire that people want fast and easy, or we can go with it.

Michelle Leotta:
And it took me a long time. My first detoxes were 21 days and I noticed after the first week, week and a half, there was a lot of drop-off people just into the ether. You never heard of them again. So I, then I shortened it down to 14 days and I thought, Oh gosh, only two weeks. Like that's crazy. And now I have it down to five days. And what I've learned is that you can still make an impact. You can still leave a great impression with people who become like your raving fans and then they bring their friends and they tell your friends about you. It's just a wonderful thing and you can do it fast and you can do it easy. And it can still work in lots of ways.

Julia Sarver:
Oh yeah. Did you start with 21 days too? No. I started with five from the beginning. So, I never, because you know why? Because I hated the 21 day detox. And I was like, if I hate it, like everyone else, I mean, I already, I already eat kale every day and most people don't do that. And especially back in 2009, it was not like kale has had a moment since then. But, I started with five because people told me that they wanted their weekends. They were like, I don't want to be restricting what I'm eating on the weekends. And, you know, we could spend a lot of time being like, but you're not restricting your nourishing. Like we could go into that health practitioner brain, but I'm, I'm sorry to tell you all, they don't care. Like that's just not where their brain is.

Julia Sarver:
We can't health coach speak them. That's they're never going to hear us if we're speaking to them the way that we speak to each other about food and nutrition. So what I found was that the five day model was really wonderful because people were like, Oh yeah, five days, Monday to Friday, I can do that. But this is really important. And this is something that I think a lot of us miss and don't really understand. Five days of being successful is so much better than 21 days of failing. Because think about how often people are trying to get better with their health or trying to get healthier. And then they already have this story in their head that they can't do it. They already have this story that it's hard. They already have this idea that they're probably going to fail. Right. And so if they do, you know, a 30 day, they try like a whole 30 and they do 27 perfect days and three, not perfect days.

Julia Sarver:
What's the story they're telling themselves. It's not, Hey, look, I did 27 days. That's pretty dang good. I've never done that. The story is I didn't do it. I failed. Right. And so what I found to be so transformational for my community was that they could do five days and they could do it. Like they did it perfectly for five days. And at the end of that five days, they were like, Oh my gosh, look at what I just did. I've never done that before. And when we're talking about health and wellness and getting people to change their habits and to make really big shifts, like for us, it's like, Oh, if you're, Oh, you're gluten free. Oh yeah, me too. No big deal. But for most people that's really big for them to start paying attention to, Oh, I actually can cook for myself. Oh, I actually can go without sugar. Oh, look at that. I actually feel better because I shifted what I ate that transformation like that is, it's so hard to create that for people and to get them to commit to it. And if you can do that, that will change their lives. Like truly,

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. Giving them that win. And I think that's also really boosted my confidence to see that I could give people a win. I could make them say, Oh my gosh, I have so much more energy. Thank you so much, Michelle. I feel so much better and list off all these ways that their life had changed. And what it really boiled down to was I was giving them information like recipes, things that they could easily get online. Right. Like that that's not hard to come by, obviously, but time and time again, they would just say the support made all the difference. Or if I had a Facebook group going with it, the Facebook group made all the difference. And I thought, I don't know if I really thought this to myself, but I felt like I finally understood. And now in retrospect, I finally understood the power of coaching. Yes.

Julia Sarver:
Oh, I could talk about coaching all day. Cause I love, I love coaching. Like I love health coaching, but coaching is actually where the magic is, right? Because our job in that space is not like, yes, we do all this wonderful stuff of giving people, but really what we're doing is we're cheerleading and challenging. And if we can do that well, that's how our clients are going to get success even in a five day program.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah. And so I was like, Oh my God, I finally get it. I get what I'm doing as a health coach. Because with individual clients, sometimes it was so slow and painful and then they didn't do the thing and then they get discouraged or they didn't show up or they didn't or whatever. And I was getting discouraged about the whole concept of being a health coach. But when I ran a program like this, I was like, Oh no, no, no, it works. It works. I show up. And then they show up for themselves.

Julia Sarver:
I just love that. That's so that's exactly what it is because I think sometimes, um, you know, what can happen in our business? And, and I, I had a similar learning. It's like, we feel like we have to create this like perfect thing for, for the, the client. And then we have to get them to do the thing. And if we don't get them to do the thing in private, whatever it is and private coaching, then we have failed them. And, and the truth is like, we show up for them, but they also have to show up for themselves. And I think, um, we really just can't overstate the value of showing people that they can show up for themselves. Like we're talking about this being a win for them. Yes. It's a win with their health and wellness. Of course it is that like people always lost weight.

Julia Sarver:
Even in five days, people had all kinds of successes. Like I had the same thing as you where I was like, Oh my gosh, whoa, look what I helped create. But the reality is like, they also understood that they could create it. And, and they also saw like, one of the things that I saw happen, I think this happened for you too, was that people came back like over and over and over again, people would start emailing me saying, when is the next one? I can see that I need to reset. It's time my friend's coming. My sister's coming. My mom's coming because I told them how great it was. So one of the things that running a cleanse did for my business was it, it actually like created a word of mouth referral system for me. Did that happen for you?

Michelle Leotta:
Yes. In fact, my very, very first detox. My co-worker, Joanne signed up for it and guys, it was really down and dirty the first time around, but she loved it. She told everyone about it. She always signs up. She just signed up for the one I'm running next week. Like she is there and it's like, yeah, she brings her follow her friends, her family members, they all become followers and just like big fans. And it made me feel like a rock star, like the impact I want to be having on people's lives. They care, you know, this is just a really, really great feeling. Um, and one thing that also surprised me since I was just mentioning how down and dirty it was the first time out and the second time and the third time was, uh, we didn't have a lot of technology back then. It sounds like I'm talking about the stone age. I mean, we had like a PayPal button,

Julia Sarver:
Stone age in comparison. Like there wasn't even Facebook groups. So we had to put people, do you remember Ning forums? Everyone went Ning or I did at least.

Michelle Leotta:
I used like a Yahoo group.

Julia Sarver:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Michelle Leotta:
Or like, um, checkout carts and fancy sales pages and things like that. So what would you say was the, was the most complicated piece of technology that you used back then?

Julia Sarver:
Oh my gosh. Uh, well I used freeconferencecall.com for my group calls. Right. And like, and if you would, it was what was actually hard about that. This is going to sound so ridiculous. But to get it recording, you had to like push buttons on your phone and like, hope that it was, like all of us had that experience of, we thought we were recording, but we weren't. So then you have to go back and rerecord the thing. Um, but also I used Ning forums. Those were pretty fancy. Cause people had to like set up a profile and put on their picture and it's a big deal back then. Um, yeah. And then also, I mean, like I had a WordPress website, so that was back when you had to submit what you wanted on your website, like a month in advance to your developer because everything was hard coded.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh right. You did it that way. I know my page where I sold my first detox was just a blog post. And then I somehow miraculous,

Julia Sarver:
I eventually started doing that because it was easier.

Michelle Leotta:
Yeah, it was easier. You can get it done quickly. And I could, somehow I figured out how to put a PayPal button into the blog posts and I thought I was a genius.

Julia Sarver:
Cause you were. That was hard back then. There was no drag and drop websites.

Michelle Leotta:
Oh heck no. But you know what? Even today, like I realized with this program that I'm running next week, I'm not using a lot of technology, everything out I use, I use email, I just use my regular email service provider. I export some PDFs. Like it's really no big deal to run something like that.

Julia Sarver:
I think I'm pretty sure the first time I ran it, that I manually emailed the documents to each person. So I sent 37 personal emails. I think I... Cause maybe I put them up in names too, because I'm trying to think. Where could you store files now? I mean, now I encourage people. Like if you're, you know, if you're stressing out about it, just use, keep it simple. Right? Like do... Don't use the sales page if you don't have one. It's totally okay to send this out. Just purely via email and social posts and you can just use Dropbox to store all your files. It's so easy.

Michelle Leotta:
So easy. Or you could make a Google doc or something.

Julia Sarver:
Yeah.

Michelle Leotta:
The options are out there and they are free and they're easy. But what I, what I think I learned again from doing this and the reason it changed my business so much was like, I can do hard things. Oh yeah. I can figure this out. I might not be able to do as fancy as you know, that person or that big famous name, but I can do something like that and I can pull it off. And the confidence that that built is like, that was huge because the game has only gone up and up from there.

Julia Sarver:
Yeah. And I want to point out something that I think this detox did for both of us. Um, that is a little bit, not as obvious, but it did this thing of pushing us. Right. We got pushed supporting 37 clients was something I had not done before. Right. So like I had, I had one-on-one clients and then I was like, how am I going to hold space and energy for these people? It ended up being really fun and wonderful, but I had to learn how to do that. I had to learn how to hold space for 37 people. And then eventually a hundred people when I would get a hundred people enrolling and I had to figure out like, um, what, what if somebody wasn't happy for the most part? I think I've gotten two refund requests total for the program. And over a thousand people have done it.

Julia Sarver:
One of the people was really angry with me and I had to learn how to deal with somebody who was really mad at me. Like, I hadn't had that happen in my business yet, but it ended up being something where I was able to, I emailed her back. I refunded her like right away and I emailed her. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm I really am sorry to hear that you didn't have a good experience. Do you mind telling me what didn't work? Because like I'd love to know so that I can make this better. And she ended up emailing me back. And I honestly, I was scared to open the second email from her because the first one was so mean. Um, and she was like, I am so sorry. I'm a night nurse. So, I really struggled with the eating, like not eating what I'm used to eating.

Julia Sarver:
She said, and I took it out on you and I shouldn't have done that. And I was like, Whoa, like, that was not what I expected, right? But it was such a good lesson that when we're working with people, you know, I thought about how did I, how would I would have, what would have been a good response if I had sent that angry email, what would I have wanted to hear? Um, and she ended up becoming like, just like you were saying, one of my favorite clients, one of my best referral people, she kept bringing tons of people in. And she just like forever was a fan of mine because I handled it well. But I had to learn how to do that.

Michelle Leotta:
That is such a good point. You have to like go through these processes with the success stories, but also the people who don't have success or get angry, or I think one thing I learned, Oh my gosh, I was, like 35 weeks pregnant with my first baby. I was running one of these I had about 80 people.

Julia Sarver:
Of course you were.

Michelle Leotta:
Of course I was, I had about 80 people signed up and we were moving. All of a sudden we were moving to Washington DC. And so I was traveling down to DC to look for a place to live. Cause we had to move in like two weeks and I was running this whole thing from my phone and you know what, it worked, it worked. And I thought, I am going to be able to do this work while I raise a family, I'm going to be able to do it from anywhere. And it's going to have like, like this is going to work for me. It was just an overwhelming sense of like, I can do it.

Julia Sarver:
I have all the goosebumps for you right now, because I'm like, I know that feeling, but I have all the goosebumps. I mean, can you all those of you who are listening, like that's an incredible feeling to have that moment of, I can do this. This is going to work. And I actually had the same exact feeling when I ran my first and my second cleanse program. And then, you know, continuing on from there, I was like, oh, I can do this. I can make this work. If I need to make a little more money, I know how to do that. Like, I can make money on demand now, like I've learned this skill that, I think sometimes it's easy to look at other people who know how to do that. And it's like, that person is different from me. That person knows something. I don't know that person has like a magical something that I don't have. And the truth is, I mean, for me and Michelle, at least like we just kept trying things until the thing worked right. And then you've doubled down on what works or at least that was my experience.

Michelle Leotta:
So, I want you guys to all run and sign up so we can do a full training. Today's just been like a little behind the scenes, chit chat with Julia about she is going to lead us through the steps of what you need to do in order to run a cleanse of your own. You can sign up athealthcoachpower.com/cleanse. And even if you can't join us live next Thursday, sign up anyway, you'll get the replay. And this is something that I think even if you just take notes and like save them in a binder somewhere for yourself for when you're ready, you're going to be really glad that you did.

Julia Sarver:
Yes. I mean, thank you for the opportunity to share this with your community because I just think it's so important. It's so important to learn how to do this.

Michelle Leotta:
100% and we've done it before and everyone always loves it. So we will see you guys there. And Julia, thank you again for being on the show today with us.

Julia Sarver:
Thanks so much for having me, Michelle. I always love chatting with you.

Michelle Leotta:
See you next time.