2: Building Vita Oasis: Krystle Maynard's Entrepreneurial Journey

This time, on Small Business Bestie as we chat with the phenomenal Krystle Maynard, the nurse entrepreneur behind Vita Oasis infusion and Wellness and Innovative RN Solutions.

In this episode, you'll discover how Krystle juggled obtaining her advanced nursing degrees while launching two ventures. Dive into the variety of services her company offers, from IV hydration and wellness injections to teeth whitening. Krystle shares the realities of balancing the responsibilities of parenting four children with the challenges of growing a business.

Learn about the significance of quality supplements, individualized wellness, and the interplay of nutrition on our health. Get an inside look at how she ensured her business's compliance with rigorous healthcare standards and navigated the world of insurance. Moreover, experience Krystle's journey through the rebranding process and the lessons learned from collaborating with a social media expert.

As she articulates her future goals and current practices, it's clear that her commitment to her team and customers is at the heart of her success. Whether you're seeking inspiration or wisdom from a seasoned entrepreneur, Krystle's episode on 'Small Business Bestie' offers a rich tapestry of entrepreneurial spirit, healthcare expertise, and the power of a supportive community.

#SmallBusinessBestie #VitaOasisWellness #IVTherapyInnovation #EntrepreneurialNurse #WellnessJourney #MobileIVService #HealthyFamilyBusiness

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Connect with Krystle on IG: @KrystalMaynard
Check out Vita Oasis' Website: www.vitaoasiswellness.net

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Small Business Bestie is edited by Bourbon Barrel Podcasting

Transcript

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Welcome to the small Business Bestie podcast, where we celebrate the journey of women entrepreneurs in the heart of central Kentucky and beyond. I'm your host, Michelle, and my mission is to create a podcast and community for us each week. Join us as we sit down with a different small business bestie to dive deep into their stories, sharing the highs, the lows, and everything in between. We will meet friends who are brand new in business, veterans in business, and maybe even the occasional dreamer. So grab your favorite coffee or cocktail, get cozy, and let's meet this week's small business bestie, Krystal Maynard. Thank you so much for joining me today. Let's get started by just telling everybody a little bit about you and your business and kind of what you do. I am local to central Kentucky and I actually own two businesses. One is Vita Oasis infusion and wellness, and it's a mobile iv therapy and wellness business. And then the other one is innovative rn solutions. And that's like a health content writing and it's more of an educational business, and I'm the only person in that one. With Vita Oasis, I now currently have a team of nurses and a nurse practitioner as our medical director, and we service Lexington and the surrounding areas offering a wide variety of services. I've been a registered nurse for 13 years. I have my bachelor's, my master's in nursing education, and my doctorate. I am a mom of four and I'm married. I'm very busy. It sounds like it. Yeah, man, that's a lot. Okay, so let's start with the kind of basics of the business then. So were you going to school while working, or did you go all the way through, get your doctorate while you were just a full time student? So I started out with my bachelor's, worked full time while I got my master's, and then a couple years later decided to take the leap and work toward my doctorate, all while working full time. Okay, awesome. The business idea didn't come till later. And if you would have asked me years ago if I would have ever considered this, I probably would have laughed at you. Well, I guess like, trying to hold down a full time job and raise children and work on a doctorate would probably make business ownership the last thing on your mind. Yes, absolutely. Awesome. So when did the business idea kind of come into your mind? Well, innovative RN solutions kind of happened first, and it was the summer of 2022, and I actually came across something on social media, maybe like a course or a program or some other person that was from Ohio that owned a health content writing business and she was helping other nurses start their own. So I was like, I was a little bit intrigued because, you know, everything, nursing and health and wellness, I love education. I've always been intrigued by writing, and I love to be able to find new and creative ways to help and educate people. So I started down that I connected with this individual. She actually offered, like, a course to help people get started. Kind of helped help you. It was a little bit of coaching, honestly, and that's kind of where I kind of started initially learned how or what steps were needed to start a business in terms of getting an LLC, getting a business bank account, how to build a portfolio, how to get clients. So that started first. Bina Oasis didn't come until about six months later, and so I'd already been had my own set of clientele doing the writing business. I mean, I've written health and wellness blogs for various organizations and health and wellness companies throughout the United States. And then Vita Oasis came, honestly, kind of like a joke from my husband. I think we saw something about mobile iv therapy, and he said, you know, you would probably make a killing if you set up downtown somewhere and people could get, like, hangover infusions. And then I said, well, that's not a bad idea for a side job. And so that's kind of how it started. So I kind of already knew some of the initial starting points of what I needed to do in terms of an LLC. Yeah, it started as totally a side job, and I haven't had a day off in, like, a year. So it's been about a year since you started. Yeah, a little over a year now. Wow. And so in a year, you've gone from something that was a side hustle, one person operation, almost a joke between you and your husband, to. Now, you said you have a team of several rns and a medical director. Yep. Yes, I have four other rns, and I have a nurse practitioner and who is our medical director, as have we rent a space that we offer services out of in Lexington as well as Richmond. Plus we offer mobile concierge services in Lexington, Nicholasville, Richmond, and Georgetown. We're open to other areas also, but those are primarily where we've served so far. I'm going to ask the super cliche question. What was the biggest challenge or hurdle in starting that business? One was trying to figure out, does this even exist in this area yet? What do I need to do? How do I make sure there was a lot of research that went into it because I needed to make sure that we did everything properly in terms of compliance and regulations, making sure we stay within our scope of practice, and that I'm not going to do anything that obviously I'm not legally allowed to do. Nurses can do a lot more than I think many people realize. And that's one of the beauties of being a nurse, is the possibilities are literally endless. It was one making sure that I knew the right steps and what I could and couldn't do and what was required for our state, because different states operate differently then. I did a lot of research into other companies, and there are similar business models in this area. And it's not like it's not something that any nurse can go and do on their own, but what I wanted, I wanted something different. I wanted to eventually build a team. Because. Lexington is not a small area by itself, by any means. So if it's just me, and if I'm doing all the business, all of the backend work, all of managing the social media, doing all the networking and marketing, and being the sole provider in terms of offering services, I can be in all the places at once. Not to mention what happens if I get sick, right? So it did get to a point where I'm like, okay, I was having to turn people away, and so I'm like, okay. I wasn't sure if I was ready to bring on help yet, but I got to a point where I didn't feel like there was any other option. It was either, okay, close down shop, or I need to add some extra hands to help. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because across almost every industry or solopreneurs who get started, that's kind of the point you get to where it's like, okay, I'm at capacity, and the capacity is such that I cannot maintain a healthy life unless something gives. So I either have to say, I'm done with this and I'm going back to the way things used to be, or I'm going to go all in, put in a little bit more effort in the short term to bring people in, expand my team, and get some help. That's awesome. All right, so you brought people in. What was the first move you made? Was it bringing in another just nurse provider? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I initially, I started putting out, like, feelers out on my personal social media pages, but also in a couple of the Facebook groups, one locally actually was able to find me, I think two nurses and my medical director from one group alone. I had a lot of interests, but what we do is not for everybody. But I also was very transparent with them from the get go. Basically, I'm like, look, this is what my idea is. This is what my vision is. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I do not promise perfection. I do promise that I will be a cheerleader and I will fight hard for you to be successful in this. But we're learning as we go. You mentioned that the point that you got to before you brought in a provider was like you were running everything the back end. You were doing the social media. You were doing everything yourself. So have you found it was time yet to hand off some of those other more business management side of things like social media or scheduling or anything like that? Or are you still doing all of that right now? I'm still doing all of it. Okay, great. I did get some help from the social media aspect. I did bring in somebody to help me at least do an audit, just to kind of, I wanted another set of eyes to not only what I was doing, but to help give me some feedback of what am I doing well? What am I not doing well enough? What do my competitors look like? What are they doing well? How do I stand out? Or how can I make myself stand out? So that was a really beneficial move, and that allowed me to basically kind of completely rebrand, and I kind of took off with all of her feedback. I got so many questions because I have never heard of a social media auditor before. Yeah. So is this someone who offers full service social media management, but she also offers other services? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Because not everybody is to a point where they're ready to hand off their social media full time, and I just haven't been to that point yet. Right. I hope I can get to that .1 day. But I guess another challenge in handing off some of those responsibilities is, well, not everybody thinks like you do as a business owner. Absolutely. You have to find a really good match that you know that they're going to have, your tone, your brand, everything. To be able to do it the. Way that you would do it or as closely as possible. Absolutely. But, yeah, so this was one service that she offered, and so she and I met and. Wait, you met? So you met virtually or local? She's local. Okay. Go ahead and tell us who she is. Shout her out. Yes, miss Haley blank. She owns raid media management. She is a former police officer for Lexington. Awesome. All right, well, you guys heard it. Go check out Haley. That's crazy. I didn't even know that that service existed. That's such a great halfway point of, like, you were like, I'm not quite ready to, either financially or emotionally or whatever, to hand off my social media, but I know for sure, personally, I don't know what the heck I'm doing with social media. It is all over the board. Some days I feel like I'm killing it, and some days I'm like, oh, you're a failure. The reach isn't there and the content is crappy. All the feelings. I still have those feelings all the time. Don't get me wrong, I still am. Like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Some things work, some things don't work so well. So it's still very much a trial and error, but I just keep at it. Yeah, but she definitely helped me see a different perspective of how I can help reach my potential audience. But not only that, make my brand cleaner, because she gives not only everything from reviews, like your website, your social media tactics, how often you're posting, what are your optimal times for posting each day. But she also looks at branding. And so when she gave me back this nice finished package and I saw her branding colors and fonts and ideas, and I was like, oh, my God, that looks amazing. I would have never been creative enough to think that that would have looked well together. Yeah, but it does work. That's incredible. So I just had my logo redone, like, starting cultivate about a year and a half ago. We were on a shoestring budget. We had no money to start with, so hiring a graphic designer was totally out of the question. So we popped into canva and grabbed a little graphic and typed out the name of our company. And that was the logo we've been going with for the past year and a half. In that time, I feel like we've really developed who we are, like the branding voice at cultivate. And I was like, it is nothing like what this picture know. It's completely the opposite. So I was able to work with a local graphic designer, Joanna Sharo, and she nailed the logo. But to your point of having somebody go through on your social media and say, even down to the color that is in each post and the font that you're using, all of that is psychologically tied to who you are as a brand. And if it's all over the place, then you're giving people mixed messages about who you are. There's so many things, pieces and parts that go into social media that even. I mean, obviously, I still don't always fully get but I've become more aware of it when I see other social media pages and I'm like, yeah, you can definitely tell when there are some that are not consistent. That's me. Hi. I'm the inconsistent one. So there's not just not consistent with posting, but also with different color schemes and all of that. That's also me. I tried really hard, but it was just me and canva. And so I learned a little bit more as I went, and I got, as I look back into the older stuff and I'm like, okay, it wasn't bad, but it's so much better now. Yeah, I have learned more than I think I probably could have ever imagined. I would have learned about doing anything business related, and I literally would have ran the opposite direction if anyone would have suggested me do anything business related. It just was not my personality. But the more I've been a nurse, the longer I've been a nurse. I've been in healthcare for a really long time, and I definitely have a leader mindset. And I think that's kind of what contributed to the whole entrepreneur side, because I'm like, rather than have somebody always telling me what to do, I like to think out of the box and I like to be creative, and I want to use my expertise in a way that can help others that isn't just in this little box that we have to stay in. Yeah, that's awesome. I think it's really important that you recognize that your leadership capabilities and qualities are what sparked this. I think often times people think like, I just want to work by myself. I don't want to have to have a boss and they don't recognize it. You also have to be a leader, though, if you don't have a boss. Because there's nobody telling you what to. Do, you have to have that leadership capability. Let's pivot just a little bit. In your kind of intro, you mentioned that you offer a wide variety of services. So I want to get into those a little bit because I know, I know a little bit about what you guys do just from you and I talking and following you on social media, but I know that there's also tons of stuff that you are doing that I have no idea about. So run us down kind of the list of what you're offering and things like that. Yeah. So we offer iv hydration, vitamin infusion therapy. We offer wellness injections, medical weight loss, teeth whitening, and now we have the ability to provide optimal wellness supplements for people. Not your average. Go to Walmart, pick them up off the shelf, because the more we have learned, the more we have grown, that those are just not the best options for people in terms of supplementation. And so we actually have access to higher quality brands that are better tested. Most vitamins aren't technically FDA approved, but they are definitely higher quality, more regulated. Yeah. I listen to a lot of podcasts that are dedicated to health and wellness with insert names of famous scientists and all of that. But one of the things that's kind of clear across the board is like, if you're getting your supplements off the shelf at a run of the mill retailer, the chances that you're getting the quality supplement is very low. Yeah. And so part of the difference or part of one of the things that we educate people on is one if you're taking an oral supplement, you obviously have to get, it has to be digested and absorbed, which means it has to go through the gut. So when they're taking an oral supplement, they're only getting about 30% to 40% of what that actual ingredient or that dosage is, because after it gets digested and absorbed, you're only able to get that small portion. So when we give infusions or injections, meaning through the muscle or through an iv, then you're getting closer to 100% absorption. The other factor in terms of supplements and absorption factors is there are certain health conditions or genetic components that don't allow people to absorb things properly. And some people don't even know they have some of these. So they may be taking their vitamins every day and they're doing everything that their doctor tells them to do, but they sometimes maybe still have those deficiencies and they don't know why. And that could be part of it. It could be their body is not absorbing it properly. I have a personal connection to that one. I for years suffered with depression and just not really feeling great. And it was when I had my. Daughter, so I guess about four or. Five years ago now, and my midwives ran a bunch of tests on me to try to figure out what was going on because I was like, I must be postpartum depression or something. I don't know, it's really bad. But when they ran those blood tests, they found out that I had the MTHFR deficiency, or genetic. We can't say on here what the other name that we call that. Oh, yeah, name. Write it down on a piece of paper and the first word that comes to mind. Yeah, I found out I had that and I got on a methylated b complex supplement. And the next time that I got my vitamins checked, my b levels were back in the normal range, or even on the high end I think I might have been taking. I really like the taste of it. The Mary Ruth's b supplement. But anyways, yeah. Firsthand knowledge. Get your vitamin levels checked. I don't know. Not you probably. You absolutely know all of the different genetic tests that can be run to figure out. Actually just did one on myself not too long ago. Oh wow. Can you test run the blood test for those? We probably could do that because we do offer labs now. Also, I forgot to mention that. Okay. My husband and I actually just did a swab genetic test and found out I have a genetic mutation in almost all of the methylation genes. So I also have the MTHFR, but also many of the others in that same category, which I have been down the rabbit hole probably the last month, learning more and more and more about this whole topic, and it is astounding how much or how frequent this is an issue and how infrequent it's being tested for in healthcare. I'm sure this is like topics for a totally different podcast, but I like. Where we're going right now. What I find really interesting is tell me what has caused this, though. Surely this hasn't been around forever. Surely there are environmental things causing this, and how can we protect our children and our future generations from it? I think it's wonderful that we have the test to find out. I think it's amazing that we have supplements that can be formulated to support us if we have these mutations. But what I think would be really great is if we figured out what. Was causing them and then stopped it. Folic acid, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's one of the issues. We have been on a folic acid detox in our house, getting rid of everything white and everything processed. Yes. Which it's very tricky because not all. The labels actually read properly. We found that out recently too. So what I've learned with this whole methylation process is basically when we take in foods that back in the early 90s, they started making all of our grains enriched and fortified, which into our minds, it makes it sound good, better, and like, yeah, like it's good. What it is, is basically they sprayed all of our grains with folic acid. Folic acid is not natural. It's made in a lab. Its natural usable form is folate or methyl folates. If you have that genetic mutation, your body ingests these foods that have the folic acid, and your body cannot convert it to its usable form. And what does that cause? That can cause gut issues, constipation, ibs, add odd OCD, anxiety, depression, a whole wide range of symptoms. So I can blame this all on my mom? Well, not necessarily. Not necessarily, but it is in folic acid, or most of our enriched and fortified foods are in a large, like, a mass quantity of what's in what we know as the standard american diet. Pastas, white rice, breads, and even. Not even all wheat breads are without it because we started buying wheat bread. No. When you look at the label, it still has folic acid. It still says enriched. So what I heard. And this could be wrong. So please check me. What I heard was organic on the label. It was not allowed to have the folic acid if it had organic. Is that incorrect? That part? I would think that that is correct, but I would want to double check that, too. Okay. That was kind of the conclusion that we had come to. So we were like, okay, basically, every product that is, like, grain related gets out of the house unless it explicitly says organic to try to help. Because we're seeing behavioral issues in our daughter. We know that she had, like, a gluten intolerance for a while. We've trained her out of that, if you will, according to her allergist suggestions. But we see some things that we're like, okay, this isn't necessarily. I don't want to say normal, because it's so tricky, but we saw some things that weren't desirable, and we were trying to figure out ways that we could help her overcome these challenges. And the folic acid was one of the things that came up when we were doing our research. And so we were like, okay, let's get that all. Which is scary because my kids are older now, but my stepson and my daughter had behavior issues. She's kind of grown out of a lot of them now, but stepson still suffers from them. But it's like, I wonder, it makes you think, right? How much of it could honestly be directly linked to possible diet and just people just don't know. It's very eye opening. Absolutely. Okay. I am so sorry. That was a huge rabbit hole. Okay, so you were saying you guys do a bunch. You do labs, you do iv hydration. You do vitamin infusions. What did I miss here? The wellness injections. So that's like vitamin B. Twelve. Okay. Vitamin D. We've had an immunity injection. And when you do those injections. I'm sorry, is that directly into the muscle? Or is that like something that goes into one of the preexisting iv drips? It's in the muscle. Okay. Now, we do have some that can be either added, that are also added into the infusion or as an injection. It just depends. We just have a certain, like, all of our protocols were built and designed by a pharmacist, and we have to make sure that we are compliant so we know how many ingredients we can add to the infusion versus what has to be given as an injection or is what we call an IV push. One of our more popular injections is what we call our mic, b twelve. Now, fun fact about that one is it does have b twelve, but not the methylated form. So I have already been asking. I have to ask people if they have any knowledge if they have this genetic mutation, because if they do, obviously I will not recommend that injection. But we do have the methylate, the methylcobalamin in b twelve by itself that we can give people. That's a lot of treatments and options that you have for people. What does it look like? Just my curious business brain. What does it look like on the insurance side of things? So you have to insure the business itself, and then you have to have liability insurance for the medical procedures. Tell us about, do you use the. Same insurance agent for that? Is that different companies? How did you even go about finding out who can insure this type of business? Yes, and it's the same, but it's two different types of insurances, and we're all covered for it. There are different groups that a lot of different IV therapy businesses are in, and so that's kind of where I started hearing recommendations for insurance companies. Right. And so some of the ones that I kept seeing more oftenly pop up, I went to those companies, obviously requested quotes, made sure that they covered everything that I needed, and then picked the one that was the best fit for us. Okay, awesome. Yeah, that was similar to our story, like, trying to figure out how to insure our, like, I don't even know who to ask for this. So I went to Facebook, groups of people doing similar things. So rn innovative solutions is a separate llc from vital oasis. Could you speak to how you determine how much time or energy each business entity gets? Well, I will say that I have definitely fallen back or scaled back with innovative RN solutions since starting vidoasis, just because it's taken up a lot of my time, because in order to grow a business, especially when you have a team that you're trying to help succeed, it takes a lot of time. There are no days off. Even when I'm off, I'm still working, I'm still collaborating, I'm still communicating, I'm still networking, I'm still doing all the things. You're still sitting down with people for. Podcasts where that is just a business for me, myself, and I. I have a couple of projects that I'm working on now, but I'm definitely scaled back tremendously. Yeah. So I've been putting primarily the focus on bito Oasis because, again, like you mentioned, in order to run a business and be successful, you have to also be a leader. In order to be a leader, you have to have certain qualities. And I care about my team. It's not just about me. Another fun fact, I guess, which I guess this is the truth for most people that own a business. I haven't paid myself a cent this whole time. Every dime that I make goes right directly back into the business. Obviously, I make sure they get paid, but everything else is meant to cover supplies and marketing and advertising and helping find ways that I can help them grow, not just me. So, in the future, are you looking to expand to even more areas or kind of. What's your vision for vital oasis? Is it going to remain like a regional probably brand and any thoughts or dreams of doing a brick and mortar location, or you want 100% mobile all the time? Well, I don't know that we'll get to a point where we have our own standalone. Like I said, we rent the space in Lexington and Richmond because part of that is where we also have our full time jobs as well. No one has completely stepped away from their full time job. Now, of course, the beauty of being a nurse is full time means typically 312 hours shifts a week. So we still have other days of the week that we're able to devote, and we try to alternate schedules when possible to make sure that there's always some sort of coverage. I mean, that's definitely a possible long term goal. I don't think that we're there yet, but we have grown significantly in the last four to five months, I'd say. Yeah. And so I've been currently trying to find more Lexington nurses to join because, again, if I'm doing all of the, what we call as business owners, all the unpaid work hours that no one else is doing, but I'm also doing a lot of the infusions in Lexington. My goal is to have more nurses that are available to do more of those so I can do more of the business side of things. So your four children, what ages are they? They range from 14 to 22. My older three, they've finally gotten over that hump. Well, there were a couple of years that were questionable. I wasn't quite sure we were going to make it. And now my older two are trying to learn how to adult. And then my 17 year old, he'll be 18 in two weeks, and he's getting ready to graduate high school and then go to college. Has it been difficult? I'm sure it has been. But tell us about some of the challenges that you may have had in ways that you overcame them. As far as balancing working a job and building a business and growing humans into adults. Have you had any major moments that were like, particularly that stand out, that. You think, like, how in the world. Am I going to make it through this? All the time. All the time. Honestly, I think one big thing that's been helpful is I have a super supportive husband. Not everybody's that lucky, but he is a huge cheerleader. I do not manage the time well. The whole work life balance, I'm still figuring that out. I'll let you know one day when I do figure it out. That would be great. Yeah, just give me a call. And then, of course, it does help that the older kids are pretty self sufficient. The two older ones are 20 and 22, so they work full time jobs. I hate to say it, but they don't need mom quite as much as they used to. There's a part of me that's like, I'm looking forward to that because I. Also have a 14 year old, and. I'm like, if we could just skip the next couple of years. I mean, he's 15 to 17 is really not fun. Not fun. Yeah. My son, he's amazing. He is so amazing. But I'm concerned just by the stories that I hear and just from the memories that I have of being that age. I'm like, oh, brother. Oh, yeah. The time has come. Yeah. My kids have stressed me out quite a bit. The anxiety does not get better. It gets worse as they get older. Great, because you can't protect them quite as much. You can't control their decisions quite as much as they get older. And especially once they hit 18. It's a whole different side of anxiety that you didn't know existed. So do they understand your decision to start a business at this time? Are they supportive of you? They are. That's awesome. And if nothing else, I do not by any means claim to be perfect. I have made my fair share of mistakes. But if nothing else, my kids understand and they know, and they have since day one that I have a crazy work ethic. And so I hope that they have taken, I mean, I know that they've taken that and they know that I'm not somebody that sits around and is lazy and doesn't do anything. I work and I work hard and I don't just have a job where I'm just like, okay, I'm good. I continuously like to learn and I'm a lifelong learner. And once I figure out, okay, I'm good at something or I want to be good at something, I like to learn more. And I look at it as, how can I help people and how can I continue to help people? Because at the end of the day, that's what the goal is, being able to help people. Any other business ideas that are percolating in the back of your mind that. You'Re like, well, if I can do. This, I could probably do this other thing too. Not like to start another business. No, I don't think I have the bandwidth. I had some people that have asked like, oh, you should totally offer this. And I'm like, I can't even consider that. I just can't. We do have other potential services that we're going to add that some things we've been working on in the background. I've got another nurse practitioner colleague that is insanely smart and talented and has a lot of goals herself that isn't quite ready to kind of hit the ground running on her own personally. So we're looking and thinking of ideas of how we can possibly integrate. Yeah, I wish I could remember the quote, like, together or alone, we go fast, but together we go far. That was when my husband and I met. We each had separate businesses. And when we were deciding to merge our businesses together, that was the quote that he said to me. And I was like, man, that's so true. Yeah, I mean, I see. Like I said, with even just something like Mobile IV therapy, before we got our own individual medical director, we used one through another company. And so there were a lot of other businesses all over the country that are just individual nurses trying to work hard, trying to grow their business themselves. And I'm like, man, that is a lot of work. Yeah. Why make it harder on yourself? If you can have a team to bounce ideas off of each other, to support each other if I'm sick or I'm going to go on vacation, I know that I can count on these other people to cover in my absence, or how can I help these other nurses that maybe aren't quite ready? They don't want to start their own business because they don't want to do the business side of it, but it's kind of like having their own business but without having to do all that back end work. Because I'm doing it. Yeah. And so I don't know, I feel like that kind of business model brings a little bit more to the table. Okay. There was one other service that I want to get into just a little bit. We kind of glossed over it. Teeth whitening. Okay. I'm having a hard time in my mind, kind of making those two things match up with teeth whitening in injections or infusions. So help me figure out how they're related, if they even are, and kind of like what that looks like. What is a teeth whitening experience with? They're not, I guess, directly related, but they are still under the umbrella, I guess, of self care. Okay, I like it. I'll go under that umbrella with you. Okay. Well, because some people like getting IV therapy from an aesthetic perspective, it's something that you see in a lot of med spas. Right. But most of our clients, it helps them feel better, like more of a health and wellness, health prevention or health promotion or I'm sick and I don't feel, you know, when I think of it, it's more of, like, self care, but teeth whitening. Yeah. So there was a colleague of mine, we actually became friends over social media. She owns a medspa in Cincinnati, and so she was offering courses. And so that's how she and I connected. And now we constantly are bouncing ideas off of each other. So I took her course, and I'm like, that's another service that we can offer. And we can actually pair it with IV therapy when you think about it. So you can go to a dentist office and you can get the professional grade teeth whitening. It's going to cost you 500, $600. We use the same ingredients, same supplies for a literal fraction of that cost. Okay. And if it's somebody that likes IV therapy, we can totally do the teeth whitening and an iv infusion at the same time at the same visit. So two services, one visit. Okay, so cuts down on your time. I've never had my teeth whitened. I probably need to because I love all the things that are terrible for your teeth, like red wine and coffee and all of that. The only thing that comes to mind. When I think of teeth whitening is. Someone in a dentist chair with some sort of stuff on their teeth and a blue light. Is that what you do? Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So we use a hydrogen peroxide gel, and basically, so there's take home kits that you can order over the Internet or, like, the crest white strips, but those are, like, something that you have to do every single day. And then there are some take home trays that you can use that have hydrogen peroxide. They're just at a smaller percentage. Okay, so where we use the higher percentage, which is, again, comparable to what's used in the dentist office, then what it is, is we kind of put, like, a barrier along your gum line so the hydrogen peroxide does not get on your gums. And then we kind of paint the teeth with the hydrogen peroxide. You sit in front of this uv light, usually for an hour. We can do 90 minutes sessions as well, and it's usually either two or three rounds of the hydrogen peroxide. We always tell everybody that we can do a touch up in four to six weeks, and then they can get it done every six months after that if they want to. We do, obviously, before and after pictures. We've not had anyone so far that was not satisfied with their results. Some of the results are crazy good, but we always tell everybody, obviously, we're not dentists. We don't call ourselves dentists. Right. We did have dentist approval. Like, we actually did consult with a dentist before we started offering this service, who was like, yeah, this is totally safe. There's only a few people that really can't or shouldn't get this done. But we have an intake form where we kind of go over that anyway. Right. We don't just do it to anybody. You have to be able to fit the criteria. All right, well, I didn't think of a mobile solution for that, but I guess it makes sense. You just pack up your light and. We could do it mobile now. It is easier for them to come to us to do it. Oh, is that one of them that's in the. Huh. Okay, so it's Lexington and Richmond are the two office locations. Okay, that makes sense. Yep. Now we could do it mobile. It just requires a lot more packing of supplies. So just for ease of. For our sanity, it's probably easier to just have it done in the office for the most part. Yeah. And then we also offer. And again, like with the mobile, not everybody offers that, but I'd say 75% of our clients are still mobile. They love it. They like the convenience of having someone come to them the other day, I won't say who, but the other day I went to someone's a business owner who was at work, and they were able to sit in their place of business, get their infusion, and still talk to their customers and clients as they came in the door. But while they actually had a moment to sit, who they may not have normally had a moment to sit for an hour. Right. But they love that idea that they could still work, somebody can come to them. And then, of course, we have people who are sick and have migraines, or maybe they have the flu and they don't feel good and they don't want to go out of their house. And having that added benefit has been truly helpful for a lot of people. So you've mentioned just now, like, several of the types of situations that it's good for. So people who might not be feeling well, they're at home, they're sick, people who are in the office, they've got a little bit to be able to be stationary at least, but they still want to be working away. What are some of your other ideal clients or ideal situations that people should think about calling you or booking? So 70% of the population is chronically dehydrated. So if it's somebody that's not hydrated or they don't drink enough water, there's some people that drink a twelve pack of soda a day and they're like, I don't remember the last time I really drank a glass of water. They probably could really benefit from it. Obviously, we see a lot of athletes, then we've got, again, a lot of our clients just feel better getting that kind of hydration and then the vitamins and thinking about more of preventative. Right. Because one of our infusions is an immunity boost. So it kind of helps boost their immunity. People who travel a lot, traveling obviously takes a hit to your hydration. Hydration is vital when you're traveling, especially on airplanes. And then, of course, you're getting exposed to who knows what kind of germs. So being able to get an infusion before or after traveling is really beneficial. We also offer services to groups like bachelor bachelorette parties, especially if there are going to be a lot of drinking involved. As we get older, we don't recover quite the same day that we used to, so that can kind of help them feel better a little bit faster. We see a fair amount of clients who suffer from migraines, and so sometimes people end up in the ER getting what's called a migraine cocktail. Well, if they call us instead, we can give them close to what they would get in the ER, but save them the trip to the ER, and who knows what kind of medical bill they may get. And we're possibly cheaper than their copay, depending on their insurance. Right. We have a prenatal infusion, so if you've ever heard of hyperemesis gravidarum, it's like severe morning sickness. Oh, my gosh. That often will land people in the hospital just to get iv fluids. Well, in my mind, I think about the mom who has what if they have other small children at home? How many moms can afford to go spend a week in the hospital to get iv fluids, or even just a weekend? That causes a lot of unnecessary stress, especially if they don't have an adequate support system to help take care of their kids. So, I mean, if they're going to have to go and get iv fluids and they're stable enough to be able to do it in their home, then we can help. That's scary. I'm glad I'm not having any more babies because that word alone was terrifying. It is quite severe. Yeah. And there's a scary amount of people that have that. Wow. And it's the morning sickness that never goes away. And obviously, it's not just morning, but they can sometimes become not only severely dehydrated, but also malnourished because they can't hold anything down. Well, we have talked about all of it, I think. Do you have anything else that you want to make sure that people know about you or your business or any words of wisdom? Anything like that? I think just the words of wisdom is if you are trying to start a business and you are thinking, I have no idea what I'm doing, you are not alone. I've been doing this for a little over a year. Not a pro. Still don't know what I'm doing. I can laugh about it now and stress a little less because you know what I've learned, especially talking with Michelle and other, like, we're all just out here trying to make it the best that we can and be the best that we can be and do the best that we can with what we have, and we're learning as we go. That is so true. All of it. We're all just figuring it out. Okay, so last thing, Krystal, then tell. Us how people can follow you, how. They can find you, how to book with you, and let us know how to be a part of your journey. Our website is vitaoasisinfusionwellness. Net social media. It's vitaoasision wellness. People can dm me directly if they do dm the social media pages they're getting me, but they can contact us through the website and that's also where they can book. I do always tell everybody because our schedules are a little crazy sometimes. If they don't see anything that works for them, don't stress and go somewhere else. Just send us a message and we're really good about being flexible. I've got clients that their work schedule does not work well with mine and so they just text me and they'll

be like, hey, can you come by at like 08: 43:13

00 and I'll swing by on my way home from work at UK and I'll give them an infusion then. So if they don't see anything, just send us a message and we'll try to help you. Krystal, I'm glad that we met. I'm glad that I've got to be a part of your journey so far. I'm looking forward to all of the next things that happen for you and we'll talk at you guys all later. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thanks. Well, that's it. Friends. Before we go, just a little reminder that I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm the proud co owner of cultivate accounting where we help small businesses with accounting. And I hope besties like you go from idea to launch and beyond with personalized small business coaching. No matter what phase of the journey you're in, I'm here to cheer you on every step of the way. Connect with me on Facebook at Michelle Smock five 20 new episodes of the small business bestie podcast drop each week, so hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Do you want to be a bestie on the show? We'd love to hear from you. Just head over to smallbusinessbestiepod.com to submit your guest request. Until next time, keep dreaming, keep going. And remember, do it even when you're scared. Thanks for hanging out with us.