Small Business Bestie
Entrepreneurship is hard, and sometimes we could use a friend to walk a mile in our shoes. Small Business Bestie is here to provide that friendship, support, and inspiration that small business owners need from time to time.
Small Business Bestie
18: Overcoming Challenges in Virtual Health Coaching with Carolyn Krueskamp
Ever wondered how to transform your career amidst a global pandemic? Join us on the Small Business Bestie podcast this week as we sit down with Carolyn Krueskamp, a registered dietitian and personal trainer who did just that. Carolyn shares her compelling journey from working in a small hospital to launching a virtual private practice specializing in women's health, gut health, hormones, and metabolism. Discover the motivations that powered her career shift, the creative freedoms she now enjoys, and the vital role mentorship played in evolving her focus from fat loss to a holistic approach to health.
In our conversation, Carolyn reveals the often-overlooked aspects of gut health, even for those without obvious symptoms. Learn how she uses symptom questionnaires and stool tests to diagnose issues like gluten sensitivity, H. pylori infections, and parasites. Carolyn also shares the unique challenges she faced starting her virtual health business while living in an RV, moving across several states, and finally settling in Georgetown, Kentucky. Uncover the reality of balancing a mobile lifestyle with the demands of running a business and the eventual decision to put down roots in the Lexington area.
Carolyn dreams of building a supportive virtual health coaching team and faces the hurdles of navigating social media and marketing strategies. Hear about her experiences with outsourcing tasks to focus on her core passions and the benefits of in-person interactions through networking events and public speaking. This episode is filled with inspiration and encouragement to keep pushing forward, even when faced with challenges.
Visit Carolyn on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carolyn.kelk
Visit Carolyn's Website: https://www.nutritionbycarolynk.com/
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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, carolyn Krusekamp, is hanging out with me today and I'm very excited to introduce her to everyone. I know that we're going to have a lot of great conversation. I've got so many questions for her to find out more about what she does, but I'll let her introduce herself and give us the brief rundown before we start.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. Like Michelle said, my name is Carolyn Kruskamp, really happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So yeah, just a little bit about me. I'm a registered dietitian and personal trainer. I'm a wife and a dog mom to three dogs so definitely very busy outside of the whole business side of things, but I've been a business owner since August of 2020. I'm sure we will get into that a little bit. It's changed a lot over the last four years, but I absolutely love what I do and now I primarily focus on women's health. So all things gut health, hormones, metabolism, more so from like a holistic or functional lens.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited. You know, coming from the health and wellness field previously, before this new life that we have, I was always very fascinated with functional nutrition and all of those things, and so I'm really excited to get to pick your brain a little bit. But, like you said, so you started your business in August of 2020. So we're kind of a couple months into the pandemic. Did the pandemic play a part in you deciding to start your own business?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. So I became a dietitian in 2018, and I was working primarily in a clinical setting. So I was in a small critical access hospital about 23 beds. I was actually the only dietitian that was seeing patients in the hospital at that facility. But when COVID hit, we weren't really sure exactly what was going to happen to my position, and so luckily, I didn't end up losing my job, so I was very thankful for that. I continued to work there for another two years while I was building up my business, but that's really kind of what prompted me to be like I have to have a backup plan and, if I was being honest, I wasn't super passionate about the job that I was currently in and I wasn't really finding what I was looking for in the work field. Anyway, I had applied to some other jobs. Nothing was really working out, so I was like I'm just going to make my dream job, and so that's kind of how that all came about.
Speaker 1:That's really awesome. I would imagine that the like roles and responsibilities and freedoms, if you will, of like working within a hospital setting versus private practice must be drastically different for a dietitian.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Luckily, the place that I was at I did have a great boss, I loved her, and so things were fairly flexible. But there were definitely certain aspects where, like I couldn't be as creative as I wanted to or, like you know, you have to submit your time off a certain amount in advance and it just wasn't necessarily the life that I wanted to live and I also wanted really to be on like the prevention side of things. So once people are I mean seeing them in a hospital a lot of them have been dealing with a lot of chronic conditions, and it's not that it's too late for those types of people, but a lot of times they didn't want to be there, they weren't feeling well, so I didn't feel like I was making as much of an impact as what I really truly wanted to do.
Speaker 1:It seems to me that things like working with your nutritional habits and things like that is something that, like, a person really has to come to that decision on their own and with an actual will to make a change, versus like in a hospital setting. It's probably more like I got sick, I got admitted to the hospital and now here you are standing in my room talking to me about what I should and shouldn't do. So maybe not a lot of follow through on the part of the patient or client in that regard.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and they just weren't really in the mindset to be receiving that type of information. So a lot of times I'd walk into a room and the patient might have been like too nauseous to even like talk about Right. Let alone, you know, go into anything. So I'm like, ok, here's kind of like the bare minimum, like I'll see you later, but you know a lot of those people I would never see again.
Speaker 1:So so 2020, you decided let's make a change, let's figure out a different way forward. So when you decided to start your own practice, what did that look like?
Speaker 2:Was it all virtual? Was it in person? How did that kind of come to be? It was all virtual and I actually jumped into business mentorship pretty early. So I did hire a business coach who did help me. I was in a group program, kind of navigate the getting started piece and kind of what that would look like, and looking back on it I kind of learned like what not to do, and so I'm thankful for the experience. But I have found that I do resonate a lot more with, like female mentors and people in that regard. Just you know, women that have families and have that, I guess, different side or different outlook on life. So that was more like the business side. But it was a lot of learning, a lot of growing.
Speaker 2:I originally started working just with fat loss clients and it was mostly women, a lot of women. That is one of their goals. But I was finding along the way that even when they were following the program to a T, we were still experiencing weight loss resistance and I knew that they were the type of people that were following through. They weren't just telling me fluff and like you know, all of that type of thing, and so that kind of led me down more into like, okay, there has to be something deeper going on, like what is causing this?
Speaker 2:So that's when I got more into functional types of things and more of that aspect of it and like, for example, if there's an infection going on in the gut that you don't know about, that's driving up inflammation, that's creating an unsafe space for your body and your body is going to react and for many people, many different ways, but one of those ways could be that weight loss, resistance or weight gain, yeah. So that's what led me down this path, along with my own personal experiences about. It was nine months after I started my business, I actually made the personal decision to come off of birth control after being on it for seven years, wanted to rebalance my hormones, and that set me off on this entire like personal healing journey and really focusing on things from a functional lens. That way too.
Speaker 1:Wow, you mentioned like inflammation in the gut, I think specifically. So how are you able to recognize or I don't want to say diagnose, because it's real tricky when you can say that and can't say that but how are you able to recognize that that's a problem that they may be experiencing?
Speaker 2:Well, I always tell people. Your gut affects literally everything in your body, everything from you know, things like your mental health, to the obvious symptoms of, like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and these are things that like they're not just one-off time things Like you are chronically constipated, you always notice bloating at certain times in your cycles or when you're eating certain foods Like those are all signs to me that something is going off. And then, like I said, there's some other signs that are a little bit more subtle. So like thyroid dysfunction definitely linked to the gut, autoimmune dysfunction definitely linked to the gut, autoimmune conditions definitely linked to the gut.
Speaker 2:You don't necessarily have to have overt gut symptoms, like the painful gas and diarrhea and all those things, to still have a benefit from working on your gut. So I do have my clients fill out a symptom questionnaire that's kind of looking and assessing a lot of things, and then, if it's financially feasible for the bulk of my clients, I will run an actual stool test on them, Because you have two people, both experiencing constipation, have two completely different things going on in their gut microbiome. So what this test actually looks like is what is going on. Is it a sensitivity to gluten? Is it an H pylori infection. Is it a parasite, like, yeah, things do happen, even in the United States with like parasites and worms, right, and all these types of things. So to get more of that, I guess, like proven data if it's feasible for the person that I'm working with, I do love to run stool tests, just to get that data.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of talk about poo and I'm glad we're doing it, I'm used to it.
Speaker 2:A lot of people aren't, but nothing's off limits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it's so important, like, we don't talk about all of these taboo subjects, that if we just talked about it like it was normal, it would help so many people. You know, and I think we're slowly starting to peel back the layers of the onion of, like, what it's okay to say in public and what's not okay, you know. So I said it jokingly, but I really do mean that, like, I appreciate you talking about it and I'm glad to know that you know that there's another resource out there for us if we're experiencing these symptoms or having these issues with either weight loss, resistance or just the pain and discomfort. Okay, so let's migrate back a little bit towards the like business side. So you started the business. You were doing it virtually. You got some business coaching. What was the next like step in your journey? How did you? Oh, we didn't even talk about the fact that this all happened in a totally different location. Like you were not in central Kentucky when this was happening, so where were you?
Speaker 2:was happening. So where were you? I was born and raised in northern Wisconsin. So my now husband and I we just got married last July, so another big change. But I was based out of Wisconsin but I do see clients all over the United States, not just where I'm physically located?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you guys were in Wisconsin when you started the business in 2020. When did you leave and what impact did that have on your business?
Speaker 2:weekend. It was completely closed. Paper signed everything by October 13th. We moved in with my parents for six weeks and we left shortly after Thanksgiving, and then we were traveling in our camper trying to figure out where we wanted to move to, and ended up in Georgetown, kentucky, or the Lexington area, and I've been here since January of 23. So I thought that when we were living in the camper, I was like I'm going to have all this free time to do whatever I want. I can work on my business, I can do this and that, and that was not the case.
Speaker 2:We were driving a lot to different campsites and different locations. It is a huge undertaking, undertaking even just to do laundry, do the dishes. Everything takes five to ten times as long as it normally would. You have to go to the grocery store more often because your refrigerator is really tiny. So what I thought was going to be the super relaxing time to work a lot of my business ended up not being the case. However, it did end up being okay because it was over the holidays and a lot of my business ended up not being the case. However, it did end up being okay because it was over the holidays and a lot of times people are more focused on other things anyways, so it was fine, but it definitely was not what I had expected at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think that we need to have name tags, name badges. When you go to like a small business bestie meetup, I think we need name badges and we need to have one of the ribbons that you can add to the name badge that says like lived in an RV, because there's so many of us now who have like experienced that life or tried that life. You know, okay, so you guys were not in the RV all that long, so you didn't go to too many places and you just saw Georgetown and you were like this is it?
Speaker 2:We actually. Well, kentucky was one of our first states that we visited. We drove through Indiana. We saw some family in Indianapolis, then we went to Elizabethtown, we went to Louisville those two. We were like I don't think it's really our vibe. And we moved up this way and actually stayed at the horse park what's the name of that? Yeah, the Kentucky Horse Park. Yeah, we stayed there and we were like, okay, I think we can see ourselves in Lexington, but we still traveled through North Carolina, south Carolina, georgia. We actually sold our camper in Alabama, so we did see quite a few other places, but when it came down to it, it like even a few weeks in we were like I don't think this camper life is for us. So we did kind of like speed through everything and then we were like, okay, we found a buyer, let's sell it, go back to Wisconsin, get our stuff.
Speaker 1:we're moving to the Lexington area, so that is crazy and I I love it so much. Well, I'm glad that you guys felt the same way. The first time that I came through this area, we were in a travel trailer and it was before we moved here. It was a couple of years before we came through, just on vacation, and when we were here, we spent like a month here and I was like this is like everything that you could hope for in a place to be. I just really, really loved it. So I just think it's so interesting, when you like, meet other people who have had a similar experience, where it's like oh, I came through in an RV and decided to not to leave, so okay, so you landed here in January of this year, of this year, yeah, okay. So how has it been for you?
Speaker 2:and what does your husband do? He was actually going to switch and do personal training. However, he's kind of put that on pause for right now he does construction. He works for an operating union now in Ohio.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, oh, that's perfect. I do remember that, like you said, you're a personal trainer as well, so you work that into your sessions as well. Or is that like something totally separate that you can do either nutrition coaching or personal training? How does that all fit?
Speaker 2:together, yeah, with my one-to-one coaching program. It's a nutrition and fitness combination. I like to do them both together and then in a virtual setting. I have an app it's called Trainerize, so I can program specific to that client, whether they're doing home workouts or at the gym, how many days a week, what specific exercises with what equipment they have, with what time they have. It's very customized and personal to them. I also really love it because it has training videos, so if somebody is new to exercise, it shows them exactly how to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. Is it a part of your program? If someone's having question about, like, how to do a certain exercise or whatever, can they like send you video of what they're doing and you can say, yes, that's right, or hey, no, you probably shouldn't do that. You might break your back or.
Speaker 2:Yep, usually what I have them do is send me one to two videos per week. That way we're just focusing on a couple things. Maximum at a time can really fine tune that movement. It's a little workaround with doing it in a virtual setting. Of course I'd rather be there with the person in person, but that's how we make it work in a virtual setting. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So are all of your clients virtual, or do you ever take in-person clients? All of them are virtual. All of them are. Okay, that's interesting. I love that. What would be like if the next, like best step in your career happened? What would be like the next best thing that's going to happen for you be?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. I mean, it's always been my dream to have like a team, so building out and having other dietitians increasing, whoever I'm also hiring on, like the marketing side. Really, what I want to provide for them is an opportunity to grow in their career as well, like not just for my own benefit, because I think a lot of times, especially with dietitians, a lot of dietitians are underpaid, they're not super appreciated and they are really really qualified and very smart at what they do. So I want them to feel appreciated, I want them to love their career and so I'm hoping, you know in the future, as things continue to grow, that I'll be able to grow that team and help support other women fulfill basically their careers as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. So are there particular like goalposts that you have set of? Like what's the like the next step to be able to get me to being able to build a team out? Like are there challenges that you're facing? I guess is what I'm trying to ask, like getting to that point, to be honest, like I'm so intrigued by 100% virtual businesses businesses, because when we started our accounting business, we were like it's going to be all virtual, there's no reason to have an office, you know. And very quickly I was like well, it would be really nice to have an in-person with this person and an in-person with that person, and so we've kind of aborted the virtual idea. So I'm just super intrigued of, like what are the challenges, specifically with a service-based virtual business?
Speaker 2:I mean, I always tell people I'm a dietitian, I'm not a marketing expert, I'm not a finance expert. I learned a little bit about those things, but I would say that, mainly like the social media strategy that's always constantly changing and all of the things that Instagram pops out and follow this rule and that rule, it's just changing all the time. So that is a huge barrier because it's something that I think is interesting, but it's not like my passion. My passion is more on like the nutrition side of it versus the actual like okay, how do we get clients to actually see what we have to offer, type of thing.
Speaker 1:So are you running every aspect of it right now? You're doing all the social media and like website management and all of that.
Speaker 2:So I hired somebody a couple years ago to do my website and she did an amazing job. She did my brand colors, my logo, all of that stuff. So I feel that there is significant value in outsourcing, especially those things that probably would have taken me so much longer to do by myself. And then I also have an assistant who helps me with odds and ends about five hours a week. So she does help me a little bit with the social media strategy piece, like she'll help me a little bit with the social media strategy piece, like she'll help me with the hooks and the call to actions and all of that type of thing. But I still like to keep my voice in my social media. So I'm usually writing the caption and like what I want to say and then she's kind of tweaking it to make sure that we're getting good visibility.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Is that somebody local or somebody virtual? That is somebody virtual as well, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When I asked that question of like what's the challenge? Or like what's the roadblock, it's interesting to me how often the answer is social media and understanding, like what content to create and when to put it out and what to say. And you know all of those those things because it does change and it's different between you know Instagram and Facebook and different businesses perform differently on the two platforms, or you know nine platforms or however many there are. But, yeah, I think that social media strategy is like such a huge headache for most of us.
Speaker 2:That's why I like doing in-person things, you know, like podcasts or speaking at events. I'm trying to. That's one of my main focuses this year for 2024 is getting more of that in-person connection back again. Not that the online space isn't great it is but I do really enjoy, you know, being face to face with somebody and in person and doing those types of things too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I agree, I'm the same way. I love that social media and online is a tool that we can use, but I really appreciate like being able to shake somebody's hand and make eye contact. It helps me to remember a little bit better. Like before we started recording, I was telling you, you know, like I know we had a conversation over the phone. I know that happened and you told me all sorts of things, but I don't remember any of it. You know, and you know, being in person does help to like solidify that information and really reaffirm that connection that you've made, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just to fill everybody in, carolyn and I went to a lunch just before this that was hosted by the Women Leading Kentucky group and it was a lunch, a speaker and then a panel discussion. Conveniently, it was a panel discussion about women's health, so that was really nice, but we were having a conversation there about the different types of like networking opportunities in Georgetown versus Lexington and all of that. And so you had mentioned that you've been to a couple of the Chamber of Commerce in Georgetown events. Are there other events that you have been to that you really enjoyed, or organizations that you're curious about or that you?
Speaker 2:know of. I have been to one other one and I feel like I can't remember the name of it, though I know that Joanna Shero invited me to it, so that was really fun. Yeah, I'm definitely like very new to the area, so I'm just kind of like dabbling my feet in different things. I'm always open to suggestions, or I think it's the Small Business Center for Development or something yeah the Small Business Development Center, sbdc. I think so. Yeah, I think I had a meeting with somebody there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was really shocked. In like the past month I've noticed there are like four or five new networking groups that have kind of popped up in the Lexington area, or I just wasn't aware of them beforehand. But that's really exciting to me because it just gives such a variety of different types of events to attend and you know all different days and times that work for people you know, so I'll make sure to like start tagging you in a couple of those. Or you know all different days and times that work for people you know, so I'll make sure to like start tagging you in a couple of those. Or you know, asking you to join the groups as I see them. Are there events that you feel like would be more beneficial for you?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I feel like anything that's geared towards women, like the one that we went to today, was perfect and the topic was perfect. We went to today was perfect and the topic was perfect, so anything in relation to that I really I love connecting with like other entrepreneurs as well, so anybody kind of in that realm I feel like would be good, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, is there anything else that you would want everyone to know about you, or your business, or like what you're hoping to achieve, or anything?
Speaker 2:like that yeah, kind of what they were saying actually today at the lunch where, like, you know your body the best. So if you feel like something is off, if you feel like something isn't quite right, like, don't be afraid to speak up and if your provider maybe isn't listening to you, maybe trying to find an alternative route. I get a lot of women that they've tried a lot of you know the typical things, the typical recommendations, and they're just not working for them. So that's one thing that I would say and just kind of trust your gut and that you know your body the best.
Speaker 1:Trust your gut in all the ways. Yeah, yeah, well, that's awesome. Okay, well, before we go, tell everybody like how they can find you, how they can work with you, maybe even tell us, like who your ideal client is, because in the beginning you told us that you worked primarily with fat loss clients. So if that has changed and evolved, let us know, kind of, who you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I no longer actually work with weight loss clients, mainly because there's the lines get a little bit blurred whenever you're working towards optimal gut health or hormone health. Sometimes weight loss can be a part of that, but it's not something that I want us to focus on directly. It can maybe be like a side effect. So my ideal client is a woman, a lot of like high, achieving, entrepreneurial type women as well Anyone who wants to achieve like optimal health, who wants to focus on hormone health, gut health, optimizing their metabolism. I work with a lot of different conditions so like thyroid issues or autoimmunity.
Speaker 2:Some of actually one of my newer favorite types of clients is actually fertility clients. That's really cool to see that come to light as well. Trying to think of anything else, it's kind of like a whole wide array of things. So, yeah, and they're all connected. I mean, you know, if you have gut issues, you most likely have hormone issues or different things like that. So you guys can find more about me on my website. It's nutritionbycarolynkcom. My Instagram is at nutritionbycarolynk. I'm also on Facebook just by my first and last name as well as well.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me and telling us about you and your business and your journey to get here. I'm excited to see how far you go, I'm excited to see you build that team out and help other women live out their dreams, and I'm just super glad to know you. Absolutely Thanks for having me, absolutely All right. Well, we will talk with you guys later. Well, that's it, friends. Before we go, just a little reminder that I'm your host. Well, we will talk with you guys later. 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 help 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 michellesmop.520.
Speaker 1: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 smallbusinessbestiepodcom 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.