I'm trying to take my own advice and be ambitious. I always hit the ground running with all these great intentions and then I start to see what hurdles lie ahead and I get discouraged. I'm working really hard to get my own business going and if I'm being honest I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm totally at a loss sometimes. Just to catch anyone up, my business idea is sort of a consulting business for fitness and nutrition. I plan on writing out monthly calendars of healthy meals (low cal, low fat, high fiber, etc.) along with the complete shopping lists. Also I will be writing out personalized fitness programs to help my clients reach their fitness goals. It will all be online and I will meet personally with each of them to chat every week to check progress and answer questions or concerns. I'm really excited about the whole idea and I think there are people out there who would be interested in what I am offering. So far, I have about 4 months of meals but I'm still in the process of typing them out and then arranging them in a way that makes sense. I want to work up to having a year's worth of meals with no repeats. It's very time consuming and I find myself second guessing everything I'm doing. What do I do to keep my clients long-term? Especially if they are only interested in the nutrition aspect? How do I keep them from getting all my recipes and hard work and not sharing them and taking them as their own? I know there will be people who will just buy 3-4 months worth of recipes and then no longer want my service because they have TONS of work already done for them.
So this is where I'm sitting right now. I haven't even touched the fitness part of it because that's what I got my degree in and I figure it will come together much quicker than the nutrition. I have my questionnaires done for the fitness part, but that's about as far as I've gone and I'm feeling so overwhelmed that I don't know if I'll actually get there. Also, as I'm typing this, I'm wondering, is someone going to wander onto my blog and decide to do exactly the same thing? I guess that's a possibility, but there's always people out there looking for fitness and nutrition help, right? I'm probably babbling, it's what I do best, but I really don't know whether or not to go forward with this. What makes it worse is that Robert is very supportive and really excited for me but he doesn't realize how much time I've put in and so little I've actually accomplished. He's so busy going to class and studying that I don't really talk to him about it cause I don't want him to feel like he needs to help me and take on yet another project that will divide his attention from where it absolutely needs to be.
I don't really know what I'm trying to accomplish in writing all this out. Maybe it will help me organize some thoughts. I just don't know.....help! Even if you don't know me (or maybe don't even like me) I would really love some words of encouragement.
9 comments:
that sounds awesome!! Good for you! as far as them buying all your recipes.. I would just allow them to buy so many at a time and then make it worth you work. Also i was going to suggest, i don't know what your recipes are like, but for me the less ingredients the better especially on a diet/life style change, because you already have so much you are working on to remember a weird spice or something is just one more thing. did that make any sense? I would also say keep it at the 4 months you have and get started and get feed back from your clients as to whether they want a whole year's worth of recipes. I don't think I would know what to do w/ a year's worth. Anyway hopefully I had a few words of encouragement! you can so do this! It will be awesome, keep us posted!! Good luck!
Thanks, Jen. Rereading my post I feel like such a whiner. I'm usually not like that (I hope). Thank you for your suggestions. As far as remembering stuff for the recipes, they are pretty simple, but I'm also supplying the grocery list as part of the service. I love your suggestion to wait and get feedback. It's good to go a step at a time and I am so getting ahead of myself.
I agree with jen. A year with no repeats is a lofty goal, but maybe not necessary at first. I mean, don't you like to eat things repeatedly if they're easy and/or good?
Maybe they could subscribe to your program and buy 2 weeks worth at a time.
Have you looked into copyrighting? Unfortunately it is quite lenient for recipes because it's really hard to PROVE that a recipe originated with you. I'm guessing that you're getting your recipes from somewhere rather than creating recipes? You might want to copyright the program and complete menu since it would be hard to copyright individual recipes...? Just thinking out loud.
Erin,
Maybe menus they could choose from...for instance...maybe someone doesn't like fish, but would rather have chicken, so they have recipies they could choose from before they buy them. Does that make sense? (catagories of the main ingredient)
It sounds like a great plan, though, so keep at it if you are really want to, it will work out evenutally.
Thanks, everyone. I love some of the suggestions. I'll take them into consideration. Especially Celia's copyrighting the program and complete menus. I am creating my own recipes so I really would like to safeguard them a bit. You guys are great!
Have you ever entered Food Network's challenges? If you're creating your own recipes, you totally should. I mostly just adapt recipes to my liking rather than create my own completely, so I can't really enter.
I'm not a chef, so I didn't even realize that there were any original recipes left to make. :) You're awsome. I am, however, an entrepreneur, (don't know if i spelled it right though) anyway, I think that is a really neat service. I like the personalized fitness plan and shopping list.. especially if you can make it tight budget friendly as well. Good luck, don't stress too much!
I just really like you, and I don't think you're a whiner, and just so you know, I would never steal your recipes!
Erin, that is awesome! You will do so well with this. You always were a great cook with great recipes and you definitely know your stuff with fitness. I'm so excited for you. And I might steal your recipes :-) just kidding.
Post a Comment