April 1, 2025 • 37 mins
What if a single decision could change the course of your business? In this episode of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing, host Beverly Cornell sits down with Gina Paulus, the CEO of Genuine Essiac, to discuss how she turned her passion for holistic health into a thriving business. From humble beginnings in personal training to building a viral wellness brand, Gina shares her journey of resilience, smart marketing, and customer care that sets her business apart. Tune in to hear how she overcame challenges, navigated major business shifts, and awakened her brand magic.
Three Key Topics Discussed:
- The Evolution of Genuine Essiac & The Power of Holistic Healing: Gina shares how her journey from personal training to selling Essiac tea began and how a simple herbal remedy with a rich history became the foundation of her business. She dives into the origins of Essiac tea, its medicinal benefits, and how staying true to the original formula sets her company apart.
- The Viral TikTok Moment That Changed Everything: A single TikTok post skyrocketed Gina’s business, proving the power of persistence and digital marketing. She discusses the impact of that moment, how she scaled her operations afterward, and the importance of showing up consistently—even when success seems distant.
- Lessons in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Setbacks & Scaling Smartly: Gina candidly shares the biggest mistakes she’s made and the lessons that helped her refine her business strategy. She emphasizes the importance of automation, customer connection, and trusting the process.
Follow Gina:
Genuine Essiac | Facebook
Genuine Essiac | Instagram
Genuine Essiac | TikTok
P.S. Take the first step (will only take you 3 minutes) to awaken your brand magic with our personalized Brand Clarity Quiz
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Beverly (00:00):
Did you know that over 70 percent of people are turning
to natural remedies to supporttheir health and wellness with
rising healthcare costs and agrowing interest in holistic
healing.
More people are exploring herbalsolutions like S E F T.
Welcome to another magicalepisode of the spark and ignite
your marketing podcast.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell.
(00:20):
And today we have a super funguest who's keeping an ancient
remedy alive while navigatingthe twists and turns of running
a small business.
Joining us today is Gina Paulus,the CEO of Genuine Essiac, a
company dedicated to making highquality Essiac tea available at
an affordable price, whileupholding a legacy of research
(00:41):
and healing.
Gina, welcome to the show.
Gina (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
I've really been looking forwardto this.
Beverly (00:47):
So I know that Essiac is only one element of your
entrepreneurial journey that youhave a bigger umbrella of
wellness.
So talk about like how thebusiness started and how it's
evolved over time.
Gina (01:00):
It truly is an organic growth that we really
experience.
So way back in 2004, I wasworking at a gym, a fitness gym,
and I noticed that we werecharging the clients 70 and 80
dollars a session and I was onlygetting paid 11.
And I did some quick math andrealized, I don't think this is
going to work for my long termincome, but I love the job and I
(01:22):
decided to just give it a try.
I was young.
I didn't have a lot to lose withit.
So I opened up a company calledHome Bodies and Home Fitness
Training and I started going toclient's homes.
I also figured, you know whatthe gym has a lot of 10, 20
trainers, but at someone'shouse, I can be the only
trainer.
So it's going to set me apart.
So that's how things gotstarted.
And then from there we, so whenI say we, my husband now, who
(01:47):
was my boyfriend at the time, hehad this product called essiac
tea, he mixed it.
He helped ship it.
He did not really do themarketing or anything like that,
but he came up to me one day, wewere at the kitchen table, just
hanging out and he said, Gina, Iknow that you've taught yourself
how to build a website and howto open a company.
What do you think about sellingthis herbal tea?
And this was 2005, so not toomuch further down the road.
(02:08):
And I had some free time.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
Let's do it through a websiteonline.
And really the rest is history.
Beverly (02:14):
So I love how it's holistic, but it's also
organically developed thebusiness.
Like it just naturally happenedfor you.
What did you always want to bean entrepreneur?
Or was this something that justbased on the situation of 11 an
hour and I need to take controlof my life in this way.
Gina (02:31):
Oh, it actually sounds even worse.
I was earning six 25 an hourwhen I worked at the front desk.
It's like you look at that andyou think this is barely going
to buy my groceries for theweek.
But yeah, so in terms of theentrepreneurship, I actually am
the first person in my entirefamily who became an
entrepreneur or even thoughtabout it really.
And I will tell you this much.
I was warned not to do it.
(02:53):
Both of my parents were quiteskeptical of it and didn't think
it would work.
I understand they had some fearin regards to it.
It was something new to them.
They wanted me to be secure andstable.
But I just had this feeling inme.
I didn't want to go somewhereand work nine to five.
I didn't want to be answering tosomebody else's bell all day
long.
It was more like, Hey, let's trythis.
It wasn't ever I'm going to takeout a 500, 000 loan and start
(03:16):
this business.
It really started where I keptmy job at the YMCA.
I did my 20 hours a week there.
And then I built on my own.
I'm more of like a baby stepstype person.
I like to take things slow.
So I don't feel overwhelmed oranxious.
Beverly (03:29):
Most entrepreneurs.
that I know, there's not a lotof baby steps.
I feel it thrusts you intosituations.
You don't have a lot of atreasure.
Like I got to figure this out orthis needs to get taken care of
or whatever.
There's a lot of thingshappening.
So talk a little bit about SCFT,what it is, why it's so unique
and the story behind thatparticular product in this
(03:51):
holistic wellness space.
Gina (03:53):
Yeah, so essiac tea is an amazing herbal tea.
It is so much more than just atea that you might drink for
pleasure.
I've got my cup here.
You think about tea and it'sokay, I'm going to sip my cup of
tea and that's going to be warmand it's going to taste good.
Essiac really isn't any of that.
I'm not saying it is bad, butit's really more of a medicinal
product and what it's going todo is it's going to help purify
(04:15):
your organs from the inside out.
It's going to help eliminatetoxins from your body to really
allow your body to do whatnature intended.
Our body is designed to heal.
If you cut your Arm by accident,your arm's going to heal.
It's going to scab and it'sgoing to get better.
Your body knows how to do it,but the things in our
environment get in the way andthe eight herbs in this tea help
(04:36):
your body to return to itspristine state, just as nature
intended.
Beverly (04:40):
What are the things,
Gina (04:40):
What are the eight?
This is where my husband couldrabble it up.
My husband, as I mentioned, ownsa business with me too, but let
me give it a shot.
It's burdock root, blessedthistle, kelp, red clover.
Sheep sorrel, slippery elmbark,Turkish rhubarb root.
And watercress.
I got all eight.
Beverly (05:00):
My mom was a holistic nurse.
So she had the Eastern medicineand the Western medicine.
Like she'd always, I always likejoke with her.
She was like a witch doctor.
If I like hurt myself or hadsome ailment, she was mixing up
some, either essential oil orhomeopathic or something for me
to have.
And then if that didn't work, wewould maybe go to more
traditional medicine.
(05:21):
Because there's a place I thinkfor that, but she was always
like, let's try this firstbecause what the earth gave us
is like the best stuff.
So I feel like that is very muchthe case.
Let's try this thing.
To this day, if I burn myfinger, it's lavender oil, right
away.
And it's it stops it almostimmediately.
It's amazing.
I believe in the power of someof that.
That's great.
I've heard, I heard of a coupleof those like red clover and
(05:41):
slippery elm and obviouslywatercress.
I've heard some of them I havenot heard of.
How did you come up with thisidea?
Particular combination and whyis it so powerful?
Gina (05:51):
Yeah.
So I wish I could take creditfor it, but I can't.
So this was developed by a nursethat was working in Canada.
Or I shouldn't say, let mebacktrack.
So the nurse from Canada is theone that first started bringing
it into widespread use, but itactually first became used by
the Ojibwa Indians or the Ojibwatribe from Canada.
And this is back in the late1800s that it was reported that
(06:12):
they were using it.
And this woman, Rene Caisse, whowas the Canadian nurse, was
working at a hospital and shehad a patient that had breast
cancer and that patient hadactually healed.
Now, she told Rene Caisse that,hey, I use this stuff called
SCRT and was able to connectRene Caisse to the Ojibwa
Medicine Man.
And at that point, because ReneCaisse was in the medical field,
(06:35):
she was able to bring that outto more people.
And that's really how itstarted.
So the Ojibwa are the ones thatdeveloped the formula.
And they also were known to useall the ingredients in anything.
Like they didn't throw anythingaway.
So one of the unique thingsabout our formula and about our
tea is that it is made withpowdered herbs.
That way you can actually stir.
(06:56):
the tea and you drink the herbsbecause they're pulverized so
fine, almost like orange juicepulp, where you can just go
ahead and drink it.
So that way you're getting thefiber and you're getting
additional phytochemicals thatyou might not be able to get if
you strained out the herbs.
So if you look on themarketplace, there are other
people selling Essiac.
However, a lot of them havecompromised over the years.
(07:16):
They've added things to make ittaste better.
They've maybe taken out a bitterherb so that it's not as bitter.
They do different things likethat to make it more palatable
for the average person.
But unfortunately with that,they're throwing some of the
results down the tube as well.
Beverly (07:28):
So if you had to describe the flavor, how would
it, what does it taste like?
Gina (07:32):
I will admit when I first started drinking it, I wasn't
the healthiest person.
I was young.
I did think it was prettybitter.
What I chose to do is add someorange juice to it, which is
perfectly allowed.
But to give you like an example,I would say like a bitter type
of green tea, or maybe, if youjust threw grass clippings and
boiled it.
Yeah, and it's definitely likesome people love it and I truly
(07:56):
love it now.
I actually crave it if I've beenon vacation and I haven't used
it.
Interesting.
But it's like a lot of thingsthat can be an acquired taste.
Beverly (08:03):
Fair, totally fair.
There's a lot of herbalremedies.
And you talk a little bit aboutcompromising the actual health
benefits.
Is there something that youdon't like about the industry
and how are you different?
Gina (08:15):
Oh I could go on and on.
I will say this number one Ihave an issue with companies who
will take people's money andthey will not stand behind what
they're saying the product willdo.
Obviously, there's no guaranteesin life.
However, we can at leastfinancially guarantee that
nobody will pay for our productif it doesn't help them.
One of the reasons this isimportant to us is my husband
(08:36):
had a twin brother whounfortunately had ALS and his
brother had bought so manythings, we spent so much money,
went into debt, just trying tohelp them out and none of it
worked.
And.
Brent is his name.
He decided to ask us, he said,look, if you guys want to sell
this, I just want you toguarantee that it will improve
their health or they get theirmoney back and we're like, you
(08:58):
know what?
That's a great idea.
So that's what we started to do.
And this is over 20 years agonow.
And.
We maybe do, but so we probablysend out right now.
It's probably eight to 900 boxesof tea.
Now, when I say a box of tea,that's between two months and a
year of supply.
So we're selling a lot of thisstuff, right?
And maybe two refunds are askeda week, maybe one.
(09:18):
It's really not very much.
So it's important to me that westand behind our product.
And it's also important to methat we don't give customers
faults.
Suggestions.
For example, if you go to buy,say fish oil and you buy the
supplement, It might say takeone capsule.
If you go into the research,it's probably going to say you
need four to six capsules tohave that effect that you're
(09:39):
looking for.
But the supplement companydoesn't want you to think, Oh, I
have to take six of these.
That's like too much.
I can't do that.
Or it's too expensive orwhatever else.
So they water it down and werefuse to water it down, which
is why we make sure that theyknow the reality of it is if you
want to improve your health, youhave to drink this three times a
day.
It's only three ounces.
It's not that much, but if youdon't drink your three ounces,
(10:01):
three times a day, you're notgoing to expect a change.
And a lot of companies tell you,you only have to do it once or
twice a day.
Again, for the convenience.
But to us, we want our customersto get well, we don't really
care about their convenience.
It's not like it's thatinconvenient, but like it's a
commitment obviously.
Beverly (10:16):
So is it three times a day because it's like after a
meal or with them with meal
Gina (10:19):
it's empty stomach.
Okay.
First of all, now it doesn'tmean like you can't eat.
What that means is you have towait two hours after your last
meal to have your tea.
So the fiber in the product islike a scrub brush for your
intestine.
It's going through there.
And if you're trying to scruband there's stuff everywhere,
you can't really scrub becausethere's too much going on.
So you've got to wait until yourbody's in that state to receive
(10:41):
that cleanse.
Beverly (10:42):
I like it.
So every business owner has somechallenges and roadblocks,
right?
Tell me about some of thehardest moments of being a
business owner.
What did that look like for youand how did you navigate it and
turn it into a win for yourself?
Gina (10:54):
Yeah.
So there was one particular yearthat stands out to me and it was
2015.
There were lots of things goingon at the time.
As always, there's shifts indifferent regulations and
different whoever's, presidentat the time, different things
like that.
We have issues with advertisingrules changing with what is
Google doing?
Like it's just an on constant.
So for whatever reason, thatparticular year, everything just
(11:16):
converged.
My personal training was slowingdown.
The tea business was reallyslowing down.
Now with the tea business, wehad three people, including
myself, and I'm starting tothink do we have to let one of
them go?
My husband started looking forjobs at the gas station.
It was scary.
And I said, okay, I go, this hasbeen pretty easy relatively for
me for the first 15 years.
(11:36):
That does not mean I can just dowhat I've always done.
And it's always going to work.
Beverly (11:40):
Yeah.
Gina (11:40):
So I wasn't doing a lot with automation.
And I did listen to one of yourrecent episodes about the
automation.
That was really good.
But I didn't do a lot with it.
And of course, 2015, it wasn'tlike it was as big as it is now.
So I thought, all right, I havea list of customers.
I have lists.
People have ordered.
What I'm going to do is look upsix months ago, whoever ordered.
Now we tell our customers, tryto order a six month supply.
(12:01):
If you can, that way you don'trun out and have a lapse and all
of that stuff.
So I started by hand emailing.
Every customer who bought sixmonths ago, and I did that every
week.
I sat down on a Monday and didthat.
And I thought, all right, I knowthere's like systems for this.
I don't really have the money tobuy them.
And let me just see if this doesanything.
And it did.
It did a lot, actually.
(12:22):
And also, furthermore, it's likean email from a person.
It wasn't like a marketingemail.
Beverly (12:26):
Great.
Gina (12:27):
So it was a lot of work, but it re inspired me of what
else can I do different that Ihaven't already been doing?
And by the end of that year,everything had changed.
Like we decided not to go on atrip that year.
We just didn't want to spend toomuch money.
And by the end of the year, Ihad completely reset things and
we were back in the growth phaseagain.
Beverly (12:43):
You have since automated that particular
process.
We call that like a loss lead,if they haven't called back and
whatever.
Gina (12:48):
Oh my gosh, of course.
But it's like it has to startsomewhere, right?
It started with me just comingup with it.
Then I realized, oh, there'sactually like apps for this.
Beverly (12:56):
How did you know it worked?
When was the moment?
Was it just orders coming in?
Like one, One minute email is asale essentially.
Gina (13:04):
Literally it took three seconds.
Copy paste.
And yeah, you're right.
But the ROI helped for sure.
We started seeing more orderscome in, but even more than
that, I think what it was islike the personal dialogue I was
having with my customers.
They're writing back, telling metheir struggles, telling me
their successes.
And I think that it helped thembond with me and it helped them.
Realize like somebody actuallycares on the other end.
(13:24):
And I was a little worried aboutbothering them at the same time.
But then when I got thefeedback, I'm like, okay, for
every one person that feelsbothered by this, there's 99
people that appreciate it.
Beverly (13:33):
People want to do business with humans, not with a
brand or a logo.
They want to know that there's aconnection there for sure.
So that makes complete sensefrom a marketing perspective.
That connection with you ismagic.
That kind of leads me right toour season's big question, which
is how did you awaken your brandmagic?
Was there a moment when you knewyou were like in your lane?
(13:56):
Was there a moment or a processthat you went through that
brought about your exact magicas a brand?
Gina (14:03):
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure the magic really
was like in full mode until acouple of years ago, I would
say.
Maybe a little bit longer, likefive years ago.
What ended up happening is wehad a website that was a little
bit clunky.
We took a leap and actually,interestingly enough, we had to
do this because at the time,once again, regulations about
(14:24):
Google AdWords in particular.
So we were doing Google adsgoing well, all of a sudden they
said, you guys can't make aclaim, which we didn't really do
that, but they said, you can'thave a guarantee.
If you guarantee your productand give your customers money
back, you cannot advertise.
And I thought that makes nosense at all.
I'm literally trying to help mycustomer and you're saying I
can't do that.
And I decided I wanted to make aShopify site that was what I'd
(14:48):
call stripped down, meaning thatit didn't have anything, no
testimonials, which reallykilled me to not be able to put
testimonials on there.
No guarantee.
It was literally the smallestwebsite you could have, but what
was good about it was I couldadvertise with that.
So we created that site and thenwhat ended up happening was over
time, because the apps were alittle bit more modern and the
(15:08):
experience for the customer wasbetter.
They could check out in a placethat was familiar to them.
That site started growing andgrowing.
And one thing that really helpedus was we opened up an affiliate
program with the Shopify site.
I had an affiliate programbefore, but it just wasn't as
robust.
And as painful as it was to havethe two sites and like the two
customer base, it was like alot, it was a lot of work.
(15:30):
Two sets of newsletter lists.
It was so much, but ultimatelyit led us to sunset the original
site and stick with the Shopifyone.
And at that point,Coincidentally too, we ended up
going viral on TikTok.
And at that point I was able toonboard virtual assistants,
office assistants, more staff.
And it really freed me up tofocus on what I do best, which
(15:52):
is content creation andmarketing.
Beverly (15:53):
So talk about your viral moment.
What was that like?
What happened?
Gina (15:56):
That was so cool.
Of all things, I was at mygrandmother's, she had dementia
and I was responsible to helpher out certain nights of the
week.
So I'm over there helping herout.
She's sleeping half the time,I'm on my phone doing some work
while she's asleep.
I looked down and there's order.
Like every three minutes,there's an order.
That was unusual.
What's going on?
Then I thought, did we gethacked?
(16:18):
That was where my mind went.
And so then I'm like, huh?
And then I go, geez, and I'mthinking and thinking, couldn't
figure it out.
And then after a few hours I go,oh my gosh, I posted on TikTok
yesterday.
We had started a TikTok.
This is 2021.
We started a TikTok.
We didn't really do that goodwith it.
It wasn't something that I wasreally super into, but I
thought, you know what?
(16:38):
Don't give up on it.
Maybe it just, You have to keeptrying.
So I remember putting a video.
Now, this video is three minuteslong and I knew on TikTok at the
time, they said 15 seconds isall you should do.
And I'm like I don't have a 15second video.
Something's better than nothing.
I'm just going to put this up.
It was a test on one of a womanwho had healed from a brain
tumor.
Great testimonial.
And I had tried to put an upwhile the upload failed when I
(16:59):
tried to do it the first time.
And then I thought to myself,Gina, what are you doing?
You have Facebook, you haveInstagram.
Like, why are you puttingyourself through this?
What's the point?
And I thought about that.
And then I said, you know what?
I'm just going to click reuploadone more time, reupload one more
time.
Put the phone down, go to sleep,forget about it.
At a certain point that nextday, I said, I'm gonna check
TikTok.
(17:19):
And it had over 200, 000 viewsin about 12 hours.
Which for us, was like, crazy.
I had never had more than athousand views anywhere.
Yeah.
And I was literally like mywhole body felt adrenaline, but
I also felt guilty because Ihadn't responded.
There were like a thousandcomments I hadn't answered.
And we really pride ourselves onanswering all the comments for
everything pretty quickly.
(17:41):
So I was like, Oh no.
And I'm just, no one else knewhow to do it.
I had to do it myself.
But that moment I felt like aweight lift off of me because I
felt like we are never againgoing to struggle.
We are going to have.
The right people in front of us.
And I just had that faith thatlike, that was it.
It wasn't going back from there.
Beverly (17:58):
Pretty powerful moment.
I think those viral momentshappen, they're very organic.
If you're consistent,persistent, you can be random.
There's just no magic formulafor that.
But I think what's so powerfulabout what you're saying to me,
what you're saying and what I'mhearing is that it confirmed for
you that you were in the rightplace.
This is what we're supposed tobe doing.
This is like the universetelling us it's going to be
(18:18):
fine, which is great.
Gina (18:20):
We watch Shark Tank together a lot.
And I thought, This personsaying that they sell a million
dollars of something.
And I'm like, how on earth canwe get there?
I couldn't understand what itwould take.
And I thought that's okay.
I don't need to be like that.
I can just do my thing, the slowboat to it.
It doesn't have to be that I'mas big, but like I did deep down
(18:40):
want to be, but I just didn'tknow how, but I kept showing up
and I kept trying things thatwere new to me.
And I think that's what helpedme the most.
Beverly (18:47):
Showing up consistent and persistent.
Yep.
That means just showing up,trying to do things.
A handwritten email, whateverworks.
You have to think like that asan entrepreneur, you have to
keep thinking about it.
One of our core values isdynamic because it's like in
marketing, you can never likerest on your laurels.
Like you can't just algorithmschange, tools change.
Some of the psychology is thesame, but it's just such an ever
(19:11):
changing space.
You cannot rest on it.
You have to keep thinking aboutTesting and trying.
There is like a constant processof it, which often results,
unfortunately, in manyentrepreneurs feeling very
overwhelmed with marketingbecause there is so much to it.
If you had to talk about yourbiggest marketing mistake or
business mistake.
What have you done and how didit help you grow?
Gina (19:31):
Let's go back to Google ads for a moment, by the way, we
do not use Google ads right now,not because of this, but there
was a point and this was veryearly in my business where I had
created some Google ads and.
I didn't know that there was away to cap the budget.
Oh, I know.
So it was really bad.
I will say.
So I'm like going on, Oh, we'regetting busier.
(19:53):
This is good.
So when I logged back onto it, Idon't know, three, four months
later, I had been on it, but Ihadn't dug into the financials
of it.
I had spent 80, 000 on ads.
And again, we were gettingorders.
Like it was, Working but when Ilooked at my ROI, it was not
necessarily an acceptablenumber.
So wasn't the end of the world.
(20:14):
We did gain customers from it.
That being said though, I didtell my husband, I didn't want
to, but I'm like.
Honey, I did this and he wascool about it.
He just goes, all right what arewe going to do?
What happened?
Hopefully it was worth it.
Kind of thing really taught me alesson of like, whenever I now
create advertising campaigns,the first thing I do is look at
when do I want this to end?
What's my top?
(20:35):
And I feel like the tools arebetter now.
They're a little bit moreobvious.
But yeah, that was shocking whenI saw that
Beverly (20:40):
we had a situation with a client where for months and
months, the average spend waslike, I don't know, 1000 or
something and one month, like intwo days, it spent 10, 000.
And we saw this, what alerted uswas we had an alert on our
Google Analytics set up that ifthere's like a spike in traffic
to like, let us know, email usor text us.
But alerted us that there was alot of traffic coming to the
(21:01):
website.
We're like, what is going on?
And we had not extended thebudget in any way, shape or form
in that one day period.
It was like a Google error andwe've had to fight it to get, we
got a significant portion back,but there's still a couple
thousand dollars that is stillin question.
But.
They're like you did get thetraffic.
No, but that's not what wewanted.
(21:22):
We wanted to spend 1, 000.
So you have to really be carefulwith the budgets.
There's no question.
Because even then, like inGoogle and Facebook and some of
those platforms don't have greatcustomer service.
So that is a challenge all ofitself is trying to get to the
right people and get yoursituation resolved.
But 80, 000, I thought 10, 000was a lot.
I can't imagine 80, 000.
(21:43):
I would have had a heart attack.
I think Gina, your husband'svery understanding.
Gina (21:49):
I know.
And I was tipped for tack.
Cause there were some stuff thatwent on in the past and I think,
we had both made mistakes alongthe way.
And at the time I didn't have abookkeeper, like that speaks to
have a bookkeeper.
Cause I feel like my bookkeeperwould have been like, what is
this?
What are you doing?
Which, is a whole other subject,but saying like check
conferences of checking you ashelpful.
Cause when you're theentrepreneur doing all the
(22:10):
roles, it's easy to getoverwhelmed.
It's hard to check yourself andremember which things to check.
Beverly (22:15):
Yeah, I think the bookkeeper was the first thing I
hired because I was so nervousabout the IRS coming after me.
That was what I was more nervousabout.
So I was like, I don't wantanything wrong.
Please fix this.
Make sure it's good.
Plus it's just a lot of detail,which for a creative soul is
soul sucking, essentially.
So I was like, please just makeit magical and make it happen
for me.
(22:36):
A lot of our listeners aresolopreneurs.
And it can be very lonely.
But I imagine there's a wholedifferent level of challenges
working with your partner inlife as well as partner in
business.
How have you guys navigatedthat?
Gina (22:49):
So interestingly enough, he has let me take Leadership
role in it.
He's not so much a behind thescenes guy.
So his job in the very beginningwas pretty much everything that
wasn't marketing or websitestuff or email.
He doesn't like typing either.
But he did, mixing the verbs.
He did the phone, he did,putting the product into boxes,
(23:10):
packaging, and shipping it outwith that kind of stuff.
Luckily, now we have people todo all of those things for us.
But he really did like more thephysical stuff and I would run
my thoughts by him, but hewouldn't try to take over, which
I feel like helped because Ithink for someone like me, I'm
more of a person who prefersworking by myself.
I now have a company of 37, soI'm not working by myself.
But I am still in charge andthat's the role I like.
(23:31):
And he has amazing ideas.
He's more of a type B er and I'mmore the type A er, so I think
we have to make sure we're bothin a good head space to listen
to each other.
Because my tendency is to saythat's not going to work because
this, and this, and his thoughtis more let's have all these
ideas, but I don't really knowhow to get any of them done.
And that can feel stressful as atype a, because you want to
like, have a plan for all theideas.
Beverly (23:52):
Yeah.
Gina (23:53):
We've learned how to communicate better in the sense
that we've learned, like when isnot a good time to ask each
other or talk to each otherabout certain things, just
because there's like too muchgoing on.
And I think I've done a betterjob more recently listening to
him and giving him thatvalidation of yeah, your idea is
great and not just like blowingpast it.
And I think he's done a littlebit of a better job of trusting
(24:14):
my decisions of if I'm saying weshouldn't be spending this much
on TikTok ads right now, likethere's a reason that I thought
that through.
I feel like it's evolved.
It takes time, but I feel likefor us, it's grown in a positive
way over time.
Beverly (24:27):
That's lovely.
I love that.
So I have a magic hat.
It's nice and sparkly.
You see the nice sparkles,purple and sparkly.
And inside of here are somequestions.
There's a lot of them.
There's 30 or 40 questions.
And it's like a lightning round,but it's modified to a magic hat
round.
So the first question I'm juststirring up a little bit here is
what's been your mostunexpected, but serendipitous
(24:50):
moment in business?
Gina (24:51):
Unexpected, but serendipitous.
I'll tell you this one.
So our manager right now, he,showed up at our doorstep in
2006 and he needed some moneyand it just so happened that we
needed some help.
So my husband gave him some cashand just was like, here, put
these bags of tea in a box.
And he has come to ourresidence, which is where we
(25:14):
work every day since then.
And It's it's almost his 20years anniversary and it just
started with someone who neededsome extra pocket change.
Oh, I love that.
Beverly (25:23):
That's beautiful.
You had a need and he had a needand it just worked out.
That's so great.
If you could wave a magic wandand solve one current challenge
for your business, what would itbe?
Gina (25:33):
Oh, one current challenge.
I'm gonna say all the littleoddball requests we've got great
systems in place for normalthings, but what I do is any
email that can't be answered bymy staff, any phone requests
that we can't just plug and playwith it I'd like to find a way
to decrease what we call theoddballs, meaning 5% of your
(25:56):
orders take 95% of your time.
Beverly (25:58):
That helps for sure.
What is the worst advice you'veever received?
Gina (26:03):
Okay.
You're gonna appreciate this asa marketing person.
This goes back to my husband.
He is a sucker for the reachout, like the random reach out.
Oh, I can do this for yourbusiness.
Oh, I can do that.
And he's constantly sending melike spam things that are
horrible.
Most of the time I'm pretty goodabout fending it off, but once
in a while I fall for it too.
And oh, this person promised ushe could get us.
I don't even remember what thepromise was, but he basically
(26:25):
said, you guys aren't postingenough.
You got to post more.
So I let him take control of mymarketing, including the
creation of my marketing.
And he started posting completegarbage twice a day.
It was very expensive.
It literally got like zero toone likes And it was like, we
were sucked into it.
There was a contract.
I ended up untangling myself andI actually managed to get my
money back.
But the whole thing took so muchtime.
(26:46):
He wanted all these assets wewere supposed to send him and he
didn't even end up using them.
I think he thought it was thiswill be easy.
I'll just put a little cup oftea on a picture and that will
be a lot.
We'll do.
And what he didn't count on wasthe fact that my stuff was
actually doing better than hiswas that being said, I broke off
with him.
That was that, however, he didinspire me to get a little bit
(27:06):
more serious about posting more.
And I did realize that to dothat, I needed to get an
assistant because I did not havethe time.
So I will say it was a blessingin disguise in the end.
Beverly (27:17):
Yeah I think that they're going to you to
something different.
All of my clients, sell aproduct or a service and
invariably Yelp salespeople arelike the most swarmy.
Persistent, horriblesalespeople.
And so many of them fall for it.
I'm like, stop, do not spendmoney on that.
But they are just reallypersistent people.
(27:38):
Don't do it though.
If you're listening listenersplease don't do it.
Unless you're like a restaurantor something.
What has been the hardest partabout being an entrepreneur?
Gina (27:45):
Oh, for sure.
The hardest part has beenmanaging business to home life
stuff.
Like when do I work?
When do I not work?
How much is enough work?
Definitely like settingboundaries around my schedule,
my personal way.
I like to work.
to it is I like to have acertain cutoff time at night
when I'm going to stop my work.
(28:05):
Even if I didn't finish what Iwanted to, it's that's it.
And then I don't work onweekends for the most part once
in a great while I need to, butbut there was a point in time
when I was working seven days aweek and I don't think that was
a sustainable place to be.
Beverly (28:18):
It's so hard.
It's so hard to find balance,especially working from home.
It's it just oozes into everycorner of your life.
What's a surprising way yourpersonal values show up in your
business?
Gina (28:29):
I will say that one of my core values is caring.
And it's funny because I'm notgoing to say I'm not a caring
person, but that wouldn't be thefirst word that would come to
mind with me, but when I askedseveral of my friends, they
said, the number one thing isthat you care.
And I was like, you know what?
I actually think you're rightabout that.
And I just didn't think of itthat way.
So it is interesting when youask that question.
Other people, what they think ofyou, like what they will say is
(28:51):
very enlightening.
And that might be a fun exercisefor people to try out.
But we truly do.
We call it, we pride ourselvesin old fashioned customer
service.
So we do not use AI foranything.
We do not do canned emails, thatkind of stuff.
What we do is we reach out toeach and every customer, whether
it's us or our staff personally,and we can't always do it
(29:11):
instantly, but we feel that'sthe way we want to treat people,
especially if they're here for ahealth concern.
Like you wouldn't go to a doctorand have them give you an AI
response.
That's not correct.
And hopefully that doesn'thappen anywhere.
Beverly (29:24):
It takes away the entire human side of that.
I think there's certain thingsthat can be automated that are
just task focused, but when youhave the human interaction, I
feel like that's it's anopportunity for dissatisfaction
to occur because it's not acookie cutter world.
Like you said, 5 percent ofthose people that's not going to
be the appropriate response forthem.
And that's not a feeling youwant them to have.
Last question.
What was the moment you realizedyour business was successful?
Gina (29:46):
For me, Honestly, and I know this isn't like a classic
response, but I just alwayswanted my business to simply pay
the bills.
That was all I really caredabout.
Now that being said, that isn'tthe easiest thing either.
But I was like, you know what,every year I want the end of my
bank account to have more moneyin it than I had at the
beginning.
And if it's, I'm, 5, 000, I wasable to save this year.
(30:07):
The next year, maybe it's 8,000.
That was great.
That was a win for me.
And so I would say I did feelsuccessful right away, but when
I felt like I had said, ah, thatsigh moment of ah, I've made it,
like things are good.
And they're, Here to stay wasthat viral point.
And ever since that moment ofTikTok, we've gone viral several
(30:28):
more times.
One of our videos did get over 6million views.
Beverly (30:32):
Wow.
Gina (30:32):
And at a certain point I started moving it away from I
need to earn money to I want tohelp the world as my main
thought.
Like I wasn't.
It's not that neither of thosethoughts were there.
They were both always there.
But I feel like the ratio switchto where making a difference
became my main driver more thananything else.
And especially as you get older,right?
Like you start thinking moreabout what is the impact you're
(30:54):
making on the world.
Beverly (30:56):
I think I saw you on podcast match or something.
I think that was the part of youthat I wanted to talk to you.
That was the part that wasintriguing to me was your care
and your vision in that, likeyou wanted to help people.
And those are the kinds ofpeople I want to know and
surround myself with.
And because I want to impact theworld too.
I want to help businesses whoare in the wellness, kindness,
(31:18):
joy space.
Magnify their impact.
So there's more wellness,kindness and joy because the
world always needs more of thatgood stuff.
So I love that so much for youbecause when you said it, I was
like, I think that's exactly whyI reached out to her initially
as a guest was because of thatvision that you had.
And I think that is soincredibly powerful.
People who want to just do goodin the world is we need more of
(31:41):
the do gooders, the feelgooders, the people who make a
positive impact in the world.
So I actually have a magic wand,I have a magic hat and a magic
wand, and I'm going to wave thewand.
It actually helps us timetravel.
And we're going to go back tothe 18 year old Gina, who just
graduated from high school, andwe're going to give her some
(32:02):
advice.
What advice will we give Gina?
Gina (32:04):
Yes, 18 year old Gina needs to hear that her dreams
are valid, her dreams matter,and they will manifest into a
life that is more beautiful thanshe could ever imagine.
Beverly (32:18):
What would Gina say about present day Gina.
Gina (32:22):
18 year old Gina would look up in awe at present day
Gina and ask how she can be morelike her and ask her if she
could be her mentor.
Beverly (32:31):
That's cool.
That's such a, like a coolmoment of you didn't even know
this was possible.
And now that it's possible, howdo I get to that possibility?
It's such a, an interestingmoment from a perspective of
growth, I think, as a human.
Going to wave the wand and we'regoing to go into the future,
like far into the future,decades and decades, and we're
going to go to a celebration ofyour life.
(32:53):
What are people going to sayyour impact and legacy was?
Gina (32:55):
So far into the future, they're going to say that Gina
showed up.
Gina was persistent in spite ofall odds.
And Gina didn't have an easylife, but she.
Made the most of eachrelationship, each opportunity
that she had, she put all ofherself into everything that she
did and she has no regretsbecause of that.
Beverly (33:16):
That's lovely.
Okay.
I'm going to take us back intopresent time.
And I would love for you to giveour listeners one piece of
advice for them to put intoaction today, this week, to
awaken their brand magic or tolean into their brand magic
more.
Gina (33:32):
What I suggest is to sketch out, whether it be a
drawing or a list of notes,sketch out what your ideal
customer is what they go throughin their day, what are their
pain points, what gives thempleasure and joy.
And I want you to put yourselfin their shoes.
And then I want you to thinkabout what do they need and want
(33:55):
to hear from you and how can youmake their life better with your
messaging.
Beverly (33:59):
It's all about the customer and how you serve them,
for sure.
Oh, before we wrap up, Gina,please share with our listeners
where they can learn more aboutyou and your businesses.
Gina (34:09):
Yes the best places to start would definitely be our
website.
So our first one that we are,focused the most on right now is
the GenuineEssiac.
com.
And that one We will spell itfor you guys.
It is G E N U I N E and then E SI A C, which by the way, Essiac
is Nurse Rene Caisse namespelled backwards, if anyone's
(34:32):
curious as to why I spelledthat.
Yeah so that website is perfect.
And then I do offer pregnancyand postpartum corrective
exercise personal training.
And I do that with myself aswell as my staff.
And you can visithomeexercisecoach.
com for that one.
And then lastly I do also offeradult gymnastics retreats and
camps.
(34:52):
I did adult gymnastics up untilalmost age 40, which is a fun
fact about me.
And as you can imagine, likethat's a little bit unusual.
But that being said, there'smore and more adults doing the
sport these days.
And I'm.
It's more of a volunteer rolethat I put in, but I want to
help grow that sport and theopportunities that you can get
with the Adult Gymnastics.
You can visit adult gymnastics.
(35:13):
com if that speaks to you atall.
Beverly (35:15):
Thank you so much, Gina.
This has been really fun.
So many services and things thatkind of all go together.
And I love it when anentrepreneur finds the way to
make a business about the thingsthat they love, whether it's
their passion, health, wellness,and those spaces.
And I hope our listeners foundthis episode to be as
enlightening and inspiring as Idid.
Stay tuned for more episodes ofthe Spark and Ignite Your
(35:37):
marketing podcast, but untilthen keep sparking and igniting.
Did you know that over 70 percent of people are turning
to natural remedies to supporttheir health and wellness with
rising healthcare costs and agrowing interest in holistic
healing.
More people are exploring herbalsolutions like S E F T.
Welcome to another magicalepisode of the spark and ignite
your marketing podcast.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell.
(00:20):
And today we have a super funguest who's keeping an ancient
remedy alive while navigatingthe twists and turns of running
a small business.
Joining us today is Gina Paulus,the CEO of Genuine Essiac, a
company dedicated to making highquality Essiac tea available at
an affordable price, whileupholding a legacy of research
(00:41):
and healing.
Gina, welcome to the show.
Gina (00:44):
Thanks so much for having me.
I've really been looking forwardto this.
Beverly (00:47):
So I know that Essiac is only one element of your
entrepreneurial journey that youhave a bigger umbrella of
wellness.
So talk about like how thebusiness started and how it's
evolved over time.
Gina (01:00):
It truly is an organic growth that we really
experience.
So way back in 2004, I wasworking at a gym, a fitness gym,
and I noticed that we werecharging the clients 70 and 80
dollars a session and I was onlygetting paid 11.
And I did some quick math andrealized, I don't think this is
going to work for my long termincome, but I love the job and I
(01:22):
decided to just give it a try.
I was young.
I didn't have a lot to lose withit.
So I opened up a company calledHome Bodies and Home Fitness
Training and I started going toclient's homes.
I also figured, you know whatthe gym has a lot of 10, 20
trainers, but at someone'shouse, I can be the only
trainer.
So it's going to set me apart.
So that's how things gotstarted.
And then from there we, so whenI say we, my husband now, who
(01:47):
was my boyfriend at the time, hehad this product called essiac
tea, he mixed it.
He helped ship it.
He did not really do themarketing or anything like that,
but he came up to me one day, wewere at the kitchen table, just
hanging out and he said, Gina, Iknow that you've taught yourself
how to build a website and howto open a company.
What do you think about sellingthis herbal tea?
And this was 2005, so not toomuch further down the road.
(02:08):
And I had some free time.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
Let's do it through a websiteonline.
And really the rest is history.
Beverly (02:14):
So I love how it's holistic, but it's also
organically developed thebusiness.
Like it just naturally happenedfor you.
What did you always want to bean entrepreneur?
Or was this something that justbased on the situation of 11 an
hour and I need to take controlof my life in this way.
Gina (02:31):
Oh, it actually sounds even worse.
I was earning six 25 an hourwhen I worked at the front desk.
It's like you look at that andyou think this is barely going
to buy my groceries for theweek.
But yeah, so in terms of theentrepreneurship, I actually am
the first person in my entirefamily who became an
entrepreneur or even thoughtabout it really.
And I will tell you this much.
I was warned not to do it.
(02:53):
Both of my parents were quiteskeptical of it and didn't think
it would work.
I understand they had some fearin regards to it.
It was something new to them.
They wanted me to be secure andstable.
But I just had this feeling inme.
I didn't want to go somewhereand work nine to five.
I didn't want to be answering tosomebody else's bell all day
long.
It was more like, Hey, let's trythis.
It wasn't ever I'm going to takeout a 500, 000 loan and start
(03:16):
this business.
It really started where I keptmy job at the YMCA.
I did my 20 hours a week there.
And then I built on my own.
I'm more of like a baby stepstype person.
I like to take things slow.
So I don't feel overwhelmed oranxious.
Beverly (03:29):
Most entrepreneurs.
that I know, there's not a lotof baby steps.
I feel it thrusts you intosituations.
You don't have a lot of atreasure.
Like I got to figure this out orthis needs to get taken care of
or whatever.
There's a lot of thingshappening.
So talk a little bit about SCFT,what it is, why it's so unique
and the story behind thatparticular product in this
(03:51):
holistic wellness space.
Gina (03:53):
Yeah, so essiac tea is an amazing herbal tea.
It is so much more than just atea that you might drink for
pleasure.
I've got my cup here.
You think about tea and it'sokay, I'm going to sip my cup of
tea and that's going to be warmand it's going to taste good.
Essiac really isn't any of that.
I'm not saying it is bad, butit's really more of a medicinal
product and what it's going todo is it's going to help purify
(04:15):
your organs from the inside out.
It's going to help eliminatetoxins from your body to really
allow your body to do whatnature intended.
Our body is designed to heal.
If you cut your Arm by accident,your arm's going to heal.
It's going to scab and it'sgoing to get better.
Your body knows how to do it,but the things in our
environment get in the way andthe eight herbs in this tea help
(04:36):
your body to return to itspristine state, just as nature
intended.
Beverly (04:40):
What are the things,
Gina (04:40):
What are the eight?
This is where my husband couldrabble it up.
My husband, as I mentioned, ownsa business with me too, but let
me give it a shot.
It's burdock root, blessedthistle, kelp, red clover.
Sheep sorrel, slippery elmbark,Turkish rhubarb root.
And watercress.
I got all eight.
Beverly (05:00):
My mom was a holistic nurse.
So she had the Eastern medicineand the Western medicine.
Like she'd always, I always likejoke with her.
She was like a witch doctor.
If I like hurt myself or hadsome ailment, she was mixing up
some, either essential oil orhomeopathic or something for me
to have.
And then if that didn't work, wewould maybe go to more
traditional medicine.
(05:21):
Because there's a place I thinkfor that, but she was always
like, let's try this firstbecause what the earth gave us
is like the best stuff.
So I feel like that is very muchthe case.
Let's try this thing.
To this day, if I burn myfinger, it's lavender oil, right
away.
And it's it stops it almostimmediately.
It's amazing.
I believe in the power of someof that.
That's great.
I've heard, I heard of a coupleof those like red clover and
(05:41):
slippery elm and obviouslywatercress.
I've heard some of them I havenot heard of.
How did you come up with thisidea?
Particular combination and whyis it so powerful?
Gina (05:51):
Yeah.
So I wish I could take creditfor it, but I can't.
So this was developed by a nursethat was working in Canada.
Or I shouldn't say, let mebacktrack.
So the nurse from Canada is theone that first started bringing
it into widespread use, but itactually first became used by
the Ojibwa Indians or the Ojibwatribe from Canada.
And this is back in the late1800s that it was reported that
(06:12):
they were using it.
And this woman, Rene Caisse, whowas the Canadian nurse, was
working at a hospital and shehad a patient that had breast
cancer and that patient hadactually healed.
Now, she told Rene Caisse that,hey, I use this stuff called
SCRT and was able to connectRene Caisse to the Ojibwa
Medicine Man.
And at that point, because ReneCaisse was in the medical field,
(06:35):
she was able to bring that outto more people.
And that's really how itstarted.
So the Ojibwa are the ones thatdeveloped the formula.
And they also were known to useall the ingredients in anything.
Like they didn't throw anythingaway.
So one of the unique thingsabout our formula and about our
tea is that it is made withpowdered herbs.
That way you can actually stir.
(06:56):
the tea and you drink the herbsbecause they're pulverized so
fine, almost like orange juicepulp, where you can just go
ahead and drink it.
So that way you're getting thefiber and you're getting
additional phytochemicals thatyou might not be able to get if
you strained out the herbs.
So if you look on themarketplace, there are other
people selling Essiac.
However, a lot of them havecompromised over the years.
(07:16):
They've added things to make ittaste better.
They've maybe taken out a bitterherb so that it's not as bitter.
They do different things likethat to make it more palatable
for the average person.
But unfortunately with that,they're throwing some of the
results down the tube as well.
Beverly (07:28):
So if you had to describe the flavor, how would
it, what does it taste like?
Gina (07:32):
I will admit when I first started drinking it, I wasn't
the healthiest person.
I was young.
I did think it was prettybitter.
What I chose to do is add someorange juice to it, which is
perfectly allowed.
But to give you like an example,I would say like a bitter type
of green tea, or maybe, if youjust threw grass clippings and
boiled it.
Yeah, and it's definitely likesome people love it and I truly
(07:56):
love it now.
I actually crave it if I've beenon vacation and I haven't used
it.
Interesting.
But it's like a lot of thingsthat can be an acquired taste.
Beverly (08:03):
Fair, totally fair.
There's a lot of herbalremedies.
And you talk a little bit aboutcompromising the actual health
benefits.
Is there something that youdon't like about the industry
and how are you different?
Gina (08:15):
Oh I could go on and on.
I will say this number one Ihave an issue with companies who
will take people's money andthey will not stand behind what
they're saying the product willdo.
Obviously, there's no guaranteesin life.
However, we can at leastfinancially guarantee that
nobody will pay for our productif it doesn't help them.
One of the reasons this isimportant to us is my husband
(08:36):
had a twin brother whounfortunately had ALS and his
brother had bought so manythings, we spent so much money,
went into debt, just trying tohelp them out and none of it
worked.
And.
Brent is his name.
He decided to ask us, he said,look, if you guys want to sell
this, I just want you toguarantee that it will improve
their health or they get theirmoney back and we're like, you
(08:58):
know what?
That's a great idea.
So that's what we started to do.
And this is over 20 years agonow.
And.
We maybe do, but so we probablysend out right now.
It's probably eight to 900 boxesof tea.
Now, when I say a box of tea,that's between two months and a
year of supply.
So we're selling a lot of thisstuff, right?
And maybe two refunds are askeda week, maybe one.
(09:18):
It's really not very much.
So it's important to me that westand behind our product.
And it's also important to methat we don't give customers
faults.
Suggestions.
For example, if you go to buy,say fish oil and you buy the
supplement, It might say takeone capsule.
If you go into the research,it's probably going to say you
need four to six capsules tohave that effect that you're
(09:39):
looking for.
But the supplement companydoesn't want you to think, Oh, I
have to take six of these.
That's like too much.
I can't do that.
Or it's too expensive orwhatever else.
So they water it down and werefuse to water it down, which
is why we make sure that theyknow the reality of it is if you
want to improve your health, youhave to drink this three times a
day.
It's only three ounces.
It's not that much, but if youdon't drink your three ounces,
(10:01):
three times a day, you're notgoing to expect a change.
And a lot of companies tell you,you only have to do it once or
twice a day.
Again, for the convenience.
But to us, we want our customersto get well, we don't really
care about their convenience.
It's not like it's thatinconvenient, but like it's a
commitment obviously.
Beverly (10:16):
So is it three times a day because it's like after a
meal or with them with meal
Gina (10:19):
it's empty stomach.
Okay.
First of all, now it doesn'tmean like you can't eat.
What that means is you have towait two hours after your last
meal to have your tea.
So the fiber in the product islike a scrub brush for your
intestine.
It's going through there.
And if you're trying to scruband there's stuff everywhere,
you can't really scrub becausethere's too much going on.
So you've got to wait until yourbody's in that state to receive
(10:41):
that cleanse.
Beverly (10:42):
I like it.
So every business owner has somechallenges and roadblocks,
right?
Tell me about some of thehardest moments of being a
business owner.
What did that look like for youand how did you navigate it and
turn it into a win for yourself?
Gina (10:54):
Yeah.
So there was one particular yearthat stands out to me and it was
2015.
There were lots of things goingon at the time.
As always, there's shifts indifferent regulations and
different whoever's, presidentat the time, different things
like that.
We have issues with advertisingrules changing with what is
Google doing?
Like it's just an on constant.
So for whatever reason, thatparticular year, everything just
(11:16):
converged.
My personal training was slowingdown.
The tea business was reallyslowing down.
Now with the tea business, wehad three people, including
myself, and I'm starting tothink do we have to let one of
them go?
My husband started looking forjobs at the gas station.
It was scary.
And I said, okay, I go, this hasbeen pretty easy relatively for
me for the first 15 years.
(11:36):
That does not mean I can just dowhat I've always done.
And it's always going to work.
Beverly (11:40):
Yeah.
Gina (11:40):
So I wasn't doing a lot with automation.
And I did listen to one of yourrecent episodes about the
automation.
That was really good.
But I didn't do a lot with it.
And of course, 2015, it wasn'tlike it was as big as it is now.
So I thought, all right, I havea list of customers.
I have lists.
People have ordered.
What I'm going to do is look upsix months ago, whoever ordered.
Now we tell our customers, tryto order a six month supply.
(12:01):
If you can, that way you don'trun out and have a lapse and all
of that stuff.
So I started by hand emailing.
Every customer who bought sixmonths ago, and I did that every
week.
I sat down on a Monday and didthat.
And I thought, all right, I knowthere's like systems for this.
I don't really have the money tobuy them.
And let me just see if this doesanything.
And it did.
It did a lot, actually.
(12:22):
And also, furthermore, it's likean email from a person.
It wasn't like a marketingemail.
Beverly (12:26):
Great.
Gina (12:27):
So it was a lot of work, but it re inspired me of what
else can I do different that Ihaven't already been doing?
And by the end of that year,everything had changed.
Like we decided not to go on atrip that year.
We just didn't want to spend toomuch money.
And by the end of the year, Ihad completely reset things and
we were back in the growth phaseagain.
Beverly (12:43):
You have since automated that particular
process.
We call that like a loss lead,if they haven't called back and
whatever.
Gina (12:48):
Oh my gosh, of course.
But it's like it has to startsomewhere, right?
It started with me just comingup with it.
Then I realized, oh, there'sactually like apps for this.
Beverly (12:56):
How did you know it worked?
When was the moment?
Was it just orders coming in?
Like one, One minute email is asale essentially.
Gina (13:04):
Literally it took three seconds.
Copy paste.
And yeah, you're right.
But the ROI helped for sure.
We started seeing more orderscome in, but even more than
that, I think what it was islike the personal dialogue I was
having with my customers.
They're writing back, telling metheir struggles, telling me
their successes.
And I think that it helped thembond with me and it helped them.
Realize like somebody actuallycares on the other end.
(13:24):
And I was a little worried aboutbothering them at the same time.
But then when I got thefeedback, I'm like, okay, for
every one person that feelsbothered by this, there's 99
people that appreciate it.
Beverly (13:33):
People want to do business with humans, not with a
brand or a logo.
They want to know that there's aconnection there for sure.
So that makes complete sensefrom a marketing perspective.
That connection with you ismagic.
That kind of leads me right toour season's big question, which
is how did you awaken your brandmagic?
Was there a moment when you knewyou were like in your lane?
(13:56):
Was there a moment or a processthat you went through that
brought about your exact magicas a brand?
Gina (14:03):
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure the magic really
was like in full mode until acouple of years ago, I would
say.
Maybe a little bit longer, likefive years ago.
What ended up happening is wehad a website that was a little
bit clunky.
We took a leap and actually,interestingly enough, we had to
do this because at the time,once again, regulations about
(14:24):
Google AdWords in particular.
So we were doing Google adsgoing well, all of a sudden they
said, you guys can't make aclaim, which we didn't really do
that, but they said, you can'thave a guarantee.
If you guarantee your productand give your customers money
back, you cannot advertise.
And I thought that makes nosense at all.
I'm literally trying to help mycustomer and you're saying I
can't do that.
And I decided I wanted to make aShopify site that was what I'd
(14:48):
call stripped down, meaning thatit didn't have anything, no
testimonials, which reallykilled me to not be able to put
testimonials on there.
No guarantee.
It was literally the smallestwebsite you could have, but what
was good about it was I couldadvertise with that.
So we created that site and thenwhat ended up happening was over
time, because the apps were alittle bit more modern and the
(15:08):
experience for the customer wasbetter.
They could check out in a placethat was familiar to them.
That site started growing andgrowing.
And one thing that really helpedus was we opened up an affiliate
program with the Shopify site.
I had an affiliate programbefore, but it just wasn't as
robust.
And as painful as it was to havethe two sites and like the two
customer base, it was like alot, it was a lot of work.
(15:30):
Two sets of newsletter lists.
It was so much, but ultimatelyit led us to sunset the original
site and stick with the Shopifyone.
And at that point,Coincidentally too, we ended up
going viral on TikTok.
And at that point I was able toonboard virtual assistants,
office assistants, more staff.
And it really freed me up tofocus on what I do best, which
(15:52):
is content creation andmarketing.
Beverly (15:53):
So talk about your viral moment.
What was that like?
What happened?
Gina (15:56):
That was so cool.
Of all things, I was at mygrandmother's, she had dementia
and I was responsible to helpher out certain nights of the
week.
So I'm over there helping herout.
She's sleeping half the time,I'm on my phone doing some work
while she's asleep.
I looked down and there's order.
Like every three minutes,there's an order.
That was unusual.
What's going on?
Then I thought, did we gethacked?
(16:18):
That was where my mind went.
And so then I'm like, huh?
And then I go, geez, and I'mthinking and thinking, couldn't
figure it out.
And then after a few hours I go,oh my gosh, I posted on TikTok
yesterday.
We had started a TikTok.
This is 2021.
We started a TikTok.
We didn't really do that goodwith it.
It wasn't something that I wasreally super into, but I
thought, you know what?
(16:38):
Don't give up on it.
Maybe it just, You have to keeptrying.
So I remember putting a video.
Now, this video is three minuteslong and I knew on TikTok at the
time, they said 15 seconds isall you should do.
And I'm like I don't have a 15second video.
Something's better than nothing.
I'm just going to put this up.
It was a test on one of a womanwho had healed from a brain
tumor.
Great testimonial.
And I had tried to put an upwhile the upload failed when I
(16:59):
tried to do it the first time.
And then I thought to myself,Gina, what are you doing?
You have Facebook, you haveInstagram.
Like, why are you puttingyourself through this?
What's the point?
And I thought about that.
And then I said, you know what?
I'm just going to click reuploadone more time, reupload one more
time.
Put the phone down, go to sleep,forget about it.
At a certain point that nextday, I said, I'm gonna check
TikTok.
(17:19):
And it had over 200, 000 viewsin about 12 hours.
Which for us, was like, crazy.
I had never had more than athousand views anywhere.
Yeah.
And I was literally like mywhole body felt adrenaline, but
I also felt guilty because Ihadn't responded.
There were like a thousandcomments I hadn't answered.
And we really pride ourselves onanswering all the comments for
everything pretty quickly.
(17:41):
So I was like, Oh no.
And I'm just, no one else knewhow to do it.
I had to do it myself.
But that moment I felt like aweight lift off of me because I
felt like we are never againgoing to struggle.
We are going to have.
The right people in front of us.
And I just had that faith thatlike, that was it.
It wasn't going back from there.
Beverly (17:58):
Pretty powerful moment.
I think those viral momentshappen, they're very organic.
If you're consistent,persistent, you can be random.
There's just no magic formulafor that.
But I think what's so powerfulabout what you're saying to me,
what you're saying and what I'mhearing is that it confirmed for
you that you were in the rightplace.
This is what we're supposed tobe doing.
This is like the universetelling us it's going to be
(18:18):
fine, which is great.
Gina (18:20):
We watch Shark Tank together a lot.
And I thought, This personsaying that they sell a million
dollars of something.
And I'm like, how on earth canwe get there?
I couldn't understand what itwould take.
And I thought that's okay.
I don't need to be like that.
I can just do my thing, the slowboat to it.
It doesn't have to be that I'mas big, but like I did deep down
(18:40):
want to be, but I just didn'tknow how, but I kept showing up
and I kept trying things thatwere new to me.
And I think that's what helpedme the most.
Beverly (18:47):
Showing up consistent and persistent.
Yep.
That means just showing up,trying to do things.
A handwritten email, whateverworks.
You have to think like that asan entrepreneur, you have to
keep thinking about it.
One of our core values isdynamic because it's like in
marketing, you can never likerest on your laurels.
Like you can't just algorithmschange, tools change.
Some of the psychology is thesame, but it's just such an ever
(19:11):
changing space.
You cannot rest on it.
You have to keep thinking aboutTesting and trying.
There is like a constant processof it, which often results,
unfortunately, in manyentrepreneurs feeling very
overwhelmed with marketingbecause there is so much to it.
If you had to talk about yourbiggest marketing mistake or
business mistake.
What have you done and how didit help you grow?
Gina (19:31):
Let's go back to Google ads for a moment, by the way, we
do not use Google ads right now,not because of this, but there
was a point and this was veryearly in my business where I had
created some Google ads and.
I didn't know that there was away to cap the budget.
Oh, I know.
So it was really bad.
I will say.
So I'm like going on, Oh, we'regetting busier.
(19:53):
This is good.
So when I logged back onto it, Idon't know, three, four months
later, I had been on it, but Ihadn't dug into the financials
of it.
I had spent 80, 000 on ads.
And again, we were gettingorders.
Like it was, Working but when Ilooked at my ROI, it was not
necessarily an acceptablenumber.
So wasn't the end of the world.
(20:14):
We did gain customers from it.
That being said though, I didtell my husband, I didn't want
to, but I'm like.
Honey, I did this and he wascool about it.
He just goes, all right what arewe going to do?
What happened?
Hopefully it was worth it.
Kind of thing really taught me alesson of like, whenever I now
create advertising campaigns,the first thing I do is look at
when do I want this to end?
What's my top?
(20:35):
And I feel like the tools arebetter now.
They're a little bit moreobvious.
But yeah, that was shocking whenI saw that
Beverly (20:40):
we had a situation with a client where for months and
months, the average spend waslike, I don't know, 1000 or
something and one month, like intwo days, it spent 10, 000.
And we saw this, what alerted uswas we had an alert on our
Google Analytics set up that ifthere's like a spike in traffic
to like, let us know, email usor text us.
But alerted us that there was alot of traffic coming to the
(21:01):
website.
We're like, what is going on?
And we had not extended thebudget in any way, shape or form
in that one day period.
It was like a Google error andwe've had to fight it to get, we
got a significant portion back,but there's still a couple
thousand dollars that is stillin question.
But.
They're like you did get thetraffic.
No, but that's not what wewanted.
(21:22):
We wanted to spend 1, 000.
So you have to really be carefulwith the budgets.
There's no question.
Because even then, like inGoogle and Facebook and some of
those platforms don't have greatcustomer service.
So that is a challenge all ofitself is trying to get to the
right people and get yoursituation resolved.
But 80, 000, I thought 10, 000was a lot.
I can't imagine 80, 000.
(21:43):
I would have had a heart attack.
I think Gina, your husband'svery understanding.
Gina (21:49):
I know.
And I was tipped for tack.
Cause there were some stuff thatwent on in the past and I think,
we had both made mistakes alongthe way.
And at the time I didn't have abookkeeper, like that speaks to
have a bookkeeper.
Cause I feel like my bookkeeperwould have been like, what is
this?
What are you doing?
Which, is a whole other subject,but saying like check
conferences of checking you ashelpful.
Cause when you're theentrepreneur doing all the
(22:10):
roles, it's easy to getoverwhelmed.
It's hard to check yourself andremember which things to check.
Beverly (22:15):
Yeah, I think the bookkeeper was the first thing I
hired because I was so nervousabout the IRS coming after me.
That was what I was more nervousabout.
So I was like, I don't wantanything wrong.
Please fix this.
Make sure it's good.
Plus it's just a lot of detail,which for a creative soul is
soul sucking, essentially.
So I was like, please just makeit magical and make it happen
for me.
(22:36):
A lot of our listeners aresolopreneurs.
And it can be very lonely.
But I imagine there's a wholedifferent level of challenges
working with your partner inlife as well as partner in
business.
How have you guys navigatedthat?
Gina (22:49):
So interestingly enough, he has let me take Leadership
role in it.
He's not so much a behind thescenes guy.
So his job in the very beginningwas pretty much everything that
wasn't marketing or websitestuff or email.
He doesn't like typing either.
But he did, mixing the verbs.
He did the phone, he did,putting the product into boxes,
(23:10):
packaging, and shipping it outwith that kind of stuff.
Luckily, now we have people todo all of those things for us.
But he really did like more thephysical stuff and I would run
my thoughts by him, but hewouldn't try to take over, which
I feel like helped because Ithink for someone like me, I'm
more of a person who prefersworking by myself.
I now have a company of 37, soI'm not working by myself.
But I am still in charge andthat's the role I like.
(23:31):
And he has amazing ideas.
He's more of a type B er and I'mmore the type A er, so I think
we have to make sure we're bothin a good head space to listen
to each other.
Because my tendency is to saythat's not going to work because
this, and this, and his thoughtis more let's have all these
ideas, but I don't really knowhow to get any of them done.
And that can feel stressful as atype a, because you want to
like, have a plan for all theideas.
Beverly (23:52):
Yeah.
Gina (23:53):
We've learned how to communicate better in the sense
that we've learned, like when isnot a good time to ask each
other or talk to each otherabout certain things, just
because there's like too muchgoing on.
And I think I've done a betterjob more recently listening to
him and giving him thatvalidation of yeah, your idea is
great and not just like blowingpast it.
And I think he's done a littlebit of a better job of trusting
(24:14):
my decisions of if I'm saying weshouldn't be spending this much
on TikTok ads right now, likethere's a reason that I thought
that through.
I feel like it's evolved.
It takes time, but I feel likefor us, it's grown in a positive
way over time.
Beverly (24:27):
That's lovely.
I love that.
So I have a magic hat.
It's nice and sparkly.
You see the nice sparkles,purple and sparkly.
And inside of here are somequestions.
There's a lot of them.
There's 30 or 40 questions.
And it's like a lightning round,but it's modified to a magic hat
round.
So the first question I'm juststirring up a little bit here is
what's been your mostunexpected, but serendipitous
(24:50):
moment in business?
Gina (24:51):
Unexpected, but serendipitous.
I'll tell you this one.
So our manager right now, he,showed up at our doorstep in
2006 and he needed some moneyand it just so happened that we
needed some help.
So my husband gave him some cashand just was like, here, put
these bags of tea in a box.
And he has come to ourresidence, which is where we
(25:14):
work every day since then.
And It's it's almost his 20years anniversary and it just
started with someone who neededsome extra pocket change.
Oh, I love that.
Beverly (25:23):
That's beautiful.
You had a need and he had a needand it just worked out.
That's so great.
If you could wave a magic wandand solve one current challenge
for your business, what would itbe?
Gina (25:33):
Oh, one current challenge.
I'm gonna say all the littleoddball requests we've got great
systems in place for normalthings, but what I do is any
email that can't be answered bymy staff, any phone requests
that we can't just plug and playwith it I'd like to find a way
to decrease what we call theoddballs, meaning 5% of your
(25:56):
orders take 95% of your time.
Beverly (25:58):
That helps for sure.
What is the worst advice you'veever received?
Gina (26:03):
Okay.
You're gonna appreciate this asa marketing person.
This goes back to my husband.
He is a sucker for the reachout, like the random reach out.
Oh, I can do this for yourbusiness.
Oh, I can do that.
And he's constantly sending melike spam things that are
horrible.
Most of the time I'm pretty goodabout fending it off, but once
in a while I fall for it too.
And oh, this person promised ushe could get us.
I don't even remember what thepromise was, but he basically
(26:25):
said, you guys aren't postingenough.
You got to post more.
So I let him take control of mymarketing, including the
creation of my marketing.
And he started posting completegarbage twice a day.
It was very expensive.
It literally got like zero toone likes And it was like, we
were sucked into it.
There was a contract.
I ended up untangling myself andI actually managed to get my
money back.
But the whole thing took so muchtime.
(26:46):
He wanted all these assets wewere supposed to send him and he
didn't even end up using them.
I think he thought it was thiswill be easy.
I'll just put a little cup oftea on a picture and that will
be a lot.
We'll do.
And what he didn't count on wasthe fact that my stuff was
actually doing better than hiswas that being said, I broke off
with him.
That was that, however, he didinspire me to get a little bit
(27:06):
more serious about posting more.
And I did realize that to dothat, I needed to get an
assistant because I did not havethe time.
So I will say it was a blessingin disguise in the end.
Beverly (27:17):
Yeah I think that they're going to you to
something different.
All of my clients, sell aproduct or a service and
invariably Yelp salespeople arelike the most swarmy.
Persistent, horriblesalespeople.
And so many of them fall for it.
I'm like, stop, do not spendmoney on that.
But they are just reallypersistent people.
(27:38):
Don't do it though.
If you're listening listenersplease don't do it.
Unless you're like a restaurantor something.
What has been the hardest partabout being an entrepreneur?
Gina (27:45):
Oh, for sure.
The hardest part has beenmanaging business to home life
stuff.
Like when do I work?
When do I not work?
How much is enough work?
Definitely like settingboundaries around my schedule,
my personal way.
I like to work.
to it is I like to have acertain cutoff time at night
when I'm going to stop my work.
(28:05):
Even if I didn't finish what Iwanted to, it's that's it.
And then I don't work onweekends for the most part once
in a great while I need to, butbut there was a point in time
when I was working seven days aweek and I don't think that was
a sustainable place to be.
Beverly (28:18):
It's so hard.
It's so hard to find balance,especially working from home.
It's it just oozes into everycorner of your life.
What's a surprising way yourpersonal values show up in your
business?
Gina (28:29):
I will say that one of my core values is caring.
And it's funny because I'm notgoing to say I'm not a caring
person, but that wouldn't be thefirst word that would come to
mind with me, but when I askedseveral of my friends, they
said, the number one thing isthat you care.
And I was like, you know what?
I actually think you're rightabout that.
And I just didn't think of itthat way.
So it is interesting when youask that question.
Other people, what they think ofyou, like what they will say is
(28:51):
very enlightening.
And that might be a fun exercisefor people to try out.
But we truly do.
We call it, we pride ourselvesin old fashioned customer
service.
So we do not use AI foranything.
We do not do canned emails, thatkind of stuff.
What we do is we reach out toeach and every customer, whether
it's us or our staff personally,and we can't always do it
(29:11):
instantly, but we feel that'sthe way we want to treat people,
especially if they're here for ahealth concern.
Like you wouldn't go to a doctorand have them give you an AI
response.
That's not correct.
And hopefully that doesn'thappen anywhere.
Beverly (29:24):
It takes away the entire human side of that.
I think there's certain thingsthat can be automated that are
just task focused, but when youhave the human interaction, I
feel like that's it's anopportunity for dissatisfaction
to occur because it's not acookie cutter world.
Like you said, 5 percent ofthose people that's not going to
be the appropriate response forthem.
And that's not a feeling youwant them to have.
Last question.
What was the moment you realizedyour business was successful?
Gina (29:46):
For me, Honestly, and I know this isn't like a classic
response, but I just alwayswanted my business to simply pay
the bills.
That was all I really caredabout.
Now that being said, that isn'tthe easiest thing either.
But I was like, you know what,every year I want the end of my
bank account to have more moneyin it than I had at the
beginning.
And if it's, I'm, 5, 000, I wasable to save this year.
(30:07):
The next year, maybe it's 8,000.
That was great.
That was a win for me.
And so I would say I did feelsuccessful right away, but when
I felt like I had said, ah, thatsigh moment of ah, I've made it,
like things are good.
And they're, Here to stay wasthat viral point.
And ever since that moment ofTikTok, we've gone viral several
(30:28):
more times.
One of our videos did get over 6million views.
Beverly (30:32):
Wow.
Gina (30:32):
And at a certain point I started moving it away from I
need to earn money to I want tohelp the world as my main
thought.
Like I wasn't.
It's not that neither of thosethoughts were there.
They were both always there.
But I feel like the ratio switchto where making a difference
became my main driver more thananything else.
And especially as you get older,right?
Like you start thinking moreabout what is the impact you're
(30:54):
making on the world.
Beverly (30:56):
I think I saw you on podcast match or something.
I think that was the part of youthat I wanted to talk to you.
That was the part that wasintriguing to me was your care
and your vision in that, likeyou wanted to help people.
And those are the kinds ofpeople I want to know and
surround myself with.
And because I want to impact theworld too.
I want to help businesses whoare in the wellness, kindness,
(31:18):
joy space.
Magnify their impact.
So there's more wellness,kindness and joy because the
world always needs more of thatgood stuff.
So I love that so much for youbecause when you said it, I was
like, I think that's exactly whyI reached out to her initially
as a guest was because of thatvision that you had.
And I think that is soincredibly powerful.
People who want to just do goodin the world is we need more of
(31:41):
the do gooders, the feelgooders, the people who make a
positive impact in the world.
So I actually have a magic wand,I have a magic hat and a magic
wand, and I'm going to wave thewand.
It actually helps us timetravel.
And we're going to go back tothe 18 year old Gina, who just
graduated from high school, andwe're going to give her some
(32:02):
advice.
What advice will we give Gina?
Gina (32:04):
Yes, 18 year old Gina needs to hear that her dreams
are valid, her dreams matter,and they will manifest into a
life that is more beautiful thanshe could ever imagine.
Beverly (32:18):
What would Gina say about present day Gina.
Gina (32:22):
18 year old Gina would look up in awe at present day
Gina and ask how she can be morelike her and ask her if she
could be her mentor.
Beverly (32:31):
That's cool.
That's such a, like a coolmoment of you didn't even know
this was possible.
And now that it's possible, howdo I get to that possibility?
It's such a, an interestingmoment from a perspective of
growth, I think, as a human.
Going to wave the wand and we'regoing to go into the future,
like far into the future,decades and decades, and we're
going to go to a celebration ofyour life.
(32:53):
What are people going to sayyour impact and legacy was?
Gina (32:55):
So far into the future, they're going to say that Gina
showed up.
Gina was persistent in spite ofall odds.
And Gina didn't have an easylife, but she.
Made the most of eachrelationship, each opportunity
that she had, she put all ofherself into everything that she
did and she has no regretsbecause of that.
Beverly (33:16):
That's lovely.
Okay.
I'm going to take us back intopresent time.
And I would love for you to giveour listeners one piece of
advice for them to put intoaction today, this week, to
awaken their brand magic or tolean into their brand magic
more.
Gina (33:32):
What I suggest is to sketch out, whether it be a
drawing or a list of notes,sketch out what your ideal
customer is what they go throughin their day, what are their
pain points, what gives thempleasure and joy.
And I want you to put yourselfin their shoes.
And then I want you to thinkabout what do they need and want
(33:55):
to hear from you and how can youmake their life better with your
messaging.
Beverly (33:59):
It's all about the customer and how you serve them,
for sure.
Oh, before we wrap up, Gina,please share with our listeners
where they can learn more aboutyou and your businesses.
Gina (34:09):
Yes the best places to start would definitely be our
website.
So our first one that we are,focused the most on right now is
the GenuineEssiac.
com.
And that one We will spell itfor you guys.
It is G E N U I N E and then E SI A C, which by the way, Essiac
is Nurse Rene Caisse namespelled backwards, if anyone's
(34:32):
curious as to why I spelledthat.
Yeah so that website is perfect.
And then I do offer pregnancyand postpartum corrective
exercise personal training.
And I do that with myself aswell as my staff.
And you can visithomeexercisecoach.
com for that one.
And then lastly I do also offeradult gymnastics retreats and
camps.
(34:52):
I did adult gymnastics up untilalmost age 40, which is a fun
fact about me.
And as you can imagine, likethat's a little bit unusual.
But that being said, there'smore and more adults doing the
sport these days.
And I'm.
It's more of a volunteer rolethat I put in, but I want to
help grow that sport and theopportunities that you can get
with the Adult Gymnastics.
You can visit adult gymnastics.
(35:13):
com if that speaks to you atall.
Beverly (35:15):
Thank you so much, Gina.
This has been really fun.
So many services and things thatkind of all go together.
And I love it when anentrepreneur finds the way to
make a business about the thingsthat they love, whether it's
their passion, health, wellness,and those spaces.
And I hope our listeners foundthis episode to be as
enlightening and inspiring as Idid.
Stay tuned for more episodes ofthe Spark and Ignite Your
(35:37):
marketing podcast, but untilthen keep sparking and igniting.
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