“I’ve done B-School myself, nearly ten years ago, and everything I learnt is still relevant till today”.
— Alex Ruani, UCL Researcher and Chief Science Educator at the Health Sciences Academy.
As you try to launch or expand your business, you need all the help you can get. It’s great to have lofty goals and big ideas, but without proper execution, you can be right back where you started.
To help you get your business off the ground or grow your existing business with confidence, we are excited to announce that we have joined hands with Marie Forleo’s B-School as an affiliate partner!
Now, what better way for you to learn about Marie Forleo’s B-School than from a previous B-Schooler who is still reaping the benefits from her time there and has proven success as a business owner?
To help you understand how you too can benefit from B-School, we sat down for a chat with B-School alumni and Chief Science Educator at the Health Sciences Academy, Alex Ruani. She paints a picture that allows us to see how frustrating it could be for an aspiring professional who has great ideas but in dire need of help to get a business started. She explains how B-School helped bring her clarity to get her business off the ground the right way and subsequently grow it.
Buckle in and get ready to discover eye-opening insights and loads of Aha! moments.
Note: Did you miss our article where we first introduced B-School? We got you. Go here to read it now.
What made you join B-School?
I remember back in the day, I knew I wanted to make an impact. I knew I was hard-working, and I knew that I wanted people to take me seriously. I had (and still have) so many ideas and they were all so overwhelming for me, and I am somebody who likes to take actions that are well thought through, and I love to understand the pros and cons of things. So having the number of ideas I had then was overwhelming for me. I didn’t even know where to start or where to go. I knew I wanted to create something valuable for people and sustainable as a means of income for my family and, for me, something that could bring us stability. But I didn’t know what that was going to be.
How do you know for sure that you will make it or, or just disappear and be nothing and you have to start all over again? And I think for me, that fear of failing, of putting something out there that wouldn’t work, was paralysing—having too many ideas, having to test way too many ideas was just not sustainable.
This was like over a decade ago, and I was utterly confused. I also have a passion for nutrition science, and I was studying nutrition science and everything it entails. And I remember back then when people ask me, “So what do you do for a living?” I didn’t even know how to answer that question.
Then it happened!
I remember watching a free training by Marie Forleo, which is absolutely fantastic. It opened my mind, and right there, I signed up to B-School. I remember just putting my credit card details and saying, “Give me whatever bonus training you have coming. I want to start taking it.”
How did B-School simplify marketing for you?
So, the first B-School bonus training was on Starting The Right Business, and it gives you the steps on how to get clear when having too many ideas:
How do you even narrow them down?
How do you go about testing them without, you know, suffering so much in the process?
How do you go about going for something more sustainable?
How do you test the market?
How do you do your research? And much more.
I knew I wasn’t okay with failure, but I also knew I didn’t want to spend too much time getting my idea out there. And I have to say that this initial training on starting the right business, even before we started the main B-School modules, helped me so much. The first week of B-School taught me a lot. I felt like, “wow, I needed this.”
And also, week after week, it was like, “Oh my goodness, this is working”, and because the process is timed across several weeks, you go along with it, and you’re being pushed to take action.
Also, you go through B-School together with Marie herself, her coaches, and a group, so you don’t feel alone.
It was a wonderful experience, not just from the perspective of knowing what’s the right direction for you and testing it, but also understanding what’s the right way of testing things, what’s the wrong way. What is a potentially good idea, and what is a bad idea. I felt like a headless chicken when I first joined the programme. So, it really focused me and gave me that concentration on the right tasks that helped me move my idea forward.
Tell us about the connections you made while you were there
I met businesswomen back then, nearly ten years ago, who are doing amazing today thanks to B-School, and we became lifetime friends.
Although it’s a predominantly female-dominated programme, there were a few chaps in there as well, really savvy men. I became really good friends with a few of these women, and even today, they are doing absolutely amazing, and we would meet here in London for coffee. We would discuss B-School, discuss their steps, my steps and make each other accountable for what we were doing. Having somebody who cares about your progress because we’re all in the same thing together is amazing. So that experience really changed my life, and I think saying thank you to Marie Forleo is not enough.
How can B-School benefit health and wellness professionals?
I remember I had so many ideas back in the day, too many of them.
Perhaps to start a meal delivery service with personalised meals for my clients based on a website survey?
Or maybe start an online coaching programme with a group of nutrition coachees, like what Marie does in B-School?
Or focus on product formulation – perhaps developing a healthy snack bar, something that people can eat that has probiotics or prebiotics?
Or what about developing a service delivering fresh ingredients to people’s doorsteps, with recipes for their little ones, or recipes that are age-dependent?
They were so many different directions I could take as a nutrition professional.
I dumped all of these ideas on paper as part of the process. And, I remember thinking this is way too many ideas; even today, some of those ideas are still in my head. I didn’t know what to go for.
If that wasn’t enough, another idea that I had was running my own weight loss clinic, seeing clients one to one, which by the way, was a path that I later went for initially, I started to help clients with their weight management, and I was very good at it. But without B-School, I wouldn’t have learned how to gain the exposure that I needed for my weight loss clinic.
Thanks to Marie and B-School, I started to get savvy on positioning, on how to tell my story; and how to expand my story as I evolved professionally.
Your business brand and your personal brand go hand in hand. But how should you position each of them? What is the ideal dose of brand personality? What makes your potential customers seek your products and services?
Getting savvy on these things helped me a lot, and I was completely clueless before. I thought I knew about marketing. I thought I knew about positioning yourself, I thought I knew about sales and all of that. But it wasn’t until I went through B-School, that I realised that all that previous knowledge served me in a different environment. Because when you run your own business, the cards are different, the game changes, your understanding of business before and after B-School really changes, and even my own perception of marketing changed. Some people may be averse to the word marketing but what Marie Forleo does throughout B-School is help you to embrace the term marketing, specifically online marketing because most of the services and products we engage with are from online sources. We use the internet for absolutely everything, so getting savvy on online marketing back then was fantastic, and because I have lifetime access, every year, I get invited again to join the live programme.
I also recall that, as I was going through B-school, I didn’t have a website. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t because Marie Forleo teaches you how to create a website that converts, rather than just having a website with a few beautiful pages here and there. So, she takes you step by step on how to create a website that converts. But it doesn’t end there.
I had classmates in B-school who were web developers for hire and they were learning the same marketing content on how to build a website that converts alongside me, so I didn’t have to explain to them how to build a website that converts. So, having in the community other people that you can hire for specific tasks and have the same knowledge on building a website that converts saved me time explaining what I wanted because they were right there in class with me. So I hired a team of developers back then; they built my website that converts and linked it to a mailing list. I also had a lead capture questionnaire, I had a query for people to take that quiz, and it was connected to a mailing list server, just to convert and give lots of value and take my user through a journey.
I did get clients from my website, people who never heard of me. They came to my website because of the strategies I’ve learned in B-School. They came to my website because I was doing things that exposed my weight loss clinic and brought me publicity. I was being featured in the media, for example, and I also started writing for The Huffington Post.
You must know that there is no magic formula, and it’s not like you’re going to get rich overnight. But the steps you take due to insights from Marie herself and the B-School experience can help you move the needle forward, as opposed to running around like a headless chicken scratching your head, thinking what’s your next step.
How can Marie Forleo’s B-School and THSA’s Explorer Program propel the careers of nutrition professionals?
I think our collaboration with B-School is like the best of both worlds. You have the best certifications in the nutrition space with The Health Sciences Academy, AND the best training in online marketing and business strategy that you can get from Marie Forleo’s B-School. And this collaboration results in both worlds coming together to help propel your business to new heights. I think that signing up for B-School and getting an extra 6-months worth of access to the THSA Nutrition Business Explorer Programme where you can choose to do as many specialisations you want to do in that period, will mean the sky is the limit for you, and this is exciting.
I think it’s very, very unique. I haven’t seen this combination anywhere, where you get the marketing strategy from B-School to increase your visibility in the nutrition space, and to become the nutrition leader you are meant to be with all of the scientific knowledge on how to help clients and customers in the right way, the safe way, the personalised way, through The Health Sciences Academy. I think both worlds colliding is just creating a new universe of possibilities for you and for each one of our graduates.
Why should health and wellness professionals join B-School?
I personally think if you want to be a respected, credible nutrition leader, you should join B-School. Marie Forleo will show you how to get the visibility that you wish to have, but also a business that you love, a business that you feel proud of, a business that whenever you speak about it, your eyes light up and you feel happy, not just from having a sustainable income in a sustainable way of living, but also to have the opportunity to make your own decisions, to run your own calendar, to really be in the driver’s seat. Even if you are an entrepreneur running a nutrition business, this will help you as well.
If you have has a fantastic idea, or no idea at all but know that you want to make a significant impact out there, and you want this to get known and be something that provides the financial freedom that you are seeking, B-School is for you.
I think B-School is extremely valuable because Marie Forleo herself has been through that journey herself and she’s been supporting everyone inside B-School. There are close to 60,000 B-School graduates that Marie Forleo has worked with over the years. She has so much experience, and she has seen so many different business types and business models. It’s just fantastic the breadth of knowledge that Marie Forleo has, and she’s well respected as well in the online marketing space. I think her understanding of timeless principles of positioning yourself, growing your visibility, growing your brand, having a website that converts, expanding your reach and your community, and achieving the financial freedom you want – they all come together to create a wonderful experience for you.
Even for those fears that we often feel when we have a new idea, or when we want to try something new, like starting a business or launching something exciting, but there is always that self-doubt. So by having the live B-School programme, your brain overrides that self-doubt because you have Marie Forleo and all these other people doing amazing things alongside you. This motivates and pushes you to overcome those internal barriers. These doubts are nothing more than internal chatter, stopping us from doing something amazing, something that can change lives. And as Marie Forleo says: Not getting your idea and your business out there means that you’re robbing others the opportunity of receiving that very valuable gift that only YOU have. And it’s true, because by keeping yourself inward and filled with fear and self-doubt, waiting there for magical things to happen, means that you may be depriving others from your unique talents and meaningful contribution.
Going through B-School forces you to get out there; it compels you to get this idea out to the market, powering you up to start testing and polishing your idea. So understanding that you’re not alone, understanding that there are other fantastic business people with savvy minds alongside this journey with you, is very motivating and encouraging as you form relationships for life.
Also, meeting Marie and team Forleo, and then seeing other nutrition professionals and health coaches in the same boat makes you forget your internal fears. So you think, “right, let’s go through it, no more procrastinating”. No more putting up excuses or not getting this business that you always wanted to launch out there. There is no better way to get something done than diving into B-School and applying all of the strategies and positioning techniques that the program gives you. This way, you really get known for the amazing work you do and the amazing things you can help others accomplish.
Your next steps
We hope you enjoyed our chat with Alex Ruani and even got some insights on how you too can get started with powering your career?
Then go here to learn more about The THSA B-School Package and all the amazing benefits waiting for you to maximise.
Also, we are excited to announce that Marie Forleo herself will be joining us for an exclusive LIVE webinar on Wednesday, 21 July 2021 at 2: 30 PM (UK time). Come discover how to effectively market your nutrition business online so you can expand your reach and start making profit:
Go here now to register in our webinar with exclusive guest Marie Forleo, Founder of B-School
Please Note
The THSA B-School package is made possible through a paid affiliate partnership with B-School. That means when you join the program using The Health Sciences Academy affiliate link, we receive an incentive, which we invest back into the research and development of more nutrition certifications, courses, and programs.
And in return, we’ve made our amazing Nutrition Business Explorer Program available for you for a span of 6 months so you have everything you need to start or grow your successful nutrition business. Please contact us at Learner Services if you have any questions.
