How a Health Company Hit 9 Figures with Mae Steigler: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Business Made Simple. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how a health company hit nine figures. To drop these value bombs, I brought Mae Steigler into EO Fire Studios. Mae serves as CEO of Organifi and is responsible for the alignment and development of people and processes. And Fire Nation, Mae has a joy in building leadership, speaking to the vision and mission in reimagining the future of wellness.

0:36And today's value bombs are about how most of the things that you can make successful are already currently available, about how the culture is the heartbeat of the organization and it carries it forward, and how to maximize your impact with maximized health and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to May and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier.

1:08AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Frambridge Consulting has guided them. Frambridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at franbridgeconsulting.com.

1:44May, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation. Thank you, John. Love this question to kick it off. And I believe, maybe controversially, about being successful is that most of it is available right now. So the great majority of what we imagine our success is, and I'll describe a little more about this, is available right now and is not something outside of ourselves or in the future. And where this belief comes from, and I'll often be in great conversation when this is brought up because oftentimes people disagree initially, it was actually from back in my personal training days when I was in the health space and working with clients, so much of their goals were related to, of course, typically a weight loss goal.

2:36And so they had a number in mind. And what was forgotten was and not looked at was how much of their lifestyle or state of well-being and happiness was so, so related to their idea of success. So although it was, hey, I want to achieve, you know, 135 pounds, I will be successful and happy. Or maybe it's, you know, as an entrepreneur, a million dollars a month or a week or a day to be successful. It was more the lifestyle and the state of being that really dictated their success and happiness. And I use those words interchangeably, happiness and success for the most part. And so that is my belief that an example of this is a conversation with my husband and I years back, maybe eight years before we were married ago.

3:20And we were talking about what our ideal day would look like, what we wanted to do when we retired? And that was like, in our mind, you know, kind of classic success idea. Let's retire young. And what will our ideal day look like? And it was, let's have a really, really slow morning together. Let's enjoy a cup of coffee together. And just get a start the morning like that every morning. And it was outside on our patio at the time. So this would be perfect, you know, outside, cup of coffee together. And we took a moment and said, well, let's do that now. Yeah. Let's do that now. That's a very small, simple example.

3:54But case in point, so much of what we ideally believe is success in our minds, when we break it down outside of the very maybe specific material things, everything else is highly available in the now and today. So there's a couple things I love about that that actually brought quotes to my mind, Fire Nation, that I want to share with you. the first one is an Arthur Ashe quote which is start where you are use what you have do what you can because Fire Nation like what else is there what else is there except to start right now where you are what else is there to use except what you currently have and then what else can you do except what you can like just realize that and start moving forward and the other quote that it brought up to me at the very end when you were sharing that awesome awesome story Mae is it's a Dale Carnegie quote which is happiness and success is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal.

4:50It's the gradual realization, not the realization, the gradual realization, the journey to that worthy ideal. So why have this vision of when you're 65 years old, sipping some coffee on a back porch, enjoying that? Why not start that gradual realization right now today? And Mae, You have a fascinating backstory. You kind of teased a little bit about it right there, but I want to talk about your specific backstory, both professionally and personally. Take that away. Thank you. Definitely unconventional, you could say, but I, 10 years ago, actually maybe 12 now, you can imagine out in Big Ag, I was actually on a large-scale dairy operation monitoring the temperatures of cows for early detection of illness.

5:39So I was in the animal health space, in the R &D space. My background is animal nutrition, human psychology, behavior of change stuff. And I had moved into R &D to really, I wanted to solve animal welfare and animal health issues. And in that space, as I was out there looking at solving, how do we use less antibiotics? Our health system doesn't seem to be working for animals. You know, our food system is not serving the world, like, what is the opportunity here? How do we solve this? And it was an amazing realization that I was solving the wrong problem. I was trying to minimize antibiotics. And what I was looking at was, what if this wasn't even a problem to solve?

6:22It was originating from feeding animals the wrong diets, right? We were feeding cows corn diets and creating acidosis, pneumonia. And we were trying to detect those illnesses early with temperature monitoring, reticulum temperature monitoring, which is like this little internal bolus in all these cow's stomachs that we'd read through this like massive monitor as they went through milking. Pretty intense. But what I learned was such a realization to ensure that with your life's work, you are solving the right problem. And it was such a wake up call for me, having gone through school, having been so passionate.

6:54And I still am passionate about this space in the world. But zooming out to recognize what was even creating this problem. And it was actually human health and, you know, a human based food system that was perpetuating the existence of this thing. So I zoomed out and I transitioned careers and went into human health, moved into personal training. And I really wanted to reshape people's perception of essentially how, you know, where our food comes from and its impact on our bodies in the same way that I saw so closely in animal science. When you feed an animal what it's not meant to eat, my goodness, you create disease so clearly and simply, right?

7:32And that translated directly in such a actually more simplified manner to the human health system, the human biology, in that I had learned so many different animal physiology and animal nutrition systems. Human health was simplistic. And it was incredible to recognize that so much of that initially seemed so basic. okay is we eat right for our bodies and we, you know, nourish ourselves. We don't have these perpetuating problems like disease and, um, chronic, you know, immunity issues or chronic sickness. And as I got into health, um, that's when I met Drew as a personal trainer at the time and Drew Canole, the founder of, um, uh, fit life at the time and eventually Organifi who I know, um, John, you guys go way back and I'm, I'm grateful to be on this podcast with you today and just honoring your longstanding relationship.

8:22But 10 years ago or so, Drew was just kicking off FitLife TV, which is a content company. And we were educating on health and wellness and presenting a lot of juicing for weight loss, juicing for health and vitality plans. He had transformed his own health, lost 40 pounds. And in meeting Drew, I recognized such a capacity to impact a larger audience. I was doing at the time, I remember one-on-one personal training, and kind of hitting these consistent obstacles with the belief around well-being and the air quotes hard work that was required to enjoy health and vitality. And Drew was presenting something significantly different.

9:03And innately, I was instantly attracted to what he was creating and showcasing and being such a true demonstration of a wonderfully enjoyable alternative. And that was, you know, juicing for vitality and really feeding your body real foods at the time when, you know, protein powders and highly processed crap was very popular in the health and wellness industry. And people were looking at, you know, protein bars as the answer. And so it was very cool to just meet Drew at that time, that pivotal time for myself and recognizing my own limitations for impact in the health space. And I connected with Drew and started literally building out programs with him to roll out with his coaching groups.

9:46And at the time, you know, Facebook was not what it is today. And it was free. There was no paid ads. We had a huge community that we were building. And it was a great time to get connected with Drew. And I pivoted my focus from personal training really to, we almost went into corporate wellness, but instead really built an online community of group coaching. And my first kind of job was scaling Drew. Drew was doing high-end one-on-one coaching at the time, really supporting entrepreneurs actually. And this is where so much of, I think that the mission for Organifi came to life and recognizing how highly successful entrepreneurs that Drew Canole was working with were still wildly in a very important way, unsuccessful because they were not healthy and they couldn't enjoy their perceived success, regardless of how much they were earning or what type of traditional success they had achieved because they didn't feel good and they couldn't live the lifestyle they wanted to because they didn't have the health that they saw possible.

10:48So Drew was really helping them reimagine that. And so we scaled his one-on-one coaching into group coaching and membership and built this gigantic community at FitLife TV. And Organifi was birthed in solving the challenge of juicing. Juicing is really tough. It takes a lot of time. And it's relatively time-consuming and tedious. Big time. Just big time, yeah. Many of us remember those juicing days when it was such a huge craze. And Organifi was birthed from solving kind of the number one obstacle for our huge community getting the results that we saw possible in juicing. And it was, you know, our powdered adaptogen superfood blend that, you know, now we've got a nice breadth of products.

11:31and just noting my first role was just scaling what Drew was doing with impact and coming along for this massive ride. And just this last year, moving into the CEO seat since that time, about 10 years ago, wearing just about every hat you can imagine. But that first scaling role was definitely one that built into my previous role being COL and really looking at how do we scale this company and continue to focus on the points of impact that we can expand. There are so many fascinating takeaways, Fire Nation, from what made you share. But the one that I really do want to bring back to the surface that she focused on a little bit at the beginning part of her story, which is, are you solving the right problem?

12:14Ask yourself that. Ask yourself that honest question. Are you solving the right problem? because I can tell you that is the root of so many people's struggles right now is that they're just not solving the right problem and they're not becoming the best solution to the right problem, to a real problem, to a specific problem that has an actual pain point in the world because people, my friends, will beat a door all the way down to your doorstep for the number one solution to a real problem they have if you can provide that. and they will ignore the second best solution through infinity. And of course, everybody's going to ignore the wrong problem or the wrong solution.

12:55They're just not going to want that or need that. So think about that for you. Now, we have a lot to talk about because one thing I've always loved about Organifi and why we've partnered with them so many times over the past and why we always have Organifi stocked in our fridge and our cabinets and all over the place. I mean, literally, it's like my house is kind of like an Organifi shrine sometimes. I'm sure that the people that take away our trash is just like, what is in this thing? What are they doing? They're going through so much of this stuff. Because like you mentioned, you have such a breadth of products now.

13:26And I've actually seen that grow, which has been fascinating. I mean, I've loved seeing that. It's been so cool. We're going to be talking about specifically how Organifi currently gives back. Because Fire Nation, I want you to be thinking about ways that you can give back when you hit that milestone, that financial war chest that I know you want. And then, of course, culture is everything. And Organifi is such a fantastic culture. So we'll be talking about that as well when we get back from thanking our sponsors. We all know that starting a business is hard, but there are tools out there that help make it easier.

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14:30Starting a business doesn't have to be so hard. Go to clickhubspot.com slash ENT to download the guide right now. Now, more and more entrepreneurs are jumping into the awesome non-food franchise opportunities that exist across a variety of industries. Franchising is simply the better path, and interest in franchising is at an all-time high. Lucky for you, John Ostenson, founder of Franbridge Consulting and a frequent EO Fire guest, is here to help you explore the premier franchise opportunities, and his service is free. John and his Franbridge Consulting team are part of the largest franchise brokerage and have vetted the market thoroughly.

15:08Fran Bridge is hands down the premier source for the best opportunities in the franchise world, including both active and passive opportunities from fencing to youth soccer, longevity services to concrete paving, in-home health to pets and more. John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor and is a multi-brand franchisee himself, and he helps more entrepreneurs than any other consultant in the country. Sign up for a free consultation call with John today, or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. So May Organifi has always been looking for ways to make an impact in the world and to make the world a better place.

15:49In fact, I can remember multiple entrepreneurial events that Drew and I would meet each other at and have great chats and conversations. And we were both talking about that. Like I would share my exploits with Pencils of Promise and he would share what Organifi was doing. How right now today does Organifi currently give back and what's your mentality around that? Thank you, John. And thank you for being such an advocate for Organifi. And yes, filling your recycling bin with lots of Organifi canisters. I can totally relate. I wonder what our recycling man says or thinks, let's say. You know, I love this, looking at this from a business mission focus, this question of how do you give back?

16:28And there's so many different levels. I don't think there's a right way to do it or anything by any measure. What I'm excited to talk about, though, is more specifically, and we do have partnerships, let's say Vitamin Angels, and some really important mission-aligned opportunities for us to really give back. But specifically, what's interesting is looking at how do you design your way of doing business, kind of doing good by doing business. And the way that's been really special that actually our incredible supply chain director, Niels Travert, made possible here and built into our ops, you could say, is all of our partners that we work with and specifically on the operation side.

17:06So it comes to sourcing our ingredients, literally like at farm level. Who are we partnered with? If it's not farm level, the organizations that are supporting us sourcing the right ingredients, they are partnered at farm level for the impact globally, supporting our mission of like literally an environment we can believe in in the future. Healthy world impact, you could say. But we really look at operationally how each of our vendors are having, whether it's our fulfillment center that supports clean oceans, whether it's an all solar, right? Maybe it's our freight sourcing company or even our packaging company right now that works with reintegrating veterans into the workforce.

17:53You name it. So there's just some really cool ways that you can look at giving back as simply your way of doing business versus maybe it's a percentage of revenue that you're planning to give back. So Organifi has made that really the way that we do business that's become really natural. And so as we grow, kind of our vendor vetting process is looking at, hey, tell us about how you're supporting the environment. Tell us about how you're supporting socioeconomic issues that are important to Organifi. And it becomes just integrated that way. So that's been a huge piece of Organifi that has grown tremendously.

18:31But as we grow, then that simply grows with impact, which is cool. It's really cool, Fire Nation. And again, a couple of things I really want to bring to the surface from what Maja shared is doing good while doing business. Like you can do both. And in fact, that should be a goal of yours because with great success comes great responsibility. And of course, Organifi has had great success. And now they can't just talk the talk, which they've never done. They've always done the talking and the walking of the walk. And that's so key and such a great example. And I think that all goes back me to culture and culture is so key, but it's so hard to get right.

19:07And again, I've had conversations with Drew where he's really been proud of this fact with Organifi. So how did you create the culture and how did you see Drew create the culture that you've now kind of continued on forward with, carried that torch and nurtured that Organifi currently enjoys? This is the most important thing. My favorite topic to discuss is culture. It's literally everything. I think it's the heartbeat of an organization, whether your team's one person, two person, a hundred people or thousands of people. The culture is what carries it forward. And how this started, we had, you know, we grew from right now we have 75 employees, which still feels it still feels very big for how we started.

19:52I was employee number one. So to me, it feels very big. I know we're we're still really green. We're only seven years old at Organifi. And this kind of our mentality has consistently been be weird enough, be yourself enough. I'll say not weird. We often say woo-woo here. Be woo-woo enough, but really be authentic enough so that when someone walks through the door, they know right away that either they love it or they do not. And it was kind of, it's something we've infused with our recruiting and hiring. And that's not to be, to push people away at all, but simply be as genuinely who you are. And that expressive self, be as much of kind of that authentic version of the core of the company, the founder, or, you know, for many of your listeners, you know, as they're building businesses, focus on who exactly you are that you can diffuse in your business to ensure that as people come in, as you recruit people, as you hire a team around you, that they're continuing to be a demonstration of these things.

20:59And if someone is not a right fit, they can tell right away. So it's that be weird enough that it'll either be a magnet or a, you know, major detractor for somebody, push someone away, honestly. Fire Nation, there's a lot there, but I really want to reiterate when it comes to your culture, start with yourself. And if you're weird, if you have these little kind of different things that, you know, people might be like, that's unique. That's interesting. Well, guess what? Every human being has those things. And you want to be a magnet for those people that are going to resonate with that, with you, with the honesty, the transparency, the openness that you are going to bring authenticity-wise to your business.

21:37So let's end with a bang, May. I want to talk about why Fire Nation needs to check out Organifi products. And we do have a very special offer for you, Fire Nation, that we'll be talking about in just a couple minutes here. But my audience does know, May, that I've been on quite a health transformation for about five years now. Like it's been a huge priority and focus of my life. Like it's actually over even taken the time energy I put into my business. I put more into my health now. I mean, I both put, I put a ton of time into both, but I mean, I just got back from a 17 day wellness retreat up in Northern California, which included a 10 day water fast and then juicing to refeed and then learning how to eat correctly.

22:20And again, I consume Organifi every single day, multiples of their products to make sure that I'm getting the fruits, the vegetables, all the things that I want in my body. So they know, my audience, that even though this is a business podcast, they know how passionate I am when it comes to health and wellness. Because without that, which by the way, I struggled with at the beginning of my five-year journey, my health journey five years ago, which is why I went so hard into it. Without it, you don't have the energy, Fire Nation. You don't have the excitement, the enthusiasm, the passion, because being healthy is like stoking the flame that's within you into a roaring fire.

22:57And, you know, no matter what happens when you're unhealthy, that flame just gets smothered and will just, you know, go down to nothing. And I love the quote, May, before I pass this over to you, is the healthy man or woman wants a million things, which is great. We should all want a lot of things, but the unhealthy man or woman wants one thing. They just want their health. So even though this is a business-focused podcast, without Healthfire Nation, you're really never going to achieve what you want to achieve in the business world. So of course, that's why for, again, we've had a great sponsorship run with Organifi in the past, which came off with a bang.

23:37They've come in. They're now a major sponsor of Entrepreneurs on Fire going forward. And so, Mae, share with us why Fire Nation needs to check out you, Organifi, your company, your culture, and the products you have. And then we'll talk about a special offer. So good. Thank you, John. Organifi is here to remove the dogmas around health, which is healthy is hard, healthy is unenjoyable. And instead say healthy can be easy, healthy can be delicious. You know, we spend the majority of our time in formulation to make our products incredibly impactful with ingredients and amounts you can feel. So not not wasting time with especially as entrepreneurs time is is so valuable.

24:20And, and john, you articulated it so well, which is, and really the origins of the foundation of Organifi came from working with entrepreneurs that had everything except their health. And it was crippling, right? It was it, you're right, that quote is actually is perfect. Yeah, it was the thing that had to draw their focus then and nothing else mattered. And it's, it's, that is the, the ultimate truth. So, you know, to, to your audience, to our community, it's just such a enjoyable experience to work on that cutting edge of saying, you know, let's make incredibly powerful products, um, with clinically researched, you know, ingredient amounts taste amazing.

24:58And what if healthy was as easy as, you know, a quick mix of, of powder and water. It didn't have to be juicing for 30 minutes. It didn't have to be. And while I love water fasting and I still practice so many of the things that we learned early on in this health journey at Organifi, it's so great to get to recognize how healthy living can become your lifestyle, can become part of, as an entrepreneur, what I imagine my absolute must-haves to creating true success. And at Organifi, this is the mission we're on, showing, presenting and sharing and empowering with a different way. Something that doesn't have to taste disgusting to be healthy, something that doesn't have to be hard to be healthy.

25:45And I'm really excited for the products and the works. I'm really excited to share this with your community and just continue our relationship. Thank you, John, so much. It's been a treat. It has truly been a treat. And I love that phrase that healthy can be easy and it can be delicious. And I've experienced both Fire Nation, by the way. And I can tell you firsthand, it really can be easy and it absolutely is delicious. I mean, don't get me going down another rabbit hole, May, because we'd be on another half an hour. But it's just like what I found during that wellness retreat when I was fasting and then I got back to regular eating by juicing and just introducing real foods into my system is how unbelievably destroyed and zapped our taste buds are these days because of all the processed crap, because of all the overloading sugar, because of all of the, literally there's genius scientists that are setting out to fool you, Fire Nation, on what tastes good and what your body wants.

26:45And they do a fantastic job of it, which is why we're such an obese nation overall. But let me tell you, healthy can be easy and it can be delicious. In fact, it is delicious. And if you just give your taste buds a chance to reset themselves, you will just be like, wow, this is a treat because I love it for that reason. So we have a special offer for you, Fire Nation, with Organifi, and you'll be hearing their sponsorships over the next time frame that they are an amazing supporter of this podcast at Organifi.com slash fire. You head over to that URL, You're going to get 20, that's 20 % off your entire order, 20 % off your entire order.

27:30And you want to use code FIRE at checkout. So Organifi, which is O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash FIRE. You get 20 % off your entire order when you use code FIRE at checkout. So Fire Nation, support me and Entrepreneurs on Fire by supporting this great company Organifi. support yourself by putting the right foods into your body the right nutrients the right minerals organifi.com slash fire get 20 off buy some for yourself buy some for your friends and family just have them just have it show up at their door make them use it they'll feel bad if they don't then they'll be shocked and they'll become converts so may give us one takeaway that you want to make sure fire nation walks away with from everything that we talked about and then we'll say goodbye Each of your listeners are probably on some massive missions themselves and hoping to make incredible impact in the world that without our health, that becomes second place.