We were lucky to catch up with Jennifer Doheney recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

When WELLOGA first started 4 years ago I was the only “Wellness Expert”. I started out by crafting 8 workshops to manage well-being, stress and anxiety, my area of expertise, a therapeutic approach to a yoga lifestyle. Don’t just think movement but also self-awareness, breathing, meditation, basic anatomy and positive life philosophies to live by.
I packaged what I found the most useful practices from 6 different certified trainings from all over the world. I wanted to help people working in a corporate setting. In short, I wanted to deliver the golden information and tools to “unlikely yogis” because it helped me so much.
Just as I was gaining traction the pandemic hit.
Unlike many businesses, the pandemic showed a great need for my business’s services. I quickly moved online and added yoga, desk stretches, functional breathing, meditation, and 3 more workshops to my list of services. My days slowly filled up with teaching online. So much so my family room turned in to a permanent studio with lights strapped to the ceiling like a movie set!
I did expected things to generate new client leads like social media, emails and messaging but the winning method was word of mouth and repeat clients. Companies would try one experience then book monthly or weekly on-going sessions. It was a fun time.
At the end of year 2 I had worked with over 15 corporate groups in one capacity or another: full courses, townhalls, talks, or a one-off wellness event to educate. Then I started to be asked “what else do you have to offer?” Using the skills and natural knowledge I had I added online cooking classes. This very quickly became the WELLOGA cash cow.
It appeared to me that cooking was a no pressure fun team event that everyone loved. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of questions and more camera’s on then any other event then any other even I hosted. The winning format was 30-minute express classes in the middle of the day, you could join in and cook or just watch and hang out. Now my kitchen was now also studio and my filming and demonstrating skills were rapidly improving.
My 3-year mark looked good from the outside. “Look how busy she is!” but it was too much. No way I could spend all that time online as a host plus drive and manage my business. I hit a wall. I had created a job for myself, not a company I could scale. So, I had to rethink what I was doing.
I also realized that while *yoga helped many people feel better, I needed more tools to help people strengthen focus and attention. Yoga still only means moment to a lot of people.
To solve my problem, I sat for hours each day in November 2022 meditating (not joking) and riding the emotional rollercoaster of self-doubt and creativity at the same time, this is how I formulated the idea to scale my business.
I knew I needed help. I knew I needed to teach less. I knew companies wanted more than I could offer. So, I put my old strategic planner hat on and developed WELLOGA 2.0; a consulting model.
The menu of services has moved from physical and mental health, to now covering spiritual, emotional, social and environmental health too. A holistic offering. We went from 1 wellness expert, myself, to now 25 who together offer over 50 wellness experiences online and in-person.
The consulting model breaks down to 3 levels.
The first is the strategy were professional needs (soft skills), personal needs (stress management tools), workplace boundaries and community building are used to build out a program. Each companies program is unique. Senior leaders are involved with development and the CEO get a full detailed report, annual calendar and monthly budget.
The second is a team buy-in wellness experience where they vote on the chosen activities and get to experience things in real time to help understand why we rolling out the program. They get a voice and bubble up anything that was missed.
The third is we, WELLOGA, run the whole program for you. Schedule speakers, create promotional material, invoice, track progress and seek feedback.
If you are curious about some of the experiences, we have check out the list! From comedy to art, writing to decluttering, stillness to moving, relationship building to negotiation, cooking to delegating like a leader!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My company WELLOGA, 4-year-old business, now creates bespoke corporate well-being strategies & programs. We align company objectives with employee needs. Our approach to well-being is holistic. Our solutions proactive. We focus on personal and professional development, workplace boundaries and community building. We have over 50 experiences & services now. 

We support remote, and hybrid office set-ups. Our programs save company money, improve employee loyalty, enrich lives & move business forward.
What makes us unique is we account for the fact that no two businesses are the same. The demographics of you team, the office set up, the time, money and energy you have put into a roll-out.  All these things need to be accounted for. We believe any company can have an impactful and engaging program.

In order to make sure this happens; we take a finite look at what’s holding the business back from meeting goals with the help of the senior leaders and CEO. We make sure the greater team is involved finalizing the program so they have a voice and get excited pre-launch. It’s for them after all!

Lastly, we vet all the ‘Wellness Experts’ we book taking the heavy lifting off everyone else. We provide promotional material. We track and measure progress and leave room to tweak the plan as we move along. It takes everyone time to find a nice rhythm.

So how did I get here? Good question.

It’s a true human transformation story. My own “Eat, Pray Love” if you will.

I have 15 years experience, as an executive in retail planning, large scale department store projects. That work had me living in both Canada and Dubai. 

While living in Dubai I experienced a decline in my health, Burnout. But not burnout from working too much. I was experiencing environmental stresses as the desert climate was not normal for me. I was challenged with food there as well. I’m celiac and most food is imported and not what I was accustomed to. Over the 4 years I was there I experienced low energy, low mood, lack of focus & concentration, hair loss and at the worst of it; memory issues and lost my inner sparkle. I resigned even though I didn’t want to. 

I moved to Bali for a short break to recover but lived there for 14 months instead. This time of my life was full of new education and experiences, and I learned a tremendous amount about myself and wellbeing in general. When I made time for to slowdown my world really opened up. Most importantly I felt 100% better. 

The biggest lesson learned was I did it without paying for a ton of products and supplements. I just changed how I was living. I worked for a startup helping host retreats for corporate burnout and teaching yoga and meditation on the side. I got inspired to turn my ‘hard’ experience into something positive and returned home to start a business, WELLOGA. And here we are!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

My natural professional network, and current clients gives us recommendations and referrals. This makes up about 80% of who we work with. We keep up with social media on IG, Facebook and LinkedIn. We share clips from events and helpful wellness tips but it’s rare someone reaches out that way. Usually, it’s a message or email saying “I know so and so and they said you can help me”. I think it’s fair to say that the people who are naturally in your corner, they like, know, and respect what you are doing, are your biggest advocates. 

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

There is a skill to hiring contractors. A skill I had to learn.

Every entrepreneur knows what they can and cannot do. At the start we try to do a bit of everything, we learn quickly that it is not sustainable. So, we hire experts to fill in where we need help. 

The challenge becomes: how do you know what to ask when you don’t know how to do the job yourself? 

It’s not uncommon for people/contractors to over promise and under deliver. You don’t want to be left asking “what happened?”.  I learned the hard way but this can be avoided.  I have a lot of experience hiring coaches, social media agencies, copy writing experts, marketing and sales teams. Some experiences were positive, many a lot of hard work and not the right match for my brand. 

My advice if you find yourself in this situation, needing to hire for project work. Before you sign on, interview more than one options (3 ideal). Don’t assume the most expensive is the best. Don’t assume the biggest companies are the best (you could end up in a one of many scenario). Do look for reviews, speak to past clients, and or ask for a trial period.

Other things to consider. Ask about the cadence of updates. What you will measure to see if the partnership is successful. 

“I can get you 2 signed leads per month” is better than “I can get you 50 leads per month”.  A sequence of emails in your brand voice is better then a generic sequence that worked for someone else. 

Who ever you work with should understand your whole brand ethos not just their part.  For me people need to care about wellbeing not just making money.  I’m a quality over quantity business owner all the way, contractors need to match that vibe!  

Now I have great partners that make my life easier and I’m very grateful to each of them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.welloga.space/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifer_doheney/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welloga/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-doheney-3a341612/
• Other: https://speakerhub.com/speaker/jennifer-doheney

Image Credits
Black and white photos – https://www.sundariphotography.com/ Helen Tansey Summer Series & teaching moment 3 – Rob Duckworth