We were lucky to catch up with Charlene Bates recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Charlene thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

I was a Paralegal for 14 years before Covid. I loved what I did but it was a very demanding job. Once I had children my whole mindset, my dreams and goals changed. I of course wanted to be successful but I also wanted to be a good mom. Society tells you that you can’t do both of those things. Society wants you to think you have to pick. So, Covid actually was a blessing in disguise for me. I was laid off from my paralegal job while we were all forced to stay home. I was homeschooling my kindergarten and first grader because the schools were all shut down. I could not go look for a new job with the current situation I was placed in. I had already had a side gig as a health and wellness coach. Our products were deemed essential during this time so I grabbed some products and stared selling them out of my front door… from 6 feet of course. I set up a curbside pickup and it took off.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Charlene, I am a mom, wife, cheer coach and business owner. I have always been into fitness and taking care of my body. I found my mentor online and reached out and started a health and wellness side gig in 2018. I did this very very part time around my full-time litigation paralegal job and two young children. I loved this community and how everyone in the field treated each other. I clung on to that positive community.

I continued to do this as a side gig until I was laid off during Covid. Fast forward to the middle of Covid when we are all forced to stay in side. I am newly laid off while homeschooling my two young daughters. I cried for ONE whole day. I closed my computer up and took my girls and went for a long walk. I cried the whole walk. I didn’t want my girls to know anything was wrong. They were already going through enough at such a young age.

I got home from the walk and I said “what can I do to provide for my family without leaving my house?” I did the only thing I knew at the time, I started making protein shakes and energizing teas and sold them out of my house. I did this the whole summer around homeschooling my girls. To give you an example of how demanding homeschooling was, my girls were just learning to read so I had to help them with every single step of the school day. It wasn’t like I could just log them in and walk away. We all had lots of tears but I am proud to say they both got straight A’s the whole year.

I decided that I would never allow a job that could get rid of me so easily keep me away from my children as many hours i have done my whole career. From this point on I would be here for every single step of the way as my girls grow up. I still had goals to be successful but the definition of success had changed. It was no longer only focused on how big my income was. I wanted to be successful and a great mom.

I took a huge leap of faith and signed a lease on a brick and mortar in my local town. I opened in the middle of Covid when all the businesses around me where closing left and right. I opened a protein and tea cafe. I signed the lease and just showed up every day. I had never owned a business or went to school for business. It was super scary but I knew it would be successful because I was going to put my all into it. There was no plan B. This was going to be the vehicle that allowed me to take care of my family but also be involved in everything they were going to do.

When we first opened the girls were still being home-schooled. I had school desks set up in the Kitchen and I home-schooled them as I ran the business. I am not going to sugar coat it. This was HARD. I had no clue what I was doing, everything was delayed or impossible to get all together because of Covid. We had to pivot daily to make it through each day. Some days I would stand behind the counter and just cry. Just like before i would allow myself to be upset for 5 mins and then forced myself to make solutions to make it better.

I think the thing that sets me apart from other business owners is my passion and work ethic. I have always been a worker. Growing up at a young age I always had at least two jobs while putting myself though college. When I opened my cafe my passion for health and fitness just grew. I loved seeing the customers start believing in themselves and getting excited if they hit new health goals. The cafe customers turned into friends very quickly, It made working enjoyable and gave it a bigger purpose than collecting a paycheck.

I am most proud that I was able to take my family from rock bottom and one of the scariest times in our lives and make something great out of it. Our cafe is BK Nutrition which stands for Be Kind. After the whole Covid experience and seeing how the world reacted to each other we needed a daily reminder to BE KIND to each other and to ourselves.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is what helped BK Nutrition grow and survive Covid. I started posting from the second I signed the lease. I took our followers on the entire journey of the build out of the store. My husband and brother in law built our bar from scratch. We had a lot of work to get the store in top shape to open. I would post our hours and share pictures of products daily. I would ask every customer that came in to take a picture of their drink and tag us on social media. The social media tag would get them an entry into a raffle to win a free drink. This created such an excitement that everyone wanted to know what these pretty health drinks where that all there friends kept posting. The biggest piece of advice I would share for someone who just started building a social media presence is consistency. Show up every single day. It may seem like no one is watching or its not working but it is. Social media takes a little longer to see success from it but it works if you work. We are all so used to instant gratification, that is not how social media works. You have to plant all the seeds and wait patiently for them to grow. If you keep posting and keeping it fresh it will all bloom.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele is consistency. Consistency in showing up. Consistency in our store hours. Consistency in our social medias. Consistency in my positive attitude. Consistency in products. Consistency in making a good product. We have gone though some scary slow times and if I would of closed early on those days or didn’t show up people wouldn’t take us seriously. When you are young in the business you have to prove yourself to others. After we hit our one year mark I seen a huge difference in how much our clientele grew. It was almost as if they had been watching us on social media for the year and now that we survived a year in business during covid they would stop by and see what we were about. It had been all up hill since then. Consistency is the key to so many things.

Contact Info:

• Website: bk-nutrition-llc.business.site
• Instagram: b_k_nutrition
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bknutritionllc