We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dana Kaye a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
I knew the concept, the products and the mission of my brand but coming up with a name was the toughest part. I wanted something with a deep meaning, not only to me but to every single person, no matter what their goals looked like. I didn’t want it to be something weird you had to “figure out” or some name with an intimidating hardcore sound like so many other brands in the health industry. I remember driving in my car one day, still no name to my brand, and I was thinking about the name of a liquor brand. It was also called Devotion. I thought, how odd, such a deep powerful word connected to alcohol, something that people should not be deeply connected and “devoted” to. Then I thought about myself and how I have had the same goals of ultimate health and fitness for some many years. Through ups and downs I kept coming back to that same goal. Being healthy and fit takes work and consistancy and what kept me coming back over and over again to it? My Devotion. I have been devoted to my goals and my health. It clicked… that’s it! Devotion is the word that has kept me going and passionate. I have stayed devoted to my healthy lifestyle choices. To truly accomplish something great, you must stay devoted. That is where Devotion Nutrition got it’s name. The hashtag #Until its Done also has deep meaning because when you are truly devoted, you’re never done.
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.
Dana Lynn Kaye is the Founder and CEO of Devotion Nutrition. Dana created the perfect storm for a business when she brought together her passion for fitness, her life long struggle with weight loss and her family business of flavors together to create Devotion Nutrition. Finding a massive void in the market place for high quality delicious and versatile protein powders, Dana created a protein that can truly do it all. Not only does her protein taste incredible as a shake, it also makes pudding with just water, bakes in pancakes and protein treats without becoming dry, fluffs into protein ice cream and even makes protein coffee creamer! This mother of 3 prides herself on hacking the fitness and diet game which helps her stay devoted to a healthy lifestyle! She has expanded her brand further into the wellness and hydration category to continue to bring to market the highest quality products to help others achieve their healthy lifestyle goals. Devotion products have helped thousands of people truly love and enjoy their protein. American’s do not eat enough protein and struggle with keeping to healthy eating choices. Devotion’s brand mission is to help people stay devoted to their healthy lifestyles with delicious ways to eat lower sugar and higher protein options. Dana recently launched a new cookbook, Have your Shake and Eat it too! This helps put easy ways to get in protein at your fingertips right on your kitchen counter!
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
Know your worth and charge the prices you need to. I was always a “people” pleaser and wanted everyone to try and love Devotion and not scare people away with the price. I make a high quality product that costs a lot to produce. I knew other protein powders on the market didn’t use the ingridients I used or the high quality Whey protein I use but I also knew thr average person wouldn’t understand that. I under priced my product for years just so people would buy it. It looked like it was “in line” with othet brands but the truth was, it wasn’t. It needed to. be priced higher. That decision finally caught up to me and I was faced with either going out of business or raising my prices. I was so scared of the backlash but I had no choice. During covid the prices of everything shot up. It was now or never. I gave my customers warning in an email and social media annoucements and after a certain amount of time, we made the price change and to my surprise, not only did the customers stay, the brand flourished! It turned out people COULD tell the difference of the high quality and taste and were willing to pay for that!
How did you build your audience on social media?
When it comes to social media, just keep showing up and be real. Be honest. When I stopped trying to be perfect is when I started to enjoy social media. People want to feel connected to someone. They want to trust someone and they want to not feel like this person is so out of reach and not relatable. I have built a nice little following of people who are truly supportive and feel connected to my family and my brand. I would pick quality over quantity any day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.DevotionNutrition.com
- Instagram: @devotionnutrition @danalynnkaye
- Facebook: DevotionNutrition
- Youtube: Devotion Nutrition
- Other: Tik Tok: @DevotionNutrition @Danalynnkaye18