We recently connected with Lindsey Parsons and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lindsey, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I was living outside of Washington, D.C. and had co-founded a non-profit with another mother advocating for healthier food in the Montgomery County public schools in Maryland, which turned into a full-time job for me. I learned about the profession of health coaching during that time. While I was doing that job, my now ex-husband lost his six-figure income, became unemployed, and started trying to become a podcaster. He was only a couple of years into that and not yet making any kind of a full-time income when we decided to take a big risk and leave D.C. I was planning to leave my job soon after we moved to Tucson, Arizona, where I would launch my health coaching business and he would continue trying to build up his podcasting business. I had become certified as a health coach in the six months prior to leaving but had only had one or two clients sign up by then. It was a big risk, as it takes a while to build up your practice as a health coach. The full first year doing it, I think I only netted $5000 health coaching, and we had bought a house and had two kids to support, although we had an Airbnb on the property as another source of income, but it was still very tight for several years. But I started my podcast (The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome) in November of 2018 and slowly but surely started becoming more and more focused on gut health coaching, which related to my own health journey. They told us in our training that we should specialize and find a niche, but nothing seemed scarier than limiting the possible audience of people I could help. But true to these words of advice, the more I became focused on gut health coaching, the more clients found me, to the point that I was able to start charging for five appointments as a gut health coach several hundred dollars more than I used to charge for twelve appointments as a general health/weight loss coach. I now have a steady and successful career as a gut health coach, which is one of the most fulfilling jobs I’ve ever had.

Lindsey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was a French literature major in college, taught French and Spanish for a few years, then lived in Costa Rica for a year and a half teaching English before completing my Master’s in Romance Linguistics. I then worked as a study abroad advisor for six years at the University of Georgia before moving to Australia for three years to get my doctorate in Education, intending to continue moving up in that line of work. However, as fate would have it, between moves for my ex-husband’s job and having and adopting kids, I never got back into that line of work.

When I accidentally co-founded a non-profit while doing other work just to earn money while living in DC, I got deeper and deeper into the world of nutrition, which had always been an interest but became a profession at that point. I met several health coaches who offered to represent my organization (Real Food for Kids – Montgomery) at their child’s school as a school representative, and the idea appealed to me. As I was learning more and more about what I wanted out of a job (to set my own hours, work from home, work on my own behalf, and be able to take as much vacation as I wanted and could afford), I decided to undergo the six-month online training course to become a health coach before moving to Tucson and handing over my non-profit to my successor.

I help clients with all manner of gut health issues (IBS to IBD, constipation, diarrhea, loose stool, GERD, diverticulitis) and chronic health issues (anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, weight loss resistance, type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, skin conditions) that stem from gut health problems. I approach health from a functional medicine perspective, based on peer-reviewed science and using functional medicine tests like stool tests and organic acids tests and other nutrient and toxicity tests to see what’s going on under the hood, to try to address the root cause of my clients’ issues through nutrition and lifestyle interventions.

I am most proud of the high-quality, high-touch one-on-one service I give my clients that allows them to move from a place often of desperation and long-term ill health to one of great health and vitality, giving them the time and attention that no doctor can afford to. I value the role I play in educating my clients about what their test results mean and how people fix these problems using natural methods, welcoming their input and participation in making decisions about their own health. I’m also proud of the high-quality guests I welcome to my podcast and the positive feedback I get on my interviews. Through this amazing education and marketing tool, enough people set up free, 30-minute breakthrough sessions with me to keep a steady flow of clients coming to my door, most of whom already know and trust me.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

To succeed as a health coach, other than the knowledge of how to actually do the job, you have to have a good sense of how to best manage your time and money to market your business. On many occasions, I contemplated paying someone a huge chunk of money to help me market my business but never took the plunge. Instead, I maximized my learning by listening to free marketing podcasts and webinars, and as time allowed, took small, doable, incremental steps to market myself.

This included starting the podcast and putting it out every two weeks, rain or shine, creating a spreadsheet of Facebook groups, Subreddits, and my own social media outlets to share it to, and doing it consistently every week. I created a freebie to encourage people to sign up for my mailing list, instituted a regular newsletter, used the transcript from the podcast to create regular blogs to increase my presence and keywords online and naturally bring traffic to my website without paying for it. I created a quiz to help direct people to which functional medicine tests they may want to take to get to the root cause of their issues and shared it weekly to a new Facebook group. To keep myself accountable and moving forward, I exchanged coaching with another health coach who graduated with me.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I already shared my biggest pivot in the previous questions, but one other big pivot I’ve made is to launch my own brand of supplements. While it’s still in concert with my work as a health coach, I spent about two years thinking about whether I should do this, what supplement to start with, creating a marketing plan, and researching how to do it. Then I took the plunge, got a no-interest-for-15-months credit card, and had 500 bottles of my first supplement, Tributyrin-Max, made.

I never dreamed that less than a year and a half later, I would have already launched a second supplement (Serum Bovine Immunoglobulin (SBI) Powder), but like the first one, it made sense. I was putting most of my clients on this product, and by selling it myself, I was able to get them to the dosage I wanted them on without incurring huge costs for what was an expensive supplement. I’m super proud that I paid off my loan for the first supplement in six months and have saved up enough to pay for the second batch from earnings rather than having to take out a credit card loan. Selling supplements allows me to finally make more unlimited income because my time is limited as a gut health coach and I can only see three clients a week, with the large amount of time I put into each client, plus producing and marketing the podcast (with the help of interns as well).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://highdeserthealthcoaching.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/high.desert.health/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HighDesertHealth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsey-parsons-edd-76358415/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/HDesertHealth
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK6gOjdJwcmQbrbe6oLbZrQ
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/high-desert-health-tucson
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theperfectstoolpodcast My Facebook Gut Healing group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gut.healing.for.you The Perfect Stool Supplements: https://perfectstool.com