We recently connected with Meghan Huehn and have shared our conversation below.

Meghan, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Everyone’s idea of “success” is different, but generally speaking it involves being able to achieve the results you want. Here’s what I’ve learned about success from my last decade in business.

1. You have to solve someone’s problem.
Your product has to be good or your service has to serve people. I always think of a quote from Peter Diamandis – “The best way to become a billionaire is to solve a billion-person problem”. Serve others first, last and always and you will be successful.
2. You must learn to sell.
“Sales” gets a bad wrap, but it is the lifeblood of your business, if you don’t have sales you don’t have a business, you have a really expensive hobby (and a lot of stress). The truth about sales skills is that they are communication skills. You are uncovering needs and helping someone to choose if your solution is a good fit for them. If you have a product or service that helps people, it’s your duty to sell.
3. Have the grit not to give up.
You will fail; learn from it, there will be setbacks; but keep going. This is probably the most important component of success. Most people give up too soon. “Failing” doesn’t mean you’re a “failure” it just means you haven’t found what works yet.

Not everyone reading this will be a business owner or want to be… but these skills can be applied to life as well…
1. Be interested in others and offer value. People will want to be around you, you’ll be “magnetic” and opportunities may surface because of this.
2. Sales skills are life skills and even if you’re not in business you are always selling. Selling your kid on eating broccoli, selling your husband on why you should go on a date night, or selling your boss on why you should be promoted. Learning this will pay off in any area you want to advance.
3. Don’t give up. Embrace failure and learn from it. It’s not personal, it doesn’t mean anything about you, recover quickly and keep going. If your goal is worth pursuing you can’t stop, get used to the pain of failure, and growth, know that it’s temporary. And who you’re becoming is worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into the yoga industry sort of by accident. I took my first hot yoga class when I was in University, studying Physical Education and Science with the intention of moving onto a career in medicine. I wanted a job where I could help people and satisfy my interest in health and the human body. After learning more about Hot Yoga and experiencing how it had improved my life mentally & physically I decided that bringing that type of wellness to people that didn’t have access to it presently would be a “dream job” and decided to open my own Yoga studio. At Namaste North we offer Yoga & Fitness classes that help our clients to decrease pain in their bodies, lose weight, decrease stress & anxiety, sleep better at night, improve their body’s functioning and general wellness. We believe that when your body feels good you can show up your best and make the impact you were born to make in your families, jobs and communities.
What sets us apart from others is our genuine love for people. We know your name, we are interested in you and helping you to reach your goals, we know you showed up at our door for a reason and we’d like to help you get where you want to go. We listen to client feedback and are always trying to improve the client experience.
I’m most proud of how we make people feel – welcome and like they belong. Building a brand is like creating the world you want to live in and we love creating spaces where people feel seen, important, valued and encouraged.
And 2nd most proud of being part of improving people’s lives, we hear amazing stories about how our services have had a meaningful impact on our clients and there is nothing better. From weight loss, decreasing diabetes medication, improving IBS and Crohn’s disease, to improving confidence, and finding their spouse; having a tangible impact in people’s lives is amazing.
Mostly, I want people to know that investing in their health is so worth it, it doesn’t need to be complicated and will offer amazing return on investment.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Opening Namaste North, taking it from the tiny thought I had about opening a yoga studio to a company that does over a million dollars in sales/year has been a wild journey and one of my greatest teachers on grit, faith, resilience and never giving up. (Less than 2% of female founded companies ever hit the million dollar mark)

Step one was finding financing, it took a lot of NOs to get to a yes. In all seriousness, this should have been a hurdle; I now understand why no bank wanted to give a 20 something with no assets and a pretty basic business plan hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The buildout of the studio was a massive undertaking with unexpected setbacks time and money wise. Which meant I would have to open the studio with no operating budget.

Then I got open!! I was so excited, this was the dream and it was coming true… but quickly realized I had built a monster as I sat at the front desk at 2am after cleaning the whole studio and finishing the daily accounting. This cannot be the dream… I was SO excited about opening, so focused on just getting the next thing done that I hadn’t really considered what would happen once I opened, how much work it took to run a studio and how little I knew about running a business. Lucky for me I was a hard worker.

I was getting by on the excitement of my dream coming true, heaps of grit and working long hours, but two years in I hit a wall (you can only push for so long) and realized I really knew nothing about running a business and needed help.
Things were very tough financially.
Like how do we pay everyone tough.
Like I need to ask for help with rent tough.
I also need to literally live in my business because I can’t afford a place to stay tough…
All while working long days pouring all of my time, energy and heart into a place that was starting to feel like a sinking ship.

I tried to walk away from the business on 2 different occasions, because I was burned out big time. Constantly being in a state of fight or flight takes a toll. But there really wasn’t a way out, and I’m pretty stubborn.
So I just kept putting one foot in front of another.
I sought more help (from people that knew business)
I made necessary changes (in pricing, memberships and class offerings)
I started to build a strong team
I started to believe in myself and that what we were doing really mattered and really had value.
It felt hard to find that belief in myself after “failing” for so long, but I surrounded myself with the right people, and that helped. That was the major turning point. The mindset shift, precipitated by being around the right people and their encouragement; that I had value and what we were doing mattered.

In 2020 we were having our best year yet – on track to being profitable for the first time.
It finally started to feel like I might have a “life” outside my business after 8 years of grinding. Then COVID hit and presented a whole new set of challenges. But I knew we could handle them. We had already survived such tough times, and now I had a solid team and community around me. I knew we’d make it.
Year 10, in 2022 we were finally a profitable company, and every year since revenue and profit have continued to grow.
Now I look at what was created and honestly I still don’t really believe it. A million dollar a year company with a staff of over 35 people serving more than 200 people daily…
Maybe because I’m still just putting one foot in front of the other, still dreaming more dreams.
But when I think of the people we have helped
The friendships made.
The communities impacted.
Or just the simple fact that there’s a hot room and a lobby somewhere where there wasn’t until I made up my mind to build it. I am immensely proud, grateful for the help I received and so very happy that I never gave up. The dream finally feels like it has come true.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

1. Serving people well We’ve always been a “people first” business. We are super focused on getting to know our client and how we can help them. This results in clients that feel seen and valued. And turns into positive google reviews, and sharing through word of mouth which has helped us to build a positive reputation in our community.

2. A service that delivers results
When you deliver great results people share about you! And in our business when you deliver great results sometimes it shows externally so people ask “what have you been doing!?”

3. Consistency
Our brand language, personality and company values are consistent across all touch points from instagram to our website to the in person experience and helps us to build trust with our customers. Additionally we are who we say we are. If you run into us in the studio or out in the community.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.namastenorth.com
• Instagram: @namaste.north and @namastaymeg

Image Credits
The group yoga shots (ones with multiple people in them) photo credit: Kris Caetano The non yoga photos of myself photo credit: Nat Caron