Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in health and wellness but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Michael Phoutrides, Founder of Cornerstone Weight Loss, located in Clearwater, FL, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Cornerstone Weight Loss is your premier weight loss helper and advocate. We help you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that puts you in control of how you look. Our customers are you who have been tricked in the past by snake oil salesman claiming there is a magic trick to weight loss. There aren’t any tricks, and you may have learned that the hard way by gaining all that weight you lost back and more! Helping you understand what it takes for you to lose weight and keep it off forever is our mission.
Tell us about yourself
My whole life, I struggled with being overweight. Not just a little overweight, but a lot overweight! I was 225lbs in SIXTH GRADE. I tried many different diets that claimed to have the answer to my weight problem. I fell for a ton of Yo-yo Diet Profiteers and their tricks to get me to either stop eating something or start eating something like it was some magic bullet.
I was about to quit until I found a great lady who showed me how the food I was already eating was affecting my body and how I looked. She taught me how to understand what role the foods I was eating were playing in my life and how to get those foods to work for me instead of against me.
Bottom line, she taught me how to take control of how I looked. When it was all said and done, it seemed the best option was to help others achieve what I had been taught to achieve. It sounded like the best path for my professional life was to help you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
The many clients who have been guided into taking control of how they look. Some have lost ten pounds and have kept it off; others have lost nearly 100 pounds and have kept it off. No tricks, no gimmicks. Just unlearning the nonsense of the weight loss industry and re-learning how the body actually works based on what peer-reviewed scientific studies and research point to.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
There are so many people caught up in weight loss programs that are all wrong. It’s difficult to watch people get aboard a plane that you know is going to crash! The unfortunate side of the weight loss business is people tend to get emotionally tied to their weight loss program, so you really can’t guide them in the right direction until their guru’s program inevitably fails. When it finally goes bad, Cornerstone Weight Loss is there to pick up the pieces; however, it’s still sad to see.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Know who you want to help/problem to solve as precisely as possible (do not be vague about this).
- Have a cradle-to-grave plan for each person you want to help and have a department of your business for each step of the problem you solve.
- Allow your business to succeed on a part-time basis before going full-time.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
If you think that it’s your fault or your genetics that are stopping you from achieving weight loss, you’re wrong. You are a unique individual; however, all of our bodies share the same principles for why we gain and lose weight. If you’re willing to get back on the horse and try again, let Cornerstone Weight Loss be your companion so you can take control of how you look once and for all.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://cornerstoneweightloss.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CornerstoneWeightLoss/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cornerstone_weight_loss/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cornerstone_wl
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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