Fitlife.TV Star Drew Canole Reveals How He's Building A Health Business Empire

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

Hey, this is Brad and welcome back to the show. I'm excited today especially because I drug a friend of mine kicking and screaming onto this show because he was ruined that he was worried that bacon wrapped business would ruin his reputation as this organic super green health fanatic freak that he is. Ladies and gentlemen.

Don't bring me on, Brett. Don't bring me on.

Welcome to Drew Canole. He's the founder of.

He has got an amazing company that I have been privy to witness from even before it was founded. So Drew right now runs a multimillion dollar company that is really centered around a highly engaged community in the fitness, health, organic living lifestyle. And he started off sharing videos of himself on Facebook and YouTube just showing how he's getting healthy. He started to build this community, people started to love it, started to watch it. He started selling information products about how to properly juice vegetables and fruits for better health. He's turned this into a coaching company, a multimillion dollar organic supplement company, and a media property that gets hundreds of thousands and millions of views to any video that he really puts out. So from selling sponsorships to products to coaching to consulting to, you name it, he's really kind of done it all. And as I said, I've been privy to watch it from the very, very beginning. So I should have put, you know, I should have brought him in after this so he didn't listen to me blow his ego up any higher than it is. But Drew, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Brad. I've been trying to get on this show forever, but he's like, no, you're my friend, you can't. Come on. So I'm really excited to be here, my man. You've been instrumental in the growth of FitLife TV and helping the team and me out for the past three and a half, four years.

Cool. It's been a fun.

Yeah, you've done tons of stuff for us, dude. So anybody listening to this and you haven't met Brad in person. He is the real deal. He's not just some gimmicky podcaster that's out to make a quick buck off of you. He actually is one of the smartest people I know. And he's got a good heart as a human being. So thanks for having me on, my man.

I appreciate that very much. So what are we going to talk about today? I mean, you've got so many things that you could really, that you could really talk about. But I think here's where I want to steer it for the folks listening. Because the folks listening here, pretty much they're either in business or they want to be in business. They probably like ideas and how to start and grow what they're doing. But one of the things that gets bannered around quite a bit is find your passion and create a business around that. You've absolutely done that and you've built this really large engaged community. So give me a little bit of the story, really just the past couple years of what you've been doing to build this engaged community of juicing. And when I say fanatics, I'm talking about fanatics.

Yeah. So it all started about four years ago when I was overweight, out of shape, lethargic, looking in the mirror every day, and I just kind of felt average, you know, And I wanted more out of my life. I wanted more energy, more passion, more purpose. And at the time I was running a financial and credit company and I was doing great, I was making a lot of money, but I just wasn't happy. I would wake up in the morning and I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing. So I had a mentor that I would meet with every morning. He's one of my best friends. I don't know if you've ever met Frank, Brad, but you told me a.

Lot about him though. And he. Yeah, yeah, sounds like an awesome dude.

Like an 85 year old sage. Whatever he says, it just hits you, right? So he told me, he's like, Drew, whatever you do, make sure you're impacting people and you're changing their lives and that that'll bring you more wealth and more happiness than anything else you could be doing. So I took it to heart. I sold my companies in Tampa, Florida, where I was, you know, living at the time. I was partying every weekend with some guys that had good intentions. Amazing people on this planet, they're doing big things, but they were just a little too wrapped up into the scene for me at the time. So I knew I had to change my environment. That's a big thing. And you're an NLP master, Brad, so you get that. Change your environment, you can change your life.

Yeah, it really is one of Those foundation things just not to go too far down that rabbit trail. But that's one of the most impactful things you can do. When I sold my business and I moved to San Diego, it's like when you change your environment, you force your behaviors to change because you have new habits, you're in a new place and then it just kind of trickles up, your behaviors change. So as those change, your capabilities change and everything kind of trickles down. So it's it or cascades down and that's what happened to you.

Yeah, I mean the logical levels, you totally become. Your identity changes completely. So every morning I'd wake up in San Diego after being in Tampa and dreading the week and waiting for the weekend to come and boozing with my friends in Tampa to now I'm inspired. I'm waking up at 6 o' clock every morning, I'm drinking green juice every single day. I'm going to the gym every day. I'm counting how many people I get to impact in person on a day to day basis. And at that time I was shooting a YouTube video every day and I would just upload this YouTube video. Didn't really think anything of it. It was more of a hobby at the time. I knew that if I had enough discipline and desired determination that these videos would pay off eventually. But I didn't know how they would. Right.

Yeah.

So essentially I was uploading these videos. I personally transformed in about 90 days. I lost 40 pounds of body fat and I gained muscle. So I was the leanest I've ever been. Like 7% just looked great. And I was posting tons of selfies. I know that sounds.

Oh yes, you were.

I know it sounds really lame. Right? But it was the, it was the best form of marketing at the time. So.

Yeah. By the way, we, we joke that Drew, Drew owes his success to the fact that he is, he is living, breathing mommy porn. So I'll put a picture. So you got these pictures of handsome, handsome young Drew shirtless showing up on your Facebook feed. And as a buddy of mine, I didn't really appreciate that, I gotta admit. But it did inspire me to get in shape myself.

Yeah. And you actually likened to our good buddy Kent Clothier, who was actually my first transformation client ever. Him and Seema, his wife. That's how I started making money at FitLife TV. Kent and Seema actually paid me to fly out to their house in Tampa, Florida.

Just help a couple people.

Yeah, exactly. Help them out. I didn't really know what to even charge them Most personal trainers are charged 150 an hour, so I thought that was cool. So stayed there the weekend, charged them 3,000 bucks. And I stayed on them for 90 days, was helping them left and right, telling them what to eat, teaching them how to juice, how to live this healthy lifestyle, this organic thing. And after 90 days, they posted their before and after pictures. And then I had six people reach out to me within 30 days asking for me to do the same thing for them. That's when my prices went from that three to $10,000 to today. 25 grand for a day of helping people with their transformations, looking at their blood, looking at their DNA, checking all the things that we do throughout our coaching program. Some pretty advanced stuff, too. Frank Kern always jokes around with me. He's like, you're literally teaching people how to put cucumbers in juicers and charging big bucks for it. But it's a lot more than that. Integral approach to health and fitness. And you've been through it, Brad. I mean, you literally. We got to post your before and after pictures, too, because you were jacked when you went through your first transformation.

Yeah, and I lost it. I'm a little bit. I'm a little bit back to the before picture. I got to get right back into the after. And.

This is my public calling out, my public shaming. So, yes, I get it.

So you've been wrapping too much stuff up in bacon. I come over to your house and I look in your fridge and just everything's wrapped up.

I've got no excuse. So I want to fast forward through some stuff because your story's been seen in a lot of places, and what you're doing from a business standpoint has been really remarkable. And I'll lead this for you. So you started creating information products and you started selling those and letting people know how to. How to have success with the bodies, etc. And buying information and actually selling an information product can be quite a bit of a challenge because people like to buy stuff. They like to buy physical things, and.

They like to buy things besides just information. So I thought it was great when you started your organic supplement company. So you've got two products right now, and I know they're kicking butt. That's. What is it? Organifi, the green powder?

Yeah, it's green juice. You know, a superfood green powder mix with ashwagandha in it. Lemon, kale, turmeric, spirulina, chlorella. And the results? We're doing clinical trials on it right now. But the results that we've gotten from the community are beyond amazing. People are experiencing weight loss, they're experiencing more energy, more mental clarity. A lot of people are literally coming off different types of medication because they're changing their diet. They're just doing smarter things in their life. And that's rewarding as a coach and rewarding as somebody who has a superfood company like that to see all those testimonials coming in.

Right. So now that you've got two, because you also have a probiotics line that you've got, right?

Yep, we have a probiotic that we just launched two months ago. And yeah, I say launched, I'm on a marketing podcast. Right. People totally get that.

Dr. They get it. They know.

Okay, cool. So we, we put that out there two months ago. Did really, really well with that. It's called Biotic B. We have a meal replacement in the works that should be out in the next eight weeks, which you're gonna love. It is it's all plant based organic, but you're gonna love it, Brad. It tastes just like bacon.

Is it bacon based?

Exactly.

Bacon based meal replacement powdered bacon.

It's got organic MCT oil in it.

There we go.

Pretty cool.

So when you build a, like, you didn't do this in a, you didn't tiptoe into the market when you came in with your, with your supplement. And at the same time, what you did was you built your community first so that launching your supplements was obviously easier than just some Joe Schmo off the street saying, hey, I'm gonna start a supplement business. That's a lot harder for them to do. What you did took a lot longer to do. But what has been the biggest challenge, especially the most unforeseen challenge of the supplement business, because I know now you've got to deal with sourcing and procurement and logistics and supply and balancing inventories. But just as a business owner, what's been the biggest challenge as far as running a supplement business?

Well, the big thing with supplements, especially all organic, non GMO certified, all this other stuff that we do, it's different than just a supplement company. I think there's two different classes of them, you know, because there's the private label guys who find something like garcinia, cambogia, whatever, they put it on Amazon, they sell millions and millions of dollars of it, but that's a one off the shelf thing that they're just sourcing from someplace somewhere. When you get into custom formulations, which is what we do, and Coming up with your own mixtures, more or less of each supplement, it becomes a little bit more difficult because now you're sourcing individual ingredients from all over the world. And there's testing that goes into each one of those individual ingredients. There's different shipping. When the ports were closed in la, we had to deal with those issues, the strikes that were going on. So there's all these unforeseen situations that you're up against when you're dealing with an all organic, I mean even organic Lohan, you know, the prices literally quadrupled in the past three months. And that's what we use to sweeten our stuff instead of stevia, because stevia disrupts your gut biome on some level. And so we want to make sure.

It'S hard because so kind of sourcing really. Yeah. So sourcing the really high quality ingredients has been the hardest part, right?

Yeah, sourcing the really high quality ingredients. So now we're actually looking at potentially long term buying farms and having that real estate so we can actually create our own stuff.

Well, damn.

Yeah, I like it. And organic protein is what we're looking at too. So pea protein and some other.

Now one of the other things you're doing to.

Not only promote the product, the information, but also the mission and the entire movement that you're on is you just launched a certification program, right?

Yeah. So the certification program we've been working on for over two years, Mae Desmond has been just knocking out of the ballpark with us. You know, may, I mean, she's just a little, little fireball.

Yeah.

So we've been working on that for about two, two and a half years. Ever since we started coaching clients at FitLife TV. We knew it was something we wanted to do, but we didn't know how to scale it. So now we've built this whole online gamified membership community that plugs in real nicely with our certification levels. So we have the health coach transformation certification, which is really cool. If you're running any business out there and you're looked at as an industry expert in whatever you do, tacking on a high end certification is something you want to look at for your business because that adds our average cart value on an organifi person would probably be like around 150, 157 bucks. Whereas once you start doing certifications, that adds a lot to that cart value, a lot more you can do.

So what's involved with the certification? And I want to know both from a, from the business standpoint, like what do you have to provide? And then what does the person get? What can they do with it?

Yeah. So basically the big thing is with our certification is we realize there's a lot of health certifications out there. So what's our usp, the unique selling proposition which everybody has to look at in business? And we realized that ours is the fact that we built such an engaging large community and we get leads for free, basically on different platforms ever since the beginning of Facebook. Before Facebook became this paid advertising platform, we were getting millions and millions of dollars worth of business per year from the organic reach that we had. Things change. We moved to Instagram. Now we're moving to more YouTube videos. We're a YouTube partner, which is pretty cool. So we rank really, really high with our videos on YouTube.

The moral of the story is, basically, the certification has really helped us. And what we would like to teach others to do is develop their own health and fitness platform so that they can get these types of leads coming to them in their local community. So the certified coaches that have been through it are already experiencing a flow of leads, a constant increase in the amount of business that they're doing. And we have massage art, we have massage people, we have chiropractors, we have physical therapists that are benefiting from this type of certification. Yes.

Okay, so say I want to be certified. So what do I get? What are you providing?

So it's eight weeks of education based on our transformation. So the same one that you went through to get to where you wanted with your body, that's included into it. So we show you not only the aspects of juicing, but looking at gut health, ridding inflammation out of your body. So not only, one of the really cool things about this as well is not only do you learn to teach somebody how to do it, but you actually do it while you go through it.

Nice.

So you're the demonstration, and that's how my transformation started in the first place. It's not like I was a fat guy selling people how to get fit. Like, a lot of fitness professionals are out there. I actually transformed. I was in the best shape of my life, and it was a lot easier to basically position myself and help people from that level. And that's what we do, and that's what this certification does, is it transforms you, your life, your mind, but then also gives you the tools and the resources from a business aspect to actually transform your bank account and make money as a health coach in 2015.

Nice. So for people who might already sell information or who might have something not too dissimilar or thinking about creating it as a business, as a business opportunity for the consumers, it's really amazing. It's something they're obviously passionate about, they want to do. It provides them an opportunity to not only learn and get in better shape, but I imagine as they go through this, they have to kind of complete is there coursework that they have to do, is there tests, quizzes, etc. Make sure they know their stuff.

Exactly.

Cool. So then they get their certification. But as a business owner, what's involved? It's not, correct me if I'm wrong, and I am interested in this because it's not terribly different than just creating an information product. But you're holding people, you're building them a framework, holding them accountable and then showing them how to position themselves in the marketplace. Or is there anything else that I'm missing?

No, it is an informational product, actually. It's like a membership website that you have with all the videos and content, but you get more live, one on one interaction. Now we've gamified it to a certain point to where coaches compete against each other. They get badges in our online community, different things like that to keep them interested. And then at the end of it, many of them come out to San Diego to a live event and hang out with us for a little bit as well, with the master certification that we have, and that's the one that Koosha is running at FitLife TV. So it's really cool seeing all of our live coaches all over the country and the type of impact that they're making. I posted this one gal on my Facebook today. She's lost over £100 in these before and after pictures. You have to show them on your website. But these are the type of results that I'm not personally responsible for. And that warms my heart at FitLife TV, because that was our main mission in the beginning when we say we're in this together now, our coaches are all out doing the same thing. So whatever business you have, if you're in the business of impacting people's lives, having a certification and then empowering them with your tools and resources that you've already created and giving them the ability to go out, make it happen, it's very, very rewarding and it can scale your business real quickly.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's great. I've seen more people progress that way. However, I haven't seen enough and I think it's still just a tremendous business practice. So like if you. Mr. Business Owner, what or out there, if you have information, products, etc, consider doing a certification program or you know, if you're into health and you're looking for a way to make extra money and you know, sign up for the certification program. I mean, just, I mean, you know, I didn't get you on here to pitch, but I'll pitch for you in the fact that it's.

It's kind of cool that people can learn from you. If they want to learn business and they are passionate about health, they can not only learn your health program and how to do that, but they can get much deeper interaction with you and your company who has done so many things correctly, like from building the community to info to physical products to you name it. I think you're just a good person to not only learn health from, but also business from. Because you've done that one thing that so many people hear about.

Work with your passion. They can't figure it out, how to do it. So where, like if somebody wants to sign up for or get more information at least on the certification program, where do they go?

You know, Brad, I think it's. I don't know. Let me check this real quick. I want to make sure I give you the right URL.

Yep. FitLife TV. Bring your bacon.

Let's see if this pops up. Cool.

Probably somewhere on FitLife TV. I'm thinking you can tell a man who's on top of his game. He doesn't even know how to get to the.

Hold on one sec. Let's get May Desmond on the phone here. Hold on. Yep, this will be good. I'll put it on speakerphone. She can say hi to everybody like this.

You're on live coast to Coast.

Desmond, you gotta. You gotta say that to her when she picks up. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

You hear it? Alright, say your thing in one.

Got it.

Actually, I'll answer it on my computer.

Okay.

May Desmond.

Hello, Drew Canoli.

Hello, May Desmond.

You're on coast to coast with Bacon Wrap Business Radio live in front of the world.

Brad Piscenzo.

I can.

Is Brad Piscenza right there?

The one and only.

Hey, May. So where do people go to sign up to be a certified coach or get more information? What's the URL? It's hidden.

I can't share it. I can't. It's www.fitlifevip.com coachingcertification.

Got it. Did you get that FitLife VIP.com coaching certification bacon. Brad Costanza was Awesome.

Done and done. Thanks, Desmond. I'll holler at you in a little bit. Hey, what do you want to tell Brad? Give Brad a compliment.

Brad, I just want to say don't ever stop what you're doing. It is absolutely a blessing to hear your bologna's voice on your podcast. And dropping all this delicious crispy bacon. Oh, my goodness.

Why have I been interviewing cannoli here for the past 20 minutes? I could be interviewing you. You blow up my ego. Even better.

This guy knows the stuff. Thanks, Brad.

Love your cool. All right, so There we go. FitLifeVIP.com certification, coaching certification. And you can see not only what you get as a coach, you can see how Drew pitches it, which is a good thing. And copy it. Copy it word for word. It's gonna be bacon wrap certification next. Let's wipe that. So what else? What else is big on the list? So you guys are always growing, you're always into a million new things.

Is there anything else big that people can look to expect from Drew Canole and FitLife TV in the next three to six months?

So I'm working on a New York Times best selling book and I know one of the things that established me with a lot of credibility back in the day was actually having Mr. Brad Costanzo of bacon wrap business help me with my first book, Juicing Recipes for Vitality and Health. Right?

Yep.

Which we sold over 100,000 copies at this point, either on our website or through Amazon and completely crushed it. And now we're looking to build more credibility. So I have an agent that I'm working with and we're going to crush it in the next three months. We'll sell it to one of the big publishers and get that out there as well. So all your listeners, if you heard this now, let me know when the book comes out and I'll send you a copy. We'll get it going. Rocking and rolling.

Fifty Shades of Cannoli.

Fifty Shades of Cannoli. That's exactly the book title. You knew it.

I love it.

So the goal for me, individual, personal goal, is to like every business owner, have my team take over more. And I've been working in this transition for the past, I would say six months. And I'm at a point now to where I've done it. And then sometimes I get a little bored as an entrepreneur.

Right.

Because we get in that zone, we're like, if we're not doing, if we're not in control of everything, sometimes we get a little anxious. So I'm Looking to create a few new. Not a few, but a couple. Maybe one. My ADD's kicking in half of one. Half a one, maybe half a one. Opportunities. So new businesses.

Yep.

So that's what we're doing. And I think you should start a fast food company.

Burgers.

But like. Like a really bad fast food company.

Get a. Get a. Get a Wienerschnitzel franchise.

Well, the way McDonald's is closing.

Oh, yeah.

We could probably buy them now and turn it all into health food.

Yeah, you could probably buy McDonald's. I mean, you guys are making a lot of money.

Yeah, buy. We're slinging lots of green juice.

Exactly.

Enough said. Bacon.

Cool. Well, Drew, I appreciate your time on the show today. That's about all the time we've got. And for all my listeners out there, you can find Drew Canole C A N O L E.

On Facebook and also just type in juicing vegetables on Facebook as well. And you'll see his fan page with over 1.6 million followers. And if you are the least bit curious about some of the stuff that I did personally to work with Drew to help him, help him build his business and kind of consult him on some of the ways to. I'm not taking credit for his success, but I definitely had some things that we did together that helped. You can email me at askbrad@baconratbusiness.com Let me know what your question is. And I'm more than happy to reveal some of the cool stuff. I may even reveal it on an upcoming podcast if I get some great feedback on some of the overall strategies we used. If you like this, share it. Till next time. I enjoyed having you on the show, Drew. I enjoyed everybody listening and going to be taking a little bit of a break from over the next month.

From releasing a new episode, going on my honeymoon, heading to Greece here before too long. So, guys, thank you very much for all your time listening. And Drew, thank you. Talk to you soon.

Yeah, buddy. Later.