Exploring Hormone Therapy, Menopause Care, and the Holistic Approach to Health and Well-being

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by Woodstock Neighbors Magazine, bringing neighbors and business together. For more information, go to Facebook and Instagram at Woodstock Neighbors dot BVM you guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast, first up on Cherokee Business Radio this morning with Elite Health HRT, nurse practitioner and owner, Ms. Katherine Houston. How are you?

Kitty Houston: [00:01:03] I’m doing great. Thank you. You can call me Kitty.

Stone Payton: [00:01:05] Oh, good. All right. Well, all right, Ms. Kitty. Well, we’re delighted to have you in the studio and on the program. I got a ton of questions. I think our other guests have questions, too. So this ought to be a very informative segment. But before we go there. Mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Kitty Houston: [00:01:27] Well, um, I really specialize in menopause care. I take care of men as well for hormone therapy, but when I went through menopause, it was rough. It was really rough. And my, um, physician really just kind of was like, well, you know, this is this is, you know, basically suck it up. And for me, I was not willing to just suck it up. I was a nurse in women’s health at the time. And, you know, I wanted to figure out the whole menopause issue because we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it in nursing school. We don’t talk about it in nurse practitioner school. It’s not taught in med school. So, you know, we practitioners just are like, well, I don’t know what to do. It’s just normal. Just suck it up. Here’s an antidepressant move on. And I really wanted to help women because 100% of us go through menopause now. And so that’s what I do.

Stone Payton: [00:02:22] Well, now that you’ve been at it a while. What, uh, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the about the work for you?

Kitty Houston: [00:02:29] It’s definitely seeing the change in the patients that I have that come in. I have women that come in and they are desperate, and they say, you know, I’m taking this herb and and this medication and this supplement, and I am out of my mind. I don’t feel like myself. I’m going crazy. And then eight weeks, ten weeks into therapy, they’re like, you gave me my life back. I feel normal again. And it’s wonderful for me to see the light in the eyes of these women who came in a lot of times crying, saying, help me, please help me. Because I am struggling with work. I’m struggling with relationships, my marriage is struggling. I hate everybody and everything all the time, including myself. And I know what that feels like because I went through that. And so it’s wonderful for me to look at these women and go, I know, I know how you feel. I know that that you feel like you want to participate in life again. So that’s probably the most rewarding thing for me is to see that change.

Stone Payton: [00:03:28] I gotta believe that it’s not one size fits all, that every situation is different. Yeah it.

Kitty Houston: [00:03:34] Is. You know, I have no idea what someone’s base hormones were like when they were in their 20s and 30s and they felt their version of normal. So it’s a lot of trial and error. It’s a lot of adjustments to get women to what they say is, this is my norm. And for some women, I, you know, that might be like, wow, that’s you know, that’s a really high level of estrogen. But for them, that’s their norm and that’s where they feel good. So it’s definitely not a one size fits all. It’s definitely a tailored therapy for each individual person.

Stone Payton: [00:04:07] So I’ve heard it before, but, uh, I’m, I guess I’m still a little bit surprised that men sometimes have some of these challenges.

Kitty Houston: [00:04:16] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So women peak their testosterone production at 28, and there’s a slow decline until we go through menopause. Men peak their testosterone production around 20, and then they have a slow decline until they’re about mid 40s. And then they stay stable for the rest of their life, which is about half of where they were when they were in their 20s. So for some men, they they don’t have what’s called andropause where they feel like I am not myself. I’m having poor quality of sleep. I’m having less motivation, I’m having weight gain. I’m having more anxiety and depression and inability to manage stress like they could. But I see time and time again men are like, well, you know, my doctor says my testosterone is normal. Well, the normal range for men is the same from 18 to death. And it is a very, very, very broad range. So if they’re making half of what they were in their 20s, when they’re 50, they don’t feel normal. So I get them back to that normal level where it’s it’s still safe, but it’s definitely giving them the oomph that they need.

Stone Payton: [00:05:23] All right. So let’s talk about the work a little bit okay. And maybe and let’s let’s start at the beginning. Well yeah. Like when should, uh, a man or a woman reach out to you or are there signs or should they just be checking anyway? Is this like you take your car in, just you don’t go on a long trip without taking your car in.

Kitty Houston: [00:05:43] So it’s always great to get a baseline when you’re young. And I do have patients that are in their 50s that bring in their, you know, semi adult children that are in their early 20s to get a baseline and see where are their hormones at that age. And any time you feel like you’re just not your optimal self is probably a time to have your hormones checked to say they’re starting to decline because they decline as we age. And then when you factor in all of the hormone disruptors that we have in our environment, they’re declining much more rapidly for people in their 20s and 30s and 40s than they were for people in their 50s and 60s.

Stone Payton: [00:06:25] Okay, I got to ask about hormone disruptors, and then I want to know more about the process. But yes, speak to that a little bit.

Kitty Houston: [00:06:30] So hormone disruptors can be anything from pesticides or some of the things that we put in our plastics, or they’re in our To-Go foods in our to go containers. Hormone disruptors are in our foods. We put a lot of, um, antibiotics and hormones in our food, in our in our animals. And then we eat that and they mimic our, um, our hormones in such a way that our body’s like, well, oh, I’m getting so many of these hormones, I don’t need to make as much. So then we naturally decrease our own natural production and it’s just a cycle. Then we make less so we feel worse and it just goes on and on.

Stone Payton: [00:07:13] I hope mom’s listening because my that’s it’s good. If you have a radio show that mom listens now and again. Right. But. No. Mom watches her vegetables. She buys the grass fed beef. So there really is something to this.

Kitty Houston: [00:07:26] There’s that is huge. Eating organic, eating non-GMO, eating food that is not treated with pesticides is huge for your health and for the health of your family.

Stone Payton: [00:07:38] So carry over here is nodding her head. Ah, it sounds like you buy into this whole thing about at least doing what we can to stay away from these disruptors. She was going, so I lost.

Speaker4: [00:07:49] Half of my body weight at one point in my life. So I saw a huge change when I moved to the eating in this style, where my health was significantly better, I felt better. I slept better when I focused on eating foods that were healthy, natural, and organic and were not filled with pesticides. I felt a huge change in my life. It was so significant.

Stone Payton: [00:08:09] All right, more about the process. So that’s one of the things that identify. So those that’s just like some quick pro tips right out of the box that you can have a conversation with them about, and they can start making some of those adjustments and be on the lookout for that. But yeah. So I come into your office, I sit down. Well, first of all, what am I complaining about or worried about if I come if I’m coming to your office?

Kitty Houston: [00:08:32] Um. The symptoms for men and women are very similar. Okay. As women are going through perimenopause and they’re starting to have hormone decline. Uh, the symptoms, the most common ones that everybody thinks about is hot flashes, mood swings, but heart palpitations, itchy skin, dry eyes, joint pain, um, weight gain, especially midsection weight gain, low libido, low drive to be active. Forgetfulness. Less ability to stay focused and on task. These are very, very common as the hormones decline because our hormones have a lot to do with that for men. Um, anxiety, depression, less motivation, poor quality of sleep, lower libido, weight gain. Um, just that motivation that get up and go is kind of got up and left and it’s it’s terrible. But it happens to us all as we age. And a lot of times we attribute this to I’m tired, I’ve got a job, I’ve got kids, I’ve got spouse, I’ve got stress. So we attribute a lot of the common symptoms of low hormones to life factors, whereas a lot of it is is cohesive. You’re going to have hormone disruptors. You’re going to have hormones dropping along with all of these, these life things that are happening. But it you know, you just get your hormones checked whenever you can.

Stone Payton: [00:09:53] So please tell me there are no disruptors in bourbon.

Kitty Houston: [00:10:00] As long as they’re not using, you know, pesticides in their grains and things, then you’re good.

Stone Payton: [00:10:06] Organic bourbon.

Kitty Houston: [00:10:07] Organic bourbon. You should be just fine. I would say drink in moderation, but. Right. You know, there’s nothing wrong with having bourbon.

Stone Payton: [00:10:15] Well, Kerry brought up weight loss. So there’s there’s some real connection here in, um, weight loss or the appropriate weight for your frame. And with all this as well. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Kitty Houston: [00:10:27] So when I bring a person into our office and they have questions and they want to become a patient, one of the things that we do, we do blood work. But I also put every single person on a body composition scale, because it’s important to know that it’s not about your weight, it’s about your percentage of body fat. And, you know, just for me, for example, my weight hasn’t changed in five years, but my size has changed dramatically because I’ve lost 13 pounds of fat and put on 10 pounds of muscle. So my weight is the same. But I went down three sizes and I have, you know, lost a lot of the visceral fat, which is the fat that kills us. It’s the fat that causes high cholesterol and heart disease and fatty liver. So just balancing the hormones can help you lose all of that midsection weight and help you feel better. You’re putting on muscle. Your muscle burns your fat even at rest. The more muscle you have on your body, the more better calorie burner you are.

Stone Payton: [00:11:30] So a lot of this is counsel from you with your specialized expertise, but it’s shifts in lifestyle and and habits.

Kitty Houston: [00:11:39] Yeah, absolutely. So you know, getting the hormones balanced is part of the, the the process. So I like to think of that as if you have a toolbox balancing your hormones as a tool, watching what you eat, how you eat, the order in which you eat your food is a tool. Being active is a tool. How you exercise is a tool so you know you have a toolbox. You can’t just have a hammer. You have to have a screwdriver. You have to have a wrench. You there are other components. And when you you know, when patients come into my office, I counsel them on all of the different tools that they can use, because some patients don’t want to do hormone therapy, but they want to feel better. So we look at it from a nutrition standpoint or for a supplement standpoint or from a weight loss standpoint, but you know, you have to have all the tools.

Stone Payton: [00:12:30] So does hormone therapy or can it include adding some hormones or.

Kitty Houston: [00:12:36] Absolutely.

Stone Payton: [00:12:37] Oh okay. Yeah. Say more about that.

Kitty Houston: [00:12:38] All right. So um, we do hormone replacement for men. We do testosterone and we monitor estrogen because estrogen and testosterone have a symbiotic relationship. So we also give something to men to help with preserving testicular function so that they don’t have shrinkage or they don’t have infertility, especially for my men that are in their 20s and 30s. Yeah. And still planning for families, for women we do testosterone, we do estrogen, we do progesterone. And we have a balance. I have a formula that we do a balance. Some women don’t want testosterone. Great. You don’t have to have it. It is our most abundant hormone in our body as women. Women don’t realize that. But we have a lot. I didn’t.

Stone Payton: [00:13:22] Either. I don’t guess.

Kitty Houston: [00:13:23] We have a lot less testosterone than men. Um, but we have a lot of testosterone in our bodies when we’re in our 20s and 30s. And I replace all of those. Some patients are like, oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to turn into a man. I don’t do gender reassignment. I just replace hormones so that we feel optimal.

Stone Payton: [00:13:43] Yeah. All right. What I’m going to switch gears on you a little bit. What was it like to leave the the job, a job and then start your own business? That had to be a little scary. It was.

Kitty Houston: [00:13:54] Terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. But I wanted to be able to help people the way I didn’t get help. And my husband is a partner in this business with me, and he does the business side of it, whereas he says, I’m the talent, so I, I take care of the patients, he takes care of the business side of it. So if I wasn’t doing this with him, I would never have done it.

Speaker5: [00:14:23] Knee.

Stone Payton: [00:14:25] So how does the whole, um, sales and marketing thing work for a practice like yours? Because not only do you have to be good at this, you got your husband in there. Do you have to get out there and shake the trees? Do you have, like, this whole systemic approach for it? I guess education would be a big part of your whole marketing approach. Yeah.

Kitty Houston: [00:14:44] Yes. So we don’t do any kind of like outside marketing.

Stone Payton: [00:14:50] Not going to see you on the billboard.

Kitty Houston: [00:14:52] No, we’re not going to see me on a billboard. Okay. Most of our patients come in as word of mouth and, you know, just I go to the hair salon and I had somebody ask me, well, what do you do? And I said, well, I’m new to the area. I just opened my own business. This is what I do. And they’re like, oh my gosh, I need you. And just from that, I’ve gotten like 20 patients because women at the hair salon talk and were there for a long time. And, you know, you go to your hairstylist and you’re like, wait a minute, why do you look like you feel so much better? I saw you three months ago and you were miserable and you, you know, had no energy. And now you feel great. What did you do? And so that’s a big marketing thing. But just being out in the community, I just talk to people. I keep business cards in my purse. And anytime I hear somebody, you know, if I’m, I’m out. I went out to the wineries over the weekend with my daughter, and there were four women at the table, and they were griping about all the things. And I said, ladies, where do you live? And they said, Marietta, I said, come see me, I can help. And they’re like, oh my gosh, you do hormones? I said, yes, I do. And so it just, you know, listening to conversations and chit chatting with people is how we do our marketing.

Stone Payton: [00:16:10] So deep root, downtown Woodstock has a ribbon cutting in a few days, so you should definitely show up.

Kitty Houston: [00:16:15] Oh, absolutely. I’d be happy to. You should.

Stone Payton: [00:16:18] If you do sponsor anything, you should sponsor Deep Root, right? We’ve been a couple of times and we really we really enjoyed it. Oh that’s that’s great. So I don’t know when you would ever find the time because it sounds like you got a lot going on. But interests, hobbies, passions that you pursue outside the scope of your work, anything you have a tendency to nerd out about?

Kitty Houston: [00:16:40] Um.

Stone Payton: [00:16:41] Uh, my listeners know I like to hunt, fish, and travel. Okay. The reason I ask, okay.

Kitty Houston: [00:16:45] I love to be outside. So I just hiked Yonah Mount Yonah on Saturday. Oh baby, I love to. It’s gorgeous. So. And it’s a it’s a good hike. I’m still sore. And I hiked on Saturday and I’m still sore and I’m not out of shape. So I love to be outside. I love to hike. I love to kayak when we have time. Um, I’m contemplating taking up golf. My husband golfs, my son golfs, my daughter in law golfs. So they’re like, you need to be the fourth. And I’m like, yeah, but I really am going to be terrible because I am not sports oriented. I never did sports, but I’m willing to try. I’m willing to I’m willing to try taking up golf.

Stone Payton: [00:17:28] Oh, I wanted to ask you about and this is, you know, all of my research is like from Facebook, so take it with a grain of salt. But a word that keeps popping up for me is peptides. Mhm. Is there something to that or is that just Facebook pablum or no Pep.

Kitty Houston: [00:17:44] Peptides are another way to do something to help with anti-aging. There are different peptides that do different things. Peptides are just chains of amino acids that work in different ways. We have peptides that help with sex drive and let me tell you, they really work. We have peptides that help with healing, especially with healing the gut and healing wounds. We have peptides that help with increasing muscle mass, and we have peptides that help with decreasing weight by regulating insulin sensitivity. So by adding these into your routine for your hormone replacement or your weight loss, people can see a much bigger benefit using peptides. Well, I’m.

Stone Payton: [00:18:30] Glad I asked. All right. Circling back to the work, yes. Uh, and we and we used me as our case study. I think, you know, I got a little too much prosperity right here. You know, I’m not fat in a lot of places, but I got a little prosperity right here above the belt. Uh, even if I lose weight, it’s still. It’s that smaller. But in proportion to everything, it’s right there. So I come in, I talk with you, you ask me questions, you know just how much bourbon stone and where is it coming from? And we think to that, if appropriate. And so you might provide some immediate counsel on, hey, consider doing this and eating less of this and more of that and all that kind of stuff. And if appropriate, you might say, and maybe we need to add some of this, you know, and we’ll and we’ll do that and think about the peptides and all that. So walk us through what that I know you’re not prescribing for me because we haven’t had that conversation. But. And what what might uh I don’t even know what to call it. A. Therapeutic plan look like over the course of the coming months or something.

Kitty Houston: [00:19:27] Okay, so the first thing I would do is check bloodwork. So anybody that I’m going to treat I check bloodwork. So I look at cortisol because if your cortisol is really, really high you’re going to hold on to that belly fat no matter what you do. Got it. So we look at cortisol. We look at thyroid. We look at testosterone. We look at fertility hormones for everyone. Just so we have a baseline. And I tailor everybody’s therapy to what are your goals. What is your body fat percentage. Because we have patients that come in that like you you look fit. You look slender. You might be skinny fat, meaning your percentage of body fat is high for your frame because you don’t have enough muscle. And we lose muscle at about 1% a year as we age. For women, when we’re about ten years into menopause or ten years around menopause, we will lose 2% of our muscle mass.

Speaker4: [00:20:22] Interesting.

Kitty Houston: [00:20:23] And this is why we start going. I’m not changing how I eat. I’m not changing how I exercise. I’m not changing how much alcohol I drink. And yet I’m putting on all of this weight. It’s because we’re losing our muscle mass, so we’re burning less calories. So for someone like you, I would say the first thing I’m going to do is look at your hormones. You could probably benefit from testosterone. And then based on what your individual goals are and what your, um, body fat percentage is, we would come up with a plan specifically for you, and then we recheck body composition every six weeks. You know, some patients want to check it every week. Great. Jump on the machine. Check it every week. It doesn’t cost you anything. Um, and then we look at blood levels after about 12 weeks of therapy just to see are we getting where we want to be? Are we getting where we feel, where we’re happy, where we’re comfortable. Mhm.

Stone Payton: [00:21:14] And is this a terribly expensive prospect or does it just vary from person and case and goals.

Kitty Houston: [00:21:22] Um, if you’re looking at just specifically hormone therapy for men, it’s about $140 a month if you spend.

Stone Payton: [00:21:31] That on bourbon.

Kitty Houston: [00:21:34] Weekly or monthly. So for women, if they are in perimenopause and and need all three hormones testosterone, estrogen and progesterone, it’s about $200 a month because we’re working with a lot more hormones. Um, um, weight loss therapy is very affordable. Peptide therapy is very affordable, and I have some patients that just come in and get IVs and vitamins just to help give them a boost and help them feel better. And we’ve had a lot of patients come in lately that went on spring break and came back with a virus. I’m like, you need some hydration because you probably drank too much at the beach. So we also do IV hydration and vitamins.

Stone Payton: [00:22:12] Oh, neat. Uh, physical location. Then you have a physical location?

Kitty Houston: [00:22:16] Yes, I have a physical location. We are on highway 92. We are at, um. 920 Woodstock Road, suite 240, in Roswell. So there’s a moe’s there. There’s. It’s like a little plaza right across from LA fitness. Yeah. In Roswell.

Stone Payton: [00:22:34] All right, so what’s the best way for our listeners to have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, or they. I guess they could go to go to the place, but maybe set up kind of a consultation thing or what’s. Yeah.

Kitty Houston: [00:22:46] Yeah. So we do consultations are free, which I know people think I’m crazy. Um, but a consultation is free. We can do a consultation over the phone. We can do a consultation in person. Uh, the best way to schedule a consultation would be to call the office, and somebody will that’s in charge of my schedule will put them on my schedule. And the phone number is (678) 539-9464.

Stone Payton: [00:23:11] Fantastic. And then get the blood work and all that done with you. Or do we got to go out and do it and come to you with the blood work report? Or how does that piece work?

Kitty Houston: [00:23:20] We do the blood work at the clinic. It’s $150 for a very, very comprehensive, um, panel. Yeah. If you were to go to a lab and have these labs done, it would be about $1,800. Ouch. We charge 150. We charge because we get a discount from the lab. So we charge what the lab charges us. And it’s very, very comprehensive. And it’s about a two day turnaround. So if somebody came in today, I could see them on Thursday to go over their results and get them started with therapy.

Stone Payton: [00:23:50] Man, that seems fast.

Kitty Houston: [00:23:52] It’s pretty fast.

Stone Payton: [00:23:53] Yeah. All right. One more time. Those coordinates, let’s make sure our listeners know how to get to you.

Kitty Houston: [00:23:57] Okay. Um, the office is at 920 Woodstock Road, suite 240, in Roswell. We’re right there on highway 92, and the phone number is 678. 5399464.

Stone Payton: [00:24:12] Nobody ever calls themselves right. So they always they it always takes them a little longer to tell you their phone number that you don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.

Speaker4: [00:24:19] It took me forever to memorize my business number. I was like, oh, I just could not. I took forever in the.

Kitty Houston: [00:24:25] Beginning, I kept giving people my cell phone number. I’m like, oh no, no, no, no, no, don’t, don’t, don’t call me on my cell because I don’t answer it after work.

Stone Payton: [00:24:34] Well, thanks for coming in and sharing your insight and your perspective. I look forward to continuing to follow your story, but I also look forward to to to learning about this topic in particular. Uh, but don’t go anywhere. Will you hang out with us while we visit?

Kitty Houston: [00:24:46] Absolutely.

Stone Payton: [00:24:48] And she’s been a great wingman. She’s been nodding and been very encouraging. And we’re going.

Speaker4: [00:24:52] To take the card, actually.

Speaker5: [00:24:54] Uh.

Stone Payton: [00:24:55] There you go. And I’ll send you the invoice for the broker fee. There you go. If she.

Kitty Houston: [00:24:59] Does, is it.

Speaker5: [00:25:00] Bourbon? Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:25:01] It’s one bottle of decent bourbon. Absolutely. All right, next up on Cherokee Business Radio this morning, please join me in welcoming to the program with covered with Kerry. The lady herself. Kerry Soulier. How are you?

Speaker4: [00:25:15] I’m doing great. How are you today?

Stone Payton: [00:25:17] I’m doing well, but I, I guess I’m in a little bit of a fall. Maybe I need some hormone because Kerry walks in the in the lobby and, uh, and I and I asked her if you if she was Kitty. Well, I didn’t know it was Kitty at the time, so I said, are you cats or. She says, no, Kerry like you, dummy. We just met last week. We just. And I had the most wonderful conversation with Kerry. It was like last week, wasn’t it?

Speaker4: [00:25:39] I think it was like two weeks.

Stone Payton: [00:25:40] Was it okay? Yeah. Well, see, that makes it sound better. And, uh, it just she’s a fascinating person. I can’t wait for you to hear about her, the breadth of her, her life and her life style. But. Oh, by the way, she also runs a very profitable and productive business that genuinely serves people. Tell us about it.

Speaker4: [00:26:00] Definitely I own covered with Kerry. I help people under the age of 65 with health insurance. I serve via marketplace healthcare.gov. I help with private plans. Short terme medical. I sell all types of insurance, but I specialize in helping people that work in the outdoor tourism industry. I work nationwide, but I when I’m in town, when I’m home. Staying in Red Top Mountain. Um. My business. Has been open since April of 2022. And so we just celebrated one year or two years now on the first.

Stone Payton: [00:26:40] So one of the things that I immediately found fascinating about Kerry and her mindset, and you will see as this conversation evolves, how much she genuinely cares about other people and really does want to, uh, want to serve them. My business partner at the Business RadioX network, uh, his name is Lee. He’s, uh, known for saying that niches make riches, and he’s a very big proponent. And we are in our in our work of, you know, finding that that crowd that wants to hear your music and playing really well for them, you know, basically. And I just found it fascinating that that you chose that niche. Speak more to why that niche and some, some things that we may not realize about that group of people. Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:27:23] So the outdoor tourism industry, first of all, what is that? White water rafting guide, zipline guides, hiking guides, farm and ranch is part of outdoor tourism. So overall it’s people that help you when you go on vacation. Have fun. The reason that’s my niche is that’s who I am. I’m a whitewater rafter. I’m a guide. I never intended to find this niche. It just happened overnight one day. I owned a perfectly normal insurance agency that specialized in helping Cherokee County before this. Uh, that was my primary form of business. But I arrived at Guy camp for training at the Ocoee River in Tennessee last year and discovered the entire community did not have health insurance, and they qualified for pretty much most of them $0 plans on marketplace. Due to their income levels, most people in the outdoor tourism industry make a fairly low wage. They’re below or within 150% federal poverty line. Just for example, in the state of Georgia, that would be under $21,000 a year for one person. Um, they travel between multiple states and work two or more seasonal jobs. So a lot of them are just like, oh, I can’t have health insurance because I live here, I live there, I live there, and I’m licensed nationwide between myself and my referral network. So I was able to help no matter where they originally were from or where they were going, so that they’re able to manage their health care throughout their yearly moves. It’s been really fulfilling.

Stone Payton: [00:28:57] I can tell and I can tell and I could tell when we when we sat down and visited a couple of weeks ago how much you really you do find the work rewarding. You do. I know you’ve built your business up to the point where it is financially rewarding, but I get a sense that so much of it for you is what I would characterize as emotional compensation. Or you really that’s a big part of your comp is helping people, isn’t it?

Speaker4: [00:29:22] It is. It’s something about just finding there was this whole group of people that never knew they had access to health insurance and wanted it and wanted my help was just such this fulfilling thing. And then they are my friends, my community. Those are the people I want to help. Um, and just to see that things that were problems in the past aren’t problems so much, and to join in levels of advocacy for them to help improve their living conditions. Most people that work in outdoor tourism, uh, live in company provided housing, and it’s not necessarily in the best of conditions. I lived in it when it when my business found success. I was actually considering closing my business when I found all these people that needed my help because I was like, I think my industry, something’s wrong with it. I’m not being paid correctly and I don’t have any money. And then, like, a tree fell on my car. And, you know, the people I work for just stopped paying me. All of a sudden I was like, maybe my industry’s a scam. Maybe I should quit. And then one day it was the last day of the month. You have to sign up for health insurance via healthcare.gov by the end of the month for it to start on the first. Um, the outfitter that I was living at and working at asked me to help enroll her staff in health insurance and like, she was ready to just pay them more for whatever it costs.

Speaker4: [00:30:50] And I just she brought them one after another after another to me. And it was like 20, 30 people at the end. And every single one except one family of two was $0 and theirs was $0.41. And I just kind of I, I never really discussed like the income if you worked in the industry full time. I worked corporate America before that, I had quit corporate America so I could be a whitewater guide, um, and opened my own business so that I had more time. And I asked the owner and I was like, does everyone who works here make about that? And she’s like, yeah. And I asked, how many companies are there? And she said, 27 here. And I was like, oh, that’s a lot of people. And I just decided to throw a taco and beer party. And I just like, made some fliers on Canva and threw them up on social media and told some people and it was like free tacos, free beer and low cost health insurance. What else do you need? And hit me up? Yeah, I had no money at this time. Like my life was on fire and I was like, well, I have $800, I can buy a beer and tacos, but I hope they come because like, this is my last $800.

Speaker4: [00:31:58] And I was setting up and people were walking in and I was like, oh, at least people showed up. And I was like, I’m almost ready with the food, the beers in the back. And they’re like, well, that’s all great. Well, but we’re here for the insurance. And I was like, oh, that’s strange. Okay, um, give me just a minute. And I had thought real quick to put a QR code up with like my intake form so that people could fill it out while waiting. While they were waiting. And I sat down and the party was planned to be for four hours. And I did not stand up for five hours because I was just enrolling one person after another with health insurance. And at the end of that month, you know. Health insurance agents that work on marketplace. Their busy season is normally November through February 15th, mostly November through December. Um, and this was in the spring, in March, April, because all of them qualified for year round enrollment due to their income levels. You can enroll at any time if you earn below 150% of the federal poverty line. I was like, hmm. So I just made some like marketing fliers that were focused on the industry, and I just kind of started emailing them to people. And then. It just exploded. My phone just never stopped ringing after that. That’s great. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:33:24] This is the kind of story that I love because. And look, I have a great deal of respect for the people that do all the due diligence. They go get the SBA loan, they, you know, take out a second mortgage on their house and they properly capitalize their business, or maybe they even decide to franchise because they’re not really, you know, but this this I find so incredibly inspiring and it’s it continues to be wildly successful. Yes.

Speaker4: [00:33:49] It’s it is. I’ve seen the results in my work. It’s not been easy. I, you know, I have a high school education. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just like, well, I have an insurance license. I’m not bad at selling insurance, and I’m terrible at being a corporate employee. So I’m not wanting to do that. I got Covid and they went to write me up for taking time off, and I was like, no, I don’t think I work here anymore. Um, and I had like $1,400 opened my business and I was like, well, I’m going to make this work. Um, and when it happened, you know, I did not have a car I lived in. I called it my shack. It did not have running water. Um, it just was a cabin in the woods. If someone’s like, yeah, you don’t have anywhere to live, so you can live there if you want. Um, and, you know, I didn’t have internet. Obviously, there were cell phone service, so I had to walk to those things. Uh, and just like I found someone that would rent me their car while they were working because I quit guiding. I was, like, too busy selling insurance now. Sorry. Um, so it just started growing and it just spread because I had all my state licenses at that time.

Speaker4: [00:35:01] I’ve let some go because some states don’t have rivers and outdoor tourism, so they don’t really matter anymore. And I just found other people that can help there. But I just had a cell phone, my laptop, and an Excel spreadsheet, and suddenly I went from having like 50 clients, which was normal for how long. I had been open to having hundreds within a matter of 60 days. And I was like, Holy cow, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have any money. Because I still wasn’t being paid correctly from my prior company I was contracted with who still doesn’t pay me correctly, whatever. Um, but I was like, how can I quit when there’s such a need? And I can see the obvious scalability of this? Like, I got to figure this out. Like I didn’t have a credit card. Um, I definitely could not get a business loan. Um, you know, that wasn’t going to work. And I was like, well, I just better get to work then. And I just worked for ever. Um, you know, I people in the insurance industry started to take notice of what was going on.

Speaker5: [00:36:04] I bet they.

Speaker4: [00:36:05] Did. Um, and I didn’t even mean to do it. I had always been a moderator and an administrator on Facebook groups for insurance. I was knowledgeable, you know, I have designations now in the industry from working at the carrier. Um, and they started asking me questions and I was like, I am way too busy to talk to you right now. You don’t pay me any money. Like, I gotta work. Good for you. And then somebody might. You should make a course. And I was like, huh? And I was like, no, I’m busy. And then I thought about it. I was like. He should make a course. I had friends suggested I should, like, make something. That’s what I call one to many like you, when you work with someone, it’s 1 to 1, right? Right. And when I sell someone insurance, it’s 1 to 1. But I could one to many this for insurance agents and just make it like a course that they watch and it answers all their questions. And I was like yeah, you know, maybe I’ll make a couple thousand bucks, like, I need a couple thousand bucks, I’ll do some work for that. And I just posted on Facebook because all these insurance agents were bothering me. I was like, if I made a course, would anyone buy it? And they were like, yep. And I was like, all right. Um, so I sat on a friend’s couch. She came and picked me up because I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have an internet. I was like, I need real internet because I need to work right now.

Speaker4: [00:37:23] And I sat in, uh, Atlanta for four days just and I did not sleep. And I just wrote this course, and I started a pre-sale while I was writing it because I was like, okay, I can see this going to like, I’m near the end. And I was like, huh? And I made $25,000 off this course in 48 hours. Wow. And I’m just like sitting there and I’m like, Holy cow, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I plan to, like, deliver this to, like, you know, ten people. And now I got to deliver it to a couple hundred, and that’s going to take a lot of time. And I was like, I need automation. So I had already had a CRM customer resource management system that had a lot of automation capabilities, and I built it out for my insurance aspect of my business at this point. And I was like, well, I just need to make an automated delivery system for that, so I did. Um, and when it was all said and done, I’m sitting at $75,000 of sales on it since August of 2023 last year. Um, and I don’t talk about it anymore. I don’t want to talk about it. It just sells itself and it delivers itself, and it has answers to all their questions in there. And it’s just a case market analysis of my marketing concepts. Obviously, it’s focused on insurance agencies like how I present it, but it’s more so how I market it on social media and through employer engagement to prospect business to business, even though I sell business to consumer.

Stone Payton: [00:38:57] So you see, Katie, why? We wanted to have her in the studio.

Speaker5: [00:38:59] That’s amazing. That’s fantastic.

Speaker4: [00:39:03] Yeah. So it’s just evolved. And, you know, insurance is my passion. I do everything else so I can sell insurance to my consumers. Um, because I can’t keep up with them. Like the demand I’m booked every week. All week. Um, doesn’t.

Kitty Houston: [00:39:20] Leave you much time for rafting then, does it?

Speaker4: [00:39:21] Oh, I make time. I make the time for rafting. Definitely. Um, so I scale back a little bit in the summer. Um, I’ve learned outsource, I utilize automation. Um, so, like, if somebody walks up to me and they’re like, oh, I need to talk to you about health insurance out in public, I’m like, great, get your phone out. And they’re like, I’m like, type in (304) 507-8039. Just say health insurance. And I have an automation built so that if you’re not an existing client and you say those words, it’s going to intake you, it’s going to book your appointment, it’s going to get your intake form so that when I just have to pick up the phone and call you, um, that’s all I have to do. I don’t have to do the fact finding myself anymore. And that’s just eliminated so much in my life, so that I don’t need as many people to do a large amount of work. Um, I also utilize outsourcing things I’m not the best at. It’s so important. Um, I can build automation, but I would rather just tell someone what I want and be like, here you go and let me know when it’s done. So that’s what I do now. Um, but overall it was crazy. I got invited by the largest outdoor tourism employer in the United States to come live on their property and, and, uh, offer their 700 part time staff health insurance. It was so crazy.

Kitty Houston: [00:40:39] I bet you met a lot of fun people, though. Oh, my.

Speaker4: [00:40:41] Gosh. I have friends all over the country. I live in an RV now. Um, don’t live in a shack selling that course. Got me an RV. Um.

Kitty Houston: [00:40:51] Moving on up.

Speaker4: [00:40:51] So I travel to the country now. Um, which is always been a thing I’ve enjoyed, but I just sell insurance as I go, and I get to go rafting.

Kitty Houston: [00:41:02] That’s fantastic.

Speaker5: [00:41:03] Yeah. Isn’t that marvelous?

Stone Payton: [00:41:05] So what will the summer look like for you? You’ll back off a little bit, you’ll play a little bit more, but you’ll you’ve got you’ve got things set up, so I.

Speaker4: [00:41:13] Do the.

Stone Payton: [00:41:14] Machine keeps running.

Speaker4: [00:41:15] So I will be working in Fayetteville, West Virginia, which is the Whitewater capital of the world. I’ll be working at Ace Adventure Resort as a whitewater guide. I’ll be doing new trips from June through August, um, up there. So I know a lot of people sometimes go on vacation because that’s a state or a national park, the new River Gorge. And then from there it’s festival season. Um, my industry had a insurance crisis where so there’s whitewater races where people go race, and the highest classification is a class five. So a class five is really challenging. And they basically just said no insurance for class five races anymore. The company that previously provided it. And they just started canceling all these races. And I was like, oh no. I was like, I think I can fix that. So like, I figured it out, I found an insurance and like, I started this social media campaign like called Save Class five and like, made it like a movie style, like thing, um, and like, got all the people that formerly organized the races to reach out and like, got them insurance. So I’m going to go to the festivals and I created a waiver system for it.

Speaker5: [00:42:28] Are you hearing this is insane.

Speaker4: [00:42:31] Um, so that they used to just have to fill out pieces of paper and that’s silly. So I made a waiver system so that I can intake all of the insurance information for the users, for the liability policy. And so that I also have the master like billed for it for the industry.

Speaker5: [00:42:49] All right.

Stone Payton: [00:42:50] Before we wrap, I got to ask one more question because I could I could swear we had a little bit of a conversation around it. You do a radio show while you’re out playing too, don’t you?

Speaker4: [00:42:58] So I just do a lot of podcasts in general. I, I didn’t even know I was going to be on your podcast. I came looking to run a podcast. So he’s like, no, I don’t do that. But like, I want to talk to you.

Stone Payton: [00:43:08] I want you on the show.

Speaker4: [00:43:09] I just I find them in the world and I do quite a few of them.

Stone Payton: [00:43:14] So you get on them as a guest a lot.

Speaker4: [00:43:16] I about two a month usually.

Speaker5: [00:43:17] Oh wow, that is fantastic.

Stone Payton: [00:43:21] Oh, what an inspiring story. We’re going to follow your story as well. I hope you’ll check. Maybe you can be like the, the, uh, on the road, uh, health insurance correspondent. Yeah. Have Carrie call in.

Speaker5: [00:43:33] Call me.

Speaker4: [00:43:33] I can stop by and give a visit when I’m in town regrouping. This is where I come back and be like, oh, I need a new round of stuff. Got to get my mail. Say hi to everyone.

Speaker5: [00:43:42] That’s perfect.

Stone Payton: [00:43:44] All right. What’s the best way for listeners to learn? Learn more. A website, a good central hub for you.

Speaker4: [00:43:49] So first, if you’d like to book some time to chat, you can go to covered with Caricom. If you’d like to talk to health insurance, you can always send me a text at (304) 507-8039. And if you just want to follow along, you can type Carrie, Carrie, Grace, grace in Facebook. I’ll be the first one that pops up.

Stone Payton: [00:44:09] What a delight to have you come join us this morning. Thank you so much. All right. My pleasure. Okay, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today. And everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.