Dawn Boxell with Gastric Health

Intro: Welcome to Digital Marketing Done Right, a customer success spotlight from Rainmaker Digital Services and Business RadioX. We cover digital marketing success stories drawn from real Rainmaker platform clients and showcase how they use the Rainmaker platform to build their business. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with David Brandon. Another episode of Digital Marketing Done Right, and this is going to be a good one. Well, David, who do we got on the show today?

David Brandon: Well, today we’ve got, uh, Dawn Boxell from Gastric Health. How’s it going, Dawn?

Dawn Boxell: It’s great. Thanks. Nice for having.

Lee Kantor: Me. Well, before we get too far into things, Dawn, tell us a little bit about gastric health, how you serving folks.

Dawn Boxell: So gastric health is really about, you know, bariatric health care. We are serving the bariatric community before and after weight loss surgery.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Dawn Boxell: Well, I am a registered dietitian, and I kind of started in this industry back in 95. I was at one of the very first bariatric centers, very, we’ll say, in the top five bariatric centers in the country. Um, and stuck with it. I just fell in love with the patients and I just enjoyed, thoroughly enjoyed the challenge that each person brought to me. So I just kind of got stuck in it in the aspect of I wanted to serve them more. So being in it for so long, I’ve been in it now for 27 years and I’ve literally counseled tens of thousands of patients and it really kind of highlighted some gaps in care and gaps in delivery of care. Being at a very large bariatric center, you really did get to see trends and you could see where health care, as it is to date, has many holes and gaps that we lack services to the end person. So someone seeking services at a health care facility, you know, the luxury of time is not there. And when it comes to bariatrics, they need time. And that’s what I wanted to create. So gastric health was kind of born. It was kind of evolved through a variety of things, but landed at gastric health. And really we just want to create a space for the bariatric community to kind of grow and evolve into kind of the new person that they’re desiring to be and wanted to provide maybe a little different type of care, different level of care, because I kind of take a spin of the conventional health care and the natural health care, and I merge them together and have a really big toolbox of solutions for resources to help support them in, you know, all of their health care issues and their weight loss journey. So I really I really try to cater more to the needs of the bariatric patient so that they can be successful long term with kind of a sustainable lifestyle.

David Brandon: So, Don, I do I did want to kind of ask so for our for our audience, two things. One, can you define what bariatric is for them? And then also, you know, what makes that specific niche, um, you know, unique or challenging or, you know, needs special care? What makes it specifically important?

Dawn Boxell: So bariatric is really just kind of it’s considered bariatric and metabolic surgery. So it is we’re doing a couple of different types of surgeries there. There are probably about five different surgeries out there that are most surgery centers will do. The majority of them are going to be like a gastric bypass or a gastric sleeve surgery. And with the intent to lose weight because they have at least qualified themselves with having a BMI of over 35 with some comorbidities. And this signifies them that they need help with their health conditions. And now what was the other question?

David Brandon: So like, what makes this niche different as a dietitian, you know, approaching this?

Dawn Boxell: So what makes us different with Bariatrics is one, you know, you get in two different camps because, you know. This niche is very special because not every health care professional believes this is a great strategy for weight loss. So many times if we would have. So where I am, we were the only provider for Medicaid. We would see any. And for a number of years, we were the only center of excellence, meaning that we were the only one that really met all the Medicare and Medicaid parameters. So we would have people drive four hours to come see their doctor and their dietitian. And so this would create a dilemma when they would have complications and need to go to a local facility because then they would be like, we don’t touch bariatric patients. You need to go back to your facility, go back to your surgeon. So that over the years, what we found was that, my gosh, many of our surgeons were needing to be skilled in more areas because their their primary care providers were not dropping them, but not really caring for them. They were dismissing and blaming any type of health care problem on the surgery. So they would say, you just got to go back to your surgeon. So it it created this environment where, you know, our the surgical team is now doing more things than what a general surgeon would normally do. So it just kind of grew and evolved into big programs where, you know, you needed nurse practitioners and PAs to manage any type of health care issues that come along.

Lee Kantor: Now, did the business evolve like you were working at this place and you saw this need for some, I guess, aftercare in some ways to help these people on their journey as they progress, you know, post surgery, is that that’s the impetus for creating this community. But is that the business model? Is that your your business is a community for folks who have gone through this kind of surgery and it’s a place for them to learn about the best ways to optimize that experience.

Dawn Boxell: Yeah, I would say, I mean, honestly, it started, I, I, I self published a food guide back in 2005 and I was allowed to, you know, sell it at our bariatric center. And I then kind of took that material. And when really the online stuff really shifted is when we just took it online and just decided, I don’t want to sell just a book. I want to I want to provide a service because there are so many gaps in care. For example, as dietitians and as practitioners in a bariatric center, you’re given 15 minutes with someone and I was given 15 minutes to figure out, okay, why is someone not losing weight or why they’re regaining weight? Or maybe while they’re why they’re having some you know, vitamin and mineral deficiencies or, you know, digestive issues, you know, all the things that come with it. You have 15 minutes there. You can’t solve those types of problems in 15 minutes. So that’s where it’s like there’s a better way to do this and and one with being in it for so long and seeing so many of the trends, you really do understand their needs a little better. And it’s it’s allowing me to kind of package information together so that it’s it’s easy for them to interpret and take that information and do something with it. So, you know, like my blogs and my podcasts and all my YouTube videos, you know, it really is designed with the heart of helping them with their problems that they probably maybe are experiencing now or will experience at some point.

Lee Kantor: And then it’s through it’s through the website. They learn about all of these different offerings and then it’s you’re giving them information for them to do it themselves. But is there a component where you do it with them or do it for them?

Dawn Boxell: Yep. So we kind of when we, you know, kind of evolved to putting everything online, I it kind of started with a challenge. I did a ten day challenge and it was a, it was really a challenge to, to get their mindset out of the quick diet fixes. So if you’ve had bariatric surgery, you’re doing this with the thought that this is my last ditch effort. You know, I’ve struggled with my weight maybe my entire life. And this is kind of my last Hail Mary of I’m I’m doing surgery because I need something permanent that can truly help me, you know, be sustainable with this. But that doesn’t change their mindset. So their mindset needs to shift from having a diet to follow to this is a lifestyle to follow. So, so yes, we did a ten day challenge and it just I mean, we’ve taken thousands of patients through this challenge and they were really getting good success and it was really through the lens of. We’re providing you a meal plan, we’re providing you a grocery list and all the recipes, and we show up every day for you for these ten days, and we do it all together. And I help guide them through that ten days so that they have, um, kind of the support and the motivation to kind of keep going because the meal plan is really focused to protein first, but then, you know, plenty of vegetables and fruits and things that they maybe are not used to, including in their diet. So it’s, it’s challenging them to to look at food differently and to utilize, um, kind of the whole food properties that can really benefit their health long term.

Lee Kantor: Now, all of this stuff you’re talking about is kind of the day to day of a dietitian, right? Doing having these conversations, sharing this kind of information. How did you make the pivot, I guess, to actually now running a website and an online business? Because those are different hats.

Dawn Boxell: They are? I don’t know. I think I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. I mean, I’ve I’ve pursued and desired to have a business. And I think my husband and I, he’s been an integral part in helping me launch all of this, especially in the beginning. He was kind of the back end side. He would help build some of these things within the website. So yeah, I would say, I mean naturally I probably have a little entrepreneurship, just blood going through me that I desire to own a business and I desire to have something more that I can have for my children and pass on to generations and have that, I guess, that timestamp of information that you can reflect back on and, you know, learn from, laugh at, and just kind of evolve through.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the kind of the first signal you put a website together, you put out information, what was kind of the first signal or breadcrumb that you’re like, Hey, I think we’re on to something. This thing could work.

Dawn Boxell: You know, I would say that I would say the ten day challenge that we we really you know, we we put it in the Facebook groups. We were really probably heavy in the Facebook audience, mostly in social media. That’s our the, you know, our dominant area of audience and which kind of correlates with our demographic because our demographic is really like 45 to 65 year old females is who is having bariatric surgery. And technically that is kind of the demographics of Facebook. So you’re going to find the younger audiences on Instagram and TikTok. And so we find that we just have a bigger audience and. I do find that a lot of my audience are in health care. The majority, if not all of my clients, have a job in health care. Very few don’t. So I think my the way I approach it is I like to provide evidence backed. Solutions. So I document all of my recommendations with science. So there are links to research studies. Some of them I’ll have like 30 and 40 different research links in the podcast or the blog post that I am validating my reasoning of why I feel like this is a good solution. So I feel like they I. You know, kind of grew enough to allow them to trust. And to partner with them in health.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’ve been doing this for a while now, is there a story that you can share that’s been the most rewarding kind of proof of concept that, Hey, I am making a difference, I am leaving a legacy. This is work that matters.

Dawn Boxell: Gosh, let’s see. I don’t know if I can think of one. Well, you.

Lee Kantor: Don’t have to name a name, but maybe share what their challenge was and how that you were the solution to that problem.

Dawn Boxell: I mean, I mean, recently I had a lady that she she came to me for genetic testing. So I do a genetic test to kind of help. Provide a roadmap when I especially when I have somebody that is really struggling with nothing, seems to be working, then I will likely recommend that we we check their genetics to really give me a better roadmap to see where to focus better. And that was kind of what she, she, she found me. Someone recommended me in a Facebook group. Um, she was really seeking out some help with gut health issues, which I kind of specialize in with digestion and improving your gut microbiome and again, the genetic test. And so she started learning more about me. And the first thing she’s like, I really want to do the genetics. And so we did the genetic test. And it was it was so interesting. For one, I would say I’ve never had a genetic test that I could literally not even have spoken to the person or read anything about their health. I can do the genetic test, um, interpret it and tell them everything that they’re struggling with and have struggled with from that interpretation. It’s so powerful in its way that it gives you really kind of the feedback that you need and the direction you need to go with someone. And for her, she had had, um, a bariatric surgery, a sleeve gastrectomy over a year ago and she was concerned about weight regain weight regain is a fear among all bariatric patients.

Dawn Boxell: I have yet to have one patient tell me that they don’t have some underlying fear of regaining weight. And her reasoning was, I want to understand my genetics so that I can maybe prevent this from occurring. And so we really we dug into her genetics. And, you know, it was interesting to see the areas that she really needed to focus on, areas that she has never focused on before. Um, when trying to achieve weight loss, she had never used this approach. And so it was really kind of an aha moment for her that she was like, okay, I have the tools I need. I this is what I need to be successful to prevent, regain. And if I notice that, you know, life happens and I’m back into some old behaviors, you know, all I need to do is either call you or look at my roadmap and and figure out where the areas that the genes may have been turned back on because of some, you know, life event that occurred and help. It kind of helps guide you on how to turn that gene back off. So I would say currently she’s probably the one that, you know, I get excited about the most because she took the information, she acted upon it. We we made a plan each each visit. And she went and did the work. And she found the success that she was desiring and she feels, you know, capable of maintaining her health long term with just that information.

David Brandon: That’s awesome. I really love, like, we’re getting some wins. We’re getting some things that you that are in your kind of natural purview, right? Like you’re you’re an expert dietitian, But one of the things that you’re not necessarily you I don’t think you have a background in is, you know, digital marketing or, you know, building websites or anything like that. So from a digital marketing and website perspective, what are some of the challenges that you’ve had to face and overcome through this process?

Dawn Boxell: Technology, for sure. I mean that for me, I have a clinical brain and it does not correlate with technology the same as other areas, even though, you know, maybe there are some similarities. My brain does not think the way that technology lays out. So I do struggle with just understanding how to set things up and how to, um, you know, put a class together. And now I’ve, you know, over the years, the blogs, the podcasts, all that stuff, I’m good at it now. I can, I can maneuver through that. But initially, you know, there was a learning curve of just knowing the right steps to do to to get it. Launchable even just to get it so that we could, you know, make it live. So, so, yeah, to me, definitely the technology is really the hardest piece.

Lee Kantor: So how did you deal with it being difficult and challenging? How did you approach it? Did you just dive in and just tried some stuff or did you get help right away?

Dawn Boxell: So so yeah, I would say, well, initially my husband is he was really his brain is more business driven. He’s more of the business minded person and he definitely understands more of the technology than myself. So at the beginning he did the majority of all the technology and putting all that together, I would do all the content. He would do all the technology. Um, more recently, his career has just kind of shifted and he’s, he doesn’t have the ability to stay engaged and help consistently. So that’s where we, we’re kind of, we’re relying on partnering with people like Rainmaker to help us move this forward so that we can be successful in providing the content that we want to deliver.

Lee Kantor: So now when you decided, okay, I need help and I’m going to reach out to the Rainmaker, folks, what was that process like? Did they take you through? Can you walk through what that onboarding was like and how they got to the heart of your problem and helped you solve what you were challenged with?

Dawn Boxell: Yeah, I would say it kind of started, you know, we had a contact. I think we created a contact with just some questions. We would send some questions, you know, through the the Help Desk. And, you know, they would help us with just immediate needs. They’ve always been responsive and and getting problems solved on the back end side when we would see that things were, you know, not doing what they’re supposed to do, we could just reach out. And that that has gone well for us. And then we just had a contact from Rainmaker with Katie, and we were able to start the conversations of this back end technology piece that we’re now faced with that now, Dawn, who doesn’t have the technology mindset, is in charge of all of this, needs help and so that’s where we’re kind of working through kind of how how Rainmaker is going to help serve us through this piece and get us get all the details in place. Because, again, you know, there’s with any business and especially any online platform, there’s always little things that need to be tweaked or improved. And that’s what we’re in the midst of. We are working through that plan now so that we can kind of develop some new programs that will lead into some memberships and the ability to have, you know, more clinical staff and more resources that will be available to the community.

David Brandon: So that and I can actually I can actually speak to that too, because I’ve been involved on the other side of it, you know, something that they’ve been doing that we’ve been working with them on pretty closely is, you know, really making community and membership kind of more of a central piece of the process, which I think to everything Dawn said at this point is really important as far as her niche.Yeah

Dawn Boxell: Right.

Dawn Boxell: And eventually that’s where it needs to go. We have to get to a membership model. We kind of started a membership model and I think we’re a little early for it. So we have kind of thought we might we might pause it for a minute so that we can have the full time to kind of write it all out or write the book. If, for lack of a better way to say it, you kind of have to write the end product and then the rest flows out of that. And that’s kind of where we’re at. So I need the time. And that, I would say, is my second issue is time. You know, not only my husband and I have been married for over 30 years and we have four kids and they require attention, although they’re all teenagers and young adults, they still require attention. So and, you know, just that piece of managing, you know, a family and a business and just making sure everything is accounted for. You know, there’s never enough.

Lee Kantor: Time now in this community. Would it like, who is the ideal participant in the community? Is the community member just someone who went through bariatric surgery? Is it somebody that’s a health care professional that deals in bariatric? Is it a caregiver or somebody that is related to somebody that’s going through this? Like who? Who would be the community members in your ideal world in this future?

Dawn Boxell: You okay. So and I will say we will work through to a model that will allow bariatric support, but then we will also have a non surgical arm to it so that if you say you have a family member that you know, maybe hasn’t had bariatric surgery, but they desire to kind of follow along with you, we could help support them in that way. But I would say right now, you know, my main focus is to write the book, get this deliverable content out to them so that we can then really have kind of the back end available of a ton of resources that they can kind of binge on and and learn from with, you know, video content, you know, written audio, all of that that they can, however they learn best, they’ll have those resources to kind of. Take from.

Lee Kantor: So that’s where you see the kind of the the biggest opportunity is just finding that portal that has all this information no matter where you are in the process. But it is scientifically based not, you know, some of these kind of opinion oriented solutions.

Dawn Boxell: Right. And and it’s sustainable. So for me, it’s important for this to, you know, I can write you a diet that you can lose weight in ten days. Um, but you’re probably going to regain it as soon as you go off of that. So to me, it’s important that this is sustainable and that they have the space and the support to build, the confidence, to take the action, to be consistent long term. And that. Doesn’t happen in ten days or 30. That takes time.

Lee Kantor: Right. And so, yeah, it’s managing the expectations as well because the person thinks they’re just getting a surgery that’s solving a problem. But this this is part of the solution. But the solution is a lifestyle change for real.

Dawn Boxell: It is. And and they they know that. They know that going on at least at the center that I worked at. Um. They were told many times that, you know, this is the beginning. The hard work begins after the surgery. And there is a lot that goes into changing your behaviors and lifestyle. So. For them. It’s it’s they need the time to be able to do that.

Lee Kantor: So you so you found, though, that rainmaker has been a good solution partner for you to enable you to get this information out there and get products out there and services out there in a way that you didn’t have to be kind of an I.T. genius tech superstar in order to do that, that there’s enough kind of support around you and enough power to the portal and the platform that allows you to do what you’re trying to do.

Dawn Boxell: Oh, yeah. I mean, again, my husband did a lot of the back end building when we we did we did a ten day challenge that rolled into a 30 day class. And they had like for the ten day, they had videos for ten days and we were easily able to create the video, upload it into Rainmaker and put it into the whole course that they then they would have the links to go and, you know, go into the content each day and learn that that, you know, information that I was providing. And then the same with the 30 day class. We even did a quiz and we had giveaways. We gave away a $600 Vitamix blender to one person at the end of the 30 days so that it challenged them to learn. And so each week was a topic and we built all of this in Rainmaker, and we had a quiz that at the end of the week they had the content that they they had to review each day short videos or, you know, it was, you know, four and five minute videos and then you would do a quiz at the end of the week. And then at at the end of the four weeks, then everybody who completed all of the quizzes were put into a drawing to win a Vitamix for going through the process.

Dawn Boxell: And for a lot of them, it really helped them see that. You know, they they really needed to dig deeper. It was more than just calories in, calories out. Why they were back to old behaviors or why they were seeing some regain had more to do with um life issues and how they were managing it and their coping mechanisms and how they, um, hadn’t, you know, lost those strategies that they used prior to surgery. They were still trying to apply them after, but they don’t work anymore because they’ve had bariatric surgery. So it allowed them to see that, hey, I have some inner work to do and let me focus there for a little bit and that will help me continue to grow. And in that 30 days, we had several people that they really they really kind of discovered discovered that they didn’t feel they had purpose in life. And that is where they needed to focus, that they needed to find what makes them happy, what brings them joy, and to go down that path because the food is not going to fix that. They had. They need to do more work on the inside, right?

Lee Kantor: It’s more holistic than a surgery. It’s not a like it’s a whole process. It’s very complex. What what do you need more of and how can we help?

Dawn Boxell: You definitely need the technology help for sure. And yeah, I think once I write this book, which essentially is happening in a few weeks, I’m, you know. I’m going away and initially taking this time to really I’ve already got all the notes together. I’m just putting it together and how I really want this to play out for, you know, the bariatric community so that they have the resources that they need. And then, boy, we’re going to need lots of, you know, technology help to pull this off. And and then, you know, the VA’s already have four VA’s that we’ve hired and they do video. They help me with the blog and SEO. They help me with the podcast and editing and all that stuff and then email. So email is a big one that we have never been good at and we have never really done. So that is our next big step, is really tackling our email nurture sequence so that our audience, when they when they actually come in and they they buy something from our site that they actually hear from us again, besides just an invoice of, Oh, thanks for your purchase. So, so email nurture sequences is top of list and that is where we’re going next. I think with Rainmaker, they’re going to help us with this piece in, um, and, and the layout that our, our front page layout needs tweaked.

Dawn Boxell: We, we did develop a supplement line with me using kind of the natural and the conventional world together there are supplements and the bariatric community they are required to take supplements for life. This is a known thing and this is something that they are prepared for. And um, I developed a supplement line that really is more about digestive health because I found that was a big issue. And so we kind of with the ten day challenge, it kind of just we, we made this landing page and we just started utilizing these products and we’ve kind of just evolved it. We added WooCommerce and kind of developed that piece back in piece so that we could have a, um, the actual retail store that they could purchase products from. And that’s kind of what our front page shows. And we want it to be more that our front page shows all the good services that we offer and eventually, you know, the membership and all of that that will be so important. And the supplements are there as a side benefit and not as it appears now that it looks like the supplements is the main business. And that’s not our goal and that’s not our focus and heart.

Dawn Boxell: But it just kind of turned into that when, um, you know, initially Rainmaker wasn’t, um, WooCommerce wasn’t there, so it wasn’t made for a retail site. And my literally God bless all of our, our clients who purchase from us because they would they would have to they could not buy like two products. Together, they would have to. The way he built it was he had they had to buy one product, then go back and check out, purchase it, go back in, buy another product and check out. Because it wasn’t that. It was more designed at that time to not be for retail. And it wasn’t until they added that piece that it you know, we added the WooCommerce that made it so much simpler and so much, um, it was a better experience for our, our clients when they visited our site. It was before it was pretty painful for them to actually purchase something from us. But now it flows well and it does well. But we want forward facing, we want that to, to be the, the services and and the care that we want to provide. That should be the main face of our website, which is what Rainmaker is going to also help us accomplish.

Lee Kantor: So what is the the website if somebody wants to go on and check it out.

Dawn Boxell: Gastric health.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, pretty straightforward and simple. Well, Dawn, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dawn Boxell: Awesome. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for David Brandon. We will see you all next time on digital marketing done right.