From Cajun Roots to YouTube Star: Shelly Redmond on Storytelling, Private Practice & Low-Carb Cooking
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Libby: [00:00:00] Shelly, I'm so happy to have you on air and share your story with the listeners. Thank you for making time for us today.
Shelly: You are so welcome. I'm very excited to be here.
Libby: So you have so much knowledge about dietetics, marketing, YouTube, and of course cooking. I was wondering if you could start off and share a little bit of your background about cooking competitions and
How they shaped your path. And I also wanna talk about the creation of your brand called Skinny Louisiana. Absolutely.
Shelly: Okay. So we all see the cooking competitions on Food Network and if we partake in the lovely Hallmark movies, we see the cooking competitions at the local county fair.
There is an organization called four H and a lot of Schools in the Midwest, schools that have a lot of ag in their city have this club, and it's called four H, They start real young, like elementary school. back in the day, I'm a little older. That's really all we had.
We had maybe like football, but there wasn't a lot of youth sports, so a lot of [00:01:00] us just naturally transitioned into four H and every year they would have cooking competition. So they had sewing, they had cooking, and then some people showed their lifestyle. their cows, their rabbits, their pigs.
And it would be a legit competition. You would submit a dish. They had the blue ribbon, they had the red ribbon was second place. And one of these competitions I won and it was a pie. And I was about 12 years old. And I told my parents right there, I was like. I wanna do food for the rest of my life.
they're very supportive people. So they were like, okay. that really changed the pivotal course for me 'cause I was like, if I could win here, I can win somewhere else. So I really credit. Everything to four H.
Now, in schools they call it culinary arts and, they have the really cool terms for it, which I love, which I want them to, but it really was entering competitions, seeing what other people cooked. I just [00:02:00] love the atmosphere. I am a sucker for a good Hallmark movie. And a lot of our food brands, kind of transition over have, cooking contests and I encourage a lot of dietitians enter them. Even, if the prize is just your namesake, who cares? It's, getting your name out and it gets, your thoughts and your mind running.
there was a university very close to my house. 'cause again, remember this is pre. Internet. we couldn't look up the cool, universities, around the country. Not to say my university wasn't cool, but I was very lucky because the university, about 45 minutes from me, it's called Nichol State, did have a dietetics and they had a culinary arts program as well.
So for me, I was very blessed, I say, because it was an awesome transition. whereas I didn't have to, do so much research back in the day was, Doing the phone call. Getting on the phone with people. the Dewey system in the library, that was what we had to do.
So it was just nice for us to have, that transition [00:03:00] over. So that's really what started it and really got my feet wet. Now as far as the healthy eating part of it goes. 'cause that's part of being a dietitian, Most of us go into it because we have, a love for making something healthy, be it cardiac friendly or not.
growing up, I had a family that pretty much lived down the entire street. I'm a small town girl and, I had family members who, oh, uncle Bobby has high blood pressure. What can we eat? And so I found joy making dishes taste good without the salt.
it transitioned from, just ~H to, ~hey, maybe making some dishes for Uncle Bobby, aunt Sue, and then, going on into the college career.
Libby: I love how you integrate your roots into everything that you do, Shelly, from what they have available in your small town. Getting involved in what now is called culinary arts to how you mentioned you were exposed to modifying, food preferences. such an intimate story from such a young age, like helping your family. So thank you for sharing that. I love how you're weaving your story into your [00:04:00] evolution of your brand.
Shelly: it's, what makes it the brand. So I definitely love that aspect of it
Libby: and what I'll say about you and watching you on YouTube is that you're very consistent in the work that you do.
So I definitely recommend all the listeners to check you out on YouTube because you're so fun to watch and you're so consistent and you execution and in your storytelling, which makes not only it interesting because you learn about the modifications in the work that you do, but also through your fun storytelling in your brand.
So I hope that the listeners can get some real life. Case studies of developing a brand from watching you.
Shelly: Absolutely. And listeners, ~do that, ~have your stories, ~have that ~out there because what you eventually want is someone to call you. And if you're in private practice, awesome. 'cause we do have a private practice here.
If you're a recipe developer, awesome. and they'll say, Hey, I heard this story about Uncle Bobby or Aunt Sue, or that you grew up in, I'm gonna just make up a city you grew up in. New Orleans. Sure. New Orleans is north of where I'm from. ~Sure. ~But that makes personal [00:05:00] connections and people feel loved.
~Like ~we miss that personal connection. Nowadays. And that really lets people and food companies, 'cause I know a lot of folks listening, do recipe development. They wanna work with agencies. there has to be that little special piece. And when you get that little click, oh my gosh, I'm from the Gulf Coast States.
Or if you are from Lincoln, Nebraska, oh my gosh, I'm from Lincoln too. People feel that, so don't be afraid to tell those stories anywhere. People like listening to stories, I know sometimes folks are like, nah, people are haters. And I really don't believe that we've talked before and I really don't believe ~in the, ~folks don't wanna hear that folks.
~Folks ~love to hear stories. And if you're at a business meeting, people like connection. They like to hear those stories. So use that in your brand building.
Libby: Excellent tip. And then that segue was perfect into the next topic.
I wanna discuss. What do you have to say for those dietitians out there who have a story to tell, but they're in that stage where they're not fully formed, they're afraid to fail. And they think that their story doesn't stand out, or maybe they [00:06:00] don't wanna share elements of their story and they're not sure how to break through.
For example, ~some people, ~I just had an intern who said she doesn't wanna share pictures of her kids, which is totally fine if she made that choice. But sometimes that can hold us back from sharing anything.
Shelly: Absolutely. And I understand that too because I have two kids, one's in high school and one's a middle schooler, so you could do pictures of maybe the back of them or have a nickname for them on social media.
A lot of influencers do that. Her real name is this French name, ~Uhhuh.~
Libby: But
Shelly: to answer your question. Be okay with it. Be okay sharing your story, but start at the most grassroots level you can, which is family and friends.
Start sharing with them because number one, you get comfortable. Number two, these are people who like you. Now don't share your story with Grumpy Cousin. 'Cause we all have a grumpy cousin who's gonna be like, that's dumb, but share it with those folks. And they may even give you suggestions like, Ooh, I love whenever you,
talked about that Apple strudel, and again, I'm [00:07:00] making that recipe up, but start with them. They will actually, your friends and family, the true friends and family in your life will tell you, yeah, that sounds good. Or, Hey, nah, maybe use this one. In fact, start to ask them, and you and I have talked about this before, what makes me stand out?
Why would you come to me as a dietitian? What do you like that I talk about? And if they're your friends and family, they'll be honest. They'll be like, girl, I love the different coffees you make. I follow this page that is all this young lady does. She just makes coffees. But I am obsessed with it because the aesthetics are beautiful.
Every day she has a different coffee. The water talk on TikTok is crazy. It's just people that make different infused drinks. So if you're like, I'm embarrassed to talk about my infused drinks of fruit, oh my gosh, this person has made a career about it. But you start at the bottom and you start with the people who care about you the most, even former teachers, and professors will tell you.
So say, Hey, what are. Three things about me as a [00:08:00] dietitian or healthcare professional. 'Cause I know you work with folks who maybe not be an rd, but maybe a nurse practitioner or something of that sort. Why would you come see me? Do you want really cool water talk recipes?
do you like it when I get really technical and talk about, fertility? there's so many different routes. We just gotta get outta there. And starting with the people you care about the most gives you a lot of confidence. The other thing is starting where folks can't really respond back to you.
'cause you could turn comments off on Facebook. You could turn comments off on YouTube. If that makes you feel okay, then do it. Don't. Think you have to put comment section on you. Absolutely do not. And the more you do it, the more confident you get. Like some of my first videos I'm like, oh gosh, what was I thinking?
But that's okay because we grow from it. I'm always amazed at folks and friends I run into, they tell me that their significant others don't even know what they do. And I'm like, how? Oh, those are the people we start [00:09:00] with because they talk about you. 'cause if they're in a group of people, oh, my cousin works with fertility, or my cousin, has these really cool water recipes.
That's exactly what we want. And that's what I did. I started with friends and family and I told them everything and they told me some things they loved and didn't. And sometimes it hurt a little bit. But all in all, they did it because they wanted to see me succeed.
Libby: It's excellent tip, and thank you for sharing that. And it's so true about getting started and asking those who are closest with and then expanding, and I love how you talked about creating some boundaries. It can feel awkward if we're out there online. And if we're not ready for that, then we just have to modify how we present ourselves until we get more comfortable.
So those are really great tips. Shelly, and you transitioned from recipe development to private practice and digital content, right? I know you wear a lot of hats. Yes. What would you say were the biggest challenges in that shift, and how did you navigate them or how do you navigate them now?
Shelly: The biggest challenge is these are things we're not taught in school. Sure. We're taught the tech, and I know [00:10:00] money is very tight for a lot of folks. You do a lot of business coaching with RDS and healthcare professionals. Look for someone who is experienced and someone who can lead you.
Now, if you can't afford it right away, which I fully get. Follow them on Instagram. follow them on Facebook. you have great resources out there, but that is where you do need a little bit of help. And if it has to wait, that's okay.
Yeah. you always say. What do I eventually want? We eventually want people to remember you. So it's a little unfortunate that we do have to dive into different arenas and it gets a little busy, What can I leave people with? And so the recipe development, it's like they come see me as a client and it's okay, I won't see you for a couple weeks, but check out my website.
and you would do the same, as a coach. It's check out my website, check out my, Instagram, my Facebook, my Pinterest, et cetera. And that keeps you in their brain. Because there's so much noise out there. it's just loud, and so you [00:11:00] always have to give them something to come back to. so that's part of the reason I have social media, and that's really the main reason I started YouTube was because. I had to give my folks something, a video to watch. Now the beautiful thing is in a couple years, as you water it and that plant grows, you'll start to get clients from YouTube and you'll start to get clients from your Facebook.
But always figure out what is my end goal and how should I nurture those hats? the other thing is I repurpose. A ton of content and that is okay. And nobody will know a lot of my videos on YouTube. I repurpose old videos and just give them different titles. A lot of the recipes on our recipe cards, we just repurpose and give them different titles.
That's like a little sneaky tip. because if we didn't do that, we would not sleep. But always probably your first is figure out your goal for the next three to five years. Follow those [00:12:00] incredible leaders in your field, on your Instagram and on your Facebooks.
And then figure out what you wanna leave your clients with, and that's the route to go. So for some folks it may be a podcast, some folks it may be, I always say podcast is awesome for those really, Heavy duty topics like, PCOS and fertility and cardiac and, recipes. We could, make fun or you could make serious.
So it's what would my folks want me to do? Because we always gotta answer that question. It's what do folks need? I answer the question like, do they need help with cardiac recipes or do they need more help with, I'm not gonna make cardiac recipes if I'm gonna be a fertility expert, type thing.
Always ask yourself those questions, but build it slowly. Master one before you jump into the next. I'll be the first to tell you I'm terrible at Pinterest. I don't even get on Twitter. so you find out where those folks are. So it's a mumble jumble answer that I gave you, but, it's figuring out what your people want, figuring out where they are, and then going and [00:13:00] there from expert advice because in school we're just giving our basics.
Libby: Yeah, totally. And thank you. Those are very helpful tips. And I love the content repurposing. I do talk about that.
A bit more intermediate since it does require that folks are already consistent enough to have the content to repurpose. So if you were to go back to a time where you, before repurposing your content, what helped you like get YouTube off the ground, like way back when you first started?
Shelly: I found groups on Facebook to share the link to, of course, family and friends. I always tell folks I have a very big family, I know a lot of people don't. They're like, oh my gosh, your family's huge. Like my poor husband, he's from Ohio.
And when I talk on the phone with my family, he's are y'all okay? Are y'all fighting? And I'm like, no, this is how we talk. We have to be loud because there's so many of us. And so somebody has to win the conversation. Or with him, it's just two sisters. And I'm like, oh, how do you do this? But, I share with them. I found groups to share with, I shared with other dietitians who I went to [00:14:00] school with, and some of them bypassed it, but some of them shared. They were like, Hey, this is cool.
Yeah.
Shelly: So we tried to find, the best people on the planet to share with and bonus points.
If they would share with me. The other thing I did, and this is for more of our folks, if you work with folks who do recipe development, I'm a little sneaky. I would email, I look back, I'm like, oh my gosh, I was brave. I emailed the companies. If I used their product, I'm like, Hey, here's a video I made.
Nine times out of 10, I heard nothing from them. But every once in a while we got a, oh we'll share this. Now. I know granted, we wanna, do spokesperson work in charge. But my best advice with the videos is don't just hit publish.
Find your core group and share. Send it to them. Text message, send it to them, email, and just make sure to send it to folks care. If it's four. If it's 35. email still is tried and true. and that would probably be the first expenditure I would telephone. I think that was my first expenditure that I [00:15:00] did. I started out with. Five, six people on my email and now it's about, I think 11,000.
Wow.
Shelly: doing that email. Shout out is fantastic.
Libby: Yeah. So great tips To email marketing and leveraging the people you already know, which brings us full circle to the first conversation, which was about learning how to story tell by talking to those closest to you and getting some feedback, right?
So we're not only leveraging our people closest to us. to share stories and learn about our brand, but we're also leveraging them to help us grow our business. Whether it be through content on YouTube, or even asking them for a referral to somebody that they might know who might need support from us.
when it comes to you, Shelly, you're a mom, you Do recipe development, you do YouTube, you have a private practice, and cookbooks. How do you manage your time and focus on what drives the most growth? Besides content repurposing, which you mentioned.
Shelly: One of the biggest things, is you start to decline work. That doesn't mean anything for you, doesn't bring any kind of joy, any of that kind of stuff. So you [00:16:00] get very hone in with your target market. So identify who you want your eventual target market person to be.
And I have her named, I have her age. I have what's going on with her. Her name is Deborah. She is mid fifties to early sixties. maybe she had kids later in life and they're just in college or graduating school. She's real active. She wants to cook healthy.
You wanna do that? Because what happens is when Mr. Bobby calls you and he has, pancreatitis, you go, oh my gosh, Mr. Bobby, thank you so much for the call. I don't treat that, but I'm gonna give you the number to the local hospital nutrition clinic, or a nutritionist, a dietitian in town so that she could see you.
So that's number one. You've always turned down work. That doesn't mean anything for you, and you will never be mean. You're not gonna be mean to Mr. Bobby when you see him, but you're just not gonna feel it. So that's number one. Number two, I always believe in being a hundred percent at work and a hundred percent at home.
So when I'm at my daughter's volleyball games, I'm watching the game. [00:17:00] I'm not emailing or anything like that. So learn to do that and it'll, again, it'll make you work harder so that you can play harder. And the third thing is don't feel like you have to be on every social media platform. I said earlier, I am terrible at Pinterest.
I don't even know how to get on Twitter. I don't even know what to do. So you identify, and this is going back to your target market. Where is your target market? A lot of my 60-year-old ladies are on Facebook because they enjoy posting pictures of their grands. They enjoy looking at the pictures of the girls going through sorority recruitment at LSU, that is just their stick.
That's where I live and that's what they do. they do Pinterest. So next year I have a Pinterest goal. 'cause they still do visit. I was shocked. 'cause again, I asked them, I said, where do y'all go? Oh, Pinterest. I'm like, we still use that. Okay, cool. but I also know they don't know anything about Twitter.
If I said Twitter, they'd be like, oh, what's that? Or X, sorry about that. It's changed their names. so you always be where they are. That means going to [00:18:00] events where are, so for example, in your towns, are they at the Chamber of Commerce? if it's a very heavily run market by your target market.
So for me, women in their fifties, sixties, I will join. But if it's a very man's club, I will not join. And so that's how you can look to align your business groups and then even with your, charitable, events, like we have something here. it's great for the food bank. They do like a pottery class and a lot of women go to that.
So I'm gonna be there, but I'm not gonna be at the beer tasting at the brewery. 'cause that's a little bit more not my target market,
right?
Shelly: Identify your target market, be a hundred percent in, but be okay being out. And it's amazing how that will naturally manage your time because we'll put off things we don't.
Wanna do and what we don't wanna do, that's when we procrastinate. as you get busy, so like for me, we do have a virtual assistant in our clinic who does all our phone call [00:19:00] answering all that stuff. That would be the first thing that I would say to look at. Hiring some type of va, be it social media, be it the person who answers the phones, the emails, all that stuff, because that is a huge time vacuum.
It will suck out your time. And when you have somebody in place to do those kind of tasks time consuming, going through emails is time consuming. Set a timer and time in. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm 35 minutes in. I'm still checking email. that. Is how we wear all these different hats and we're, okay.
Target market, identify. Where are they? And if it's something that won't benefit them, then be okay saying no. And I always just say, just decline it politely. We get asked all the time to go to events here. and I get it, it's business stuff and a lot of times I decline it 'cause it's just, I'm not gonna go and do a happy hour 'cause I know it's just not gonna benefit me.
But I'm gonna go to the pottery event because I know a lot of my folks will be there.
Libby: That's great [00:20:00] and you're so clear. So thank you for sharing that. ~Yeah. Such a great case study of clarity on what you will and won't do. ~Compartmentalizing time with your family time as a business owner, and then really thinking through what decisions are the most fruitful, right?
What decisions. For business will help. Like you mentioned, yes to this, no to that, and that's not for any business. Meaning the examples you gave are for your business. So what I hope listeners take away is to reflect on what works and what doesn't work, and you can only learn that with time. So that was really helpful, Shelly.
Thank you for sharing all of that.
Shelly: Absolutely.
Libby: And I wanted to wrap up today's awesome episode where you share so many tips and I wanted to ask you, if you were to look back, where was the moment when you realized that your brand was truly taking off?
Shelly: Oh my goodness.
This, y'all are gonna laugh because. I have a middle schooler, so I have a sixth grader and I have a ninth grader, And I'm very blessed with very funny kids. So my daughter just graduated from eighth grade and she was appointed class clown. So that tells you like her personality.
And so she ran in and this was a couple months ago, [00:21:00] and she's mom. And I'm like, no, what's going on? And she's you're verified. And I went. I don't know what that means. What does that mean? And she said, look at your YouTube and your Instagram. You have the blue check, and it was like the biggest thing.
That's really Cute. And I'm like, I don't know what this means. She's mama, this is big. But in reality, it was the first. Clinic that called me. 'cause we used to call clinics, say, Hey, can we send over recipe cards? And that would be my huge suggestion for dietitians In private practice, doctors love recipe cards.
So if you can make a little handout with one or two of your recipes, they like passing that out versus, the very technical call to dietitian, da. we had a clinic call, Hey. Can you send us over some more of those recipe The patients love them. I love handing them out. It's a nice natural conversation piece for the doc because all actuality, they don't know how to sell and that's okay.
They're there to use the patient, so they're like, Hey, here's this [00:22:00] dietitian. ~Recipes, ~give her a call. And that was the biggest turnaround in us getting referrals into this clinic. So that was what my daughter said was really funny, but in business actuality was that clinic call and saying, Hey, can we get some more handouts?
The patient loves them and they were calling, it was a nice way to get the patient to call 'cause they could say, Hey, this is, Julie Smith, I got this handout from my doctor. Can I schedule an appointment? That's better than my doctor told me to call you. Absolutely. So that would be my biggest piece of advice for folks wanting to break into private practice and do it with your target market.
If you're a kidney dietitian, do kidney recipes. If you are a cardiac dietitian, ~do ~those recipes are needed drastically in the clinics as well as on YouTube.
Libby: Great action packed tips. And I love how you incorporated the storytelling of your kids. ~There's the answer of like, when you knew you made it right.~
~So that was, ~shelly, is there any final words you wanna leave us with today? It's been such a joy to talk to you and get to know you, so thank you for your time.
Shelly: Absolutely. The biggest piece of advice, 'cause students will [00:23:00] call, is. Tell your loved ones what you do.
People do care. And you will be amazed. ~The conversations. ~Just think about it. You may be at, Kroger and you run into an old friend and how you doing? Oh man, I just had heart surgery. I'm trying to eat healthy. Oh, my cousin's a dietitian. Start thinking about reaching out to your family and friends.
'cause those conversations happen. Way more than we think.
Yeah.
Shelly: We will be going to reunions, we will be going to those. And you just run into folks and they're, oh my wife just had a baby and she's breastfeeding and we don't know what to eat 'cause we don't wanna give the baby gas, oh yeah. So reach out to your loved ones. If it's one. If it's seven. And trust me, it will start reciprocating itself and repurpose everything you do. So get a Google folder, repurpose everything and share
Libby: it. Love it. Such helpful tips and yes to all the outreach and the consistency [00:24:00] and the repurposing to make our lives easier, right?
Shelly: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Shelly. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on air.
Take care everyone.
