Rise Lean is a transformative coaching business that focuses on weight loss and emotional eating. It helps clients break free from harmful food and weight habits. The goal is to help them achieve a stunning physique while enjoying complete food freedom.
It was founded by Leslie Chen, a management consultant. Rise Lean caters to intelligent, driven women who are making significant impacts in their fields. Clients include neuroscientists, engineers, data scientists, NGO chairwomen, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, program managers, and other successful professionals.
Despite their accomplishments, these women often struggle with weight issues and unhealthy relationships with food. Rise Lean helps them rewire their habits by fundamentally altering how they see eating and weight loss. The result is sustainable, stress-free weight loss and ultimate freedom from food-related anxiety, obsession, and shame.
The business generates over $28K in monthly revenue.
How the business was started
The idea for Rise Lean began with a simple question from one of Chen’s former colleagues: “Can you teach me how to remain fit while eating whatever you want? Back in the old days, you were the only one eating bimbimba while the rest were having salad!”
Chen, who is Chinese, consumes a lot of carbs. She doesn’t count calories, and rarely goes to the gym. Yet, she remains fit and healthy, which intrigued her ex-colleague.
Chen is Chinese. She eats tons of carbs. She doesn’t count calories. She don’t go to the gym often. And despite all of that, she is fit, and healthy. That’s why her ex-client was curious.
However, Chen wasn’t always in great shape. After moving to the US, she gained 50 pounds in a year. No diet worked for her, no matter how hard she tried. It wasn’t until she reconnected with the liberating and satisfying eating habits she had in China that she began to lose weight in a lasting way.
Recognizing the value of her experience, she asked her colleague, “Would you pay me $500 for four calls where I’ll share my secrets with you?” The enthusiastic response—”Hell yeah!”—marked the beginning of her successful business venture.
How she acquired the first few clients
To test the viability of an Asian-inspired weight loss program, Chen created a group on Meetup.com. She hosted outings to enjoy delicious Asian cuisine while discussing weight management and eating habits. Within a month, over 100 people joined.
Prior to founding Rise Lean, Chen worked at a leading global management consulting firm in Shanghai and New York City. Her role involved training executive clients. This made coaching people on weight management a natural extension of her skills.
Chen also pursued further education. She earned a Master of Science degree from Europe’s top neuroscience research center.
After developing her flagship program, Lean Instinct Formula, Chen focused on organically growing her client base. With no experience in online advertising, she turned to guest posting.
She built a simple website that clearly communicated her target clients, their challenges, and how her program could help. She also created a ‘lead magnet’ to attract visitors to join her email list.
Whenever she published a guest post, readers were directed to her website or the ‘lead magnet’ landing page via a call-to-action.
Building her email list to the first 1,000 subscribers took about a year. It was highly engaged. Even today, with a sizable list, her email open rate remains at 40%. This is significantly above average for the health and fitness industry. She started generating sales from her list once it reached around 650 subscribers.
How she acquires customers now
She now uses multiple channels to boost her lead flow.
Guest posting and appearing on top-rated podcasts are particularly effective. They generate high-quality leads.
SEO has also proven to be very successful. It delivers excellent results for her business.
Facebook ads were her primary lead generation tool for years, with an impressive ROI of up to 85%. However, she stopped using them in 2022 due to the skyrocketing cost per customer acquisition after Facebook’s iOS 14 update.
Currently, she is also exploring LinkedIn and TikTok ads.
Her greatest asset, however, is her authority. Building it required time, determination, education, financial investment, and significant effort. But it distinguishes her from others. This established authority means she doesn’t have to work as hard to attract new clients.
