close enough, right? And my coworkers…

 

Manon Bolliger  02:32

It’s been around forever.

 

Camille Leon  02:36

Yes, exactly tried and true, I think would be the term. So that became the seed for a online directory that would be focused on holistic therapies and the therapists who provide them. For example, Bowen therapists, right? But once we started building that directory, we also found that a lot of holistic professionals and practitioners and business owners are not well supported on the business side. They’re great at doing what they do. They’re great at healing people, right, using whatever their preferred modality or technique or specialty is, but business, heck, I did not become a Bowen therapist to be in business. I did not become an acupuncturist to be in business. I did not become a Reiki Master to be in business. So the Chamber of Commerce does kind of two things. One is connect more mainstream consumers to holistic techniques possibilities and the people who provide those services, and it also provides support for the business side of healing others. Marketing is a business thing. Visibility is a business thing. Time management, you know, how do you juggle your time and money? It’s all support for for you, right? And, and it helps you be better at reaching the people who need your healing.

 

Manon Bolliger  04:32

Yeah, it’s often, you know, looked upon, I mean, it’s changing. I mean, But, thank God it is actually changing, but a lot of therapists have this idea that they’ll be found. And, you know, people find them if they need them. And that somehow associating oneself with the marketing or the business component is not in the in the right spirit.

 

Camille Leon  05:04

I actually think that that and it is changing. I think it’s a question of the role models that we have had in the past for being in business, and the role models we have now for being in business. So for anybody who is confused about whether it’s good or bad to recognize that you’re in business, you’re not going to like all of these names. But let me point out that Dr Deepak Chopra, he’s in business and very successful and very holistically aligned. I think a lot of people would say Oprah Winfrey. She gets that she’s in business. She is holistically aligned. Dr Andrew Wheel. I mean, think of some very visible, holistically aligned doctors, therapists. They know their own business.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:03

I think, you know, it’s also, it’s not necessarily the so called experts who are often paid and not actually experts. We know many of those during the last few years who have…

 

Camille Leon  06:16

Yes. Yes.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:17

Spoken out and they don’t actually they know that they’re motivated by the money, but not necessarily by the welfare of people. So there is a fine line, but I think visibility, in the sense of being useful to your community is what’s important, is stepping out like believing that if you actually talk about what you do a little bit, that it’ll help a person who has no idea what you do, right? You know?

 

Camille Leon  06:51

We believe in balance, right? And there is a balance that makes what we do sustainable and even profitable, and it is okay. Now, does that mean we need to be greedy? No, we don’t need to be greedy. But people are already going to doctors. They’re already going to drug stores, so they’re looking for healing and health and wellness. So let’s help them find more holistic approaches. You know, no matter where you are, there’s a lot of visibility for conventional Western medicine, and that makes it easy for people to oh, I’ll just go pick up really whatever, which we all know, is not always the best solution, right? So visibility is what helps people find you sooner, so they don’t have to wait until it’s a last ditch, desperate effort, in some cases, too late. We want them to find you sooner now even.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:12

And I think too there’s a reality of, if you know, often people say, follow the money, right? So if you see that pharmaceuticals pay a large part for the ads and for all of this, they’re going to be extremely well represented. So competing in those sort of networks is nearly impossible. Plus that feels kind of maybe not quite right, you know, whereas in a community based thing, it’s more that you’re sharing and you’re open to discussion, right? Because, you know, people don’t know the difference. Many times they don’t know that when you take a bunch of pills, they may work a little bit or some of the time, but you may not be actually fixing the underlining problem or the cause, right? It’s not discussed because you assume, Oh, these are magical. And then you look at the commercials, you jump in the air and you’re happy, and you know, the sun starts to come out, and then you read all the side effects. But you don’t read those fast enough, because there’s so many of them.

 

Camille Leon  09:27

But, people don’t pay attention to the side effects. They just don’t. They’re looking at the pretty pictures. They’re looking at the ads. Very often, people don’t find the side effects until after they have started taking something and yet, we’re all aware that opioid addiction is a crisis, and one reason for those addiction problems is that people they can’t find the holistic therapies which they will love once they find them. And they won’t get addicted, right? Or they’ll get it…imagine, I’m addicted to essential oils. Wow, you know, and the side effects are all good side effects. It’s not a lot of negative side effects. Oh, or here, take this, and you’re also going to need a second this in order to combat and then also you’re going to need a booster, because eventually the original and have you noticed with antidepressants, they don’t say, Oh, your original one isn’t working anymore. You should get off of that and take this instead. They say, Oh, your original one isn’t working anymore. We’re going to give you a second pill that kind of boosts it. But it’s easier for people to find those things. So that is part of the reason for the name Chamber of Commerce. Is a lot of mainstream consumers have a certain level of respect for the reputation and trust for Chamber of Commerce members, and you tack on that holistic and you have a community that’s really focused on the holistically aligned business community, from solopreneurs, professionals, practitioners, to those who run larger businesses.

 

Manon Bolliger  11:26

And how is that run like? What happens if you, let’s say, you decide to join what are the benefits? What do you…what’s the engagement? How does it work?

 

Camille Leon  11:39

Oh, well, so there are, I think really it boils down to three primary benefits. And there’s more to it than that, but there are three primary. One is a directory listing. So all of our members are listed in the directory. All of our members can be found. They can be searched by location. So an in person therapy, you need to find somebody close to you really or they can be found by keywords, Bowen or Bowen therapy as an example. Or they can be found by company name, though, people who don’t know you yet, they’re searching for more general keywords. Maybe they don’t even know Bowen therapy yet, right? So they’re searching for something.

 

Manon Bolliger  12:37

Pain relief or something.

 

Camille Leon  12:38

Right? Pain relief, yeah, or chronic pain. So there’s so the directory that’s first.

 

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Camille Leon  13:55

Second all of our members can add their events if they do intro events, either online or in person, to our events listing, so that anybody who comes to our website and finds that main calendar can find what our members are doing, both online and those in person, intro events. And then the other thing we do is we do networking. Our networking happens online, your friend of mine, Zoom, or maybe I should say your frenemy, Zoom, but it allows people to attend our networking meetings all over, right? Whatever time zone you’re in, you don’t have to drive, you don’t have to fly, you don’t have to deal with parking. So that’s included for all of our members. And then we also have some locally active groups where local members, you know, come together once a month and actually have that in-person component as well.

 

Manon Bolliger  15:03

Good. Yeah, so, and when there’s these get togethers, is there an opportunity to to speak or to present a little bit? Or how does it work, as far as getting the word out or?

 

Camille Leon  15:20

So, actually, a lot of the way we get the word out is online. It is via email. It is on social media. It is on podcasts like this, my job as the founder really is to always be representing holistic therapists and all of our members that holistically aligned professional community. We currently have over 50,000 followers, so there are a lot of people paying attention to us on our website, our blog, our socials, via email, and we’re networking on your behalf, always in that way. And then at our meetings, depends on the meeting. Some of our meetings are strictly for networking, so everybody there does get to introduce themselves and talk about what they do a little bit, and then some of our meetings are a little less networking and a little more about a specific topic. For example, last night, we had a great little meeting about how to do better with your Google search engine optimization, how to find more people through Google? Because here’s what we know, whether you like Google or not, that’s where people are going to find what they’re looking for, right? So how do we make it a little bit easier for you to boost your presence on Google, or whatever your favorite search engine is, but yeah, so there are plenty of opportunities to introduce yourself in the networking meetings, and we also have a group on Facebook that is pretty active.

 

Manon Bolliger  17:17

Okay, and are you mostly in the US, or you’re international, or are there Canadians?

 

Camille Leon  17:27

So we are mostly in the US, and we have an international presence. We…I believe we have some Canadian members. We should, I know we used to. We also have some members in Europe, some members in Central America. Actually, I was just in Belize, the other in December, visiting one of our early legacy members down there. And that’s the nice thing about being online, right? Is it’s easy to do a search for wherever you are, and that’s part of what I really like about our directory, right? Is people can plug in their city, their province, and rightfully find what they’re looking for, especially for those in person techniques where you need to go in person.

 

Manon Bolliger  18:27

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the good thing with complimentary, or, I don’t even know if it’s really a compliment, it, I think it’s in its own right. It’s a natural therapy. I think that’s a better way of describing it, but a lot of them can be done through zoom and through discussion, and you know that type of thing as well. You know depends. There’s licensing requirements that vary so much so it’s hard to say, but that’s a whole other…

 

Camille Leon  19:06

Yes, a that’s another topic, that’s another podcast. But, yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger  19:11

Yeah, but it’s true. It’s a good way to at least start and, you know, get the word out. So what prompted you to start this, or what motivated you, or what was the need you saw that?

 

Camille Leon  19:26

Well, the need I saw was I was, at the time, I was looking for an acupuncturist. And the world has changed. I will admit, search engines have become a little easier to use, even for finding holistic therapies, but I still find that they are not particularly user friendly for finding the holistic options, the holistic possibilities. So we needed that.

 

Manon Bolliger  19:59

I mean, I know. Like…

 

Camille Leon  20:01

Focused on us and you.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:03

Yeah, and I think…exactly, and I think it’s different, like, you know, you probably know Mercola, you know, he’s been around for 40 plus years, a wealth of information. Well, you know, it depends what happens out there, but he’s…unless you put his actual URL, you couldn’t find any of his information anymore in the last few years.

 

Camille Leon  20:29

Well, I also think, like not everybody, can go to where Marcola is, and I think that all of the links on his website come back to, I have the answer for you. I have the answer for you. So how do we get people to find the therapists that are close to them? I can’t go to Chicago?

 

Manon Bolliger  20:53

No, no, for sure. But I mean, as far as like discussing options that you can to your local people. You know, in the last few years, you can’t look up anything.

 

Camille Leon  21:05

That’s sad.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:06

It’s just, it’s that the search engines don’t allow you to see these alternatives, you know. So it’s…

 

Camille Leon  21:14

Well, we can be found on Google. Start typing in Holistic Chamber of Commerce, and we will come up.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:24

Yeah and that is why it grassroots things, you know, that community the really strong. And I think people are realizing that, you know, that we need to start with something like that, and then it’s easy to refer, you know? So I think it’s a great, great idea, yeah. So, besides healthcare practitioners, who else is…who else comes to this?

 

Camille Leon  21:55

So our website is used by so many different people like, like I said, we have, in terms of our direct followers, 50,000 and in the world today, we know that there is a ripple effect. Right? Every single connection is tied to what 10-20, 30-50, I mean, in my case, if you looked me up on LinkedIn, you’d see that I have over 21,000 connections now. So, there’s that ripple effect that means half a million, a million people can come to our website and they’re looking for…they’re looking for you. They’re looking for holistic therapies, even if they don’t know the term Bowen therapy, they’re looking for it even if they don’t know the term Reiki. That’s what they’re looking for, right? And we’re creating that, that bridge, really, that introduction to there’s another path. You don’t have to go to the corner drug store and buy another pill. There’s another path.

 

Manon Bolliger  23:20

Great. I can’t believe our time is almost over. I was gonna say, what would you like to share with the last five minutes? I know you have a book. I believe that the hardcopy is yours?

 

Camille Leon  23:38

Well, so I’m going to put it in the chat, and I can email you after the fact as well. We have a It’s on our website. It’s a free gift book. It’s basically an intro to holistic health and wellness. So we feature probably the most common, most well known techniques, chiropractic, acupuncture, I think we talk about hypnotherapy and essential oils right. And then towards the end of the book, we start talking about there are so many other holistic therapies for you to discover, for you to explore and find, right? So it’s, that’s what it is. This book, which is a free gift available on our website, is that here’s an open door for you. Come on in.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:42

Okay. And people have to start somewhere, you know.

 

Camille Leon  24:45

They do and they don’t know where to start. So here you go.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:50

Yeah. I mean, often, you know, like, we get clients that have seen chiropractors, but not that chiropractors don’t benefit people. They do, but like all therapies, not everyone. So…

 

Camille Leon  25:07

Nothing solves everything for every person.

 

Manon Bolliger  25:12

Oh, that’s how well have you done? Exactly. That’s how we often get referrals from chiropractors, you know, or, you know, yeah, physiotherapist, or, you know, people who, typically people, will go there first, because they’re better known, right? If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, then this is kind of the chance of, you know, offering more things that are less familiar.

 

Camille Leon  25:43

Yeah, and our goal as the Holistic Chamber of Commerce is to expose people earlier in their journey, so that they find all of these therapies a little sooner.

 

Manon Bolliger  26:02

Yes, yeah, okay, well, great, great work. And thank you so much for sharing what you’re doing. And, yeah, big need for that. Thank you very much.

 

Camille Leon  26:13

Thank you so much for having me here.

Ending

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