0 (2s):
Lights that sparked fire nation. JLD here with an audio master class on how stress can make you a millionaire to drop these value bombs. We are brought to Puneet Nanda on the mic. Puneet AKA Dr. Fresh is a serial entrepreneur innovator, inventor writer, and practicing Yogi. In 2015, he launched the essential oils brand guru Nanda, which promises to bring 100% pure natural therapeutic grade essential oils to the masses already picked up by large retail stores like Walmart, Walgreens, and big lots guru Nanda is now one of the fastest growing non MLM, essential oil companies in the world. And today fire nation, we'll be going over Dr.

0 (43s):
Freshers journey. So you can see how you can solve a problem. That's a real pain point for people and be on your way to millions. As soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, grow your business with online courses, by jumping into Thinkific five-day course challenge today over five days, you'll hear from inspiring speakers, including myself who will walk you through the whole process. So you'll know exactly where you're headed. Sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire hiring is challenging, especially with everything else you have to consider today. But there's one place where hiring is simple, fast, and smart that places zip recruiter try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire.

0 (1m 30s):
That's ziprecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire Dr. Fresh say what's up to fire nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1 (1m 45s):
So, John, thank you for getting me on the show. I would actually disclose something that actually not only most people don't know, maybe my family also doesn't interestingly enough, you might have heard that I am originally from new Delhi and I went to Russia from Russia. I came to New York and to Los Angeles. And while I was in Russia, the, it was early nineties. Everything was in shambles and everybody and their brother was trying to see opera.

1 (2m 27s):
There was like opportunities galore. I had originally gone there for medical college and I saw this opportunity where there was super high demand. I was a young kid and I wanted to see how I could make enough money so that I could go back often to India, which was a six and a half hour flight. And, and because I was very homesick. So I met this friend of mine who was actually bringing in condoms because you could fit a lot of them in a bag and bring them and selling it to the, some people in the boarding school would come and take them all and pay them double the money or triple the money.

1 (3m 14s):
He said, Hey, I made like $300 getting these in. Maybe you should do the same. That way. The ticket used to be on. Aeroflot used to be $178. And I did that a couple of times. So this is something that nobody does,

0 (3m 35s):
Dr. Fresh smuggling, condoms across the national lines. I love it. And I hope some people in your family right now are laughing their little booties off hearing this story and fire nation. As we shared in the introduction, we're going to talk about how stress can make you a millionaire. Well, heck it definitely made Dr. Fresh a millionaire. So let's start Puneet with your entrepreneurial origin story. How the heck did you get stuck?

1 (4m 3s):
As I told you, I was in Russia, I, there was a demand for anything consumer products. And I got started in toothbrushes because my family had a business with toothbrushes and they were doing contract manufacturing for other companies, which I hated. And I said, if I'm going to, it's almost like doing contract manufacturing is like being in a glorified job because you really can't do anything. You're literally, you got 2 cents a piece let's say, and you make millions of them, the toothbrushes, but you really don't have any say in it.

1 (4m 43s):
You can't increase or decrease. You can't do anything. So I said, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna actually do business, which my dad was ready to kill me. When I, when he knew that I'm gonna do it, because he, he wanted me to be practicing doctor. And, and when he came to know, he was very upset, of course, but I said, if I'm gonna do my business, I'm gonna do my own brand. And Dr. Fresh was my nickname and my medical college. And I started with that brand in Russia originally. And then when things became really bad at Russia, I came to New York and from New York, I finally came to LA and I got a big break with 99 cents stores because I saw Colgate and Proctor and gamble, not paying attention to who are little 99 cent stores or dollar stores at that point.

1 (5m 37s):
So very before I knew I was the most popular product in dollar stores, because I, I had a very good idea of how to make a very good quality toothbrush, which was Colgate or oral B quality, but make it at one fourth or one fifth, the cost, which I introduced to odd dollar stores. And at that time dollar tree had started growing dollar mania, dollar land. All these guys were there that were coming up 20 store, 30 store chain. I, I used to get up in the morning, six o'clock start dialing every person, cold calling, and literally started to become extremely popular.

1 (6m 20s):
Something that nobody else had done. And I literally innovated a market that was not there. And that's how I grew. But very quickly, I knew if I have to go to mainstream, I need to in a wait. And that's when I invented Firefly, which is a kids light up to crush, which became the number one stoop brush in the world today. So that's, that's kind of my story. And then everything was easy after that because of the cashflow, I have bought the NACA and then we added in a private equity fund and we ended up buying reach toothbrush from Johnson and Johnson.

1 (7m 0s):
So before we knew we were 200 plus people and doing extremely well, but one thing I did not do really right, was that I did not. I forgot to take care of my own self. I did. I lost that work-life balance and I was working 18 hour days, eating McDonald's and Jack in the box, drinking Coke, sitting on a chair for more than eight, 10, 12 hours a day, not moving enough in between literally always being on phone, lost touch with a lot of friends and family, always working.

1 (7m 44s):
And literally my only goal was to grow Dr. Fresh to a point where it could be successful. And to a point where I wanted to always reach be number two or three in the country. And I did go to that goal, but at the point of literally burned my candle, if you understand. So I had gained a lot of weight. I started eating a lot of flopping, a lot of bills, and I wasn't being most of my hours in the day at the very end of Dr. First. So that's, that's where I was.

0 (8m 25s):
So Dr. Fresh, thanks for breaking that down because I can tell you most entrepreneurs who have any form of success do go through that time in their life when they just don't have that work-life balance. They don't have that focus on health that focus on family and relationships. And, you know, we learn, we learn in fire nation. That's why you're listening today. So hopefully you can learn from our mistakes because I've made the exact same one. So let's now talk about how that led you to developing the guru Nanda brand and kind of continue on with that, to share with us,

2 (8m 56s):
What's different about guru Nanda.

1 (8m 59s):
So interestingly after I had this alarm one day in Dr. Fresh, where I actually had a big chest ban and my secretary Natalie called nine one one. And at that point it was just a fake alarm. It was an anxiety attack. It wasn't a heart attack or anything. And I was like 39 or something at that time. And I said, this, one of my friends came to meet me. And he said, you, you just, you got to calm down and just focus on yourself because if you're not going to be there, everything else is immaterial.

1 (9m 40s):
So that's when I decided to sell the company. Incidentally, we find that I found the right buyer. I had the time I took a year off and I went to Ostrom and NBA. I really focused on my health. I lost 40 pounds. I became extremely healthy. I literally lost all the bills that I was eating and my blood work came out great. In the meanwhile, I, I decided to come back and open up a yoga studio. That's what I did. So I opened up a yoga studio in Beverly Hills, and I thought, I'll just teach the rest of my life.

1 (10m 23s):
And incidentally, I started getting a lot of gigs. I ended up being on Jay Leno's garage and other setup with the better answers and stuff started. But in the meanwhile, I saw a lot of these young ladies using essential oils by this multi-level marketing company called doTERRA or young living. And these are multilevel marketing companies that sell phenomenal quality essential oils, but they are very, very expensive, like 10 to 20 times more expensive than normal.

1 (11m 6s):
So I saw that, but I, then I went to Amazon and I saw essential oil selling for a dollar, a piece. And I ordered some. And then since I'm a scientist, I'm a chemist by background. I went ahead and analyzed gold oil and I saw everything literally selling on Amazon was fake fragrances. And then I researched and found a lot of these. Then I started really work on it. And as an entrepreneur or, you know, I saw immediately a light where I said, if I could become the doTERRA of retail business, that is nobody else.

1 (11m 49s):
There's absolutely nobody else to compete me because everybody eldest selling totally fake product, which is not real essential. Why I got into essential oils is because I used to have a lot of allergies and I was eating that at him off and on almost every other day basis. And oil of oregano, a couple of drops actually let me, since that they haven't ever had any of the GI bill. Like that was one thing that kind of restored my faith into essential oils. And then one by one, I started reading it.

1 (12m 33s):
I'm a person with biology background. So I started marrying my science background together with aroma therapy background. I enrolled myself into a couple of federal monotherapy schools. Plus I ordered every book on the internet and I really got involved. And then I even ensured that I follow what doTERRA and young living were doing because these two companies, they were actually doing pretty amazing job, farm to bottle kind of job, which they call it seed to shelf. And I called it farm to bottle.

1 (13m 14s):
And that's exactly what I did. I went all around the globe. I had the time I had the money and I had the will. And now I had the motive. I literally went all around the globe, farm to farm, created my own network of global ethical farmers. And we decided to bring the product farm to bottle, nothing added, nothing that moved and then bring it to retail. And when I did that, my whole plan was more to be a social entrepreneur where I'll help the farmers by helping their kids get educated.

1 (13m 56s):
Plus I will bring the product to Walmart's of the world so that a lot of people who cannot afford multilevel marketing products can still get the advantage of getting really good products. Although it was very tough because market is full of so many fake oils that, and 99.9% of them are actually not direct farm to bottle. And that is what made me feel very different. And that is what helped me create a brand that was different than I was able to take. Or I, I was able to the brand that used to be there before I was, there was a big four or $5 billion Whiteman company that used to be there in Walmart.

1 (14m 45s):
But when the buyer saw my passion and the product and the quality, we actually red got rid of that other major billion plus several billion dollar company and give me the space.

0 (14m 59s):
And that's where I hope you're really taken away from what Dr. Fresh is talking about right here. It's that you can build a moat around your business. How do you do that by doing things better by being the best by being the most pure by being the most real. And that can be in a physical product that can be in a virtual part of that can be in a lot of different ways, because believe me, fire nation, there's a lot of fake hollow and genuine stuff out there. And when you can identify just like Puneet was able to identify that, Hey, there's just so much crap out there. Let me actually create something great. And then you follow that through with passion, with excitement, with hearts, things can happen.

0 (15m 40s):
And we have so much more to talk about when we get back from thinking our sponsors for a lot of us, our home is now more than just our home for some of us that has become a classroom for our kids and office for our work or a yoga studio for our workouts. If you're a business owner or a people manager home may also be where you do your hiring. And that's where zip recruiter comes in, ZipRecruiter makes hiring faster and easier because you can do it all from one convenient place. Ziprecruiter.com/fire, no matter where you're hiring from ZipRecruiter does the work for you, how ZipRecruiter's matching technology scans, thousands of resumes and profiles to identify the most qualified people for your job. If you're really interested in a candidate, you can even invite them to apply for your job.

0 (16m 23s):
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0 (17m 14s):
And Thinkific is the perfect partner to have by your side. Plus think if it has an exclusive offer for you fire nation to join their free five day course challenge. Over the five days, you'll hear from inspiring speakers who have firsthand experience in building a thriving online course business, including myself, get ready to take all the guesswork out of getting started. One student who recently finished the challenge said, this is an excellent course. It keeps you moving and takes a lot of the intimidation and confusion out of the process. I would highly recommend this challenge sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire. So Dr. Fresh we're back, and I'd be curious to hear what your hero product is.

0 (17m 55s):
You know, that products that really made you into an aroma therapy and essential oils household name

1 (18m 2s):
Actually hero product is funny, not essential, which it's not a big product line with me, but it is something that got me into this business really. And that is a product that it's called oil pulling oil pulling is it is taking the oil of speciphic mixture, sunflower Sesame, coconut, then a peppermint, and actually pulling it like swishing it for about 10 to 15 minutes. It, it is that particular product that I consider a hero product because that's how I started Google Nanda.

1 (18m 45s):
I, I, I was giving that out to my people in my yoga studio. And some people started saying that we can't take it free. Why don't you put it on Amazon? And I put it on Amazon and, and oil pulling. The reason I got into it is because I, before I went to the ashram in India, I had an infection in my tooth and the doctor had said the dentist that you need to get a root canal done. And when I was in the washroom in India, I was very scared that he'd given me antibiotics. I was okay, but I was very scared that I don't get that pain back. And this guru got me into oil pulling.

1 (19m 25s):
And while I was there and ever after I've been doing it, I've never had a root canal ever since I, all my teeth are intact. And that is what really had gotten me into, okay, I'll, I'll share it with the world. And it's called oil pulling it's. I introduced this product into the world because a lot of people were doing just coconut oil polling in the hippie culture or in the yoga culture, but they don't understand coconut oil is very cooling. So it may or may not work the same way for a lot of Caucasian and African Americans, the way it works for people in Philippines or Mediterranean parts of India.

1 (20m 10s):
So that's what kind of got me into it, but essential oils, essential oils, I would say the top sellers that we have are peppermint and lavender and T3 and eucalyptus these four. But if it comes to myself, which we don't sell, because it's, it's not oil that people understand how to use it. My favorite, which I use as soon as I get a little lift of any kind of cold or flu or allergy is the oil for agno.

0 (20m 46s):
One thing that I've definitely over the years is that successful companies and successful entrepreneurs, they're able to inject one product or one service into the market that they are just best in show for. Cause they really identify and need. They really identify a void in the marketplace. And then once they get that little traction, that little momentum, then they can expand out across that marketplace and really do great things, just like Dr. Fresh was able to do in the way that he described it. So it obviously, wasn't all smooth sailing, Dr. Fresh, give us your number one challenge that you faced along the way when you were trying to develop guru Nanda into what it is today.

1 (21m 25s):
Basically what I used to do is I would take the competetive product that was already there in the market, in their retail stores. I would take them, get them from a third party best mind from a third party and show the reports to the retailers. And 95% of the retailers would tell you, Oh, we don't care. Are you here to bash other companies? So they would want to throw you out. So I had a, I was just trying to make sure that there is a level playing field and nobody really cares. And all, a lot of the buyers are keep changing. They are young, they are not that experienced and they don't care for them.

1 (22m 6s):
It's the price and what prices in the market that, and they always want to compare themselves to what is selling on Amazon. Apart from that, do they want to get into the history of science of anything 90 plus percent of the buyers don't have the time or energy to do that. And that is a huge problem. When I, I was starting the essential oil business to meet, educate them. So I started to make videos and put them online on YouTube. I started to educate the public because so that I could actually at least try to do my part in doing that.

1 (22m 46s):
Apart from that essential oils is, is a growing business. But lately what you've seen as everybody, including a detergent powder adjuster detergent product has just written with essential oils. So big. Then there is a air freshener selling for 97 cents writing essential oils, the biggest part of their business. But if you go and look at it, it says inspired by they small in are almost negligible. These are billion dollar, several billion dollar worth of companies. And then the detergent guy has one of that product plus fragrance.

1 (23m 27s):
Then when you have fragrance and essential oil, you can put one drop in like a hundred gallons. And you can still say, you've put in something that doesn't mean it doesn't have fragrance, or it doesn't have all the, and you know, that fragrances 3000 plus chemicals are used make fragrance. And according to the BACT between fragrance companies and FDA and other bodies, they were not supposed to disclose what goes in the fragrance, because most of the products that go in the fragrance industry are carcinogenic. So that is what made it a very difficult road.

1 (24m 10s):
It's very diluted education to customer is the biggest challenge that I've faced

0 (24m 17s):
And educating the customer is a challenge. But again, as one, that once you overcome it, the know the, like the trust is with you, the company or the individual that's given them that trust that's given them that value has given them that solution to that pain point. So Dr. Fresh has to be closed down here. What's your plan for the future?

1 (24m 37s):
My plan for the future is to keep, keep my mission of bringing the best essential oils to the market. Also, simultaneously I plan to, because earlier in the business, I did not realize that growth and profitability are the two most aspects of business. It's almost like breathing to a living being, and I decided, you know what, I'm going to be a social entrepreneur. So I was not focused on that. So what happened is first few years, I kept on losing millions of dollar nonstop lately. Did I realize, you know, if I'm not around, how can I bring my message around?

1 (25m 18s):
So I started to actually do profitable products and I'm starting, I've started to charge a little more to where I ha profitable back again, and I am going to continue to be profitable so that I can use that money to educate more people, to actually bring my best products onto them.

0 (25m 41s):
What's your call to action for fire nation? Where can we connect with you? Where can we find out more about you and your products? Cheryl?

1 (25m 49s):
So gurunanda.com, which is guru as Beecher, G U R U and Nanda is N A N D A.com. Nanda is my last name. So I originally kept my yoga studios name has good Ananda, which in lack of time, we just kept the same name. And it claimed on so well that because we saw every other brand was related to either nature or earth. And we said, you know what, we're different enough. And we need to continue to be that. But I think it's actually worked out in our favor lately after years of hard work, one call of action as a go to go to nanda.com, check us out.

1 (26m 35s):
The other thing is we are in the white demand section in Walmart, and we, we do not sell into non-vitamin because there's a lot of fake product called so-called essential oil that is being sold in other areas like home and home decor and stuff. So we focus on being in the Whiteman area. So if you go to a Walgreens or a Walmart, those are two stores that keep our product. Plus we also have our products on amazon.com, but you'll have to type in guru Nanda because anything and everything with 50,000 reviews that you see on Amazon, you need to be smart to understand that 90% of those 50,000 reviews are fake reviews.

1 (27m 22s):
How many times have you actually gone and written reviews? So if you're smart, you'll get it.

0 (27m 30s):
Fire nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with Dr. Fresh in JLD today. So keep up that heat and make sure to head over to eofire.com and type Puneet P U N E T in the search bar for the show notes page, which will pop up with everything we chatted about here today, links to all that jazz, make sure to go and visit guru nanda.com, G U R U N a N D a.com. Look for him in the vitamin section, in Walmart and other places. And of course on Amazon directly type in guru, Nanda go right there. Those 50,000 plus you've used it. He's talking about those are all made up of fake reviews at Amazon, by the way, they're tackling those, but it's just too much.

0 (28m 14s):
It's slowly and surely for them. So, you know, you're getting the right stuff from Dr. Fresh. He wouldn't have it anyway. So Puneet thank you so much for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with fire nation today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (28m 32s):
Thank you, John. Thank you so much. And every brand, every name, every product has my last name on it. Nanda, you can be ensured that I am putting my family name on the line. Every drop is tested retested and double tested through a third party before we get it out.

0 (28m 51s):
Straight fire. Thank you brother. Dr. Fresh Mike drop. Hey, fire nation. Today's value bomb. Content was brought to you by Puneet ins. If you're ready to rock your very own podcast. So you should check out our podcasting course cause it's free. And I teach you how to create and launch your own podcast. Free podcast course.com free podcast course.com. I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side, grow your business with online courses by jumping into Thinkific five day course challenge. Today over five days, you'll hear from inspiring speakers, including myself who will walk you through the whole process. So you'll know exactly where you're headed. Sign up for this free challenge today at thinkific.com/fire that's T H I N K I F I C.com/fire hiring is challenging, especially with everything else you have to consider today, but there's one place where hiring is simple, fast and smart that places zip recruiter try ZipRecruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/fire.

0 (29m 52s):
That's ziprecruiter.com/fire ZipRecruiter. The smartest way to hire.