128: Ask Amber Anything About Business Part 2

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 128

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four.  Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

Growing or scaling a business  0:46

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And this is part two of the ask me anything, Ask Amber Anything Business Edition. So if you missed last week's episode, you might want to start there, you may not, you may want to continue on. Last week, I answered a bunch of your questions that were submitted by listeners about starting specifically an online fitness coaching business. And today, I'm going to answer questions that more relate to growing or scaling a business. So if you know that interests you more than just starting a business, maybe you've already started a business and you're looking to grow or scale the business, you might find these questions a little bit more pertinent. You may find that there's a lot to be learned even back in starting a business. But just know that there are a part one and part two, last week was more about starting a business, this week is going to be more about growing and scaling a business. And like I said in Episode Number one, this wasn't something that I went to school for. I've learned a ton over the last five years, about business, about marketing, about coaching, about serving clients, about email lists, and funnels, and Facebook ads, and all of these things that I didn't need. It's a whole world that I didn't know existed. But now that I do know it exists. And now that I've learned it all. It's freakin fun for me to talk about this stuff. It's so fun for me to talk and share about the things that I've learned. And I've found that I really enjoy business, I really enjoy thinking about it, strategizing, I enjoy the marketing, and I enjoy just all the learning that has happened. So I'm excited to take some of that information that I've been learning over the last five years as I started and have scaled my own online business, and be able to teach some of that and pass it on here so that you can do whatever you want with it. Grow your own business, start your own business, and be successful in your own way.

Q1: How did you set up your website?  2:53

Okay, so the first question I'm going to answer is from Tiffany. And she said, How did you set up your website? Now, I made the point in last week's episode, that I did not have a website until I was about a year and a half into my business. I had already passed the six-figure mark before I got a website. Okay, so anybody who tells you that you have to have a website to be like a legitimate business, or to get clients. I didn't. And I don't think that you need to either. In fact, I see a lot of people make the mistake of sinking a lot of money and time, and effort into a website before they're even selling things to clients. Okay, so I'm a big fan, especially in the online business world, your overhead is so low like you don't need any money to start selling something in the online world. I think it's silly to be investing money in branding and logos and websites before you're actually selling crap. Like before you're actually selling stuff to people. So I didn't have a website for the first year and a half of my business.

Instagram and referrals  4:08

When people would find me on Instagram. That was my platform, like the biggest part of my platform came from people finding me on Instagram and referrals. Those were my two biggest sources of traffic. So people would find me on Instagram or they would have a friend or sister or relative tell them about me. And they would send me a DM or send me an email and say, Hey, I'm interested in coaching and I would email them back the details. That was it. That was how simple it was like you want to coach, here's the information if you want to sign up, let's go. That was how simple it was. I didn't have a website.

Make money and be able to invest back into your business  4:45

Now, a year and a half into my business. I'm making six figures. That was when I was like okay, I'm ready to invest in a website. And so I invested in my first website, and I want to say my first website was I want to say it was around like $45,000 And again,  $45,000 when you're first starting up, and you don't even have a proven product and you aren't selling anything is a lot of money to invest, before you know that you're going to get a return on that investment. So the way that I like to grow my business is, I don't like to go into debt, I want to make the money and then be able to invest that back into my business to then grow my business. And so that was a strategic move that I made. I was at the point where I knew that I knew what I had worked, I knew I had a proven process, I knew I had an ability to get clients. And so then I was willing to invest $45,000, to be able to have my first website put together. And that was the same, I have that exact same website. Until like a year ago, we decided that we just wanted to kind of refresh it a little bit. And we hired somebody off of Upwork to just kind of give it a little bit of a refresh. They didn't do it. They didn't fully redo the website, but they kind of refreshed the pages and did some stuff like that. But for most of my business, I've had the exact same website.

Spend most of your time selling and serving  6:02

Now I will tell you, shhh! secret. We're in the middle of, totally redesigning, custom coding back-end stuff, like all of the works, right to redesign the website. But now that's me five years into my business, like multiple six figures, we'll probably do seven figures this year. That's me now investing more money into a custom-coded, custom-built website, okay. So you can get started, like if you want to have like a Squarespace site. Like I'm not saying don't have a website, I'm just saying, if you're not selling stuff, focus on selling stuff, like focus on learning how to sell, how to market how to get clients, instead of putting off those things that sometimes make us uncomfortable and focusing on your website. Okay, you should be spending most of your time selling and serving. Those are the things that should be most of your time. And yeah, lead generation needs to be part of that. Like, that needs to be part of it. But I see the mistake a lot of people make of not getting started because the website's not done. No friend, you can start selling before your website's done. I promise I promise you can.

Q2: Did you have imposter syndrome? And if so, how did you overcome it?  7:14

Now this kind of leads us to a great question that Ana asked. She said, Did you have imposter syndrome? And if so, how did you overcome it? Now if you're in the like, business space in the online space, you probably know what imposter syndrome is. Maybe you don't and that's okay. But I was talking to somebody and they asked me the question. They're like, not in the business space, and they're like, imposter syndrome. What is that? Like I've never heard of that. So if you're listening to this, and you have no idea what imposter syndrome is, let me break it down for you.

Imposter syndrome 7:44

Imposter syndrome is essentially this idea that you are an imposter or a fraud, and like people are going to find you out. So for example, my husband experienced this, I don't know, he's probably okay if I shared the story. My husband experienced this when he was applying to medical school. Now, my husband is very smart. He's brilliant, really. He's not the greatest test taker, he'll tell you that right off the bat. Like he's just not the greatest test taker, he learned to become a better test taker and a better like, study or in general by marrying me. In fact, he told his mom, he's like, marry Amber 100% increased like might increase my chances of getting into medical school by 100%. Because I taught him how to study, I taught him how to take tests, I taught him how to kind of do those things because those things come pretty naturally to me. Anyway. He's not the best test taker. So his MCAT scores were not the best, like his, you know, his school grades are good, but they're not like that. Like he's not the best. When it comes to his medical school application. It was not like the highest of all numbers that you could get. And so he got into medical school, he went to Penn State Medical School. And he for the first month that he was at medical school, he was like, convinced that someone was going to come across his application and be like, Oh, my gosh, you weren't supposed to be here. Like you, you slipped through the cracks, like, we didn't actually mean to admit you to our medical school, get out of here. Like he really felt like that was what it was going to be like that he had snuck in there some way they made a mistake, and that they were gonna find him out. And then he wasn't actually, you know, good enough to be in medical school. That is such a classic example of imposter syndrome where you feel like someone's gonna find you out that you don't actually belong there. And it's a very, very common feeling, especially as you start a business and you start to like, make something legit.

Imposter syndrome is normal 9:39

I will tell you when I first started my business, and like people that I knew in real life like started to find out that I started a business. There definitely was some like, Who does she think she is? Right? Like, Who does she think she is starting a business-like, Oh, this is really cute. Like this is not going to go anywhere. Or how's that little business that you're growing like going, right? So there's like some of this, like, you shouldn't like, why should you be doing this? Why? Why are you good enough Amber to be building this business? There was definitely some of that with people I knew, like in real life, and then also online of like, Who am I gonna be doing this? Who am I to be selling? coaching? Who am I to be coaching other people who might be telling people what to do? Absolutely like if you're going through that, the first thing I will say people who are scam artists, who are frauds never feel that way. Okay, people who are actually out to like scam people and are just in it for the money. They don't ever feel that way. Because they don't care. They don't care. And so I think it's really important to understand that imposter syndrome is very normal. And it inherently means that you're a good person. Like you're a good person, you're not a fraud, because frauds don't care about being frauds. People who are frauds care about being frauds.

Getting over with imposter syndrome 11:09

So did I have imposter syndrome? Absolutely. How did I get over imposter syndrome? When the desire to serve matters more to you than feeling the imposter syndrome. Okay, if I gave in to the imposter syndrome, that would cause me to shrink, it would cause me to not show up. It would cause me to not serve. Who am I to be doing this? Who am I not? Who am I not to be doing this? Because when I don't show up, I can't serve. I can't touch other people's lives. I can't transform and change other women. And so I had to choose. Did I want to give in and listen to that part of my voice that said, You're not supposed to be here? Who are you to be doing this? Or were those women who I could serve more important to me. And every time I come back to why I'm here and why I do what I do because the women who I serve are so important to me. And so yeah, that imposter syndrome comes up. And I turn my attention to what's more important to me, which is serving and serving the women in my business and as clients. And that would be the way that I would help you to get over imposter syndrome recognize it's totally normal. Recognize that it means you are inherently a good person and that you don't want to scam people and that you want to do it right and you want to serve people, and then refocus on what's more important. Giving in to the imposter syndrome and letting it win and keeping you small, or the people's lives that you could change, that you wouldn't change if you played small if you told yourself that you weren't meant to be here. You're meant to be here, you're meant to serve in big ways. And if you think the fitness industry is too saturated, I tell you what it is not, it is not too saturated for people who actually are committed to their clients and to like creating change. It's not too saturated. Now, if you're wanting to just scam people and just like take their money, and so yeah, it's really saturated. Don't come in. But if you're someone who really wants to serve and coach at a high level, I promise you it's not too saturated. We need more women who are coming into space with that kind of attitude.

Q3: Do you maintain your nursing license? 13:35

All right, Jen asked, do you maintain your nursing license. So backstory on me, I got my bachelor's degree at BYU. my four-year degree, worked as a nurse in the Neuro Intermediate Care Unit, where I dealt with stroke patients and motorcycle vehicle crashes and aneurysms, and all those good like head trauma type things. I did that for several years. And then we moved from Pennsylvania where my husband was totally attending medical school out to California where he did his residency. And during that move, my husband went from having, you know, nine to five timetables to working 80 hours a week. So when we were in med school, and I say, I slip up and say I don't slip up. But I say we, we went to medical school, you'll hear me use that terminology. And people are like, Oh, did you go to medical school? And I say yes, yes, I did. Because our family went to medical school, thank you very much. But when we went to medical school, my husband would go to school during the day. And then he would come home at like five. And so I would work the 3 pm to the 11 pm shift. So I had like a babysitter, watch my two kids from like three to five and then there you know, my husband would come to pick them up and then I would work into the evening. And so that worked really well for us because we could split our time. And the kids weren't in daycare all day long. And we had to pay for that and all that stuff. So it worked really well.

From a nurse to a fitness class coach   14:59

Then when I moved to California my husband's job was like 80 hours a week, and there was no way for him to be able to do that his schedule was unpredictable. And so at that time, we made the decision, I had two kids that didn't really make sense for me to go to work, because then we're gonna have to pay for childcare. So at that point, I stayed home and got into teaching fitness classes. That's when I really started with group fitness and teaching fitness classes.

My nursing license status journey  15:22

So during that time table, I did move my license over from Pennsylvania, to California. So I had an active license in California and maintained that for the four years that we lived in California. And then we moved out to North Carolina. And when we moved to North Carolina, I put my California license just on like inactive status. I didn't move it out to North Carolina, I just kept my California license, because we knew that we kind of wanted to come back to California. So I figured I would keep my California license, inactive status went out to North Carolina, in North Carolina was when I built when I started my business. So in 2016, when we were in North Carolina, I started my business, and then we did end up moving back to California. And my license has been on an inactive status that whole time. So now we're getting to the point where I think I actually just looked up, like where my licenses are at and what you know, entails and you can have your license on inactive status in California for eight years. Before you then if you wanted to go back into nursing, you would need to retake some classes and things to be able to get back into the nursing profession. So I think I'm on like year seven. And so I have like one more year until I would hit that like eight-year mark. So I do not have an active license, I have an inactive license. And I will probably not ever renew it because I don't think I will ever go back to nursing. For a very long time, I thought that I wanted to once my husband was done with medical school and residency and fellowship, my plan was for me to go back and get my doctorate and be a nurse practitioner. And the funny thing I would always say is like that way, we'll be Dr. Brueseke. And that was kind of always the plan. So it's like, Okay, he's gonna do his career stuff. He's going to do his schooling. And then once we're all done, then that will be a good time for me to go back to school and get my doctorate. Then I started my business. And now I can't imagine going back. I can't imagine working for someone else. I can't imagine going back to the hospital. I can't imagine leaving my business. So I don't think I will ever go back to nursing. I mean, I never say never. But I can't see myself going back to nursing. I love what I do way too much. And I love the freedom that my business gives me way too much to probably go back.

Q4: How have you built such a successful business while raising four kids? 17:47

Alright, a question from Amanda. She asked how have you built such a successful business while raising four kids? So I think this is such a good question. And a couple of people asked this question in like different ways. Because you recognize that, like being a mom is a full-time job. And being a business owner is oftentimes a full-time job. And so being able to balance those two and do those two simultaneously, is something that I know a lot of women struggle with. Something that my friend recently mentioned to me that I thought was so interesting that she noticed that I had never noticed. And looking back it's kind of funny to me that I never noticed it. But she was chatting and she mentioned that I had always had an income or a job since we got married. And I was like wait a minute, and I kind of went back. And I was like you're right. As you know, as soon as I finished nursing school, I worked as a nurse. Before nursing school, I worked as an LPN and so I worked as a nurse. And then when we moved to California, I worked teaching fitness classes, had a full load of fitness classes, the same thing in North Carolina. And then I started my business, like the whole 16 years that we've been married. I've always had some sort of income or job. Now it hasn't been full-time when I was teaching fitness classes. That was great because it was like, you know, an hour or two here and there. The gym would watch my kids, I was going to go to the gym anyway, right? That was a really great job for somebody who had kids and you know, it was home with their kids. But I've always had an income or jobs since we've been married. That's always just been a part of my identity is finding what I can do to not only support the family but to do something for me. Like I enjoy producing, I enjoy providing value to the community to another business. And so I think and so when my friends said this to me, I was like, Oh, I literally had never thought about it that way. But yes, it's just always been a part of my experience. And I think it's because I find it important for me.

Doing things for yourself  20:02

Growing up, my mom wanted, she's one of seven. So I'm the oldest of seven. My mom was always really big on teaching us that it was important for us to do things for ourselves as like, she would say this in her realm. For her, she was like, I'm your mom. But I also need to be like Chris, but it also needs to be a woman. And so she taught fitness classes, and she was PTA president, and she did things that were growing for her. And we're outside of the realm of always just being called mom. And so I grew up with this understanding of taking care of myself, because if I took care of myself, then I would be able to take care of my kids more and so that was modeled for me. And I've kind of just always taken it to heart like, I always know that I kind of need something that I do that provides me some kind of stimulation, in addition to whatever I get from being home with my kids, which I love. And I'm grateful that I have the blessing to be able to make that choice. I know a lot of women don't have that choice to make, it's not a choice, right, they either have to go to work, or they have to say, or whatever it is, it's not a choice. For me, it's been a choice. But it's also been a choice for me to work. And I enjoy that I enjoy doing it. So I think that one is that it was always modeled for me. And I never thought I couldn't, I never thought I couldn't work. That was always just something that was just kind of part of something that I wanted to be able to do.

Inherent values take place when modeled 21:34

The second thing that's really important to me is that I love seeing, having my kids have a front-row seat to watch me build something. My kids see me go on coaching calls, my kids see me record podcasts, my kids see me do team meetings, they know when we're in a launch, we make it a really fun family event where we like, go out to ice cream, we guess how many people are going to join the program, and we go into ice cream. And you know, they're involved in hearing about the business and hearing about the growth in hearing about, you know where we're at in terms of our revenue and our goals and things like that. And I love having my kids see me building something that I love. Because that's what I want for them. Like, I want my kids to do what they love. And if they want to start a business, I want them to do that if they enjoy that. And so by modeling it, I think there's a lot of inherent value, I guess is what I'm saying. Because I think sometimes as moms, we can be so hard on ourselves, because maybe I'm on a work call instead of doing math with my first grader, right at that moment. And sometimes it's really easy to beat yourself up being like, there's no like, I'm putting my work over my kids when I do that. And the way that I think about it and kind of flip that script a little bit is that I model that for my kids' niche, like showing them that I have something of value that I enjoy this, that I love this. And is a priority in my life is inherently valuable for them to witness. It's inherently valuable for them to see that because that is exactly what I want for them, especially for my daughter. I never want my daughter to feel like she can't go out and live whatever dream she wants to live, like whatever that looks like for her. And this is my dream. And so by modeling that for her, I'm giving her and my sons' permission to build their life, build their dreams, and do what they want to do. So I think there's inherent value in that.

Involved your family with your business 23:50

So does the business and family lifestyle, sometimes like come head to head? Absolutely. And this is where conversations with my husband and leaning into priorities and making sure that I'm feeling calm, comfortable with the balance that I have chosen to strike at that time is really valuable. But I think that pushing my business off and never doing my business because I always have to be you know, kids first always, always, always, I think is detrimental to my children because I don't want that for them. So why would I model that? So I've tried to make it to where my kids are more included in my business, where they hear me talk about it, they're like, it's like the family business. Like the family. We are in this business together. And they have to make some sacrifices for the business. But then the business also provides them lots of opportunities that maybe they wouldn't get because we didn't have the business, so I kind of look at it as teaching them about being a part of the business. You know, and there's their part of the business. There's my part of the business. There's my husband's part of the business, but it's a family business or family business.

My choice when I started scaling my business 24:59

Okay. So those are kind of some ethereal, like thoughts that I have about moms and being business owners. But I will say this, I didn't really start scaling my business until all of my kids were in school. Does that mean you cannot scale a business until your kids are in school? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I did not. I started my business when my son was two years old. But I didn't really start scaling my business until he was going into preschool. And I like to put him in preschool, five days a week for like three hours a day. So it wasn't until I had that space, where he was in school and all my kids were in school, that I really started scaling my business. And that was a little intentional on my part. Because I wasn't willing to put my kids in daycare, not that there's anything wrong with that.  I wasn't willing to hire a nanny, not that there's anything wrong with that I just wasn't willing to do those things. And so for me, for my family, when all my kids were in school, that gave me space, it gave me quiet, it gave me the opportunity to put those hours, that's hours into my business.

Vocalize and verbalize the phases of your kids 26:17

Now, if you have little kids at home, you get a little more creative, right. So I did start my business when I had two kids at home. And you work when they're sleeping, and you work at night, and you work around nap schedules and things like that. But I think that it's important, especially if being a mom is important to you, it's important to vocalize and verbalize that there are different phases of your kid's life. And the little kids' phase is a different phase than your school-age phase is a different phase than the teenage phase. And sometimes I feel like moms forget that there are these phases, and you feel like you're always going to be in the phase that you're in. Now that my kids are in school, I can look and see how different this phase of life is, from the phase of life when all my kids were really little. And it's okay to choose to put something off until your kids are older or to give yourself a little grace or recognize that it's going to be slower to grow, or it's going to be slower because you can you have structure or frame time around how much time you're willing to spend. Now, that's not to say that you can't, again, grow a successful seven, eight-figure business with kids, little kids at home, like absolutely you can. That's just not what I did.

Time blocking 27:38

I think the best suggestion I have for a mom who's at home and trying to figure out that balance is time blocking is setting designated time from this time to this time. This is work time, from this time to this time is you know, kid time, this time to this time is dinner, right? Like really blocking out your time and using it as effectively as possible. So instead of context switching, where you're doing like a little bit of mommying, and a little bit of business, and then you're kind of like switching context, back and forth. You have dedicated time where it's like, okay, right now, I have a sitter for the kids or the kids are down from now or whatever, now is my business time and maximize whatever I'm able to accomplish in that time. And then when the kids wake up or when that you know, the babysitter goes home, then now it's like mom time and I'm back to mom. Now I will say I'm better at that. Saying that out then sometimes actually doing it. I struggle with context switching, I struggle with trying to fool myself into thinking that if I'm doing five tasks at once that I'm accomplishing more, rather than giving my all to one focus task. I am better at telling you to do that than I am at doing it myself. But it's something that I'm constantly working on staying in the context that I'm in instead of switching through contexts.

Q5: Where did you learn to coach? 29:00

Okay, next question. Amanda said Where did you learn to coach? So that's a question that I get a lot and it's kind of hard to answer because it's not from any one place. I have pulled a lot of my coaching from experience, you know, from scientific knowledge, from education, from experience coaching lots and lots of clients and just figuring out what works and what doesn't work. I've learned coaching techniques from NLP. I've learned coaching techniques, sleight of mouth. I've learned coaching techniques from my mentor James Wedmore. Like I've just pulled a lot of different coaching techniques from different sources. And I've pulled it all into kind of make it my own, like make it my own methodology and the way that I coach. So it's not like one source that you can go to learn the way that I coach because I didn't learn it all just from one source, which is the exact reason.

Coaching certification program the BAB way 30:04

But I'm actually putting together a coaching certification to teach you how to coach as I coach. So we would be like a one-stop shop, have you want to learn how to ask your clients better questions, you want to learn how to empower your clients, you want to learn how to get them to invest in the process, I'll teach you how to do that because that's one of my superpowers. That's what I'm really good at. And so I'm actually creating a coaching certification to allow people to come in and learn how to coach effectively learn how to coach from the underlying belief, rather than just telling your clients to work harder, or to get more motivation, really coaching from that deeper coaching level, that's something that I'm really good at. And I've learned, what makes me good at it, and the techniques that I use, and I've been able to teach my coaches inside of Macros 101 how to do it. And now I'm starting to expand that to teach more coaches to be able to coach in the way that I coach. So that's something that's interesting to you, get on the email list at [email protected]/business, that will be where I will be like announcing all of those kinds of things down the road this year as we're starting to build those things out. But if you're wanting to learn to coach the way that I coach, then that's something that's coming. There's a certification that is coming.

Q6: Was the NASM cert worth it? 31:26

Okay, Evangeline said was the NASM cert worth it knowledge-wise, or is it just needed to be a personal trainer. So I did the NASM certification, and I did not like it. I felt like I didn't learn anything in the certification. And granted, I came in with a lot of knowledge. I've been lifting for years, I've done a lot of my own research, I've learned a lot of anatomy and physiology in nursing school. I didn't feel like I learned anything in the NASM certification, I felt like it was a really dumb test, it tested dumb things, passed the stupid thing. But like, I just didn't feel like it was a very worthwhile certification for me. So if you're wanting to be a personal trainer, you gotta have it. So you gotta have it or something along those lines, to be a personal trainer, if you're wanting to work in a gym, right? They're gonna ask you for that cert. But if you're wanting to build your online coaching business, you know, unpopular opinion, I don't actually think that you have to have that to be able to be an effective coach. In fact, a lot of times I think these certifications that just teach you the science or like how to tell people what to do, do you a disservice because they give you the tools to tell people the actions they need to take without giving you the tools of solving the underlying beliefs that are causing people to self-sabotage those actions.

An analogy about common certifications 33:04

So if you're thinking about a tree, and there's, you know, the roots of a tree, there's the trunk of the tree, and there are the leaves of a tree, we could label those as the leaves of the tree being your results, which come from the trunk of the tree, which are your actions, right your actions create your results. And that is where most certifications are aimed at, telling people what to do, right, giving people a workout plan, giving people a meal plan, telling them their macros, right, like telling people what actions to take. And if those people just take those actions, and they get the results that they want, right? So then as coaches, we focus on getting people to take those new actions. And there's a reason that that doesn't work long term. And there's a reason that people get meal plans and don't follow them. There's a reason that people get workout plans and don't follow them. And that is because our actions are created by the trunk of the tree and are created by the roots, which are the thoughts and beliefs. And those thoughts and beliefs are what creates our actions, which are what create our results. And if you are trying to coach by just telling someone what to do, you're only focusing on the action and you'll never create lasting long-term change. Because if those roots don't just stay put, Why think about like a weed, like if it's a weed and those roots are there and you don't pull out the roots, it's gonna come back. And so much coaching and so many of these certifications are all focused on what do you do? What are the actions you take to create new results? And I tell you, as a coach, you understand how to coach from the belief level from that underlying level of what's actually causing that person to take those actions, you will never create long-term change. So this is my big beef with so many of the certifications is that they're focused on action rather than diving deeper and focusing on what beliefs are causing those actions. And that's what's different about my coaching, I was different about how I train my coaches, and what you know will be in this coaching certification that I am building out is how to get to the root of what is causing your client to take those actions and how do we start there. How do we start there with that part of their belief system, what they're telling themselves, and shift those things so that then the actions inherently shift so then the results inherently shift?

Q7: How to grow an Instagram following, and specifically how to market yourself? 35:31

Okay, last question. This is from Ali, she is asking how to grow an Instagram following, and specifically how to market yourself when you have less than 250 Instagram followers.

Focus and serve those people in a deeper level 35:47

So I would say for someone who is starting to grow a following, that this can be your superpower, it's your strength. Okay, you may see it as like, Oh, I don't have enough people, I need to grow my following bigger. But I see it as a huge benefit to have less people that you're serving because you can serve those people on a deeper level. When you have 1000s and 10s of 1000s of followers, it can be really hard to connect individually with people, right? It's just like, I can't connect individually with every single one of my Instagram followers. So when you have 250 Instagram followers, you can connect on a much deeper basis with that fewer group of people, and you really, you can do things that a business of my size cannot do. I cannot get on the phone with everybody who wants to join my program. I'm not able to physically do that. But if you have 250 Instagram followers, heck, yeah, you can do that by enrolling people into your programs by getting on the phone with them. You can totally do that. So look at it as like, how can I use this as a strength as something that sets me apart from other people who have 60,000 followers? Right?

What point does it become enough  37:06

The second thing is that if you can't serve when there are 250 people in your audience, how the heck do you think you're gonna be able to serve when there are 250,000 people in your audience? Okay, at what point does it become enough? And this is like a conversation I had to have with myself. Because it's really easy to get swept up in the numbers and just think, Oh, I just keep me grow my Instagram, and I just number two seems to keep going up. And I had to have a conversation with myself like Amber, what point is it enough? Like, what point is it that I can like, stop focusing on growing and start focusing on serving? And I had to kind of reframe how I was thinking about it instead of always being focused on growing, I shifted my focus to how can I serve those people who are already showing up. Because have you ever put 250 people in a room? That's a lot of people, if you have 250 people who are following you, that is you put those people in a room, there's a lot of people, a lot of lives that you can change. Imagine if you change 250 lives? Like that's incredible.

Show up to attract more  38:07

So how can you start to show and serve and show up for those people who have already said yes to you, who've already clicked the follow who have already opted into your email list? How can you show up for those people? Because when you start to show up for those people, you will attract more. And that I think is the secret. Instead of focusing on only attracting more people, how can you shift your gaze to serving who is already showing up and serving them on a deep level. Because then you attract more people, I will tell you my group business and my Instagram initially grew exponentially. Because when people showed up, I served them. When people show up on my Instagram page, I serve the heck out of them. When I get them as clients, I serve the heck out of them. And so they would tell their friends and their sisters and their mother-in-law's and they would come to me word of mouth is powerful, my friends. So you don't have to have a big Instagram following to be able to start changing lives to be able to start building a business. And of course, audience building is always going to be part of your business. Okay, we're like we still are building our audience. Like that's always something that we're looking at. But spending more equal or more time actually serving those people who showed up, figuring out what they need, figuring out what their pain points are, and figuring out what you can create to serve those people who are already in your audience will always be a more powerful way to attract more people in the future.

Helping women build their businesses  39:45

Okay, this was super fun. I hope this was fun for you. It's like I said, it's really fun for me to chat business. And one of the visions for my business that I've had for a long time is to really have three arms of the business. So I've always thought about having the nutrition arm of the business, the workout arm of the business, and then the like business and certification side of the business. And over the last, you know, five years, we've really built out nutrition, we've brought out workouts. And then 2021 is really about helping other people to be able to build businesses and to be able to facilitate training better coaches, like we need to kick a** coaches, working coaches in the arena, serving clients. And so that's really what 2021 is about, is really helping women to build their businesses, helping more women to be able to get into fitness coaching, if that's what they want to do, and be able to serve more clients. I'm just one person and I can't help everybody. But what happens when we build an army of coaches who are able to go out and build their businesses and coach other women, then you know, the vision expands and it gets bigger. And so that's what this year is about. So we have some fun things coming. We have some coaching certification that's going to be coming, we have some business mentoring that's going to be coming later on in 2021. So if that's something that is exciting to you, or you want to be a part of, you want to make sure that you hear about it first, just go ahead and go to www.bicepsafterbabies.com/business and get on that list. And that will be the first place that we go as we start to roll out these new programs to help you start and grow your own business. That wraps up this episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm Amber now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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