Transcript of How a $99 Fitness Program Turned Into a Seven Figure Business | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E2

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Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/yapfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com/deals. How do you decide like how much to charge brands?

It depends on what it is. Reel and posts and they need extra photos. Also whitelisting. That's where you can always charge more.

You think you can charge more for whitelisting?

Yeah, I would say that the minimum for me right now for one reel on my page is about $5,000. An extra $1,000 to $1,500 for stories. I've also done like a 6-month deal that has been like $35K.

Today's guest is a fitness influencer that generates multi-six figures off her personal brand every year. There's a big difference between being a fitness influencer on Instagram and building a fitness brand that actually makes money. Tara LaFerrera has done both. Do you think that there's any underserved markets in the fitness category, fitness industry that you would recommend that other people tackle?

Whatever you are passionate in, like there is a niche for that. PMDD, endometriosis. A lot more menopause coaches I think could be out there for sure. There's always opportunity.

Have you ever felt like your personal brand became a trap where clients only wanted to work with you? Or do you feel like you've fully been able to create a brand that, that doesn't need your face anymore?

This is such a great question. I wasn't sure where you're going with the trap version. Um, but yes.

So you're doing over a million a year as a creator. What's the profit margin on like an app? Subscriber, and how much money are you making per person typically?

When it was just me, I think the furthest I could go was around $500, $450 for the year.

Okay.

Right now we're almost—

Yap fam, welcome to a brand new format on Young and Profiting called How We Profit Wednesdays. On our flagship Yap episodes, I sit down with world-class entrepreneurs, billionaires, CEOs, authors, and experts to pull out all their big lessons. But on Wednesdays, we're going to be doing something totally different. How We Profit is where we zoom in on real businesses in real time. These are entrepreneurs who are listeners in the YAP community from all different industries, founders, business owners who are still in the middle of building, and they're opening up about what most people keep private. We're not just asking, what's your story? We're asking, how does your business actually make money? What are your margins? How do you get customers? And what are your sales secrets and marketing strategies? These conversations are not gonna be a polished highlight reel or a vague success story. It's gonna be a behind-the-scenes business breakdown with all the receipts open because Young and Profiting has always been about helping you learn from the best. But becoming successful doesn't only come from studying entrepreneurs at the finish line. Sometimes the most useful lessons come from somebody who's just a few steps ahead of you, figuring it all out in real time.

So every Wednesday we're going inside a real business to uncover the numbers, decisions, mistakes, and strategies so that you can apply apply the same things to your business. This is How We Profit Wednesdays. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it. I'm super excited. You were one of my first guests on the How We Profit Wednesday format, and I immediately thought of you when I was thinking about this because you're an awesome creator. I, uh, now you're part of our podcast network, the GAP Media Podcast Network, but I knew about you like way before because your posts would always show up on Instagram. And you just have such unique, uh, business. Like you've got multiple revenue streams. So I really wanted to invite you on and kind of unpack all of that. So thank you for joining us.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Okay, Tara, so you are a creator entrepreneur. You make money in multiple different ways. You've got a business Broads, and you also make money with your personal brand as well. So talk to us about all the different ways that you make money.

Yes, I would say like the umbrella is my name, but I have Broads, which is my fitness app. We have group programming, one-on-one coaching, and also some program one-off, like PDFs. Then we do— I have some content creation on my Instagram, TikTok, a lot of that user-generated content as well. So there's tons of different revenue streams, like both on the Broads business side and then also on the TL side.

I love that. Now, what is your biggest revenue generator out of all the things that you do?

Our one-on-one premium coaching.

So let's stick on Broads for a minute. Okay. So do you think about it as like a life cycle where you have people like buying something really low ticket and then you're kind of like upselling them to coaching, which you just mentioned is the most way that you make money? Like how do you think about customer acquisition?

It's actually the opposite. Most people come in on the one-on-one side. They stay with us for a certain period of time. I have 4, 8, and 12-month programs. We like to retain them for at least a year, typically on like the 2-year mark, and then maybe they'll downgrade. Sometimes they go from high to low, back up to high. But I would say for the most part, they come in on like that one-on-one high touchpoint.

And how do you bring those customers in initially?

Yeah, so we do a lot on Instagram, email, podcasts. People find me in different ways. I've been online for a very long time. Yeah. So some people have been following me on Instagram for 5, 6 years and they feel like they know me and our ethos with Broads. And so when they get on a call with us for, you know, you know, to work with us, they're like, it's kind of a no-brainer.

Hmm. So you already warm them up on your podcast, on your Instagram, and it could be years later before they actually contact you.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and sometimes it will be, they'll be like, oh yeah, I've been listening to your podcast for like 2 years. And I'm like, and you're just signing up with us now? Fitness and wellness is like one of those things that you, a lot of people don't think that they need or should need some sort of trainer in their life because they think, oh, I'm going to work out by myself. I got this. And then it's hard, you know, it's hard to keep up with it. And so our one-on-one really allows them to like be held accountable and stick with their actual goals. And we see a lot more results on the one-on-one side than we do on the group side.

Now, if you're funneling people from multiple different places, like, are you sending them to some sort of like landing page where they learn more? Like, how do people actually buy from you?

Yeah, great question. So I do have a landing page for like the group programming side of things. We also have a bunch of lead magnets. So lead magnets, anything from, um, how to deadlift to how to do mobility, macronutrient guide. They get in our email series, we funnel them in to book a call with us.

Mm-hmm.

That's how we do it on the one-on-one side. Uh, on the group side or like one-off programs, we will have like a, a series that will basically set them up for that. We also do webinars and workshops and challenges. So kind of a bunch of different ways to do it.

Cool. Okay. I'll get back to all that. Yeah. I wanna talk about your entrepreneurship journey. I learned that you got laid off at some point. Yeah. And that's what really triggered you to become an entrepreneur and start creating online. So talk to us about what initially got you posting on Instagram and starting off as a creator.

Yeah, I've been on Instagram since probably, oh gosh, 2014 or something like a very long time. Wow. I don't know about you.

You're an OG. Yeah.

OG.

Well, you're, you're like an OG fitness influencer.

For sure. Yeah. And really I only started because I wanted to like connect with other people.

Mm-hmm.

But I used to work in advertising and I like, my whole goal was to be like, did you ever watch Mad Men? I wanted to be like Joan on Mad Men without the boobs. And anyway, so I got laid off and I was like, all right, well, fitness needs to be my full-time thing or I'm going to go get another, you know, job with a salary and 401. And that's what I thought I had to do.

And you were like really good at sports growing up. So that was always like a skill that you had.

Yeah. From the fitness, like an athletic side.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say that, but I never knew anything about business. And so I just thought that like fitness was just like a side job or a side— like I was waiting tables and I was doing all these other things and I'm like, I can't make fitness or content creation a full-time thing. Um, but yeah, I did get laid off and I was like, all right, I gotta go all in. And so I did have a bunch of different jobs that led me to making fitness full-time. Um, I was co-owner of a studio, I did some marketing consulting on the side, and then I fully went like really all in in 2018. When I started my monthly subscription-based program.

So for our YAP listeners who are interested in becoming influencers in whatever niche on Instagram and on social media, what would you recommend they do to get started? Like, how did you get started?

Yeah, you build trust. That's the biggest thing is that you have to be yourself, build trust, build loyalty, build education, gives people something to come back to. And people need to get to know you. Like we mentioned earlier, you know, they, some people listen or watch for years before they even become clients. Like it's, there's a lot of noise out there. And so if you can find your way that people actually like reach out to you, that's where people can really see, oh, I am gonna see the results. This is going to work for me.

So you got laid off.

Yeah.

What happened next? Like what was the first way that you started to make money?

Online or just in general?

Online, like as an entrepreneur.

Yeah. Uh, well, yeah, I was, I was teaching some group fitness classes. I was doing a lot of one-on-one coaching. And then the first thing I ever did was February of 2018, I launched my first 8-week program. It was just a PDF that I sent out. We had a bunch of, um, videos associated with them.

Did you have a following at that point or no?

I did. It was fairly small at that point. Okay. Yeah, it was a $99 8-week program that I launched online. And put it on my Squarespace website and just, you know, put it out there. And I ended up getting like almost 100 people the first time I did it, which is awesome. And then I basically just took that profit and made another one. So right after that 8 weeks, we just did another 8 weeks. And then I was like, oh, this is actually working. Let's make this like a bigger thing. Then we created the monthly thing on Shopify is where we started it in July of 2018.

I love that you mentioned Shopify. Actually, our guest yesterday also mentioned that she started scaling with Shopify. It's such a great, uh, platform for folks to really get started with their first e-commerce business. So how are you using Shopify for fitness? Like, what— how are you selling on Shopify?

Yeah, it was actually really hard to build. Well, we— I don't use it currently anymore because I have my own—

you have your own app? Yeah.

Um, but it was— I had to hire someone to help me kind of do it in the back end where you can just see the workouts and not anything else. But then we would add some merch or some one-off programs there, but it was basically just like a blocked website. So you can kind of do that anywhere.

But so you like leverage Shopify even though it wasn't perfect for your use case, and that's why you eventually launched the Broads app.

Yeah, and I mean, what is perfect at the end of the day? Like, yeah, every app or anything you do isn't going to be exactly the way you want it to, but I knew that like if I didn't take that messy action and keep that momentum going, it was gonna be so hard for me to like jump back into it.

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Yeah, I, like I said, in the beginning it was just kind of like to post, post to post, you know, bringing in community and just like connecting with other people. Then it was a lot of workouts and then it got into like a this or that, very educational based. I do— I did a lot of skits, a lot of skits with my husband, you know, kind of funny ways to teach people how to move their body. Those actually always did really well because people loved that edutainment, I would say. And so it did— I did that for a couple of years, really. Then I shifted a little bit more into like longer how-to videos. Then I shifted into like quick, easy fixes, maybe hacks. Now that I have Broads and it's this bigger business and I realize that like fitness and wellness isn't just like how to deadlift and it's nutrition and mindset and how you talk to yourself and how you show up for yourself, there's a lot more like of that content now. So I've really ingrained it in part of my lifestyle so that people can see that it doesn't just have to be the workouts and all these other components really come into play.

A lot of listeners that listen to this podcast, they're really interested in becoming creator entrepreneurs, but something that they might not realize is that sometimes that can become a trap. With your business, have you ever felt like your personal brand became a trap where clients only wanted to work with you?

Mm-hmm.

Or, you know, you felt like you had to keep posting content in order for the business to survive? Or do you feel like you've fully been able to create a brand that, that doesn't need your face anymore?

This is such a great question. I wasn't sure where you're going with the trap version. Um, But yes, uh, before I started Broads, I had a brand, TL Method. It was a Tara Loffer Method, and all of the workout programs and everything was just based off of me and my name and me showing up as the coach. And I realized very quickly that you burn out really fast when it comes to that. You know this, a lot of people I'm sure hearing this and like, there's only so far you can scale by yourself. And in order to step away from the business at all, like take any time off, you need to be able to like have this brand. I still to this day, I launched Broads almost 2 years ago, still feel like it's, it's my brand, like I'm the face of it. But we are slowly starting to peel back from it. I definitely think that I trapped myself in, in that place for a long time. But you have to like slowly kind of peel away to step fully away. So I guess to your— to answer your question, yes, it is easy to get in that trap.

Mm-hmm.

And you can also kind of introduce and peel away other layers so that people can see that it's not just me and that we can create the same experience with my coaches and my team as well.

Okay. Let's compare and contrast the economics of the app versus coaching versus, well, let's stick with that app versus the coaching program. Yeah. So like how much do people pay to be a part of the app? How many subscribers do you have? Like, what are the economics there?

So I do a free trial, um, so 7 days free and it's $49 a month after that. Um, I have basically a bunch of different workouts, plans, different scenarios there, but anyone can join at any time. So I mean, like membership base, it ranges. It just depends on like the, the cycle of what we're promoting at that time. On the one-on-one, like more premium coaching side, we do, uh, 4 months for $3,000. And then we have different programs after that. So they retain on for like an 8 or 12-month program after that.

What's the profit margin on like an app subscriber? Like, do you track like how long they stay for and like, like what are the KPIs that you're looking at and how much money are you making per person typically?

Yeah, that's a great question. So we have, um, like monthly and then we have annual. Mm-hmm. So the annual is just more affordable for a lot of people.

Mm-hmm.

So we have more people on the annual. We, we always sell more of those in the December, January. And so we kind of, when we look at the profit for the year, it's always a little bit heavier in the first of the year for both one-on-one and the group coaching side. As far as the, like the retention, the long time or the client lifestyle or the client life cycle, we're about 9 months for our group program right now for a not even 2-year app at this point too. And then on the one-on-one side, we're about 6 months.

Do you feel comfortable sharing revenue numbers so that people like understand how much a creator like you could make?

Um, I'll, I'll give you a range.

Tell me. Okay. Tell me how much, like how much your app makes per month versus your group coaching per month or like your yearly revenue. Just so people get an idea of like, if I'm able to grow my Instagram to 300,000. Yeah. And put out these programs, like this is how much a creator can make independently.

Like for sure. Yeah. I mean, It's interesting because like we've had a lot of growth since I've built the app, but that was when I hired help and that was when I really like stepped away and was like, it wasn't— I wasn't trapping myself in this, in just me. When it was just me, I think my, my total, like the furthest I could go was around $500,000, $450,000 for the year.

Okay.

Right now we're almost triple that at this point based on having these different revenue streams and also me stepping away and now hiring a team. Amazing. Yeah.

And hopefully I put $300K from your podcast ads. Now that you're doing ads on your podcast, that's what we're hoping for.

Yes. I mean, that would be amazing.

Yeah. So you're doing over a million, uh, a year as a creator. You've got a, uh, like, let's talk about your team. So you've got coaches.

I do.

What is the business model behind the coaches? Are they contractors? Are they employees? How do you pay them?

So everyone's a contractor right now. Um, at the end of the day, I would love to have more actual employees on the team, but at this point, since I'm still growing and still figuring out the business model, we do have contractors. So I have, I have 3 coaches that work for me. Then I also have a marketing team, I have an operations, and then a sales team.

And then are your coaches helping you close clients? Is that part of their job or like what's their role?

They're on the fulfillment side, so they actually work directly with the clients with the programming, nutrition, mindset, and like making sure that the client has a good experience. So I would say more client experience rather than sales. That's where the sales team comes in. So I do have like a few people that work on the sales side of things.

And the sales side of things, are they mostly doing like DM setting and then calls? Like how— like walk us through, like give us specifics.

Yeah, for sure. So I do have DM setters, I have a closer, we have triage, like kind of salespeople as well. Um, and that's, that's where most of the sales happen. But then of course people do, can purchase or can buy other things through email as well.

Are these people like international, your sales folks?

They're not.

They're, they're US-based.

All US. Everyone's US.

How much are you paying them hourly? Like, like, just curious, because yeah, doesn't that get expensive?

It depends. Like, uh, a lot of the salespeople that we do is based off of, um, you know, how many clients come in.

So they get commission? They do get commission.

So there's a smaller base and more of a, a commission. So they have way more incentive to want to bring in more clients and get more sales.

And how do you communicate with your team right now? Like what's the way that you guys communicate with each other?

Yeah, we, we use Slack.

Okay.

Um, we use ClickUp, GoHighLevel. Yeah.

So how many people are on your team right now?

I have 8 people on our team right now.

8, 8 people. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Including the coaches. Yes. So it's a small team and you guys are able to pull over $1 million a year, which is awesome. Yeah, fam, as my business keeps growing, I feel like I'm always hiring. I recently added two new video editors and a producer to my team, and I can tell you from experience, the right hire can give you leverage. The wrong hire gives you a second job, and that's the last thing you need. So when I need the right person, I go to Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs boost your job posts in search results so you can reach candidates who meet your specific criteria like skills, certifications, location, and more. Because the goal is not more resumes, the goal is better matches. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

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Well, I don't want to work with any men.

You don't want to?

No, none. Like zero.

Sorry, guys.

If you're listening to this, send it to your wife or girlfriend. Um, yeah, I I've been a coach for a really long time now and I just relate so much more to them. I understand their experiences, their bodies, what they're going through. Every woman in their life is going to go through perimenopause and menopause. Not all will have a baby. So there are a lot of pre and postnatal coaches out there. I have one of them on my, on my team. They're great. But every woman goes through menopause and feels very alone and invisible, and I want them to feel seen. So my whole goal with women is to make them feel strong, empowered, and confident as they age. So that they can in their 40s and 50s feel like a badass. And so I really, really niche, niche down to that in the last like 2 or 3 years. Like, has to be 35+. Typically, like, our average range is about 40, 41 right now too.

So if somebody who is under 35 wanted to be in the coaching program, would you turn them away?

It depends. Um, if they're under 30, usually yeah. 'Cause perimenopause can come basically anytime after 30. I mean, typically it's usually 35 plus, but some people have a hysterectomy or they go into surgery, like anything can happen. Yeah. And so they might need that extra support, but I would just say for the most part it's usually 35 plus.

Now, was picking your niche, um, purely like a passion decision where like that's what you wanted to treat, kind of like that's where you wanted to focus? Or was there any sort of like economical part of the decision-making? Like, do, do those women have more money?

Yes, in general. Yeah, I would say that. I would also say that it is definitely a passion for me, but people also relate to that because I'm in that age bracket as well. Yeah. Not saying that I'm in perimenopause, but I'm very vocal about who I talk to, what we specialize in, and people really resonate with that. And I don't feel like there's a ton of coaches that talk to that. And so there was kind of, it was a mixture of passion where I'm at, their economic, and also the need for it.

Yeah. Do you think that there's any underserved markets in the fitness, um, category, fitness industry that you would recommend that other people tackle?

Yeah, 100%. I think that a lot of people think that there's so many coaches or there's so many people doing entrepreneurship, why would I start mine? It's like there's always a need for you. And how you talk to people, right? Of course, there's other, other women coaches that work with women 35+ or perimenopause, or, you know, we have a mutual friend that works with petite women. There's so many of those, but there's only one person that talks to them like you. And so I would always say that, like, whatever you are passionate in, like, there is a niche for that in the fitness industry. I mean, yeah, I mean, I would say like anyone going through Um, PMDD, endometriosis, a lot more menopause coaches I think could be out there for sure. Um, a lot of mental health, mental illnesses, you know, uh, there could always be more pre- and postnatal. I think just women in general don't feel seen and they just need a space to do that. And so if you, you're hearing any of these and you're like, oh, maybe I could do that, there's always opportunity.

I want to talk about the app, but First, I want a couple more questions on the coaching business because I feel like there's a lot of people who might not wanna start a fitness coaching business, but coaching is a really easy stepping stone as a creator no matter what you focus on to kind of go to the next level and do like one-to-many sales. So what are some of the key challenges with having a coaching business?

The control, I'd say, like, right? I, I've built this on my own and so having them speak as the business, really aligning with the brand and mission and values is really important. For the coaching side of things, they are with the clients. And so that's the most important people really that you have because they are directly impacting. And so sometimes for me it feels like a lot harder of a hire.

Yeah.

Than maybe like more admin or ops side. So I'd say that's, that's probably the biggest thing. And then it's always evolving just with new clients coming in the door in the experience side of things. So having someone on the team that's— that can be proactive in the evolution of the program is really helpful too.

Yeah. Did you ever have a problem like letting go of control when it was you, you know, as the lead coach, and then suddenly you had other coaches that maybe wanted to put their own flair on things? Or did you ever have a situation where it was hard to let go of control?

For sure. Yeah. I mean, like, I've definitely hired some of the wrong people over the last few years for sure. And you learn it sometimes the hard way and sometimes like in an easy, okay, that we can step out of this. But you don't know until you try. And that's kind of what I've been just really leaning into the most this last couple of years.

So what made you decide to launch the Broads app?

Gosh, a million reasons that I've already spoken about today. But I guess the main thing is that I wanted to be able to reach more women in a place that felt really good for them. So I launched it for the monthly program, right, the group app. But then it's of— it's the same app, it's just a different dashboard for the one-on-one coaching. So it's really easy to go back and forth. Like the experience doesn't really change that much. You're just getting more out of the app with the one-on-one side. So I wanted to build it to have a place where women can actually see their workouts and see their progress and see everything in one place. But also be a part of a community that is very like-minded and empowering, non-judgment, uh, and inspiring for them.

How do you foster community within the app? Is there like a forum or something like that?

Yeah, so we do have a like forum within the app, but we actually use WhatsApp through our community, and it's been really, really great to see other women in the community connect with each other and, and really have a lot of success there. I've done Facebook groups. I do have a Facebook group for my, like, group program. I do personally feel like Facebook is not the place to be anymore. A lot of people don't want another social media app, and so we wanted to test out WhatsApp, and it's actually been a really great spot for them.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that want to start their own app. Yeah, I believe that I read that, that it was quite a challenge for you to launch your app at first.

For sure.

Gosh, talk to us about that. Give us the nitty-gritty. Spill the Spill the beans.

I had, so Teal Method was on Shopify and then we built a custom web app. That was the monthly program that I had before Broads. Um, it was on a custom web app and everyone always asked for their own app. Web app and I don't know how much, I'm sure a lot of people know that web app and an actual app are different, but really in the grand scheme of things, they're not that different, right?

I don't know if people really know what you mean. What do you mean?

Okay, so, uh, like an A web app is just like an application that you have on Safari or Google Chrome. It looks like an app. You can actually save it on your phone as the home screen and it'll show up like a little app icon. However, you are getting on the internet to actually like, or you're getting on like a, a website to pull that up.

Got it.

Okay. So it's a different, and yes, there are a lot of like intricacies there that are different, but it's the difference between being on a website and an actual mobile app. Okay. So people asked for that for a long time. So I said, okay, we're gonna do this. I spent a lot of money, a lot of time.

How much money did you spend on the app?

Over $100 grand, $130 grand or so. Okay. And we don't use that app anymore.

And okay, so you spent $130 grand on an app that you don't use anymore. Yeah.

It didn't work.

Did you like hire a vendor or like, did you like, who did you hire to build this?

Yeah, I hired a team, a development team.

Okay.

I hired a designer, like we had the whole thing planned out and we launched it in November of '24. And for the first like 3 months, everything broke. Like people were signing up and things were just breaking, breaking, breaking. It was just miserable. And then I hired an outside resource to be like, how are we going to fix this? I had a freelance. There were so many things happening behind the scenes. And basically the more people I was having look at how it was built, the more people were like, Why did you do it this way? And it had already been 7 months and 6 figures, and I was like, we need to change. So we scrapped it and rebuilt it through another platform.

In hindsight, what would you say were the big learnings from having that failed app experience? Like, what do you wish you had done first before, like, engaging a team to build an app?

Yeah, you know what, like, at, at the beginning I was so upset and so regretful of the experience. And then I realized I really truly did as much due diligence as I possibly could around this app, how I was going to build it, the research, the competitors. And I wish it was maybe a year later where there's apps like Lovable where you can create an app in 2 seconds.

I was just going to say, I was going to ask you about that.

There's so many opportunities now that I wish that I had. It was Yeah, I mean, it was like probably 6 months too early, probably a year too early.

When did you launch it?

November of '24.

Wow. And how much did you spend the sec— tell me about the second time you built the app. Like what was different?

Yeah, so I actually, it's through a dashboard called exercise.com. So now it's just white labeled. So it's, it's all my own and it looks like my app, but it's just on someone else's dashboard. But no one else would know that it was on that platform. Got it. Yeah.

That's like, I think GoHighLevel is like really similar for other coaches and things like that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like there's—

could definitely—

there's like so many other ones out there, but this was like, this is specifically for fitness. Got it. Uh, and now it's just like when I was building that app, I was just like, yeah, I guess the cost difference must have been insane. Oh, it was ridiculous. And I, at the end of the day, I didn't want to be a tech CEO, and that's what I was starting to be with this app build out. I was, I just didn't know that much about it and it was very naive of me. But now that I see that I can do the same thing but in, stay in my own lane of coaching and the experience for the client, it's such a better opportunity for me. Yeah. Yeah.

That sounds like a smarter way to go about it. And I was going to ask, like, now that anybody can, I'm creating AI apps now.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You're like, I'm doing it.

Do you feel like people, I'm like, yeah, I'm not, nobody, nothing special. You know, like anybody can create an app now. Anybody. So how does that make you feel about the Broads app? Do you feel like that's threatening to you or is it just like, we've got a moat, I've got my personal brand and the brand itself. Like, how do you think about that now?

Yeah, it's interesting. I hear that a lot. And at the end of the day, there's a lot of really great things that are coming and our tech world is going to change. Yeah. Things, AI is going to take over and things are going to change. People are like, are you worried about being a coach? 'Cause AI is gonna take over. There will always be the need for human experience, and we create that in a very intentional and purposeful way. I do also feel like the women that we work with want that. You know, like I'd mentioned, these women are— they're feeling lonely as they age. They feel, you know, they don't want to be on a screen all day talking to some random bot.

Yeah.

You know, so there will always be that need for us, at least. For the next 5 to 10 years, I believe. I do think that there's a lot more opportunity for people, which is really exciting for them. But for me personally, that doesn't feel like scary.

So are you closely monitoring like how many active users you have and, and like, are there certain KPIs that you're really focusing on with the app specifically?

Yeah, definitely active users. We focus a lot on retention right now. So like how long can we keep a client in? Because typically, like, with fitness and wellness, like, you're not seeing real— the real results you want to see until 9, 12 months' time. And so that's really the number that we're focusing a little bit more on rather than active users. We also look at how many people are coming in through lead magnets, how many sales calls, who's showing up to the calls, how many people are closing. So a lot of, like, numbers when it comes down to that.

Are you doing webinars?

Yes, we do one a quarter.

What is your sales cycle like? Like, do you have, like, certain times of the year where you're doing, like, big pushes? Like, what does your sales cycle look like?

Yeah, so we do one webinar a quarter, and that's usually when we have like our cohorts, when like all the women start at the same time. Okay. We did one. We do. Yeah, one in the spring. We have one in June that's coming up, and that'll usually be like a bigger cycle. And we always do one for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, because that's just a big time for people to come in. And then around the New Year's, those are two major ones.

How many people do you like How do you get people to the webinar and how many people actually show up? And are you doing the webinar yourself?

Yeah, great questions. Um, just like the coaching experience, it's evolved a lot over time. Uh, it's been me, it's been me and the coaches. The next one will just be back to me. At the end of the day, like when you were mentioning earlier, like it is still my brand and people really resonate with me and they're coming from my page. So we're actually, this will be our first time we do ads for the webinar. Paid ads. Yeah, I've never done them before actually. They've all been out, organic, so I'm excited to see what that's gonna look like. Um, but yeah, so I will actually run this one and we'll see how that goes.

I can give you some, uh, context. I, I do a lot of webinars. Yeah. And I also tried paid ads and it, I had very bad results. Uh, and the reason why I had bad results is because webinars are great for trust building and often like you can shave off like a lot of time in terms of getting people to actually convert. Yeah, like 2 hours on a webinar is the equivalent of somebody following you on social media for like 3 months, you know what I mean? In terms of the trust. But sometimes that's still not enough. So I would have, uh, people would not show up as often who are coming through paid ads because you didn't build that trust with them. And then they may show up to the webinar, but they're less likely to convert because you haven't built up that trust because they don't know you from social or from your podcast. And so we saw like really bad results with paid ads with the webinars for me because like I'm not a huge celebrity yet. It might work for like a really big celebrity. Um, so the way to combat this is like making sure your email, uh, before the webinar is really great, that you're giving them podcast content and like making sure they're really building up that trust before you actually get them on the webinar so that they're really warmed up just like anybody else would be from your social.

So that's It's just my two sons.

Yeah, yeah. We have like a 4-week kind of leading up to an email series and then even after as well. Perfect. Yeah. So this is all new and so we're going to test it out and see how it works. But yeah, that's all good to know.

Are you using text?

No, not, not at this point right now.

You know that you can collect phone numbers from Zoom as well.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. When you're, when you're getting—

See, I'm learning on the fly.

Webinars. I know a lot about webinars. Um, okay, so webinars are a big thing for you.

Just new though, mostly organic, just like through social right now. Getting the webinar signups are mostly through social or just like in like sales cycles in general.

Got it. So like you putting up posts, what kind of posts work the best when you're promoting something? Stories.

Stories do the best.

Yeah. Like actually posting up stories or you telling stories?

Um, oh no. So yeah, Instagram stories is usually when I'm like getting the most people in the door. Yeah. I would say talk to camera reels, storytelling, those do pretty well too, especially when it's a very controversial opinionated hot take. That'll definitely get people in the door. But I would say, yeah, for the most part it's like Instagram stories. If I can show up there in a way that really resonates with someone in that moment in time, those do really well.

Okay, let's talk about sponsorships. So like I mentioned, your podcast just joined the YAP Media Podcast Network. Yeah.

So, mm-hmm.

You weren't really monetizing too much with ads before, so I'm gonna help you get commercials, but you've been monetizing your personal brand for a long time. So talk to us about brand partnerships, how you think about them, how you typically price them, and some of the trends that you've been seeing working with brands lately.

Yeah, I love brand partnerships now. In the beginning, I was kind of just like, yeah, I'll work with anyone and do anything. And now I'm been doing this long enough to know that that doesn't work and doesn't work well. Uh, I typically work with brands for at least 3, 6, 9, 12 months at a time because that's how long not only I need to trust the brand, but also my audience does too, especially since they've been around for— a lot of them have been around for a long time. Um, I work with brands that just feel very organic and authentic to me. I definitely will try out everything, or I'll be already working with the brand beforehand as well. Uh, and then we basically test it out with the brand for 3 months at least, and then we'll do a renewal if it feels like it is a good fit moving forward.

Yeah. And how do you decide like how much to charge brands?

I do have a brand manager now, so he actually finds the deals. We talk to each other and kind of negotiate the price of it. Um, and they take 20%, so we're always like looking for the price that I'm trying to get. And then there's on top of it.

Does it change based on like your reach or your followers, or is it more like a flat fee that you're like, this is my time and this is how much I wanna charge? Like, do you think about it based on numbers or, or based on your time?

It depends on what it is. There's so many different ways to look at it. I would say for the most part it's, um, based on time, experience, what they're actually looking for, how much is involved in the deliverables. Like, is it stories and newsletter and reel and posts and they need extra photos?

Mm-hmm.

Also whitelisting.

Yeah, whitelisting is really, really popular. So that's when a brand is basically boosting a post that you put up and that's becoming really popular.

Yeah. And that's where you can always charge more. Mm-hmm. Um, exclusivity, you can charge more for that. Uh, this—

do you think you can charge? So that's, this is interesting cuz I'm trying to figure out how to, how to, how to charge for whitelisting across the network. You think you can charge more for whitelisting? To me, I feel like it's a benefit for the influencer because you're getting so much promotion.

It's still their brand, and it depends on how you actually structure the video. Like, I've done a couple whitelisting recently where it feels very ad-centric. So yeah, it's still me in it, but it's like, oh, this is the brand that I'm promoting, not like me, my brand, the services I do at all. So yeah, 100%. If they're gonna make me their like spokesperson, that means that I'm like their model. So I should be charging more for that.

Talk to us through like what a whitelisting deal is. Like, are you just shooting like hooks and giving them B-roll? Are you giving them like a set video? Give us example pricing. Like try to give us like some real detail.

Yeah, let's do a couple different examples. So I've been working with a company recently, I Am 8. I'll actually, I'll create the reel for them. I'll post it on my feed and they'll actually just boost that post. Mm-hmm. That would be an example of whitelisting. I've also done some where I actually create the video. I don't have to post it at all on my feed, and they use it on their side where they'll actually promote it. I've also done— those are typically talk-to-camera slash B-roll. It's a little mix of both. They're around 30 to 45 seconds.

Okay.

I've also done some just VO for— I was doing one—

that stands for voiceover.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, um, just, just voiceover. And that's— I've done that with like user-generated content, so I don't have to be much in that, but I'm creating the content for the brand and they can do basically what they want for it, with it, for a certain amount of time. Um, that's usually in the contract of where they put it and how long they get use of it. Yeah. There's the exclusivity piece. So if you're working with a supplement brand or something like that, you're not allowed to post for another brand for a certain amount of time. You can always charge more, more for that typically. Because obviously there's a million different supplements and it's like you've got to be very strict on what that specific brand is. But I would say for the most part, the minimum for me right now for one reel on my page is about $5,000. Yeah. If we're doing a package deal where maybe they get some stories involved in that, the stories, it ranges. This is hard because story views are— they go all over the board. But I typically would say like an extra $1,000 to $1,500 for stories within that month.

You can also do like a package deal with that. Sometimes if it's like, okay, let's do this for 3, 6 months, maybe we have this whole package for like, I don't know, $20K for 3 months. Um, I've also done like a 6-month deal that has been like $35K, but it's like, you know, 3 reels and then 3 UGC pieces of content. So it's not like I'm posting this same brand for 6 months. There's kind of like a little bit of back and like, there's not as much on my feed, so it doesn't look like it's super branded.

Yeah.

You can also format it with like, uh, just stories. Sometimes I'll add in newsletters, sometimes we'll add in the podcast as like a piece of that too. So there's a ton of different like packages, but I would say like just base level Reel is usually like $5K, um, and stories around $1,000 to $1,500. TikTok, if we're doing crossover, yep, it's usually $1,500 to $2,000.

Yep.

Yeah, that was super helpful.

Yeah. And I feel like that's super helpful for people to just have some sort of gage of like how much they can charge, you know, depending on their following and, and their endorsement and the level of effort it takes to create whatever they're creating. For whitelisting, um, we, we charge like a monthly fee, and typically what I charge is about 25% of what we, we charge for the reel per month.

Okay.

That's how we do it.

I haven't heard of it like that, but I like that actually. Yeah.

And you just charge a flat fee per month for whitelisting, or it would be month, it would just be for however long.

We'll just add like a percentage on top of that. I think it's around 20% more. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of similar.

Similar.

Yeah.

But we just don't do it per month. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds about right.

What would you say is your most expensive part of running your business as a creator? Like what, what is the most, uh, where are all the costs coming from for the most part?

From the creator side, not from the coaching side.

From all your businesses, like where are you spending the most money? People. People on your employees?

Yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, I would say on the employees on the coaching side. On the content creation side, I am very thankful that my husband helps me a lot with like creating videos. He helps me edit them. It's really helpful, but I, I, he does have a full-time job and I do need a little bit more help. So that is definitely an expense. Hiring a videographer, getting an editor, someone to help with that, but also trusting them enough to— that's, that's where maybe the control comes in. I'm like, no, that's not the way I want it to be.

Yeah.

Uh, that would probably be on the content side, the video.

How lucky are you that your husband was editing your videos? What a dream.

For over a decade he's been doing this. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And right now, like any brands that I work with, he now gets a commission. Like we're—

Aww.

I'm definitely paying him now.

Thank you.

Uh, but yeah, I would say like when you want to work with brands, you want to have some like really solid content that they can reuse and continue to work with them. And so I would highly recommend like working with someone like that.

I agree. I, I find with me, I also have a creator-led business, as you know, and like for me, I feel like I just always try to think like, how do I just reduce the amount of time that I have to actually work on the business instead of what I do to create content? How do I make that creation of content as seamless as possible? So now I have people that help me script things. Things and like just so many different video editors, like whatever I need so that I'm not doing anything unnecessary other than what I— nobody else can do, which is sit there and record, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's hard to do because then like somebody else is writing your scripts and I've had people do that for me too and I'm like, doesn't sound like me.

That's the hardest thing. That's the hardest thing to hire for. Um, yeah, I, I feel bad for the people that are script writing on my team cuz I feel like that's the most like anal that I, I'm so anal about it. And so it's just like such a high stakes thing is to script for another creator.

Yeah. And you're the one reading off of it. And if it doesn't sound like you, you're going to feel it right away and then everyone else is going to know.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So if you were to double your business today, what do you think you would need to do?

Hire like 4 more people, probably as coaches or like DMs, salespeople, sales. Operational. Yeah, I would say maybe even somewhat another me, probably.

What does that mean?

Someone that can do what I'm doing in— I'm very much like a visionary person. I, I like to say my head's in the clouds. I need someone that's like, will ground me more and be like, this is where we need to go and move forward.

So like in operations, like a COO?

For sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. That is what I would do.

And where do you envision the— how do you envision the company, like, growing? Like, do you envision launching something new? Are you going to stay doing these revenue streams for a while? Like, how do you envision things evolving?

Yeah, since this has been like a really big growth year and we are evolving a lot with the business, this is where I want to be at least for the next year or two, and then we can kind of like see where we want to go next. But definitely increasing the coaching staff. Having more availability for clients to come in, which then, you know, broadens our horizon on the sales team and then the ops team. And at the end of the day, all the systems need to be in process for it to be really tight and to be able to stream long term.

What advice do you have for a person that's tuning in that is working a corporate job but wants to start being a creator and eventually launching businesses? Somebody wants to start creating online. They're already creating online. How do you suggest that they make their first, like, sale online? Like, what do you think they should start with?

Listen to your audience. Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing is like building the audience, building the trust. Well, first of all, put yourself out there more. I think that's the biggest thing is like put yourself in front of a camera and record yourself for 100 days straight. Like, you're going to get so much better at it. You are going to build trust really quickly. You are going to be a source that people can go to. You are going to understand your audience. You're going to understand their wants and needs. You're going to find a problem and you're going to get the solution. I wouldn't say like, don't just get online to sell something, get online to like help people. And sometimes you don't know what they need until you actually do your own research. So at the end of the day, I would say just like put yourself in front of the camera.

What's your favorite thing about being an entrepreneur?

That there is unlimited potential. And that for me not just means revenue, but it means more clients I get to work with, more people I get to help, more people that I get to bring on my team. It just unlocks more opportunities for everything, really. And then there's the, you know, flexibility aspect of it and freedom associated with it. And also hard to put down the phone and computer too. So there's always a pros and cons list, but it gives you so much more opportunity than a corporate job ever would.

As we close out this episode, what is your, uh, best advice for those listening that want to become entrepreneurs?

Um, just fucking do it. Uh, I've never been a perfectionist. I don't know about you. You, I, you seem like you are a perfectionist, so I've never really understood people that are like, it has to be perfect before I put it out there. Yeah, take messy action. Yeah, do the thing even if you feel like it's not It's not exactly what you want because as I've mentioned many times, I've made many, many mistakes and I don't really regret any of them because I wouldn't be where I am today without those. So put yourself out there, do the cringe thing, and don't give an F about what anyone else thinks about you. If this is what you want, just go for it.

I love it. Well, Tara, thank you for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

Thanks so much.

Appreciate it. And that's how Tara and Broads Profit, This episode is such a good reminder that your passion can turn into a profitable business with multiple income streams. For Tara, it all started with her passion for fitness. She could have stopped at fitness instructor, but instead she started a personal brand by putting content on Instagram, focused on a core niche of women 35+ that she could relate to, and launched multiple products from an app to a coaching program to support women at all stages of their fitness journey. And while her personal brand was key to getting to where she is now, her next phase is scaling Broads beyond herself and her personal brand. Until next time on How We Profit Wednesdays, this is your host, Hala Taha, signing off. Hey, App Fam, we're about to launch something that might be my favorite thing we've ever done on the podcast, a brand new series called How We Profit. Now, I've been doing Young and Profiting Podcast for 8 years and my listeners are successful. We are real entrepreneurs. With real businesses, and a lot of you guys are crushing it behind the scenes. You may not be super famous, you may not be a billionaire yet, but you've got a business that you've learned how to scale, and we wanna hear from you.

One of the best ways to learn as an entrepreneur is from your peers, and I found it super helpful to be in these peer entrepreneurship groups and learn from other entrepreneurs who are at my level, but just in a different industry. So that's what I wanna bring to this podcast. I want this to be our own peer group, but on the podcast. And so I'm gonna be interviewing people who are making anywhere from $500,000 to $10 million a year. They're not super famous. They're not the typical billionaires that are on my show. These are real entrepreneurs who are crushing it behind the scenes, and we're gonna uncover what they do to sell, how they get their customers, what their profit margin looks like, how they market, and so much more. If this sounds like you and you wanna be featured on Young and Profiting Podcast for our How We Profit series, just head to youngandprofiting.com/apply. And share your story. Let me know why you think you should be featured on the show. Again, that's youngandprofiting.com/apply. And who knows, maybe you'll be our next guest on Young and Profiting Podcast.