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What's up everyone? This is Mary Larsen and you're listening to the audio entrepreneur. I spent the last year and half doing podcasts and content creation for some of the fastest growing entrepreneurs today. Their strategies and tests have been life changing once I took action, so I decided to take my audio industry to the next level by building a seven figure company that teaches people how to create, strategize, and repurpose their content like a throw. The question so new people are wondering is how is she going to do it? This podcast is here to give you the answers. Join me as I explained marketing strategies to grow my online business. My name is Marie Larsen. And Welcome to the audio entrepreneur.

[00:00] Yo, what's up everyone? This is Mary Larson. I'm so excited because today I have a friend Sherry Thacker is on here with me guys. Sherry is so awesome guys. She has gone through and really created an industry that. Well, she's, she's part of an industry that is pretty cutting. I guess there's, it's really cutthroat, you know, there's a lot of people within this industry and she's done some distinct things to be different as she's in the health and fitness industry and that industry guys, it's so hard to get your voice out there to really be loud, to be different, you know, just because there's so many people out there who really wants to excel in this industry as well. And so I wanted to bring her on here because she's been crushing it. She got, she's been doing so well and I want to go through and really figure out, really pick her brain more than anything. How she got started. Um, especially in an, in an industry that's really saturated, right? And, and how she's getting her voice out there to stand out, be different and um, and create a company that's actually, it's crushing it guys. It's so fun. Anyway, Sherry, thank you so much for being on here. [00:57] Oh, I'm super psyched. Thank you for having me, Maria. It's awesome. I love it. [01:01] Yeah, absolutely. So tell us a little bit, Sherry, how you got started, everything like that. Like tells, tells the Nitty Gritty, like what tells the pain story and everything like that. How you got into this. [01:11] Okay. Well, originally I got into health and fitness. By fluke I had decided to make my health non negotiable but 18 years ago. And uh, that was pretty much after I was in this Rut like you, I was in my early twenties smoking, drinking 180 pounds, suicidal, attempted suicide three times a really in the depths of despair. And uh, so I started to take my health into consideration more seriously. But for me, my Aha moment was when I went to visit my grandmother in the hospital one day and this particular day just hit me like a lightening bolt when I saw that she was living in a jail cell for six years, she had a stroke and a heart attack. She was paralyzed from the left side down and she was so vulnerable dependent. She couldn't move, couldn't do anything that you wanted to do in this particular day. [02:07] Just made me realize that I did not want to spend my last years, last 20 years, you know, peeing my pants for getting my name drooling on myself, feeling in pain, living with disease, and in her case, living in a jail cell of her hospital bed with no life. So 18 years ago I said, my health is nonnegotiable. I literally wrote a contract in my mind saying every single day I will do absolutely everything I can to be as healthy as possible. Wow. I've been an entrepreneur for the last 25 years and I've run multiple businesses over that time. So I doubled into the fitness industry about a decade ago. And completely by fluke I was in between projects and I was just like, Eh, I'll take on a few personal training clients, you know, well I'm making a few dollars trying to figure out what my next Gig, 10 years later I'm living my passion, living my dream, loving every minute of it and having a blast really, [02:58] I love it. And [03:00] something that I want to hit because you have done such a good job at this is creating a culture and all of that and so people love hearing your story and how you. You did have this Aha moment of I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to live clean. I'm going to live healthy. And My, as you said, my health is not negotiable. And so being able to influence other women into that or you know, people just in general into a lifestyle like that is a. It takes a lot of strategy more than people probably think. And so I want to hear more than anything. How you build out a culture of winning. I mean there are people who love to follow your stuff. They love your stuff. They consume it, they're taking before and after pictures, they're really, I guess, in, in, grows into your stuff. [03:43] They really love it. And uh, and so I want to hear how you built that out and what the strategy behind that was to really make a family out of it rather than just like a, let me sell you this program, you know, instead of a lifestyle decision. And how did you do that? A well that it kind of started for me back in 2003, to be honest with you, I was an introvert. He had no friends, no life, you know, was watching reruns forever. I'm basically watching TV from Friday night until Sunday night until one day I was just like, I am so sick and tired of being alone and not having a social life. And I founded a woman's entrepreneurial network. Um, and I operated that for six years and that's when I really developed this keen sense for networking. And I've just been a matchmaker ever since because I really identified with the fact that community creates longevity and you know, when you want to nurture an environment, not only is it amazing gift to give to people because I'm not truly the rewarding part. [04:49] When people find a community where they all connect in, it's a beautiful gift to offer a community, but at the same time it's beautiful for business, right? Because people don't want to leave their friends once they've made connections and they've, they've created a community. It's their places, their tribe, and you know, it's very trendy today to say tribe and you know, you don't build this community. All those kinds of build your tribe, all that stuff. From a marketing perspective, it can be kind of cold and kind of like build a cult the same time. Right? My beautiful women are in fact that there they're amazing people and being in there is bliss. It's just being surrounded by likeminded women who are all sharing the same struggles. They all have the same goal in mind. They motivate the encourage, the inspire. They just make so many people's Day. And to me, that's the blessing, the gift. [05:45] I love that. Now I love that you have created a community where people feel comfortable to come in and say, these are my weaknesses. Can we please accomplish the same goal together? Even if you know, I want to lose x amount of pounds or whatever it is that like everyone feels comfortable to jump in in, in that as well. And so I have to ask, as far as when when you decided to go through and really push out a culture, what was the first, or I guess a tribe or family or whatever people want to, you know, say these days, what was it that you like? What were your first steps in order to really create that community? Um, so that for people who are listening, they, they can understand that they too can create a community if they followed some of your steps. Wow, that's, [06:29] that's an awesome question because for me, because since 2003, it's kind of come very natural to me to pair people up. First of all, you know, creating those initial one-on-one connections. And then those small group connections and then creating that community, um, you know, and there's a danger to creating a community as well. I, I can be, I have created a community within the fitness industry, you know, for the last five, six, seven years in my studio that you see behind me and it can also come to a crash, right? Because when you create a community, you're building a house of cards and if one little thing goes wrong and, and one spark of it can be, can be catastrophic. And it was in fact catastrophic to me in the community that I built here in this studio, which came to a crumbling. How's the car? [07:20] It's just all fell to the ground, completely lost my entire business. I had to build everything up from scratch, but that didn't prevent me from starting community community again because that's the essence and the magic of creating that culture that creates, um, the beauty within this industry as a whole. So people don't feel isolated. So yeah, as much as a community can work for you, it can also work dramatically against you. Um, so for about seven years I ran a vibrant community. They all came here to my studio and we were tight, we were family and it was an amazing community for like seven years. And you know, in a, in a forest fire flash, you know, it literally ignited like a house of cards came tumbling down. So, um, you know, especially when you're dealing with women and there's gossip and cattiness and brutality, you know, sometimes you need to be very careful when you're creating your communities. [08:18] You've got to figure out what is the foundation that they're standing on because it can blow up in your face if you're not careful. So, um, you know, the question was how do you start a community, how do you ignite it, how do you keep it alive? And you know, when we first started our six week challenges, our anniversary is coming up next month. Um, we had 40 people, so it's not a lot. And we constantly gave them activities to engage. So it was like, you know, do your intro video because we want to see your face and we want to hear your voice. You want to see your expressions, don't just do a little tight, you know, a little text. We were saying, get out of your comfort, you know, get out of your comfort zone and pushed a little bit further than what you're used to. [09:02] And that immediately connected a lot of people. It made it very real. So the video definitely helped make people connect with one another. And then we motivated them constantly to post, you know, after they'd finished a workout to post their meal plans or their fitness plans that they had for the challenge to post the progressions, their struggles. Um, you know, I did live in there all the time, so, you know, I would also do like challenge story lives where I would invite people on like this. So it was a one on one interview, um, and had people telling their story. So for sure, you know, it's consistency. You need to be in there, you know, you need to be in the nitty gritty. Don't just leave it for like an admin person to look after. Like they need to see you, they need to feel you. They need to know you care and it saves you from, you know, all those one on one connections that take up massive amount of time go in there and really, you know, like post comment on posts, do live videos, get other people to do live videos. Um, and yeah, we were, were thriving in it now. [10:02] Yeah, absolutely. And I liked that you said the, um, that building out that culture is like being on a house of. It's like building a house of cards. Right? And I, I couldn't agree more with that. It's funny how people will be so excited about your stuff and then one little thing will be commented or said and it can blow up in your face. Right. And uh, I actually just had that happened to a friend of mine recently and um, he put one comment or post on it and the whole thing, he was getting death threats, like all this crazy stuff, you know, and it was just so crazy and I feel so bad for him when that wasn't his intention, you know, it's not like he was trying to make people's life, you know? Absolutely awful or anything like that. He was just stating opinions and stuff and so it really important. [10:47] And so I have to ask them in the ways that you've experienced, I liked that you said that you have to be really involved with your people, which I think is so important. Um, but as we all know, it takes a lot of time to do that one on one stuff. And so in order to build out a culture or build out a family, a circle, whatever, have you, um, what ways have you been able to figure out to build that out will also not losing a bunch of your time also, if that makes sense. [11:13] So that's a loaded question. It's all about balance, right? Because you, I definitely operate on a schedule. If you're not organized when you wake up during the day, you can get lost in an email, you can get lost in messages, you can get lost in the comments. Pardon me? [11:29] I said I'm guilty of that. Guilty. Yeah. [11:33] So first of all I'll run through my day with you if you're interested. Um, I get up at about 4:30, 4:15 in the morning. Uh, well I, I'm not one of these people that step until 2:00 AM, right. So I'm the reverse. I go to bed early. Yeah, I, I, I, I am most awake, alert and fresh first thing in the morning and that is my education time. So I'm up at 4:15. Uh, I got these little pals of mine that literally, you know, they should just stay there like jewelry because they live there. Um, and I'm, you know, there's always a book or a course or there's something that I'm listening to and that's my education time. Uh, from there, I, I'm either teaching classes or I'm doing my own fitness workout a by seven. I'm getting my son on the bus and then when I get back I've got a two hour window from 7:30 until 9:30 when it's absolute productivity time. [12:28] So I don't, all notifications are still off, like I have not been notified of anything. Uh, I'm still living in my own little world right now. I work really hard at not addressing anything now because I need to push the boulder forward and that's the biggest stressful thing as an entrepreneur when you don't feel like there's progression and you don't feel like the project that you want to build on is happening. We need to feel like everyday you've just rolled that boulder one notch further down the road, so 7:30 to 9:30 is my is my productivity time to move the boulder at one notch and you know to take after the book, the one thing it's mandatory. You need to focus on that one thing and you do that first thing in the morning before you even put a toe nail down on the ground. You know, after you've kind of done your, your gratitude and you've kind of centered yourself and you've looked into your day and you're saying, okay, I need one target today. If I get a whole lot of shit done, great, but I need one target that that pushes the boulder folder folder for further. What's that going to be? So it could be for me, I just finished writing a book right now. I'm working on all the accompaniments that, yeah, it's got picked up by a publisher, so it's going to be available. [13:41] My health is nonnegotiable, baby. Uh, so the book comes out on Black Friday for people who are listening because I'm sure there are people who are like, oh, I want to like check out this book or whatnot. Where do, where do we go find it when it's ready and available. Should be anywhere there should be at your local bookstore, should be on Amazon, should obviously Amazon for sure, but it's definitely a hardcover published book by a Professional Publishing Company. So a super jazzed, but that might help is nonnegotiable. Your six week guide to total transformation. So psyched. Yeah. So it's very, uh, frustrating some times when you know you've got, as an entrepreneur, you've got all these ideas forming around in your head all the time. You need a notebook beside you at all times. You have to be writing because there's stuff that comes into your mind that you really want to do. [14:33] It may not be the time place or even, you know, timeframe to do any of that right now. It may be something you do in six months, but you write it down, otherwise your brain is just constantly circling around this stuff at once, do as well as the stuff that it has to do and it's very overwhelming. So push that boulder folder for pushing the boulder further at that point. I then have a daily podcast as well, Monday through Friday. My life is not negotiable. Stop working for someone else's Mercedes and that, uh, gets published live on facebook Monday through Friday and then uploaded to all the streaming vices. So I have to prepare for that. So from 9:30 until I go live, I am focusing on content, create something of value that it's just not me nattering like I am now, but really focused on delivering a solid message. [15:19] And then from one until three is, that's the customer service time. That's the facebook notifications, that's getting into my groups, commenting, getting into messages, dealing with customer service, any noise that I need to hear because by then my creativity is much further down. Right? I'm like, well into half my day. Don't forget I've got up at four. So I'm like well into the day and yeah, it's a full day. A energy level is still high actually, but you're not, you're not as, you know, your brain's not as fresh. So this is when I deal with my beautiful people and this is where I get perked up in the day because I get to go inside my group and see what's going on and watch videos and see what's going to do the latest thing going on in there. Then I pick up my son, so from three until six, it's family time, nonnegotiable, put down the phone. But Don everything, all digital just make that eye contact with him and play with them on the floor and take them to the park. All that kind of stuff. And then I work nights. I teach, I teach classes at night or I'm doing masterminds or, or webinars or what have you. So until 9:00 I'm working and then lights out. Non Negotiable. Absolutely. I do not step past nine, 9:30. I'm in bed and sleep and around it goes to the next day. [16:32] Well I am so impressed. I think it's probably just because I'm a college kid and you know, the idea of getting in bed at 9:30 and they're still six hours the day for me at that point, but [16:41] it depends where your productivity hours are, if you know that those times are not being lost and you know, I don't watch TV at all. Right. So like there's no time for anything. Um, you know, I have boyfriend time in some time and work time and like that's it. Right. That's what I do. [17:00] I love it. That's so awesome and I think it's important that we also hit that you said to, to push that boulder further to push it forward. I think for me anyway, I've had to. Sometimes I will get so stressed out, especially on a big picture kind of person. And so I love to sit down and see the huge picture that's in front of me and I love to see, okay, well, you know, if I build these funnels and do this and then do all that, well then in between that I have email sequences to build out an email lists and all these things and it just, it stresses me out. Right? And so if I, in order to get that boulder forward, um, I have to sit down and think what are the top three things that I need to accomplish from this time to this time? [17:39] Right? And if I can go through and accomplish those three things, I know that I've pushed it, you know, push that boulder, even if it's just an inch or, you know, and just a little bit further, then that's, um, but I know that that's what I did and I can feel good about that day and that I've been pushing forward as an entrepreneur. And so if I don't sit down though and say, okay, to be successful today, if I accomplished x, y, and Z, then that's how I know I, I had a productive and successful date. Um, but if I go through my to do list can get so long and it can go, you know, bill, that email sequences, go through and build out webinars, slides goes through and get your webinar scripts go through and your, and I'll have all these things and there'll be like, don't forget to buy apples and don't forget by the time I finished it, my list is so long. [18:21] And so in order to have successful entrepreneurial day, then I'll have to sit down and be like, to be successful as an entrepreneur today. I need to accomplish x, Y, and Z to be successful as a student today. I need to finish x, Y, and Z. and still in college. Right? And if I sit down and prioritize my top three things for every little aspect of my life, even for her, my social life, if I accomplished x, Y, and z today than whatever it is, I don't care. I just need to know that I've accomplished it and then that's how I know my day was productive because I prioritized and it was nonnegotiable for me, right? So being nonnegotiable for me to finish those things and to push forward and I think it helps [19:00] to, um, if whatever you're doing on a weekly basis that is routine that you just repeat every week, then you always botch it and you block it. So if, if you are a funnel builder and you're building funnels all the time, then Tuesdays, funnel building days, right? Wednesdays or email sequence days, you know, and then you, you block it out. And I do find that, you know, even 20 minutes, 40 minutes, even an hour in a certain head space and your brain drains, right? So being able to get up, you know, move around, do some jumping jacks, what have you, you need to completely shift. Some people are very adhd and they need to kind of bounce from one thing to another and sometimes they just bounce, you know, to take her like too much all over the place, right? They need to, um, you know, segment their days in blocks and then just repeat those blocks every day. [19:48] Yep. And I totally have blocks where the mornings for me is where I get to be an entrepreneur in the afternoons and evenings is where I'm a student and it's really funny for me because I will work really hard in the morning so I can know that I've accomplished everything that I need to. And then I'll tell my clients, I'll tell my, you know, my people, Hey, I'm really sorry at this time, like, I'm not going to answer your stuff because if I don't then I'll be sitting and I'll be doing homework and every text message under the sun will be coming through and I'll just sit there and I'll respond to all this stuff. And two hours have gone by. I've been still working when I'm supposed to be doing school. Right. And so I've had to shut everything off and shut, shut down the things that are within words so that I can sit down and really focused on one thing at a time. [20:27] And if I do that, if I really schedule that out and really make that, as you say, non negotiable, then I can be successful and you know, in my job, you know, my own company and then I can be successful as a student. I can be successful as I'm trying to be social and I can, I can be those things. I just have to focus on one thing at a time. And when I do, I'm so much successful than, you know, I have my assistant come in, she, she kills me. She's always like, like I'll come in, I'll just meet x, Y and z from you. And I'm like, listen, figure out what you need from me for, you know, for the first three hours of the day, then come to me and ask what you need from me. I'll sit down and I'll accomplish those things in 30 minutes so that I can get everything that you need from me. And then I can't have you come through and like asking me all these things because I won't get anything done and I have to get things done if I'm going to survive. So [21:14] No, I love it you, you know, defining your rules and making them clear with their clients and staff is mandatory and setting expectations and Tim Ferris will say this in his four hour work week book where he's very definitive, I answer emails at this time and this time and that's when you'll hear from me and you won't hear from me otherwise and it's just probably managing your time. It's setting expectations with clients and stuff and everybody's happy because there's clear communication and Marie, I mean total Rockstar, right? Like owning your own business, going to school, managing life. You're 20, 22. Okay. After my own heart, right? My first business, I started at 22, but how many kids do you know? And you're just like, oh yeah, they're hanging out at whatever place and just chatting and flexing and gaming and all this bullshit. Right? Like look at you like on your worst day, Marie, that's the first thing you got to tell yourself. I on my worst day, I kick as more than on their best day, right? [22:08] Oh yeah. But it's so hard. It's so hard. There are moments and there are times where it seems like the easier thing would be to give up. Right, and I'm sure that you've been able to go through that. I'm sure you felt that, but at times it seems like the easiest thing that you could do would be to give up when actually that is the worst thing you could probably do for yourself and that was a lesson I had to learn for myself and especially as I really got into this world and it really was like pushing out my company and everything like that. My brother Steve and I remember at one point I was ready to give up and he looked at me and said, but what else would you do, Marie? And I was like, Dang it, you're right. And he's like, you can go get your nine to five if you want. [22:46] You can go work for someone else. You can go do your, your other thing if you really want to. He's like, but why would you do that? And I was like, oh my gosh, you were so right. Like, what else would I do? Like I have no idea what else I would do. Like this is my passion, this is what I'm excited about doing is being able to get people out in their industries and so again, wrapping it back up, that's why I love so much what you've done is to be able to create a culture and a community of people. Although at times the house of cards can come tumbling down. You can always rebuild it. You can always try again. There's always ways that you can keep trying and I guess that's kind of the essence of all of this is that in the end like you can keep trying, but building out that culture is going to be crucial within your business if you are trying to do that right. Being being an influencer does not just mean, look at me and watch me take pretty pictures. It means creating a community that trusts you enough to come and ask you questions. [23:34] Exactly. Right. Exactly right. [23:37] Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much. We're probably going to wrap up here in just a little bit, but for people to find you and your information, if they are wanting to jump on and understand more about your culture or your tribe that you've built out, where's the best place for them to find you and understand a little bit more about you. So they also can have a six week challenge, uh, that they can take as well. Absolutely. [23:56] So anyone who's interested in my fitness week, uh, my, my, I should say, well, what we do is we operate a six week transformation program to women who have neglected their bodies while caring for the people that they love and we help them make their health non negotiable after spending so much time in pain and low energy dealing with disease, being on medications. So we use a lot of functional medicine strategies. We use fitness and we use nutrition to help heal their body from the inside out. We focused a lot on the cellular level. We focus on the science and then we teach people how to build out their own program over 42 days so that when life gets in the way, you have that lifestyle embedded into your everyday life. So we do that over at Sherry's challenged. Yeah.

Don't forget to rate and subscribe. Do you have questions for me? Go to the facebook group, profitable podcasting strategies https://www.facebook.com/groups/PodcastingStrategies/?ref=br_rs , and I'll be sure to do an episode to answer your next question. Again guys. My name is Marie Larsen, the audio entrepreneur.