Becoming a Fitness Influencer with Lindsey Bomgren of Nourish Move Love

Hello. Hello, everybody. I'm thrilled to introduce our guests on today's Brand bosses podcast. And this is someone you've probably heard of, maybe follow on the gram. Let me just tell you, this episode is going to be a must listen. Especially if you're someone who's interested in growing their influence and following online. This week's guest is Lindsey Baumgren, or as many know, her Nourish Move Love on social media. Her Instagram has over 351,000 followers and over 409,000 subscribers on YouTube. We're diving into how she established her personal brand online and scaled her business to be this absolute dynasty. Let's welcome this incredible woman to the show. Lindsay, thank you for being here.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you.

Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about your background and how you started Nourish Move Love. Yeah.

So Nourish Move Love was born, I guess, officially back in 2015. I kind of had. I knew I always wanted to do my own thing, in essence. And I've always loved health and fitness. I grew up playing sports my whole life. I went on to play college volleyball. And then kind of after I, you know, graduated from college, I got the standard desk job. And I was just not loving sitting at a desk for eight hours. And I was doing some marketing stuff and just decided I need to have goals outside of work to keep me motivated. So I got into the marathon space, started running marathons, got stress fractures. Then I got really into strength training. And that's when I really was like, for my own knowledge, I wanted to get my personal training certifications and things on the side just for my own knowledge, because I just loved fitness. I just knew I loved it. And so I started doing that.

And.

And really, as I got more into it, I started teaching group fitness classes. And that's where I found just like my true love. I just loved being in the studio. Everyone was there. They showed up to be a better person. The music was cranking. It was just fun. Everyone was so attentive. They had their phones down for an hour. They were just there to get better. And I just loved that environment and I wanted to continue in that space. And so it was really like, it was a passion of mine, but it was just a side project because how can you make a living being a group fitness instructor? You can only teach so many classes a week.

And.

And I mean, to be honest, anyone who teaches group fitness, you do it. Cause you love it. I mean, you're making 30 bucks a class at, like, you know, at most almost. And so it's just not a sustainable living. And so I was just really pondering how I could take that. Then I transitioned into sales. I was doing medical sales. I loved it. It was great. But on the side, I started continuing to pursue how I could integrate more health and fitness. I was meal prepping for friends, personal training friends, kind of doing all these things on the side. And then I really decided I knew I wanted to start my own thing and go full blown, but I didn't know exact what that looked like yet. But I started setting aside all of my commission. I was living off my base salary at the time for sales. And so I started building up. I knew I wanted to be able to start and, like, hire a designer for a logo and do some things. And so I started just setting aside money so I could do that. And so then finally in 2015, I got married and I was like, hey, I have health insurance now, husband. I'm gonna just jump ship here. And that's when I decided to really pursue going out on my own full time. And I was basically attempting to take the food blogger model and apply it to fit. So I wanted to share all free content. I didn't set out that way. I set out filming workout DVDs, which really dates me. So I don't like saying that, but I initially filmed workout DVDs, which I sold on a website, and then really transitioned more into creating content for free for people, which is not a great way to start your business because you have no income if you're putting out free content. So I was doing tons and tons of freelance work, and I mean, you name it, I said yes to it. Just to bring in an income while I was building my business.

Wow, that is. That's really wild. So you, you were doing fitness classes. Were you doing that? Now I know you live in Minnesota. Was this. Were you still in Minnesota at this time? Yeah.

So I started. I was teaching. I actually, after my fitness competition days, I got a little bit burnt out. I was kind of overdoing things. In the fitness competition world, you can be in the gym for hours. And so I was scaling back and I started teaching barre classes. It was just recommended. I was dealing with a little bit of, like, hormonal imbalances, trying to get pregnant, and some things were happening. So I really got into teaching barre classes, actually, and I love teaching barre. And then I eventually got more into strength training, started teaching at Lifetime. So I kind of did a little bit of studio hopping and teaching at a couple places.

Wow, that's crazy. And I think one thing that I really appreciate about your story is that, you know, you didn't just one day wake up and become this, you know, huge fitness guru, right? You went through here. You went through fitness like teaching in at lifetime. Like you started where anybody could start. And I really appreciate that about your story.

Yeah, absolutely. When I actually started, I was teaching at like an anytime fitness to like two people. It's so funny because I'll occasionally still like run into those two people and they're like, remember when it was just the three of us? Like it was. And I was like, yes, you were like the first people I started teaching to.

I remember being in a. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I love that. And you know, one thing you say in your bio is you say, you know, I don't film workout videos to give you six pack abs or a nice butt. I do it because it makes me a better wife, mother, friend and human. So I want to talk a little bit about this because, you know, on my feed I follow a couple fitness influencers. I've, you know, I take fitness pretty seriously as well. And this is a common theme that I see online is this focus on like, you know, six pack abs and blah, blah, blah. Like it's more about the physical, but you kind of bring it to a different notch and you're like, no, fitness can have a lot more meaning in life. And here's how this has impacted me.

For sure, I think, yeah, I think that was like one of my big goals when I set out. You know, I was also exploring and like seeing all these other people posting in the fitness space and it was always about the sweaty selfie six pack abs. And I was just like, I just, that was one thing I didn't want. I wanted to portray fitness in a different way because I had experienced both. Like I had. Fitness has always been like a fun part of my life through sports and whatnot. And then I really got into the fitness competition space where became so aesthetically focused and it was, it was honestly unhealthy for me personally. And I was trying to shift away from that and like recover almost in a sense of being in the gym for multiple hours a day and like just trying to make fitness fun again. And that's what I found in the group fitness space. Like I could just show up and fitness was fun. And when it was fun, like, I just, it made me such a better person. Everybody that walked in that group fitness Studio was just there to be a better person and have fun. And they were all, like, just a common. Like, there was just a common denominator of people who just wanted to make themselves better, but, like, have fun doing it. And I'm from a small town, and I know that a lot of people didn't have access to this. Like, there is no group fitness studio. There is no lifetime. There is no health club where there are group fitness classes. And so, like, how could I share this with them if they just didn't have access to it? And that's really kind of like, how the idea was born.

No, I really appreciate that. And like I said, fitness, I prioritize that every day. But like you said, I take it for granted. Right. Because I live in a major, major metro city. And the nice thing about your brand and what you do is it's digital. Right. So anybody and everybody across the world can go on YouTube, go on Instagram, and find your content, and get a solid workout.

Yes. Yeah. And our goal's just always been to keep the content free and accessible. So, like, in the fitness space, it's either, like, if you're producing free content, you're a YouTuber who's putting out just, like, tons of content, and the burnout rate is so high, or you have your own app, or you're selling an ebook, or you're selling gym guides or whatever, you're always selling something. And the competition is just so fierce. And so we decided to fall somewhere in the middle, but I really just wanted to put out free content for people that like. But find a way to monetize off it. So it takes so much longer to do that. It's probably not the smartest business decision, but finally we've gotten to a point, like, we can produce free content and we can monetize off of eyeballs and ads. So we're monetizing off of ads and brand partnerships. So the best of both worlds, really.

Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about those brand partnerships a little bit later, because I have a couple of questions. But back to social. You know, so you're on YouTube, you're on Pinterest, you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook, you have your own website. Like, you're. You're pretty much anywhere and everywhere. And so tell me, you know, how often are you posting across the board? Is it, you know, a couple times a day? Is it daily? What does that look like for you?

Yeah, so we've definitely honed in on our strategy as we've continued to grow and I'm very fortunate to have grown a team along with me. So I now have a team of three full time women who are with me and so they help because anyone who's in this knows that this is social media in itself is like a full time job. And so I do have a lot of help now which is so helpful. And we have more of a strategy and we really focus. We kind of, you know, if you're to tier the social platforms of where we spend our time and energy, we definitely do that. YouTube right now is our fastest growing revenue stream and we're where we're putting the most time and energy because we're having the most fun there and we're seeing the greatest return on investment in that space. And so we're creating everything YouTube first or even when you look at like our reels, they're created for YouTube shorts first. So we're creating YouTube short first. We're creating very much for YouTube first. That's the highest platform we're prioritizing. So we're trying to post about anywhere from three to five shorts a week on there, if not more. As we start to ramp up for like promoting a new program, we're going to try and get to five shorts to five to seven almost daily. So we're posting that short space, which is still a fairly new space, but it's been really great for driving subscribers to our channel. And then we're posting about two new videos long form. So we're posting short form, three to five times long form two times a week and then maybe sneaking in alive every now and then, trying to find a cadence we can consistently stick with. But a lot of people that are just YouTube first are posting more than that. But we're actually making the majority of our revenue on our website website, which is our blog. So it's a lot more heavy SEO strategy and so that's a lot more intensive because every post requires a video of photos full on SEO, the writing of the post, an email to go with it, pins to go with it. Like it's just so comprehensive and so it takes a lot more time and energy. So we are only capable of putting out like two new posts a week at this time. And then we're republishing like eight to ten posts a month. So it's an intense strategy. But to break it down, like website is our highest earning site. So we're posting two new posts week, maybe sometimes three, and we're republishing like eight to 11 posts a month there. And then Instagram, I mean, that's just like a whole. I feel like they're all just like their own beast and could use their own. They all have their own strategy, if I'm being honest. I mean, we're pinning daily. We're posting on Instagram, at least daily. We're trying to do like three to four reels a week. Everything just is. Takes so much more work than anyone knows. If you're on the consumer side, you just scroll through and you're like, oh, cool reel. And if you're on the creator side, you're like, yeah, that only took 24 hours to create and everyone just so.

Yeah, no, that's so true. I can. I can attest to that. And, you know, we have a, you know, a client basis. And so we're creating dozens, right, of reels and videos and content every day. So I can definitely attest that it's no easy feat. But obviously your video and your whole production system just looks so polished. And, I mean, I can see why you've obviously grown to have this personal brand, to be this dynasty, right? And so tell me a little bit. You show up on social media very confidently and obviously this comes with time. So did you when you were first starting out in the fitness sphere? I imagine there's a lot of pressure, maybe some of that comparison. Did you experience any of that?

For sure. I mean, I definitely always thought I don't. You know, like, in the fitness space, there's this aesthetic that goes with your brand, right? And it's like you have to have a certain body type or whatever. So I remember feeling really nervous when I had my first pregnancy. Like, how am I going to show up in this space? I filmed at that time, I was feeling a lot of hiit workouts. And like, how do I continue to film hiit workouts throughout my pregnancy? Obviously, that's going to be different. And so, you know, it's funny because during my first pregnancy, never once did I film a pregnancy, quote, unquote workout. I was just continuing to film normal content, acting like I wasn't pregnant and not marketing to that audience at all. And now that's like our biggest audience. We've really just like, flipped the nail on the head and realized there's such a huge gap in prenatal content for athletic women. I found it myself when I was searching pregnancy workouts on YouTube. It was all like, just breathe, lift your leg. And I was like, what about the women in the back here who've been like, Strength training up until this point, and now I'm pregnant, and I just want to continue with that. So it's just. It's a huge learning curve. Like, had I been more confident and, you know, it was my first pregnancy, I was experiencing everything for the first time, so I didn't feel confident or capable of sharing prenatal content. I was experiencing it for the first time. So my second pregnancy, I felt a little bit more confident. But we actually truly didn't film our prenatal programs until my third pregnancy. And now that's some of our most popular content. But. And it goes back to, too. It's funny. Our most popular YouTube video was literally filmed on my iPhone when I was postpartum. It's the eight best exercises for diastasis recti. Just because there was such a gap, we provided valuable content to a niche audience that needed it. And now they keep coming back to this video to heal their diastasis recti, which is ab separation after pregnancy. And so it's really like. And I just love that that's our top performing video because it just. It proves that, like, you just gotta show up with what you have, where you're at. It was filmed on my iPhone. No microphone. The quality is terrible, but it is. Got over 2 million views on YouTube. And it's one of our top videos that drives so much traffic to our site. And so it's like, while you can look at my content now and think, wow, she's got like a. And she has a videographer and an editor. Like, we didn't start that way. We started literally. I was setting up my iPhone, filming it. I was cutting an imovie. Like, I was doing it all, you know? And then finally I started building out a team. I got one person on my team who started helping, and then I got two. Like, it was. This was all just a slow growth. And you can look at where we are now. I think our content's really great, which I'm very proud of it. And we've improved so much. But you just start where you are with what you have. And that content, too, can be very powerful. And. And it's the same with growing your audience. I think everyone thinks, like, yeah, I just. When I get 10,000 followers or when I get 100,000 followers or whatever that number is that you might have in your head. But I look back and I'm like, if I had this 100,000 followers when I started, I would have been doing them such a disservice. I was still figuring out I was growing as a trainer. Like, you know, like, you grow with your audience and as they grow, right? So it's like, be very grateful for those hundred people you have. And when they're still with you, when you're, you know, eight years down the road, they've. Now, I still connect with those people on social media, and they're like, it's just been so fun to one, watch you grow, get better as a trainer. Like, watch your quality grow. Like, you just grow and you get better. Right. So it's a beautiful thing. It's a hard thing to go through because everyone just wants to get to the end point. But when you can look back at the process, you're like, man, it's been. I, like, earned every one of that, you know, and you. It's the hard work just makes you appreciate it so much more.

Yeah, no, I think you said that really well. And, you know, talking about gaps in the fitness sphere, like, you're. I mean, you're on point, like, especially as a female, looking at what's out there right now, the whole pregnancy and, you know, post pregnancy, that's definitely something that's needed, but also something that's missing. And so I appreciate how you kind of took the lead there and started creating content for that. And, you know, you said something really key that I try to verbalize a lot in my content, which is even if you have a small amount of following, a lot of times those followers are going to be the most loyal. Right. It's those who start with you and continue with you as you get a groove and kind of develop yourself in new ways. And those first couple hundred or whatever are so important as you start building your brand.

Absolutely. I could not agree more. We have such a loyal, engaged community, and I'm so grateful for them. But I think part of it is because they saw me go through each pregnancy and they saw me build as a mom, they saw me build my business, they saw me filming on my iPhone, you know, out of my old home, this tiny little space, and now they can appreciate so much more the new studio that I'm filming out of in my new. You know what I mean? It's just like they've grown with me, and none of this was just like, you know, as you like. It was my dream for eight years to be able to film out of my home, and we're finally just doing that. And it was just, like, appreciated by everybody. Full circle. So much more because they grew with me. They saw that, you know, happening. And I think it's just bringing your personality to it. Right? Like, there's so many YouTube videos people could choose for fitness. There's. We've been asked a million times, like, will you just do the ones where you don't talk and it just beeps and, you know, the timer cycles, and that's just not my style or my brand. But there's a bunch of those out there if you want those. That's great. But what is, like, we're just. We've become so relatable to moms who are going through the seasons with us, because I'm talking about, you know, Daniel Tiger episodes in the video or whatever it is. And just like, that relatability makes. Makes me human. And people have seen me go through, like, literally today, someone sent me an email, and they're like, man, you know, like, you. You look so strong recently. Like, what are you doing differently? And I'm like, I just. You guys. You guys have been seeing me, like, through pregnancy and post. Like, I'm finally 18 months postpartum. I find it takes time, but people got to watch that transformation literally happen. It's not like it was just like this, like, snap of a fingers. Like, you watched me go from nine months pregnant to now 18, and like, that journey and doing that journey with other moms, it's just so much more appreciated.

Yeah, No, I think that's so beautiful. And I want to point out a post that you did earlier in October, and you said, you know, October 2022, I was postpartum with baby number three, physically and emotionally drained and sleep deprived. And so one thing I admire about you is you don't hesitate to talk about the hard stuff. Right. We're talking about this journey, and the reality is, you know, the hard stuff, like you said, it makes you more human and more approachable. Talk to me about, you know, we've talked a little bit about it, but how has your life kind of changed this past year? And how has sharing this impacted the community around you?

Yeah, I mean, this last year has probably been the most challenging year for me personally. And it's not like I would say I necessarily. It's hard because I. I run a fitness account. Like, I can't be showing up and being like, oh, today stinks, or, you know, so it's always like, this is a work for me, and so this is my job. And we try to show up very professionally, and we always have content planned and whatnot. But just throwing in. It's something I've really tried to, I think, every creator struggles with, especially when part of your identity is your brand. Right? Like, I am Lindsey Baumgren. I am the one who films the workouts. I am the trainer behind the brand. And so to show up authentically, like, as myself is somewhat challenging sometimes because, like, I am this supposed to be this positive, bubbly person. And then when you're going through challenges, like, how do you show up online but yet keep it authentic? And so there is this balancing act, but this is my job first and foremost. This is, you know, how I support my family. I have three other women on my team who I need to write paychecks to. Like, this is a business. And so we always show up very professionally, but there is somewhat letting people in. For me, I kind of identify it as, like, there is, you know, there's. There's being real or personal with people, and then there's intimate. There's, like, vulnerability and intimacy. And, like, the intimate part of me is always reserved for my family and my very close friends. I've just chosen to never share my birth story or go deep into things like that. That's really intimate to me and that stuff that's reserved for my close friends and family. But there's being vulnerable. And I think I've cried once on Instagram when I tore my meniscus. That was just a really hard moment for me. I was six months postpartum. I was about to move, and now I couldn't walk or film workout videos. That's my whole career. And so just showing up realistically and relatable to people, I think is important. And we do that in our workout videos. Talking about. I've struggled postpartum and talking about those things, but just never opening it up into that, like, super intimate space because that's too much of me online. You know, I've always wanted to keep somewhat of a separation. It is a hard balancing act to draw. But I think we also do a very good job of creating those relationships with our audience by, like, we genuinely answer every DM we receive, or we try to. Sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle. But, like, since day one, we have tried to answer every comment that has a question in it. We've tried to respond to every email we've ever gotten. Like, it's always just been my. Like, that's. That's. I was built, like, this brand was built when we had 100 people and we were doing that. And we still try to do that now that the audience has grown. And I do have a team that helps support that But I just think it's always been a really big part of our brand is to genuinely connect with our audience.

What. Tell me a little bit about how your faith has played a role in how you've established a personal brand.

Yeah, so it's always a hard line to draw, I think. And it's something I talk about colleagues or other creators in this space all the time. Like, you know, especially when there's things happening in the world, it's like we're expected to share our personal take or our comment. And at the end of the day, it's like, this is my business. I mean, you don't see Walgreens making public statements about what happened today in the news all the time. This is my business. I'm a fitness creator. I'm not a warfare or political expert like this. I'm a fitness creator. And so I feel like it can be very challenging. And I do believe that God has been so present. I'm a Christian, and I believe, honestly, for a long time, I grappled with, why did God give me these gifts? Why am I good at teaching your fitness? What am I gonna do with that? How am I gonna impact anybody with that? And I've just grown so much as I've really just, like, released this. You can try and white knuckle your business and all that stuff, but the more I release it and just be like, God has had his hand all over this. It's been, yes, a lot of hard work and a lot of hustle, but I. I've been very blessed to have this platform grow and have my business grow. And I believe that God is using my gifts and talents of teaching group fitness to. I believe it's my ministry. Like, I truly believe that this is my ministry. And so we do try to sprinkle in my faith and share that. I believe it's a big part of my overall wellness, so physical, spiritual, mental wellness. So I'm just. Just very grateful. I feel like God has had his hands in my business, and so it is part of sharing it. Obviously, we get some people that enjoy that and some people that don't enjoy that, but it's just truly been part of, I believe, growing this business as God's had his hands all over it. And so I just. It's something I choose to share. It's helped me stay accountable to kind of my values. This online space can be so messy, and it's so easy to get consumed in the numbers and looking at the subscribers and the followers and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, honestly, none of that matters. You know, like, of course I have a business to run and I need to produce numbers at the end of the day. But I mean, I believe that this business and what I've got to do over the last eight years is so much more than the numbers that show up on the screens. Like, I've got to meet some amazing people, connect with amazing people, hopefully share God's likeness and character with other people just through my own actions. We've got to build clean water systems in Haiti. I've got to, because of my business. We've got to share generous funds with missionaries and support single moms in the Twin Cities. Like, it's just so cool the things that we've got to do that are so much greater than the 350 some thousand followers we have. But I'm so grateful for them because they've allowed me to do that.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, you and I have very similar whys. Right. Like, I'm rooted in Christianity too, and that's a big part of my business. My business started out as rooted studios and that clearly has some sort of faith based connotation. But you know, I think as we're talking about this having a deeper meaning for your business, one thing that I have noticed is when I see someone that's unhappy, you know, in their line of work or just unhappy in life, it typically is because they don't have a deeply rooted why. And so I really appreciate you kind of sharing that and sharing a little bit of your testimony. But, you know, what would you say to someone who maybe is struggling to figure out what's, you know, what's next for them in life?

Yeah, I would say that's because from the beginning I didn't treat it like a hobby or a passion. I mean, I set out to truly try and build my own online business. And so I treated it like that from the forefront. And I think it's interesting in the brand relationships that we have. Often they'll come back to us and they'll be like, wow, like you guys just exceed expectations or I mean, it's been so great to work with you. And I think it can be a little bit confusing because this quote unquote, creator, influencer, space, whatever you want to call it, a lot of it is people that are, you know, they just have a social media account that happened to blow up or, you know, and I'm not saying I don't want to minimize that. I'm sure they put A ton of work. Like, being a creator is a lot of hard work, but it's like a side project or a hobby or they're not truly. Maybe there are a lot of people that have really great followings, but they're not monetizing. This isn't their livelihood and so they don't treat it like a business. And so, I mean, from day one, I have treated this like a business. And we've just always shown up really professionally. It's always been our goal to set ourselves apart in the fitness space as showing up as professional clean. Like, we're here to educate women. We're here to help women build strength and become better versions of themselves. This isn't about some gimmick. Even though we know we could post on Pinterest, lose five pounds in five days, and that would probably get more clicks than our post of just, you know, full body strength workout for women. Like, we've always just stuck true to our values of like, we do focus on keywords and all of those things, but we're never going to succumb to the booty blasting, building seven pounds in seven days. Like, that's not our brand. It's never been our brand. And we've just stayed really true to keeping our brand very quality clean, exceeding brand expectations.

I think it's really important that you said a lot of people are doing these clickbait posts and things like that, but that's not aligned with you. Right. And you're not going to stoop down to that level necessarily if that's not where you're headed. And so I, you know, I appreciate that you mentioned that. And so I want to take a little bit of a turn here and talk a little bit about brand partnerships. So you've mentioned this has been a part of how you've monetized your brand. And you know, I think today I saw in your story that you had like element electrolyte powder or something like that. And so how do you vet the brands that come to you requesting a partnership and how do you go about that?

Yeah, in the early on days of my business, I was very much so reaching out to brands that I wanted to, wanted to work with and trying to convince them to work with me. And so it was a lot of, a lot of hard work, but really finding brands that I truly believed in or wanted to work with and showing them that I could create content. So one of my side jobs early on when I was growing my business, I was a fit model for Target. I was the perfect Size, medium. I was doing a lot of fitness modeling on the side. I was doing shop, hq, qvc, all these things. And so I saw the back end of how a lot of brands market, market. And I would show up for a modeling job, a fitness modeling job, and it would be like a producer, a makeup artist, lights, camera, audio, all this stuff. And I was like, man, this shoot is costing this brand hundreds of thousands of dollars. I could get this brand the same content using myself as the model and shooting the content myself in a studio with no makeup artist, no producer, no whatever. Like using my iPhone or maybe hiring a photographer to get a couple professional shots for literally a fraction of the cost these brands are spending. And so that's kind of what I started is I started reaching out to brands I wanted to work with. Athletics was one of the first contracts I ever landed. I asked them, can you send me some outfits? I'd love to shoot in your apparel and show you what I can do. And they were like, but no, we're not interested. And I was like, well, would you just send me some outfits and I'll do it for free. And you know, they did. And then I did that. I just went out, I took a risk. I hired a freelance videographer, we filmed some content for them, sent it back to him. I was like, hey, here's what I did with your stuff. Whether they used it or not, I knew I could use it on my platform. And they were like, actually this is really great. What would you charge us? And then I said, 25 bucks a photo. Like, great, I'm making money. I mean, I was just like literally starting with what I had and started charging brands $25 a photo for everything that they would send me and just like showing back up and showing people what I was truly capable of creating. And then I landed a contract with Fabletics and was writing content for their blog for the first part of my business as a freelancer. And so I was really, truly developing those brand relationships. I come from a sales background, so I've really enjoyed that. All the brand relationships we have are like I directly have with the brands. I really enjoy that part of the business. So we don't work with a third party. Like we have secured our brand contracts. We've been really good about always exceeding brand expectations to maintain those contracts and have long term commitments with brands now that we've built up. But in the beginning I was saying yes to a lot of stuff. Now we've really honed in on just like the true brands we want to work with. We have, you know, brand partners, but often our strategy is the affiliate space is very popular and it's easy entry. Anyone can get get into the affiliates. Anyone can sign up to be an Amazon affiliate. Anyone can get on like to know it almost like, you know, there are little, a lot of low level entry ways to become an affiliate partner where you're making 10 or 15% of every sale. So we started there and we just proved our worth to brands. We were like, listen, we signed up with Element and you know, they were just paying us what they paid everybody else for affiliate commission and we just blew it out of the water. We did really good. We wrote a blog post about it. We, you know, if strategically pushed it in a reel like we were just, we strategically pushed it in email newsletters. So basically we've taken our affiliate partnerships, we've produced really well for them and then gone back and said, look, we sold this much for you last month. Would you ever want to do a partnership where you pay us on top of just affiliate commissions? And that's how a lot of our brand partnerships have been born.

That's really interesting. And so I like that you said you kind of proved your worth, right? And then you had this toolkit to go back to them and be like, look at what we're doing. We're probably doing above and beyond what most do. So now let's figure out a better partnership. That's really interesting. And so when you first started, were you just reaching out to these brands like Instagram DMs? Were you finding the email? How did, what did that look like?

For sure, definitely reaching out on Instagram and hoping that the social media person or someone would reach back out and say, hey, here's the proper email. Contact this person. Try connecting with them via email. Sometimes it was literally just signing up for their affiliate program on their website and trying to get connected with somebody in their affiliate space and then getting right contacts. So just literally signing up on people's websites for affiliate programs as well as reaching directly on Instagram, trying to get emails if I could, if I knew a friend or if I have someone making connections in that online space. You know, a lot of it is we kind of hang out and we're like, huh, looks like this brand seems to be working with a lot of people in the online space. They must have budget clearly. So we start kind of just like, you know, and then if I have a friend that's in that online space that starts promoting this, I just, you know, start Reaching out, like, hey, who's your contact there? Or, you know, can I ask honestly, what you guys are making in commission? Is it worth it? Like, just having those conversations? But building your network in that online space is so important. I think that's something I did a really good job of early on, is I supported other people who were starting in the online space kind of around me, and that had similar following, similar numbers. Still keep in contact with a lot of them today. And we just started supporting each other, commenting on their post, they'd comment on mine. Having genuine interactions online and building that relationship. And then, you know, as we've each grown, we've continued to support each other, like, hey, if you're dropping an ebook or whatever, I'm happy to share, and vice versa. And so building those relationships so you can reach out and have those conversations.

Wow. No, I love that idea. And I think I've heard of that concept in a couple different lights. Just having, like, even, like a group chain. Right. And it doesn't even have to be other people in your sphere. It can just be friends and family. Right. That you're just like, hey, could you support me in this? And how can I support you? I think that perspective, I think, brings a lot of fruition just in life, not even in the social media sphere. And so I really appreciate that you mentioned that. And I want to touch on one other piece of your brand, and that's talking about nutrition. So on your website, obviously, you have a whole array of recipes geared towards, you know, females going through different stages. And one thing, you touch on quite a bit protein. And so a lot of women listen to this show, and the idea of getting enough protein in my day has honestly been, you know, a big struggle. And I did my first marathon this past summer, and so my whole. My whole perspective of nutrition changed. We'll just say that. And so tell me a little bit about, you know, how much protein you aim for in each meal, kind of what's. What is your perspective on that? And what do you advise, you know, other women to do in that sphere?

Yeah. Congrats on your first marathon. That's really cool.

Thank you.

Yeah, I definitely think protein is important, especially women. And then as we age and all the stuff that plays into it and balancing our hormones. But we actually started posting when I was first posting. It was nourishment love. So we'd post recipes, we'd post workouts, and we'd post devotionals. We've really honed in on just posting fitness content that's Our sweet spot. And now we partner with dietitians to share meal plans or we partner with dietitians to bring them in and speak to our audience about nutrition. So we really try to stay in our lane. We stop posting recipes. We really try to stay in our lane with fitness because that's what we're experts in. And because of the Google hub and spoke model. Like if you get too diverse and you have too much stuff on your website, Google doesn't know what you're an expert in. And so we really try to just stay in our lane with fitness now. So that's one thing from the like. So the posting side of it, we've stopped sharing recipes. Recipes. But it's something I'm obviously still passionate about. I love overall well being and I try to get 100 grams of protein in my daily intake. I've really found it's successful for me with front loading my day with protein. So breakfast is, I've always been a breakfast lover but really front loading my day with protein is super important. I try to get like 40 grams of protein at breakfast. That really helps me have a nice, stable, balanced day and know that I'm going to hit my protein goal. So I just, yeah, I believe in protein and produce at every meal and trying to keep it really simple. I honestly don't count my protein. Like I said, I'm striving for 100 grams and I try to get 40 grams of breakfast but I'm never actually counting. I have a pretty good baseline. I eat pretty repetitively. I'm not, I don't get bored. So I pretty much eat the same things every day.

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. And in terms of, you know, someone, I feel like a majority of my friends and just family like getting 100 grams of protein like that, that seems astronomical, right? Astronomical. And especially like I, I can attest to this right before the marathon it was like I was probably getting 50 grams if we're being honest. So tell me, you said that you front load protein meaning that you're, you know, you're eating what, 50 grams of protein at breakfast? Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. How do you like what's, what's kind of your go to?

Yeah, I mean I personally love eggs. I do love eggs and I'm usually making them in the morning for my kids. So I, I typically eat two to three eggs myself a day and then with that. So that's actually only. You're only getting like 9 grams I think per egg. So that doesn't actually Stack up to be that much. So I usually pair that either two eggs with a bowl of oatmeal that I throw a scoop, a scoop of protein powder in. So some protein oats. But actually I've been switching a little bit more to yogurt. So I've been doing like two eggs. This morning I had two eggs with a bowl of yogurt with scoop of protein and collagen protein in it. So my protein has 20 grams per scoop and then the collagen has 10 grams. That's 30 grams plus 18 grams because I had two eggs or no, six. What's nine plus nine? Yeah, 18. 18 grams for two eggs. So math is not my strong suit. But adding that up gets me pretty close to my goal. So big fan of like. Oh, well, I guess I didn't count the yogurt itself. Greek yogurt with protein and collagen and then two eggs. So yeah, kind of like a staple.

Yeah, no, I think I, you know, I do something similar. And in terms of your workout schedule, so you're probably doing, you're recording every day, is that right? Or are you batch content? Content making?

Yeah, so we batch content, which, you know, for fitness isn't ideal, but it's the only way to financially make it make sense with hiring a videographer. So we shot all day yesterday, actually, we bring in a videographer. He's like part of our team. He's amazing, but basically comes in and you know, he's setting up lights and two cameras and all the jazz. So we shoot. Typically we're trying to film four to five workouts in a day so that we can have that content batched for, you know, the upcoming weeks. So we, we do batch film content and we try to sprinkle in live workouts. Well, so when we film a live workout, we're just filming like a live workout and then we'll film a couple reels or whatnot to go with it. But the majority of the time we are batching content. And so on the days where we're not shooting, 90% of my job, I mean 90% of my work is actually at a computer versus filming workouts. The days we film workouts, we film hard, but majority of it is not filming workouts.

Yeah. And I think my follow up question to that is, so you're, I mean, that's a lot of content. Right. And so how do you stay motivated, Right. To continue to create new workouts and get that, that posted and just create that new content for your community?

Yeah, I mean Again, I think I have such an amazing team. I'm so grateful for them. They do so much hard work and, and I think the biggest thing that keeps me motivated. It's funny, like I always say, God has a really funny way of working because every time I'm feeling like, burnt out, I'm like, done, we're going to scale back or, you know, anything like that. It's, it's amazing. Like the next day, literally two emails or, or messages will land in my inbox. And it's literally like the most uplifting, like women who've gone through hard things in their life or, or whatever and they, I talk about how our workouts have changed their life or gotten them through that very difficult season of cancer or losing a loved one or dealing with postpartum depression or whatever it is, and just talk about how our workouts have changed their lives. And that's just for me, truly, at the end of the day, it's like the fact that like, we get to be a part of that and get to just be a bright spot in someone's day. Like, like, it's so motivating to film workouts to know that we get to, I mean, I've been in those positions, you know, where I've been the mom with the postpartum depression. And like, literally that 20 minute workout was the only highlight of my day in those really dark days. And to get to be a part of that is just really motivating and it definitely keeps us coming back for more. So I think that's a really big part of it. And yeah, it's just, I think also knowing that you have push seasons and there's seasons when you can pull back. And I'm starting to get better at realizing that after eight years, you definitely start to hit burnout phases. And so this summer was the first time in my life I went from full time to part time and I spent two days a week at home with my kids. That's been the goal since I started my business. And so, but anyone knows that you start a business and you want the flexibility, but you work harder than you've ever worked in your life. And I'm finally starting to say it's time to start sitting back and reaping some of the rewards of how hard I've worked. And so I'm trying to get more balanced about my work life load and specifically spending more time with my kids too.

Yeah, no, I think that's beautiful. And I think one thing I've discovered about myself similarly, like I'm kind of in that same phase of needing to peel back a little bit. And it's on those days when I'm not even, like, looking at my computer that I feel like I have that creativity back that I started right when I had my business, when I first started my business. And I think that's part of the reason why that kind of rest time and that stepping back is so critical for entrepreneurs of any. Any. Any industry. In every industry. Right.

Yeah, Definitely. Starting to build those boundaries or finding ways that you can just. Yeah. Not work so stinking hard or. Or, you know, just. Just finally setting boundaries where you're like, no, I'm not logging on past, you know, 7pm or whatever it is for yourself. But yeah, for sure. It's. It's amazing. I literally, like, I got. This is so funny. It's literally amazing. Every time I'm like, like these messages that land and you're like, oh, man. Okay, I got this.

Yeah, exactly. No, I love that. And so, as we kind of wrap up the show, you know, what's next for you this upcoming winter, this upcoming spring? What's. What's next for Nourish? Move, Love.

Yeah. I mean, it's always fun. There's always stuff to be pursuing. We just finished filming our new New Year's program, so we're really excited to launch that for January. It's a brand new, cohesive film program. We film 10 brand new workouts that are all meant to go together. It's a killer program. I'm just so stinking pumped about it. I love when we get to launch new programs. It's so fun to see our community do them together and so really pumped about our New Year's program that we're going to be launching. We're also in the midst of trying to launch merch. We've been, you know, we tried to get it out the door as soon as we could. It's just not working. We're not getting the quality that I wanted. So we're back to the drawing board and working with a more local vendor. And I'll be shipping products out of my basement. But that's how everything starts, right? It's like the entrepreneurial growing pains, but it's just something. Again, we said we just really focus on putting out quality stuff, and I can't sell people not quality stuff. So I want to touch every T shirt before it goes out the door because I want to make sure it looks like how I want it to look. So we'll be launching merch in 2024, which is exciting. People have been asking for it for a while, so always a new business venture we'll be pursuing. So that. And we did a little test run of having someone from our audience in a video with us, and it was just so well received by our audience. So we're looking forward in 2024 to inviting more people that have been part of our community on set with us to film workouts with us. So we got lots of fun stuff coming in 2024.

Wow. That is so exciting. You know, how can people find you? How can people connect with you?

Absolutely. You can find everything you would want to know@nourishmovelove.com our website. Website has all of our workouts on it for free. You can filter them. You can find our social media links on there. Of course, you can search Nourish, Move Love and find us on social media such as YouTube and Instagram. That's where we like to show up and engage with you guys, too. So, yeah.

All right. Well, Lindsay, thanks for being with us today. And, you know, if you're listening to this and this resonated with you, maybe there was a piece of this that really spoke to you. Go ahead and share that on your socials. Take us both. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. This podcast is a labor of love, but it's because I get to talk to awesome guests like Lindsay and share some of these messages with you all. And so I hope you have a great day. And thanks for being with us, Sam.