Click Above To Listen In iTunes...

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