TC: So Jen and I have a few things in common. We live in New York City and we used to be waiters and performers. I am no stranger to working my butt off. As a dancer, there’s the saying “shut up and dance”. When I started my business, for many years it was push and hustle. I had a brick and mortar pilates studio in New York and I was building my online business. I like having income in the bank. I like not worrying about where the next client is going to come in.

When I was getting my pilates certification, I was still waiting tables. I started earning enough income as a pilates instructor and then I started building my online business. I definitely held onto my pilates studio for too long for various. It was more just the attachment to my clients. I was always building things at the same time. That being said, it meant a lot more work, so I definitely had moments of  hustling, overwork, and sleepless nights.

One of the main things that shifted for me was my husband. We weren’t married at the time but we were probably engaged or living together. I remember he said, “You know, this isn’t worth. You already have a successful business with your pilates. lt is not worth it for you to have sleepless nights over this and I’m not going to sit there and watch it.” He’s mr. cool and very grounded person. I really took it to heart because he loves me and he cares about me. For whatever reason, that helped me to realize that he’s totally right.

I am not available for stressing out. I’m not available for launching to be hard. I’m not available for my business to be something that I don’t want it to be.

What that forced me to do was to create processes, teams, and programs that can all work and build and grow without me. Lord knows I’m eight months pregnant right now, so knowing that I’m going to have this beautiful baby, I’m not going to sugar-coat it. Do I have everything figured out? Heck no, of course I don’t. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like and how much I’m going to want to do when she comes, but I also know it’s definitely going to be different. That’s where my focus is right now…how to shift things. 

JC: I remember you did an interview about launching and you said, “I just decided that I wasn’t available for that.”

The stress.

The hustle.

The freaking out.

That has really stayed with me, so thank you because I say that all the time now! For me, it’s not just on the physical plane of the surface level of, “I just don’t feel like doing it.” No, it’s my energy. I’m not available to take that in and I will not receive it. Keep it out! That sentence has become my gatekeeper. 

TC: It’s such a powerful thing to say because it is twofold. You’re making the declaration but you’re also hearing yourself say it, so it’s reinforcing it. I’m not available for stressing out about this. That being said, what’s a different way of thinking or of being? How can I elevate thoughts? If I’m not available for that, how can I make this easy? Those are better questions.

How can I make this easier?

How can I make this more fun?

How can I make this more joyful?

How can I make this more profitable?

How can I make this less work? 

JC: It opens up so much. I remember we had a conversation a couple months back around big girl launches… the big launch! What did that mean to you? I know I had my own internal representations of what a big launch had to be and how stressful it had to be and how much work I would have to put in. 

TC: This is funny because it’s sort of the same as what I was saying about how I built my business, how I was always kind of like, “Oh, I’m doing this while I’m building this.” I’m not saying don’t do this. Follow your heart and do your thing. For me, I didn’t want to be not knowing where the next check is going to come from. I live in New York City. It ain’t cheap. I like nice things. I was always kind of like step by step by step, let’s make it happen. Granted, I’ve had my own business for 11 years, but a big girl launch sort of feels like the same thing. It’s like putting all of your eggs in one basket.

You’ve got ONE launch. You’ve got a month or six weeks or whatever your timeline is to bring in all this income. If you F it up or your Facebook ads aren’t running or there’s hiccups (and there’s always hiccups – that’s just part of life) then you’re kind of screwed. I don’t like operating that way.

Last year during one of our mastermind calls, Rachel McMichael was saying that she didn’t want to do a big girl launch, and that for whatever reason, was this light bulb moment. I don’t want to do a big girl launch, but I do want success and I want to help more people and I want to have that impact and income. So that opened me up. I want something from start to finish, three weeks, easiest, most fun, most profitable. It was like what I used to make in a year teaching pilates in three weeks. It was a big hit. We hit my best goal. I had no idea how we were going to do it and it was stepping into the decision that this is going to be fun, this is gonna be easy, we’re going all the way, let’s go.

And that changed everything.

I’m not saying everyone should do this, but I launched three times in my first trimester. A launch to me, again, I’m not available for it being scary or hard.

As entrepreneurs, we’re always looking for the formula or the winning thing. One of the main things we forget is that the winning thing is YOU, your energy, and what you are putting out there.

Last launch that I did cart open, I was in New York City on a plane for a baby shower. There was no space for freaking out. I was with my husband, we got off the plane, and went to a fabulous lunch and I was like, “I have to do this Facebook live now!” We signed up for this! This is something we want to do. I remember being 25 thinking I’d be waiting tables forever. I didn’t have the vision and the dream of starting a business, so I could be basically doing the same thing instead of crying at the coffee machine and crying at my desk in front of my laptop.

I wanted freedom. I wanted flexibility. I wanted abundance. That’s what I’m available for. 

TC: You’ve got to know your numbers, too. I have friends that are seven figure business owners and their profit margins are not so bueno. That’s important and that’s on you. You have to pay attention to that because nobody else is gonna pay more attention than you. 

JC: If you don’t know your numbers now guys, this is a call to action to go and unpack your books and really look at your profit and loss and see where your money is going. You could be making six figures a month and be losing money. I don’t think people get that because everyone is so obsessed with marketing and launch numbers. 

TC: For my non-big girl launch, there was not a DOLLAH spent on advertising. 

JC: You’re a content and an organic marketing ninja. You said that with the last launch you were removing yourself from the ‘how’ and you’re amazing at that because you own the fact that you don’t know all the things in your business. I was the opposite. I know how to do all the things and that actually holds me back because if it’s not done, I go and do it instead of having someone on my team do it. I think it’s so fascinating that you’ve had that in your business because your expertise is in health and fitness. 

TC: I do not know how to make an opt in page and I don’t know how to make slides. Let’s be really clear! I think it’s hilarious because in my membership program, it’s all delivered through email or through the website. Tech heavy in the sense of videos. I wouldn’t know how to load a video to our site.

Sometimes, I’ll get in a room full of entrepreneurs and I’ll feel like you guys know so much more than I do. At the same time, the whole point of doing this is focusing on the things that you’re really great at and what I’m great at is what I call ‘tap dancing on the front lines’. I love creating the content, creating videos, and I love doing Facebook lives. Just doing the more front-facing things. I know how to send an email and use my Infusionsoft, but I don’t know how to set up campaigns or any of that. Yet my business has all of that stuff in it. I let go and I go, “Okay, great. I know what the vision is and I know how I want things to look.” I get the people in to do the things so that it all works. If I was doing that, it would be such a waste of time. Sure, I could learn how to make slides OR I could just ask my assistant and it’ll take her an hour. 

JC: You just gave so many people permission to not have to be techy and learn all the things. I do teach how to do a lot of the techy things within my business, but I actually pull back from that now and recommend that people don’t even get into that. Just take this tutorial give it to someone else. You do not even need to get your hands in there. 

TC: For the first few years of having an online business and already doing six figures, I didn’t even know how to send an email. I finally thought maaaybe I should learn this just in case someone is sick or if I have an idea. You don’t have to know the things, you really don’t. 

JC: I think this really ties into the way that you show up and the way that you create boundaries in your business of what you’re available for and what you’re not available for. For you, when you are bringing people on and creating these boundaries, is there some thought process or a certain belief that you have?

A lot of people have beliefs around, “No one can do it better than me,” or “I have to figure things out,” or “If people see that I have team members and I’m not doing it, they wouldn’t want to pay me or they won’t see it as valuable.”  There’s so many stories that we can create. 

TC: I actually have the complete opposite belief. Smart people know that they don’t know everything. Even with my team, I’m always like, “I need you because you’re so much smarter than me when it comes to this.” We laugh about it! I’m like, “I don’t know how you do that, but this is what I want it to do, so go ahead and do that. Make that happen.”

Focus on what you’re really good at and then just bring in the people. I want people on my team that are way smarter than me and are way more quick to do all of the things so that my energy can be focused on doing what I’m really great at.

That’s just gonna be better for the business and better for everyone. 

JC: Yeah, you really are a ninja at leveraging your own time and making sure that you only focus on the things you are good at. I think that really attributed to being able to grow a massive YouTube channel and a membership with hundreds of videos and all this content so that you could serve your audience. I mean, you have a huge audience. You have 147,000 subscribers in this moment on YouTube. How many years have you been doing it? 

TC: I’ve been doing it for a long time. I didn’t have rapid growth, but here’s a difference. I never set out to be a YouTuber. I always used YouTube as a marketing tool, even when I didn’t quite know that. I’ve spoken at YouTube about this. I get that in the environment right now, being an influence or being a YouTuber is a viable career. However, I think it’s a really slow road. YouTube has never paid my rent. Granted, I live in Miami now and I live in New York City. Rent ain’t cheap, so let’s start there. But now Youtube does pay my rent because of my membership, deals with brands, and people finding me through a silly little arm workout. 

JC: I mean, that’s a lead generation system!  

That one video – I’d just come back from vacation and it was shot the camcorder – has literally, at this point, made me a half million dollars. 

JC: Wowww. This is the power of having a niche video or solving a specific problem, especially on YouTube where people are literally typing in something specific in a search engine. When you say batwing video, you’re talking about the arm fat, the little dingle dangles! It’s called a batwing and the video is a quick workout video, right? 

TC: Yep. It’s my number one video. Truly, almost anyone that’s even hired me for high end coaching will say, “Oh, I found you on YouTube. I was looking for batwings.” That’s the power of YouTube because it’s not going to go away.

I know Instagram is such a hot topic. I was actually just talking to someone on my team about this who helps me with brands deals and things like that. It’s interesting because so many people like Instagram-Instagram-Instagram. But with something like YouTube, that video is now six years old, yet I still have people that find me through it and I do NOTHING! 

JC: It’s such a different strategy. You post a picture, you post a video, and within 24-48 hours (maybe a week if you’re using hashtags that are really good), it’s over! Unless you’re actively sharing it out and tagging people and boosting it in some capacity, the content is kind of gone.

With YouTube, that grows over time and it’s definitely a long game strategy. A lot of people who could be crushing it on YouTube are not even entering that space because it’s a much higher barrier of entry and there’s more risk. It’s a long game. You’re not going to get the payout until you’ve got a little bit of traction on that platform. You can build it and people might not find you unless you have a strategy behind what you’re doing or you find a search term like batwings that people are searching.

For you, when you weren’t setting out to be an influencer, did you see it as the frontend of your funnel when you got started or did that just kind of evolve now? 

TC: It totally evolved. I started on Youtube with zero strategy. At the time, I had my brick and mortar studio and I was building my online business, but I didn’t quite know what I was doing. I wanted to be a life coach. It was very vague what I was doing. I was just figuring it out.

I thought I was going to move until I made a DVD. Back in the day, I had an actual physical product and I gave it to my in-person students and they loved it! They went bananas for it. Well if they like it. I bet other people would like it, so how can I sell it? YouTube was fairly new and I was like, “Well maybe I’ll try it on YouTube,” so I started putting these little videos up on YouTube. It would be like every six weeks on a good hair day. I had a camcorder for my first 100,000 subscribers, so for people that think you need all the stuff,  if you have a phone, you’re good.

I started that way, but I had a friend who at the time was working at Google (she did not help me with anything) but she would pay attention and she said, “Do you know that one of your videos has 100,000 views?!”

I wasn’t even paying attention!

I don’t know 100,000 people!

That was when I was like, “Ohhhh, now we’re on to something!”

I had one of those miraculous days where it was like sale-sale-sale-sale-sale and I thought someone was messing with me because the DVD had been on there, but someone had picked it up in some fitness group somewhere so all these people started buying it. It was pretty crazy. Some of that is luck and manifestation, but there’s also energy. I was still doing this stuff.  

JC: You showed up for it! Yes those things can happen if you set the intention, but it’s also the law of action and vibration. There’s twelve universal laws and they all play a role in making it happen.

You said before about how in the beginning you would put something out every six weeks if you had a good hair day. Now, you have such a consistent schedule of content and I think for someone looking in from the outside, they don’t know what we’re all doing behind the scenes of our business that looks magical on the outside. You really are a content ninja, but you’ve created systems for yourself. Give us a little sneak peek of what that actually looks like. 

TC: My philosophy is if I am putting the time and the effort into hair and makeup (let’s be honest ladies – that’s gonna take you about an hour), there’s no way I’m gonna shoot one video. Hellll to the no. I always batch shoot and I’ve done that forever. Before I had my total body transformation fitness membership, I would always be six or eight weeks ahead. I would bang it out and just get it done.

The other thing is, I hired an editor early. You have the vision and the creative process, but that takes time. This is one area where I could even improve and give up some of the creative control. I’m starting to do that more now, especially with being pregnant.

With my fitness membership, they get new videos every single month and they get a calendar with their workouts all laid out for them, so it’s a lot of content. Last year I was always feeling behind, so I just was like…f this…I’m gonna start shooting this like a TV show because I have friends that work on TV shows and you shoot a season. I did the math and I figured it out. It was three months of shooting, shoot four videos a week for three months, and DONE! My husband and I went on vacation to Europe for three weeks and I basically took a month off before that. I went on vacation, we moved to Miami, soon thereafter got pregnant, and was also not able to work out during my pregnancy, but no one knew any different because I had so much content.

Even still to this day, I lived in Miami for nine months and I still have workouts from New York that are being trickled into the membership. Currently being pregnant, once I had the go to workout, I was like BAM and went right back into that, so I have content from now until June of 2020. That’s 11 months from… done. That’s being pregnant and all the things, you know?

What are the ideas, the topics, and the things that you want?

Once that camera goes on, do at least two or three. There’s been days I’ve done six videos. I can only do so many workouts in a day, but if I’m doing stuff for my membership I might be like, “Oh cool, let me pull three of the exercises that I did here and put it on YouTube.”

Batch shooting is KEY.