We’re thrilled to present the latest addition to Afluencer’s content lineup – our podcast series featuring insightful conversations with influential brand owners. In this inaugural article, we have the privilege of introducing Brooke Michelle, the visionary founder of Body X Brooke, as our esteemed guest.
Meet Brooke Michelle: The Mind Behind Body X Brooke
Brooke Michelle, the innovative mind driving Body X Brooke, takes center stage in the Afluencer podcast series. With a wealth of experience in the world of influencer marketing, Brooke shares captivating insights, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped her brand’s journey.
Podcast Premiere: Delving into the Body X Brooke Universe
Join us in exploring the enchanting world of Body X Brooke through the eyes of Brooke Michelle herself. We’ve embedded the riveting YouTube podcast video below, offering an exclusive glimpse into the transformative power of influencer marketing.
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Key Takeaways
00:30 🌱 Brooke Michelle transitioned to online coaching with Body by Brook in 2018.
02:19 💻 Offering free Instagram workouts helped Brooke engage her audience during lockdown.
05:57 📈 Brooke’s Instagram growth strategy focused on home workout carousels for women.
10:29 👥 Brooke connects with her audience by sharing personal struggles on social media.
15:40 🏋️♀️ Brooke plans to expand BXB Sweat at Home and launch One-on-One Virtual training.
18:03 🤰 Balancing pregnancy with a toddler, Brooke stays focused on her professional goals.
18:46 *📲 Find Brooke Michelle on Instagram @bodyxbrook and bodyxbrook.com for fitness updates and One-on-One Virtual details.*
Transcription Insight: A Peek into the Conversation
Gain an insider’s perspective as we burrow into the transcription of our engaging conversation with Brooke Michelle. Discover the strategies, anecdotes, and wisdom that have fueled Body X Brooke success, all captured in this in-depth transcription.
In Conversation with Brooke Michelle, Founder of Body X Brooke:
Brett:
Welcome to Our Afluencer your podcast, where we connect small businesses with influencers and creators and we have a fitness expert on with us today, Brook Michel, who’s a personal trainer. Group fitness instructor, general fitness extraordinaire. The million different things going on in the health and fitness world. So we’re excited to talk to Brook about these things today.
Brook, welcome. And let’s get started. Can you sort of tell me what inspired you to start Body by Brook and give us that back story, your origin story there?
Brooke:
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be here. So Body by Brook was something I created or officially launched, let’s say, on Instagram, if you could put it that way. In January 2018, prior to that, I was just kind of part time doing some spin classes and personal training at big Box gym in my area, and I loved it.
It was a side hustle for me and it wasn’t even a hustle because the money really wasn’t there, but it was just something that I really just was very passionate about and enjoyed at the time. When I did start, I was working for a family business of mine, which then throughout the years kind of dissolved and it was just not pretty, mixing family with business.
So once I kind of agree that that field I was just left with just teaching a few classes a week and it wasn’t enough income for me. So I basically just had to work really hard, network like crazy, pretty much just work from morning till night, just trying to find gyms to work in and also gyms that I was comfortable working and I didn’t want to just work anywhere, so I found, you know, some pretty relatively nice studios and that just kind of opened the door for me and created a lot of personal connections with the members that I met and people that I met.
And I always knew I was bigger than just teaching small group classes in gyms or just one on ones with people. So that’s why I wanted to branch out into the online world and go that route. And then once 2020 happened when the lockdown started, that’s really when my business boomed and picked up. And if it wasn’t for creating all of those relationships in the prior years, then I wouldn’t have been able to do that.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s awesome to have that sort of groundwork. And I mean, there’s nothing like training somebody in person, right, to have to learn motivation and kind of perfect that. So when everything shut down, which is a moment I’ll never forget, in fact, I was at my gym and my trainer said, We probably shouldn’t be in here. And then sure enough, that was the last time I saw him in person.
So the moment everything I close. How did you pivot things from those live classes into virtual you already anybody that worked on that was, I assume, a good thing, Daria, those two years of groundwork. But what was the most difficult thing And and how did it go with your clients? I know I hated it at first myself. You have to move stuff from in-person to to training online.
So how did that go for you?
Brooke:
Honestly, it was pretty, pretty simple for me. I didn’t really think that I would be able to get the vibe though, of my classes, especially because I did a lot of spin classes. So indoor cycling and if you ever taken an indoor cycling class, you know that it’s such an atmosphere and it’s just the energy in the room is just unmatched.
So other than that, I was teaching other workouts of mine with with hand weights and weights that, you know, things that people maybe have at home. But people were almost begging me to do stuff and I was doing things for free on Instagram, just posting like live workouts here and there. And the feedback I got was unbelievable between like the music that people enjoyed and also a lot of people who wanted to try my classes, but their schedules wouldn’t allow for it.
With the times that I was teaching, they were able to finally take my classes and they loved it. They told their friends and one thing led to another and I said, You know, let me try to go on Zoom and do this and see if I can actually, you know, make a few dollars because I wouldn’t know where you come coming in from anywhere.
And I couldn’t sleep at night. I was just worried, what am I going to do? So one thing led to another and I started just charging $5 per class. And I remember the first day I made more money in one day than I did in a week of working for other people. I said, okay, I think I think we have we’re on to something here.
And then it just kind of grew and grew. And then my live classes, I started doing twice a day on Zoom so people can make morning and evenings and I just loved it. I mean, the energy just that everyone was feeling, and also the fact that people were telling me how I brighten their day or that they looked forward to my workouts and I was just making people’s mental health and frame of mind better for that really crazy time we were in.
Also made me feel great because we were all just in it together and moving together and it just felt so nice.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s great. I could see that connection from your clients standpoint. I mean, that was kind of all we had was you look forward to when you got done, you know, I get that I could portion do my work virtually right. But you look forward to your workout when you can get there, you can get to the bike.
And that’s tricky because I hear what you mean that these in-person classes is an indoor cycling standpoint. I mean, I get a lot of juice, right? You you work hard for 45 minutes or an hour and you don’t notice it. Versus if you’re on your own, it’s it’s challenging to get to that level. So that’s I mean, that’s another, I guess, good kudos to you to be able to get there and bring that energy right on these virtual classes.
So speaking of women, everything virtual, then what what strategies have worked in terms of growing body by, Brooke, the Instagram profile, You know, whether you’re kind of a fitness influencer, fitness creator, how did that growth work for you? What type of strategies work for you in terms of that?
Brooke:
I mean, in terms of that, I don’t I honestly don’t even think rails were even a thing at the time when I when COVID kind of started. So it was more or less like the carousels of me posting workouts that we do on my resumes and just showing people you don’t even need equipment, because that’s kind of also one of the the things that we ran into was a lot of people didn’t have equipment at home, even though even to this day, we don’t need much equipment for my workouts.
But at the time it was also like very inflated to even purchased a pair of dumbbells on Amazon. Like some people were charging hundreds of dollars just to get weights. And they were you almost couldn’t find them. So I did have to pivot some of my exercises, which I did in mind, to do more of a calisthenics type base or Pilates style, so you wouldn’t even need equipment at all.
We also got very creative. We use soup cans as light dumbbells. We use jugs, water bottles, whatever we we had, we use. But as far as on Instagram, it was more or less just showing what we did, showing that it’s mainly targeting towards women, women’s bodies, that, you know, you don’t have to go crazy and work hard or work hard for hours in a gym.
You could basically get results, even better results at home than you could at a gym. Also, it was it’s really motivating to see. So people who were kind of hesitant to go to a gym just because they felt like they didn’t know how to use machines or they didn’t know what to do or they couldn’t make group classes and they just had no idea what was going on to just, you know, join a class or press play and have someone kind of instruct it and lead it for them.
So it was also kind of motivating on few other things that I did were giveaways, and I just gave away like a week’s worth of workouts to people. So that kind of got things going on Instagram. People were sharing my page. I also did a lot of referrals, so if anyone referred their friends to me, they got a discount and then their friend also got a discount or free class or whatever I was doing at the time.
So I was just really trying to get that word of mouth spreading however where I could, and it did work. So happy about that. And then I, you know, once real started kicking in, I started to get a little bit more creative with that. I’m also a health coach and a lot of people were and still struggle with, you know, knowing how to eat or how to eat.
Right. Not super restrictive, which is what I focus on. Just Whole Foods, nothing too restrictive. And I worked with people, a lot of people one on one with that. I also do group coaching and group nutrition as well. But at the time a lot of people came to me for that and they got incredible results. And also personally, my body changed like I lost like £20 and I didn’t have a lot of weight to even lose from the time I do gyms closed.
From the time that I pivoted my workouts because, you know, I created a program that wasn’t necessarily what a gym wanted me to do, but what I knew was right for my type of body that wasn’t going to be super gruesome. So it was a great mix of low impact, high intensity and then kind of a great split of upper body, lower body days, total body days.
So also, I think that that my following that saw my my growth and my progression of my body also kind of said, oh, you know what, I don’t need a gym to get into really great shape. And that kind of helped people as well.
Brett:
Right? You’re you’re walking people through your journey and your and your results is as you’re going. Yeah. It is interesting that you would never draw it up that way. You’re like, Hey, let’s shut everything down for 12 to 18 months to show people that we don’t we don’t have to go to gyms. But that was always my mindset is like, you’re either at the gym or you’re not.
If I’m at the gym or I’m working out. If I’m not, I’m not. I was never this in between. As I talked to you and I had my kettlebells behind me, which I got during COVID and I was lucky enough to wrangle one of them. And then a couple more after reopening and they and they never left. Right.
Because you just you never know. But in that mindset from having to be somewhere, to be able to workout anywhere, and it just kind of takes that creativity or at least know how. Right for myself, I don’t I don’t have to be creative, but I need to work to be able to tell me, like, tell me what to do right or show me right, right outside of things.
Has it been a balance for you in terms of promoting your business? And then also, you’re the face of your brand and you’ve got your personal identity, but then you’ve got your fitness identity. How do you balance all that terms, these different, I guess, hats where you’re also the face of face of the business?
Brooke:
That’s a great question. So I was very hesitant to post a lot about or anything about my personal life on social media, and especially because I was kind of but also at that time, a semi new relationship. So I didn’t really want to publicly advertise that until things were maybe were a little bit more serious. But then once I started opening up to people just about my personal life, let’s say, with struggles that I had with eating disorders or body image and dysmorphia and things like that, once I started to slowly open up to people about that, I just had such a really overwhelmingly great response from other other women who have experienced that as
well. And then I started to notice, you know, I don’t want to just be a brand. I want to be a person as well. So I want people to really connect with me and not just look at me as any other ordinary fitness instructor or influencer that has no personality. Because I know for me personally, if I’m following someone, I want to gain something from them.
I don’t just want to follow someone who just posts workouts and doesn’t have. There’s no substance to them. And I think that just being genuine and also sharing my personal life has helped me connect with a lot more people than if I was just to have the brand identity. And that’s it.
Brett:
Yeah, that’s, that’s, I think, a great insight and term that on the face of the brand identity, I see that we were of course with a lot of brands here and some newer ones and I have a great product and a nice looking website and there’s no face to it and there’s no person or name and you don’t know who you’re dealing with.
And even if it even if it doesn’t matter, it does, you know, I mean, it’s it’s nice to have the face connected to it and people know you and and there is a fear, whether it’s rash or not. Right. Of putting yourself out there. I wrote a column a few months back that was getting some circulation online, or my editor said, hey, you sure you want to put the fish market?
You might have someone try to find you there. And I’m like, Well, they do. They do it right. It’s kind of like I’m just kind of sharing my life. And this is this is me. So.
Brooke:
Right.
Brett:
Right. That’s kind of it kind of comes with it. That’s that’s how brands are built. I think in 2018, when you started early on in 2024, for sure, having a face with the brand. So then you’ve got the different hats also because you have your own brand, you got the body type of brand, but then you’re also what I think of small business was still referred to as an influencer.
I think of you as more, probably more as a creator, right? Fitness expert, trainer, all that type of thing. But however, we want to brand Brooke, the influencer, right? There’s work for you to potentially do, partnering with fitness and health brands on that side. I know you’ve done a bit with us with influencers, So what do you look for in terms of, Hey, this is the type of brand that I like to potentially partner with and share their product with my with my followers on Instagram and beyond?
Brooke:
Absolutely. Well, honestly, I only will choose a brand to partner with that aligns with my beliefs and my life styles. So if a brand will come to me and for example, they have supplements and they want me to promote these supplements and I ask for a list of ingredients or look through their website and read through the ingredients.
And it’s not something I personally would take. I wouldn’t be able to collab with the company and I would be very honest with them and tell them, Hey, you know, I can’t represent this because it doesn’t align with my beliefs and it’s not true to me. And going back to what I said earlier about just even being a face, the brand and connecting with people on that level, I’m a real person.
I, of course, am running a business and I’m looking to make money, but I’m not just looking to make money. I’m also looking to have my audience, who I believe, trust me, stays trusting me because the last thing I want is to potentially harm anybody or for them to come back to me and be like, Hey, you know, you represented this product.
I trusted you. I had, you know, I purchased this and this happened to me or I didn’t feel well from this. What is your experience? So what am I going to say? Oh, you know, I never took it. I’m not sure. Sorry. Thanks for the commission. So it’s just not worth, you know, the commissions are just not worth it for me or whatever it is, the collaboration.
So I like to think that I build trust with my audience over the years and that they take my advice, my input very seriously.
Brett:
Yeah, make sense with that then. Do you look longer term in terms of these partnerships where, hey, this is the type of product that I want to. If you haven’t tried it, I want to try it. I wanted to use it, recommend it long term or but something that you already believe in even better. Right. And it’s something potentially long term types of relationships with that brand.
Brooke:
Yes, absolutely.
Brett:
Yeah, it makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. That’s something we try to a lot of brands are new to influencer marketing as well, and that’s something that encourages is like a these classic necessarily one type things ideally you’re trying to do is build a partner team of people that you you trust you can work with and you know like hey it’s great.
Audience Body by Brooke. It’s a great partnership. And these are the types of people we want to be in front of and partnering with long term on that front. So looking ahead, Brooke, and I’ll get you out of here on this one, what’s next for you company now? You got a new business. You hinted at that I was tempted to ask about, but I’ll let you share with the world now what what’s coming up for everybody back.
Right.
Brooke:
So I still have my Bixby sweater at home, which is my online platform, which is right now all on demand. We do group challenges, but I post I have about I think like 500 on demand workouts to choose from anywhere from like 20 minutes to an hour and everything in between. That library is growing week by week. I even have prenatal friendly workouts since I have a two year old and I’m also pregnant, seven months pregnant currently.
So I’m always releasing. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I’m looking forward to my the postpartum plan because pregnancy is just it’s it’s rough with the toddler so yeah so the workouts for everybody on there and that will continue to grow as time goes on. So I love my members of my team love having new people come and join me and try it out.
But I also launched something with a partner of mine, Rob called one on one verse tool, which is similar to what I’m doing, but not so much in a group setting. It’s more just what it sounds like one on one or small groups, let’s say a group of like a husband and wife or, you know, a family or something like that to do virtual zoom training.
So it will bring the the luxury of private training like you would get in a gym at a much lesser price point from all over the world. We have trainers that you can connect with, and we also have special traders who specialize in certain things, whether you have injuries, whether they’re, you know, pregnant or postnatal, trying to repair their core, anything like that.
We have specific trainers that will work together with those people. We would match them up. So it’s really great. We’re just starting up. We started to be launched about a month or so ago, so we are relatively new. However, both me and my partner are not relatively new to this space. He’s actually one who also is a trainer and he used to train at a gym that I actually worked in.
And then during the lockdowns and everything he opened his own thing and he’s doing great. He has his own gym in person. So he reached out to me a couple months ago and said, hey, you know, the virtual thing, let’s get together, let’s link up and let’s do this. So that’s one on one virtual. It’s called it’s one on one online trading dot com.
And then, of course, like I mentioned, I’m still doing my platform which is Bixby suite at home, which you could find me up on the X Brooke dot com or Instagram body X.
Brett:
Brooke Yeah it’s also a seven months and is still going. Yeah, we’ve got a similar split. Our kids are nine and six now but I was, I guess if I look back to start at one through 2019 and then they were one in four and then also school was out the next year. So what’s going on? But I, I hear you.
What do you think the first is? I’m sure the first pregnancy rate is always down, but then you do it with a toddler around and it’s a whole new level. You got to kind of keep doing it. Otherwise you put the diapers away for too long and it’s better just to you just kind of roll it through and get on with it.
And you’ve got no shortage of things professionally. Keep you busy here as well is a great book. So for collabs we’ll get the link to your H1, your profile also here so that people can reach you. And then just give me the socials everything one more time so people can find it.
Brooke:
Yeah. So on Instagram you can find me at Body X, Brooke b, r oc E, you can also find me at the dot com and then my new business from the one on one virtual private trainings is on Instagram at one on one virtual. It’s the number one or you can find it online at one on one online training dot com.
Brett:
Awesome call Brooke Michelle again with body by birth thank you again appreciate it.
Brooke:
Great talking to you today. Thank you. Brett. Thanks for having me. It’s great chatting with you.
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Reflecting on a Journey of Innovation and Influence
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