Today I have the pleasure of talking to boss babe, Uplifted alumni & trainer, Carla Cline Thomas. Carla is a brilliant business strategist and one of the few business coaches I recommend to everyone. I love picking her brain on what trends she’s seeing in the industry and the future of marketing; and today is no exception. Carla and I discuss what marketing yourself in the wellness industry will look like for 2025. SPOILER: It’s not posting everyday.

Take notes as Carla and I talk about:
🔹Why you need to niche down even further

🔹How there is plenty of room in the marketplace for new voices

🔹Being your authentic self leading to growth and sales

📘 Get your free yoga business plan and checklist https://www.brettlarkin.com/businessplan

GUEST EXPERT: Carla Cline Thomas | @carlaclinethomas

Carla Cline Thomas is an experienced Performance, Mindset and Business Coach with 22 years of working in management, real estate, marketing, and sales. After years of leading teams, designing marketing campaigns, and creating trainings for corporate America, she became the branding strategist, business mentor, lead trainer, and go-to coach for new yoga teachers and wellness leaders. Carla helps visionary entrepreneurs and light workers turn their passion into profit to get what is in your head and heart out into the world in the most authentic way possible.

Book with Carla: https://calendly.com/carlaclinethomas/yoga-biz-breakthrough-call

FREE Practice: Somatic Yoga Workout for Beginners with Music 🎉 | Reduce Low Back Pain, Stress & Body Tension 💪🏽

Relevant Blog: How To Find Your Yoga Niche

Relevant to Today’s Episode:
📚 Uplifted Business Launchpad

✅ 200-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training

🔮 300-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training

🎧 Also Listen to:
#299 – Strategies to Slay Imposter Syndrome and Share Your Gifts

#313 – Social Media as a Vehicle for Your Awakening with Amanda Bucci

#323 – Creating a Niche Brand as a Yoga Teacher with Yogi Bryan

Transcript:

Brett (00:02)
Hello, everyone. Welcome. I’m sitting here with Carla.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (00:13)
Thank you for having me, I’m super excited!

Brett (02:58)
First of all, she’s a yogi and she’s been through all the uplifted teacher training programs. She even teaches in some of our teacher training programs, but she has this incredible marketing savvy, like digital hardcore marketing savvy married with this beautiful, like spiritual woo kind of out there energy. And I think that’s a really rare combo. find, you know, there’s coaches who are really in kind of the woo energetic realm. And then there’s like these hardcore like bro marketers.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (03:03)
So.

Brett (03:28)
who are like deadline funnels and countdown timers and it’s just a very kind of aggressive, masculine, for lack of a better word, world. And then there’s people who are kind of unicorns like you, where it’s like, know all that, you’ve studied with all those people. I’ve learned so much from you. feel like we’re really like, can dialogue is equals when it comes to digital marketing. But at the same time, you have this energetic,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (03:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Brett (03:57)
beautiful way of working specifically with yoga teachers. And I know you’re doing business coaching inside my yoga teacher trainings and we love that, but you also offer private coaching. So I thought you’d be the perfect person to bring here to just nerd out with me on like what 2025 holds for all of us as yoga teachers, especially those of us that want to earn good money are teaching online. Like what are the trends? And I know you have like a top

I don’t know if it’s like a top eight list or a top 80 list of things we should look out for, but why don’t we like dive into your first trend pick and have you just like educate us on what you see happening.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (04:28)
Yeah.

So first of all, I can nerd on this all day long, as you know, I started going down the rabbit hole and there is so much to know. I wanna start with like three things. The very first thing that is super important is immersive live classes are gonna be queen and connection and creating community are gonna always trump everything no matter what. So, but in 2025, we’re really gonna have to focus hard on community building.

and really pulling together what we know with this beautiful marriage of technology and then introducing it in a way that it still allows us to both serve and add value without it becoming super mechanical, if that makes sense. So I think the biggest trend that I saw was niching down even further. So if you think you’re already super tight with your niche, go even further because what’s going to happen is

The audience and the powers that be are so noisy and everything is everywhere. Engagement and attention are going to be queen for everything. In order to do that, you’re going to have to give them a reason to come to your website or your app and stay there and keep their attention by adding value and a whole other level of service.

Brett (05:58)
I think let’s pause and talk about that word niche for a little bit. And I want to circle back to like immersive experiences as well. But I agree with you. I think we’ve been seeing this trend of, you need to have an avatar. We call it in the 300 program, which we both teach it. You need to have a target demographic. You need to know who you’re selling to. It’s like that those five W’s, like if you don’t know what you’re selling and you don’t know who you’re selling it to.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (06:01)
You know I mean? You don’t-

Brett (06:24)
your loss. And I’d really say that like the who comes first, because you can reverse engineer what to sell someone if you know their intimate pain points, their desires. And so I think picking a niche is one of the hardest things yoga teachers have to do. And it feels so incredibly limiting. And I know you literally coach yogis on this. So do you want to just talk a little bit about that, like painful, but necessary process, which, and I agree with you, I think 2025.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (06:51)
I can talk a little bit what I’m seeing in the algorithms, but like, yeah, basically you just have to be a niche account these days.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (06:57)
You do. mean, not only are platforms like TikTok being questionable as far as possibly being banned in the United States. So if you were on there, we’re going to have an influx of all these people coming to Instagram. And Instagram is where I currently get the most organic growth. But when that happens, I’m going to have to really, truly dial in what I’m talking about. And Anish is basically you knowing who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about and picking at that subject and talking about it.

all the time in different ways across all platforms in a way so that your actual customers are touched by what you’re saying. And there are touch points within that niche. It used to be that we could do it maybe seven, eight times, but now on average, they want to see us talking about the thing that we can do for them at least 11 times with almost seven hours of video and interactiveness.

and four engagements before they’ll even opt into your email list. So think about that for a minute, right? Yeah. So how does that happen? You niche down and you’re talking about the thing that you do that makes you different than everyone else, but also what value you bring to their lives. Like how can they live it, it, taste it, feel it, and know what that looks like? Your story.

is also that niche. Like, how are you living the thing? Like for me, everything comes from a place of self love. Because if you aren’t loving yourself, you’re going to go through life creating all of these crazy things and you could be successful, but at the end you’re like, what’s it for? But if you love yourself and everything comes from that foundation, your business, your life, your family, and your friends, your connections, your network, then everything flows from that space.

And it becomes this beautiful dance of the strategy with your soul and your heart present. And so I think that it is really hard and I struggle with it as you know, for gosh, at least 18 months trying to figure out what the heck I was talking about because I wanted to help so many people. But in this online economy, if we are trying to talk to everyone, we are talking to no one.

The biggest and quickest way to find out what it is that you are going to talk about is who were you last year or a few years ago? And what is it that when you talk about it, you could talk about it for hours. And you’ve done all the things, but this one, two, three, or four things can be a framework that helps them get the same results that you got.

Brett (09:50)
There’s a couple of things that are challenging about this for yoga teachers. First of all, it seems very weird to us that we have to just say the same thing like over and over and over again. And I think a huge reframe that I made last year that I’m taking into this year is first of all, like the downfall of the content pillars. Do you remember the content pillars? Like when everyone was like talking about how you need these content pillars on social media and it’s like you need to have like different things that you talk about that you rotate between and that…

CarlaClineThomas💕 (09:53)
Mm-hmm.

So here you see.

Mm-hmm.

Brett (10:19)
It’s like, it’s so pulled me into making content that I thought people, my current audience and community would want and like to see. And the big reframe that happened last year that I’m pulling into this year is that unfortunately, what I think my audience would like to see is irrelevant on these social platforms. All that matters is how to acquire a new person in order to grow. And this was such a painful process for me that I actually had to like outsource.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (10:43)
Yeah.

Brett (10:47)
Instagram in effect in order to do it because I was just too close to it. I’m like, I know my, I know my, my people, I know that this is what we would find funny. But the, the reframe, the new hat all of us have to put on is like, we’re on these accounts to grow. hopefully those, people who resonate with you are in your, you know, your paid programs, your membership, your community, but these are top of funnel places when we’re talking about TikTok, when we’re talking about Instagram. So.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (11:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Brett (11:14)
you just have to focus on the posts that are going to bring in the new people. And that’s going to be you talking about your niche and how you can help someone over and over and over again in a million different ways. It’s not the way that I think because I’m a curriculum designer and a teacher. Right. So and I like to think in content pillars. I like love that model. Right. But that wasn’t actually getting my account to grow. And when I completely pivoted to this new model of like, OK, let’s forget everything I know about my audience and just think about like what’s going to help some

CarlaClineThomas💕 (11:28)
Bye.

Brett (11:43)
person who has no idea who I am understand me and what I stand for very quickly so that they want to follow me. Like that’s the kind of content I just have to post again and again and again. And that’s been such a huge mindset shift and it’s, it’s very, very challenging. And before we keep going, I’m wondering, can like we give listeners some examples of like great niche yoga accounts so they can even understand like what we mean. Like I’ve had Yogi Brian on this podcast, for example.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (11:44)
Okay.

Yeah,

I love him by the way. I love him.

Brett (12:08)
Yeah. And I would,

guys, if you’re interested in yoga business and you haven’t listened to his and I’s episode, like do that immediately after this one, because it’s so great. And he talks about niche, niching down as well, a lot in that. And I think I would describe him as a niche account because it’s like the, everything is the same. Like every single video is kind of using curse words and using his way to really grab your attention and kind of flip what you think about yoga, flip what you think you know about yoga on its head.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (12:14)
Yes.

Brett (12:38)
with his recipe, his formula, which is to shock you with cursing and then actually draw you into some sort cool meditation. And he just does that over and over and over again. He’s not thinking about, my audience now that likes this type of meditation, what are the four different content pillars that they’d like to see? And I’m going to post things about, that’s when your audience has already converted. We don’t care about that, unfortunately, on social.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (12:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, and he’s just himself. Yeah, he’s we don’t

and he’s just himself. That’s the thing. He’s that’s authentically who he is. So saying the F-bomb every other word is going to attract his people because that’s who he is. I think the number one key to all of this, is to be yourself, not the pretty polished, perfect, you know,

yoga pose with all the things like my people know that you’re going to see a spelling error. Right. That is just who I am. I can legitimately do a spell check, do my whole content. And as soon as I hit upload, my thing changes it for whatever reason. And I just start dying laughing at my people. They expect it. It’s just who it is. I’ll go back and correct it. But that’s what it is. Right. And I am really ridiculously silly. I was trying to be so like

serious and help change the world and people are like, what is she doing? And then I started just reposting memes and reels, but putting my spin on it and I’m getting 30,000 views that convert at about anywhere from I say three to six percent a month from Instagram just because of being myself. And if you look at my account, I don’t have a lot of followers, but I have a lot of engagement.

and I have a lot of people on there. have a lot of followers on other modalities and other social media platforms, but on Instagram, I don’t, it doesn’t matter. I still convert the highest from Instagram to my website and to my funnel. So it goes back to being authentic. And the very first one that taught me a lesson, I was being ridiculous and really silly, and I was just dancing and goofing off, and I was being myself, and I added one of the memes to it, and it-

150,000 followers, 150,000 people viewed it. It’s still going, by the way, ridiculously so. And I was like, I worked for hours to create this beautiful value for you and you didn’t even click on it. It was crickets, as my dad would say. But then I did this silly meme and they all do it. But what was that? That was me not thinking and just serving. And at that time, it was all about like,

know, the election and all that stuff. And I was just like, if you’re as stressed out as I am with all of this crap, let’s dance it out, you know? And it’s really about being yourself and adding value to other people’s lives that they can then add to it themselves.

Brett (15:33)
Well, let’s talk about

this because you said early on, you know, the way you work with people and it’s like you were like, it’s soul and itself and it’s something else. And I think a lot of times we think of niche as like, okay, my niche needs to be like people between this age group in this stage of life who have this specific problem. And it’s, like this delicate balance because it’s like, it’s that, but, and it’s you in your frequency, like you being your authentic self and Yoga for Self Mastery, call that your frequency, right? Like you, your essence shining forth. And that’s why.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (15:53)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (16:02)
you know, Yogi Brian works. And that’s why these reels that you’re doing that are getting 150,000 views are working because you’re uninhibited. People are seeing, I mean, it’s so rare to see someone unencumbered and like in their Kundalini awakened orbit of their frequency transmitting that when people see it, they’re like attracted to it. But how would you talk about niche in terms of like, let’s give people some additional example accounts. And then let’s also kind of try to pick apart for them, like this difference between

CarlaClineThomas💕 (16:15)
Yeah.

Brett (16:31)
you just showing up and being you compared to also kind of needing some stakes in the ground in terms of like you’re serving women or you’re serving a certain age group or those other things we hear about when we think about niche.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (16:44)
That’s a great question. So I honestly believe that the most important piece of niche is knowing what special interest and what value that you want to communicate a solution for. I think it used to be the olden days all about demographics and you do have to know that, right? But I also think what I learned from this research that I did is 74 % of the people that are practicing yoga have only been practicing it for five years. And so if that’s

factual, we can’t say, let your higher self guide you because they’re like, what the is the higher self, right? But if you say, are you feeling completely stressed out? Is your body telling you, you need a break? Okay, then do this meditation with me. That’s the same thing. Very different. So a niche is you talking about

your subject matter in a deeply informative way. And I think it used to be educate, remember this educate, entertain and form. And I think now it is serve, add value and share your story and your people have to be able to see themselves in your story. And I don’t mean like turning the camera on and just telling them what you did. I mean, sharing your life in a way that allows them to see

Hey, I just lost, I lost two of my senior pups in a three month period. I’m not gonna be going on Instagram and doing these funny videos. I actually shared my grief and said, this is what I did to overcome that. It’s those types of things that actually allows you to not only be yourself, but in that moment, I’m talking to everyone because everyone is grieving over something, right? But what am I gonna offer them? A way to love themselves?

through meditation and movement and mindset work. And so, you know, you were talking about the framework. I don’t think we have to dumb it down into these smaller pieces, but I think once we bring them into our community, by community, I mean our email list, then we can add value and add the pieces of the puzzle that creates that customer journey that turns them from a follower into a lifelong learner with you. And to do that,

The biggest thing I would say is to add value. if you’re like, for someone who’s Kundalini, Polly Standiva, North and South, she does an amazing job with really truly just showing up as herself. She does videos about mantra and movement, but she also does videos about her life and she shares how she’s just a total, like she travels all the time and they move in different countries and this is what they do. She does a great job. I would look at hers, Yogi Brian I love. I also,

love gosh who else is really great yoga wise there’s so many i mean you of course to watch what you do and how you do it but also what was the name of our speaker that that just came on that i love in kundalini i absolutely adore her the way that she piper is truly freaking brilliant i could listen to her global soul yoga

Brett (19:54)
Piper.

Global soul yoga you guys give her some love

CarlaClineThomas💕 (20:03)
She’s amazing, truly amazing at what she does. And she builds in philosophy to everything she does. And she tells you the science behind it, right? And so I think gone are the days of just popping on and talking about a subject. I think you really have to have a plan. It has to be something that you embody. You actually have to be doing it yourself. And you, because energy doesn’t lie, you have to be that, right?

And I also believe that you have to be consistent. And so if you’re a new yoga teacher, I think focus on one, one subject and really truly establish a no-like-and-trust factor. Let people get familiar with you. Bring them into your funnel, which is, you know, that beautiful mechanism that we use to create a relationship. A funnel is just a relationship. And when they’re at the beginning of the relationship,

You’re not friends, you’ve just met. What do you do if you’re meeting somebody in a coffee shop and you decide you want to strike up a conversation? You’re honest, you’re open, and you’re authentic. And that’s what’s required in today’s economic climate, both online and in person. And I think that the biggest deal is to know that the yoga industry itself right now is, what did I say? The number’s insane. It’s like some crazy number, hold on.

I wrote it down, no, $107 billion in 2023. But by 2034, it’s gonna be $288 billion. And what does that mean to you? It means there is room for everyone. It means that if you do you.

Brett (21:46)
Did you

say 1.7 to 288?

CarlaClineThomas💕 (21:49)
I 107, 107.

Brett (21:52)
Okay,

107 to 288. So that’s about triple. Yeah.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (21:55)
That is correct. Yes.

So there is room for everyone, but in order to create a sustainable business, you’re going to need three things. You’re going to need to know your niche. You’re going to need to have a way to communicate with your people, to pull them into your mode of communication, whatever that is. I call that a funnel, right? And you’re going to need a way to nurture and communicate, to create connection and maintain that relationship. And so

It doesn’t have to be hard. And if you’re just starting out, you and I both know, and we teach this and all of your training, just do a stinking landing page, talk about what you offer, have them opt in and start teaching and learning. If you’ve been doing this for a while, don’t get complacent. The key is going to be track it, analyze it, adapt and really truly know what your audience wants and know that

you can be authentic and at the same time you can be ridiculously like over the top because your people want you to just be you. Like stop trying to be perfect, right? Just be you. Yeah.

Brett (23:07)
There’s yes, there’s

a bunch of things I want to tap into here. One, I want to point out to everyone listening, like how Carla knows her numbers. Like she knows her conversion rates. She knows her statistics. She’s looking just like I talked about with Yogi Brian, like she’s doing look backs on data to see how things are performing and adjusting accordingly. I also want to point out that you can’t graduate from our 300 hour teacher training without making a landing page. And we don’t do this to be cruel. We do this because business is such a huge.

part of that training and that program Carla and I will both be coaching you in there. So we’re really going to get personalized feedback and attention on your business. You can talk to us about like figuring all of this out and with your mastermind group that we assign in there. But we do it so that you’re forced to go through the growing pains of like setting up your first landing page while you’re still in the cohort, like live with us. It’s kind of like.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (23:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brett (24:00)
We want you to have that experience, which is a very painful growing pain process. And you you might throw away that page and never, never use it, but at least I’m like, I’ve graduated someone who at least knows how to do it so that they can make another one and keep iterating. And of course, if you really want to lean in, we’ll, we’ll really support you to make that the best possible converting page as possible. Before we leave Niche, I just want to kind of summarize what I think we’ve been circling around, which is

You know, we don’t need to think of niche as this limiting thing with demographics, which is kind of like the really old fashioned way to think about it. But I love how you’re describing thinking about it as like you, I’m thinking about it as like being in my authentic frequency. So being me,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (24:33)
That’s it.

Brett (24:43)
like Brett, 10 out of 10, Carla, 10 out of 10, know, volume turned up so people can really feel us in our most vulnerable moments, the highs and the lows. But in those moments,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (24:47)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (24:55)
teaching something very specific that serves a particular type of person on a kind of journey that they want to go on. So for example, you talked about, I think you mentioned like a pet dying or something like that, but then you quickly, you you use that, like it could have been about anything. It could have been about a goldfish dying. It could have been about a bad traffic accident. saw like that doesn’t so much matter. It’s that you were in your frequency, Carla lit up 10 out of 10.

And then you use that moment of vulnerability to share what you do best, right? Which is, you know, you talked about mindset, you said a couple of different other things, but it’s like, you’re just kind of using life’s moments to illustrate the thing that you teach. And it kind of has to just be the same thing that you teach over and over and over again. So if you teach Yin and Kundalini and prenatal and somatic yoga, like God bless, we love that. Take all the trainings, we’re in the community.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (25:48)
Yeah, but just

one.

Brett (25:50)
But

please let us help you make over your social media account so it’s just about one of those things or it’s just about like an aspect of one of those things that is meeting someone who has like a specific problem on a journey that they want to go on.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (25:53)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and the greatest example of that, that was brilliant, that’s how I would describe it too, is even though you’re picking a niche, your marketing is not singular. What do I mean by that? I am always about mindset, self-love, movement, Kundalini, and all things nature, right? But on any given day, like this week, most of my posts will be of some form of nature, me in nature, somewhere in nature, videos about nature, all kinds of things.

but all of it is related to your business in some way and how the seasons change and how you change and how you have to adapt and grow. And also we related to you taking care of you no matter what you’re doing, right? Because that is the one thing that we as female entrepreneurs do. We put ourselves on the back burner and we forget to take care of ourselves first, right? But I’m still talking about yoga, yoga business, self-love, mindset.

nature and all those things. So even though your niche is singular, your approach doesn’t have to be, but people have to know what you’re talking about, the solution you provide and how they can get it to.

Brett (27:18)
Yes, I mean, it’s so easy to say and so hard to think about, but like, I’m just trying to think of how we can give like people more concrete practical examples of this in action. Like, let’s say…

Let’s say someone is a new graduate from our Kundalini training and they want to teach to women. Okay. So I’m just going to, okay, let’s do this. Let’s pretend I’m going to pretend to be your client. Okay. I love this. Okay. So, cause I think this will be really helpful for people listening. Okay. So I am a newly graduate graduated Kundalini university student and I want to teach Kundalini yoga.

But I, and I want to serve women and I want to help women step into their power, specifically moms of young kids who feel totally overwhelmed and overburdened.

Carl is taking notes for those of you who cannot see.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (28:24)
I am, I’m a note taker. Okay, so, okay, I love this. So first of all, when you and I work together, I would ask you, like, talk to me about what you do within your Kundalini practice that helps you overcome anxiety and fear and overwhelm.

Brett (28:44)
Mmm, that’s such a good question. Yes. Well, so again, this is fictional, but I was coaching someone earlier today and a lot of what we were working on, because I just kind of channeled her in, because I was just coaching her, very overwhelmed. You know, I think she has five plus kids. We got onto a embodied yoga life coaching session together because she’s also part of the somatic training and, and I could just tell her anxiety. so

CarlaClineThomas💕 (29:06)
Please.

Brett (29:08)
What I worked on with her and what works for me was kind of visualizing, like being in my frequency while also visualizing a boundary around me. So it’s actually like a very unique approach to like being energetically yourself, but at the same time having a boundary up so the world doesn’t overwhelm you. So she and I were doing some coaching around that, but being your fictional client, like maybe if that’s something I do a lot.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (29:16)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (29:32)
It’s like I do this like kind of boundary creation and frequency work. That sounds pretty unique, right? So maybe that’s something I teach people. What do you think?

CarlaClineThomas💕 (29:37)
It does.

It does. So that’s great. And so it sounds to me like, Brett, that you actually have a routine that you go back to every day that helps you be the best you can be for your kids, for yourself, and for your business. Is that correct? Okay. And would you then say that within that practice, you are utilizing Kundalini Yoga?

Brett (29:55)
Yes.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (30:04)
Mostly.

Brett (30:05)
Yes, and I think what’s unique about what I’m doing, pretending to be this client of mine, is that I am using Kundalini in a way that it’s not typically used. It’s not so much about energy ascension, but it’s about actually grounding myself in the overwhelm of motherhood by setting stronger boundaries, which is actually kind of counterintuitive.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (30:25)
Yes. So if we were doing a business brainstorm session, what I would have you do is answer a list of questions and then exactly what you just said, I would take that and then we would flip it and turn it into your product suite or your offer. In other words, it sounds like you could actually do Kundalini for overwhelmed mothers to calm anxiety and release stress or ground yourself with my new daily practice. I have a framework of four sessions. Let’s work together today.

those type of things. And then what I would invite you to do is, are you already on Instagram or what platform do you use the most?

Brett (31:03)
I will say Instagram in this fictional example. And then I like some ideas for reels based on what we’ve already talked about. I’m Brett again, I’m not the client. I can go back to being the client, but some ideas like based on what we talked about is like, I’m visualizing, you know, at her lowest, at moments where she’s really overwhelmed, maybe sharing the vulnerability of being like, I’m in my garage right now.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (31:05)
Okay, perfect.

Right. Okay.

Brett (31:27)
I’m feeling really overwhelmed with the kids, but this is like the breathing technique and this web around me that I’m creating and this is what I’m doing. like really like I’m trying to marry together this idea that like she doesn’t have to, you know, create all these fake reels. She can actually just speak to people as she’s going through her life, as she does her method on herself in those vulnerable moments. So they can really see her in her environment, really see the rawness of it. And now that’s niche.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (31:41)
No.

Mm-hmm.

Brett (31:55)
according to what we’ve been talking about in this episode. Yasss, yasss. Yasss.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (31:56)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And the

other huge thing is she doesn’t even have to go online when the thing is happening to do it. Here’s what I suggest. B-roll and short from video is queen right now. So you have a tripod with a Bluetooth remote. You set it up in your kitchen and everybody gets off the bus and they come in the house and there you are cooking. You just have the video up and you’re doing your thing. And then you fade in later on. You’re out on the deck and you’re

What you saw as my kids come home, let me show you now how I pull myself back into the present moment so I can keep helping with homework and go throughout the rest of the night without completely melting down. And then you do your meditation and you do your thing that you wanna do, or you actually do film yourself doing a meditation and then you just do a voiceover. So I think there’s this mistaken thing that you have to like show everything all the time. And I do think that that is.

amazing and I feel comfortable doing that and you feel comfortable doing that but a lot of people get really freaked out at sharing their real life but you can still share your real life without sharing everything and the key to that and to keeping your videos and your content about your niche is just propping up a stinkin tripod with a remote and just have it up throughout the day have an alarm on your phone that goes off and says

You know, from four to five, I’m to just put up my tripod and turn it on, turn it off and on, turn it off. And then you edit the videos and you put them up there. It’s super inexpensive. It’s incredibly helpful. And it’s impactful because people are like, she is real. She is making dinner for the kids. She doesn’t have a maid and a cook and a chef under this and that, right? There’s not this perfect insta story. This is a real woman who just finished kundalini training and she now knows the value of regulating her own nervous system.

But to show that we don’t say regulate your nervous system, we say overcome stress and anxiety and be the mom you want to be. Ground yourself in the truth of your own authentic frequency with this practice I’ve created for all moms with more than one kid in school. You know, it’s your words and however you want to word it. it’s, there is no limit. Yeah, yeah.

Brett (34:10)
I can’t believe you just came up with this. It’s like so good. I

love what you’re saying because I think, well, we learned this together, I think, from Shalene Johnson. Guys, if you’re not following Shalene Johnson, just fix that immediately. Like the queen, the queen. And I remember her, she talks a lot about this of like, just get B-roll all the time. Like even if you don’t think you need it, just constantly be getting B-roll. For those of you who don’t know what that means, like B-roll is basically like, if you’ve ever watched a movie and there’s kind of a montage or they’re showing,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (34:17)
Mm-hmm.

again. Brilliant. Yeah.

of the time.

Brett (34:40)
you know, kind of in between scenes of people cleaning or cars driving by, like that’s what they call B-roll. So a lot of what works really well on social media is like B-roll of your own life. Like you just typing at your desk or you vacuuming or you. And again, you don’t even need to have a reel in mind. Like you don’t know, need to know what you’re going to use that content for. But like, as Carla just brilliantly said, then you’re like hit with this wave of inspiration. Again, you don’t even have to record it in the moment. You can wait, process a day or two, maybe write it down.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (34:46)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Get up.

Brett (35:09)
We love journaling in this community, but then record

about it later and then you’ll have, like she just said, some video footage banked that you can overlay that voiceover or that chair on top of. my gosh, I love this idea of the real of her talking through the energetic boundary thing she does, but in the background, it’s like a green screen. She’s in the corner and in the background, we’re seeing all the kids rushing from school and it’s like a B-roll that she happened to get two or three weeks ago.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (35:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I explain B-roll as you on camera without looking directly at the camera. So it’s you just doing life. You’re just doing life and videoing it without looking at it. And it could also be like nature or anything that you’re doing that is something that shows them who you are or what’s happening in your life so that they can feel like they’re in your story without you actually staring directly at the camera. Yeah.

Brett (35:42)
that’s a much simpler explanation than mine. Thank you.

hardest parts of this for people is that they think they need to be so calculating, you know, not like in a bad way. It’s just like, we just think it needs to be hard work and we think we need a strategy and we think we need all this stuff. And I mean, there is a strategy element to this. Like we’re not saying just like be in your frequency, skip off into the sunset and like hope something works on Instagram. We’re not saying that we’re saying that you need to have a specific thing that you’re sharing to a specific type of person. But then once you have that,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (36:10)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Brett (36:33)
The more that you can actually just seamlessly integrate that into your lifestyle and be yourself and be vulnerable, the better. And it makes me think it’s so funny because I’m about to do a film shoot in January for a bunch more somatic yoga videos. And I was looking at my somatic yoga videos on YouTube that have been performing well. And there was one that’s doing really, really well. And so I looked at it and I was like, what routine was this actually? I was like, look, you know, kind of looking through and I was like.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (36:51)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (37:00)
wow, it’s this routine. And it was actually the routine where I took the most risks. And I’m seeing this more and more, like the weirder I am, where I’m like, is no one going to judge me for this? Is this too weird? Like, those are the routines that actually end up doing really well. Like in this one, I had this whole thing of like swan arms and I was like imitating Swan Lake at the end. And I was like,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (37:06)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (37:22)
people might think this is weird, like this is a weird ballet thing. I really wasn’t sure about it. And so when I saw that that was the video that was doing so well, I was like, whoa, the swan arms, really people? But it was because it was so weird and so just kind of like me, I guess. And I wasn’t thinking. we’re so, and I remember when I did that being like, should I cut this out? Like, cause it was also the last song. I was like, should I cut this out? Is this too weird? So I mean, the lesson here is like,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (37:31)
Great. Great.

And you weren’t thinking and you weren’t overthinking it. You were just doing, yeah. Yeah.

Brett (37:51)
It’s such a lifelong journey. Those of you who know Yoga with Adrienne, she talked about this at a conference with her business partner, Chris. They were talking about how they filmed a hundred Yoga with Adrienne videos as like warmup for her to like loosen up and stop acting like a yoga teacher and just be herself before starting the channel. So the like what you see as Yoga with Adrienne starting was actually like video 101 of her.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (37:56)
I love her too. her.

Mm-hmm.

Brett (38:18)
like figuring out how to just let loose and not act like a yoga teacher on camera. And I feel like that’s kind of the journey we’re all going through, myself included. It’s like, how can I stop acting and doing what I think I’m supposed to do? And actually the most powerful thing is just to be yourself. But it feels so scary. It’s not easy to do.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (38:26)
Mm-hmm.

And you know that every overnight success just had the longest 10 years of their life, right? So we see we see them like on the other side of it, but there it’s it’s work, but it’s also a mindset. It’s also you deciding that I want to serve. want to share. I want to create this lifestyle and remembering your why no matter where we are on this marketing journey. If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, that’s going to also be prevalent.

Brett (38:44)
Yeah!

CarlaClineThomas💕 (39:07)
Right? So it can’t just be to make money, but making money is not a dirty thing. Right? It’s currency. It’s energy. So we should just do what we want to do. Say what we need to say, share what we know works, and then the rest of it will happen as long as just like you said, there’s a strategy in place. You can’t spiritually bypass the actual technical piece.

of business. You still have to know your revenue. You still have to know how much you’re paying for all the things that’s making you the revenue. And you still have to know your metrics. You got to know how you’re getting them in there. How are they converting? And you got to know how you’re retaining them. So retention and conversion are huge. And that’s never going to change. And the thing to remember is just like you said, be yourself when you are in your energy, in your frequency, in your authentic

way of being that shines through. it’s exactly what you said. I’ve done the craziest ridiculous stuff in nature. And I thought, this is gonna, I’m gonna get the neighbors are probably thinking I’m crazy. And then it’s every time I have a new coaching client or I’ve gotten a private yoga, you know, because they’re like, what are you doing? I want to do that. So again, I wasn’t thinking because I was doing something out of my element and I was just showing up to serve. And there’s a really big

misnomer that I think in the spiritual teaching and yoga community that sales is a dirty word. And I want to like completely just stomp that out right now, because if you are sharing what you love and you know that what you’re doing is going to help someone that’s sales. Sales is just you showing up and sharing. And if you’re going to really make this online thing your whole or full-time or part-time gig,

You’re going to have to show up and you’re going to have to ask for the business and you’re going to have to teach them how to both see you as this new thing that you want to be and also to understand what it is that you offer so they want to buy it.

Brett (41:17)
And if you want support with all of this, my friends, we are here for you. I think, you know, if you’re like, how do I, the hardest thing is to be yourself on camera. And I feel like I’m just getting good at it kind of like now. And my gosh, I’m a thousand YouTube videos deep, you guys. And even with podcasts, I’m like years in, I feel like I’m more myself now on the podcast than I’ve ever been before. Just casual, know, letting things slip myself.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (41:19)
Yes!

Who grew this?

Right. Right.

Brett (41:43)
And it’s hard. It’s taken like 10 years to get here. So guys, you just have to start if you’re listening to this. Just start. And this is not an easy journey. It’s the hardest personal development work you’ll ever do because you are confronted with all your own stuff, which is why you should join us. Do this in community. Do this in the 300-hour training with Carla and I. We have cohorts that run twice a year. You get instant access to all the business content, all the manual we mail you. The moment you sign up, so you’re just like,

CarlaClineThomas💕 (41:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

It is.

Yes.

Brett (42:13)
watching, you know, binge, binge, binging on this 300 hour training like it’s Netflix, the subtle body stuff, the business stuff, and then she and I are both coaching you. And then take Carla up on like a yoga business brainstorm session. You saw her kind of like do the practice coaching with me. We’re going to put a link in the show notes below. You are going to walk away with so much gold. I I hope you guys heard how she just like came up with some title for what I was doing like out of the air, but I’ve seen you do this with students.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (42:18)
Mm-hmm.

Brett (42:41)
all the time, like the value you bring and just being, it’s just like you’re this like amazing sounding board who helps everyone kind of figure out what’s in their head and get it on paper. And I think it’s really just a strength of yours. So all of you, if you are, you know, just wanting some help on the business side or wanting a business audit or just to like brainstorm with someone, Carla is your go-to, like her link is in the show notes. She’s one of the…

CarlaClineThomas💕 (42:42)
Thank

Brett (43:04)
few, if only, business coaches I recommend. I’m not an affiliate. There’s like nothing untoward here. It’s just, I really think she does such a beautiful job of having the metrics and the digital marketing background married with what we all care about, which is like helping people and being ourselves and, you know, showing up in an authentic way. So.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (43:19)
Thank

Well, and I want to say too that I took multiple certifications before I came to you. And then with each and every one, like you, you are a teacher and you are also like a mentor and a guide. You give so much value in every single training that we do. And I know I’m biased, but I’m telling you right now, I learned more. I’ve been in.

$50,000 masterminds and I learned more in our 300 hour training on how to actually turn my ideas into concrete business plan than any of those trainings because I think the magic happens for you because you speak to people who are of service and who are really heart centered and want to give back and so.

If you are on the fence about the $300 training, jump in, let us help you. And if you want to get what’s in your head and in your heart out into the world, book a call with me or brainstorm session. And I’m happy to help you turn those dreams into reality because it really is as simple as asking for help and being ready to receive it.

Brett (44:37)
I love that. Carla, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom with everyone, listening, for kind of redefining niche, which is what I really feel like we did on this podcast. I’m so, so happy about it and feel like, yeah, I kind of just clarified and clicked for me in a new way in my own mind. So all of you listening, please find Carla on Instagram, find me, tell us what you thought of the episode. And we’re so grateful that you’re here listening to the very end from our hearts to yours. Namaste.

my gosh, that was so good. I think I want to rename this episode, redefining niche and edit it a little bit. So it’s like just about that because I think that will, I think it’s going to land really well because everyone’s so confused about it. And I think it’ll make the episode also more evergreen than like a 2025 trends thing. Are you cool with that?

CarlaClineThomas💕 (45:26)
I think so too, because it’s like you

could do a whole masterclass with it. there’s like, even though it’s this stuff that I put down, like, there’s a whole other level we could do a whole series because even with email marketing, like it’s changing. You have to be conversational. You can’t be, you know, it does for sure.

Brett (45:42)
Yeah, I think this episode just has to be about niche and redefining that. And then maybe we could do something

later about email or email list.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (45:49)
Yeah,

yeah. And I also think that, like you said, it is the number one thing, even when I was in training, that most people are confused about. Because they think, if I pick this, I’m not gonna wanna talk about that for two years or a year or whatever, and it’s not singular. Who you’re talking to is, but what you’re talking about, you can be creative with it, right? And I think that was the way that you described it, and then we kind of like.

backed it up, think was really concrete and it will help them understand it better. I think so.

Brett (46:21)
Okay, so I’ll redo the title. When I record the intro, I’m gonna change it. Like a little tiny piece might get added out from the beginning, but we’ll make it just like a niche episode. And I love it, I’m so excited. And we will let you know when it airs. It’ll be like late Jan or early Feb, I think, so soon. And so you just need to send me your bio and then whatever website and booking link you want in there.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (46:36)
Okay, okay, perfect.

Yeah, and my birthday’s January 27th, I’m just saying, don’t know when you’re putting it out there.

Brett (46:48)
very cool.

Okay. Yeah, it’ll be around then. And then yeah, do we send photos too if we don’t? Well, actually we have the video so we don’t need photos. I’m gonna stop the recording.

CarlaClineThomas💕 (46:56)
Okay, so you need bio and link. Okay.

And I’m going to change my link to be more specific as well, like we talked about. So I’ll fix that and send it to you.