Samia Gore was a mother of four when she decided to take a shot at starting her own business.
On this episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, the Body Complete Rx founder discusses how her personal journey with health and fitness became the catalyst for a booming business.
In 2014, after delivering her fourth child, Gore began documenting her progress losing weight on Instagram. She quickly gained a decent sized following and lost 50 pounds. After some research and reflection, she felt that health for her “wasn’t just about losing weight” anymore. She started to think about health and wellness “as a whole.”
“That is what really kind of started my journey getting into the supplement industry,” Gore said. “Sharing with my audience even like, my therapy journey and all of what that looks like as a woman who's growing and changing and just wanting to be her best self. I feel like that is kind of my energy behind my brand.”
In 2016, she wrote a book to help others who wanted to go through a similar “mommy makeover.” She began learning about natural, plant-based supplements from a friend who worked as a nutritionist, and from there it was almost a natural progression to launching her own brand.
Because Gore already had a following from her book and Instagram posting, the early days of her business meant targeting the audience that already existed while working to gradually expand her reach. With a stroke of luck, her best advertisement came from a celebrity who used her product and posted about it on social media in 2018.
“I think it was a match made in heaven because I had already been growing my brand, but then when she shared her results from using my products, then it went crazy,” Gore said.
From that one promo, Gore was able to greatly expand her audience. She gained roughly 10,000 followers and sold thousands of dollars worth of product in only a few hours.
”In the morning, I checked my account and [we made] like $80,000 or something in sales,” she said.
Gore started her business with three products and now has 24. Although she was able to find success quickly, she never had anyone but herself to lean on in terms of financing. For financial security purposes, she kept her day job working for the federal government even when her business started booming.
“I was working as a federal government employee for 10 years before I left,” she said. “And when I left, I had been making six figures monthly with my business. But the reason why I stayed was because I wanted that security of still having a nine-to-five business.”
Gore attributes much of her business sense and drive to her mother who had her when she was just 19.
“My mother made handbags, she also did hair — and there were just different things that she always [had going on],” Gore said. “So the mindset that she had, I feel like I did take that on subconsciously.”
Gore’s advice to anyone working to launch their own business and dealing with naysayers is essentially – ignore them.
“Never let someone who's never done what you're doing tell you what you can't do,” she said.
Social and Engagement Editor Andria Moore contributed to this post.
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