Today in the guest chair we have Zakia Blain, the Founder of FCKbeingFAT (FBF Fitness). With no background in fitness, but plenty of background in every fad diet and weight loss trick around, Zakia simply wanted to inspire others, while helping them lose weight the right way.
Sometimes difficult circumstances in life lead us on a path to our purpose. Zakia Blain was diagnosed with a brain disorder and had to leave her stressful job. Not long after her diagnosis and while she was still working full-time, she started FBF Fitness, as a way to empower herself and other people to live their best, most healthy lives.
FBF started as a fitness challenge on Instagram, with only eight people, and is now a full-fledged business offering fitness apparel, body shapers, body oils, and more. What’s her secret to success? Authenticity. She walks the talk, uses the products she promotes, and openly shares her weight loss journey with her customers.
What’s really interesting about Zakia’s story is, she doesn’t have any formal business training. She went to school for interior design, early childhood education, and psychology. It was a learn-as-you go process while starting her business and there were bumps along the way, but her passion for helping people motivated her to keep going.
In episode 150 of Side Hustle Pro, she shares how walking in her purpose led her to build her business. Here are just a few of the helpful tips she shared:
- How to manage manufacturer relationships
- Ways to revamp marketing tactics when products aren’t selling
- Customer service practices that will keep most people happy
Through the creation of her international FBF Weight loss Challenge and FBF Fitness apparel, she has managed to do just that.
While on the journey to expand FBF Fitness, Zakia discovered that her audience was interested in shapewear. So rather than promote another company’s brand, she decided to create her own and, with that, FBF Fitness evolved into FBF Body. The highly sought after shapewear has taken on a cult following of its own, largely in part due to Zakia’s open and honest method of sharing herself actually wearing it and looking amazing while doing so.
In today’s episode, we will learn how she got started, how she works through having a brain disorder to grow her business, and the hard lessons she’s learned along the way about hiring and more. Let’s get right into it.
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