Tammy Hembrow

1| Who is Tammy Hembrow?

First and foremost, I am a mother. I have two beautiful babies, Wolf and Saskia, two and three years old. I have two companies; my fitness company, Tammy Hembrow Health and Fitness, where I have my fitness app and programs. And I have my clothing brand, Saski Collection, which is my active wear brand.

2| How did your journey start?

I first started posting about my life, what I was doing day to day. I would share my fitness journey and I started getting a really amazing response. Once things started growing really quickly and I realised I could turn this into a platform and a business and I can make something out of this. So, it was quite early on when I realized that I could grow it into something really special.

3| What important lesson have you learned so far?

One of the biggest lessons I have learned is not to wait around for the right time. Start with what you have and what you know. When I first started, I did not have money. I started my first business with nothing, pretty much. I created my workout techniques and nutrition programs online and I used Instagram to promote it. Luckily it became really successful and I used that to fund my next business.

There’s no perfect time to start. There’s no point just waiting around for more money to fund something or the right timing for it. If you don’t start, you’re not, well, going to start.

4| You are a significant influencer. What advice do you have for other people who want to grow the followers on Instagram?

Be yourself. Be authentic. People will be able to tell if you’re being fake, being unnatural and putting on a show, or having a fake life. People are smarter than you think. They will be able to tell that. I feel that’s why a lot of people follow me, because I show a bit of myself, it’s not just pretty pictures, it’s also a look into my life.

Another thing would be to post often. I try to post every single day to keep people engaged and up to date with what’s happening.

5| What are the attributes that make an influencer an amazing influencer?

Being authentic is really important. Also, being passionate. You have to be passionate about something for people to want to join the ride. For me that’s fitness, fashion, and my family. Those are all things a lot of other people are interested in so they can relate to that. I feel it’s important to show what you are passionate about.

It is not just about posting aesthetically pleasing photos. You can post those, but also showing things in your life, I feel that’s the difference between a lot of influencers. Some just post really beautiful photos but their followers don’t know the person behind it. It’s important to show a bit of yourself.

6| How did Saski Collection start?

It started with just me and my sister, Amy. I go to the gym almost every day and I love fashion as well, and felt I need to put these two together. I always wanted my own business and I thought it was just the perfect time to start. We were really just figuring everything out from the beginning by ourselves. I did not know how to run a business, what went into it; all the manufacturing all the processes, everything was learning as we go. It was a big job and a lot went into it, but I am so glad we started. We’ve only been open for just over a year now and we’ve already grown so much. And now we have employees and headquarters, it’s amazing!

7| What are 3 struggles that you experienced when starting Saski Collection?

1. Knowing where to begin There was so much I didn’t know about, so I felt overwhelmed at times. I realised I just had to take it one day at a time and learn as much as I could. Because it started out just my sister and myself, we had to learn about shipping, manufacturing and customer service. In the beginning, we were printing orders from my house and counting and packing the orders ourselves. It was a lot but I had never had employees before and I wasn’t sure exactly what we would need. I’m glad we started this way though because we both knew the ins and outs of the business and trained our employees ourselves.

2. Stock levels The situation with Saski Collection was unique because it already grew an audience before launching so when we did launch our first drop of stock, we sold out immediately, within minutes actually. With turnaround times not fully under control and the business funding itself after my initial investment, we bought new stock with the money we made, and have continued to do this. Because of this we ended up with periods where we were out of stock for quite some time but we have managed to use this to create a kind of exclusivity and hype around the brand so it’s a good problem to have in the end. We do focus on buying more stock with each order and we have seen the brand grow from this.

3. Tech problems Your digital platform is so important! I can’t stress this enough. We had so many technical problems from the get go. We oversold stock through our website and ended up having to either refund customers or put them on a waiting list. Since this I have built a personal knowledge of the back end of my site, switched to a platform I really trust that works seamlessly. It costs more but it’s invaluable in comparison to the money and customers I lost because of the issues with my old site.

8| If you look back at your journey with Saski Collections, what obstacles did you encounter that you would tell people to avoid?

Don’t freak out over the obstacles. You will face obstacles; it’s inevitable. We had a lot of issues in the beginning. We had website issues, we had problems just here and there. In the beginning I freaked out. I was crying on our launch day! Now, when we have a problem like that, you just stay calm and learn from it. You look at it and say: Ok, this happened. How can we fix it? How can we stop it from happening next time? Don’t sweat the small stuff because it is going to teach you something in the end.

9| What do you know now that you wish you knew back then?

I wish I knew how important it is to have a lot of help, and to have a team. In the beginning I wanted to do it all by myself and I learned very quickly that I could not do everything. You need to have a team. My success is because of my team. You need supportive people helping you and you need people that have the same vision as you because you’re not going to be able to get where you want to be by yourself.

10| Being a public figure, how do you deal with haters?

It used to get to me a little bit. It has taken me a while just to be able to brush it off. I try to focus on the positive. There are so many positive comments and amazing support, so I try to just focus on that. Remember who you are. Don’t let comments get to you. Just stay confident in who you are. I know myself, my family knows me, my friends know me. And if someone says something horrible or untrue, you’re just like “that’s not true” You just have to teach yourself to react like that. I always tell myself the more people that love you, the more people will hate you. As my following has grown, I got more and more haters, but I’ve got all these people that love me, so you just need to focus on the positive.

11| Name one thing people don’t know about you.

I’m actually really shy. I think social media has helped me come more out of my shell. It’s one thing to post a photo or vlog of me with my family but if you see me in person I might come across as more reserved.

12| You are the mother of two beautiful small kids. You have to juggle business life, motherhood, Instagram… How do you do that?

It can be very tricky. In the beginning it was all a mess. You just need to get into a routine. You figure everything out as you go. My kids are always my number one priority. I am lucky I have my mom around. So, their grandma helps out a lot! If I have a meeting to run to or anything, I get Grandma to come over and watch them for a little while. Being an entrepreneur, I can do a lot of work from home if I need to. It’s just about figuring out what works for you and what works for your schedule and your life.

13| The person that we see on Instagram, is that the real Tammy or do you have two sides? Do you have an Instagram Tammy and an at home Tammy?

I show the at home Tammy sometimes on Instagram. There are definitely other sides that people don’t see. I am just a normal person, at the end of the day. I do try to show myself through YouTube and try to be as authentic as possible, but it is different when you are behind a camera.

14| You were on the cover of Cosmopolitan, how did that happen?

People voted for me to be on the cover. There were two other girls that were also on the cover. I was so amazed. Each time something like that happens, I am thinking “Wow, all these people voted for me!” It’s so amazing. That’s something I never dreamt would happen. It was such a surreal thing to have happened. We actually have a giant photo of it hanging in the office. (Laughing)

15| If you could give entrepreneurs one last tip, what would that be?

Follow your passion and let that help you find your purpose. Don’t just follow your passion and create a business out of it. There’s got to be some purpose behind that.