Interviewing With Serial Entrepreneur and Humanitarian Nicole Tabs

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Tabs who is a serial entrepreneur and humanitarian, with an undeniably impressive resume. She is the CEO of the full-service agency Monarchy Media, co-founder of the modern fitness brand, Upliffs & Co-founder of Serendipity Film Group, a film production company that just announced its first TV series with ABC. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Vanity Fair, and Glamour.

Interviewing With Serial Entrepreneur and Humanitarian Nicole Tabswho

Tabs is a woman and entrepreneur who builds seven-figure brands. And now, she wants to share with other women and anyone who wants to listen that they can do the same.

Can you share with us your background and your career?

Hi, my name is Nicole Tabs, and I come from a mixed background. My dad is Persian/Jewish, and my mom is Filipino/Irish. I was born and raised in Beverly Hills, California. When I was young I was told I had a very business-oriented mind. The way I would see or calculate things was different from how others normally would. My best subject was math, so I’m good with numbers, and I can think logically pretty easily. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. They’ve had many business ventures in the past, including Neopets, Speedyclick, Safety Compliance Services, Aromes du Jardin and more. Neopets inspired me when it went big – there was so much to create and learn from.

My first summer job in high school was at Beverly Hills Weekly, where I was an ad girl- selling ads to companies in our newspaper. It was such a great first job, and I realized I had a lot to learn about sales. The idea of how to sell something to someone was so curious to me, and I wanted to learn more. I hated the feeling of trying to “sell” someone. I wanted to know, how can I sell to someone without actually having to sell to them? I want it to be so relaxed, they don’t even feel they are being sold to.

Can you share with our readers how you started your company and the mission behind it? 

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I started out working with my mom and we began our own film production company. As we were working on finding projects and getting them off the ground, I decided to grow my own brand. So, I started growing my Instagram and began a blog about beauty, fitness, food, travel, etc. It was fun to learn this new social media world and the definition of being an influencer. Back then it was still relatively new, and I thought businesses and influencers could have a rough time working together since they both speak a different language.

I met with a friend who knew many brands, and he could get in touch with companies and send them my way to use me as an influencer. Then I told him I had influencer friends, and maybe the brands would want to use them too. He said yes, and that was when I created the idea of a company that connected influencers with brands. That was the birth of my company, Monarchy. Over the next couple of years, we discovered people need help with many areas of their companies, and we went from an influencer company to a creative marketing agency, and now a full business development company.

Fun fact – that friend is my husband today! But that’s for another story, for another time!

So what do we do today? We scale companies.

Where we used to take on clients and charge a monthly fee, we no longer do that today. We are invested in the companies we choose. We want to make you GROW. We PARTNER with companies and expand them. This includes doing marketing, sales training, business strategy development, business model scaling, etc. Our mission is to help businesses that have a great purpose to forward and contribute to humanity and scale their businesses

How is diversity in the workplace evolving, how does it play into your company and its mission?

Everyone deserves an equal opportunity. I, myself, am Persian/Filipino/Irish/Jewish, and my husband/partner is Italian. Our company is FILLED with people from around the world.

The most important element we look for in a person is skill. Can this person do the job? That is the defining factor of whether we want to hire them or not. No matter where you are from, if you have the skill, you deserve to get the job.

Our Lead Designer is from the Philippines, our COO and CTO are from Italy, our Media Director is from the United States, and the list goes on to Dominican Republic, Kenya, South Africa and more.

During the pandemic many people lost their jobs and livelihood, how did your company adapt and pivot during this time to be what it is today?

We actually 10xed our company during the pandemic. That doesn’t mean it was easy and the pandemic didn’t affect us, because it did.  We were still taking on clients rather than partners, and as the pandemic hit our clients, that hit us too. They couldn’t pay us as much, they had to slow down business, they were losing hope, etc. So we could have also given up and just lost hope ourselves.

But instead, we decided to change our business model. Not only did we change ours, but we helped one of our clients, who has now turned into a partner, change their business model as well as become pandemic proof, and scale no matter what happens.

Changing your business model to become pandemic/emergency proof is really important. Every business should do that.

We ended up 5xing that client’s company during the pandemic by changing their method of operations. They even expanded and opened up two more locations! By the end of 2020, we looked back and saw how much we went through, and we 10xed our company. We looked at 2021, and we wanted another 10x. But I didn’t want just 10x of what we had, I didn’t just want 10x of the income or 10x the clients, I wanted 10x of the quality of life and business opportunities.

Truthfully, while we were able to help with marketing, these companies needed more. They needed sales training, structure, strategy, and scaling. So with our new evolution, companies came to us and we took on a partnership role, and now we are scaling multiple businesses simultaneously, creating the 10x we wanted!

We created more jobs and business opportunities for other people which was GREAT during the pandemic. So we definitely took a difficult situation and turned it around.

If you could go back and talk to your younger self what would you tell her and why? 

When I was young, I wasn’t very confident and was extremely shy. I always felt out of place. I envied popular people, wishing I could ooze the same confidence. When it came to boys, I always felt they could never like me. I always had concerns about what other people thought of me, what they would think about anything I said or did, and just stayed within my own “box”.

Growing up, I thought things had to be a certain way. I predicted the popular kids would grow up together and always be popular, the unpopular kids would always remain unpopular, we would all stay within our respective circles, boys didn’t think I was pretty, I  was always shy and not really the outspoken one, no one would ever really want me to lead anything, etc.

BOY WAS I WRONG! My whole life changed as I grew up. Popular and unpopular were once you become an adult, and I realized I could keep being shy, or not. I could decide not to, and just train myself to be more outspoken. I practiced not being shy, put myself in uncomfortable situations, forced myself to speak to others and start conversations.

The thing I kept in mind is you can’t take each situation too seriously. If a conversation is not going the way you want it to, move on to the next. The more you keep talking to people, the more you have an understanding of HOW to talk to people.

But what I would tell my younger self is this- what is it that you are most passionate about? My answer: helping people. Whatever you do, you always like to help people. So in helping people, how can you contribute to that? Build your confidence not just for the sake of feeling accepted, but because your mission is to help people. Today, I help people expand their businesses. I have a film production company, a fitness company, and a humanitarian group to help artists. Everything I do is an effort to help someone else. That is what is important. My confidence was built through my actions and willingness to be able to help someone. Use your experiences, good or challenging, for the betterment of your life. Learn from them and think about how I can help someone else by using this information. So you can start getting past barriers in order to accomplish your goals.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? 

Yes! The client I referred to earlier, who is now our partner that we helped through the pandemic, we have not only opened more locations, we launched the franchising of Body Contourz! The first 2 franchises have signed, one of them officially opened in the last month, and the second one is set to open in the next month!

We are partnering with 9 additional companies and getting ready for their growth.

Our film production company’s TV series is set to air in 2022 called Women of the Movement on ABC.

I recently launched my YouTube Series called “Keeping Tabs”, which is all about: How to Level Up in All Areas of Your Life. This series is all about my experiences and how I grew to where I am today. My goal is to help my viewers with their journeys.

I also have a humanitarian group called Uplift Art, a group with the mission to support the dreamers and believers that create our future tomorrow by forwarding positivity through artists and their art.

Where do you see yourself and your career going in this new year and in the future? 

I see us continuing to expand and help more and more businesses, creating a real empire. Not only through direct partnering, but through consulting/coaching. I also see myself helping other young women in similar positions as I was in building THEIR empires. Consulting, coaching, and really being there to help someone achieve their dreams.

We are here to help others grow. That is what we want. Any way that I can form an impact on someone for the better, is great. Through film production and storytelling, directly helping their businesses, giving tips on my YouTube Series, helping people get into shape through fitness, or helping artists through my group. I can’t wait to expand even more!

How can our readers connect with you on social media? 

Instagram: @nicole.tabs

YouTube Series: Keeping Tabs https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAJi00_s-YPBU_1avImx3Kg?sub_confirmation=1

Twitter: @nicoletabs

LinkedIn: Nicole Tabs

Instagram: @monarchy.io @serendipitygroup @upliffs @uplift.art

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