SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the VIP Show podcast. This is José Eesti Mono, bringing you the biggest names in the game of business, entrepreneurship, and life to help you level up, be inspired, and become the most successful. You already know the VIP show. Let's go. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the VIP show. I'm your host, Josemo. 2026 is well underway. Um, we're you know, we're pretty much almost finished with Q1. It's crazy to me to even think about that. We were I feel like I was celebrating New Year's yesterday. Um but to talk about 2026 and how to monetize your brand, how to make money from this beautiful thing we all have, which is iPhone or an iPhone. Most people have iPhones, anyways. Uh, I got the best, the best of the best, folks, Tara O'Miley, all the way from the great state of Texas. Tara, welcome to the BAP show, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Absolutely honored, Jose.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I am very excited to, the honor is all mine. I'm very excited to have you on the show. Um, before we talk Instagram, before we talk money and community and all these cool things and the courses and what everybody wants to do, but many people don't know how to do. Um who was Tara O'Miley, the little girl growing up? Take me back.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

The little girl. Uh, the little girl was, you know, born to run from Jump Street, I do believe. And we actually have photographic documentation of that as well, of course. Um, you know, growing up in uh kind of like a country town in Massachusetts, my father owned his own business. Uh, he was in the home improvement industry. He was always running his own business with roofing, window sidings, helping people with home improvement. So I kind of took to that from a very young age, watching him get his own customers. You know, back in those days, there was no such thing as Instagram or even social media. So, you know, I really watched him pound the pavement, go door to door, um, understand how to work his referrals. We didn't have a lot of money growing up. So, you know, my daycare was, you know, him running his business. My daycare was my mother's master's degree. So, you know, I really got hands-on training from jumpstream as a little girl, and I I guess that's how it all began.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Wow, wow. That's uh, you know, it it's it's a real deal. It's a real deal. And I think some of our best lessons sometimes don't happen in school or in college, they happen out of college, out of school. And for you, I think growing up at an early age, you kind of started doing that. And watching your dad, I'm sure, hustle and work and grind. And and I have two little girls on my own, three and six, and I take them to I'll take them to work with me as an entrepreneur and take them to two different things. I'll take them and talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Right, so they're experiencing that through you as well. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

So, so it's always a fun, a fun time, and they learn a lot. I I mean, they you know, I'm not like anti-school, but I they learn that they teach, we teach them things at school. I know, I know, I know. But I'm gonna go viral and skin. But but, anyways, um talking about Instagram and talking to everything. Well, before we talk about that, I want to know. So you you were you were born in Massachusetts, you live in Texas now. Um before you got into Instagram, what what were you up to? What were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Well, you know, I opened my first business when I was 19. It just was very natural to me. I I knew what I wanted to be doing. I knew that I wanted to run my own business, build my own business, help other people learn how to do the same thing. So I opened a promotional marketing company where I was, I had partnerships with some pretty big name third-party companies like Disney, Samsonite, Warner Brothers, things like that. And through relationship building, just kind of working my way up the ranks and the conversations with those companies, I was able to be supplied product and start a distribution company. So this was all promotional marketing where I had built my business, again, pounding the pavement, door to door, going business to business. And I also built and developed a sales team of my own in the process of building my business. So the people that were working for me literally saw me building from the ground up. So when it came time for me to sponsor them and promote them and help them open their own businesses doing the same thing, they were able to take that tangible experience that they had watching me build mine where I would help them build their own. So I did that. We opened about 12 promotional marketing companies underneath the umbrella up and down the East Coast. And that led me a little bit into the southern states where I opened a few satellite offices, we'll call them, uh, down here in some of the southern states. And this is all in my 20s, so I had kind of gotten a southern bug, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

From there I shifted because that, you know, that really wasn't my passion. It wasn't exactly my calling per se, working with Disney and Warner Brothers, but the path was most definitely the passion. So I shifted my talents and my skill sets, and I actually partnered with the automotive industry and I took on some really strong partnerships with some of the most we'll say announced auto groups in the New England area, and some, you know, some pretty strong and dominant automotive icons, if you will, companies like Lexis, Cadillac, GMC, some pretty big names, and started getting more into the tech and data and systems analytics side of things, understanding audience behavior, customer behavior, and really understanding how to read that data. And what I learned during this time frame is when you understand how a system is working and you yourself learn how to develop a system and read it based solely off the data, when it comes to the foresight of your business success, of your financial success, of your customer base, uh it's kind of like looking into a crystal ball.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. I I couldn't agree with you more. That I I I love that, and and obviously talking about systems, the only way I believe that you can make money on the internet, that you can make money in this digital economy is by understanding systems. I mean we before you tell me anything else. I'm sure all that knowledge that you learn in the automotive industry, in the promotional marketing industry, you brought it to the digital world.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

I brought it right with me. Right with me. I just made a a shift. I just transferred all of my knowledge and experience from everything I had gathered over those years in those industries and just flipped it right into the the world of Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Well, and when do you start doing that? When do you start uh bringing all that knowledge to to Instagram?

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I started in late 2024 when I first, you know, jumped, when I first made this decision and made this shift onto Instagram. It was very logical to me. It made perfect sense. Um, I knew straight away that I was going to have to learn the platform. I was going to have to learn the system. So I myself went through a lot of testing. I opened several different accounts. I opened several different niche accounts to test different types of content, to test different types of engagements and things like this. And a lot of it, and unfortunately, this is still what most people are doing, is you know, as we say, spaghetti on the wall, right?

unknown 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Um, so I, you know, I knew straight away that I was gonna have to just kind of crack this puppy open and look at everything from the back end. We're gonna have to track the data, we're gonna have to look at the systems. I want to know the system that Instagram runs on, recognizes, and rewards. So I spent the first probably three to five months just analyzing all that data and cracking that code to the system that Instagram itself actually runs on, recognizes, and rewards.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, that I I couldn't agree with you more. 2026, I mean, I'm sure you've you've seen changes since 2024 of what's working, what's not working. Um, for folks that are uh either starting out or maybe they feel stuck and they feel like they have to like almost start all over again, whether it's with an account or just resetting the settings um on your current account. What are things that people can do today if they want to reach there's a lot of drama around like Shadow Band and this and that? I'm only here, I'm only hitting a hundred views and I have 10,000 followers, like something's broken. Is is Instagram broken or does tarot Molly have the secret key?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Instagram is not broken. Instagram is getting smarter. The algorithm is tightening every second of every day. See, the shift that we're really seeing now is say two years ago, Jose, three years ago, really anybody could post on Instagram. They could go viral, start monetizing. What an incredible, what an incredible world we live in. That is no longer the case. Right now we have 150,000 new users joining Instagram every day. So these systems have to tighten. So for the people who are stuck and struggling, the first thing that really needs to be understood is Instagram has its own job. Its only job is to distribute content to where it needs to be distributed to. So if your account is not clear, if you're not categorized, if you're not sending the right signals, if you are not in algorithmic alignment, the system is in a position where it literally cannot push your content to your ideal target audience because you're not giving it enough information for it to do its job. It can't deliver. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

That is work that that sounds powerful. Talk to me a little bit about that. And when you're talking to me about sort of like having a one clear message, um do you have to like niche down? They say the you know the registrar in the niches. I don't know if that works, that doesn't work, but you tell me though, do you how clear do you have to be in in your messaging? And talk to me a little bit about the algorithm alignment. I'm curious to know what that means.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Well, algorithmic alignment is really the starting point, it's the foundation of how you should build your Instagram. Again, the the algorithm's only job is to take your content and put it where it belongs. It can't do that without the proper data, and of course, it's going to get that data from your account. So your algorithmic alignment is the data that you send to the account, or I'm sorry, that you send from your account to the algorithm. So this starts with your profile. The algorithm is not one thing, it's sectioned off into about seven different sectors. And the first one and the foundational piece is your profile. So this is the first thing that the algorithm reads is your username, your handle, your bio, your highlights. And what we're looking here for is ideally the highest ranking SEO in someone's niche or for their target audience that they are trying to reach. So that's the first level of clarity of your algorithmic alignment. The next level is going to be where else the algorithm pulls from. So it's going to pull from your reels tab, it's going to pull from your stories, your DMs. So if in my bio I have Dog Mom, Love to Travel, At-Home Baker, and in my reels, I'm talking about Instagram growth and my new skincare product, the algorithm is going haywire. It has no idea where to put your content because those signals are so crossed. When you have a setup like this, you are clearly not in algorithmic alignment.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah. Such a powerful statement. So, what happens, um, for example, for an entrepreneur that maybe wants to do coaching, but they also want to show their life, like traveling, because they want to inspire people, right? Like they want to travel the world on their, I don't know, private jet or they want to show their whatever they do, right? Can you do some of that? Do you always have to go back home to the basic, to like your main message, or what will you do in that case?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Well, I think in the first case is really the foundation, right? It's that categorization uh layer of building your profile, making sure it's very clear. This usually takes 30 to 90 days, depending on if you're starting brand new or if we're resurrecting a dead account, but making sure your categorization is clear and the algorithm is in a position where it trusts your account and it will push your account. Now, what you're talking about here is the best way that anyone could possibly build their business because your audience on social media wants to see your life. I want to see you sit down at Thanksgiving. I want to see you on your Hawaii trip. I want to see your dog, but also tell me more about your coaching program. Why is all of this so necessary? Because I need to know you before I buy from you. So this is a this is a part where people really need to begin to understand their own content pillars. And these could be different for everyone. For myself personally, my content pillars are my personal brand, Instagram growth, the algorithm, and sales. I teach people how to turn their content into views, how to turn your views into followers, and how to turn your followers into buyers.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

But is there yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

I was gonna say if if I'm in a uh home industry field, my content pillars are gonna be different than that, though.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Correct. Exactly, exactly. So you gotta kind of know your own brand and what are your different buckets. I call them, you know, your buckets. So so you can get that, get that going. For people, so so you you talk about you kind of like the sequence, right? You get you get the views, then you get the the followers, and then you turn those followers into clients, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Do you still use, and I hear different things, and this is the problem? I love the internet, but the problem with it is that everybody's got a freaking opinion, right? If you google reason why this works, and then reason why this doesn't work, but for you, and and you're in the trenches, right? Um, do you like do people need to do do people need to uh still have a CTA for like a free, like a free lead bag, and like, hey, here's my free PDF, here's my free thing, download this so then you can get their info and you can and slowly but surely they'll buy from you.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I think that's a part of the process. Does it need to be on every single piece of content? No. There's different types of content as well, right? I create a lot of top-of-funnel content where I give all kinds of information out for free. So when I have someone comment my keyword, they know that they're getting the latest piece of whichever information bomb I'm gonna drop for free, right? But not everything needs a CTA. And the next question is how valuable is that free offer for your audience? And this is something that a lot of people say, oh, I just want to give them something so they have something. Maybe I just want people to comment my keyword. But when they receive your free product, how good is it? Is it packed with value? Is it next level? Is it going to keep your audience with you? Because if someone comments your keyword, receives your free product and it's trash, they're probably gonna unfollow you.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, yeah. So it's like a double-edged sword in a way, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Like you would say if you're offering free products, make it the best you possibly can. Give them all the information, help your people. This is this is such an important part that so many people miss. A lot of people are focused on sales. I want to make sales, I want to make all these sales and money and sales. Okay, before we get there, why would anybody buy from you? What are you doing for them so far? I'm I'm a strong believer in serving before selling. That's why I tell everybody everything. I give away everything I possibly can for free. And my course, the algorithm advantage, I could very easily be charging$2,000 for. I charge$99 for lifetime access. Why? Because I want people to succeed. Instagram doesn't care about your niche. There's plenty of room for all business owners and all entrepreneurs to grow and reach the levels of success that they want to attain for themselves. But first things first, we need to understand the system.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Wow, that's so many things. And people struggle with that so much that one of the things that I hear a lot of folks say is they say, Jose, I just don't like I'm afraid that I'm gonna give too much and then they won't buy my course. Like, can I give too much value on my on my page? What am I gonna sell? I'm giving everything away.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

It's actually quite the opposite, and I think that's very common, you know, thinking process for a lot of people is if I tell them everything, they're not gonna need me. That is absolutely not the case. The more you tell them, the more they need you.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Ooh, the more, the more you tell them, the more that they need you. That's powerful, folks. You're listening before we keep on. We're letting you're listening, folks, to the VIP show where with Tara O'Neilly. She is an Instagram guru. I call her like an Instagram magician. She's got the crystal ball. So make sure you you stay on and and and tune in. Um for people to that they want to build a community, and it goes kind of with the same question. I feel like if you have if you have literally a community, you have almost like a cult-like following, the people follow you everywhere. Um in in today's day and age, this is the thing that like another this is another question, and it comes with a community. Everybody's a creator now, almost. Like, you know, if you went to Instagram three, four years ago, there wasn't that many people. Now, with a phone, with Instagram edits, you can edit reels, like make them really fast. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition where there's so so many creators now?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Be yourself, just be yourself. You are one of one for a reason. No one can do what you do, the way you do it, and that is your superpower. A lot of people I you know, you see it all the time. All you know, do this viral hack and follow this viral trend. That's all well and great. Myself personally, I don't focus on trends, I don't focus on hacks. These are, you know, short-term, short-term shortcuts to get yourself views. But this is not how you're going to turn your views into followers and your followers into buyers. Be yourself. If you're sounding like everyone else and looking like everyone else, and using the same fonts and doing the same frameworks, what happens here is you will get some expansion, you will get some views, but if it's what someone else has already done, you're not going to get that following.

unknown 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Views are like traffic. And I think about this in the kind of like an old school brick and mortar type of way for business. If I have a bakery, right? I have a bakery and I am on a very main street and traffic is going by like crazy. I can't count every person that drives by my store as a customer. I can only count the people who walk through the front door. So when you think about views on Instagram, views are just the people who are driving by in traffic. They're not walking through the front door. If you want them to follow you, this is your customer base. So there's going to be content that helps you grow, and that's these hacks and tricks and trends and things like this. That'll help you get views. But your own original content, you being you, really bringing yourself to the table for your audience, that's going to get you your following, and that's The cult like following you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Oh, so so oh so so powerful. That's a golden nugget right there because people are so for valid, right? They want the likes and they want the views, and I know folks who got he they have less followers, they get less likes, and even sometimes even less comments, comments, and they make a whole lot more money than some of the folks that have a lot more followers. It's not always.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, go, go, go. I have under 15,000 followers on Instagram, and in the past 15 months, I've made over a quarter million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, listen to Tara O'Miley, folks. This is if if you want inspiration, let her be an inspiration, let her be a light for you to look at because she just said it less than 15,000 followers, and she made more than a quarter million dollars. Uh, congrats to you, my friend. That is that is amazing. Uh, and you deserve it because you are you are paving the way for yourself and for so many uh other people. Before I let you go, and time freaking flies when you're having fun and you're learning. So I really, I really appreciate you being on the show. Uh, before I two more questions. Um, your course. Tell me about the course, tell me a little bit of like, uh, okay, it's$99. Where can people find it? What makes it different than maybe every other course that's out there?

SPEAKER_01 23:20

So the algorithm advantage is something that I built with all of the missing pieces that I came along the way, right? So when I was building my page, and when I had to go find information with my own skill set that's very unique to me, I knew that if it was missing and I had to go find it, no one else can find it either. And it needs to be inside the algorithm advantage. So it's quite literally all the missing pieces along the way. In addition to that, I didn't want to make it a static course because the platform, social media, everything moves so fast. So the problem that I ran into with a lot of these courses that people create is they create it, people buy it six months later, it's completely outdated. So I've made the algorithm advantage live and interactive, fully, fully updated all the time in real time. And that's also why I grant lifetime access, no upcharges, no upgrade fees, anything else like that. Once you're in, you're in. Um so it's it's plugged directly into meta documentation, updates, algorithm updates, Instagram updates, content structures. It's universal for every niche because Instagram doesn't care about your niche. It only cares about the signals that you send it, it only cares about your alignment. So everything is fully transformed into a translation of layman's terms, basically, for people who are just getting started or people who are stuck in a rut on Instagram, how to make those shifts and how to make those changes for yourself to start excelling your account again, all in real time.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

I love that. I love that. I think he also teaches a lesson that you could be a dog walker, you could be a, I don't know, a gym instructor. I mean, it doesn't really matter. You could have whatever students from every path.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I have pet fluencers, fitness coaches, real estate agents, adult industry people. I like literally, you name it. And I have a student in that niche.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

I love that. I love that. Tara, if people want to find you, they want to work with you, uh, how can they do that?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

They can find me directly on Instagram at Tara O'MalleyOfficial.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Boom, Tara O'Malley Official, everybody. This is Jose Simunio. You are listening, watching the VIP show. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Tara.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Thank you for having me. It's absolutely my honor, Jose.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Thank you.