Convos with Course Creators: How Nikki Bergen Scaled Her Pilates Empire Online

Ever wondered how to pivot your service-based business into a thriving online empire? In this episode, we’re diving deep into the inspiring journey of Nikki Bergen, creator of The Belle Method and The Bump Method. 

From teaching 25 in-person classes a week to scaling her business online during the pandemic, Nikki shares how she turned her expertise in women's health into a powerful and values-driven online brand.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The surprising ways the pandemic forced Nikki to pivot—and why it led to explosive growth.
• How she scaled her Pilates business beyond in-person classes to reach thousands online.
• The key to adding value to online offerings and creating impactful client experiences.
• Why authenticity doesn’t mean sharing everything—and how to decide what to post.
• How Nikki’s bold, fact-driven approach to women's health advocacy builds trust and loyalty.
• Why understanding your audience’s pain points is essential to standing out online.

Ready to scale your business like Nikki? Whether you’re a service provider or an entrepreneur exploring online courses, this episode is packed with actionable insights on turning expertise into scalable success.

➡️ Follow Nikki Bergen on Instagram @TheBelleMethod or visit TheBelleMethod.com to explore her programs for every stage of women’s health, from prenatal to perimenopause and beyond.

Don’t forget to check out Nikki’s podcast, We Go There, for candid conversations about women’s health topics most consider “TMI.”

Subscribe for more Convos with Course Creators—and learn how entrepreneurs are transforming their businesses through online courses and memberships.

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Transcript

It's a pretty natural progression for a service provider to want to become a course creator. That is what I did. Right. I started as a service provider with a social media management agency. We scaled that up. We brought on more team members and I quickly realized I could serve way more people.

Bye. Teaching a woman to fish, right. Instead of giving a woman a. A fish.

Since a lot of my listeners are interested in possibly becoming a course creator, or maybe you already are a course or membership creator yourself. I'm introducing this small series called convos with course creators.

If you see a shiny new client's episode that starts with conversations with course creators, and then someone's name.  That means in that episode, we are interviewing a successful course creator about how the ideated, their course, how it came to be, how they've scaled it, what got them to where they were, what made them so successful? 



Things like that. And my hope for this series is that, of course, as always, you have actionable takeaways, but also that you can see that you have this within reach as a possibility. If you want to become a course creator, you absolutely can. 

And I'm going to introduce you to a bunch of successful course creators. Who are people just like you.

With that. I present the episode   Come back with me. I'm a bartender. I'm an actor. I'm volunteering at a yoga studio on Sunday mornings, often exhausted, occasionally hung over. And in walks this beautiful ball of blonde light, Nikki Bergen. I had the pleasure of meeting. And usually our paths only crossed. in the waiting room.  But you know when you meet someone and you're like, that person has it.

So Nikki Bergen is the creator of the Bell Method and the Bump Method, and she's an expert trainer and Pilates instructor. And I would say the main thing is helping prenatal, postnatal \ people who are having babies, helping them with their core strength and recovery and not being so scared of the process.

Nikki, is that what you would say that your expertise is?  Saving vaginas, my friend. That is, that is my jam. My jam is to help you tear less and recover more quickly. Whether you're having a c section, it's helping you cover your core more quickly. And also now that I'm, I'm getting up there, my friend. I'm 43 now, so I'm really interested in perimenopause too.

So helping women through all phases of their life, not just pre and postpartum. Oh, amazing. So, so needed. And it's obvious, , to me, why that took off online or , in part, why you took off so much on social media, because of how you just said it, right? You're blunt, but clear and incredibly helpful. And this is something that not a lot of people even know how to talk about because women's health doesn't get the attention that it deserves. 

You know it. It's true. Yeah, it's funny.  , you had asked me earlier about, like, my Instagram journey, and I have to say that It was never this like specific goal or intention of like, I'm going to grow on Instagram. It literally came from sharing the things that I'm doing, the workouts that I'm doing.

I never had time to be honest, to share a lot on Instagram prior to the pandemic, because I was teaching 25 classes a week. And when you're out of your house, Shelfing around the city, teaching classes in privates, you come home and it's dark and there's no light to record videos and you're dealing with dinners and family and whatever.

So it wasn't really until the pandemic when I was cooped up in my house, pregnant, being like, okay, what am I going to do? Normally I would be teaching a gazillion classes right now. I guess I'll record myself and post it for the internet to see. And that's when things grew because I was also pregnant with my second.

When the lockdown happened, I think I was about 33 weeks pregnant. So clearly showing and surrounded by women who were. Frankly, freaking the hell out because they were often was their first. I kind of felt lucky that I'd gone through it before. And so I had a bit more of this kind of kind of perspective.

Um, and I had all these pregnant women that I had been teaching in Toronto and my sold out classes for years who were all like, Oh my God, we need support. So I said, okay, we're going to hop on zoom. I got you. Like we're still together. And then I realized, well, I can open this up now. You don't need a waiting list.

Like , sky's the limit.  We can share the zoom link with everybody. , and so my classes grew from like 20 to like 200 and it just got bigger and bigger. , and I think also because I was pregnant too, you know, like I was in it with them. I was living it alongside everybody. I love your pregnant content and I love that you continue to share pregnant content.

I think when you're not pregnant anymore, but you still have the clips and I love, there's something fascinating about it. Watching a pregnant person to pull out his routine. And I wonder if that's part of it too, is it's like that I'm not your target demographic, but I freaking love the videos. It's like, I love, you know.

 I'm glad. You know, yeah, the prenatal stuff, I think anything that's visual, like the stuff that's gone viral for me outside of like funny memes has been, , some of the stuff where you're showing a pregnant belly and then you're doing this exercise where the belly wraps in and it looks like a party trick where you're like, she's nine months pregnant.

Now she's only six months pregnant. Where did the baby go? That catches the stroll. People stop scrolling. They want to see that. , and it's not meant to be a party check. It's a real thing. But it is visually, right? And it's a visual app. So people want to be entertained visually. So that's a wild trajectory that you never could have seen coming.

Do you think you would have focused on scaling your business if it weren't for having to go online? , did you have irons in the fire for ways you were going to scale up? Because teaching 25 classes a week, you must have realized, like, that you weren't going to be able to do that forever if you continued doing live and in that, in that fashion, you know? 

Totally. Totally. Totally. I mean,  I already had an online program which I was selling as well So I already had some Instagram content and you know marketing and my website all set up. So I was already online I already had e commerce products. I was selling we called them digital DVDs Um, it was a one time purchase and they got to access it and log in and view it.

 So I already had a website that could function that way, but my main source of income was still teaching. And I had teachers working for me. We were, we had locations all around Toronto. So I was scaling from the sense of other teachers working for me. Um, you know, and I was training them and that was how it was scaling, but it wasn't, you know, Like you couldn't get 200 people out of class.

You know what I mean? Um, and so yeah, the pandemic was really hard, but for me, it really was a kick in the ass to actually like, it forced me. Plus when you're pregnant, you're like a ticking time bomb. I hate to use that analogy, but you're like, I literally have six weeks to figure this out. Cause once this baby's here, like nothing's getting done.

So I better do it fast. And I couldn't hesitate. Right. I knew. That time was not a luxury that I had. So I had to pivot real fast if I wanted to have any semblance of a mat leave, cause I'm self employed and that all just went up in flames. Like I had all these people in all these locations around Toronto, 12 locations.

They were all supposed to be teaching for me. And all of a sudden everything got shut down. We had to refund tens of thousands of dollars to people. And I was like, shit, what am I going to do now? I've got to go teach on zoom.  That's so scary. So , amidst all of this, you're showing up online and just doing what you do, which is just teaching and giving and explaining and showcasing.

And is that sort of where your head was at? Like, I'll just show, I'll just show the people what I would show them in real life if they were in front of me?  I think we all, there was a rush in fitness at the very beginning of the pandemic where everybody was just doing like free classes on zoom, everybody was, and we were all, and some people got really upset because it was like, you know, you know, you're not valuing your work and we were all, we didn't know, we were all like, let's just, we got to get out there.

Like we just, we missed our clients. We missed doing what we did. We just, we felt like maybe this will only last two weeks and we'll just do this as a solid for everybody. You know, we had no idea. It was like two years. , and then all of a sudden, we're like, Yeah, we can't keep keep doing this for for nothing.

 You know, we need to feed ourselves. So, , I just sort of grew. I think for me, teaching on zoom obviously is not the same as in person. So I knew that I'm taking away that in person connection. I'm taking away the ability to do hands on adjustments for people. I had to add something back in to add additional value.

And for me, that was  essentially more theory, more education, stuff that you never have a time to really get into. In a studio because studio people show up they stretch we warm up we talk We do our workout and then we chat a little bit after there's no powerpoint presentation in the yoga studio There's no pdf that i'm handing out.

There's no expert interview of a gynecologist or an obstetrician telling them more about the anatomy of their pelvic floor and I was like I can do this online I'll build a course. So now you're going to have the zoom classes, but in addition to that, you're going to get all this other evidence based education that I would tell my private clients, but it was never in a pretty package with the bow, with the PDFs and the syllabi and the videos and all these things.

So I was like, okay, this is how I add value back from taking away in person. I have to add value back somewhere. That's so lucky for us. So lucky for your clients because, you know, everybody's brain works differently, right? I broke my arm this summer and I'm in physio now and every time he was, he's like, I'm getting, you know, my workout with Derek.

I'm like, can you explain to me? What's actually happening, and he loves to nerd out about it, and he'll bring out the little mock shoulder, and he'll show me exactly, like, what a tendon is and stuff, and for me, that makes me recover quicker, actually understanding it. Some people are going to be fine to come into a classroom, do what Nikki says, and then leave, but some people are actually going to  improve faster and learn faster because they actually understand what's happening in their body.

So, you've also expanded the amount of people you can help and the ways that you can help the different brains. Yeah, I like that, that idea of the different brains for sure, and so much around  navigating birth specifically now is Advocating for yourself and you can't advocate for yourself and find your voice and speak up about your needs if you don't know what the heck you're talking about, you need to know the evidence, you need to have confidence to say, I decline in that intervention, I decline to come onto my back to push for your convenience because that's not evidence based and here's why and feel like you can say that because you know what you're talking about and that only comes through education.

Okay, question. Some of those topics you just mentioned are a little controversial. They stir the pot, they ruffle the feathers. How much do you bring those opinions onto your social media, knowing that they might be a little bit polarizing for some people? It's not an opinion, my friend. It's a fact. Ah, okay.

It's not an opinion. It's in the ACOG, which stands for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It's in the SOGC, which is the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Canada.  You should have Complete autonomy over your birthing position, but doctors are trained to catch babies with women on their back with their feet and stirrups, and therefore are not as comfortable catching babies in other positions.

So, we're often manipulated or coerced into being on our back when that's the last, it's, it's shown to be negative in terms of increasing pushing time, having more tailbone pain, injuries, postpartum, increasing risk of tearing, slowing down their labor. Or painful, all of these things. So the controversial part isn't the fact that that's just the fact, the controversial part.

Yeah. The truth, the controversial part is how you say it. And what I have observed is that if I say that pushing on your back is wrong, and I, by the way, I never say it that way. Some people will interpret that for me to say. Either A, you were weak and didn't find your voice and didn't advocate for yourself, or B, something about how you gave birth was inherently wrong.

And I'm, and they might feel shame or like I'm shaming them for having pushed on their back. And I know this because over the years of the comments, I see it, right? And so I'm very clear to say, you should have choice. And I literally capitalize that like in bold capital letters. The point is choice. If you want to be on your back, that should be your choice.

You shouldn't be forced there. And some women. Want to be on their back, especially if they have an epidural or maybe they're tired and they just really feel more comfortable And they can connect better to their pushing in that position. Cool. I'm gonna show you tips on how to save your tailbone Roll up a towel provide a little bit of clearance for that extension that needs to happen in your sacrum when you're pushing a baby Out.

I'm gonna show you tools to make that work for you. My point and my mission is is to help women advocate for themselves and for their needs. And so, if you don't want to be on your back, and you're being told you have to be on your back, You can say no, and here's the evidence to support that. That's, that's not controversial.

The controversial part is the way people interpret what I'm saying. And that's, what's their trigger. And that's not on me, that's on them. I try, but ultimately you're gonna trigger some people. , I stru I struggle with that. I struggle with deeply, inherently knowing when somebody's fighting me in the comments or whatever, that it's a them thing. 

I struggle with that. I just take it all on and stay up at night. Like, that's how I handle it, typically. No, no, no. I mean, the more you do this, the more, kind of, thicker skin you get. You know your intentions are pure, and I have learned over the years that Not everyone's going to read the caption either, right?

And that's it. You write it. Like, it should be your choice. There is nothing, literally, there's nothing wrong with the thing on your back  if that's your choice. What's wrong is being forced into a position that you don't want to be in. Period. And I think everyone who's sane recognizes the truth in that statement.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Fair. A hundred percent. , I'm learning a lot and quite happy to, and it's making me want your program , even though I'm not pregnant.  Actually, what, do you want to tell us who it's for? Because anyone that's listening right now and is still here is like fascinated as I am, I'm sure. 

Okay. So basically the Bell Method has programs for you at all stages. So whether that's preconception, pregnancy. Postpartum, when you had a baby like three weeks ago, that's like as early as you can start three weeks postpartum if you want to, like 30 years ago, I've had women who were in their 60s who are finally rehabbing their pelvic floor.

So it's not just like, oh, you have to be in this window of having had a baby. And then there's beyond that. I've got, you know, really intense. Challenging programs that will make you really curse my name. So I call them Pilates on crack. I don't know if that's kosher or not, but it's really mean stuff, like really mean and not for pregnancy, not for postpartum, like people who are just like, I want to get super jacked and build some muscle, then I got that for you too.



 I started teaching really mean Pilates and I was doing it.

For like 10 years before I got into prenatal. But it's just that prenatal is what made me blow up on Instagram, even though I had been doing the regular stuff for a decade prior. So, you know, like I've been doing, teaching Pilates now for like 18 years. I wasn't doing just prenatal that entire time, you know, I was doing mean stuff. 

I, this mean thing is hilarious. I love this language.  Being with love, like heart, like challenging workouts that are, I would not recommend for you if you're pregnant or postpartum. And then it just happened that like, I recognize that You know, I was going through also my own fertility journey. I started sharing around going through IVF and I noticed that was really resonating with people and, and I was, it was a coping mechanism frankly for me to feel like I was opening up and sharing the journey and that's what Got me using kind of like Instagram as an outlet for sharing what I was going through and experiencing like the gaslighting in women's health and the advocating that needs to happen, not just in pregnancy.

Like I had to start advocating, you know, well beyond getting pregnant. And so recognizing that that's not just a pregnancy thing. That's a women's health thing for your entire life. So just wanting to kind of talk about that and the advocating, whether it's through fertility, whether it's for postpartum care, you're dealing with pelvic floor issues, whether it's for perimenopause or menopause issues you're going through, like it does not stop.

And so that's a hugely common thread that I weave through all of the things that I do.  You have been very open about,  a lot of different health issues that you've gone through. Do you have like a litmus test in your head on this is too personal, I'm not gonna share it, or how do you decide, 

is there anything else you're kind of checking boxes for in your head  in terms of like what I'm comfortable sharing? Yeah, like I'm about to share, so I've gone through IVF, I had to go through like a heart ablation surgery four months postpartum. I had a uterine surgery, now I have got a type of skin cancer from all the freaking tanning I did in tanning booths in my twenties.

Don't do it anyways. It's, it's a basil cells. So I'm about to do this cream starting after Halloween, I can't. show up to my retreat, my friend, with like the measles look, which is what's going to happen, but then I'm going to be sharing that because it's like, I don't want to hide.

What am I not going to do stories for like a month? Like I'm going to show people the journey, not because I want to overshare, but because I also think it's. It's important for people to understand about, like, you know, it's a warning, if you will, you know, protect your skin, don't do what I did, all this kind of thing.

So that I will share because again, it fits in with my values of vulnerability, , , and really advocating for yourself. And, you know, I had to advocate to get the derm appointments, and they're all, it's probably nothing. And then, oh, actually it's something, you know, like that took advocating. Um,  So,  I don't share a lot about my kids.

That's a big one.  And then I don't share a lot about my, my relationship to like, I know some people are all about like, this is my husband and he's doing, I just, he's not comfortable being on social media very much.

I really try to focus on how can I create value. For people and, and what would be something that is going to make their life better, like whether that's a workout or something that's educational, like  them seeing  the tile that I'm choosing for my bathroom, does it, it's not my skillset.

I'm not a designer. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's not something that I think is going to increase the value for anyone. That's not why they're following me. So I try to whatever I'm sharing.  I can get vulnerable about my own stuff, but when it comes to, like,  relational things with my family, my kids, you know, I, I feel like I'm less apt to do that.

Okay, thank you. I think that's going to be really helpful for somebody out there listening because a lot of people feel like Well, one of the biggest compliments I get is this word, , authentic, , people calling me authentic, and I think you're very authentic online too, but then we have a hard time defining it.

And then folks think that they need to share everything, bear all, in order to be authentic, and if they're holding anything back, they are now inauthentic and lying. But , I share a ton, and I share daily, and it's not everything, , whenever something happens in my life that's very important, like my wedding or something, like,  I usually don't.

Go to Instagram. Like, it's mundane stuff that I share daily. Mm hmm. Yeah. No, I, I think that's really good, like, for anyone listening to this who's like, well, what does it mean to be authentic? I also feel that when someone meets me for the first time and they're like, you seem like the way you are in stories.

I'm like, great. I'm glad to hear that. Um, my random, like, talking to the camera in the Costco parking lot like I was yesterday, you know, being like, just talking about making buns for my daughter, who's in competitive dance, like silly stuff, like life stuff that people can kind of relate to.  I think, you know, in your gut when you over shared, , I think you kind of feel that like vulnerability hangover and you're like, that was a bit too much.

 I remember feeling like that in the past. I haven't had that in a long time because I think I intuitively know now more like what feels like a good thing to share and what doesn't. , so I think, you know, you know more than you think, you know,  , that's a really good point.  , Nikki, I could talk to you all day. 

I want to know more to be honest, but why don't you tell you where they could find you.   You can find me on the bell method. com and , that's the same handle on Instagram and you'll see , everything from the prenatal Pilates to, you know, the postnatal where if you're dealing with like, bladder leaks or diastasis, a.

k. a. ab separation or prolapse or anything that just doesn't feel quite like the way you want it to feel or look postpartum to, you know, now you're sort of like, maybe you don't want to have kids or maybe you're done in that stage of your life and you're just like, I want to really get strong, like that's my new thing, I'm trying to get super strong for menopause cause you know, it's coming up.

When you're  getting into your mid 40s, so try to be really proactive and also just encouraging women to take the time for themselves. So that's it. And then my podcast is called the we go there podcast and it's all about  talking about the things that most people consider TMI as it relates to women's health.

We just had the episode that launched yesterday, for example, was on pain management for IUD insertion because pretty much no one gets proper pain management. There's so many women, it's excruciating. , and so there's really cool research being done on using a TENS unit, which is, uh, really, I don't know what that is, but basically it's this, ,  transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, little suction cups that go on your body and you can bring that you can rent one, you can buy one and you can bring that to your next IUD insertion and it provides you with real pain control.

So stuff like that, where it's just like, you know, you think about if a man had to go through that procedure, like, think of all the pain management that they would get. And then meanwhile, we are just like told to take a Motrin, you know, I didn't realize how values driven your business is. And now it makes total sense.

Now that I actually think about it, it makes total sense. And I'm so glad that you're out there helping people. Thank you. That means a lot.   I am probably the most passionate around the self advocating piece. I feel like I've said it like probably 10 times in this conversation. 

Go back and count.   We will see you over there on the, we go there podcast. Thanks for having me and, \ , and thanks for all that you do as well, inspiring people to get out there and shine.