Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Hey everybody. <unk> and welcome to another episode of the Fit Founders podcast. Today I'm joined by a very special guest, Mr. Chris Burgess. Chris, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 1 00:00:10 Hey, mate. Good to see you,
Speaker 0 00:00:12 <laugh>. Yeah, good to see you too. Um, Chris, we'll cover a lot about your career, what you do, uh, what you have done over the next hour or so, but the people that don't know, do you wanna just give a brief in intro into who you are and, and what you're currently up to?
Speaker 1 00:00:26 Yeah, of course. So, uh, my name is Chris. Uh, I'm the owner of Lifter Bar. That's how some of you may have heard of me before. I've also got my own personal, well, semi-private personal training studio called Curious Fitness. Um, still do personal training as well. So I'm very much entwined with business to consumer. I've still got my first ever clients, uh, and Business to Business, which is supporting personal trainers through Lift the Bar. Um, in terms of how long I've been doing this kind of stuff, um, personal training now for, I think it's just over 14 years. And so I'm very fortunate to still have the very first people that paid me money still doing. So. Um, I've had Curious Fitness now since, wow, 2014, uh, no, 2015 and, uh, lift the Bar since December, 2013. So we just turned nine. Just turned nine. So, so yeah, it's a really broad ranging career. Effectively, like buying, if I can support people live, fit, healthier lifestyles, that's kind of what I'm in it for. Trying to help people through the mechanism of exercise and nutrition, live the kind of life they wanna live. Um, I either do that directly with clients or I try and help trainers do it with their clients. Like that's my, my big Master plan to try and help trainers deliver service to clients that enables clients to feel that too.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 I love that. And I'm gonna throw you a careful straight away that isn't in our notes, because something that you've just said is, I don't know, maybe something that spoke about a lot. And that is, you know, I don't wanna be a personal trainer walk in the gym floor when I'm 40, E 50, and, and you are, I'm not implying that you're 50 years old, of course. Um, but you're still very much <laugh>. It's very great. You need to get a skin fade like me. He gets rid of it, hides it, <laugh>. Um, but you're still enjoying personal training. You're still doing it. So what do you think about, you know, people's opinions on that and, and why are you still doing it?
Speaker 1 00:02:18 Uh, cuz it's what I've got in the industry to do, like this whole run in the business thing, like whether it is a gym, um, running off the bar, need to be aware of various technologies, need to be aware of leadership and management strategies, marketing, advertising, sales, all these components that are learned over a long period of time. Um, and you have to continue to refine them. But none of those reasons were why I initially decided to pack up corporate life. The reason I left corporate life is because I wanted to try and help people feel in their lives what I felt after I started training. And I'm good at that. That's what I'm good at. Like, I've, I've, I've enjoyed an awfully long career doing those things. Why would I give up the things I enjoy and, and in fact, reversing this a little bit.
Speaker 1 00:03:07 When I opened the gym and I had my toughest days in Lift the Bar, I give up nearly all one-to-one personal training. And it was very much the detriment of the gym and lift the bar because I wasn't doing something every day in my professional life that I was really competent and skilled at and brought me a lot of joy for me still to this very day. And I'll be doing this while I can still walk and talk to, I'm gonna be still doing personal training. I wanna be the 80 year old pt, still walk in the gym floor helping clients. Hopefully my clients are still around at that point as well. <laugh> wait for another day. But, um, for me, what's really important is that everything I do as best I possibly can, I feel competent at, I feel skilled at, I feel a great sense of enjoyment.
Speaker 1 00:03:55 And I'm very open in the fact that I'm an incredibly needy person when it comes to validation for a job well done. It's really hard to find that without like the, the eyebrows move and you can see people's facial expressions change and when you know that you've had that kind of impact on someone, for me it's addictive. I'm addicted to personal training because of the feedback and how much I know it brings me in my career. I use that as a driving platform for everything else I do. Everything else I do in business. And one by one, the roles that have taken me further and further away from that have been, um, I've recruited for and put people into those roles that want to do those things and can do those things way better than me now it's Barr and reasonable to suggest that from a financial return perspective, probably doing this still is one of the lesser Hmm, great uses of my time for the one of about, I'm trying to get my England right here.
Speaker 1 00:05:00 It's not the highest return on time to money investment that you could get doing one-to-one pt. For me it's not, if I put more time into other things, then I probably make more money and save myself a bunch of time. But also the flip side to that is that I probably wouldn't have the gym all if the barber did that because I can wake up every day knowing full well I'm gonna do something I really enjoy, really good at, uh, get all the validation I need. And it's a platform. I walk into the office feeling 10 foot tall knowing I can contribute all the little ideas that come from, uh, clients about how I can serve Lift the bar. They, they are really interested parties in how we run Lift the Bar. My clients are, they gimme little ideas from a client facing perspective, which meant that when I'm adding or talking to the team about adding resources, it's not coming from a, I think I know better than other personal trainers. It's coming from where if my clients are asking this, maybe other clients are asking for this too.
Speaker 0 00:06:02 Yeah. I love that. It, it is, the reason I found it really interesting as well straight off the bat, is because I actually had a conversation with Luke Johnson about recently, um, jokingly about retirement and what that would look like. And I think my dream retirement is being back on the gym floor because I just think it, it would be a great way for me to spend my time. It's probably not something that I'm ready to go back to just yet while I chase maybe different goals. Um, but I do think a lot of coaches are too quick to think the grass is greener on the other side chasing, whether it's finance or freedom or whatever it may be, and kind of forget about the, the positive outcomes on their life and that they can have other people from working on the gym floor.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 Yeah, I, I really, I, I I, well as you know, I'm a circle jerk for this kind of bat. And for me, freedom means being able to use what I do of my time. And the fact I'm willing to choose to do that in order to make hopefully thousands of other people, um, feel that they're a part of something is, is really, is crucial to me. It's a part of who I am. And, uh, that'll be, that'll be me forever. I don't see myself ever fully, fully, fully retiring because this job brings too much to me. Too much joy.
Speaker 0 00:07:16 I love that. So now that I've taken on that curve ball, let's, um, try and pull things back in. Um, how did you end up in the fitness industry? Because you were in advertising prior, right? Yeah. Print.
Speaker 1 00:07:30 Yeah, that's right. Um, I'm really proud that, um, the guy I worked with at Future Publishing way back in the day, um, guy called Steve Roberts now works with us in Lift the Bar. He is one of our colleagues and uh, that's something that I just find really, really ena in because he was also the body that you need to take fear level two and level three to, for the practical assessment. He is my body in that. So he was the very first person that was there when I was leaving future passed my PT qualification and now he works with us too. So I'm, I'm always, always coming to work and whenever Steve's name is mentioned, it always gives me a really, really good feeling. So I, um, if we flashback to, I guess my, my most enjoyable time at Future thought they were, it was advertising sales sick, but at the same time it was, they had a really good outlook on building great relationships and solving problems for clients and how we can help them reach better audiences, get a better engagement, and all this kind of stuff that we talk about on social media now.
Speaker 1 00:08:27 Like we're all advertisers and we all do marketing stuff. Then one day they decided that they wanted to move away. They had a management range, uh, because their price fell a little bit. So they made some big, big changes at HQ and uh, they decided that now it's gonna be much more pressure based sales and more about, uh, the number of calls you can bash out. They were really pressed in on close rate. They didn't really care too much about, or my interpretation was my interpretation cause they didn't care quite so much about quality of relationship and it was more about quantity of sales. Don't worry about what problems you're solving, just get the money in. And that made me feel really defeated. And um, the reality is, is that they get to choose to run their business how they wanna run their business. Yeah, I'm an employee of theirs.
Speaker 1 00:09:15 Nobody's got a gun to my head keeping me there. But while they're making these changes, um, I had just moved into this phase of my life whereby I stopped playing football, joined the gym, started noticing changes in that and enjoyed what I was doing. And I was on my honeymoon and talking to Sam, my wife about this and saying, look, future have changed. I'm not enjoying it anymore. I don't like the way in which we have to do things and I've really enjoyed the gym. Maybe there's this profession whereby I can solve problems for people, but I can allow 'em also to feel the benefit that I've felt through getting fitter and healthier and this kind of stuff. And so my transition to becoming a a PT began, um, got qualified over the course of a few years. Like I didn't do it over the six weeks thing.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 I was dipping in and out cuz work pressure got in the way. And then alongside that, um, I told some of my colleagues I was doing this thing, they were really on board with it. They're like, well, if you need someone to practice personal training on, why don't you train me before work? Why don't you train me after work? And before I knew where I was, I'd like qualified as a pt, had a full-time job at future earning really good money plus commission is, is all right more than what I am now <laugh>. Um, and, uh, as start starting finishing work every day Monday to Friday, uh, training a colleague for cheap money, they gimme loads of practice. And then, um, they realized what I was doing and they realized that no longer was I finishing Friday night in the office and going straight down the pub for some beers with the lads, with the sales lads.
Speaker 1 00:10:48 After work I was going straight to the gym to train clients for like 15 Quicks <laugh>. Yeah. And so my face stopped fitting and it made even more tense work atmosphere there. So then I had a decision to make about whether I go all in on this or I stop it altogether. And so I, I decided to go all in on it. And that's, uh, that's my way into the fitness industry transitioned across from a full-time, very good career. My mum at the time was really unhappy that I was moving away from a employed job with good progression, uh, into being self-employed. But the one person that is never for a single second doubted I could do is Sam without her who knows? Who knows. Because again, for me, I needed that validation of someone saying, I believe in you.
Speaker 0 00:11:31 I love that. I think everybody needs that, that one person. Right? Yeah. So you take this huge leap for faith. Huge risk. Yeah. And what do those first six months, 12 months look like?
Speaker 1 00:11:41 Yeah, it's good. So took the, put the leap as it were. And I, um, got a personal training position at the University of AB Sports Training Village, which for those that don't know, it's, um, it's based at the university, but it's a huge sports campus. It's a really, really fantastic place. And in effect, what we had, there was huge student population using the gym and international athletes. Alongside that, though, there was this more but growing pool of general pub public, um, clients or members of the gym there that really felt at the time when I walked in that they were not a priority to the center at all students and international athletes took huge priority in every decision that was made, though I just made it my business to make friends with as many people from that, uh, misrepresented group of members as a possible.
Speaker 1 00:12:33 And, um, over the course of my first six months moving into 12 months at the university, you know, I I went from like doing like 10 to 12 sessions a week with ex-colleagues who stopped training with me when I moved to the university. And very quickly, you know, I was at the 25 to 30 sessions per week within six months, all because I was just focused on that general population group who looks like they're not being looked after that well. Uh, then it's little things like, uh, making sure that the membership sales team, if they had someone from general population coming in, signing up, we know that they may feel that they're not a priority. It's like, can I do their induction? Can I be the one that welcomes 'em into this place? And it's, it, it grew that way. And then within 12 months I was at the stage whereby I was doing like 40 odd sessions a week.
Speaker 1 00:13:26 And I did that for a good, I think 18 months to two years before somebody finishing the personal training course at the university. Uh, Johnny Stevens, who works for me at Curious Now works with me, not works for me. I'm very, um, conscious of language when it comes to my colleagues. And, uh, he said, look, you seem to have a good client base. Um, I'm just starting out. Do you mind if I shadow a little bit? And so took him on and we grew a bit of a client base together. And, and so the story continued to grow. But then the issue that we had, uh, me issue again, I was working in a sports trainer village and I was doing a lot of sessions and people who ran that center could see that I was doing quite well. And if they did the maths on it, this personal trainer, this upstart kid who just joined the play a year ago, if the numbers added up appropriately, it worked out.
Speaker 1 00:14:24 I was probably getting close to what the director of sport was making, but that didn't go down too well. So what they did is they said, okay, you, we can see that you've got a lot of clients, you are now gonna be employed. Here's an employment contract. Of course the employment contract. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the pay grading was different to what I was being paid by clients. Yeah. And, uh, so they moved it again, it's their sense. So they get to do what they want. <laugh>. Yeah. You know, uh, I can piss a moan about it all I want until somebody listens to me and change their mind. But that's their business. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a guest in their house. So what you do is, uh, you roll with the punches, did the employment thing for a couple of years, and I give them this idea.
Speaker 1 00:15:07 I said, look, I think based on the start point I've had in my career and what I've done and what I've got wrong and bringing somebody else on, I've really enjoyed, um, bringing Johnny through and helping him get started in his PT career. I wanna run a development program for people that have just finished a PT course. Do you mind if I start up and said, are you stupid? That's not gonna work. Now that manager's not there anymore. And, um, I'll give 'em a list of names of people I wanted to like bring into support trainers coming through. They said, Nope, nope. And more. Nope, it won't work. I said, cool. Okay. I'll go and do it myself, <laugh>. And here we go of another leap of faith going from employment, just moving into our brand new house where we still live now. And Sam's like rolling your eyes again saying, oh, I gotta show you my faith again. I'm like, yeah, probably should cause I think it might work. And here we are.
Speaker 0 00:16:01 And that was the launch of L T V. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. There's a few things to unpack that. Um, first of all, when you, when you left future, was there any sense of, I I want to run my own business, I want to be an entrepreneur? Or was it just a case of I want to be a personal trainer and that's what I'm gonna go pursue? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:16:24 It, it was that like I was so focused on, uh, helping people solve the problem of, and they feel more vitality in life for the, the sake of a real, I know it's a really cringe worthy word, but my focus was purely on I love bringing the best out in people I love, I just love that. Can I do that for the rest of my life? And my way of doing that for the most part is through the vehicle of fit a healthier lifestyle. Some people do that through talking therapy. Some people do that through diet alone. Some people do that through a range of different ways. Mindset, meditation. My way is I bring the best out in people when I can show them a pathway to being stronger, fitter, healthy and all that kind of stuff. That's all I was focused on. And the, the growth of the business in terms of my one-to-one PT all the way through to the growth of Lift the Bar, it was never anything intentional. The only intentional part was, can I do this thing? Can I solve this problem?
Speaker 0 00:17:33 So interesting because it, it's so hard to teach that, right? Like it, you know, people are looking for the answer. Like, how, how do I do what Chris did? Well, you kind of have to have some of that passion basically that that passion is what drove you. So one of my questions was gonna be, you know, when you did you pick that niche in the gym because you spotted an opportunity, you kind of already answered it. It it wasn't because of that, it just naturally you, you wanted to help those people, right?
Speaker 1 00:18:00 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it is like, who are the people that need the most help? The people that are most not least supported and represented. It's like, okay, start there.
Speaker 0 00:18:12 Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 00:18:13 And then, and, and that's where I went. So going back was being an entrepreneur or business owner of LTB and stuff, intentional? No, I literally gave the idea to my manager who laughed me out the room, have you said yes? Then who knows what the future might who, who knows where we might be now, but no, maybe still on, like, maybe still on my contract. Like maybe I've worked my way up to the top of my gra paid grade or paid grade, whatever they do. Like you are in band six, you are gonna get to the top of band six and you're stay there for the rest of your life. Which is fine. Like for me, like I'm just glad he didn't take me up on that.
Speaker 0 00:18:50 Yeah. What different career it may have <laugh> planned out to be. He's mad. Um, yeah. So this manager has told you no, he's rejected you and you've decided, right, I'm gonna go and figure this out for myself. Yeah. How did you, I think I know the first, um, members of ltb, Tony Coton, right? Yeah. Um, how, how did that happen? How did the first people kind of agree and decide that they wanted to be part of L t b Mad join this with you?
Speaker 1 00:19:19 I think about this quite a lot. It's mad. So, um, I was like, for in the early days of Facebook, I wasn't like earliest at all, but like I had a Facebook page that a few people followed. Cause I've got some articles published in men's fitness and stuff. Um, and I was part of my job at Future. I met the really wonderful people at Reflex Nutrition. I dunno if they're still there actually, but I don't think some of 'em are. But yeah. Um, they brought me along to some trade shows and stuff and asked me to help out as a contractor with some of the stuff. And I guess that gave me a little bit of a name. And then I just put a throwaway post on, uh, my Facebook page then. Look, I've really enjoyed developing Johnny and bringing him through and I think he's doing pretty good.
Speaker 1 00:20:06 And I don't think there's necessarily a huge amount of support out there for newly qualified personal trainers. If I was to run a little group of let's say 15, 20 people and we all got like a, we met online once a month just to like troubleshoot trainer problems and get an expert to come and speak to us for half an hour. This is long before webinars were out. I didn't even know online chat rooms were available beyond MSN and uh, like 20 people come forward. And then 20 very quickly turned. So I just seen your post 20 become 30. And I set out a pages, my new laptop or a new laptop, and I set a pages document explaining the tiering model, sent everyone a pages document and then, uh, from the pages document how they could then pay if they wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker 1 00:20:55 And I remember being on the plane on the 22nd of November, 2013, um, just about to fly to New York on a trip. My mum had paid for it for me. Ring it, I don't care. I got no judgment here. My mom paid for me to go to New York. I don't care. Just sat right next to me. And I said, mom, don't just pay me on PayPal. I think we're in business <laugh>. And then, uh, I spent, then of course everyone's turned your phones off, spent the rest of that flight, like absolutely terrified. So what have I done? What have I done? Um, and then I landed and another payment had come in Martin Almond again, still a part of Lift the Bar. Uh, and it's like, wow, this is, this is great. I think of the first 20 members we ever got, I think 19 are still with us, um, all the time. And then one dips in and out every like six months or so.
Speaker 0 00:21:41 I love that.
Speaker 1 00:21:42 Yeah. Why? It's very different business to what it was back then, but at the same time, um, it's the, no, they're still in the job nine years later. Pretty good. It's kind of bucking industry trends, right? So <laugh> Yeah, they're, they're, they're still doing, nine years later we've done something. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:21:58 Hundred percent. And I've been a, uh, part of LT V How long,
Speaker 1 00:22:03 Long time.
Speaker 0 00:22:03 Seven years time. Yeah, long time. Actually seven, eight years. Um, which is mental as well. And I remember discovering it probably towards, I don't wanna say the end of my career, but um, as I was coaching less and less and I always remember thinking, I wish this was around when I started. Um, yeah. Sort of in such a, a better coach and better prepared for life in the industry and, and dealing with different situations is an amazing community.
Speaker 1 00:22:28 Even like, not even like the positives, I be a better coach. Like normalize that things go bad, normalize we lose clients, normalize that clients ghost us, normalize that we get all our hopes set up for a consult that then doesn't show up. Like knowing that we're not the only one that happens to can be really powerful.
Speaker 0 00:22:46 A hundred percent definitely. So we'll fill in the gaps in a minute, but, so that was 2013.
Speaker 1 00:22:53 Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:22:55 Verse 2030 members. How many members do you have today?
Speaker 1 00:22:59 Uh, players Claire in the office along the way. I'll probably get this wrong. Like 1,250 or so.
Speaker 0 00:23:05 Amazing. Um, I love that. And why do you think it LTB needs to exist? Or maybe what was, you've kind of explained your thought process at at the start. It was just your kind of Yeah. Enjoyment and passion for he helping develop PTs and coaches. Has that changed? Do you think there's a need for LTB in the industry and should there be a need for it?
Speaker 1 00:23:28 I, I'm too biased to say like, I ha it's a damn indictment in many respects that there is a need for it. I still think there's a need for it. But more so now because of like the core, like I'll come to this in a bit like the core 600 members we've got like the fact there's a want for it is the most rewarding feeling they've ever had in business. Yeah. Like the fact that people wanna sign up for, we've had, I put a post out in, um, I was down on the, down on the beach down at Sandbanks last year on holiday. I thought, you know what? I won the only companies that never done a lifetime offer. Like so, okay, here's what a lifetime offer might look like for Lift the Bar. Before the day was out, we had like 30 people wanting to sign up for it.
Speaker 1 00:24:12 It's bonkers, but they don't sign up because they need lift the bar. They sign up because they wanna be here. And that's so cool. And that's not a me thing. That is the combination of work from Claire, from Stu, from Greg, from Alex and, and everyone else. But the reason why we do that work is because we want to do it. We want to support personal trainers and, well, I mentioned my grand scheme, which is actually supporting clients through the vehicle of trainers. Cause if we can do that, then our whole industry raises, um, its level and what the public expect from a personal trainer can change. Cuz the perception of personal training still probably isn't quite where we do want it to be. Um, it's gone from personal trainers are expected to be looking like they're about to step on the Olympia stage. Boot camp instructors meant to look like all they wear is camo and a vest.
Speaker 1 00:25:04 Um, and now, um, of course it's moved from that a little bit to um, that maybe there's a growning expectation that your personal trainer needs to be the best dancer on TikTok. I don't know. But none of those things are truly reflective of if you go down to your local fitness first and the most enthusiastic trainer there is the one trying to make the most difference to somebody in any given hour. That's what I love to see. And um, I think the fact that people want what we have is, is really cool. Whether or not we are needed anymore, I dunno, like hope we are, but I don't necessarily need to lean on that cause I know we're wanted.
Speaker 0 00:25:46 Yeah. So for people that don't know what, what is ltb? What, how would you describe what you, what you deliver <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:25:54 Dunno anymore. So we started off doing webinars and Skype calls. That's it. And uh, then we've got Facebook group, um, now we've got a platform that effectively has about like 80 or so thought courses where they short, they're like anything from like two hours through to like 25 in total study terms. Um, so we've got courses, we've got about 150 or so single lesson webinars. Um, we publish eBooks for our members, a magazine. Um, we still do many, many one-to-one like Skype calls. I say Skype, it's Zoom these days. I'm know I'm a dinosaur. Show my age again. Um, we have this Ask Gs thing too. No, we don't. Um, we have, uh, a lot of support in place, but yeah. Uh, this, we're very much a multimedia company all doing the same. We're trying to strive towards the same outcome, which is do personal trainers feel that they can have a really fulfilling career for them?
Speaker 1 00:26:57 Um, and not necessarily, uh, just blindly copy what everyone else in the industry thinks a good career looks like. So for, for me, when it comes to the all the things we do, I want us to be a place where a personal trainer who only has the ambition to work part-time because they've got other things they wanna do in life, whether it's a full-time job and they just wanna do PT on the side. Okay, cool. We are so behind you. We are, we, we value that so, so much. How can we make your clients really enjoy your service even more? That's what we wanna do. And then alongside that, we might have people, you know, uh, people like Mike Wawa has been a part of Lift the Bar probably from the first year as well. In fact, it was the end of the first year he was with us since, uh, the Joe DeFranco webinar November, 2014. And you know, now he's like, he's opened multiple gyms. He's got an amazing gym owner support program. So all things in between. But the most important thing for us is clients that they serve get a really great quality of service. And that's what all of the content should drive towards. So we've got everything from, uh, communication courses through to, um, some of online business stuff and, and, and all things in between.
Speaker 0 00:28:12 I love that. Um, and uh, what I really love is what you said about that being, you know, different careers. It's not all copy and paste, you know, be a successful pt, get an online coach, then move to Dubai, then post the Birge Khalifa in your pro, or whatever it may be. So yeah, I love that. And that's part of what this podcast is about, right? Like yeah. Your, your path is is very different to what a lot of people may think is available to them. Um, yeah. So I'd really love to hear that you've referred to we, and this is what we do at LTV quite often and, and something that I'd, I'd love to hear you talk about is the team at ltb, because I think you've done a great job at really empowering a few people. I've, for example, Claire does an amazing job operationally and, and I absolutely love Stewart's marketing. I think he's just, he's brilliant. Um, yeah. So I'd love to hear you know, who the team is and, and how you've managed to empower people to really excel in roles and, and, you know, take off your hands effectively.
Speaker 1 00:29:09 Yeah, I dunno if I've empowered people, I just put complete trust in him. 'em is like the, the, the biggest assumption I could ever make is that I'm the best person to do the job in all circumstances. And that is so wildly, um, incorrect that I've got the humility to know it, that look when it comes to operations and projects and making sure that we follow through upon the ideas that we have and make sure they go from my scatty brain into something that looks and feels really professional. Well that's Claire all day long when it comes to, um, really, really enjoying the intricacies of exercise delivery programming and stuff. Greg's way more passionate about that than me. Um, so he's the right person for that. And then Stuart, from a marketing perspective, he's always had like this, um, idea about wanting to grow as a commercial, um, body inside the business.
Speaker 1 00:30:00 So just say, okay, cool practice. Like, just go in practice. There's nothing we can do that's wrong. Because if we spend our time, I mean, all the way back to the reason I got into personal training for me, and they're representing what my vision for, for personal training is, which is again, a leading people to or sh helping people see that they can live, um, a better quality of life through great personal training, then you can't be wrong. It's impossible to get it wrong as long as we've got that in the forefront of our mind. Um, we talk about like leadership and management. I, I will be honest, and then Greg will back me up on this. I think I, I had, whether it's through text conversation or, or phone contact last year, probably spoke with Greg in total through all media platforms. Um, probably about five or six times or yeah, there was no grand plan.
Speaker 1 00:30:49 Just said, he just comes to me here and said, I would really like to support personal trainers this way by doing this thing. I'm like, cool. You, you know, best, you know how you're gonna bring the best down people. Go for it. I don't care. <laugh>, you, you fit in the brief, right? Uh, and then, uh, Stuart, the same, the one person I have contact with every single day without fail was Claire. Because the behind the scenes running of an online business of this size, I'm, I don't say this size from uh, like, uh, I don't think it's grandiose, but to have one over a thousand customers, you know, if 1% of them have got queries in a day, that needs a process behind it. So, um, I speak to Claire and awful a lot and we, we make sure that the things that the needs inside the business are, are met.
Speaker 1 00:31:32 Um, but in terms of empowering, I don't, I'm, I'm a terrible manager. I hate having meetings. Um, but I like to have a vision of how we support PTs. And this really came into its own, uh, the start of the Covid era. For the first time ever, every personal trainer had exactly the same problem, exactly the same time. And we have the humility to say everything we've done until this point is largely pointless. What have we got? What have we done that's gonna support p personal trainers for this really weird period of time that's gonna come? So everything from the fact that I have an online client that I've had for 12 years that lives in Sweden, it's like, okay, well how do I train her? How do I program for her? How do I make sure that even though I never see her in person anymore, she's doing the things right?
Speaker 1 00:32:19 All these things like the, the camera set up and all this kind of stuff, we all come together and it's like, again, we'd had no meetings, we have no chats. We're like, just solve the problem. Just solve the problem. Can't be wrong. So I guess in terms of, uh, how do I empower people? Um, I empower them by staying or I like to think I empower them by saying, I completely trust in everything you do and every decision you make, because I know I've known you for long enough now to know that you know what we all want out of it. And luckily we are on the same page that way. And then you've got Alex Pearson, who, who does amazing work for us. He supports Stewart. No. And, uh, we've got Maggie who helps out Sally Eckles that helps out. Claire's got a back office team of Danny and Shelly.
Speaker 1 00:33:06 Uh, we've got Allie working here, making sure trainers have got loads of great training ideas and all kinds of stuff. But I meet with none of them other than Claire. Like if I need something from any of them, I'm, they're on the end of the phone and vice versa. But we're also busy completing the brief that it generally tends to work very, very smoothly. I have no idea what hours they work or when they clock in or out. Ah, it's up to them. They solve the problem. Because the thing is, the, the beauty of all of this is that because we're very open book internally, the numbers won't lie to us <laugh>, they won't. And, uh, if we're losing more members than we're gaining, then we're not solving the right problems at the right time for enough people. If we're gaining more members than we're losing, then maybe we're doing something wrong. And we're just really open and honest about that.
Speaker 0 00:33:53 I love that. So rather than strategically thinking, how can I get the most from my team? How can I remove myself from this position? How can I improve this function in the business? It's focusing on, this is the goal of the business. This is the best person who's best at it. Crack on. And it's the, it's the goal and the focus or the mission and the, the vision of the business that drives.
Speaker 1 00:34:16 Yeah, I mean, this year we're gonna have more meetings because the size of the business, I mean, we, we've changed, you know, we, we are bigger than what we were and uh, there are more people. So we'll have more meetings this year just purely not from a are you doing this thing? It's like, Hey, I'm doing this thing and we've got some really talented people in the business. Anybody fancy collaborating with me on this? Anybody fancy helping out? Um, or I've had Claire might say, we've lost a load of members because of this issue and we think about things this way and that's a really nice place to be. But we never do like KPI meetings and things like, I know lots of people do. They like to have an overarching view over every statistic, but really we are so laser focused on, um, very basic metrics and we know very well if we are achieving those basic, basic metrics through, um, the, the, the feedback in the numbers.
Speaker 0 00:35:09 I love it. What's the biggest cha? Well, so what is the biggest challenge of running ltb? So the type of business it is and, and now today the size of business is,
Speaker 1 00:35:18 So it's funny, um, I was watching Dragons then about two years ago, and I had a cry, I had a cry cuz I finally felt understood. I finally felt it wasn't a me thing. Uh, Sarah Davis talking about her, um, craft subscription business online videos to help crafters get better crafting, right? But the, you have to completely regenerate your client base every six months. I'm like, we're not that bad. We're not quite every six months. But what she was getting at is that the stickiness of a subscription-based business is really tricky in this day and age when it, the barriers to entry setting up aren't that high. And the businesses that tend to do best in this respect have a, a leader who is present every day online and have somebody who, um, can be followed. And I'm not that guy. I don't wanna be that guy that would be a paid prison to me.
Speaker 1 00:36:14 And so what we have to accept coming all the way back to your question, I'm going off a tangent, is a business like lift the bar this year out of 1,250 or so, people, we'll probably lose 500 people, but we have to find 500 people just to be where we were. But this has been the case since year two. So whilst people might look at or might listen to them, it's like, wow, 1,250 people, about 50 quid a month, that sounds good money. Well, what have you, what have you put all your chips onto that known full well, but you might not replace 500 members this year.
Speaker 1 00:36:53 Having the resilience to know that you are gonna lose half of all your business this year. I woke up on January the first soup no full well that I'm gonna lose half my business this year. Very motivating to me to know that we will outperform what we did last year like we have done every year. But what a lot of people think about when it comes to an online subscription business, they'll have a wonderful launch. They'll get a hundred, couple hundred people onto something and it'll do really, really, really well. And it's fantastic. And I'm so behind anybody that goes for it. Everybody gets flattened when they realize the true nature of subscription businesses. That's what's really tough. But luckily we run the business in a way that really allows us to have joy inside and outside of work that then make sure our numbers are what they are, which is, which is always pretty solid. But to, to say that it's not a mild anxiety at times known full well that we've gotta replace 500 members a year just to break even. It's hard. It's really tough. But we've got a business now that's loved enough by a core 600 people that all of our safety measures are based around like 600 people. Anybody over and above that it's, Hey, we're cool. We're really cool.
Speaker 0 00:38:19 I love that. Do you, do you, I know we spoke on metrics briefly a moment ago and you said it's not something you obsess over. Is churn percentage something is, is it one of those metrics? Do you do anything to proactively kind of improve churn?
Speaker 1 00:38:33 Oh, we, we have thrown everything at it in all kinds of different ways. Um, and this is why when Sarah has mentioned it is like we do anything and everything and still the numbers don't improve that much. But we know, for instance, for us, uh, very bluntly, if we improve our churn percentage by 10%, we're talking potentially we could bring two more full-time jobs in straight away. Yeah. And, uh, that's a really tough place to be. But we'll never stop trying. We'll, never. Because the thing is we talk about churn percentage. Uh, we, we could rephrase that and say, number of problems we're not solving
Speaker 0 00:39:11 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:39:12 Or we are attracting people in that don't need problem solving. Maybe that's it. You know, the, the the case for us is when we bring people into the business and there is 80 courses, I mean, we we're talking 4,000 hours of video content in their suit. So I don't worry about people setting up a business like lift the bar because they have the sheer mass of stuff we've got just to record. 4,000 hours of content is 4,000 hours. That's before you even prepared the content, which is another 25,000 hours. Yeah. It's a, it's a lot. The downside to that is that when somebody comes in, like where the, how do you even start? It's so much, this is why for us, churn percentage starts off by going along the lines of how are we marketing based on we can solve this problem in this way of you're this person and this problem in this way of you are this person.
Speaker 1 00:40:02 Um, and that's where we'll start seeing better performance on churn. You know, services like Stripe give you really good reports on subscriptions based on, uh, for instance, your January cohort of trial lists. Here's how many of them are still around. Then we go all the way back to the campaign. We ran what we did internally in terms of the service provision and figure out, well, January did this, this is our expectation. Uh, in February we had this campaign, we had these resources launched internally and mean these amount of people logged onto the site. Um, yeah. The the, the retention was lower. Do we need to do more of the January things and less of the February things? Okay. Go team. And these are the conversations we have.
Speaker 0 00:40:46 I love that we use something called chart mogul. Yeah. Um, plugged into Stripe and try not to obsess over the metrics. But you know, the graphs look, if the graphs look cool and you just can't have checking every day.
Speaker 1 00:40:58 The the, the thing for us is that we, we could, we have, we could have like, we could get obsessed on number of people logging in per month. We could look at duration of login time, um, number of people that are staying around cause they've watched program design versus a marketing webinar that we could, we could get buried in metrics forever. So what we do is we look at, look how many fucking members we got that Yeah. That is a driver for everything <laugh>, you know? Yeah. So, uh, we, we, we look at things in a real basic way. Uh, I say we, I tend to look at things in a basic way and I never put pressure on, um, unless we go through a trend of three months where we've lost more members than we gained, in which case there are problems out there in the big wide world that we're not talking about and solving.
Speaker 0 00:41:45 Yeah. I love that. What, what are the main challenges that you do help people with? Or the most common Yeah. Um, help that you see people needing when they come in to lift the bar?
Speaker 1 00:41:58 Um, the, the most common ones are gonna be without any shadow of a doubt, getting clients results. How do we get clients better results? Um, how do I get more clients through the door? Um, without like impinging on too much of my time, everyone, there's this big pressure on brainers feeling like they need to be on every platform every day, and they make feel grossly uncomfortable. It's like I'm selling apart my soul to do this thing to get more clients. Most trainers, we've, we've noticed they want the benefits of great marketing. Um, they don't wanna be great marketers. And as a result of that, trying to navigate that balance of how I grow my business on my terms my way is a big part of what we do. Getting clients results, um, how to write better programs and, um, how to run a more efficient business, how like less cancellations and that kind of stuff. Uh, but I'd say we've, um, ebbs and flows based on what industry trends are at the time, but we've very much settled on how do we deliver a great training product and what does that look like? So from exercise selection all the way through to post session wrap-ups and all that kind of stuff that's in between, that's the problem we mostly solve.
Speaker 0 00:43:11 And what, I don't wanna oversimplify this, but what advice would you give to a, a personal trainer or coach who's listening to this isn't, isn't a member of Lift the Bar, but has just found out that that's one of the most important problems to solve? What maybe a couple of pieces of advice would you give around that
Speaker 1 00:43:27 In terms of, um, create training product or marketing stuff?
Speaker 0 00:43:30 Yeah. Training product, getting clients better results.
Speaker 1 00:43:34 The, the most important thing when it comes to clients getting amazing results is the setting of expectations at the very, very start. And then how we monitor the honesty process within the client trainer relationship. Every, every client knows when they come in to, to train with me what my expectations of them are. And they aren't huge expectations, but the biggest one is, is honesty. And most trainers feel really awkward having that conversation at the very start of their careers and even now about what expectations are set on them. Because a lot of trainers will come in without necessarily a background in any kind of business. And what they'll assume is that the client is the master because they're the payload and we are subservient to what they do. Or they'll go completely the other way. In which case, like they'll say, if you wanna train with me, you will track seven days a week.
Speaker 1 00:44:29 You will go to bed at 8:00 PM and you'll not go on social media. There's this happy medium whereby, look, we are in control of the journey and right in the map, but they gotta walk it. And knowing that as a coach early doors and creating the right expectations for the right reasons is everything, is everything. It will, it will grow that, that kind of outlook will grow your business way faster than you think as well. Because the thing, the best thing about um, knowing how to set expectations is that people can opt in and out of the desired behaviors to achieve those expectations. If people know what to expect from you and how you coach, it's much easy to opt in. I look at a lot of people who post content onliner. It's like, I have no idea how you coach. I have no idea what your expectations of me are going to be if I decide to click a link. Yeah. And therefore, that element of not knowing means I can't opt in or out to anything. Great coaches have amazing expectations, have amazing ability to have honest conversations with clients and honest conversations don't mean why are you lying to me about your nutrition? It means, look, how are you feeling today? Your facial expressions are a bit different. Your tone of voice a bit different. You all right? Yeah. And then not to say, no, no, I'm, I'm, we don't wanna get into a massive counseling session, but the ability to ask that question in the first place means that you're trying to coach the person as they are really, really important. <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:46:04 Yeah, that's a great answer. Love that. Move in, um, to a slightly different topic. Yeah. Um, what I'd love to get your thoughts on are the current states of the industry. Um, I think there's been a lot of transition recently. Covid maybe changed a lot as well, but it'd be Yeah, cool to know, you know, where you think it is right now. What are the challenges and maybe what are the opportunities?
Speaker 1 00:46:29 Okay, so I'm actually a really terrible person to ask this in many respects. So sorry for whatever content I give you now, because I've really am detached from nearly every corner of the industry. You are, you are one of the last people in, uh, my network as it were that I really speak to on industry level now. Um, and so because you detach from it, it's, it is left me so laser focused on my industry, which has left the bar. I'm curious that all of my outlooks on that are really positive. I'm seeing no real change in numbers based on things like cost of living, which I know is being widely reported and there's a lot of worry about it. Um, I'm seeing people trying really, really, really hard for clients and I, I really love that the times I do occasionally go a bit voyeuristic and look at stuff.
Speaker 1 00:47:19 I've seen a lot of trainers, um, who seem to be really keen on gaining attention, which is a, a good thing to have, especially if you're working online, you know, ultimately before the, the second, um, priority online is you wanna make money, but the other currency is attention. The people doing more novel and new things, whether it's TikTok or reels and things like this and that, that seems to be a real big thing. Maybe people focusing so much on being entertaining, they forget to talk about actually how they do their job. That's something I'm, I'm not necessarily that comfortable with, but again, I've detached myself so far away from this kind of stuff that really hard to give an indication about what the industry is, what I'm seeing at industry level. If we talk about, um, my business to consumer stuff. Um, so curious fitness, uh, we've seen numbers grow and the hardships coming in from this, people are tired, people are stressed, but people want experiences and they want energy.
Speaker 1 00:48:17 And going and finding that alone is really tricky. So if you are somebody that through your, what you doing is supporting people to feel more energized, more understood, and live their experiences and navigate whatever hardship we're going through in a good way, right? That's what I think the industry should be as to how many people are focusing on that. I dunno, I mean, I'm gonna ask you what, what, what is the industry like at the moment? What's go is is, um, the clean eat and flexible diet and Wolf still going on <laugh>. I I I moved to an island. You know,
Speaker 0 00:48:49 I think this is really interesting because I'm the same as you and I, but I've always been very detached from the industry. Yeah. So like very brief background. Obviously I owned CrossFit gyms back in the day and which was a large coolish community. But I even was completely detached from that cuz I shared slightly different opinions. Like, you don't have to go Paleo sugar is not addictive. And for whatever reason I chose to detach myself then and, and have remained attached. Why are you detached now? Why have you made that decision consciously to kind of maybe step away and focus on your own thing or, uh, so why have you done that? It,
Speaker 1 00:49:27 It's, it's tough. Um, the thing is like the pursuit of what lift the bar's been and curious has been brings you closer to people who have got a similar per pursuit for themselves. And this is an, this is a me floor. Um, whenever I was struggling and I needed my best mates or needed my family and stuff, I'd find myself though entwined with industry stuff that I was forgetting to address some of the problems I had in my own life. Give you an example. There was like literally under five people that mean most of me on this planet didn't really speak to him properly for five years. Um, in that time he went for a bunch of fertility things and uh, couldn't have a baby and adopted in the end. And all the while he was asking to catch up, I was like, I'm busy with work.
Speaker 1 00:50:27 And then he'd see me flouncing around on the internet with industry friends, my good friend this, my good friend that. And then when I started struggling and my good friends this good friends that, you know, they had their own things going on. I was left completely on my own. Uh, a curse of my own making. It wasn't the industry that forced me away, it was my relationship with the industry that become really quite bad though. What you do is you address things a bit by bit, reconcile properly with my mate. Um, got a wonderful relationship whereby we work, we didn't speak properly for five years. Now there's not five hours that me and my two best mates aren't texting. We we're in WhatsApp all the time. I'm choosing to spend my time with people who mean the absolute most all of the time. Now this is to my detriment, I'll, I'll I'll be honest, in some respects, professionally, it's to my detriment do my life.
Speaker 1 00:51:24 The, the life I wanna live. Don't forget where about about 650 people above breakeven in Lift the Bar. Though I know full well that if I did more networking, our business would be better off. I knew full well if I become more the face of the company and um, did more things industry wise, we'd have more money. I know these things really clear because whenever I step in for a little bit numbers do that, I'm perfectly comfortable networking, less speaking to less people on industry level, being less present online and earning less money and having a less financially valuable company.
Speaker 1 00:52:11 I'm fine with that because I've got my mates, I've got Sam, I get to do the school, run in the morning, not distracted. My relationship with my mobile device is completely readdressed. Um, and what it's enabled us to do is grow a company that can exist completely without me needing to be in the industry. I'm enlist the bar cause I'm wanted by our members and I'm kind of a, a happy little bonus for members that join, but I'm not needed externally anymore. Think we'd do better if I was maybe a share in some of the load with Stuart, but he doesn't, you, you said yourself, he does an amazing job. Why would I need to be involved in that? I would rather like for me now, the way, the way in which my life is, I've, I've spoken about this a little bit and left the bar and I'm, I think we've spoke about it before as well, is that if I personally, personal wealth wise, if I aren't an extra a hundred grand this year, five or six hours in my day would not change at all.
Speaker 1 00:53:15 Do the score run in the morning or? I do my early sessions first. Early sessions first. Uh, so, uh, seven and 8:00 AM by eight, sorry. I do six on Wednesdays and Fridays 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM back home by eight to do the school run. Um, I walk the dogs with Sam every day. So Sam is, uh, in a fortunate position through what we've done in the business whereby, uh, she's, now, we call her retired. We didn't call her a stay-at-home mom because that's really demeaning <laugh> and a lot of people got negative connotations on that. Uh, she's retired. And so we walk the dogs together for a couple of hours. Then I'll go jiu-jitsu, then I'll go to the gym. I'll hang out with Claire for a bit and talk, um, talk about lift the bar. I'll check in with Johnny and the gym gang in the afternoon, uh, do a session.
Speaker 1 00:53:58 And that's my day. Like I, I can run my life on like about 40 grand a year. That's a salary for two people. Like having more money is great. The valuation of the business will go crazy. But I don't want to get, why would I wanna get rid of all the business? It's mad. I used to have this aspiration to you, by the way, but for me, I, I've finally got what I consider to be complete freedom. I don't have to be present on social media at all. See my social media stuff, basically like do videos of the kids, highlight real stuff with the kids, some jujitsu stuff, and that's it. The thought of me having to be an industry making hands and like be arms around my good friend this, my good friend that I, I can't do it. I can't do it. Some people cannot do it wonderfully and I'm so in awe of that. But if anybody thinks of one second, I trade in spending more time in the industry with my good friend, this good friend that at the expense of my best mates now. But again, I go back to it, that's a me thing. It's you do you hun?
Speaker 0 00:55:18 Yeah. I think a really big takeaway is people know that they don't have to do the whole industry thing, right? Like, I think a lot of people do it cause they feel like they have to, they have to be in certain circles, they have to be seen with certain people at certain events, speaking at certain conferences. And you know, I say no to every speaking good, always. There's, there's a handful I'd probably speak for you if you ask me, and maybe two or three other people, um, <laugh> and, and that's it. And I think, and it is not cause I dislike people. It's, it's not cause I dislike all the people who do it. It's because I, I just wanna be around my family all the time. I'm not gonna travel and go and speak. Uh, I have my perfect life away from industry life.
Speaker 1 00:56:02 Yeah, completely. I mean, like I say for me is, um, uh, I think it's a really important thing to know yourself and know your own triggers and knowing that I am at complete peace with who I am now as a person. There was a, a long time, especially like with the, the elephant in the room, although not elephant, the two babies in the room and you've been through a similar thing, grown these things and industry level and also having young children, like the period of like 2016 through to 2018 should have been some of the happiest times of my life. And it was the really by far and away the hardest time in business I've ever, ever, ever had. And the people I needed closest to me, I'd, I'd alienated that. You learn the lessons on it and you accept that you can't do everything. Um, but choose what you can do and do it the best you possibly can. I'm on this planet to be the best possible dad for two little girls. The best possible husband for an amazing wife, and for the people that loved me before all of this took off to still be there. Anything but anything else a bonus
Speaker 0 00:57:10 I love thats are great. Um, another little die chat, Richard or Curveball if you like <laugh>. I love it. Um, okay mate, um, I've got some finishing questions for you. If you're up for it. Finish him.
Speaker 1 00:57:24 Can you add the Let's do it thing on for Mortal Combat.
Speaker 0 00:57:26 Come on mate. We we're not quite there yet. This is, uh, what episode? I dunno what it's gonna be. Seven, eight. We'll bring that stuff in in the future. Um, so some quick fire questions. What do the next few years look like for you as an entrepreneur or business owner? Uh, and for ltb?
Speaker 1 00:57:43 Um, for ltb <laugh> partner replaced 500 people that leave this year. That's part one, <laugh>. Uh, so we're replacing 1500 people over five, over three years. Let's go with that. Uh, no for, for Lift the Bar very much. Uh, the, the big the big thing for us this year is participation. We want more people not just join Lift the Bar, but participate in the things we do. Whether it's webinars, workshops, um, I get the most validation by seeing eyes and facial expressions and stuff like that. My innate need or neediness, my innate neediness, uh, requires, uh, that validation. So a big thing for us is participation. We're gonna do more things that more people can participate in more of the time. That's what I'm, I need outta life. That's what we're gonna go with. Uh, for me as an entrepreneur, just ticking that and making sure that, um, I check myself very, very regularly in terms of am I leading the kind of life that I wanna live at the moment on a personal and work level. Uh, I would, if I could repeat 2022 for the rest of my life and never live a different year again, right? So like Groundhog Day 2022, I'd do the same. So I'm going to do more of the same with that. So effectively for me, what that looks like is I work around about 15 to 20 hours per week all in. And most of that is built around being able to walk the dogs with Sam, do the school run and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 0 00:59:07 Okay. I've got a question now that I don't know if you'll have an answer for being detachable. What do you hate about the industry?
Speaker 1 00:59:15 Um, voyeurism, uh, people looking at somebody else's business. Highlight real number of clients, even the car they've got. And conflating that with what a successful life looks like. You know, I um, think it's really important that Rainers build the life they want and have a business inside that life that suits them rather than Brian to like, as, as an example, right? Um, maybe the wrong guy to speak to about this. I dunno, maybe the right guy. I actually definitely the right guy, uh, trainer that absolutely loves training people in person, feeling like they're missing, missing out on something in life by setting up themselves. As an online coach though, what they do is they look at the most successful online coach there is copy everything they do and then get really sad because they're not as successful or as popular as most successful online coach in the world and think they're a bad person because of it.
Speaker 1 01:00:17 Whereas if they're just happy to be when they're happy before doing what they were doing, like just do more of that <laugh>, you know, <laugh>. Um, so I think envy and voyeurism in our industry is really terrible. You can, you can see it yourself like everyone's trying to copy everyone else because they think somebody else is quite figured out, but nobody knows how happy the person we're copying is when the lights go out and they're left to their own devices. When work's been put down. I wish more trainers would fulfill their own lives rather than copy someone else's.
Speaker 0 01:00:52 Yeah. Lovely preaching to the choir mate. Yeah. <laugh>. Um, what's the biggest mistake you see coaches or personal traders making when they're trying to build their business?
Speaker 1 01:01:02 Wow, that's, um, I, I saw that on the, on the show notes actually. So I fought so many and then, then I'm, now I've got mind blocking so few, but the go from the heart. Uh, when people are growing their business, what they will do is they'll put a huge amount of pressure on themselves to win at the internet rather than starting with these little spheres of influence. Like the people closest to you are the ones that want you to win the most, for the most part. And it's very likely that they know the next person who will train with you. And when they start training with you, they will probably know the next person to start training with you. And so the story continues. The internet is an infinitely brilliant thing for so many reasons, for so many reasons. But if we ignore the opportunities we have within the people we already know and the people that they know when grown a business, then my worry is that people will spend so much time online without really utilizing the tools they've got at their disposal first.
Speaker 1 01:02:10 Like, it's much better to start with like growing a business when you've got a bit of proof that your product works and that people really enjoy it. Instead, what you see when people get started is they're given away a lot of information and a lot of advice and being very entertaining, but they've missed out on the fact that their mums mate more would probably pay you four or five times a month and now you've got someone to work with and some proof that actually works really di it's a really difficult one when you see trainers go all in on the internet and miss the opportunities that are literally sometimes right in front of their face. And case in point, um, Barney's dad, Barney's a Fox red lab in the village. Barley's a beautiful dog. Um, his, his dad, uh, well him dad, he's not his real dad cuz he's not a dog.
Speaker 1 01:03:03 He's a, he's, he's a, he's a man, but you get it. <laugh>, Barney's dad, uh, he's just stopped being a judge locally, he's just retired. And he said to me, you know, your neighbor Chris makes very confusing. I've got a neighbor called Chris <laugh>, said, you've done amazing with him. Like, will you train me as well? Like, well, let me tell you a story. I don't train him, my team do, but his little voucher got a little voucher on my phone that texts Johnny that and he'll get you started. Gotta start straight away. This is guy literally walking the dog in a village full of about 60 people right in front of my fucking face, <laugh>. And it all comes from him knowing someone who I live by. If we threw a net over everybody locally and figured out who was there that we kind of know that kind of wants to work with us, a lot of trainers would do very, very, very well in their early career doing that.
Speaker 0 01:04:04 Yeah. Uh, again, a hundred percent agree. A little bit of confirmation bias.
Speaker 1 01:04:09 I love a circle jerk. Love it. Come on everyone in the circle,
Speaker 0 01:04:13 <laugh> and with on that as well, just as an addition. People even make that mistake when they, they are going online because yeah, you know, we, we used to teach a, oh well, we still do teach this day. Who do you already know? Who you, who have you already spoke with? Who, who worked with you in the past? Um, use your existing, like they've got Facebook page. Oh no, it's only personal stuff there. It's like good they know you <laugh> and instead they're, they're looking for the fancy thing. What about the algorithms? What about Facebook adsd? Like just go and speak to the people that you know and you've spoke to in the past and that they've spoke to. Um, yeah, makes sense. So let's, um, finish on a positive note. What do you love some one thing that you love the most about the industry?
Speaker 1 01:04:58 Uh, so when it comes to the industry, I love the nature of the job itself because if we think about all the decisions people have to make in order to get fitter, healthier liver life full of wonderful experiences and minimal regrets, great training can support that, great nutrition can support that, but sticking to it is really tricky. So the number of decisions somebody has to make purely about a train session, the number of reps, the number of sets, whether the execution of the exercise is right, then when they go home, how many calories to eat, protein, all this kind of stuff. Um, how do they minimize stress and the input sources they have. And then once they've done all these things, how do they stick to doing them? I love that we get to do that for a living. I love that we get to help people do that.
Speaker 1 01:05:51 Because what you end up with when you do it really, really, really, really well is you end up with better dads, moms, husbands, sisters, brothers. You end up people with usually better careers because they're less irritated and less stressed and can have better conversations. People downplay our industry as fat loss and rep counting. Whereas with a culmination, every client you work with, your relationship with them is the culmination of thousands of decisions made every single month. Okay, this set we're gonna add 2.5 s on, there's a decision made that they no longer have to do. Yeah. And the reason why many people never experienced this wonderful series of outcomes is because when we are left to make these decisions for ourselves and nobody throws their arm over your shoulder to say, you've got this, remember mentioned about Sam putting our arm around my shoulder and saying, I believe in you, people fail. And what we end up with is more irritated people with less energy feeling like an absolute sad crap. And always on this start, stop thing. I love the thing I love about our industry, about personal training and online coaching and the people that we generally tend to speak to in our, in our profession seekers. I love the fact that we let people live better lives through wonderful decision making. Nothing. This is why I'll do this forever.
Speaker 0 01:07:23 I love it. That's an amazing answer. And, and so true. Like one of our big kind of missions at Stratas is getting that message out there, doing what maybe Symp Bar should be doing or reps should have done. Like why aren't the government recommending what we do for the general public instead of No, it's fat about this month. No, it is, it's sugar is about this month. I love that. Um, yeah. So Chris, it's been an absolute pleasure. If people wanna find out more about you or if the bar, where should we send them?
Speaker 1 01:07:57 Oh wow. There's are two very different things. Uh, lift the Bar probably follows on Instagram, lift the Bar. Um, and if you want professional answers on what our business does, email Stuart lift the bar.com if you wanna like see videos of me walking my dogs holding hands on my wife and playing bowling with my girls. Then, uh, I'm at Birds underscore LTB on Instagram. I sometimes post on Facebook, but usually that's football fan baiting stuff. So probably less important for Stratus, uh, and Fit Founder customers <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:08:26 Yeah. So we'll link all that stuff and people can make their own decisions.
Speaker 1 01:08:31 Yeah, probably just post you, they'll probably do that. Yeah,
Speaker 0 01:08:35 If you, if for those of you that are listening, um, to lift the bar, um, Instagram is an amazing source of content and very relatable, um, and educational and entertaining occasionally as well. Chris, it's been a pleasure mate. Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 1 01:08:49 Thank you for having me. I really loved it. Thanks mate.
