Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:06 Hey everybody. Suk here, host of Fit Founders, and today I'm joined by Luke Johnson and we're gonna talk all about his career, his journey, what he's up to today, and, and the various businesses that he's founded in the industry. Luke, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 Yes, Luke. Thanks for having me on. It's uh, uh, my Gladys video and I asked the question beforehand. It was like, is it really? Yes, go and get a fresh fade. So I I know we're both rocking the fades.
Speaker 0 00:00:30 Yeah, both of us. And I don't know if I'm getting a bit old for, um, a skin fade. What do you think? Nah,
Speaker 1 00:00:36 Nah, no, we're good. I think we are, when we start really going gray, the fade will be, uh, ne like a necessity because what it, we just don't wanna throw too much ground aside.
Speaker 0 00:00:46 Yeah, that's, I I don't know whether to go all in on gray soon and just do the whole diet. Gray dye. The beard gray, is that, um, what's his name? Gordon. Gordon Ryan, the, the Jiujitsu guy. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:00:58 Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 0 00:00:59 Just be a bit like him minus the jiujitsu and the badass. Just the gray. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:01:04 And the steroids.
Speaker 0 00:01:06 <laugh>, yeah. Minus the steroids. Um, cool. So Luke, for those listeners that don't know who you are, do you wanna just give a, a very top or high level overview of, of who you are and a bit about your background?
Speaker 1 00:01:21 Yeah, so I got into fitness, well I basically become a fitness instructor when I was 18 because, uh, and we'll talk about it later on as well cause I've seen notes. Uh, but with, when I was 18, I was like, I don't wanna get a job. Like all my mates were getting jobs in sort of retail. I was like, I don't wanna get a job in retail. And my parents was always much like, focus on your studies. Focus on your studies. Don't get, you don't need a job. We'll look after you until you are, you're 18. But it was always that pressure of what do you wanna do when you grow, what do you wanna do when you grow? And I didn't have a clue. Um, when I was 18 though, at my first year of university, that's when I started, I probably lifting weights maybe a year or two before, but my background was in karate, completed at like international level for karate.
Speaker 1 00:02:06 And um, then as I got older and your skinny kid be like, Hey, I'll start lifting some weights. And then you start putting some muscle and then you get that, that sort of gym addiction that a lot of people go through, especially those which then go on to become person trainers. And yeah, I just started, my ex-girlfriend's mum at the time was going to, uh, a gym, Valentine's gym in Grove Park. And I said, what do I need to get a job in the gym? She asked the manager, the general manager who's a bit of a herv, bloody fancy turn amongst all the other people. And he's like, yeah, sit down, have a coffee and I'll tell you what you need to do, <laugh>. But then I realized that I had to get a level two fitness instructing, um, qualification. So I did mine in two weeks at, uh, the great Y M C A on Great R Street really, um, that, that was the, the hunting grand back in the days.
Speaker 1 00:02:55 And once I, I got my, I think it was about 700 pound at the, the time we've been inflation, that was probably quite expensive. It might have been a little bit more. And um, I think at the time I had to get a credit card that, I dunno if it was for level two or level three, one of them, I had to get a credit card that with my mom, um, and pay it off. But there was obviously having my student loan, but once I had my fitness instructor qualification basically said, can I have a job? They didn't get back to me, pestered them again. They got back to me. And then I'd work every Saturday morning, like nine 30 to six, um, as a fitness instructor. And I did that through when, and I was at, uh, throughout university and I just worked that Saturday and I'm glad that I did that because at least then I, I followed my passion.
Speaker 1 00:03:40 I think passions change all the time as you go through life. And um, yeah, so that's sort of how I got into the fitness industry. Um, and then after university I actually wanted to be a secondary school PE teacher. Uh, I did fairly well. I got like a two one in my sports science degree and they, they rejected me. They rejected me. So, and I think the biggest motivation that I have is when someone tells me I can't do it. So it was really good. I remember when I was, you know, you get like your, your predicted grades for gcse and they gave me like a C for PE and I was just like that, like, are you, are you serious? I'm like, are you, have you seen this athletic God at the time, like I, I was good at everything and um, I got an A just missed out on that a star, but I feel I'm more, I've always been competitive from a young age.
Speaker 1 00:04:32 And um, yeah, when they declined me, I then worked in my old secondary school for four, four weeks work experience for free. Still didn't get in and I'm glad I didn't because you spend basically 15 minutes trying to tell kids they gotta do PE to get ready and they don't wanna do it, half of them. And then you got then got like 30 minutes and then another 15 minutes to say, right, you've gotta go and get a change to do something else. So personal training weren't really, uh, a thing that I was my first option. And then I then started obviously working more full-time and back in the day you do 20 20, 20 hours fitness instructed in 20 hours pt. And um, I was a, I consider myself a fouled personal trainer, Jim Floor personal trainer. And um, I dunno, do you want me to sort of, I'll carry on with this or do you want to like shorten it up a bit? I can go real fast on this last bit. I'll go real fast. No,
Speaker 0 00:05:28 I think, I think the story so far is good. One thing that I've gotta ask is, yeah, at any point so far up to what you've spoke about, was there an entrepreneurial itch? Was there I'm gonna be a business owner in the future? Like, had that even entered your mind?
Speaker 1 00:05:44 No, I'd always, from a, i from a young age, not a young young, I'd always say, I've not been put on this earth to be content just being average or just going through life. Do you know what I mean? Like, the majority just get a, get some grades, go to work for someone and that's it. They just live day by day and they're not really doing anything for me. And I always say I'm just an average man that has the mindset to do more than like bigger than average things. So I, I wouldn't say I, I definitely didn't have an entrepreneurial mindset and it didn't really come until Jamie, my girlfriend, still girlfriend, we're not gonna get married. But if you listen to this, Jane, it's outta, I'll keep saying. So, so do you want marriage or do you want like a five years of like free holidays a year?
Speaker 1 00:06:31 What one would you prefer? Cause that's how much it's gonna cost. Do you She loves a holiday, the girl, so she, she's like, we'll stick with a holiday even though we're free kids in now. When Jamie told me she, yeah, no <laugh>. So I didn't really get entrepreneurial until Jamie told me that she was pregnant via WhatsApp, not in person, just a text. Then you like get, and you go, okay, well this wasn't planned. Uh, she was what Lynn's 10. So she was 21, 20 21 when she fell pregnant. And um, I was like, oh shit. Like I, I was working as a college lecturer, so long story short wasn't, didn't like person training the girlfriend, I was bit about the time as a primary school teacher, as you know, Jim floor person training is just starting at, you're basically everyone else's bitch. You work when they aren't working so early in the morning during lunch and after you finish work.
Speaker 1 00:07:27 And like, that's why I feel like most, a lot of personal trainers can go to be successful business owners because they've experienced long ass hours of work and they have more resilience than than other people. And um, I was doing a spin class and one of the guys who Wei worked at Lucian College and he said, well, they're looking for a sports lecture. Have you ever thought about doing sports? Dad also had my, I think I was 22, 23 at the time and I was like, no. But I was into sort of anatomy and physiology. That was a thing that was really interesting to me. And I got the guy's number one, the first day I text him on the Friday, I had a job interview on the Monday and the next Monday I was teaching 40 year olds amazing, like anatomy and physiology, level two, level three, um, B Tech nationals.
Speaker 1 00:08:22 I was in charge of the apprentices, I was in charge of the gym throughout that time and I did that for five years as a college lecturer did. Therefore I've got two degrees. So guy from southeast London, we caught in the accident has two degrees, one in sports science and one in teaching. And uh, I enjoyed teaching, but then I suppose going back to when Jamie told me she was pregnant, I was like, I was earning probably 32, 33 K a year and I was still living at home with mommy and daddy. So it wasn't, I was a 23, 24, 25 year old earning over that. I mean nowadays it's, it's not, not the same, but back then it wasn't, it was a decent salary and it's like you are in education, it's a secure job. Like they're always gonna need teachers and then they start getting rid of departments in further education. So like, well that one, that one a good guess. Mom and dads,
Speaker 0 00:09:10 No, I
Speaker 1 00:09:11 Saved 16 to 17 nk. And the reason why I saved that was at the time in 2012, beginning of 2012, online coaching wasn't a thing. There was the strength guys and a guy called Luke Haslet and that was it. There was no one there, there was no software like Stratus. I think what was the, my, my PT hub come out in like, that wasn't
Speaker 0 00:09:32 Around 2000. Think train was around first think train a bit earlier, but it was, you know what? Garbage.
Speaker 1 00:09:39 Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:09:40 I don't know. I know it was available when I started in 2013, beginning of 20, 20 13.
Speaker 1 00:09:47 Yeah, there wasn't, there was no sort of coaching software now and at that time, so as well, I knew that I had a kid coming and I thought when this kid comes probably gonna fuck up my life, I'm probably gonna have no time. I'm gonna have to spend time doing all this other stuff. But I preempted that and at the time I still had this idea of I want to be a fitness magazine front cover model. I saw like Scott back to who I knew at the time. I was like, Scott's so right. He's got a decent busy, he's not bad looking, but I'm like, if he can do it, I can do it. So then over a eight week, 10 week period, I've gone from, I mean I can, my outta shape then is like good shape math, if that makes sense. <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:30 Um, and obviously I'm half Greek, so I'm, I'm fully haired up. I've, I'm eating a lemon ice cream, but I don't even think I trained for like 10 weeks, but four between the, the two photos I basically ate like a bro, it was bowl, eggs and walnuts and patuka for breakfast, no carbs. Um, only carbs, starchy carbs. One meal of the day, I think it was after for dinner, but I probably tried to eat it before 6:00 PM and I got indecent Nick, I also waxed my chest, went to my sister's boyfriend who's now husband who's doing photography at the time, went to their flap and did about 300 pushups and baby ed the hell out of my chest. Johnson's baby old, we've gotta stick to the, to the loyalty of the, the company,
Speaker 0 00:11:16 The,
Speaker 1 00:11:16 That's it. And um, took, he took some photos and I did actually get on a, I got voted for like a map. I dunno if I was on it. I don't think I've ever got on the front cover of magazine, but long story short, at the time I was on Twitter and I just put it before and after photo up and I put it up on my personal Facebook and I pull it on Twitter and then I just started getting bombarded with messages and he is like, what the, like how did, like, can you can, can you do that for me? I'm like, yeah, well I'm already working 40 hours a week as Electra, what can I do to make money to then be able to move out my mom and dad's house and then actually be a real adult and have a kid. But then I saved 16 to 17 K within nine months and that was a combination of making money for online coaching but also just not buying dumb shit.
Speaker 1 00:12:03 And I managed to save that. Um, so that I didn't have any, as I said, from a young age, my mom and dad was always like, focus on education, don't worry about getting a job that I didn't have no entrepreneurial, I wasn't selling, I wasn't going round people's houses and going, you want me to cut your grass for forever? Clean your windows. I wasn't doing any of that. I do feel like I would've got there. But Jamie being pregnant was a catalyst. No, I think I put a post up like, and I'm calling myself successful about successes in the eye, the holder. I feel like anyone that has gone on their own and made some sort of success as a fuck you moment was like, oh shit, or holy shit moment be like, I've gotta do something that, and that was the catalyst for me.
Speaker 1 00:12:47 But yeah, I didn't have any entrepreneurial thing I suppose when, uh, that was just to make money and then also we, we'd discuss how that progresses in a bit. But my other entrepreneurial thing, when I was at the college, this was before Jamie was pregnant, we went over to Dallas and each year it was like Dallas Cup, which was the biggest under 19 football tournament in the world. And as working as, as a ion college and being a fitness person, I went out there with a couple other, uh, tutors. And when we was out there, it was in the shopping mall and there's these things called power balance bands. Uh, have you, do you remember them so called you like what the hell were they? No, no, I don't think I did. No. So in the malls you've got obviously the little, the pop-up things and they're like, put a nice fit bird on there and then, uh, hey, come and try this and shit.
Speaker 1 00:13:39 This was like a plus a rubber band, which had two things on it. It had like an a they sold, it added like electro electrons or irons and it would help you with your health and athletic performance. And one of the tests was stand on one foot, put your arms out and then I'm gonna push on one arm and you are gonna tip her over. And then it was going, okay, now hold this band and then do it again. And for whatever reason sir, it worked and it's probably, and I tested this as well, was like, hold the band first and then don't hold the band. And it worked for whatever reason, placebo, no placebo, whatever it was. And I remember going back to the UK thinking, right, I'm gonna search these up. And I went on Alibaba and I bought a thousand of them.
Speaker 1 00:14:26 Yeah. But I dunno how much it costs. Probably like two, 300 quid and then probably illegally, I just started selling them to all the students and staff at, at the college. And uh, I, I suppose that was my first entrepreneurial thing and that was the first time where I actually probably, I didn't sell a thousand of them. They probably still in my mum's loft, like a number, 200, 300 of them. But I sold enough where I probably quadrupled maybe six times my, my money. Yeah. So that was the first time where I had sort some entrepreneurial thing in me. Um, and I used exactly the same tactics that the, the girl used on me with them. And uh, that's when I was like, all right, it's like 15 pound for one, or if you want two it's 20 quids, people are just buy two. So that was sort of the, the first entrepreneurial experience and that one into, I was probably 22, 23.
Speaker 0 00:15:20 And it sounds like it just kind of, you, you weren't thinking, oh, I'm gonna be a business owner, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. It just kind of, you just did it organically, which I think is common for a lot of people who just kind of stumble into being a business owner.
Speaker 1 00:15:31 Yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker 0 00:15:33 Okay, so you're lecturing at Luum, you're starting to work in, start starting to work with clients online after uh, your baby oil photo shoot. Yeah. Um, I think I've seen the picture of that. I think I remember those pictures. Um, talk to me about online coaching. How did that go? Um, and and is that what triggered leaving, uh, in unit to five?
Speaker 1 00:15:54 Yeah, so originally I was having a conversation with your mom and dad and now you got, it was the whole thing when it says it's like you've got a kid coming, nah. And like you've got a Shak secure job in education, like you shouldn't do it. And originally I wasn't gonna go, um, just sack it off and do my own thing. My original plans was to then go down to maybe like a 0.8 or 0.5 contract. And at the time is when I started learning about evidence-based, science-based information, though I, I was aware of a, a guy called Alan Aragon and I signed up to his research review that he's been doing for years and years. And I was like, why, why is it that when I search stuff on the internet, I'm seeing all this stuff and this guy is contradicting everything that I thought was true based on what I've seen from the marketers of the fitness industry, which are always gonna be ranked highest when you type something on Google.
Speaker 1 00:16:46 And back in them days it was seo, it wasn't, wasn't really social media and stuff like that. And then one of the guys at the time was named Joseph Au and he was literally calling out every single person that I was following, but they're bullshit. And I was like, that was how he created a name for himself. He just, but he was far more intelligent than I was. He was working at the English Institute of Sport and his background's obviously nutrition. And I, I paid him money for Skype and I had a list of stuff. I was like, what's like the the wheat belly book? Is that any good bullshit? What's like metabolic typing bullshit? What about like the alkaline diet bullshit? And I was like, wow. There weren't until then I started just being four far more questioning stuff. And then he put me onto Alan Agon and then I had, I can't remember how many clients I had also, I managed to save 16, 17 K within a nine month period.
Speaker 1 00:17:46 But then I sent an email to Alan Agon cuz he'd have his email at the end of each research review. And I said, would you come over to the UK for a conference? I'll cover your, your accommodation, your travel and you'll get a fee. He didn't get back to me. But then I was following, you know when you start stalking like fanboy and you start stalking people on, on internet at the time its Facebook, but I think he was already at another event. So I were like, all right. So I emailed him again one week later and he um, got back to me. I was like, that was like three, four in the morning or whatever time it was. And obviously you got a kid by then, so, um, you're awake at those times. So I checked my phone and I wake up to him, was like, Alan's got back to me.
Speaker 1 00:18:31 He said he's interested, but then I've got this Skype with this, this guy. And I'm like, bad boying over him. And then he says, yes, the fee was 2000 US dollars. It was nothing cause we made 29 grand in a weekend. And then, but then I was at that point I'm making money for online coaching. I've managed to get Alan and a gone. We're making 28, 29 grand in a weekend, which was close to my salary. And when Alan said he was game, I looked at what, who was on the research papers with him and Dr. Brad Schoenfeld. I reached out to Brad, hi Brad, I'm the guy that managed to get Alan Agon to come over to the UK for a conference. Would you be interested? He then message messages. Alan was like, who the fuck's this Luke Johnson guy? And Alan's like, I dunno, but I've had a call of him and he seemed pretty cool.
Speaker 1 00:19:19 It's like just a, they enjoyed that. I was just a normal down to earth guy who's got a K now, got a kid that is trying to, again is is bringing over these people cause they, they wasn't there before. So like no one was there like Alan was over in 2013 and there were, there was no real UK based individual that were put in content at that was science-based. And then when Brad said yes, I then reached out to Dr. Eric Helms. Now it's like, I'm the guy that got Alan and Brad to agree to come over. Will you come over to do something online, natural body building at the time? Obviously you have your interest in sort of the body building. And then it sort of moved into power lifting and they have their sort of, they're still a thing, but they have their years where they're really trending where everyone wants to be a seat athlete and everyone wants to be a power lifter.
Speaker 1 00:20:06 So once I had that and I had the revenue coming in for the conferences and online coaching and I took on another guy at Danny Group. So then it was Luke Johnson pt, I had Tom Adams or Thomas Moores like TM cycles people may know him, listened to a podcast. He was my apprentice at the college. And he designed a shitty little logo where it was Luke Johnson with a barbell with a great barbell on some light blue, uh, bumper plates. And that's when I just quit my job cuz I had that money coming in and I was like, I, what's the point? I'm just gonna do it. And it was the best decision that I made. Um, and it's probably been a detriment to a certain degree, as in I feel, and I dunno, I I I've been looking into like a D H D I feel like I may have it, but I I, I probably won't go and get diagnosed and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:20:57 Um, but with me, if anything's in my diary in a week and I've not had to say on it, I feel suffocated. But I've gone from, Hey Luke, you are an employed member of staff. This is how much you are worth to us per year. You've gotta be at this classroom at this time teaching this subject, this lesson to them. Once I had a taste of the other staff, I was like, I, there's no way that I could go back no way, yeah. Whatsoever that I could go back. And then when I started online coaching, I took Danny on. I thought, well I can't, if I wanna expand, I can't just be Luke Johnson PT or have to come up with a name. But when Eric Helms agreed to come over, we were coming up with sh what name should we call the seminar the conference.
Speaker 1 00:21:42 And me and, and Joe Auz helping at the time was what? Shredded by science. And Joe bought the main name cause he knew how to do that. I didn't know how to do it shredded by science. And then I'm thinking, well I've been doing online coaching for enough now. And it ain't the Zoom shit where you're jumping around coaching. It's like you're just basically programming for and telling 'em what to do nutrition wise, weekly check in and email support. And I soon started to realize that Josh, who was 22, 20, 21 years of age at university, loved to train, loved to, was already using my fitness power, was an absolute joy to coach online. But then I was coaching his mom, Debbie, and she was an absolute nightmare because she'd been on every yo-yo diet. She didn't know the difference between a carb and a protein and she didn't know between a difference between the squat and the deadlift.
Speaker 1 00:22:31 And then that's when, so I was stopped really reading the scientific papers and I was going, I need to nat as a business owner, spent all my time and energy and effort in learning business marketing Dows. And I'd spend that time, I would spend on geeking out on scientific papers trying to pretend what I knew. I knew what a p value was, which I do now, but at the time you don't. And um, like the, I feel like with any industry there's the bro side, which is i I fish and rice cakes and then there's the science base. And I feel like the best bit is probably just to be slightly in the middle or more to where there's scientific evidence. But I feel like if you at any ex any extreme end of the continuum, you're probably in the wrong place cuz you're just talking in absolute.
Speaker 1 00:23:18 And as I used to say, if anyone talk in absolute, they're talking absolute nonsense because there's always context. So then I started looking at like Ryan Lee and people like that and how they would make money online. And I started get just books and books and books, courses just to try and get better at marketing. And I knew then that I had to create a brand that I, I used store it music and like mark it like a magnet appeal to the people you wanna appeal to and like repel everyone else that you don't want to actually appeal to and pay money. But I knew Debbie wasn't a great fit for online coaching. She was better off doing maybe a group's thing or or doing in-person personal training. And I was at McDonald's. I'm, I've joined this podcast cause I'm, I'm learning about storytelling at the moment.
Speaker 1 00:24:05 I'm like, I'm telling a lot of stories. And when you are our age shook, you've got a lot of time. You, you have a lot of stories to tell. Yeah. And um, I was at McDonald's waiting and Jamie was getting McDonald's and I was, I was trying to think of this name to come up with for this online coaching company that acted like a magnet. So I wanted the name to be really specific that anyone that heard it was like, that's not for me or that really is for me. And at the time I, the best one add was ripped by research cause I'm still very science and research based at the time. I was like, that's terrible. But I I for months, four months trying to come up with this name. And then when Jamie is, I was waiting for her to get the McDonald's, I was like, why don't I take the name shredded by science?
Speaker 1 00:24:50 There's a company name. And then when I launch, we're gonna launch before Helms comes over. I think this was probably August time and Eric was due to come over in 2014 in April. And I was like, why don't I call the business shredded by science and shredded by science are bringing over Eric Helms do a seminar on natural body building. Like cool. I spoke to Joe, I was like, can I have the domain name? Can you transfer it over to me? You call if I call my company Shred by Science. And he was fine with it. And we got it transferred over and then that's when Shredded by Science was born. And uh, we started off as free coaches again. Danny was a guy I think even from Twitter or Facebook. And Allie was also someone from Twitter, Facebook. I never met them once. Well I, I had met them but at that time I'd never met them.
Speaker 1 00:25:44 And I was just going, oh these are putting out some good content. Do you wanna do online coach? Do you do online coaching? I'll do some in person. What about online coaching? I've created these systems. At the time when I started it was a USB stick with some spreadsheets and some word docs. Um, there was no Dropbox, there's no G driving, there's no software. Uh, and at that time in two, so I think I formed Treaded by Science August, yeah, August, 2013. And we just, I think then the market strategy was just Facebook page. And what we did was we had create like short mini blogs, which was taking scientific information and like distilling it and making it simplified people in written content. And we'd put references within the post hyperlink within the poster. Can you imagine that you're actually putting it within the post and you're not putting it in the first comment.
Speaker 1 00:26:35 And and people actually saw it. They actually saw it. And um, at the time I hired this company to do the website and um, uh, at, at sounds like we can't launch unless we've got a website and I need the website to actually take payments on the website and there needs to be a little membership thing and stuff like that. It's supposed to be ready in September. It wasn't ready in September, October, November, December time, January come round. It was then ready to go. So we've just been putting that content for free on Facebook for four or five months. And then when we launched it was like boom, we're sold out. Like we had so much value and grew a following, can't remember what it was. And we'd done something stupid like pre first 10 people get premium coaching. We had like premium coaching, ultimate coaching when I first started this body transformation eight weeks.
Speaker 1 00:27:29 And then it's total transformation cause like it's not just the body and then it was just premium coaching and ultimate coaching. Can't remember what the difference was. There would've been some sort of difference with the deliverables and we'd done something stupid. I think maybe like premium coaching was 49 pound per month and then premium was 69 when we first started. Bear in mind that that point took, that's a regression for me, for me. So I think before I stopped online coaching my, and under my personal brand, I still did it with s sps, I'd probably charge in a hundred to 125 pound per month. And I'm going, right, we gotta do this special launch. Me grandfathered to price in and then bef and then from 2013 up to 2015, long story short went from free coaches to 12 coaches all over the world. I can never learn America, America, Canada, um, other places, <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:28:24 And um, we did one-to-one online coaching. We launched a membership called Shrek. We had probably a thousand members paying five pound 5 99 a month. Um, we, I took on the first female, uh, coach, uh, Juliana. And that was when we launched the first female group coaching. That was probably 2014. Cuz again, like online coaching wasn't a thing at 2012 and there was no, there was no group coaching. And we launched female group coaching and first and that went really well. I've still got a load of logos like the get shredded with the, the, the science atom with like a, a wolverine scratch across it. We had the get lean, we had the get strong, we had the whatever it was, I've still got those versions of, of the, of the, the logo and the female group coaching went well. So we did one-to-one, we did membership, we did female group coaching, male group coaching.
Speaker 1 00:29:20 Long story short, Pete with your thinking or doing group coaching works really well with females cause they actually like being in a community. Males just don't give a fuck about anyone else apart from themselves. So like having a group coaching experience for males and a community just doesn't work the same. I'm gonna say is this based on years of experience and obviously educating person, trainers moving into training, education, um, I dunno what your thoughts are si as well. Have you tried like group coaching for females versus group coaching for males online and if there's been differences?
Speaker 0 00:29:53 Yeah, to be honest, I never, um, most of my clients were female when I was a coach. Yeah. And I had huge group programs, uh, like hundreds in every month. We had more females than males, but we did have males. Um, yeah we did, we just never specified this is a male. We never did a, this is a male specific program. It's
Speaker 1 00:30:13 Just naturally a targeted more females.
Speaker 0 00:30:15 Yeah. Um, but yeah, like again, we've, I've got a few clients who do group programs as well or previous mentees, Mike and Dan from Biceps and Banter. Um, and I, again, they don't specify gender. Yeah. Um, and they do get a mix, but I think it's still primarily female, uh, in their group programs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:30:36 And I feel like if you look at it, just go to the gym, like it leaves clues. You go and look who's in all of the group classes. Predominantly it's females.
Speaker 0 00:30:45 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:30:45 If you go and look who's predominantly in the weights area, still to this day but far less, there's far more women in the free weights area. We think back in them days took, it was very much as I can't lift weights, I'm gonna get bulky. Yeah. And um, yes, we did that and we did a, we we, we launched a coaching guide as well. We've, we, we've started doing it ourselves, but then at that point, that's when I made the decision to go right for this business model to work I would need thousands of clients and therefore I would need hundreds of coaches. And guess what? There's not that many good coaches at the time. So I was going back to then, then that's when I launched the SPS Academy in 2015.
Speaker 0 00:31:27 Okay. So let me just jump in cuz this, this was a question i I was gonna ask and it's mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, online coaching is clearly going well. Um, why move into education? You kind of just answered it to some degree there. So what got you thinking of how big you wanted this thing to be or how much revenue you wanted it to be and then deciding that you just weren't gonna be able to get that big from coaching. Like why were you even thinking that way?
Speaker 1 00:31:54 It was looking at the numbers and purely like when you were business and your V a T registered and you are hiring these coaches, they're, they're not employed by you. And that's why if I, I still gotta do a podcast episode of what I'd do if I was doing online coaching today. And at the time when Danny first started, he was getting 75%. Cause look, I'm like no one was doing this. I had a how'd you know what percentage split you should do? And by that, when I took on all of those coaches, we had systems that literally they would complete a form they would pay and then it would take me 20 seconds to set their, to set up the Dropbox folder and then share it with a, a trainer. Cause when, when uh, Danny started, he was on 75%. And when Allie started I was like, you are on 70%.
Speaker 1 00:32:43 And then when I started taking on the other coaches, they were on like a percentage scale that started off on 50%. And then the more clients they had, the more percentage that they got. And it was looking at well for that, for those percentages and for that business to work again it was one as in I, we'd need to find more, more clients we're probably gonna then have to start doing paid adss. I didn't have a clue about paid adss at the time. And then the process to become an SBS coach took four to five weeks. But it was, we're looking for a coach, send a email with your CV cause that was the thing at the time. And then a 500, like a 200 5500 words being of why you feel you'll be a good SPS coach. We then filtered through them. Most of 'em are crap next stage.
Speaker 1 00:33:33 Cool. At the time we created Facebook posts here now crew. Now it was the second stage, I dunno if it's two or two or two different stages or one stage of once where it was, they then had to create a Facebook post that was in the start of S sps. And we gave him some tips and tricks and then we also gave him a case study, two different case studies and was going alright this person. And it was more of like, this person's a young dude wants to, gets ready to get sex. So how would you coach this, do a 12 week overview and then give us a one month detailed plan and then tell us how you'd coach him nutrition wise and what adjustments you would make. And then the other one was probably someone that wanted to put muscle mass on and then we'd then filter that process and then it was interviews and I was like, because SBS is my baby, still is my baby.
Speaker 1 00:34:19 And when I rebranded to ptc, which we talk about in a bit because that's the the journey of the founder's journey. When sbs, when I rebranded my child died and PTC was an adopted child that I never wanted or there was no not never worry about, there was no emotional connection cuz you think at the time when my baby come, my actual business died and that's when it progressed into sbs. Yeah. So it was simply going well if I want to make hundred k, I dunno what my ambitions were at the time there, but I was like, for that business model to work, I would need to have a lot more clients and I'd need to find a lot more trainers and it's gonna be a lot of work. But then I went full circle and it was like, well I was a trainer then I went into education, then I went into online coaching and then I went back into education, did the good thing that I had was doing my teaching degree and stuff like that and looking at level two and level three and they are a piece of shit.
Speaker 1 00:35:23 Yeah reps are sim bill, it's all crap. We'll talk about it in a bit. And um, that's when I looked at it and I looked back at that, I can't remember what was 2015 is what we now I'm like whatever age I was 20 something late twenties. And um, we're like, you be two types. You can do two things in life. Fucking complain about something if shit or do something about it. And if something pisses you off enough and you have the right mindset, you do something about it. So at that point, I look back to the young 21 year old Luke on the gym floor, fucking clueless. I've got level two a level three and I've got a sports science degree. I didn't know fuck all about marketing, I didn't know about talking to people, interpersonal skills, nothing. Then I looked at it and I was going, well I suppose it is one of the things like there's not enough good trainings around what do I need to do?
Speaker 1 00:36:18 I need to create something that is, and I always used to say it's the personal trainer qualification you wish you had but you never had the opportunity to get. Cause it wasn't the same generic shit that every training provider gives you that is out of date, 20 years out of date still saying you've got a cock, you have 2,500 calories, you've got a vagina, you have 2000 calories. Doesn't matter if you are small, tall, active, fat, skinny, whatever it is. They're just generic stuff. So then I've reached out to, and at that point I probably had, I've reached out to Eric Helms already had that connection with him. And then at that point there was a transition took where once I started doing these conferences I was like, cool, but is there a better way that I can use these experts where I'm not having to pay all this money for being used and flight stuff.
Speaker 1 00:37:06 Like can I do that online? And there was, so that's when I launched Elite Fitness Mentoring and Chris Burgess at the time I had lift the bar and lift the bar was like, if you are just starting out, go lift the bar. If you are already a year in or two years in and you want to like higher level stuff, then go to Elite fitness mentoring. But then, uh, for whatever reason, uh, Dr. Mike Zardos come on for webinar and it was over two hours long and he's the best presenter to this day that I've ever seen. And it's unusual to have American people with UK sense of humor and he just has that dry sense of humor. And I can just remember at the time, obviously I, I was into my bodybuilding and not really power lifting and Alan and Nutrition, that was the thing.
Speaker 1 00:37:46 And this guy, I'm just like, he's a great presenter and he worked, he was a assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University and he doesn't have Instagram. He still doesn't have Instagram. And at the time I was going, well physique prep is a thing and so was power lifting back in those days like 2015. So I went to Hells and I said, and this was again scratching your own itch to go back saying what would Luke have wanted when he was 21? Now he is 28, to then be able to be successful on the gym floor. Yeah. And then my thing there was going, well I already got people down to like 10% body fat. Is there something I don't know that Eric knows because it for me is the best when it comes to education and like natural bodybuilding contest prep. And I just basically went to Eric and I was like, I want you to create a course for a personal trainer that wants to be able to have the knowledge and ability to coach people, to get shredded, to get on stage, create the curriculum, cool Mike, no one knows who the fuck you are.
Speaker 1 00:38:53 But I could, if I wanted to make, if I was just making money, I could have just gone to Lane Norton and been like, Hey, this is what we're gonna do. It might have been Harley probably would've said no cause he already had a bigger following and he would've done it himself. But I went to the people that I fought, not who had the biggest reach, but I fought was the best person for that thing. And I went to exactly saying to Mike Dead, I want you to create a course, a module unit for someone that is a personal trainer already that wants to have the knowledge and capability to coach someone to do power lifting. And that's how SPS would born. Module one was, um, a lot of the actual practical application of um, being a personal trainer like regressions, progressions, coaching cues, others programming side of things with different goals. Um, nutrition, it touched base on nutrition, but not a lot. And then module two was helms on coaching physique athletes. Module three was power lifters and module four was like fitness, business and marketing, which obviously at that point I got a lot better because that's what I was studying.
Speaker 0 00:39:55 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:39:57 Then I had 90% margin sick then I actually made money
Speaker 0 00:40:01 That internet money. Internet money. Yeah. I posted a, a screenshot on better, I think yours a couple days ago. I found the first transaction email from my first ever internet money in 2010. Yeah. Dollar pair of lady shoes. <laugh>. There you go. It's, it's magical. So so this is the, this is the birth or beginnings of the s SPS academy, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:40:24 <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:40:25 So there, there are a couple of things. Number one, and this is probably good advice for PTs coaches who are looking at becoming educators, looking at scratching their own itch and, and creating things that maybe they wish that they had, which is what both of us have done in our career. So the first one if you can reveal it, is how did you structure those deals with the quote unquote influencers?
Speaker 1 00:40:50 Yeah, it was pretty much, I'm sure they won't mind me saying they just got, they, I think they got a fee when we created it. And at the time when we first launched it 2015, it was just screen recordings. And then we went to Miami and we recorded it in like this stu like big old art studio thing where we slept at the time where there was a dead mouse in the shower. So that was, that was eventful. Um, and Steve, the videographer guy was um, oh no, the first time I actually, no, the first time I, we went to Miami to record it and then we then sort of had, do you know like you're creating it and there is no branding as such. There was just stilled it like you stole a load of images online. You didn't really at that point you don't know about copyright and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:41:39 And um, they were on, I paid them a fee, I don't think it was much. And then I was just gonna be 5% each, so it was 5% of top line revenue, whatever the, the money was. And the, at the time he did six months, every six months. So, but by that point, so I was like, I gave far too much percentage away before, don't do it again. So it's like you get and they're like, they don't know if this is gonna be an ongoing thing or whatever it was. They probably got three to 5k. Uh, at the time Helms was in um, you still <inaudible> in um, east Easter Loops in New Zealand. So it was like, right, we've gotta pay for him to fly over and this and that. And um, we was the Miami studio and they created, they had 10 lessons each I think as one's presenting the others finish finishing off their slides that sort of prepared it was, yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 1 00:42:34 And then, um, yeah, so that, that was how the, the deal was first intake we had 110. That was August, September, 2015. Then we, we did run it and by that point as well c I'd been putting on so many conferences in seminars. I know what dates best. So if you try and do a seminar conference at the end of Jan beginning fed like you want the ticket sounds to go on eight weeks, six weeks before, well that's just right before Christmas. Or it could be people have kids and have school holidays. So at that point I sort of had a good idea and from an an academic point of view, school starts back up September though. We launched in September and then we launched in March to every I, I used to have a running job. I'd be like, I'll get sex every twice a year.
Speaker 1 00:43:23 Cause we'd have a massive amount of signups and money. Like we'd make 50 k nights every time launched. Like we, and that's, I suppose that's when I uh, I'm not like one of these hippie pipes where it's like mindset this and mindset that and meditating ice plunge and stuff. Like I don't do that. I'm like, no, I just have a hot shower. Um, but then on the second intake we only got like 89 cause in my eyes I was like, well that's 110 people less to then sign up. And then I got Grant condo's book of 10 x and I read like the first few pages, what did it say? 10 x 10 x, 10 x, 10 x, yeah, 10 x. But then I was like, now I'm gonna set the target of 150. Yeah. Or 200 or whatever it was. And after like the first few intakes, we consistently got 180 to 185 people every six months.
Speaker 1 00:44:15 And based on that like Helms and Zus, we, I brought their, we flew them back over. So at the time we had our first student, Nat and she does illustration cuz she went through the first academy and she wasn't a person trainer, she was just really into fitness and she was a graphic designer at the illustration. He sent me an email, which with some of the images, so like as she's doing stuff, she's designing this stuff and she's like, oh these are like some things I created. I was like, oh these are cool. Then we hired her. So then we had it where Matt would be taking these old PowerPoints and illustrating them and we was probably working on like a one to two week turnaround as in when the next intake started. She had send me the illustration version a week before that actually was going live for the students.
Speaker 1 00:45:06 And then we called it edit it and I'm like, crap. But then I flew Helms and Z or over and I think I got naturally module one and module four cause I didn't have a, she probably got close to a hundred K out of us. She was a student. So gave us a grant and then got back like 99 extra thousand pounds for, for the thing. And cause that was the thing, she was unique in the essence that she was into fitness. She's gone through the academy and she could literally took, just take the PowerPoints and just illustrate them. And what we found was when it was less text heavy bullet point, the lessons were shorter and it was a really hard learning curve to go from bullet points, giving you guides to then have these illustrations with a little bit of text and it was a lot harder and we're green screening it.
Speaker 1 00:45:53 And then it was sort of the, the second phase cause of cost was I flew Helms and Zus back over and then she's drawn illustrations with muscles or like strength based. So she, we adapted that and we did the SPS Academy from 2015 up to 2018, as you said, every six months intakes market less and it's a lot easy to market things where they have a, when you launch stuff, rather than just being open every single day, made decent amount of money on that. When hel zeros come back over, they, their percentage increased to like 7.5% each. Like again, they did fuck all after that. It was just, and when you were talking about what 185 people on average it was what? 1300 pound a decent amount of money and making one a one time thing. Um, then in 2018 is when we rebranded ptc.
Speaker 0 00:46:48 Okay. So before we dive into the, the reasonings and everything around that and, and what PTC is in a few, maybe three or four bullets, what advice would you give now to maybe a personal trainer or a coach who's doing well and is get that itch for maybe going into education, mentoring, um, maybe, you know, three bits of advice or, or takeaways or things to consider.
Speaker 1 00:47:17 You're probably already late because at the time when they, I did the ESP SPS Academy, there's one BTN for nutrition. So by the time I was at 2018 then there was more and more academies starting. There's not as many academies now, so yeah, because I'm a firm believer of like timing as well. So at that point I felt like, and that's obviously why I made the change, which we talk about in a bit. So I'd probably say you're probably already too late to the party because content is so freely available now and it's getting cheaper and cheaper like people because it's supply and demand. So if Helms wants to build his own products out, if you, unless you are an absolute expert in something, which I wasn't, I was just, and I never had the, the thing of like I wanted to be the man because I knew very well there's far more intelligent people in their fields, but I'm like, you are so academic that you're terrible at, and this is why I don't want any of my kids to be academic.
Speaker 1 00:48:25 Cause if you are an academic ally and then you're really good at maths, they go keep doing maths, keep doing maths, and you have no fucking social skills. You don't develop anything. You, you are, you're so pigeonholed to that. I feel like that was the reason why I could get those people on for a low percentage because they didn't really know about business and they knew that they, they tried to do it on their, on their own. They wouldn't have, they wouldn't have had the same knowledge or understanding on how to monetize it and grow it. But I feel like if you're trying to get into education now, you probably have to be a specialist in something cuz you're not gonna be able to go out and get the people that I got because they're just doing it themselves. Cause technology has evolved, content has evolved, social media has evolved and most of the time now people look at putting valuable content out of a means to then build brand and then look at monetizing it in a different way.
Speaker 1 00:49:19 Most personal trainers also make those mistakes of going, I'm gonna create a membership of content and sell it to normal people. Normal people do not want to fucking be told about macronutrient or like learn about shit. You might like learning about stuff people, normal people want you to coach them and get them results. They don't have the time or even want to wanna learn about this stuff. Yes, education's important cause I'm like an educated client is a client that asks less questions and that's a beautiful thing cuz it means you can take on more clients. But I feel like if I was look going back or like with advice now, it would be just focus on being able to do more of what is higher, higher ticket, higher price. Cause most people, most person trainers do not have the ability or wants to then be able to grow a massive following to therefore be able to sell something of a lower price and sell more volume. So my advice would be use education to better serve your current clients, but look at how you can take on, like I I've seen you said before, like should I do group coaching? 95% of person training shouldn't because you are, you find it hard enough to get 30 clients paying you 150 pound a month. Now you're gonna say, right, I'm gonna try and get 500 people paying me 19 point 99 a month. It's just an easier route for most people.
Speaker 0 00:50:52 Okay, so SPS is going really well. Why the rebrand, why the change in direction and and model for ptc?
Speaker 1 00:51:01 It was one of those where when we, when we was young dudes wanted to get shred to get sex, the name worked really well. But then when we started going down sort of the education room, it was like, oh, who you, like they already had a level two, level three, or whatever equivalent qualification in whatever country they were in. And I was just like, the name doesn't, it doesn't really match what it is we're doing that and PTC or PT Collective was actually a company before I rebranded that myself, Chris Burgess and James Conti. Mitchell started when we brought over, uh, Anna Agon, Bradfield, James Krieger and Brett Contreras. And at the time Sir, we created PTC and we wanted to go after reps. That was the plan. It was like, right, we're gonna be the criminal of reps. And then, but we all had similar skillsets as such, so it didn't really work out.
Speaker 1 00:51:56 Like I, funny enough, I was looking at Dropbox yesterday cause I'm building my, my uh, website for the person of brands and I was going back through Dropbox and looking at old. So I was like, let me try and find like the PTC logo. Cause the one I've got is like low res. And then when I typed it in, it come up with the actual PTC logo that week formed as a company like it, a registered actual company, PT Collective. And I was again coming up with stuff and I was like, well, personal trainer collective to when people in was like, oh, who you qualified with? It weren't like shredded by science, like what the fuck? Shredded by science. It was L P T Collective. So that was one of the main things. I dunno if it was good or bad, I'd probably say it was bad.
Speaker 1 00:52:34 And we'll talk about the transition in a bit. But then we wanted to sort of, my thing was from the goodness of my own heart and being a detrimental was at that time there was more and more academies and I thought we probably need to be a little bit more official now. Like Summit where it's not a, not a nice to have but a must have. And then that's when we looked at looking at, right, we're gonna go down the level two level free route. Cause at the time we teamed up with a couple training providers and our advice to people which weren't person trains. I think about 30% of people that did the S SPS Academy, when we got to the LA latter stages were just fitness enthusiast. They just wanted to learn. They weren't actually qualified personal trainers that wanted to upskill.
Speaker 1 00:53:19 So we rebranded PT Collective cause it felt like it made more sense to the direction that we were going going in. And we started offering the level two, level three. And our whole minds, my whole mindset was I'd rather get them from day one than have them. It was just a bigger, it was a bigger market suit. Like you are just getting them in an earlier stage of their career and you are helping them more because they've not just done like a little crappy lifetime or premier or, or whatever training provider. Cause it's the same standards of qualifications, same assessments on online theory or practical. But our thing was, what was unique to us is everyone, that's when we developed the PT core. And that was, you couldn't just get a level two, level three with us. You had to get PT core as well.
Speaker 1 00:54:06 So that was my thing of going, I wanted going back to help little Luke at 21. Where's going you go? And the prices that we had to were like, we didn't get hardly any, any mark any money from the level two, level three. Our thing was we just wanted to get people going through the PT core. Um, but when we transitioned and when we rebranded, this is when at that stage I um, invested in de Novo Nutrition little tie together. Yeah. So when Eric and Mike was over filming the revised version for sbs, we was walking to this gym and I was in front, cause I'm the tall guy, tall guy at Barbie and I hear them talking and at the time I had some money in the bank and then I'm getting Intel, I'm getting like the, what's the, the big red book, the investor book.
Speaker 1 00:54:56 And I was like, stocks and shares and I'm trying to, and I'm bored shitless out my mind. I'm like, I fuck. I dunno. And then at that time I, I didn't even wanna own a supplement company. I was like, I was trying to see where I'd invest that money and I was torn between, well I didn't want my own gym, but what about if I invested in a gym or couple of gyms, not only just gave them capital but then I took over the marketing side of things. Whether it's paid the Facebook paid ads or what it would be to build their membership. And I would just have a percentage of their business and get a dividend. And they're talking about Ben Escrow. I dunno who the fuck this guy is. I dunno, I might have knew, might have known who De Novo Nutrition was.
Speaker 1 00:55:37 But what was unique about Ben and De Novo was is they were like the science based evidence based supplement company. You know what most supplement companies are just like underdo. They'll shit and just get some influences holding a fucking tub and then we'll make money. They were talking, I was like, oh, I think Ben's struggling. I think you need some help. I was like, oh, I'll invested him. Do. We had a two hour call and at that time sir, my financial literacy was this, if there's a hundred K in the bank, hate r c can come at me cause I'll have enough money. That was the level of my financial literacy knowledge. I didn't know about margins, gross profit, profit, net profit, ebit a I didn't know any balance sheet. I knew nothing. That was my mindset. But then I invested 50 for 50% in the business.
Speaker 1 00:56:24 It wasn't really profitable. Like I had probably some person with a brain look at the, the, the sheets and that cost me 150 K and nearly killed my business to get a financial literacy education. So I like that. No, like all the, so when I say I invested 50 K and then I the company again, then you're looking at manufacturing runs and suppliers and you're looking at inventory and fulfillment and all this other stuff. And because we were so, it has to have the best ingredients. It has to, has the best dosage. And the price was probably higher than majority of other supplements. But the cost of goods per unit was so high. And when in the supplement game with the manufacturing, you can buy a little, you can have shitty little manufacturers which might go right, you can do a run of 50 or a hundred.
Speaker 1 00:57:21 But the cost of it is so stupidly high, especially from the formulas that we had. Our minimums were thousand units. And it's a thousand units per flavor because the time it takes to clean out all of the flavoring to do it all, like you can't go, can I have a thousand? Can I have 300? The dish 300 to that 200? Like you can't do that. But then I invested probably another 25 k just from the money that I had in paper. You know what PayPal money is, it ain't real money. It's not in your bank. It's not real money. So I invested probably about 75 K and over two years. The mistake I made there was we had one team that was working over SBS as well as de Novo sbs, ptc. So at that time, I'm investing in the company. There's no way it's gonna work out financially cuz you just don't have the enough capital, enough money, and you're going up against the big boys that do in-house manufacturing don't care about fucking the quality of ingredients or the dosage of those ingredients.
Speaker 1 00:58:19 And they've got all the influencers that are just selling it via them. That's the, the whole supplement game. So two years in on the last SBS Academy intake, we had a stupid amount of people that went monthly when normally they would, would go, um, it'd probably be 35, 40% would pay up front and then the rest would pay monthly. But at this point, at this point, I'm, I'm focusing on building this brand of de novo and trying to educate people. People don't need, don't want education or something. And they care about does it mix one, does it taste one? Does it get 'em fucking crap? That's all they care about. They do not care about anything else. Let's be honest. And we tried to use our science-based thing to then bring over to, to Novo and use that. Well, we haven't got money to pay for these influences.
Speaker 1 00:59:08 The ones we did have athletes were all powerlifters still a small niche, but we had a, probably about 80% of people sign up on 2018, the last intake August on the monthly. But basically I'm, I'm getting this money coming in each month and I'm using one team and I'm paying every single member of staff. Ben's getting paid. Ben was doing the fulfillment. He's taking a hefty fucking salary. I'm taking nothing, not a pence. And my whole thing was I'm gonna get into invest in this business because at the time I'm like, I know about business and marketing and supplements, Ben, I like, Ben's like the equivalent of me, but far more intelligent. He's like water white. Like he's stupidly and clever. And my whole thing is, I'm getting into this cause I wanna build it so I I'll get mine. When we send for sell for 10 to 20 mil.
Speaker 1 00:59:59 Yeah. Got to the point where 2019 this as we're rebranding PTC and the monthly payments ain't coming in sick, but my monthly outgoings are higher. I'm talking like I'm down 20 K in a month. I'm down 30 K in a month. I'm going, holy fuck, what the fuck have I've just not done. What have, what have I allowed? Like the thing with snots, you can sell as many as you want any day, every day. With s sps it was, well when we rebranded, we then took on a few more people doing specialist courses, but they're so fucking specific, like coaching obese clients or m m a or whatever it was when we launched. And at the time, like I had Lawrence, Laura and Lawrence when we was at s sps, it was me and him. We did well. It was like he was good at stuff I wasn't good at, I was good at stuff he wasn't necessarily good at, but it was just a two, two man army.
Speaker 1 01:01:02 And then Lawrence role went into marketing, but he wasn't really a marketer and he was doing like a marketing qualification and it was like, it just didn't work. Like the business, having a small team work over two business, it didn't work whatsoever. And then my role then is CEO of de Novo and then I'm giving like Lawrence all the responsibility of like, here's how to launch, here's how to do that. We launched SU for this course, we make like three grand. I'm like, what the fuck, what the, like I'm going, it's all right. We got these courses coming. We're big goods. Yeah, we're big. Good. And it did and um, sorry, that's the girlfriend. Must be an emergency. She's fine. She should know I'm on a podcast, um, to sort like the money is just draining out of the bank account and I've gotta make the decision.
Speaker 1 01:01:51 So I'm like, Ben, I'm out. I've invested probably 150 K, 75 k of actual capital and then all the money that I'm funding over the year and a half, two years. But then I'm out and I'm like, fuck. Well I haven't got an SBS Academy intake coming in. I've got six months and what was the launch? Which would've been the SBS Academy, which would've been a 55, 60 k night is now three K. I'm like, what the fuck? To then I'm like, I'm out of De Nova. I've gone, Ben's like, we've got some inventory. It's cha it's Elemental Formulations now with Omar Usk. They're barely in stock. And I, the thing was I'll try and pay whatever I sell while I'll try and pay you off. I haven't seen a fucking Pence. Well money just gone. So that's why I say it's 150 k um, financial literacy business lesson.
Speaker 0 01:02:43 Yeah. And um, what, what advice would you give to someone to think about going to partnership with,
Speaker 1 01:02:50 Um,
Speaker 0 01:02:51 Or, or find the business partner?
Speaker 1 01:02:55 If the numbers don't work, it don't matter. Like if the business model, if the numbers don't work, it doesn't, doesn't matter. Um, and don't start a second business until your first business is on an autopilot. Don't rebrand or try and do too many things at once. Like they're, they're the lessons. Do you know what I mean? Just like, know, know yourself, know your limitations. Like Ben is completely different to me. But like, it wasn't like we both had the same skillset. It was just I was, I was playing in the game. I I decided to play a game that I'd never win.
Speaker 0 01:03:34 Yeah. It
Speaker 1 01:03:35 Was impossible to win because you're going up against the big boys and they're, they just have far more margins. Buy more capital. They've already been in the game. And the approach to getting those people, like I think most of our clients were either science geeks or power lifters. Cuz we had all power lifting athletes because guess what, any other influencer like power lifters had some following and um, but they didn't have much. So that was pretty much the, the things I sort of, uh, yeah, don't try and do too many things at once. Um, cause it, you'll just end up bucking both things.
Speaker 0 01:04:18 So de Novo's gone, um, backs against the wall. What do you do? What happens next?
Speaker 1 01:04:29 I took back responsibility of marketing. I basically had all of my time to then focus back on PTC. And it was Lawrence went, Lawrence went when sort of de novo was thing. It was just one of those where he went his, like the role we pushed him into, he just wasn't a good fit for it. And he was trying again, like we gave him a, an impossible task and then there was conflict within the team and personalities. Although I'm a firm believer, we don't really need to get on with people you're working with. Um, and it just, it just got to a thing to them therefore that that happened. I then took responsibility back to, for level two, level three, thought it reduced overhead, stair less staff. Um, and then we're focusing on right level two, level three. So let's build it. Let me, I'll teach this shit.
Speaker 1 01:05:18 I used to teach it years ago when I was at the college of Standards exactly the same. So then, um, I think we launch end of year so it's pretty much just try and damage limitation. The money's going down, money's going down. But I've made the decision now to then like stop the hemorrhaging as such. And then um, we got into the same mindset. We're gonna launch a PT qualification. I can't remember exactly, I looked the A deck. So we stopped doing it in July. We've had 408 students sign up to do a level two, level three in a few years. It's not bad. Like gain. No, that's good. The cost of fulfillment and services and stuff like that is a lot higher. Um, so we um, launched and stupidly I was like, oh, we're doing launch and everyone will sign up and then we'll shut it down in two weeks.
Speaker 1 01:06:09 Well it's a totally different ballgame because if you wanna become a person trainer, you are either a meal fat home and the kids have gone to school. You just finished university like I was, you are a graphic designer, your teacher, they come from so many different backgrounds, different ages. If someone wants to be a personal trainer, they're looking to start right now. If someone wants to be a personal trainer, they're gonna go and Google and type in best personal trainer calls London online personal trainer calls. So then I was like, well we can't just do intakes now for personal training because based on what the market's telling me. So we then we had to open up shop the I to get a salesperson in and then they would then train them up, get them to then have a business phone and then have people book in or call.
Speaker 1 01:06:59 Cause they wanna be a first trainer to therefore we was open all year round. But then content marketing is my game. Like that's why it was the way social media marketing. I'd look at them and I could be like, why are all these other training pro like combined all these training providers together, they haven't got our, our total for, they might add 50% of what we had following wise. Bang this be, we're just focused on social media marketing. We'll get people from that. Social media market works really well when you have a target market, which is a personal trainer or fitness en enthusiast. But when you've got from the age of 18 up to 50 different backgrounds at different stages in their life, social media marketing does not work to get people who wanna become a personal trainer. What works, what all these old dyna I used usually laugh at them, old dinosaurs companies would be like, and most of them again are extinct.
Speaker 1 01:07:57 I was right. They did become extinct because all they focused on SU was SEO and ppc. Well I haven't got money for ppc. I ain't got the time to do seo. And SEO nowadays is nowhere near what it was years ago. So it is a case of social media marketing, word of math. We've done an all right job. When you think about we've got 408 people. But again, I was the, the market, the reason why these people do that strategy was because that was the only thing that worked. But all what they did suck was P P C started getting more and more expensive. SEO got worse. And for them to get people it was landing page, put your email, download your syllabus, and at the end of each month 50% off, then their margins are shit. And most of them would have, they didn't really care because they'd have a company, a finance company where you could go on.
Speaker 1 01:08:55 There you go, I wanna pay this off over four years and the finance company take 20% and you just get all of the money. That would be the thing. And then they're a debt collector and they, they don't fucking care if you pass or not. But then the business, I'm, the business is still making decent revenue, but I've gone from 90% margins for now. Maybe our gross margins were good. Like I've always run out of probably like 80 to 90, 95% gross margins. But then when actually when we, it went down a bit because when we was doing the level two, level three, we had to pay active iq, registration fees, manuals and stuff like that. We wanted them to have a little PTT box with some goodies and shit. But all of that, the cost of fulfillment, the cost of goods were, were high.
Speaker 1 01:09:41 But they, the gross margins were decent still. However, I've now got to have a full-time salesperson and we're not bringing in enough leads. Like they're getting on a base salary with some commission and because we're trying to use content marketing to bring the leads in, it's not working. If we use PPC or SEO or whatever it was, it would've been a lot easier. But then the quality of the leads would be a lot less. So our conversion rate would be a lot lower. Cause everything pretty much come from word of mouth. Oh, I wanna be a person trainer. I've asked a trainer, they follow you on Instagram, they've told me to come to see you. And um, so the administrative cost, the overheads with just the team went up. Therefore I'm looking at it and I'm going, okay, revenue's pretty much the same as, well it was with SBS days, but where the fuck's my money?
Speaker 1 01:10:30 Where is my money? Cause once B A T man comes and takes it, I'm like, cool. Then I'm pay myself. Like I pay pay, you do certain things. I pay myself like 791 pound and 86 P or 66 p and then I'll take dividends out. But my mindset was always, I'm gonna get mine when I'd get mine. And it's always be like I'm in it for the long game. I'm in it for the long game. And I suppose, yeah, we'd move on if, if there's anything there I can sort of move on to how I'd then sort of um, uh, in a halfway through my sabbatical. Yeah. Yeah. So this is questions you wanna talk about before we move on.
Speaker 0 01:11:10 Yeah, no, no, that's that's great. So obviously we've made that transition to PCC and it's, it's gone. Okay. It's not the same as what s SPS was in terms of personal income or profits mm-hmm <affirmative>. But then recently, as we've spoke about quite a bit, you've gone into um, retirement. So what, what triggered retirement as we've joked about and you know, what, what are you up to?
Speaker 1 01:11:34 Yeah, so when we did Black Friday, not this year, last year we looked at a week after or two weeks after how many people were actually logged on and um, started on their course and it was like 89 or 90% hadn't logged in. Yeah. So again, going back to the business model, we're just sending courses and they're online courses and you can look at all the research out there. The longer the course, the last, the success rate is the less like it live interaction with tutors, the lower their success rate. So then again I'm going, well we're being very transactional here. As in like once someone signed up for the course, signed for the course, yeah. We've got multiple courses. Most of them maybe are not relevant to them. Who's looking at that business model and is going, okay, we're gonna launch PT coaching and that's where we're gonna coach person trainers in their business.
Speaker 1 01:12:35 But as you know sir, most people just focus on and for good reason, as I've found out is the whole marketing just sells get acquisition phase. They're not looking at all about the fulfillment. The our unique thing was, but we're gonna look at all elements. The acquisition and the fulfillment and the people that naturally attracted to us was, and the price point we put again, I just did like a three month pilot and I'm so glad I did and it was like 315, then it went out to 450 pound per month and I set it up, I had all the automations and it was good. Like we had really good results with the people, but they're at the earliest stage of their career. And then what I, I was spending even, I like Tom head of training, Laura who was doing more of the finance stuff, uh, Joe doing more of the social media video edit and stuff like, and Hannah had a nutritionist. We needed her. And as you, you've done like O F B business mentoring, everyone's doing it because, but then you are only working with the 5% of people that have enough money. And I was working with people most mentoring would probably target someone that's already earning FREEK plus 5K and go, cool, you've gotta follow him, but you have no, like, I'm gonna take you from 5K to 10 K. It's a lot easier to take someone from 5K to 10 K than I'd say from two K to 5k. Dunno if you'd agree.
Speaker 0 01:14:02 Yeah. Uh, well maybe lower. So I think two to five is, might be similar to five to 10, but you know, from taking someone to maybe they haven't started working with clients online yet to the first to to three K or whatever. That's different. It's harder, definitely. But yeah, if somebody's already got a bit of a follow in, they've already been consistent or active, got a bit of engagement, it's usually no drama getting them clients. Whereas if they're, if they're not and they haven't been consistent or like, oh yeah, I used to post on social media but I've not posted for a little bit how long's a little bit, oh, last year that okay, well you're gonna have to do that for a few months first. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I agree.
Speaker 1 01:14:41 So it, we, we wanted to be a bit different where it was like, okay, we're focused on the acquisition and fulfillment side of it as well. So it's like you got all, you have access to our courses. We didn't give them all courses at once, but it, it was, it was good to a certain degree, but then what I found was even though I did other people there, I was still doing 90% of the work. So I've gone from not having any meetings and I, I had a good, it was a test in the waters because then what we had was they could then book in specialist calls, calls like 15 minute calls. So if it was training related, they could book it in time. If it, it was financial related booking life, it was anything business related or marketing it book in with me if it was sales booking with Alec. And then, um, and then long story short, my diary was just full of people asking, asking, asking, asking. And it just suffocated me again to therefore when I looked at it Go on.
Speaker 0 01:15:34 I was gonna say, is that, is that why it was time for retirement or time for a bit of a break?
Speaker 1 01:15:38 Yeah. Cause I feel like that was the thing where I was like, I come to the realization, you either work with the top five, 10% of personal trainers and probably the business model to work is mentoring, culture coaching to make money within the industry that we're in. Cause personal trainers are a starving crowd, but they're also, if you look at the majority, they're skin. So there's again, the mentoring people are looking at people that already got money, enough money to therefore pay for their mentoring. So doing it, and we did it for three months and I was just like, no. And then I was just about to go by on holiday and I've looked at the, the finances for the year. Oh cool. X amount of revenue. Why am I the lowest paid motherfucking member of staff in this team? That ain't happening. I'm 36 years of age.
Speaker 1 01:16:29 Boom, everyone goodbye. I'm having a year off. I don't need you anymore. Sorry. But, and that's why we're here now. 2023, the year of me and PT collective's still there. I'm still, that's the thing I'm looking at. How can I, it is, well it is, it sells courses, really good courses for people that are probably earlier in their, their their career. But my overheads now are not 30, 40 k a month. It's a lot lower cause it's just me and one like freelancers to help with certain things. But it comes to that point there where I'm going, I'm, I always knew my worst case scenario would probably be better financially and time wise than what I've currently facing. Which was, and if I wanted to, I could go back to coaching and stuff like that. But I'm like, I just want a year off to then work out what it is I want.
Speaker 1 01:17:21 I know what I don't want more than what I do want. And I've never been one of these vision guys big per person and stuff like that. I've ne I've never been that way. So it was uh, a case of I need this time now to have the head space spend more time with the family. Cuz I feel like if you asked even rich kids, if you, if you could go back, would you want all the holidays and nice dreams you had or would you actually wanna see your dad? They'd probably say I wanna see your dad. That was a motivating factor. And then it was just a case off going, I just want a year off. I've been doing it for a long period of time since 2004, like 10 years. Always doing it. Always doing next ring, next ring, next ring, next ring. Probably again going back down to my personality, I hate boring shit. I like new stuff all the time that was going right. I need to get away from this. I need to reduce all my outgoings and therefore I need to then work out, have that head space to work out what it is I wanna do my next steps and that's build a personal brand
Speaker 0 01:18:16 Which takes me nicely onto my next point. I'm conscious of time. I know you've got a call soon. So 2023, the year of you very quickly, what is it
Speaker 1 01:18:25 Me doing? Me, me being selfish and by me being selfish, I'll be the l I'll be the, by me being selfish this year and just looking at after me, I'll probably give the most I've ever given in any year. What I mean by that is me just putting that content, content that interests me, content that's slightly wider than personal trainers. Going, going out, testing myself new challenges and having the time to go do the things that I want to do. Do like learning, enjoying stuff, teaching the stuff I want to teach. I wanted, I love talking as you can tell, to getting on stage, presenting more, doing stuff, just going outside my comfort zone and just being like just leave me the fuck alone. But I don't, I don't, I don't have any big ambitions or goals. I'm purposely going just focus on 2023 being a year of me.
Speaker 1 01:19:17 And the byproduct of that will be I'll help more people this year for free. And then I love it by having PT Collective and setting that up more of a an e-commerce play and more automated with systems. I've got someone helping me with some stuff now with that we're probably, yeah the revenue won't be as much so, but I'll be able to take home more money and by bringing in money from that it enables me to have more time to just put stuff out for free under a personal brand without the need to try and monetize and without the stress of that. But that is 2023.
Speaker 0 01:19:53 Amazing. So I'm gonna ask you two finishing questions and I'm gonna let you off for your call. First one, what's something that you hate about the Finn industry?
Speaker 1 01:20:05 I said I don't truly hate anything cause I think it takes up too much emotional energy, which I don't really, um, like I don't want to be that I probably quite negative by default. So I try not to be, uh, the thing I disliked enough though, cause I wanted to give you an answer is education for person trainers. But what did I do? Did tell about it created a personal trainer qualification, which you had but you didn't have the opportunity. Um, yeah
Speaker 0 01:20:31 And to finish on a positive note, what's something that you love about the industry?
Speaker 1 01:20:36 I love that 99% of person trainers that get into become a person trainer is their purest of intentions of helping other people. Cause they've had fitness impact their lives and most personal trainers don't get it into it because it's the money and stuff like that. But 99% of it get into the industry from like really nice good intentions of helping other people.
Speaker 0 01:20:59 Yeah, I agree. I love that. Cool. Luke, thank you very much for joining me for your time. If people wanna find you on the internet, where should they go?
Speaker 1 01:21:08 It's Luke Johnson, ptc. It may change, it may be different, but yeah, go to there. Uh, you could go to my website now, but it's just literally a template. It's Luke johnson.site. Cause the dot com's coming up in a couple of months, so I'm gonna try and buy it. Um, but yeah, just Luke Johnson, ptc.
Speaker 0 01:21:25 Amazing. We'll link to that in the show notes. Luke, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for joining me mate.
