Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Everybody SK here. And today I am joined by Oliver Awar. Oliver, thanks for joining me, mate.
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Souk, I really appreciate you having me on. I'm excited for this.
Speaker 0 00:00:09 Yeah, no worries mate. I appreciate you giving me some of your time today. So today we're probably gonna be diving quite deep into you and your business, but for those people that don't know anything about you at all, do you wanna just give us a high level overview of who you are and what your business is?
Speaker 1 00:00:24 Yeah, for sure. So my name's Oliver Anwar. I run a business called Elite Performance, and you can follow a website as fitness for entrepreneurs. So that kind of explains a little bit around what I do. So I'm a health coach to entrepreneurs, basically helping them look great, feel great, and be great. So we focus on mainly 90 day programs to kind of make a transformation, but we also offer like 12 month programs where we focus a lot on, you know, not just diet and training, but sleep optimization, health testing, yeah. Blood work, that kind of stuff to, to really like give the person and the client like a holistic way to improve their health. Because as I've gone through the fitness industry, I've found that there's a lot more to your health than just, you know, your diet and your training. That makes a big part of it.
Speaker 1 00:01:04 But especially as a, an entrepreneur and a high performer, there's things like stress management, there's, you know, your internal health that you wanna work on. There are things like sleep that that, that are huge for, for entrepreneurs trying to be successful. So yeah, that's kind of what I do. I work with that specific niche and I've been doing it for, well, this niche for the past two years, but I've been in the industry for sort of five, six years. I've trained myself for over 11 years now. So I'd like to think I'm quite well versed in fitness, you could say. And, uh, yeah, moving into this new kind of, uh, niche is, is really interesting. And I think maybe the future for, for fitness, especially in, in the realm of like health testing and like, especially like sleep it, it's so big right now. So yeah, that's a little bit about myself and what I do.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 Yeah, that's amazing. I think there definitely is an opportunity and a need for that more holistic approach. Cause it all all goes hand in hand, right? It's much easier if someone's just looking for a transf, a physical transformation. It's much easier if you're well rested, low stress and all those other good things as well. So, and I think some of that obviously goes back to your background in corporate and, you know, experiencing some of that stuff. So let's, let's talk about how you got into the industry, maybe starting a, you know, go into a, a sports college and being a skinny football player, word, soccer, being a skinny footballer and being surrounded by these, uh, jacked rugby players and, and how that kind of kickstarted this journey.
Speaker 1 00:02:21 Yeah, definitely, man. So I think growing up as a kid, I was very much into sports and I was a big football player when I was a kid. So I was fortunate enough to play like elite level football in the UK and from like, I think it was from sort of 10 years old up until 16, I was kind of traveling around the country playing against the likes of, you know, arsenal Chelsea as a kid, so that I lived and breathed football. Man, it was amazing. Got to 16 and found out that I wasn't really good enough to actually make it as a professional. I I didn't get the, the scholarship that I wanted. So at this one I was a bit heartbroken because everything that I'd done was football, you know, Christmas, I'd ask for footballs for, you know, and football gear for, for Christmas in the week.
Speaker 1 00:02:55 I'd be training two, three days a week, right at the weekend I'll be playing like my life revolves around football. So when that kind of dream got shattered, I was kinda like, shit man, what do I do with my life? So I decided to attend a sport in college and at this point I was low in confidence, right? I was still feeling the impact of not making it as a footballer. I was sure I was insecure and I was, you know, surrounded by a load of big rugby players, man. So I think one of the first things you do as a guy when you're in that situation, you're kind of like, well, if I want to kind of have any success with, you know, getting in the call group if I wanna feel good about myself and even, you know, get a girlfriend or attract some girls, I bet start getting in shape, right?
Speaker 1 00:03:27 So I started training with, you know, a lot of the rugby guys that I'd made friends with on my, on my course and things like that. I made all the mistakes that you can probably think of when it came to your health crash diet in, you know, the, the bro style training. Just lots of terrible mistakes that caused me to get injured and have a bad relationship with food. And I thought to myself, well, this isn't probably the right way to do it. There must be a better way to do it. So I started, you know, looking and, you know, watching videos for some of the OGs in the industry, like, you know, Matt Ogas, 3d, mj, these guys that put out really good, you know, content about natural bodybuilding. And I started really following these guys, you know, looking at the research that they kind of put out and I started to actually get much better results and do it sustainably.
Speaker 1 00:04:06 I got to the point when I was at university where I was in my first year and people were coming up to me saying, Hey man, like you look great, like, you know, what's going on? Like, how do I get in shape for holiday? So I was getting tons of inbound and, you know, people asking me how to get in shape. So I thought, fuck it, I was at university, I I was pretty broke, a first year student and one of my friends, I don't, I'll never forget this, we were sat down on his sofa during the first year of summer and he ran a business online and he said, Hey man, like you can buy this website, it costs like a pound or like 99 p to buy the domain. He's like, why don't you like build this website over summer? Like, you know, I'll help you do it and teach you how to do it and you know, you can set up a website.
Speaker 1 00:04:42 So I thought, okay, cool. This is a nice little project for me to work on and maybe I can make some money out of it. By the end of summer, I'd actually got it to the point where it could take payments. There was like a full website there, it was like all ready to go. So what I did is I got all my friends to share it on Facebook when kind of Facebook was, you know, off and popping. And yeah, on the first day that I launched the, the, the website, I had a PayPal notification come through with someone saying, I bought your package. Like, it was something like le less than 50 quid or something like that. Like, and I couldn't believe it, man. I'm like, yeah, I remember I was living at home at the time and I was at home with my mom and like, I remember I ran upstairs and I told my mom, I was like, mom, look, I've, I've made some money first, like on my, on my business.
Speaker 1 00:05:21 And she's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I can't believe it. And I felt a huge amount of imposter syndrome cause I, I didn't feel qualified to even deliver this coaching service at this point, but I thought to myself, well the only best way to learn is is by doing. Right. So from there, yeah, I started doing this kind of part-time while I was at university. It helped me build some size, hustle income and was a good hobby. I then kind of finished university and uh, I went into the corporate world. So I got a job working for a big multinational company and they basically, like, they paid quite well. They were a good company to be in, but I fucking hated the corporate life, man. I hated the fact that, you know, I had to abide by these rules, the, the culture there, the lack of freedom.
Speaker 1 00:05:58 And one of the things that really stood out for me was I was doing a presentation for a meeting and I basically made my own like slide with the customer Brandon on there. But as soon as I presented that to like the guy that was higher up from me, he said, you can't use that slide, you've gotta use the company one. And like, it, it was very similar. I created it myself. It looked very clean and like, that just was a point for me where I thought, this is bullshit, man. Like, I'm getting pulled up on small things. This isn't for me. So I, I did six months there and after six months I handed my notice in and I said, this isn't for me. I'm gonna start going out on my own. So naively I decided to be like, Hey, look, I'm gonna, you know, quit this job.
Speaker 1 00:06:33 I got a, a place in London renting with a friend and I started working on my business full-time with some freelance jobs on the side. Now I thought naively that if I had more time, I'd be able to make more money and I'd make my full-time income straight away. Naively that wasn't the case. And after like three or four months I was, I was broke, man, I'd, I'd run through the money that I'd earned. I didn't have much savings and I was basically like, I needed money. So luckily my friend owned a vendor machine company, so for three or four months I basically filled vendor machines for 12 hours a day alongside running my business. And this was like a, I think it's one of these moments where you're kind of grateful for because it, like, it taught me a lot that you're not better than, you know, those kind of jobs.
Speaker 1 00:07:13 And also like, it builds grit and character. Like when you are really down bad and you've gotta like wake up at 4:00 AM and drive a van around when you've got a university education, you've turned down a big job, you're kind of like, man, I better make fucking something of myself because this, this, uh, this is not where I wanna be long term. But, but I did it, you know, I i I would do like a 12 hour day finish my coach, finish work on my coaching business. And then I think the, this was sort of towards the end of 20 19, 20 20 when kind of covid hit things really started to pick up for me. I was starting to get more traction with my business. And then, yeah, since then it's been all uphill from kind of the end of 20 19, 20 20 started to do this full-time. I've got a bit of a team involved now that that helped me out and yeah, this is my full-time gig. So yeah, that's a bit of a long story of kind of how I got to to where I am now, if that makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:07:57 No, it's amazing. I appreciate you sharing it. I think there, there are a few really important things there and what I've found from speaking with people on these podcasts is that everyone seems to have gone through that period of back again, oh shit, I'm gonna have to do part-time job, all time job, or I'm gonna have to pick up something elsewhere or shit, I have to make this work otherwise I'm screwed. And I think that doesn't come across on Instagram or social media. Often people just see pitches in Dubai, right? That that's what they see. They, they just see pictures of the bridge and they just see people on the beach and they just see Rolexes and they're like, gee, I tried hard for a week, why haven't I got that yet? It's like, nah, there's the, there was a six month period where as you said, you were 12 hour shift, then you worked on it and you were probably miserable or, or struggling like yeah, with, you know, sadness or, or whatever. Alongside that, there's always a struggle, right? So I think that's important for people to know who want to emulate the kind of success that, that you've had. Just going back a little bit, how did you know people react in the corporate world and even family to you wanting to leave? You know, what essentially is a kushy job to, to go out on this adventure as an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1 00:09:07 They thought I was a fucking idiot, to be honest. And, and, and the funny thing is, and I think this is really important for anybody that is trying to like maybe go out on their own to begin with, like, nobody is really gonna believe in you. Like most people sadly won't support you until it's advantageous for them to do so. Sadly, apart from maybe your mom, you know, like my mom, my dad, they will always support me and like, you're lucky because the, you know, they love you, they're your family hopefully anyway, but you know, in some cases, sometimes family still don't support you. And even, you know, my mom and dad were a bit cautious when I did it, but I think a lot of the friends and the people I surrounded myself with were kinda like, this is a risky movement. Like why are you doing it?
Speaker 1 00:09:38 And things like that. And that's really where you kind of have to have this irrational self-confidence and self-belief in yourself. And I think maybe this is the reason why I, I think I've, I'm, I'm gonna be successful is because I have this irrational self-confidence that I feel no matter how down bad I get, no matter what happens, like I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna fucking go at it. And you know, as long as I'm not dead, I'm gonna keep going. And I've got that this relentless mindset that that that I'm gonna be successful. So it's difficult because you, you want the people you love to support you and you want people to, to, you know, be on, on your side. But s you know, un unfortunately, people wanna see the proof in the pudding. Like now people understand, now I've got a successful business, I travel to all of these countries and I do all this stuff.
Speaker 1 00:10:16 They're like, oh, I get it now. But they didn't get it at the start. But that's where you really have to dig deep and be like, do do you really want it? Is this what you believe in? Do you feel you're gonna be successful now if you've got that you j it's just a matter of time before you will be successful. So that's kind of like my thought on it. And, and you, you also have to, I think, surround yourself with people that, that do believe in you. So one of the people that did believe in me was one of my ex lecturers who I ended up living with once I was in London. And he basically, you know, let me rent a room in his house cheap. And he always believed in me. He always said, look man, you're gonna be successful. You're gonna go through these tough times, but, but you're gonna be there.
Speaker 1 00:10:48 And I, I basically lived with him and I was like, this is the kind of guy I wanna be around. And he really helped me out. So yeah, I was fortunate to have that, but if you don't have that, you need to maybe, like, I would maybe say like try and source that online, you know, be in communities with people that are maybe doing the same thing as you going through the same challenges and you kind of just need to block out the, the negativity that you will, you know, inevitably receive when you start out.
Speaker 0 00:11:09 Yeah. And, and I don't know how you feel about this, but I also think that if you need the support of other people and the approval of the people to go out and be entrepreneur, then you're probably not gonna make it any, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:11:20 That's true. Yeah, very true. Do
Speaker 0 00:11:23 You think, or, or were you entrepreneurial, you know, throughout uni or in corporate, did you think, oh, I'm never gonna, you know, stay in corporate, I'm going to be a business owner? Or is it, did it just kind of happen organically?
Speaker 1 00:11:37 Yeah, really good question. So my family, like the way they've been brought up, they've always been like working for a company, you know, very much salaried job. No one in my family has been very entrepreneurial. They're very like playing it safe and I dunno what it was where, whereas there's something inside me that, that I always felt that I was different or that, you know, that I wanted to do something different to, to my peers and things like that. I, I don't know really what it was, but I think once I tasted a little bit of earning some money on the side while I was at university and, you know, everybody else was struggling for money, I thought, well, you know, there, there's, you know, there's something in this and, and I guess that I just fell into it. I don't really know kind of how that happened.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 Yeah, it's so weird. Like I, I have no idea why some people just are innately entrepreneurial or yeah, like I never considered get a job. Like I have no idea why it's just never going, but I didn't consider it as an option. So it'd be interesting to know if that's kind of a, a born thing or a something that from your surroundings or,
Speaker 1 00:12:33 Yeah, they're both, I think.
Speaker 0 00:12:34 Yeah, sure. Um, so where is the business today? Just talk about, you know, obviously you, you mentioned at the beginning what you kind of do, but in terms of who you work with, the size of the business, anything that you're happy to share and, and what your day-to-day looks like.
Speaker 1 00:12:48 Yeah, good question. So we specifically work with entrepreneurs and, and high performers. So if you can put that under the bracket of, you know, people that are working, you know, very stressful jobs, mainly male, you know, anywhere from kind of like 25 to 50, you know, our, our ideal client is somebody that is, you know, an exec or an entrepreneur that has a wife and kids that works pretty hard. I mean, so you'd be a great example of an ideal client, right? Someone running a successful SAS business, pretty stressed out wife and kids, like, you know, someone like that. So the size of the business at the minute is we have like a marketing team. So a lot of the top of funnel stuff that I do is now run by a team. So a lot of the content that you see put out all of my appointments set in and that kind of stuff where we kind of do that, no lead generation is outsource.
Speaker 1 00:13:30 The main bulk of the business that I focus on now is I really focus on the acquisition side and I focus on the fulfillment side alongside another coach that we have working on the team. So it's a bit quite funny cuz a lot of online businesses I've seen and fitness businesses, as soon as they get a cap at their clients straight away, they outsource their fulfillment to, to a coach. And, you know, I, I understand why that happens and I, I think that can be successful, but the way that I've tried to look at it is when you're a business starting out, and I very much still feel that I'm starting out, your customers are your bread and butter of the business and your fulfillment is what brings people back. It's also how you retain your customers and where you get the best feedback. So I'm fortunate to work with people that are running businesses that do eight figures.
Speaker 1 00:14:11 I even have a client that does nine figures, which is completely crazy, but these guys gimme great feedback because they know what it's like to be an entrepreneur starting out. And I work with these guys every day. So I jump on calls with these guys every day that are running successful businesses. I'm like, Hey man, how can I improve this here? How can I do that? And, uh, you know, from this, I, I'm actually partnering with a, with a client now who runs a successful business in the us it's gonna be helping me scale my business even further because he's seen potential in it. But I think this has come from the fact that I've really focused on building good relationships from my clients, trying to keep them for as long as possible. Like I want my clients to work with me for years and really refine my program so I can build a world class service.
Speaker 1 00:14:48 Now, once I feel that that's good enough, I'm gonna be like, Hey, I can then outsource this to the coaches and let them deliver it. But my real focus now is still doing the delivery. So I'm super busy, I'm doing all the sales calls, but there's gonna come a point, especially in the next I think six months where, you know, I'm just not gonna have the time to do that and I'm gonna have to outsource that part. But for me at the minute, it's really about perfecting that and really building like long-term relationships and focusing on lifetime value for, for, for my customers and my clients.
Speaker 0 00:15:13 Yeah, I love that. I think, and I completely agree with a lot of other coaches who kind of, some people do it well, but some people bring on other coaches and it's, it's nothing more than it means to an end. Like, how do I shake off the clients that I don't like working with or the, the work that I don't like doing with the clients? And it's like, that's not good for the clients, it's not good for this new coach who's coming into the business of value and have a good experience. You're just giving them the worst clients that come through. So yeah, I definitely, definitely agree and I definitely agree with, you know, staying close to the customers for as long as possible and it, and it happens in most of other businesses. So why, why not in coaching, which is such a people-centric business and, and a service-based business.
Speaker 0 00:15:53 So I love that. Definitely. Um, okay, cool. So some really interesting things then that I, that I didn't know, I didn't know you'd, you'd built a team. Congratulations. That's amazing. Thank you. Cheers. Um, one thing that I really wanna talk to you about because I just, I love Twitter, right? <laugh>, but I love to wear as a kind of just a quiet user who just consumes on there and enjoys it really and learns from it as well. I think it's amazing, but you use it really effectively well, from what I see from a content creation and, and building network and, and stuff like that. So why Twitter? How did that start?
Speaker 1 00:16:26 Yeah, really good question, man. So again, it's one of those things that I kind of fell into. So when I started out, I was probably doing a lot of my content and acquisition through Instagram, and I think there's a big difference in a fitness point of view from Twitter to Instagram. And I'll kind of tell you why. So I think a lot of Instagram is low hanging fruit. Not, not all of it, but some of it is, right? What do people go on Instagram for? They go on there to see people's lifestyle, they go to see a Lambo, right? They wanna see, you know, ass and tits, right? They wanna see a controversial Andrew tape video, they wanna be entertained, right? And they wanna see pleasure in in going on Instagram, whereas on Twitter, you, you do get that, but a lot of the guys that are on Twitter, they're there for crypto news, right?
Speaker 1 00:17:04 They're there for political debate, they're there for intellectual conversation and it's all text based. So you have to be able to kind of think and read and do that instead of just look at a picture of a girl with a tits out, right? So I, I kind of just fell into this area of Twitter, which is focused primarily on self-improvement. And I saw that there wasn't many fitness guys on there, right? Like there's millions of fitness influencers on Twitter, on, on Instagram. So there was none on, on Twitter. So I thought, well, this might be a bit of an opportunity here. So I just started tweeting every day for three years, just tweeting, networking, speaking with lots of people and there's kind of like, it's a bit of a blue ocean because there was no one really else on there helping entrepreneurs. I think I've got the biggest British fitter fitness account on Twitter now, and I think there's maybe only one or two guys that are bigger than me in the space that serve entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 00:17:49 So the competition is no nowhere nearly as high as what you would see on somewhere like Instagram for, for fitness and, and YouTube especially. So I just started putting out loads of helpful fitness content on nutrition, fitness, sleep and that kind of thing. And now I've kind of built a good network on there and audience, I have a sense of authority. So I, I have quite a strong brand that brings in a lot of inbound leads and you know, I've got good case studies and I also have a bit of like authority when I, when I send messages out to people to be like, Hey, like I saw you might be a perfect client for my program and things like that. So yeah, I just kind of fell into it and I think that it's like a big opportunity. It's like the, the OGs that started on YouTube back in the day, you could say like pe people like Brandon Cart, keynote body that, that are crushing it now. When YouTube was really small they started out and now Twitter is very small for fitness, but I think maybe in four or five years it could be huge. And if I could get to the point where I'm one of the first movers in there and I've got a strong brand, I think it could be like a, a really good bit of digital real estate and a, and a great asset. So yeah, like I said, I just kind of fell into it, man. It's <laugh> it's crazy.
Speaker 0 00:18:48 Yeah, well like, like I said, I, I love Twitter and I think for fact there's such a great opportunity, as you said, for fitness entrepreneurs and business owners cuz the content kind of sits as well. Yeah, I think there are a lot of people on there who would assume good content about that. Like, like yours, most of your, is Twitter your largest growth channel?
Speaker 1 00:19:10 Yeah, so Twitter's my largest growth channel, so I'm about 85,000 followers now. So yeah, it's the largest channel that I've got.
Speaker 0 00:19:18 Love that. Ha. It's, let's say I, uh, you know, I'm a FitPro and, and I look to what you've achieved already on Twitter and I, I decide that I wanna start on Twitter. What are maybe two or three bits of advice or purely tactical items that you would, you would give me to kind of be consistent with over the next six to 12 months to, to achieve success on the platform?
Speaker 1 00:19:38 Yeah, really good question, man. So I think one of the first things is you really need to be on the platform daily. You know, a few, a few years ago, right? You've probably seen this with social media, is you could post once a week maybe people will see your stuff and you know, you'd get leads or growth. But nowadays there are whole teams of, you know, marketing people that are, you know, running these big brands, these big personal brands, right? Like I mentioned, I have a, uh, you know, people that help me write my content now. So you're competing against that. So I think you need to be on the platform every day and you need to be producing content every day. I think one of the first things that will help you get growth is having a niche with kind of who you help.
Speaker 1 00:20:12 So for example, like my bio is I help entrepreneurs and high performers optimize their health, fitness, and performance. So very specific, a very specific niche and clientele that I work with. So I can then engineer my content towards that. So I can speak about fitness, nutrition and sleep, stress management, energy management, all of these kind of buzzwords that resonate with my kind of niche. I, I can share as, as well as kind of the general fitness stuff. So that's gonna help kind of get eyeballs on it. I would also recommend, like if you're a small account starting out, you need to spend 80 or 90% of your time in the comments of other big accounts like mine or you know, people, accounts that are a little bit smaller within a niche. Because when I tweet, I get tons of people liking and commenting on my, on my tweets.
Speaker 1 00:20:51 If you can be in the comments adding value to that people, then they're gonna see your profile, click on your profile, maybe follow you and, and you know, I might even follow you back or retweet one of your tweets, right? So it's a really good way to kind of get exposure is to interact. I think people make a big mistake when starting out, and this is what I did, I was tweeting 20 times a day, but nobody saw my tweets cause I had like, you know, 50 followers, right? So you wanna interact, you, you kind of want to, to get your face there. Then when you put out content, people will start to see you and, and once you've got a big enough network, you can then start posting a lot more. So once you've got a bigger account that I spend probably 80, 90% of my time tweeting and posting threads and content and, and in the dms and maybe like 10% of the time replying to other people's tweets because, you know, I don't need to be seen as much.
Speaker 1 00:21:30 My tweets will, will get, you know, traction because of I'm a big account, but you don't get that privilege when you've just started out. So yeah, I think that that's really important. The consistency is important, like showing up every single day on the platform. And if you can show a bit of personality as well, I mean like that's really what's gonna divide you between other people because I get tons of small accounts replying the same stuff every single day. When someone posts something funny, witty, humorous, straight away, you're like, ah, man, this guy kind of gets it. He's funny. He stands out and like people are more likely to, to wanna follow you. So I think especially when I started out, I would post a, a few tweets and, and you've probably seen these that are slightly, you could say controversial during these times, but it's done tactically to, to help with getting engagement to, to get eyeballs on my content and things like that. So you have to play the game a little bit as well. But yeah, that would kind of be my, my advice.
Speaker 0 00:22:17 Yeah, love that. That's really helpful. I've heard a few people talk about using engagement farms on Twitter or you know, being in part of groups who all engage in each other's content and I've, I've seen it work really badly on other platforms because they kind of flag it, but from what I've seen, it kind of works a little bit better on a, on Twitter. Do you think that is a good thing to do? Or just letting that kind of happen organically is better? What's your advice on that?
Speaker 1 00:22:44 Really good question, man. So I think build, like, like when I mentioned there about building up a network that's really good. So if you can build up a network, you can then exchange tweets with, you know, people of a similar audience to grow. So if you have 5,000 followers and you see another person with 5,000 followers, you'd be like, Hey man, let's swap retweets each day. And with Twitter, like, you know, you can, you can do it and not get flagged, which is really good. So again, it's like a relationship game. If you can build the good relationships with people, you can share each other's content and, and get benefits from other people's content. Like, you know, YouTubers, they do collabs with each other for videos. It's very similar with Twitter, you're kind of exchanging each other's content to get benefit from their audience. I would also recommend that if you are doing, you know, your business is doing well and you're making a profit, reinvesting some of those profits into paid marketing.
Speaker 1 00:23:25 Now usually what that would look like for a lot of businesses is, you know, for Instagram it could be Instagram shoutouts, it could be advertising, right? Facebook ads, you know, it could be paid to be featured on, on a big influencers page, whatever it may be. But I would actually invest some of that into retweets or paid marketing from a, from a big account. So I've done that in the past and that's helped me grow. But you do wanna be careful that, you know, a 400 k account with a shit audience could be, you know, not as valuable as a a 50 K account with a great audience that you wanna resonate with. So for example, let's say you get a big a non statue account, right? That has 400,000 followers, but most of their audience are, are maybe young kids or a lot of the demographic is from a third world country that doesn't have much disposable income.
Speaker 1 00:24:08 The value that you're gonna get from their retweets is not gonna be as valuable as an account that's mainly based in the US that has a following of entrepreneurs and high performers that, you know, you know, have a lot of disposable income. Like there's a discrepancy in the value there. So I think you have to pick the account that you're gonna use quite tactically and think of it as a, as a way, like who do I want to get in front of? What are the type of people that I work with and how is this gonna help me grow my business, not just my following? If that makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:24:35 Yeah, definitely. And then that, this was final question on Twitter, obviously you mentioned spending a lot of time in the dms. Yeah. And I think you mentioned you've got a team now helping you with outbound as well from the dms. Is that right?
Speaker 1 00:24:45 Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:24:47 What does that look like? And, and again, any advice that you would, uh, give to people looking, looking to spend time on Twitter and, and in the dms?
Speaker 1 00:24:54 Really good question. So I actually have like a, a company that helped me help me do it that they manage appointment centers. Funny enough, it's actually my housemate is his company, so he, he actually sorts me out with it, which is really good. But my advice would be that, you know, to, to do messaging, I think it always helps when you have a strong personal brand to begin with. So I'm not saying don't send dms out straight away, but if you are to send dms out straight away, you really want to have, you know, a refined message of kind of like who you help, how you help them, why it's you are valuable, and how you can help, you know, this person solve their pain point. You know, you, if you've got, you know, a hundred followers and you know you're DM and people to, you know, do some fitness coaching and you don't have a niche or you don't have a specific type of person you help, like, no one's really gonna respond to you.
Speaker 1 00:25:39 So I, I, I definitely recommend, like I said, having that niche. And then if you are to send outbound messages when you're a smaller account, really doubling down on what your value is, how you can help people, and having kind of case studies to show that and, and kind of longer term is building the brand. So once you've built a brand and you have an audience, and I guess you have authority within in the space or, or within your niche, like, it's then much easier to have conversations with people because you're here, you have an existing audience who you can talk to and message and things like that. And then when you send outbound messages, you're gonna get much better responses from those people because they've already seen your content, you know, on, on the platform, or they can see how many followers you have and your case studies and you know, the, like I said, the, the, the credibility you have.
Speaker 1 00:26:14 So yeah, I, I'd really focus on that and, and also just, you know, not going in on a direct message. I think this is it just going in and being like, hi, like, you know, do you need help with fitness? Something like that. Like you need to personalize this message a little bit more and, you know, maybe give a little bit of value like upfront to people to actually then start a conversation to, to then get people booked in on a call or get them to, to look at your program or whatever it may be. So yeah, that's kind of my thoughts on, on kind of outbound messaging.
Speaker 0 00:26:42 That's amazing. I think anyone who's listening to this, who is considering Twitter as a growth channel or a marketing channel has, has a lot to go on there to get to at least get started. And if you're not considering it, I would definitely look at it. As I mentioned earlier, if, if I was still coaching clients, I would probably spend my time on Twitter because it's also just a really enjoyable place to spend time. Yeah, I say that from a personal preference perspective, but I'd much rather spend my day on Twitter than Instagram. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, okay. That's amazing. So are you doing anything else to grow the business? I know you've got the podcast, the elite performance podcast. Um, let's, let's start with that. How, how is, how does that fit into you to your business? Or is it an enjoyment thing? Where does that fit?
Speaker 1 00:27:24 Yeah, really good question, man. So actually as of next year, I'm gonna be not continuing with the podcast because I'm gonna be putting a lot of my effort into YouTube, to be honest, because for me, like my goal is really to like build like a digital asset or you know, digital audience, right? And podcasts are fantastic and the, one of the reasons why I did it initially was to really build relationships. So to get people on, you know, my podcast who are potentially my ideal client to see if they needed help with their health and fitness as well as kind of share good content of their stories to, you know, my audience who are interested in entrepreneurship performance and that kind of thing. So I think a podcast is fantastic. I think I've just chosen to go in a, a different direction cuz for me, like I wanna build a a massive top of funnel, a big audience.
Speaker 1 00:28:02 And I think you can do that much easier through like YouTube channel. The potential for like sponsorships, collaborations, monetization is probably a lot better with a big YouTube channel. I could be wrong, but that's kind of like my, my thought behind it. So yeah, I'm kind of gonna try and focus on that next year. Cause I think like Twitter, you know, combined with like a very strong YouTube and video content channel that can then be repurposed into shorts, TikTok, so Instagram reels, whatever it may be. It could be like a quite a good strategy. So that's like where I'm gonna mainly focus I think 2023 on.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 Yeah, I love that the reality and most Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn content is just Twitter and YouTube content anyway, <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:28:37 Exactly. Yeah. Makes my life easier. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:28:40 Yeah, a hundred percent. Like most, I think all of my Instagram content is just screenshots of my tweets. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:28:46 Easy man, smart
Speaker 0 00:28:48 <laugh>. So yeah, it's a, it's a great way to create content and have this bit of a, a waterfall content distribution. I love it. Okay, cool. What advice would you give to someone looking to emulate your success? You've built an amazing business, you're growing a team, you have a predictable marketing channel to some extent, and now you can look to the future. If I'm looking at you today, and I'm maybe just getting started out, I've done six months in the industry or six months of working with clients online. What advice would you give to me?
Speaker 1 00:29:19 Definitely, man. So I think number one is have a really good niche of people that you help. So for me it's like entrepreneurs and high performers. It could be moms who are busy, it could be dads over 40, it could be single guys in their twenties wanting to get ripped for I bfa, whatever it may be. Decide on that because that's then gonna be reverse engineer how you do everything. So that's gonna reverse engineer how you market yourself the content that you're gonna put out, the way that you present yourself, right? And also the program that you've got. So for like me, I now personalize my program based on, you know, like health testing and sleep and taking data and things like that because entrepreneurs love that shit, right? A lot of entrepreneurs now love that kind of stuff. So like I'm speaking to their world so they see that I understand them.
Speaker 1 00:30:03 So that's a really good way to try and like, you know, get started is have that niche and, and get an understanding of, of who your avatar is and who your customer is and, and what they need. I would then get some like fantastic case studies, man. Like, because at the end of the day, sometimes, you know, the first thing that you do when you go to buy a program, I know I'm like this, I look at the results and I look at the video testimonials, it's the first thing that I look at, right? It's the same as when you go on Amazon, you don't care what what the program's saying and all the spiel you look at how many reviews it's got, right? And it's the same. But I think with, with fitness, especially when you're starting out, if you've not got a huge brand or reputation, if you can get some fantastic case studies from people maybe working with people for free and things like that, that would be really good.
Speaker 1 00:30:40 And then I would really pick one platform to go all in on. So I picked Twitter to go all in on, and only now as I reach nearly a hundred followers am I thinking, okay, I might start YouTube properly. So I think people make the mistake when they start out of trying to be on every single channel and be a jack of all trades and it burns you out. I've tried doing it, it fucking burned me out and I got so much more success from Dev developing tons of time to Twitter and, and, and making that my, my primary, primary like source. You can then use that channel as social proof. So for example, like if I go onto LinkedIn now, like you'll see my buy on LinkedIn, it says like 80,000 followers on Twitter, right? Which is a bit of a, you know, a shit, a shit cut move, right?
Speaker 1 00:31:14 But, but it's pr it's a social proof, right? It's saying like, it works, right? And, and again, like if you can do that on, you know, YouTube, people will see YouTube videos after you've built a big audience. Like, oh, I've seen Oliver on Twitter before. He's got like a hundred thousand followers. I might subscribe to his channel. Right? So it's kind of like, I think definitely going in on one, one niche, I would say one potential offer or one program and one, you know, what did I say? Was it one channel? Right? One channel is, is really useful with, with that as well. Like, and people might have different opinions on this, I do think that you can charge more money when you work with a niche. So if you can do a higher ticket model of business, I think that that can be very good, especially when you are starting out.
Speaker 1 00:31:53 Because if you don't have much of an audience, you know, you can't get hundreds of people, two hundreds, thousands of people through the door every month to play the volume game. That's not really gonna work. Whereas what you can is if you're hyper specific with your niche, your offer who you help and you can deliver a fantastic service, you can then charge a bit more of a premium for that and people will pay you more, which means you make more profit, which you can then reinvest or grow the business, you can then obviously focus very much on your customer and like try and stay with your customers for as long as possible, right? So it's much easier for you to, let's say, I don't know, let's say I've worked with Souk for, for a year. It's much easier for me to gets to pay to work with me for another year than it is for me to go out and acquire a new customer, pay for the marketing, get him on the call, try and sell to him, get him to trust me, and then get him to pay me, right? So you wanna really look after your initial customers, deliver a great service, charge a premium for it, and then maybe reinvest that money into the business so you can market so you can scale so you can grow. Yeah. That's how I would do it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 0 00:32:50 Yeah, that's amazing advice. Okay. You up for some quick finishing questions? Sure,
Speaker 1 00:32:55 Sure.
Speaker 0 00:32:56 What do the next few years look like for you as a business owner and the business itself?
Speaker 1 00:33:01 Ah, cool. So yeah, as I mentioned, I'm partnering with one of my clients at the minute that's gonna help me scale my business to, to the next level. So I, I'd say now my l my l my business is a very good lifestyle business. I can travel where I want, I can do what I want, but I think I've got really goals to take this to the next level where it's a very much a a high performing cash flow business or potentially where it could diversify and be an enterprise where we could maybe exit and have different products and that kind of stuff. So, um, you know, I think the, the goal of that is to scale, build a team, build digital assets, you know, online. So build a big YouTube channel, big newsletter, Carrie on building a big Twitter channel and kind of see how, how far that goes from a personal perspective, I'd love to move abroad. I think Dubai is is a great place, again from a, a financial point of view, but it's just a, a great lifestyle and a lot of the people like yourself so that are very successful and other entrepreneurs there as well, which, uh, would work hand in hand with kind of the business that I'm in. So yeah, maybe move abroad for the minute. It's really just focused on scaling things up and yeah, building the right team and, and building like, you know, big channels online and big audience to be honest.
Speaker 0 00:34:02 Amazing. What's something that you hate about the industry?
Speaker 1 00:34:06 What's something that I hate, I'll tell you something that I hate is this fucking biohacking stuff, man. Like this biohacking stuff is, you know, there is utility in it and don't get me wrong, there, there is a benefit to it, but there are guys at 30% body fat that haven't lifted a weight talking about, you know, suing their balls, blue light blocking glasses and all of this bullshit. And it's kinda like, well you're majoring in the minors, man, you need to focus on the sleep, the nutrition and training. But unfortunately people, they want the quick fix, right? They want the, they wanna buy a red light therapy thing for 600 quid cuz they think that that's gonna help them be optimized when really you need to stop eating like a pig. You need to go to bed early, you need to lift some fucking weights, right?
Speaker 1 00:34:41 <laugh>, unfortunately, that's not sexy for people. It's not a sexy market in ploy for, for, for people. So they'd rather go with the quick fix. So biohacking has utility man. If you're, if you're optimized and you're doing all that stuff and you wanna get to the next, you know, 1%, then yeah, do the biohacking, right? It's, it, it absolutely works. But a lot of the gurus that focus on this now are really just using it as a ploy for to to, to make money and to get people in that to, to sell their way, right? And I've always been a, you know, advocate of the fundamentals doing the bread and butter stuff, getting that right before you focus on like the sexy stuff and, and, and that extra biohacking stuff.
Speaker 0 00:35:15 Yeah. I think people love to skip the hard part and yeah. Oh, this is what the advanced people do. I'll buy that. You skipped Yeah. The decade of hard work.
Speaker 1 00:35:25 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:35:25 What, what's the biggest mistake you see other coaches making from a business perspective?
Speaker 1 00:35:30 Hmm, that's a really good question. I think number one is I do see, and unfortunately this doesn't speak for everyone, but there are coaches that can be lazy and, and I mean this in a, in a, you know, their own personal standards and, and like standards that they put out for, for content. So I think if you wanna be a really good online coach, you need to have your own house in order. Like you need to really ensure that you're in shape yourself, that you look after yourself because your representation of your business have always been a big advocate of that, and that you're just working really hard for your clients and that you don't see them as just a payday, right? I think that's a, a thing that you see with, with, with client, with people is they have a really high turn churn rate, right?
Speaker 1 00:36:04 They, they get clients in, they, they get the money off 'em, they don't deliver a good service and then the clients leave and it's kinda like, just see them as a payday. Whereas I've always really cared about my clients. I've always wanted them to get great results. I've always kept close relationships with them. I've always wanted to work with them for a long period of time because like long-term relationships are great for fulfillment personally, I think. But it's also good from a business point of view. They're also gonna trust you more, refer you more people, you know, you're gonna be able to, they're gonna be able to help you out a lot more. It's, it's just a better relationship, man. So I think you need to really get like your, your own house in order, like be a good representation of your business, really give a fuck about your clients and want them to, to do well and care about them getting results. And I think like with that, if you can market yourself well as well and, and do those things that we've spoken about, they're like, I don't see a way for you not to be successful, man. I think that those are the, the keys for me, I would say.
Speaker 0 00:36:54 Yeah, a hundred percent. Let's finish on a positive note. Sure. What's something you love about the industry?
Speaker 1 00:37:00 So what do I love about the industry? What I love about the industry is I think fitness is truly like transformative. So I remember when I was, I've gone through breakups, I've, uh, you know, been broke and it had things go on with family fitness has been like always been my anchor to help me get out of those holes that I've been in. And I think that that's the great thing about any coaching business is you are making a positive impact on the world like that you are undoubtedly doing that, right? They're, I remember when I was working corporate and I was like doing spreadsheets and I was, um, doing circuits for ele electricity companies or, or some bullshit. I thought, well if I hit my target this month, like what like impact on the world have I have I made, apart from me hitting my KPIs, nothing really. Whereas when you work in the fitness industry, you are making a direct impact on how people feel. You're stopping them getting ill, you're helping them have a higher quality of life, have better relationships. So I think it's just a great industry to be in because you have a good impact. And that's why I love being in this industry and I'm fortunate to, to do it full-time because it's, it's very fulfilling from a personal point of view.
Speaker 0 00:37:59 Yeah, I agree. And it's been a really common answer. Like it's so impactful and we get to change lives. I love that. Okay mate, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 00:38:10 Thank you, sir. Firstly, uh, really appreciate you having me on and uh, yeah, I've been part of like your businesses previously like online fitness business and you've helped me out a lot throughout this whole fitness journey. So I, I really appreciate you having me on. You can find me on Twitter, mainly the Oliver amk. You can also find my website, which is fitness for entrepreneurs.com. So a nice one for you guys to find. And I'll also be on YouTube very much a lot next year. You can just search Oliver Anwar Health on YouTube and if you just wanna see me share stupid memes and me travel around the world, you can follow me on Instagram, which is a Oliver Anwar. I just, I, I really use that as just personal fun and just to like, yeah, just share my travels. So yeah, that's, uh, that's me man.
Speaker 0 00:38:48 I'll put the links to all those things in the show notes. Oliver, thanks for joining, mate, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 00:38:53 Thank you, Souk. Cheers.
