Once Upon a Time, The Art of Story Telling in Business… Part 2
Hi guys! It’s Jono here today. I’m feeling good :)! Just got back from my weekly stretch session with my PT Hannah :)! She just got from 3 weeks in the UK… Which meant 3 weeks of no stretching for me… But I did actually did quite well… It wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be :)! Anyways… Thank you for everyone that read / listened to Part I of my story on Monday… I wanted to continue it with Part II today 🙂
“Jono’s Story: Part 2”
So I was now running / managing a local Bootcamp Franchise and it was fun! One problem though… I was rubbish… I probably ran the worst Bootcamp in the world… Actually I KNOW I ran the worst Bootcamp in the world because at this Franchise we ranked based on our retention… E.g. if you had 20 clients and 10 of those rejoined for another 12 weeks than your retention rate was 50%… At the time there were 75 Franchise locations across Australia, NZ and the USA… And out the 75… Take a guess what I was ranked, 75/75..
Now i’m pretty competitive… So if I come 2nd at something i’m upset… If I come 3rd at something, i’m VERY upset… I come 4th at something, i’m borderline depression… I came 75th! So my confidence was super low… and I felt like a loser… Especially since i quit a full time job for it… I would HATE talking about work to anyone… Ex collegues and friends would ask “how’s bootcamp going”… and I would have to try brush it off or come up with some lame generic excuse “oh yeah… going ok… still working progress you know”… But on the inside i’m thinking “I can’t do anything right”… “I’m not a good trainer”… “I’m going to stick to cleaning treadmills… at least I can’t screw that up”…
End of the year of every year at this Franchise we had a “Franchise Conference” where all 75 Area Managers from all over the world attended… I didn’t want to go… I was already self conscious about myself… For a PT i’m not the biggest, i’m not the strongest, i’m not the most ripped, i’m not the sexiest… N I could just imagine all these other Trainers were going to be bodybuilders or fitness models or athletes or hard ass commando’s… N there was going to be me… Add to that not only was I self conscious about the way I looked as a PT… But I was self conscious about my ability as a Bootcamp Instructor… I felt I wasn’t good enough to be in the room with these people… and I could justify my beliefs by the way I looked and my results…
I really didn’t want to go to this conference but it was compulsory… I knew my position was in danger anyway… If i didn’t go to this conference… I was gone and I knew it… I was super nervous / anxious for months leading up to it but I bit the bullet and went… I made sure to sit up and the front and take heaps of notes so I at least looked like I was the most eager / ambitious Trainer there! Maybe the head honcho’s would think i’m a go getter or something and forget that i’m the worst in the room…
And i’m glad I did because… There was one quote that has literally changed my life “People don’t care how much you know… Until they know how much you care”… To me that was game changing…
Before this I was self conscious about my self and my program… My thoughts were
“Why would someone train with me”… i’m not the biggest, i’m not the strongest, i’m not the best (i’m actually the worst), i’m not the most experienced, i’m not the sexiest, i’m not an athlete, i’m not a celebrity, i’m not a reality star, i’m not a bodybuilder, i’m not super ripped…
After this quote my thoughts were…
“People are going to want to train with me because I am the most supportive Trainer in the world… I don’t care where else they’ve trained or who they’ve trained with… I will care and support my clients more than any other trainer ever has and potentially more than anyone else in their life ever has and I will show my clients this… Put me up against the best Personal Trainer in the world… Put me up against Arnold Shwarzneggar… I will guarantee I support my clients more than that Trainer”
For me this literally changed my life… The very next 12 week block… I came in the Top 10 (out of 75)… The next 12 week block I came in the Top 10 again (out of 75)… From there my confidence sky rocketed… I actually got some belief that i’m pretty good at what I do… All my clients were loving it and kept coming back, I had such a good relationship with all my clients, I was so happy and confident with my ability as a Bootcamp Instructor and this showed in everything… I was putting photo’s on social media… I was happy to talk about Bootcamp to my friends and family… I was closing more sales, getting more leads, more referrals everything…
By the third 12 week block – I managed to finish 1st (out of 75) and my retention rate was 110%! Every single one of my clients (75 of them at that stage) came back for the next round + ex clients came back who went somewhere else to train but came back because of the lack of support there! And then the 4th 12 week block I came 1st again (at that stage I had 100 clients)!
So one year later – the conference came around again and I couldn’t wait to attend this time 🙂 !!!
So a few messages going on here… But looking back – the major points here…
1) Support is the one thing that you can offer more than anyone else in the world! Doesn’t matter what you look like, what you’re experience is, who your client is… You can always support your client more than the next Trainer!
2) No one is better than you… No one is worse than you… The only reason someone is currently in front of you is because they started working on themselves earlier!
PS: The next part of the story gets even juicier still .. I’ll share it on Friday :p
This is a big part of running a successful Bootcamp so, if you’d like to grow your bootcampp, Check out our 5 Tips to Grow your Bootcamp.
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