In Part I on this topic I mostly covered how we physically became a personal training studio. Going from living without a home(moving back from LA, pregnant without a place to live), to having the studio in our home to taking over a turnkey operation and making it our own. As you can imagine quite a bit more goes into having a successful business than just where it is. So if your venturing forth into the future with dreams of your own studio read away…hopefully this will give you some ideas for questions to ask yourself and maybe abit more in your quest as a studio owner/personal trainer.

We arrived back in Orlando, Florida on my birthday, December 31, 2001(I turned 35 years old). It was the afternoon and I remember we made it a point to get to our friends house in time to meet up with them to go to a New Year’s Eve Party that evening. Why was this party so important to us? Well it definitely wasn’t to party. I was three/four months along (never did figure those months along stuff out) and by this point very obviously pregnant. This was to be our very first opportunity to share the good news about our starting our own personal training studio. Seeing as we didn’t really know too many people in Orlando at the time and little family this was pretty important to us. We decided this night was to be the beginning of our future adventure in personal training.

So we showed up with a plan. Our plan was to tell everyone what we could do for them if they trained with us. First we both had done BFL(Lynn taught me all he knew), with Lynn very successfully winning in 1997 so we were confident we could express our knowledge and skill of then helping others transform themselves as we had. So if anyone was around us who was looking to get fit we were the ones to help them achieve that goal. And it turned out well for us. We had for sure one couple that wanted to come talk to us with the possiblity of another couple(making us quickly think about a couple’s package). So while looking into where we would live and therefore where we would start training clients we figured out what options we would offer potential clients. Although Lynn and I had not been personal trainer’s working for someone else I always thought that was to our advantage. We didn’t set any limitations on ourselves and therefore on any potential clients because basically we didn’t know any better. That turned out for us to be a good thing. Most trainer’s at that time were pitching a max 18 sessions and asking for the whole chunk up front(lots of gyms still do this). We pitched 36 to 72 session with weekly payments and no contract. Who needs contracts when both parties are delivering on their promises. And guess what? Very few people didn’t honor their committment to us.

So we found our house with the sun room, set up the computer and got to work on our mission. We were going to be the Before and After folks. Yes we were going to TEACH people how to live a healthy and fit life. How to eat. How to weight train. How to cardio effectively. No matter if they walked in just wanting it alittle. We would hold their hand till completion. And they would then tell everyone they knew who had helped them transform. Did I say already we started with a referral program in place? Yes we did. That was to be our main source of advertising(and proved to be the ONLY advertising that we did for the next 5 years). Nothing, I repeat NOTHING is more powerful than a personal testimony from family or friend about your business to get some serious credibility. Is credibility important? I would say that is a yes. If people are going to hand over money, time and energy they will usually be making sure it is worth it. That they will in fact get what they expect to get out of it and if you are the people who deliver, well then it is much easier to close the deal.

And in fact that was to be our business in a nutshell. We were going to be the people who spent the time and energy or whatever it took to push, pull, drag or just encourage you through this system (BFL) called getting fit. And that was our promise and come hell or high water we were going to deliver. BUT…. BUT you the client surely were as well. This was to be a team effort and together we would overcome…We realized from the getgo that this business was all about relationships. If we were really going to help people as we planned and did then we would have to get involved with them and their issues. This was a given for us. And of the ORIGINALS (the 11 folks we initially trained in our house) most of then to this day are very good friends of ours.

Again our steps:

1. Where are we NOW? Again we are with out steady income with baby on the way in a few short months. No clients!
2. Where are we GOING? Our plan was to set up our training packages to coincide with BFL. SO we would offer our clients 36- 1 hour sessions for a transformation. Thats 12 weeks training 3 times a week. Yes it does only take 45 min to do a workout but we were going to do the whole shabang…food, cardio the works. This is what seperated us from ALL the other trainer’s out there!!!! Also a plan that would keep clients with us for a time period so first we could assure the transformation occurred and second to have a steady cash flow without having to constantly look for new clients. In fact we have had clients stay with us for years and many, many repeats.
3. Why? We wanted to make sure the clients that came to us had a transformation. SO we figured it was best if we had at least 12 weeks and if they stayed on they would get a discount on the second 12 weeks so progress would happen. Not so surprisingly most clients stayed on for 6 months if not longer.
4. When? NOW. We had monthly bills to pay with soon to be alot bigger expenses with a newborn.
5. How? For some reason the HOW is always the biggest or hardest one to determine or get. Like I wrote earlier we had a referral program for our advertising. From the very first FREE CONSULTATION we would tell them about the opportunity to make some money back by referring us to family and friends. Once their referral completed one of our packages (all our pkgs were for 36 or 72 sessions with a discount in $ for couples) they would get money. And if they were really good and got enough people training with us then maybe it would cover the expense of their training. Yay. Our second couple that started out of our house brought in five more clients of the originals and she earned some good money. And we were on our way…

For all you folks following Bill Phillip’s Transformation.com which includes Lynn and I, well now this here opens up a whole new world. Online social community to go to anytime, anyday with questions, concerns or just looking for relateability or friends looking to do and doing what you want to do. PRICELESS!! Well what an incredible advantage for anyone looking to get healthy and fit inside and out. 18 weeks to a new you! I’m in…

Hope this helps. Any questions feel free to ask….

God Bless You,
Evey

Since Lynn and I started our Personal Training Studio eight years ago this past January people have often come to us for advice and knowledge of how to get started and what it really takes and many, many other questions along the lines of running a business. So with all past and recent questions in peoples minds about what it really takes with knowledge, experience and money I have decided to share our story. If your interested in going down the path of being a Personal Trainer or having your own studio one day then I hope our story inspires and motivates you to realize that you can do it too.

In the fall of 2001 Lynn and I were living in LA in a guest house of friends (yes that would be you Demi and Larry) while Lynn and his assistant (Dawn) worked on getting Lynn gigs puplic speaking. Lynn just finished writing his book (which we later self published) and was getting some seasoning with sharing his story of inspiration to others. Our plan at that time was to continue along the path of Lynn speaking and getting the book out there and growing it. At this time we had both personal trained people here and there but definitely not as our main source of income. We only planned on being in LA for 3-4 months working it and seeing what happened. Lots of speaking events Lynn did at that time were for gyms, studios and a few business seminar’s.

Well shortly into our stay in LA I realized that I was pregnant and well this was BIG. We didn’t have a home at the time and it was still hit and miss on the speaking gigs and sooooo….. the plan now had to change. So we started thinking, talking and questioning…what to do? And the new plan started to get formed.

First I remember we decided what we wanted our life to be like with having kids as a part of it. For example, I was firmly of the mindset that I did NOT WANT my kids in daycare. So that ruled our getting a regular job. Many people don’t realize this but Lynn with HIV is non hireable… most employers want nothing to do with a person that has a life threatening disease. So that ruled out Lynn getting a regular job and anyway neither of us really wanted to get a regular job. Ok so what to do. Fortunately we had visited many gyms and studios during this time period and it started forming in our heads that hey we can do that too. We can have a studio, bring our child and future children to the studio with us because it’s our business and best of all it keeps us into health and fitness which we both love and need in our lives.

So the picture started to form in our minds. We stared to envision having a studio and helping people change their lives and do the steps that we ourselves had done to transform (thank you Bill Phillips). Now it’s great to have a vision but you have to have a plan on how you going to realize that vision. So on our drive back across the country and up and down the east coast visiting family and sharing the great news of baby soon to be on board with us… we planned. Some questions we asked ourselves that helped create our plan.

1. Where are we right NOW? Ahhh pregnant without a home or stable environment to bring a baby into this world. Unsteady income… Also WHERE do we want to do this? For us the where was wide open. Where do we want to live? I personally love the sun and believe that I need to live somewhere that it is out alot so that narrowed down the options for us. So we decided on Orlando because we still had a couple friends there and a few aquaintances. At this time we had not lived there for three years. I am sure your plan might be where in your town would get the most traffic or visibility for potential clients.

2. Why? And Where are We Going With This? Well the idea was to get our own personal training studio going so we could keep our kids with us while they were young till they get to kindergarten. In fact the time limit we initially planned on having a personal training studio was 5 years. Till our son Brent was in Kindergrten. This changed after Erica arrived 20 months after Brent.

3. When are we going to do this? Well for us this was a no-brainer. Like as soon as possible. You know the baby comes out in just 9 months. My plan…something will be in place before this baby arrives!

4. How? Ok so this was the toughest question to answer. We didn’t have a home. We only knew a few people in Orlando and we didn’t have alot of money to invest in this endeavor at that time. But we did have some equipment. Lynn and I always had the basics like a bench with attachments and lots of free weights. So the very first order of business for us …as we were living in a hotel when we got back to Orlando was….find a house. In fact our plan was to find a house that we could also train out of. With the plan to build it up and move to an actual studio. Thank you God and friends we found a house we thought would work for us in two weeks. And we moved in and set it up.

The house had a sun room and that room became our studio. Now remember I am pregnant and just getting bigger and bigger everyday. Now to get clients first we were constantly praying and we also never thought for one moment that it wasn’t going to happen. We believed it could and would happen for us. No self doubts even though we really didn’t have too much experience training people and no certifications either at that time. We didn’t know too many people but we knew we HAD TOO MAKE IT WORK as baby was coming soon. So our faith was very strong!

Needless to say getting the clients is very, very important. As it is your business. I was and am the salesperson for our business. Not to say that Lynn never sold it because he did. In fact we often sell it together. What were or are we selling? We are selling you the opportunity to change your life. Just like our lives were changed when we embarqed on the path of living with intention and focusing on being healthy and fit our clients lives can as well. And we show them how. We set up our training packages to coincide with Body for Life training and stuff happened. Later and over the years lots and lots of changes…

Everywhere we went we talked to people about getting healthy and fit. What it takes and that we had a studio to teach them how to do it. In short order we had 11 clients training out of our sun room (2 months). This was a small house and I remember thinking very early on, we have to get this studio our of this house before this baby arrives because it is just not going to work when the baby is here. So we started planning on moving the studio. Also bear in mind that I am a pregnant women and progressively getting more pregnant telling people about getting healthy and fit and guess what …they believed us anyway!

We constantly talked about moving it and looked at locations and one day Lynn goes to a used equipment store to buy some smaller dumbells like 3, 5 and 8lbs for the women we were training. When he goes into the store the guy working behind the counter recoqnized him from BFL and in fact pulled his book out and pointed to Lynn in the book and said “Is that You? Sure is and Lynn told him what we were up to and that I was pregnant and that we had a studio out of our home. This guy says hey come check out this studio we have upstairs. Lynn did and within a couple weeks we took over that studio. This was May 1, 2002 and my son was born the next month of June 18, 2002. So we had done it….

This is a really long entry so I am going to make this two parts. If you noticed our first steps, by the way, are the steps that Bill Phillips teaches about “Where are you NOW? “Where are you GOING” “WHEN” “WHY” and “HOW” and the steps used to help you and your future clients get healthy and fit. They can and should be used for all the transforming you will do in you careers and relationships and so on. Next entry will be just about getting the clients and building the business. What we do, how we do it, why we do it, when we do it….wow all the steps all over again.

Always interested in feedback…don’t be shy!

God Bless You,
Evey