As I sit at my desk this morning and write this post (first one in a while), I reflect on how different things are for me now compared to just 3 years ago. 

In November 2012 I was still in my first few months as a Personal Trainer. I had just moved into a boxing gym to do my morning sessions and was barely making enough money to pay for my weekly shopping bill let alone our mortgages and cars!

I had doubts. 

I remember laying awake at night for hours (even though I had to get up at 4:30am each morning) thinking that all of those doubters might be right and that I was a fool for walking away from my previous successful career in financial services. 

It’s not as if I hadn’t done my research. 

I knew that the average earnings for a Personal Trainer in the UK were around £17,500 – and work 16 hour days. 

….and that having a wife and 2 kids along with 2 cars and 2 houses (that we owed huge amounts of money on), this was not enough money for us to live on. 

But

I didn’t get into the fitness industry to be a Personal Trainer. 

I didn’t walk away from the comfort zone of 18 years in financial services to be like everyone else. 

I wanted to own a Personal Training company. 

I wanted a company that trained hundreds of members.

I wanted to be impacting thousands of lives in a really positive way. 

I wanted to create a business that allowed me the freedom and flexibility to spend more time with my family – not less. 

I wanted to create a legacy. 

You see, it’s easy to write this sort of stuff down and get excited by it. 

When I first started out on this journey I had so much optimism and positive energy. I felt that the shackles of Corporate Britain had been taken off me as I ditched my designer suit and traded it in for a Nike tracksuit. 

BUT

4 months in

things hadn’t gone quite to plan. 

The big ambitious goals that I had set hadn’t come to fruition. 

The costs of equipment and hall hire were more than I had forecast in my original (back of a beer mat) business plan. 

My credit card bills were running high and I was stressed out – meaning that things were not so great at home. 

“How much longer can I carry on like this?”

“Is this going to go down as one of my biggest failures to date?”

“They were all right – this was a stupid idea”

were the sort of comments that I telling myself (I’ve since learnt that what we tell ourselves will determine our decisions, actions, outcomes and destiny. We wouldn’t say that sort of thing to anyone else so why say it to ourselves?)

Rock Bottom

Rock bottom came in the first week of January 2014.

All of the worry and stress had built up too much and I was admitted to hospital with a chronic stomach condition. I was in for a week and had a lot of time to think.

Initially when I was in that hospital bed, in extreme agony I just felt sorry for myself.

My weight had crashed down to below 70kg and I looked and felt really ill. 

I played the victim. 

“Why me?”

I thought that the few clients that I did have would leave and I would be left with nothing. 

Then after a few days when my stomach settled down and I had managed to catch some sleep, I found myself laying there just ….thinking. 

I remember thinking that this is Rock Bottom. It cannot get any worse than this. Which means the only way is up. 

The Breakthrough

I realised that my marketing was flawed. 

I was using deal sites like groupon and older traditional  marketing tactics like networking and leaflet dropping to grow my biz. 

I needed something more reliable. 

I made a decision there and then in that hospital bed to Go For Broke.

If this business and career more doesn’t work out then it’s NOT going to be because of a lack of effort. 

I was willing to put everything financially on the line – house, cars, credit cards etc. 

This was a decision shared with my amazing and supportive wife Alex. We agreed that if we lost the whole lot it wouldn’t really matter as long as we had our health (hard to say with conviction from my hospital bed!) and each other and the kids. 

On The Up

I figured out that Facebook Ads were the reliable source of leads that I needed to get my head around. So I literally invested thousands of pounds on my credit cards to learn from the very best in the world. 

My first ads looked awful. 

But

leads started to trickle in. 

As I practised and became more competent the leads became more consistent. 

Then I remember waking up one morning and was greeted by 36 leads – they had all come in within a 24 hour period. 

GAMECHANGER

Time for us to get our own unit. 

Prior to this I was afraid about committing to the overheads of having our own place. 

But now that I knew I could get quality local leads within hours of turning them on, I felt much more confident. 

So in May 2013, we opened up the doors to our new place (see below)

Fast Forward To Now

Things have moved on a little bit. 

We now have 230 members – made up of PT, semi private and group training. 

We have 4 trainers that take the sessions (I focus on sales and marketing only now)

I’ve managed to help hundreds of other ladies all over the world through the release of my online 20 minute home workout programme.

Me and the family had 5 weeks away over the Summer in Spain (even took the dog with us) at our own private villa overlooking the sea. (photo below taken from our garden)

 

I Now Help Others Do The Same

I love sales and marketing. 

I love creating enormous value for people and then getting my message out there. 

I put so much of our company growth down to being able to have complete certainty at being able to generate leads. And this has all been down to Facebook ads. 

I DO NOT want other trainers out there that may have similar ambitions and dreams to me to have to go through what I had to go through. 

This is exactly why I set up the PT100K Club, whereby I now fast track fitness professionals into understanding and implementing really successful Facebook ad campaigns for their businesses without the risk of accounts getting banned. 

I love what I do. 

I love the fact that those crazy, ambitious goals that I set are all coming to fruition. 

I love the fact that I can look those doubters in the eye and say

“Please don’t doubt me again”

I feel really blessed and grateful that I once again have my health back to normal.

My wife Alex is sharing this journey with me and has never once stopped believing in me.

Anything really is possible when you surround yourself with the right people.

 

Ricky

 

ps. if you fancy surrounding yourself with the right people and having me help you to grow your business as well then check out my PT100K Club membership site. It’s been closed to new members for a while but is opening up again soon. CLICK HERE