Since turning 36 back in 2012, I seem to have been exposed to the word MENTOR pretty much every single day.
Up until I was 36, I think I had come across just a handful of times.
Why is this? you may well ask.
Why is turning 36 so relevant to hiring a mentor?
The truth is, it has nothing to do with my age, but more to do with the year that I left my career in Financial Services and started my new career in the fitness industry.
Is it more prevalent in the fitness industry or is it just that my need / desire to climb this ladder super quick has meant that mentors have been on my mental radar a lot more?
There certainly seems to be no shortage of mentors around – some that specialise in fitness business mentoring and others that are more generalised.
So do they actually make a difference or are they a waste of money?
The answer to this is YES to both.
Like personal trainers actually – there are great ones, average ones and pretty crappy ones.
I’m going to talk now from experience.
Back in 2012, there was me walking away from the number crunching, comfort zone, suit and tie wearing financial services industry to FOLLOW MY PASSION!
That’s what all the experts tell you to do right? Follow your passion and it won’t even feel like work!
So I did.
But I then soon realised that passion alone wasn’t going to be enough to pay my big fat mortgage and monthly expenses each month (from memory this was around £3,900 per month!!). Wife, kids, cars, etc!
I needed help. Fast. So I invested in a fitness business expert.
It was a fair old chunk of money. But I felt like I didn’t have any choice. I had to learn how to market myself better.
This worked for a while – in fact it worked pretty well as I was then able to take another big risk and get my own indoor unit (2900 sq feet) within 8 months of setting up in a park on my own!!
I then outgrew that mentor and invested a higher amount with someone else. This took my biz to the next level.
I then took on staff as my membership levels continued to grow.
Now, this is where it starts to get tricky. The tempting option is to think that you then don’t need to keep paying for someone to help you. This is correct if you no longer plan on growing your business.
I found it quite hard to find someone that had done exactly what I wanted to do next. This is why I have started to help PTs out myself now. There must be trainers out there that are ambitious to grow their biz so they can earn more money, take on staff and free up time to spend with their families but are unsure on who to invest with for help.
For what it’s worth – my observations:
- Now I have found that what works best for me is investing in people that have gone through the type of journey that I intend to go on next. They know the typical challenges that are able to resonate with the situation that much easier.
- The more I have invested in myself, there seems to be a direct correlation with the more my business then seems to grow.
- I have spent thousands of pounds on some mentors and only picked up 1-2 ideas, but those 1-2 ideas have been worth significantly more than the investment.
- Picking a mentor used to be harder for me than it is now. I can tell quite quickly whether I think I will be able to work with someone or not.
- This is a bit weird and hard to explain but the times that I have been resistant to investing in myself have been the times that I have had clients leave, or not sign up with me. It’s as if the universe rewards you for investing in yourself. Strange but true!
- The most I have spent on one person is £6,000 for a 5 day course ( I am currently looking to invest significantly more than this)
- Don’t always assume that because free information didn’t cost you anything that there is no value to it and you shouldn’t implement.
- You don’t always have to pay for a mentor. Think about what you can give in return for an hour of an experts time. You could interview them or you could promote one of their products to your email list / clients.
Back to the question of “Do Personal Trainer Actually Need A Mentor?”
Nope. They don’t.
The reason that I say this is that the majority of trainers that I meet are actually really happy – getting by.
They genuinely love what they do. They love getting results for their clients.
They don’t want to learn how to market themselves better.
They don’t want to get bogged down by selling themselves.
They’re happy with not having a great deal of time off, and not earning any money when they do have time off.
THIS IS TOTALLY COOL by the way!
When I was younger, I could never understand why those around me didn’t match my drive and ambition.
As I’ve got older, I now accept that people are just different. Something to do with DNA wiring.
As long as people are happy then that’s all that matters.
I like to work with trainers now that are similar to me.
They want to keep growing their biz.
They want to do really cool stuff for their partners / families.
They want to reach more clients by having staff work with them to help out.
They want to set up an online product eventually so that they can start earning money while away on holiday or spending time with their family.
There’s not much that can beat aligning yourself with like minded individuals that implement what you advise them, and then they start seeing instant results.
I never used to get this type of satisfaction in financial services.
It well and truly validates the decision that I made back in 2012.
Ricky
ps. I recently came across this short film/documentary about the body by Vi co-founder Ryan Blair. He managed to escape his life as a major gang member (having been arrested numerous times) to go on and become a multi millionaire. He puts much of this success down to his mentor – his step dad. Well worth a watch. NOTHING TO LOSE DOCUMENTARY
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