Do You Have A Mentor or Coach for Your Fitness Business?

By Chris Fernandez   |  Comments 1

(Read/Watch Time: 15 Minutes)

One of the single largest determining factors in your success as a personal trainer lies in getting a coach or mentor to help you when times are tough, or when you simply are at a crossroads in your career and don’t know what to do or how to take your business or income to the next level.

I personally have coaches and mentors and people that I bounce ideas off of all the time. Without them, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today, or gotten there as fast.

In fact, every single successful entrepreneur has at least 1 and usually many mentors, including some of the largest names in business and marketing out there.

Not one successful business person has ever made it to the top without someone else helping them, showing them the way, pushing them when times were tough, or making that one killer suggestion, remark or introduction that forever changed their lives and businesses.

So too it must be in your personal training and fitness business.

If you don’t have mentors and coaches that push you to another level, you are taking the long slow road to success and might not ever get there at all!

A big part of what I try to do through System 5 and this fitness marketing blog is to show you how to properly market, position and grow your fitness business.

I guess you can say that I am like a mentor or coach to you too.

Whether you get continuing education, read books, watch TV or use some other form of learning, it is vital that you find others in your chosen field or profession that are where you WANT to be, and then COPY what they do.

Sometimes that’s easier said than done, but if you really respect someone and like what they do, you owe it to yourself and your livelihood to do everything in your power to contact them and learn from them.

With a Little Mentoring Laura Took Her Life To A Whole New Level

One of my coaching clients, her name is Laura Andolini, recently wrote a book that was published called “Diet Secrets of a Toddler” and is getting another one published as we speak!

I talked a lot in System 5 about Laura and how I helped her hone in on what she wanted out of life and was capable of, and trust me when I say, that this is just the tip of the iceberg for her.

In fact, not only has Laura written an actual physical book (yep not some ebook junk like some folks around here…ahem…), but she was also featured on a local morning news program talking about her new book.

This sort of exposure can’t be bought, and is priceless for marketing, social proof and getting your fitness business in the conscious awareness of the public.

Here’s the video:

I am super proud of Laura by the way.

She absolutely changed her life, her mindset, her peer group and did all the necessary things the she had to do to get to where she wanted to be in life.

Things that I told her to do because I learned them from someone else and applied them to my own life with great success.

This is how knowledge is passed on from one person to another.

When I first met with Laura, she didn’t quite know what she wanted to do (although being a personal trainer was on her “maybe” list) and so I took her on and tried to determine what really mattered to Laura, what she was passionate about, and how she could hone in on all of what was inside her heart to create a successful and thriving business, whether in health and fitness or something else.

Laura and I talked quite a bit and met in person, and as I got to know her, I realized that she DIDN’T want to be a personal trainer!

Shocking right!?

Well, not really…

The last thing I ever want for someone is for them to be “stuck” doing something that they don’t want to be doing.

I know what that feels like, and it was my job as a friend, teacher and mentor to help Laura figure out what she really wanted to be doing with her life and get there as quickly as possible.

Anything else would be selfish and unfair of me.

So what did we determine?

A few things:

• Laura didn’t want to be a personal trainer
• She did love inventing things in her spare time and submitting patents
• She LOVED cooking, being a chef and expanding her knowledge of food and food preparation
• She wanted to travel the world and use those skills for a blog, book or some other medium to share her experiences
• She wanted to do this with her son and share in the joys of motherhood

So what did we do?

Well, I showed Laura how and why to create a cooking for fitness website, which covered 2 of her goals in one shot and allowed her a platform as well to make some MONEY!

You can check our her website here: http://www.cooking-for-fitness.com/

Making money was on the list too by the way, it just wasn’t one of the reasons she got up in the morning.

But in order to do all of those other things, she needed more of the green stuff unfortunately!

So that’s where all of this ties in for you and your personal training business.

Sure, it’s all fine and dandy to get up each morning and make a certain kind of living, but is that what you consider LIVING?

In other words, when you look upon the vast landscape of your fitness business and see where it has been, where it currently is and where it is going, do you see a future in it for you?

Are you fulfilled with the vision that you see before you?

Or are you just feeling “stuck” and cornered almost as if there is no way out?

It’s Time To Escape!

If you look into your future and see something that you don’t like, then it’s time to start doing something about that right now!

Part of that entails getting, finding and surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals, like we have in the System 5 Inner Circle, that think like you, act like you, talk like you, and want the same things you want.

OR…finding NEW people that think how you WANT to think, act like you WANT to act, and are already doing and enjoying the things you WANT to have and are where you WANT to be.

Because guess what happens when you spend enough time around these sort of folks?

You become like them!

Now that can be a very good thing, or a very bad thing, depending on what types of people you are surrounding yourself with and what their ulterior motives are, but one thing is certain: You absolutely MUST find a mentor, coach — or at the very least — friends and colleagues that are willing to help you get somewhere new, or at the very least, people that are headed in the same direction you are so you can hop on that boat with them and paddle together towards your ultimate destination.

The Bottom Line

Success breeds success.

In order to get to somewhere you’ve never been before without years of hard work and trial and error, instead find a mentor, coach or respected colleague that can get you there much quicker.

Learn from other people’s mistakes, save time, and rocket your personal training, boot camp or fitness business to places where you expect it to be, but just haven’t had the guidance to get there yet.

Above all else, make sure that you get to where you want to be by surrounding yourself with and learning from those who play at what you have to work at.

March 29, 2010