I get a team, You're Bloody Champs's the you project, It's Jumbo, It's Fatty Harps and mel Tempest. The Queen, and I don't say this insincerely, the Queen of the Australian fitness industry. She's the backbone. She's like everyone's mum, everyone's big sister. There ain't well, I was going to say their own line. There are quite a lot of people in the fitness industry who gives who give a fuck? But she gives all the fucks. Hi, how are you?
I'm amazing and thank you for that incredible intro.
Well, it's true, it's true. I mean, you know, I've been around longer than you in the fitness industry, and so I'm pretty discerning, and I'm pretty skeptical, and I'm pretty good at I've got a pretty good bullshit filter. And you have consistently been one of the few people in the fitness industry in Australia who are both good
at business, are also good at people. Also good that's them both, isn't it, And also good at just being the real deal and caring about people and understanding the multi variability of building a business, but also building a culture, meeting people's needs and also in the middle of that being a good human that people can respect, respect and trust and look up to. And I don't you know me, I'm a smart ass. I don't say things like that
too often, so when I say it, it's true. So congratulations, you are you good?
I'm very good.
Bit bloody cold here in Ballarat, but so I'm not coping, not coping with the winter, creter.
I don't like the winter. I need to I need to be somewhere warmer.
I think a bit cold in Bellarat butt and still a bogan like the host, still a bokuking.
Hey, don't laugh.
We over the weekend we looked at this house down the beach somewhere.
For a family member. In the name of the street was boken Court.
That I want to buy a house in that court, just for the bloody address. Hey, thanks for doing this. Now, this is not a thinly veiled promo for your event, but we're going to have a real conversation, but off the top and at the end we're going to give it a promo. So the Ignite Fitness Business event is happening on August three, sorry August two in Melbs at Crown Plaza and yours truly is opening, So I'm really happy to be doing that for you. I don't do
too much fitness industry stuff anymore. I do a few things a year, but I'm really happy to be involved. And so if you're in the fitness space, if you're a health wellness professional, if you work in a gym, if you own a gym, if you manage a gym, if you're a trainer, if you're a fitness instructor, if you've got your foot in the fitness industry or your big toe in any way, at the very least check it out. Go and have a look. Mel I'll tell you where to go to have a look in a minute.
I was there last year, and I've presented at well. I've presented thousands of times, but I've presented a lot of fitness industry things, and it was maybe the best thing I've ever been to in terms of a fitness event. Very like great energy, great culture. Everyone wanted to be there, and all of the speakers were good and the content was good. So you know, I love promoting. I'm going anyway.
I'm getting paid anyway, So me saying all this shit is and I'm not being paid for this, right so, and I also don't need to do any of this, but when something's genuinely good, I'm happy to one put my name behind it if that means anything, who gives a fuck? But also just you know, genuinely say, if you work in the fitness space and you want to do better, create better, you know, grow, expand in the fitness industry, build a brand that people want to be part of. At the very least, go have a look
where do they go? And have a look?
Mel they go to ignite fitness, dot com dot au and Craig.
I'll tell you what.
For your listeners, I'm going to do twenty five percent off the ticket until the.
Seventh of July.
Yeah wow, Yeah, twenty five percent off the ticket until the seventh of July.
And all I need to do is use a promo co Harper. Now, the good thing about the event is obviously we've got their women's event on.
The Saturday and the fitness business roundtables on the Friday.
They can either do both Friday and Sat Day or.
Just do one of the days, still get their twenty five percent off and still get their OS Active CEC.
Points awesome, and I didn't know that was happening, and that wasn't an organized In fact, I'm going to tell you that full transparency, everyone one. I didn't know Mel was going to do that because I rang Mel. I had a doctor's appointment. It seems I'm not dying, so you can all breathe easy or feel you you're probably cursing, and I rang Mel at let's see, my appoint was eleven thirty. It's twelve thirty eight now, I don't know, somewhere in the ballpark of eleven o'clock and went I
had it. I had somebody's schedule today. They pulled out and I was trying to resolve. I was trying to fill the gap in a loving, caring way, and I thought, how can I fill the gap? And also I thought, well, why don't I ask Mel, because we can win, win, we can have a good chat, and we can plug the event. So an hour ago she didn't know, or an hour and a half ago, she didn't know this was happening. And I got her out of the doctor in Mulgrave, which is half an hour away. We were
meant to record this at twelve thirty. When I got
in the car. It was about twelve oh one, so there's been minimal prep and fuck it, here we are and I've interrupted today now just so a couple of things I want to know is when you run these events, and this could be in any industry or it could be for any reason to make money or not everyone, but for you mail running this event where you bring the industry together, you get some great educators and speakers, and you know people can come and get some professional
development and some CC points and all of that is your goal to just get it on and not go broke. Like is it hard? I imagine because I know the venue like the venue. They're not given Crown Plaza away right, everything, And I'm not doing it for nothing, and neither of most of the people. Like I was doing the maths on the way home from the old doc and I was thinking it must be a challenge just to not lose money.
It's so it's a one one girl show kry. So I'm not not, you know, doing the old ego thing. But from start to in male organizers everything does all the promotional stuff, organizes the graphics, tells the graphics guy what to do do, all the marketing. You know, chat to the guys at Crown Plaza, organize how it's going to look go down. They have a quick look at the room, organize all of the audio stuff.
And everything like that.
On the actual day, I have a lovely lady Larissa, who comes along as you met, you know last year, and with his powerpoints are working.
So it's a bit of a one man show. Look.
And you know what people forget is they just look when they go to events. They look across the room, they go, oh my god, look how many people here? And they charge X amount of dollars bad, and then they multiply it, and you know, they think you're walking out with a million dollar check. What they don't understand is that it took your freaking six or seven months to organize the bloody event. So let's divide up all of that money over book those hours, and I'll probably
get more doing something else in another industry. But I love what I do, and I truly do believe that the industry is moving more towards personalized events.
You know numbers under you know that eighty ninety mark where people can.
Really connect with one another, and you know that they can get into each other's heads and find out what's really going on in business and how are you handling, say your staff or your programming, and you know, how's money going at the moment, and just really.
Ask personalized questions. And not only do they get to.
Do that, you know with other fitness business professionals are there, but they also get to get in the face of the presenters and the speakers.
And have one on one. So you know, I've done it because it's personalized.
I haven't done it because I want to be a you know, a millionaire or an entrepreneur or anything like that, because if I wanted that title, I certainly wouldn't be working in the fitness industry, as you know, I'd be off doing something else. So yeah, I do it because I love it. Do I walk away from it with a big pocket full of money?
Not really? Nah?
And of course you own Genesis twenty four to seven in Ballarat and you've owned that it used to be Body and Soul that you've owned that for one hundred and thirteen years because you're very old. How many personally what's the population of Ballarat these days give or take. I think I asked you this once before, and maybe you didn't.
Yeah, it's you know, it's around, it's growing pretty quickly. It's around that one hundred and twenty mark give or take.
Wow. Wow.
Yeah, because we've got you know, as you know, those suburbs moving out each each month. There's new developments happening. But you know, we've got over one hundred fitness facilities in Ballarat and that's.
An awful lot.
Hundred over facilities, Yeah, in ballerap Yet Ballarat is supposed to be one of the highest regions for obesity.
So how do you work that out? How do you have over.
One hundred fitness facilities, massive sporting clubs, a lot of money generated into secondary schools in their sports stadiums, and yet we have you know, I think we're in the top three for a B city.
Do you think that that figure is right? Like do you think that's true? Or and if that is true, why, like why is that true?
We've also got an awful lot of takeaway drive through we've got to hack.
Yeah, so we've got one hundred fitness facilities and one thousand fucking fast.
Well that's the reality of it.
Two. You know, when people say how do I find gym? I say, driving the ballot and turn left. We see the hungry Jack sign and you can't get lost.
Is it true? Are we in the top three? Well, we can only go by the data that's given to us.
I think the problem in Ballarat is that, yeah, it.
Is the fast food outlets.
I think that we send as a fitness provider, we send the wrong messages out to the community.
We should be about solving problems.
You know. Okay, the fit and the fast and the furious, they're already going to gyms, They're already going to your bfts, your boutique places, our club and many other clubs.
They are in town.
But we're not really hitting the mark and we're not really trying to drag in our guys that are suffering from chronic illness or those that do have our weight problems.
We're really not marketing to them.
And until we start to do that, not just as a community, but as an industry, we're forever going to be high up there in the top three with obese and chronic illness issues.
Yeah. Do you know what I'm just thinking now as somebody who's in the middle of a significant research journey, and my life is doing my own research, running my own studies and reading other people's research in the outcomes of their studies, and I'm thinking, how do they get that data Let's say one hundred thousand people, Well, we know that it's definitely not the done thing to weigh somebody, right it's and like, of those one hundred thousand people,
if they're saying it's got one of the highest levels of obesity, how how do you know that? Like who's taking these measurements and where are the measurements being done? And if you have taken measurements on how many people, how big was the sample? And how do you extrapolate that to one hundred and twenty thousand people in an expanding rurle. I don't know that. Just to me, some of that seems a bit you know, like, what's that based on? And you can't say, oh, they're getting it
from doctors because all that information's confidential. So who the fuck's doing all the weighing and body fat measuring?
Yeah, I mean, let's okay, So you say it's confidential. I'll give you an example of something that I was able to do.
So I was able to.
Go to.
A tech company nameless.
I was able to go to a tech company, and I was able to pick a couple of gyms in bell Right, So if you're a bone right now in Ballat listening to this, it may very well be new. And I said to them, I want to know how many members that club really does have, and I want to know how many visits they get. And so right now you're sitting back on well, you're never going to find that atmail because you're not privy to that information. I'm pretty privy to it and pretty close to the number.
What this company was able to do was able to tell me, over a twelve month period how many visits the club had had within a certain radius of where the building sat. And then they were able to give me a rough estimate of how many members that business had, and then they were able to break down the demographic of the people going to that club and the other clubs that I did.
This true, and you know what, it was all based.
On what what's the one thing that you take to the gym?
Are your phone?
Get what's on your phone apps?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, you go.
So it was based on the active apps on the phones of the consumers that were going to these clubs. So I was able to walk away with a pretty a four colored up chart telling me my competitors roughly how many members they've got, how many visits they've had to their club, the demographic of their club. And what I'm able to do with that information is in utilize my social media marketing based on trying to grab a hold of my competitors members.
Now, if I'm able to find that out, can you imagine, like really think about it.
He's sitting in the doctor surgery and he's putting all this stuff into his computer.
And we don't know what sort of software they have, We don't know what apps that they use. Are they collating some of the information from our visits?
Fuck? You should have been a spy dude, or at least a government operative on your sneaky now what you want? I know, I'm not sure you should have told that story.
I'm not really too concerned about it because, and this might sound a.
Little bit, you know, she's pretty sure of herself.
I'm comfortable in my business. I know who my demographic is, I know who my people are. Yeah, of course you keep an eye on your competitors. I mean, why wouldn't you. You're supposed to do that if you're a good business person, then you do keep an eye on them, but you don't allow them to rent space in your head.
But what so, why did you do that then?
Like the reason I did it was because the tech company came to me and they worked with me in the past when they were the person was with another company, and they said, we like working with you, and we want to give you this this option here, and we want to.
Give you as like a test ummy. So we went through the process.
Then we used some of the information for some marketing for a new program that we were launching in the club. I mean it even tells you what's what part of Ballarete I should be marketing too. And so we did some social media adds to the area that they suggested, and we got new traffic through the club. And that was the result from that marketing and we target those people based on the information that we were given from the tech company.
Wow. Well, so if you live in Balorat, I can watch out. That is a lot of fitness facilities one hundred that is, although where I live on Hampton Street, which you know where that is, I mean I would say within a you know, well up and down from my house five hundred meters one way or the other, So to the left or the right of my driveway, I would say there are ten, you know, including PT studios, actual gyms, Like there's two maybe six hundred meters two
proper commercial gyms, multiple PT studios. There's literally near my house, there's if you're standing out the front across the road, there's five shop fronts, three of the shops. So there's a PET studio, then I don't know what, then another PT studio, then I don't know what, and then there's a pallate studio and out the back of that is another different, separate business PT studio. So there are literally four fitness businesses within eighty meters not even eighty meters
fifty meters of each other. And then you know, yeah, I mean there are I think, you know. One of the things that I've thought about a lot is like when I grew up in inverted commas in the eighties, working in gyms, I know, you're way younger than me by about a day. Like there were literally like I worked at a place called track Side Sports. That was one of my one of my first gigs, and I ended up managing that as a young dude in Hampton
and there were squash courts, old school squash courts. There was up gym, there was arp pool, swimming pool, and there was an aerobics room. And that was pretty razzle dazzle in those days. Like there was an aerobics room, like pretty decent gym, pretty decent pool, pretty decent you know, that was that was state of the art. And now I mean squash courts pretty much don't even exist. I don't know where that. I'm sure they're around, but because it's just a lot of space and not a lot
of return on that space, as you can imagine. But now, I mean every second street has got a twenty four hour gym, ladies gyms, gyms for people over fifty five, huge, huge, bloody, multimillion squillion dollar gyms, smaller boutique gyms, you know, the f forty five's, the bf tees that you know, cross fit. I mean, there's just a small goos board of fitness businesses. Now is it harder than ever to make a buck?
I think, going back to what I just said previously, know your community, know your demographic, a market to them.
Don't try and be something.
That you're not just because you know that gym two those downs now introduced some type of new program. It doesn't necessarily mean that you need to chase it. You know your community, know your demographic. But the other side of that too is I think the next six months is going to be really interesting, Greig, because let's look at what's happened in Victoria.
All of a sudden, you know, landlords are.
Being hit with this ridiculous you know, extra land tax now that we've got to pay, which means that we're going to pass the increase onto the tenant. So that means all of those studios, people who don't own their freeholds, their rent is going to go up, so the rank goes up. They're already talking about interest going up, so those that are buying their homes.
The interest rates are going to go up.
So there's a lot of dipping happening at the moment, and I wonder if all will survive.
I've seen probably three or four small, small, you know, shed.
Places that have closed down in the last few MONTHSS and purely based on the fact that their rent's gone up. It's becoming competitive, am I seeing people drop their prices in order to get foot traffic through absolutely, is that the right.
Thing to do. Depends on your financial situation.
If you've got a lot of outgoings, I certainly wouldn't be dropping your pants too quid to get the foot traffic through the door.
So I think, you know, traditionally with gyms and.
Studios over the last say five years, what I've seen is if they need to close up shop and they don't do it by June thirtieth, they'll most definitely do it over the Christmas New Year period.
Yeah. Wow. And also is what you're talking then? Just thinking two. In Melbourne, there's an increasing number of I don't know what they call them, but I call them megajyms, these gyms that are like an acre of bloody gym equipment, these massive meathead gyms. It's like fucking twenty bench presses in a row and fifty treadmills side by side, and I don't know how the fuck they financed that. And there some of them are selling like eight dollars a
week memberships to start. I'm like, fucking good luck. I don't know how that's going to go with the long term.
Yeah, I've seen a few going for four or five, six dollars a week. I've seen one for six dollars a week in baler Rap, But how.
Long can you keep doing that?
And let's let's all be honest about directive memberships and not talk shit about you know about it. How many of them actually clear at the end of the week, so you know, let's talk to club owners about their arears. So they sign up one hundred people on six dollars a week and the majority of the people are probably under twenty one. What percentage of the six seven eight dollars a week actually clears?
How often are they.
Chasing arrears and sending them to debt collection? Because this is another issue that we have at the moment. A lot of people are living week to week. A lot of gym memberships are bouncing, and people are going, oh no, no, no, we're seriously stop talking shit because they are. And it doesn't matter what you're paying eight dollars a week or you're paying fifty dollars a week at the five star
down in South Yarra, that's just open. Memberships are bouncing because people are not spending and though we read lots of articles about people won't give up their gym membership and people won't quit their gym membership. Well they might not give it up, and they might not quit it, but.
They're sure it was allowing it to bounce.
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I think also what's happening is like we're trying to and I understand it. Like there are so many businesses that are essentially reinventing the wheel, right, They're just it's like, movement is movement, you know, Flexion is flextion, Extension is extension. Getting your heart rate up is getting a heart rate up. Movement is you know.
It's like when people are you know, like we're f forty five and those kind of circuit based programs where people go from one thing to another and then we've got you know what is kind of loosely called functional training, right, Well, everything's functional depending on what you're doing and what your needs are and what your body requires. It's like even a pinloaded bench press is functional if that's what you need.
You know. It's like people think, unless you're standing on a fucking wobble board or a bosu, or you've got three different things going at once, it's not functional. I
don't think they understand function. But anyway, but yeah, there's just I think there's the constant kind of reinventing of the wheel, where, like you said before, the business two doors up the road has got like some new fancy, high tech, twenty five dollar machine that like, at the end of the day, sweats sweat, and reps are reps and weight is weight, Like a ten pound dumbell is a ten pound dumb bell, you know. And I remember
remember setting it. I said, I've set up a bunch of gyms for companies, right and one of the companies I set up a gym for they wanted a PEC deck right there, and I go, I'm not, We're not putting in a PEC deck. They're like, why I go, Because it's it's a ten thousand, eight thousand dollars machine that we can do one thing on. I go, you can do a better movement on bench, on a bench
or on a ball with a couple of dumbbells. There's a lot more flexibility and a lot more variability, and you're doing the same movement, and we can get those dumbbells for a hundred bucks, right, And so it's trying to I think, in all of those environments figure out what are my needs. What have they got for me
to work with? What's optimal for my body? Yeah, you want to enjoy going there, but you know, some some times the trillion dollar gym, with the state of the art everything, there ain't too many people in that place getting outstanding results necessarily. So I kind of like, for me, I'm big on Yeah, I want somewhere that's got good equipment, of course, but I also want to be in a place that I like to go to. Is it a good culture? Are the staff educated and inspired? Do they
fucking know anything? Do I want to? You know, And I don't want to throw anyone under the bus here, but you know, it's like the barriers to entry for the fitness industry are pretty low. So you know, if you're a would be client or a would be member, make sure. And it's not that we don't want new trainers. We definitely do. But and everyone's got to start somewhere,
including mel Tempest and Craig Harper. But you know, like I literally pay an exercise physiologist to train my dad, right because I want the best person in the area that's available to work with my dad. So, you know, there are a lot of things that we need to factor in when we consider where we go and who we trust with our body.
The reality, too, Craig, is that so many people are over complicating workouts. Now, you know, let's get the twenty five thousand dollar machine, Let's get the fifty thousand dollar machine. We so over complicate programming that we disqualify those that are OBEs and those that do have chronic illness and those that do have mental health issues.
Those people condition themselves.
They walk into have a look, they see things are too complicated, or they see your video clips on TikTok and all the rest of it looks true.
Hard, I'm not joining the gym. Hence why we have obese the issues, chronic illness issues, and mental health problems, where young trainers, with all due respect, are over complicating things for the everyday lay person to come in and join the gym.
Yeah, and I think, look, it's interesting because I've been having a lot of conversations lately with my training partner, Mark, who's lovingly referred to as the Crab, whom most of my followers know. So his daughter Jamie, she is nineteen and she's just finishing hers at three and four, and she i don't want to get in trouble here, so
I need to be careful what I say. But she was asking me about programming and stuff the other day, which we were having a good conversation, and I said to her, look, yes, of course you need to know how to write programs, and you'll develop more knowledge understanding skill over time. You'll get experience, Your programming skills will
get better. You work with different people, you know, and of course you need to understand the body and anatomy and physiology and basic you know stuff, and a bit of nutrition and hopefully a bit of psychology without being a psychologist, all this stuff, and we need that. But also at the end of the day, if I'm a fifty year old dude and I come in to train with her, for example, who's a fit, strong, healthy, nineteen
year old young lady. I mean, what really matters as long as she doesn't injure me, is that I enjoy the experience and I want to come back like, did you do a good workout, Craig, yep? Would you have done it without Jamie? Probably not cool? Did you think she knows what she's doing? Did you like her? Did you enjoy the hour? If the answer is yes, yes, yes,
then I'm probably going to come back right. But we know that there are people in gym's who work as instructors and trainers and whatever who may even have good knowledge, but they just don't have whatever it is the X factor people skills, energy, intent that people want to be around you know, do if you're a trainer, if you work in fitness or health or it. I mean, and this is not about or loathing, it's about self awareness. Do people want to be around you for an hour
on a regular basis? Because if the answer is no, the rest of it's redundant.
No, I agree with that.
I mean, it's not just personal trainers, it's group fitness instructors as well. You know, the objective is to get your person in their training session, whether it's a PT or a GFI experience, it's to get them.
From A to Z.
It's the trainer and the instructor needs to know that it's not all about them, that it's about the client.
You know, the three rules, Stop, look and listen. That's what you're there to do.
And you need to know where their headspace is at the at the time, too, are they do? They just need to get through the session today. Do they just need to vent to you? Are they one hundred percent there with you? It's really quite interesting. The rtos, with all due respect to anybody that's listening, the rtos need to lift their game because they are sending people to JIM owners like myself. We're going through the interview process.
And I almost want to put my head in the bucket.
At the end of the interview process, you know, you ask them the basic questions, what's going to make.
You, you know, a great personal trainer? Why should I I hire you?
But then you ask them questions like where do you think you're going to get your clients from? Oh, I'm going to get them from the reception desk because they all walk through the front doors, you know, with herds and herds, and no, that's not where you're going to get your clients from. And you talk to them about programming, and then you might talk to them about do you want to teach groups?
Do you want to teach kids? Do you want to teach all the adults?
And they're just like their mindset is I want to teach people that are on.
TikTok and on Instagram.
You know, I want to train people twenty one to twenty five to twenty six, you.
Know the fifth the sports and athletes. What about the rest of the generation?
And they're not teaching them in the rto that the world is bigger than the reflection in the mirror.
They're not teaching them how to set up a business. What is a business?
They're not even they're not even addressing issues such as sham contracting in our industry, what to be aware of. They're just taking their money, throwing them in the classroom situation. Do ten hours you'll be right giving the thumbs up, go out and sit in the job.
Interview with Mail, and then Mail goes, what the fuck is going on?
But shouldn't even be working in the fucking supermarket Andlane be training my clients well.
And also think about the immense responsibility that you have of working with someone's body and telling a person what to do with their body. And you know, apart from the knowledge that you need to have, and of course you know, we're not doctors or physios or you know, but at the same time, we're prescribing exercise and you
know that part of the problem. I think mel is let me put an next an asterisk next to this, because there are some There are some very good educators in the RTO space, but there are some shit ones obviously no names mentioned. But so you've got people who are instructing personal trainers, would be personal trainers who have never been personal trainers. Right, You've got people literally teaching people how to do the job who have never done the job, or they've done the job a little bit,
but they certainly haven't been successful. Right, So they are theorists. Well, theory is good, but the experience of being a trainer is not a theoretical one. It's a face to face practical one. Right, So if you can't fucking build rapport, build trust, build respect, create engagement, create an experience that people want to keep coming back. For all your understanding of anatomy and physiology and nutrition and biomechanics and all your science, doesn't fucking matter. You need both. Yes you
need the science, Yes you need the knowledge. But and I could tell you countless stories of people. Remember I employed five under trainers over twenty five years. I could tell you countless stories of people who worked for me who their scientific knowledge was somewhere between pretty good and outstanding, but they just couldn't keep a client because they were fucking boring. And then people are going, oh, well, it's
not your job to entertain people. No it's not. But it is your job to be able to create an experience with somebody and to build connection and rapport and trust. And doesn't matter what you think. I can tell you unequivocally, if people don't like you and like spending time around you, they're not coming back. And no, it's not a popularity contest, bah you know, but it's all of it. It's practical,
it's physiological, it's psychological, it's sociological. And if you don't understand the totality of the you know, even when you think about it on the most fundamental level, it's a customer service job, right. If you don't want to serve customers, then fucking go do something else because it is a customer service role and understanding how people are, you know.
And anyway, back to the long winded story, I said to young Jamie, your biggest challenge won't be remembering what the four cords are or that they insert into the PTELL attendant and then into the tibial tuberosity in the front of your fucking tibia. That ain't your issue or
the five adductor muscles of the FEMA. Right, your biggest issue is going to be how do I talk to this fifty year old man and instill trust and confidence and respect both ways and give him a workout that he wants to come back for or she wants to come back for. You know, that's the thing and at
least part of the courses. And you can't you can't give someone experience, but you can have these conversations with them to understand the totality of what is required if you are going to be a fitness professional working with the general public.
Yeah, I agree with that, and you know what, create one of the other things that we need to think of as an industry is if we were to become regulated, would that be a betterment for the industry?
Explain that to people? How like people are going to go what do you mean it's not regulated? Explain because also keep in mind, probably seventy percent of the people listening now don't go to a gym. Yeah, and probably ninety percent of my listeners are not fitness or health or wellness professionals. So when you say the industry is unregulated. Unpack that a little bit.
The way to explain it in Layman's terms is, as fitness professionals, we don't answer to anybody. We don't answer to anybody except the ato. That's about it.
So anybody the naven next door can go out and get some business cards printed up and says he's Joe Smith the personal trainer. If he wants to do that, he can go and rent a factory around the corner and put a sign out the front and b Joe Smith the personal Trainer. There's nobody there that comes to check that we are.
Doing the right thing.
You know, doctors, nurses, fieries, coppers, they all have and association, they all have somebody that they have to answer to when they do the wrong thing. And we, as an industry, and that's in Layman's terms, we don't have that.
And I feel that if we were to.
Become a regulated industry then that may, and I say may lift the standards of those going out into the workplace as fitness professionals.
That's see, that's going to blow people's minds. That So you don't need Now we're not saying that's a good thing, by the way, but yeah, The only thing they won't get or correct me if I'm wrong, is they won't get insurance. Is that right?
Well, let's let's let's be honest about that. How many do have insurance?
Oh? Really? Don't you need insurance to be registered?
So if you're a fitness professional and you're working in a club, yes, of course they're going to ask you to go get insurance because they won't let you work there. But Joe Smith that just had his cards printed up, the rents the factory around the corner, and let's Craig says, show me your insurance.
Does he have insurance?
Yeah? Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? Yeah?
And this is why true, and this is I'm not going to go down this path. But we all know that the reason that we were treated the way we were treated in COVID was because we just weren't seen as a professional industry. Hence why we were always put on the back burner. And we need to be a
regulated industry. And I think by doing so that will create better fitness professionals, maybe not in our immediate lifetime, but long term because we are going to have a lot of consumers Craig again, that are going to have, you know, long term chronic illness and obesity, and who's going to be looking after these people when we have a healthcare system that is struggling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. When you employ trainers, whatever, group X, teachers, reception people, what do you look for? I mean, I know that's an open ended question, but how do you how much of it is about what's written in the resume, how much of it is about their training or qualifications, and how much is about your gut? In that half hour?
Ninety point nine percent of it is all about gut. Really, Yeah, if they don't converse with me, well, if they don't converse with the front desk staff, who is their immediate person when they arrive.
I also go buy body language, the way that they're dressed.
I had a guy once turn up in kappa white football shorts, thongs and a T shirt for a job, and I told him to go home and get changed and itver ever came back. So it's about Ah, it's all about that immediate conversation. Because see, in my club, and I know that everybody runs their clubs different, but we just run flat line management. Everybody is the same, irrespective of whether you went to UNI, you've got a PhD versus the one that has certificate for.
Everyone is treated the same.
Everybody brings something different to the table that our members want and desire. So it's more about this and I you don't sit in with the personalities.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, one hundred percent. And I mean I look back at the trainers that I had over the years that were really popular and really in demand, and literally some of them had a waiting list, like they were full, Like if you want to train with that person there, you can't, And so they would have a waiting list, and most of them
were not tertiary qualified. Now that's not to say that's the cause, but the ones that were in demand, obviously they were good trainers, but often they were just fun. They were just charismatic people.
They were every people who could communicate normal conversation with their client.
Yeah, and I mean, I know this is cheesy, but they genuinely cared like they just cared like it's it's not like oh, I mean, of course it's a profess relationship and it needs to remain that way. But it is a lot different to a lot of other services in that like, for example, I trained one lady who I started training early in my career. Her name is Pauline. She's still around, God bless her. I trained her for sixteen years. I tried to get rid of her for
about fourteen She knows that. She would laugh at that because it got to the point where she absolutely didn't need me to train her, but she was wealthy and she would just prefer that. Right, So she's like, and I would try to get her to train with other trainers. I've got try to get a train independently. But we just got on well and she trusted me, like I
never ripped her off. I would have been happy at any time if she moved on, but just building that connection and that rapport and that trust with people where you know, if she had have said to me, I can't pay you anymore something, I'd just turn up anyway. I know that's bad business, but you know what I mean, I'm like, fuck it, just you know, just whatever like and that is. You know, I don't think that's a great business plan. I wouldn't be advising that too much.
But it's like there's this real kind of balance between being strategic and corp commercially minded, which you should be, but also like being a human and treating people well so that they genuinely understand that you're not just after their dough. You know.
There's that mix, right, Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
I would have members, you know, come in and say, I'm going away in six weeks time, but my membership runs out in two weeks.
What can I do? And we're just like, you've been here.
One hundred years, don't worry about it, just just keep training.
Until you till you go away. But you're right, it's.
All about it really is about that that love relationship that you give you that you give your client. You know, it all comes back to the look and listen and have some empathy and take an interest in what they do outside of the club. It's just doesn't have to be all, you know, all about the exercise and what's happening in the club.
And there's some people that will like that approach, and then.
There's some people that just want you to come in train them, don't talk too much, just tell me to do and I'm out, And that's okay too.
Yes, for sure. I mean when I started, I was trained my first PT client in nineteen eighty six, and I thought, oh, this is just a handy, handy side hustle, right, this guy wants me to train him. I'm like, I'll train, I'll do my other job, I'll run the gym, I'll And then another guy wanted me to train him, a friend of this guy, So I went awesome. So instead of making a hundred bucks on the side of making
two hundred, this is great. That was three sessions each, by the way, thirty three dollars an hour, and I thought I was the king. And that turned into a few more and it just like that just developed to within six months, I had about forty hours of personal training a week on top of my forty hour job, without marketing, without there being an industry, without there like there was no insurance, no regulation, which apparently there still isn't.
Nobody knew what personal training was, and I ended up within six months I had a waiting list of people who wanted me to train them, and nobody dropped off. And they didn't drop off, not because I was amazing, but they just loved it, and I just I had fun with them and I liked them, and they got in shape and we talk shit and I knew about their kids, and I knew about their shitty boss, and I knew about their sore back, and you know, we had fun and if they forgot their money that day,
it didn't matter. Fuck it. And i'd, you know, I'd turn up and I book. I'm reading this book. You should read it. So I bought you a copy, and I'd write a nice message inside, and every now and then I'd go to their fiftieth birthday or you know. And so you're just building this relationship which is much more than just a transactional dynamic. But in the middle
of it, you're making good dough. They're getting results, they're happy, and it doesn't need to be a traditional transactional business concept. You know.
Yeah, I think a.
Lot of trainers would now say they've moved away from that, the transactional side, and that they are having more friend sessions with their clients. But in saying that, Beaukra, you've got to have boundaries too when you when you're people, as you know, you know, I think offline, you said to me, you know, about what's one of the things that makes a great fitness professional.
You know, my response is, don't sleep with the members. You know.
Yeah, that's what makes a great fitness professional. Be their friend, be their bu and be there when they need you and help them get the end result that they want.
But you know, don't cross those boundaries.
Yeah, I think fucking the clients is not a great good, not a great plan, not a great plant. Although although very popular one melt.
Yeah. The worst.
The downside to that, Craig is when they're married and their partners coming to one of they what's coming on?
Hell? Has that happened in your joint? So what was the next question? It's always good chatting. Tell people how they can come along to the Ignite Fitness business get together and also the ladies are the Women's Health Summit the following day. How can they get involved? How can they get a discount where they go?
Just jump on ignite fitness dot com dot au and if you use the code Harper by the seventh of July you'll get a twenty five percent discount. Now you can go to both days or just go to one day. So there is points I will say for the women listeners out there, you do not need to be a fitness professional to attend the Women's Health somewhere on the Saturday.
We're covering all topics from menopause to bullying in.
The workplace, so there's lots of conversation happening, so you do not need to be a fitness professional if you want to come along on the Saturday.
And the good news ladies is I will not be talking at that day. He wait, no, I will not. I will say goodbye a fair but always great to catch up with you Mail. Appreciate you.
Craig. I always love having a chit chat with you.
Always thanks lovely,