London, United Kingdom Jul 26, 2018 (Issuewire.com) - The health and fitness industry is growing at a steep trajectory and as a coach I find myself swamped now more than ever with requests for my services. The thing is these requests are not just coming from people in my local area; they are coming from people all over the world and this all thanks to the power and reach of social media.
I've never been an avid "fan" (for lack of a better term) or enthusiast of the whole social media thing especially as a marketing tool for my services as my diary had always been jam packed with face to face client appointments. However things took a turn for me in at the end of 2016 after a client of mine and I featured in an ITV television show called This time Next Year hosted by Davina McCall. My client was given one year to go from overweight and then get into the best shape of her life, and then compete in a fitness and bikini modelling show. She smashed it! Her transformation was mind blowing so-much-so that she not only won the fitness modelling show but she blew all the seasoned professional competitors clear out of the water with her amazing physique.
On the day the show aired, my facebook page which I hadn't actually checked or used since 2013 blew up with messages of congratulations and enquiries for coaching services from hundreds of people from all over the world. I remember getting email notification after notification about activity on my Facebook page which I genuinely had completely forgotten about as I had stopped using it three years prior. I didn't even know what my password was anymore. Anyway, after much endeavour I managed to log on to the Facebook page and I was mind blown by the the vast amount of activity and requests from all over the world. It didn't stop there. For days, weeks and months on people kept reaching out, asking how we did it and then asking for my help.
Now; I was a very old school and hands on kind of coach -- I liked to work with people face to face and therefore I didn't actually see the point of engaging someone who lived too far to work with them me face to face.
In 2017 I decided to start posting more and more of my clients transformations on my instagram page and every time I did that I would get bombarded with requests for "online coaching"; a concept just didn't believe in that much. I eventually decided to help out a group of five people who had been on my case over a period of probably two years. I told them we would try do the "online coaching" thing where I'd give them a consultation call on Skype then customise a diet and workout plan and then email it to them. I also had them set up a My Fitness Pal account (an App to track your diet and calorie intake) and set up a private Instagram page when i would post exercise demonstrations for their workout plans. Once a week (normally on a Sunday) I'd log in to their My Fitness Pal accounts and asses their diets. They would also send me a set of progress pictures and their body measurements on the Sunday. After I'd assessed everything I would give them a 20-30min "check-in" call via Skype where we would chat about the previous week and then talk them through the changes I wanted them to make going forward. The system worked. I held them accountable, I educated them along the way and they got similar results to my face to face clients.
That was the turning point for me. I realised that not only could I help more people via online coach, I could scale up my business, have more flexibility and actually spend less hours bogged down in a sweaty gym. I could coach my clients from anywhere in the world as long as long as I had internet access.
Since the start of 2018 I've gone from working 60hour weeks with face to face clients to not only working 20hours seeing clients face to face and then doing only 15hours of online coaching. To put it in perspective; I'm working about 25 to 30hours less per week but with quadruple the number of clients and far more income by running two online coaching transformation challenges -- one for men called "Ripped 2 Shreds" and one for women called "She Lifts". Both programmed are for those who want to get into "fitness model shape". I now have my very own Coach Lloyd app with has diet tracking features, exercise videos, an exercise log they use to track their workout progress (which also helps me track how their workout are progressing). They also upload their progress pictures directly and message me through the app.
I've always been very selective of who I work with face to face and I maintain that exclusivity with my online clients. I don't sign up just anyone. Prospective clients have to fill out a lifestyle questionnaire. I then give them a quick a consultation call (more like an interview really) where I decide whether they are ready and are the kind of client I want to work with. Some are left disappointed but I think it is only fair to be straight up with people.
My model is working so well that I now coach other coaches on how to start, scale and run a successful online coaching business. Having been hogged down in a gym for 12 to 16 hour a day delivering one hour sessions for the past 10 years I can genuinely say that I now see the scope for freeing up more time and scaling one's business by simply clicking a few buttons. Technology has made online coaching the new frontier for fitness coaches.
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