Hey, Bedros here, Hope you’re good!
I don’t know about you, but I love stories of triumph and success. Ever since I could remember I was more into “feel good” movies than horror films and action movies.
There’s just something about seeing someone bust their ass and succeed, you know? And the guest blog post below is something that as fitness trainers we could all relate to.
I’ll let Shawna take it from here…
Hi I’m Shawna Kaminski and this is my journey, 
While this isn’t a financial Cinderella story, it does have elements of it. My story isn’t a ‘rags to riches’ one because I was never in rags and I’m in the process of getting to ‘riches’ now. The part of the Cinderella story that sometimes gets overlooked is the ‘quality of life’ element, more on that later…
I was a Catholic schoolteacher for too many years to count, okay, so it was 20 years. In the beginning of my career I loved teaching. I love children and I found teaching very satisfying. I was successful; I helped write curriculum, I presented workshops and both parents and the kids I taught loved me. In fact, I still run into my students now and they tell me I was their all time favorite teacher. Who could ask for anything more?
Well, as satisfying as my career was from the outside, I got bored so I started a small group training studio at the same time as I was teaching. I’ve always been involved in sport and fitness so this wasn’t a big jump. I was well versed in the training aspect of my business, but I was NOT well versed in the ‘business’ aspect of my business.
Luckily I found Fitness Business Summit 07. I stepped out of my comfort zone, and nervously booked the Summit, my flight, my hotel. At the time, I didn’t know that trip would forever change my life.
That first Summit really did start the domino effect in all aspects of my life, business and personal. I came home from the Summit and one month later I started a fitness boot camp. For a few months I continued to teach school, run my fitness studio and I also started my fitness boot camp business. (Did I mention I’m a Type A personality that’s not afraid of hard work?)
My boot camp took off with 30 people in the first month. I could see how I could continue my teaching career in a different setting. Thanks to that first Fitness Business Summit I found a way to take my passion to teach and help others in a new direction.
Something had to give, three jobs was one too many. Oh, did I mention that I have two children in sports and an energetic dog? I took a leave of absence from teaching school so I could focus on my studio and boot camps. I knew I needed more business support so I signed up for private coaching with Bedros.
If I can offer you any advice here: get a mentor as soon as possible. In fact, get a mentor even before you can afford one. Why re-invent the wheel? I avoided many costly mistakes by tapping into Bedros and his genius right from the start.
Over the next couple of years, I continued my mentorship with Bedros and didn’t miss a Fitness Business Summit. I was like a sponge just soaking up information. I closed my training studio to leverage my time more effectively. I added more sessions to my boot camp. I had a vision to help as many people as I could. Even with seeing up to 60 clients a day, I still felt that there were people I missed.
The thought of information marketing entered my mind right from the beginning of my treks to Fitness Business Summits. I knew that I wasn’t ready for this endeavor yet. There’s that ‘shiny ball syndrome’ that I wanted to avoid. (That’s when your eye catches something intriguing and you start too many projects without having the knowledge or support to follow through with them.)
But finally I got to the point that I knew that the only way I could meet my goal of helping more people was to enter the world of info marketing.
I went to the Fitness Info Summit in the fall of 09. I knew it was for me. I applied and was accepted into the information marketing mastermind with Bedros and Craig and so I began a new and exciting journey.
An important note: during this time, I changed my boot camp to Fit Body Boot Camp. This helped me grow my offline business exponentially. Again, I tapped into resources to leverage my time and efforts to yield greater success: I could help more clients, I gained financially and I learned business systems that allowed me to step away from my offline business to grow my online business.
My first product is called ‘Female Fat Loss Over 40’ and provides a fitness and fat loss solution for women in and approaching their 40’s. Through the info mastermind, I learned how to take an idea, build a marketable product, create a sales page and lead gen funnel to get people into my ‘tribe’ and to buy my program.
Product number two… With the direction of Bedros and Craig Ballantyne, I created a second program called ‘Challenge Workout’. This is more my style since I’m a hardcore gym rat. As with anything, it’s important to follow your passion. The idea of ‘challenge workouts’ resonates with me more than ‘female fat loss over 40’.
I’ll continue to promote both products, but my challenge workout product is more of ‘who I am’ and the work I do for it comes much easier.
My first product had a long and slow learning curve that allowed me to achieve faster success with my second product.
The lesson here is to not give up. Info product creation and marketing is a detailed process. The world of internet marketing is fast moving and complex.
I’ve seen a number of people invest their time and energy in a product only to put it on the shelf when it doesn’t make money over night. The learning curve is high and steep with information marketing, but the good news is that there’s success to be had in the field with a little tenacity and patience.
My tenacity was recognized by important affiliates by the time Challenge Workouts was good to go. I had rubbed elbows and befriended enough people that I had made a good impression as a hard working up and comer in the biz.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression here. Being successful in information marketing is all about creating a product of value first. You need to be able to offer something of value that fills a gap in the market place.
If you have nothing new, different and worthwhile to offer, no matter who you’re friends with, you won’t be a successful info marketer.
Lucky for me, I got the direction and support I needed from the info mastermind group to make a great product that people in the business were willing to support.
In a matter of a few weeks of launching Challenge Workout I had over 700 sales!
Affiliate support in this business helped my business grow exponentially. The amazing part about info marketing and affiliate info marketing is that affiliates of a quality product can make exceptional money by selling another person’s program. My program sold by an affiliate will provide the affiliate 75% commission on every sale.
I checked with Craig, and as an example to you, he allowed me to share this one email that he sent out to his list that brought him a significant windfall of cash.
You’re welcome to use it yourself if you’d like.
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Subject: How to do more pushups and pullups (embarrassing story)
There’s a woman – in her 40’s – who can KICK my butt in a
push-up and pull-up challenge.
Her name’s Shawna Kaminski and she can help anyone – even you
and me – improve the number of pushups and pullups that they
can do. She has training tips and SIMPLE little technique
changes that will give you almost immediate improvements.
Check them out here:
=> INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
You’ll also discover an embarrassing story from a world-
famous fitness expert who THOUGHT he was fit until he
trained with Shawna.
Shawna’s a master at pushups and pullups – and a fitness
champion, to boot.
So no matter if you still struggle to do your 1st pullup or
pushup, or if you want to do 25 pullups straight, she can help.
After all, she can do more than 25 pullups and 100 pushups
– straight, with no rest – herself.
She’s a machine and she’ll help you become a pushup and
pullup machine too.
Get her bodyweight workout secrets here:
=> INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
I know you can do more pushups and pullups,
Your Name
INSERT AFFILIATE LINK
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Here are the stats when Craig ran this email to his list:
3% conversion rate
$0.67 earnings per click
51% click-through rate
(Trust me, in the info-marketing world, these are great numbers. When the Turbulence Training genius is bragging up conversion on my product it’s a great day for me.)
The lesson here is that you too can join the world of info marketing in a variety of ways. If you have a kick ass idea and a fire under you to help a specific niche, you can make a product.
My strong suggestion is to apply with Bedros to see if you’d be a good fit for the info-marketing mastermind where you can get coaching and guidance from Bedros and Craig – plus you’ll be connect to a bunch of other fitness info marketers, too.
Plain and simple …. Coaching buys you speed and helps you avoid costly mistakes.
Your second option is to become an affiliate info marketer. If you have a list of people that know you, like you and trust you, you have a gold mine.
All you need to do is find quality products that will resonate with your list. You can use emails, like the one Craig sent out above, and/or blog posts to push your list in the right direction.
I’m here to tell you that anyone, including you, can better your place in life. I had very humble beginnings as a teacher, to fitness business owner to info marketer.
I would never have guessed that this is where I’d be a mere five years after my first Fitness Business Summit. I shattered limiting beliefs that I could make a living with my fitness boot camps. Then I shattered the limiting beliefs that I could make a living in the info-marketing world and I’m here to tell you that in the next year I hope to replace my fitness boot camp income with info marketing income.
So, in the end it is sort of a Cinderella story. I went from a mediocre existence to a life that’s more than I bargained for. I reinvented myself. I acted courageously when I had little to no courage, I envisioned where I wanted to be and I ‘acted as if’ to make things happen.
My suggestion to you is to set the bar high whether it is in your fitness business, info business or any area of life. Then set about reaching for your goals.
When you have a talent, a purpose and a plan, (especially when your purpose includes helping others) you can NEVER fail!