NEVER Stop Dreaming

Hey, Bedros here,

… hope you’re liv’in easy 🙂

Trainers always ask me if there’s still room in the market place to grow an online fitness info business. My answer is always; “Yes, IF you’re passionate about the topic you’re going to teach”

And here’s a great example of that. Travis Stoetzel, an all around awesome guy, and member of my 100K Fitness Info Mastermind group hit is first $1,000 day recently – that’s a BIG thing and usually when you hit your first $1K day, more days like it seem to follow. Here’s Travis’ journey in his own words. I hope this will inspire you and get you to Never Stop Dreaming…

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My Journey To Living My Passion Online

It all started out when I got my first job as a personal trainer back in 2006 at a large corporate gym.

At first, I felt on top of the world and I felt that I had the BEST job in the world, but then I quickly realized that the corporate fitness world was NOT for me.  I hated how things were run, I was always pressured into selling, and I couldn’t train just the people I personally wanted to train.

After researching online, I found a “Fitness Boot Camp” that Ryan Lee was putting on so I made the fast decision of booking a trip (with money I didn’t even have) to Stamford, CT to attend his fitness info boot camp where my eyes were first exposed to the power of online fitness marketing. But,  I still didn’t quite get “it” yet as I was still caught up in finding a way to get out of the corporate gym arena.

Not long after I got back home,  in order to get out, I did more research online to find an answer and that’s when I first stumbled across Zach Even-Esh and The Underground Strength Gym.  I quickly identified what it is I wanted to do…  Build up my own hardcore strength gym!

So, I quickly booked a trip out to see Zach at his Underground Strength Coach Certification with again, money I didn’t even have and put it all on a credit card.  Needless to say, when I got back to Omaha, I was determined to make things happen to get myself out of the big box gym scene and into my own hardcore strength facility.

My best friend and now business partner Joe, quickly found a spot to open our own hardcore strength gym and within a few months, The Forged Athlete Gym was born and I was my own boss training the people I loved to train.

I was in heaven.

As the months past by and my business grew, I started to receive emails from various people around the country and even from overseas interested in the way I trained as they would find me through the various videos I would post weekly on my YouTube page and www.travisstoetzel.com.

They would ask if I could write them a workout program, create a nutrition plans, or even coach them and it wasn’t until after the 20^{th or} 30^th time I got asked to be someone’s coach that something inside my head finally “clicked”.

“I need to take my business online” I said to myself.  Why limit myself to just the people I could help locally?

I knew what I was doing within my gym was working with my clients, but as soon as I realized the POWER the internet had at giving me the opportunity to spread my knowledge and passion for training, I quickly started to create ways I could use this to my advantage and started to write up different ebooks and manuals I could sell or even give away online.  I knew I needed a way to reach more people and creating an online presence was the answer.

I started to research other top strength and conditioning professionals that were doing fitness internet marketing and I started to reverse engineer what they were doing.  At first, I had NO system, I had no direction, and I had ZERO tech skills.

It was a daunting task trying to build an internet business at first and everything I did felt like it was uphill.  There were many times where I told myself that I should just quit the whole “internet” thing, but I’m NOT a quitter so I kept forging ahead!

I pushed myself forward and after a short while, I had built up a large number of online coaching clients.  It was amazing as I had guys from Australia, New Zealand, London, and a few from the US and the list went on.  Coaching people one-on-one online is simply amazing as I still do it today, but I knew that if I wanted to help out and reach even more people, I had to create some sort of system to make it easier on me and them to get access to my programs.

So, after a short while I finally created my first fitness info product, The Bags, Bells, and Bodyweight Training System. I basically took the NO B.S. training system I put myself and my clients through and posted it up online for sale.

At first I thought that just because I felt this was the most kickass program ever (which it is 😉 ) that everyone who stopped by the page would buy it, but I couldn’t have been more wrong!   I knew that in order to make it, I was going to have to get a coach or invest into program that taught me how to do it.

So, I ended up investing in a lot of different programs and just like with my education when it came to strength and conditioning, I started to get better and better until I learned to basics of what needed to be done.

In plain English, I HUSTLED my ass off by constantly posting up blogs, videos, answering questions, and studying marketing courses that Craig Ballantyne and Bedros offered.

Overtime, I used the skills I was learning through the programs I invested in and my online success started to grow, but I still wasn’t as good as I wanted to be so that’s when I broke down and took the leap to join Bedros’ 100K Fitness Info Group.

I knew I had the skills to get people results and I knew I had the abilities to create awesome programs online, I just needed to learn how to do it right.

Fast forward ahead to today and my amount of success online has skyrocketed since I first started!  Being apart of the mastermind and being around other success minded fitness professionals that truly care about helping people has truly accelerated my progress ten-fold. Not only has it helped build my knowledge about online marketing, but it has also given me the accountability needed to stay focused on improving my online business.

When you join a mastermind and you may be spending a ton of money to be in it, and with that, there’s a bit of a fire that burns under your ass to get things done…

Since being in the group, I have learned the different types of systems needed to help expand my reach to the people I want to help most online.  I’ve also been able to overlook the fact that online marketing isn’t such a bad thing as at first, I thought all info marketers were just sleazy online salesmen that really didn’t care about the end user.  Back when I thought this, I didn’t want to be one of these “snake like” people, but since joining the 100K group and meeting some of the most outstanding and caring people within the fitness industry, I knew that online marketing was what I needed to do in order to reach more people and build up my tribe across the world!

Overtime, what I’ve done is be ME and live my passion online.  I post videos constantly, answer people’s questions and just share my knowledge with the world.  The people that want to hear it and listen follow me and those are the people I help.  The main thing I’ve done to build more success has been through building up my online tribe of followers through being totally transparent.

Recently, I launched a program and the success I had launching it was a HUGE milestone for me as I was able to hit my first $1K day online and for the first time, I’ve truly started to BELEIVE in the fact that I can make it online living my passion.  I can make a lifestyle out of this stuff!

The success I had with my most recent program came from modeling Craig and Joel Marion’s most recent launch, 24/7 Fat Loss.  I used the same type of email blasts and launch sequence as they did and it exploded my sales.  I also used the great wisdom of Bedros and my fellow masterminder’s at my last mastermind meeting to help tighten up my launch (that undoubtedly boosted the overall sales I had).

The program that I had such great success with is called, The 28 Day Athletic Muscle Formula and it was a program I created specifically for MY people.   My tribe members asked for this type of program and so that’s what I gave them.  I believe that the relationships I’ve been able to create and the value I’ve built all through my online presence on my blog, has helped create the success I’ve had thus far and will continue to  do so on into the future.

I’ve worked hard at helping my people get the results they want online and I know that as I continue to do so on into the future by supplying even more value, that my business online will continue to grow even larger.

Sky’s the limit!