How To Build Your Dream Life

Hey Bedros here! I think people who keep their head down, work hard, and Get Shit Done deserve a lot of recognition. In fact one thing that my father instilled in my though his actions was to work hard, get shit done, and help others. That’s probably who I resonate most with people who have serious work ethic. 7 figure formula mastermind

And so each year at Fitness Business Summit I like to do something really big to award those who I know work the hardest. So each year I invite my mastermind coaching clients up on stage and this gives them the opportunity to do something they don’t do the rest of their year… to tell others how bad ass they are, how hard they’ve worked all year and to share the transformation they’ve seen in their fitness businesses.

Then the Fitness Business Summit audience will vote on who gets the brand new Land Rover for s year. (I pick up the payments for the year and they get to enjoy the ride).

Last year at Fitness Business Summit 11 Nitin Chhoda won the Land Rover prize. If you don’t know if Nitin, he’s been in my 7 Figure Mastermind program for nearly three years now and has since built a 7 figure generating guru business in the physical therapy space.

This year, the bog winner was Sean Francis and his story of transformation hit home with a lot of folks at Fitness Business Summit – so I asked Sean to write up a little blog post that I could share with you.

Here it is… Enjoy 🙂

Hey, Corporal Sean Francis here.  As thanks to Bedros for all the help and guidance he’s given me over the past year and to pay forward my recent successes, I put this blog together for his list of awesome subscribers.

First up is my story, and why everything I was and have become might just resonate with you.

Just over a year ago I started up a franchised boot camp called Soldiers of Fitness in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario (cottage country), which is 2 hours North East of Toronto.

I had 7 clients and worked 3 boot camp sessions (that were 90 minutes long) each day (3 members in the AM, 2 at noon, and 2 in the PM).  5 days per week… and spent the rest of my day trying to figure out advertising, marketing, systems, and anything I could that would change my situation for the better.

Don’t get me wrong, I love fitness and love helping others get in great shape.

fitness business mastermindBut what my clients didn’t see was the toll that these long days and struggle to pay the bills was taking on my family.

By spending so much of my time working, I was neglecting my wife and our 1-year old daughter.

This really hit home when I took a second to think back to my childhood, and it scared me how similar things were becoming.

You see my parents were also hard working.  They would each work 60+ hours per week just to provide for our family (I have 2 younger brothers) and pay the bills.

This lead to early morning drop offs at daycare for the 3 of us.  Followed by an 8am to 3pm day at school.  Heading back to the daycare.  And waiting to be picked up around 7pm.  We would go home, have dinner, finish some homework, and go to bed.

This not only led to a less then great family atmosphere, it also put a lot of strain on my parents’ marriage.

By the time I was 7, my parents decided to divorce.

As a young kid, it was hard to understand, and to be honest, it totally sucked.

Even at that young age I decided that if I were to ever get married and have children and a family of my own, I would do everything I could to make things work and not put them through what I went through.

Fast forward 24 years and I found myself in the same situation, and it scared me to death.

I was losing touch with my wife, our relationship was deteriorating, and I was losing the time with my daughter that I could never get back.

At that point I made the decision to change.

I wouldn’t sit back and let things fall apart and believe that I had no control over my future.

I knew there were successful people out there, people who knew fitness and boot camps and marketing for success.  I joined blogs, read material, watched videos and started learning.

This helped for a bit and my client numbers started to improve over the next few months.

However it wasn’t until I stumbled upon PTPower.com and some guy named Bedros Keuilian, that I really started to see a change.

Similar to Google and Wikipedia – the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, this Armenian fellow became my giant.

I read his blogs, watched his videos, listened to his audio info and really started to understand that success was possible.

I applied what I learned, and my business improved again, but now even faster.

I went into my first winter (by the way, we are a year round outdoor boot camp in Canada and winters in my area get to approx -25 Celsius / -13 Fahrenheit) with 60 awesome members and saw them through to the warmer weather of spring.

Though I had taken on more clients, I was slipping back into working 14-hour days as I had yet to figure out the difference between working ON and working IN my business.

Then came Fitness Business Summit 11.

I spoke with my landlord, got a 2-week extension on my rent, and bought the plane tickets for my wife and I.

For some reason, I knew this event had the answers that I needed.fitness businss mastermind

After 3 amazing days of incredible speakers, incredible content, and more ideas then I knew what to do with, I was ready to take on the fitness world and succeed.

Oh ya, there was that other thing that happened at FBS11.

I joined Bedros 7 Figure Formula Mastermind Group!

For the next year, I would travel every few months to sit with the best in the fitness business world and learn from them.

People like …..

–       John and Cara Eckerman

–       Josh Carter

–       Shawna Kaminski

–       Cabel McElderry

–       Butch Nieves

–       Mark and Stephan Gray

–       JR Burgess

–       Shari Aldrich

–       Nitin Chhoda

–       Samantha Taylor

–       Travis Garza

–       Brandon Roggow

–       Dan Ritchie

–       And of course Bedros himself

In fact, here’s a little glimpse of what takes place in our masterminds…

These are trainer making high six and seven figures – they are the real deal!

I was held accountable.

I was supported, coached, and advised.

I was steered to success.

I took my one location and turned it into two in that time.

I raised my number of clients from 60 to 197, and have made it my goal to crack the 250 members per month mark this summer and really start to make a difference in the health and fitness of the local population.

I reached my first 6 figure year!

1 year later I returned to FBS12 and shared my story of change.

As voted on by the over 400 trainers in attendance, I was selected as having the most incredible change in my fitness business.  There was mention of my amazing clients who were willing to train in the freezing cold.

And of the personal changes I went through that have helped to save my family and allow me to be the husband and father that I want and need to be to my wife and daughter.  For all of this, I was awarded a one-year lease on a 2012 Land Rover!

fitness marketing

How absolutely amazing!

Now to help you out and pay it forward, here are the Top 10 Things I Did (to achieve success this past year).  And the Top 10 Things I’m Currently Doing (to ensure success this year and beyond)

1. Hire a coach – no one achieves success without some sort of guidance.  From athlete, to businessman, to chef.  We all need someone to guide our actions and keep us on a tested path towards our goals.  And as far as I’m concerned, there’s no getter coach then Bedros – he’s coached and mentored them all and has a proven track record.

2. Join a mastermind – make yourself accountable to a group of like minded individuals and you will see your success double and triple.  Raise the level of those you associate with and you will see your own level raised.  Learn from these people and take comfort in knowing that they too are there to ensure your success.

3. Take action – nothing gets done with good intents, or ideas, or thoughts that are never acted upon.  Set a goal, develop a game plan, determine a finish date, cut that time in half and move your finish date closer (thanks for that tip goes to my fellow Canadian Craig Ballantyne), and take action towards your goal.

4. Take MASSIVE action – little steps and little leavers result in little progress.  Move in leaps and bounds.  Fortune favours the bold.  Listen to Yoda and DO!

5. Get those lead boxes out – I dreaded this forever as I saw myself as not one to go talk to people I don’t know.  However I got back from a recent mastermind, told myself I could do it, and 15 boxes later I was rockin’!  Now I’m getting 40 to 50 leads per week just from this one source.  And of them I’m emailing and calling to tell them they won 2 weeks, of which 9 out of 10 take me up on the offer.  They sign the forms and select the program that they will likely continue with after their 2 weeks is up.  This works so get it done!

6.  Get an assistant.  I found a great assistant who was already in my camp.  She knew how I operate and was a quick learner.  Now she takes care of all the non 5% stuff and keeps the business moving like clockwork.  We work on a 30 hours of work basis where she does 30 hours of work and then submits an invoice before continuing.  This allows me to review the work, and make decisions to continue certain tasks, comment that they should be done quicker then what is happening, and keep an eye on the work being done.

7. Never stop learning – there’s always something more you can be doing to improve you.  Whether it’s fitness business or not, make it a point to learn every day.  Self improvement and actualization will benefit your fitness business more then you know.  I spend hours reading books on leadership and mindset.  These not only help me grow, but they’ve also helped my business grow.

8.  Be persistent and fail forward – for each success I’ve reached this past year, I failed twice immediately before.  However had I decided to stay down, feel sorry for myself, and sulk in the corner, I never would have achieved what I have.  Failing is fine.  But learn from failing, get up, and drive forward.  Scrapes, cuts and scars are character building so don’t shy away from them.boot camp

9. Be positive – if you haven’t read the book The Secret, read it.  What you think about on a daily basis becomes your reality.  Think about scarcity, lack of freedom and money, bills and more bills, and guess what you’ll get.  More of the same.  Sure they may be reality for you at the moment, but don’t dwell on them.  Instead focus on the future you want.  See it vividly and start to believe and act that that future is actually now.  Take action concurrent with that and things will change to follow your thoughts.

10. Remove the negative – you and your goals are far more important and worthy of your time then those who spend their days being negative.  If there are people in your current circle of influence who are always down in the dumps.  Who always talk of negativity and scarcity and tell you that your business and ideas will never work.  Remove them.  Just as I said in #2, those around you will influence you.  Hang around with negative people (or crabs as B calls them), and you too will be negative, and that will do more harm then good for your success.

The Things I’m Currently Doing (and learning to do)

– Continue doing what works – just because I’ve reached a certain amount of success doesn’t mean I can now sit and stagnate.  I need to maintain momentum and continue towards my next set of goals on route to achieving my dream (explained below).  To do this, I’ll need to continue with the 10 things listed above that got me to this point.  I’ll continue with Bedros as my coach and with my team of Super Master Minders (btw, you’re welcome to join us).  I’ll take Massive Action every single day to ensure my business continues to move forward.  I’ll continue to learn and to fail forward.  And I’ll ensure the positive by removing the negative.  If it works (which it does and has), keep it up!

– Bedros 95/5 rule – there are things in your business that you are the champ at and that no one can do as well as you… those are your 5%. And then there are things that if done by you would take away from your championing of the other more important tasks mentioned above… those are the 95%.  For me, I rock at leading fitness sessions, motivating my clients, and getting the most out of them in our time together.  What I don’t rock at is accounting, spreadsheets, and paperwork.  So for me to spend my time with these other (yet still important tasks), I am taking away from the number of people I can directly help by leading sessions.  The trick is to understand what your 5% is, stick to it, and outsource the rest like Bedros says.

– Outsourcing – as mentioned above, I know that accounting, spreadsheets, and paperwork aren’t my strong point. Rather then struggle with them cut into my 5% of running amazing sessions, I found an amazing account and administrative assistant to do that work.  My value is in my direct influence on my clients and I am doing them and myself a disservice by doing the things that should be outsourced.  5% is mine and I excel at that.  95% is outsourced to those better utilized.

– Systemizing – as my business becomes more successful, I can either choose to work more myself, or design and develop the systems that when followed by my staff will result in the same quality of work, then had I done it myself.  I also don’t need the added stress of having to ensure that all 99 things that are required to operate my business each and every day are completed.  Instead, I went to the pro’s of Systemizing, Mark and Steven Gray thesystemssolution.com – They’ve helped me organize and document the systems of my business and then to assign the systems to my staff to have them carried out.  This has not only freed my time, but it has also decreased my stress and allows me to focus even more on my 5%.

– Time blocking and efficiency – even with amazing systems, there are several things that I need to get done on a daily basis.  To do this, I’m working more and more on setting my schedules and ensuring that certain things get done at certain times.  And anything not scheduled, isn’t done.  I know that each day from 7am-7:30am,

– I’m reviewing my plan for the day ahead.  From 8am-9am, I’m spending time with my family.  From 10am-11am I’m working on marketing and upcoming promotions.  From 2pm-3pm I’m answering personal email and checking Facebook.  From 3pm-4pm I’m at the gym getting my own workout in. Get the idea?  This ensures that I’m not wasting time whether it be youtube, dealing with unscheduled meeting requests, or even getting trapped in the A.D.D. loop of email checking and re-checking.  Set your schedule, take advantage of time blocking, and ensure efficiency.

– Goal planning – having just come off an amazing year and exceeding my own expectations for success, I need to keep the momentum going and start planning my next steps.  This means long term, short term, and immediate goals.  Working backwards is also a must. I’ll explain by taking you though my current long, short, and immediate goals.

– Long term – within 5 years I will own a 10,000 sqft facility that will house group fitness sessions (up to 75 training at a time) throughout the day.  This facility will also offer health care services by employing 3 full time chiropractors, 2 massage therapists, and 4 physiotherapists/kinesiologiests.  The facility will have a great juice bar and fresh food snack shop.  It will be located in an area that allows us to open the back roll up doors and move training outdoors into a large area that has both paved lot and grass field.  I will directly and indirectly (through my team and facility) positively influence the health and fitness of 1000 clients every month of the year.

fitness boot camp

– Short term – within 2.5 years I will expand the 3,200 sqft location that I am currently preparing to lease so that it can offer no less then 50% of my ultimate long term goal.  That being 40 members training per session, one full time and one part time chiropractor, one massage therapist, and one physio/kin.  I will directly and indirectly positively influence the health and fitness of 500 clients every month of the year.

– Immediately – between now and the 2.5 year mark, I will need to maintain no less then 75% of my clientele while also taking on 16 new clients each month.  This will take me from a current 143 to the 500 clients listed as part of my short term goal.  I will increase my number of daily instructor led fitness camps from 3 to 8, introducing one new camp every 4 to 5 months.

I know it probably sounds weird when you read numbers, dates, and see a success plan that’s so specific. But that’s what Bedros taught us, and that’s what works. So consider that your final lesson – to be specific in your goals and expectations and set deadlines that are realistic BUT challenging.

If you were there at Fitness Business Summit 12 a few weeks ago, THANK YOU for voting for me and awarding me the 2012 Land Rover that Bedros paid for 🙂

And thank you for letting me share this game plan with you. I hope you got some actions steps to take and use in your fitness business.

Corporal Sean Franciswww.SOFbootcamp.com