Building Success: Trevor Aime’s Transition from Personal Trainer to Gym Owner

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 341. Today we are bringing you the one and only Trevor Amy. And he is talking about building success, the transition from personal training to gym owner. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris. I will be giving you your intro. I work behind the scenes here at B. Simpson Fitness and I have the privilege to introduce my friend, Trevor Amy. Trevor is a dedicated personal trainer and business owner from Edmonton, Alberta, with over 12 years of experience in the personal training industry. And recently he has opened his own facility known as AIM Fitness. Trevor shares his incredible journey of transitioning from a personal trainer into a business owner and the ups and downs that come with that. Trevor dives into the challenges and triumphs he faced along the way, emphasizing the importance of trusting the process and staying patient. He also offers valuable insights into his programming philosophy, the significance of creating a supportive and welcoming environment for clients, and the critical role of family and community in his success. So whether you're a fitness professional, a gym owner, or someone passionate about fitness, Trevor's story is sure to resonate and inspire. Join us as we explore his experiences, his approach to balancing personal and professional life, and the advice that he has for those considering similar paths. Without further ado, let's start that episode.

What's up, Trevor? Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

Hey, I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm super glad that you're here. So for those of you who have not been introduced in to your work, would you mind sharing with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yeah, sounds good. So my name is Trevor Amy. I'm a personal trainer out of Alberta in Canada. I've been training for about 12 years now in person service. The last year and a half I just opened up my own facility, so made the transition from just being a personal trainer into a business owner. So that's been a huge step for me and my career. People that I mostly work with, it's general population, I, I look at myself as a bit of a generalist 30 to 40 year old females with kind of a demographic that I fit in kind of that pregnancy post. Exercise is something that I got introduced to a few years ago and really kind of interested in and just a lot of working professionals who just want to live better, reduce their, their pain and just find where fitness fits in their life.

Cool. So what caused you to open up your own facility? What's that, what has that transition been like?

It's been, it's been an adventure, it's been a ton of learning. I had been at one facility for quite an extended period of time and decided that I kind of hit my ceiling. I was kind of starting to question, well, where's my career going? What's next? For. For me, it came just a couple months after the birth of my first son and it kind of felt like I was just going through the motions and I wanted something new. So this idea was floated to me about, well, have you considered opening your own space? Then I immediately dismissed it and said, no way, I can't do that. Young family, big risk. I don't know how to run a business. I mean, I went to school to be a personal trainer. I didn't go to school to learn how to market and do books and, you know, open up a business. So for me, it was initially just like, no, I can't do it. I went home and talked to my wife and she's like, wow, I don't think the timing is going to be better. So maybe we look at this and so I went through the steps and did my due diligence and it took just under a year, but it kind of came to be.

That's amazing. So you said it took under a year. So what were some of the steps that you had to go through in order to open the facility that potentially.

Surprised you coming up with the business plan? I know everyone talks about, oh, you need a business plan, you need a business plan. But I always thought it was kind of a bit of a, you know, a bit of a hokey thing with your values and your vision, but it is really the foundation for your business. And it really made me look at, why do I do this? Who are the people that I'm working with and how can I improve on what I'm already doing? So that was kind of something that surprised me is just that business plan, having to actually develop that and go through the strengths and the weaknesses what set me apart. And it, it gave you some insight into my business, into me as a coach. So that was that Was the big thing that kind of caught me off guard. And then obviously having to find a lawyer, find a realtor who could help me through the process of negotiating a lease, pricing out equipment, getting flooring, getting a contractor permits through the city. Like, there's a lot of steps that go into it that, you know, I thought, oh, you just, you know, you want to open a business, you find a space and away you go. But there's just so many logistics that go into it.

Yeah, I'm the lawyer and real estate agent and alone sounds super scary. So, you know, what are some of the lessons that you feel like you have learned? That if someone that you would share with someone who's potentially considering opening up their own facility?

I think the biggest thing is you have to trust yourself enough to give yourself a chance. Like I said, my first initial reaction is, no, I can't do this, I can't do this. I don't have the skills. But if you want anything great, I think you have to kind of take a chance. You have to bet on yourself. And that's kind of what it came down to. And I phrased success for me as alert. This is a learning opportunity. You know, I'm the one who got to set failure. Failure was not whether the business, you know, went under in three to five years. Failure for me was not giving myself the chance, not putting in the work necessary to actually go through the steps of trying to make something happen. So I think if you, if you truly want something, you have to be prepared to put in the work. Accept that failure is a risk you're willing to take and you kind of got to go through that. Is this something that I want bad enough and I'm willing to lay it all out there and take that risk? I think that's something that's really important. Okay, cool.

So how are you? Were. Did you still train throughout the process of setting up this gym? Like, how did you navigate your priorities in terms of coaching? Continuing to coach while building your, your brick and mortar?

Yeah, I stayed coaching full time. Nothing changed with my in person services. I had to keep it pretty quiet what I was doing. Very few people knew kind of what was really happening, that I was about to go out on my own, but so I kind of had to fill my time. It was late at night after we put my son to bed. It was going downstairs and work for, you know, a couple hours. And my dad had actually opened up his own business back when I was 2 years old and 2 to 4, kind of in that range and so he kind of gave me the framework of, you know, you're gonna have to pull long hours, you're gonna have to make a commitment to finding time, but if you're going to do it, you have to find the time and make the time. So I didn't want to sacrifice my family time, so I did have to find ways that most my other free time went into that. So trying to find that balance and juggle, that's kind of something that I'm still trying to work through. But through the process of starting the gym and opening it up, I knew my service had to stay at a high level. My in person coaching, that was first and foremost, no matter what. And then if it took a little bit longer to follow the rest of the steps, they'll be it.

Yeah. So how did you go through the process of finding, you know, you know, what, what does separate your gym from potentially the other location? How did you scout the location that you thought was going to have the most foot traffic? Like what, what were some of the things that went into those decisions?

A lot of it was location within the city. I knew, I knew my demographic, my clientele that were working with me. Most of them have been with me for a very long time. So I was very fortunate to have some good connections that I knew. If I wanted people to come with me and stay training with me, I had to stay in a relatively close location. I knew the community feel within the gym had to be the same. I had, I had a great framework from where I was. It was a great facility and was run well. And I had a good idea of what the elements needed to be to make it successful, but to make it my own. I wanted something a little bit smaller, a little bit more intimate where all the coaches really kind of work as a team. So right now there's me and three other coaches and we're, we're working quite well together. We really enjoy that aspect of it. And you know, first and foremost, that high quality training has to come. First and foremost, making sure that everybody's getting a really good experience when they come through the door. Everybody's saying hi to each other, everyone is, you know, attentive and getting the best out of their session. That was something that I really wanted to focus on and had to make sure that that was the foundation.

Yeah, I mean, that's that. I mean, how did you even like prioritize all of the things that needed to go in? Because now what you're doing is you are still coaching full time now. You're leading a team now. You're, you know, and you have a family. So I'm just curious, how do you navigate the difference between, you know, being efficient in the workload as well as acquiring new skills? Right. I think people get it confused that. That the amount of time it actually takes isn't the burden. The burden is the mental load of trying to acquire new skill. So how do you. How do you manage that and how do you navigate it and how do you. How do you prioritize your tasks?

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. It isn't the amount of work. It's finding the capacity to do it all and learn the skills and constantly be trying to grow. And Fiona said, oh, anybody ever truly has it figured out of, well, how do you do it? So it's a constant learning process. I'm still trying to figure it out and navigate it, but for me, I'm a big. I'm a big list guy. I look at, okay, what is the most important tasks first? What are the things that are the most important from a business standpoint, from a personal standpoint, from a coaching standpoint. And like I said, from a business standpoint, the coaching has to be number one. So I'm not going to sacrifice my energy and engagement with my clients for the sake of, oh, well, you know, I got to do this, learn this skill or read this book or. Or whatever it was first for me, and then really trying to find the free time that I do have, try and be efficient with it, pick the one or two tasks that need to be done. Because one thing that the big risk that I thought was the most dangerous for me was becoming so consumed with the business at the time. Family aspect got left behind. And I. I so far feel like I've done a pretty good job. But there are sacrifices that have to be made along the way. So sometimes it's like, you know what? I gotta go work for a couple hours. There's things that I have to get done to make sure that the business stays open. So luckily, I have a great support system at home. My wife is phenomenal in supporting me through this entire thing. My parents, her parents, our support system is amazing. So that really helps take some of that burden off of. I know I don't have to do everything. I don't have to, you know, be the martyr and do absolutely everything there. We have support. I think that's really what it takes. And like I said, I'm still trying to figure out how to balance it, but I Do think I'm starting to get a little bit better at it. It just comes by priority.

I mean. Yeah. I think you also hit the nail on the head when you said that it's not something we just arrive at. Right. It's a constant work in progress. But I think for me, what happens to a lot of people when they are presented with overwhelm. Right. Overwhel shows up when it feels like there's so much to do and not enough time to get it done. So I imagine as someone who's never. I've never opened my own facility, but I used to be a district fitness manager for one and I saw behind the scenes what it was like to actually run a business, so. Or a brick and mortar business, which is not the same as an online business. It's just not. You don't have this same margins. It's. It's different. It's a different beast. So, you know, I couldn't imagine trying to do that undertaking. I mean, it's hard enough to grow an online business. I can't even imagine an actual facility.

Yeah. And I know it sounds cliche, but I've really had to trust the process and stay patient and just trust that if it takes time, it takes time. Nothing great happens overnight. It takes consistent effort and being disciplined. And that's kind of been the big thing I've been pulled to this year. Staying disciplined in my patient approach and just like step by step doing the right things. I'm a big process based thinker. Obviously, you know, the, the outcome of having a successful business is great and wonderful and making money and all this stuff. But really what makes it enjoyable and allows me to continue to do it is I do focus on the day to day. Going in every day to the gym, working with my people, building those connections, building that trust and trusting that that will lead to the ultimate win.

Yeah. But it's hard, right? So how long has the gym been open?

So we opened in February of 2023. So we hit the year mark earlier this year and it was getting to that first year hump when you kind of take a step back and you look at everything that went into the build up to actually opening and then being here on my own for six weeks and then hiring multiple trainers and trying to recruit new clients. And like when you take a step back, it's. It's a pretty cool accomplishment. Look and go, wow, I had no skills in this. And look at what I've been able to accomplish in it. It really gives you hope that, well, Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can figure this out. Maybe, you know, I. I do have more skills than I give myself credit for, but that's.

I mean, I think we often all. We often do that all the time. Where we especially high achievers. Right. I feel like if you're listening to the show, you're likely a high achiever like us, so it's easy for us to fixate and focus on the areas of opportunity instead, you know, at the cost, at the expense of listening to, you know, of celebrating the wins.

For sure. For sure. Yeah, it's. It's easy to chase and you go, well, what next? What next? What next? Okay, what am I working towards? But I do think you do have to have people in your life who can kind of slow you down, too, and say, well, you should be proud of what you've accomplished instead of just constantly trying to chase for more. I. I come back to my family and my support that I've had and my clients. I've been incredibly grateful to have clients that I've worked with for anywhere from, you know, five to 10 years who have watched me grow up through phase of my life, and I've seen them through phases of their life, and every single one of them believed in me and said, you know what? You can do this, you can do this. And having that external belief and that, you know, genuine connection with people, that can help push you in that direction. I think that helps keep me grounded and helps keep me in the. In the fact that, you know, I am doing good things and I am doing the right thing.

But that's hard. It can be hard, right? So I'm curious, you know, in your year process, what are some of the setbacks or the unanticipated lessons you had to learn along the way that you wish you knew when you were first starting?

I think while time management was a big thing, taking on too much was something that I chose to ignore. Kind of my own personal health for a little while because I was so invested in. Just like, I got to get people through the door, and I got to do the cleaning, I got to do the bookkeeping, I got to do some marketing, and I got like, all these things that my own health kind of is the one thing I neglected. And my body let me know a couple times I had to take some time off because my body finally said, enough, you are sick, you are burnt out. You need to take a step back. So I've gotten a lot better at recognizing some of those cues. Anybody who knows me Knows I'm a pretty stubborn, like, I want to be in the gym no matter what kind of guy. So having to actually listen to my body, take some time off for myself, where I can truly separate myself is something that I feel like I've really improved on. And. And I had to learn that lesson the hard way a couple times, like, really run myself down to kind of realize that, okay, I'm not Superman. I can't just do it all. I think that was probably the biggest lesson that I learned was neglecting my own health wasn't going to help me actually get better or help anybody else.

Yeah. How long? How long? I feel like this is a joke, right? Well, when I say joke, I mean that, like, people always will tease fitness managers or, you know, as they begin to, you know, get promoted, because they would just let themselves. I don't want to say let themselves go, but they would prioritize. It was easy to prioritize other things besides, you know, taking care of your mental health and your physical health. And so we see that happen all the time.

100. We do. 100. Yeah. And I experienced it, and I. And I see it. And again, I preach it to my clients that, you know, you need to listen to your body, you need to take time off, you need to rest, you need to listen to what your body's telling you. But, yeah, we're probably the most guilty to people who are go, go, go. We're probably the most guilty of not doing that ourselves.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So true. So, I mean, I. I'll speak for me. I won't speak for the masses, but it was definitely true for me.

Yeah, that's definitely true for me as well.

So it was so easy, you know, I just had this moment of, like, oh, my gosh, I talk about fitness every single day so often that it's like you start to trick yourself into thinking that you are also practicing fitness, when in reality, I wasn't.

Yeah, yeah, same. Same for me. Yeah, my workouts were kind of like, oh, well, I'm moving around the gym a lot. I'm getting my steps in. I'm moving weights. Yeah, well, I don't have the I'm good, I don't need to work workout. But, yeah, the reality is the more I prioritize my workouts, where I prioritize my own movements and mental health breaks, too, like, that's a big thing for me is, like, actually taking half an hour to sit in silence and not think. It's. It's huge. It's Such a little thing. But it makes such a big difference for me personally, my ability to, again, be a better coach, have more energy, be a better parent, things like that.

How old are your kids?

My kids are two, just over two. And then I have a two month old at home as well.

Oh, my gosh. So you're barely sleeping.

Yeah, it's been, it's been an adjustment. I took. I. I took three weeks off when my son Austin was born, and it was a. It was a really freeing thing for me, actually. Like going back to some of these, like, aha moments in the business over the past year was very freeing thing for me that I actually took three weeks where, like, I came to the gym twice, but only just to pick things up. I didn't come in here because I needed to manage anybody. I didn't have any fires to put out. I've got great staff here who I know are taking good care of the business. And it was like a freeing moment to be like, okay, I can step away. Things are okay. It's not the end of the world if I take some time off. So taking those three weeks for me was huge. And then obviously transitioning back in, still trying to get my footing in terms of gas, sleep and just having a busy toddler. It's. Anybody who's got a newborn and a toddler, it's a whole different game.

It's the worst. My kids are now six and eight, turning seven, so almost seven and nine, which is. It's.

Yeah, those days. You've been through it too.

I have. And it. Yeah. Parents. Parents, man. They.

Everyone's one. Yeah. I have a whole new respect for my clients who are parents for anybody who's raised two kids. For my parents, you really realize very quickly that it's like the demands of a parent when you're. When you're young and ignorant. Don't have. You don't understand. You don't have a clue. But then once you get in there, you're like, I understand where this person came in every single month being like, I'm tired. I get it.

Oh, my gosh. It's a whole new level of I'm tired.

Yeah.

Like I'm a zombie. Right. Yeah. It's interesting. It's. It's like the longest, shortest time. I think there's a podcast called that and it just sums it up perfectly. It's exactly what it feels like, for sure. So what's the vision? What do you. What are you hoping to build out?

You know, I'm. I'm Not a huge, you know, five year plan, ten year plan guy. I'm, I don't have this vision of, you know, multiple gyms and franchising and taking it out. I, my vision when I opened this place was to create a space where clients could come work on their health without worrying about being judged or worrying about where they were starting at. Providing a space that they could come in, no matter who they were, from all walks of life and feel welcomed and make fitness a healthy part of their life. And I think we're the things, kind of some of the steps we're moving towards, obviously hiring a few more trainers down the road so that we can, you know, serve more people would be huge. Providing some opportunities for growth too, from a leadership standpoint. For me, leadership is something that I've always found very fascinating and gravitated towards. So providing opportunities for the other trainers here where I can help educate them and help them grow their business. We can bring in speakers to help, you know, educate them and move their careers along. That's kind of an aspect too that I want to focus on, is that moving the careers along of young, up and coming trainers that can follow in the footsteps of some of us who have come before. Providing that opportunity is something that this year we've started to work on, which has been really exciting and really cool. But for the most part there's no big vision of like this finish line. I think you said it earlier, like there is no like finish line, end goal. It's, it's always just steps forward. So I'm open to new opportunities. I guess I would say, like, I don't have a set plan of year one. I need to be here. You, I need to be here. I'm kind of open to just saying yes to opportunities and seeing where it goes.

I love that. I love that. Okay, so just transitioning a little bit in terms of, you know, your, you know, when you are working with a client, have you, are you translating that type of programming for the entire gym or are you letting trainers, you know, do their own type of programming? Do you keep it separate or is it like, you know, they're joining a personal training gym?

No, each trainer has their own style. I firmly believe in letting, letting the coach be the coach. I think that's the best way to get results, to build that connection and that trust between clients with the in person, personal training that we focus on. That connection is so important, is getting to know the person in front of them. And me watching a session from across the gym, if I'M not actively talking to that person, or I'm not, you know, going through the assessment process and day to day listening to their story. I shouldn't be the one, as the owner, to be programming for that person. They can be best served by having their dedicated coach do the programming for them. We all follow a similar style. Like, there's a philosophy that we kind of oversee and there are similarities between all of our programming as coaches, but we do have some differences, too, which I think. I think helps diversify our skill set and allows us to help each other out a lot more and learn things and kind of push each other all to be better. So.

Good. I love that. Now you. You told me earlier, but how many coaches do you have or trainers do you have?

So it's me and then three others.

Okay, so there's four. Got it.

There's four of us in this space. Yeah. So different degrees of business depending on where we're at with our careers.

Sure. So now, you know, out of just curiosity, in terms of the structure, like, are these trainers, are they. Are they like, renting out the space and they bring in their own clients, or are these trainers that serve your clients?

Yeah, so it's a bit of both. So they are. All the trainers here are contractors. They have the access to bring in all their own clientele. So with two of the trainers, for example, when I hired them, they had pretty full rosters. They were just moving from one space to another to come work over here. And then our third trainer is a newer graduate, newer in the industry. So the work the last few months has been trying to build up her client base, try and get her some connections, who it is a bit of. They can bring in their own, or if there are clients that we can meet that need work, that I can provide them in clients as well.

That's great. That's great. Okay, so now when you're working with the contractors, does your leadership components change?

Yes. Yeah, I think it kind of has to. Obviously, when you're. You have employees, you have a little bit more say over how things are doing done, over how they use their time when they're in facility, things like that. But as contractors, they are their own business. So I don't get to make any decisions about how they choose to run their business. It's just understood that how they choose to coach, how they choose to operate, needs to fall within the framework of, you know, our vision for the facility and our kind of our core values that we look at here. And we've done a really good job as a team, kind of really all moving in the same direction and understanding each other, working well together. And that is kind of the nice thing about having a smaller space is I did get to be a little bit more particular about who I chose. And the three people that I chose I trust implicitly. And I'm very happy with the team that we have. And they're all just great, great trainers who we all share a common goal. We just want our clients to be better and we want to improve their health and we want to obviously improve ourselves.

So I mean, that's great. And that, you know, that's hard, it's hard to navigate those, those conversations. What I'm curious too now for you now, how, how have you, you know, you said that you were doing your full time coaching as you were navigating this process. I assume that there are levels of efficiency in how you program and in how you work with clients. So I'm curious in order to make that happen, so I'm curious, would you mind sharing with us a little bit about your programming process that you carry your clients with to maintain that type of efficiency?

Yeah, for sure. And that's something I was thinking about earlier today too is my programming has changed a little bit since I moved over here simply because I do have to be more efficient. I, I, as much as I like to say every single program that I write for a client is different. There are a lot of similarities between the programs I write. Just because more isn't always better, having more, you know, more variations, more exercises isn't always better for the clients. And I, I kind of, I found before I came over here I was always trying something new. I was going, oh, how can I get better at this? Oh, here's a new variation, let's try this. But I don't think I have the most success with that. So when I'm writing a program, I try like for a general population client just coming in, for example, or some general workout, we'll start with our warm up. We'll do some breathing drills to kind of open up some space, we'll do a little bit of activation to move within that new space. And then we're going to be hitting our strength pillars. We're going to squat, we're going to dead, we're going to push, we're going to pull, we're going to do some core work in there. Usually I like to focus on unilateral lifts. That's kind of a little bit more of my bias. So whether we do sink, like deadlift or split squat. Those are probably a little bit more of my biases. And then we always finish with some conditioning, whether it's the sled, the rower, the bike. I find that that works for most people. It doesn't need to be too complicated. We want to kind of help make fitness simple for people. And if there's too much thinking and there's too much trying to analyze their way through a workout, I just don't think they're going to get as much out of it. They're not going to be as efficient. I'm not going to feel as good about it. So I've tried to make the programming a little more consistent across the board and just try and coach it better when I'm in that session so that they really feel like they're getting the most out of it.

That's good. So now, how do your clients know that they're getting the most out of it?

Usually I'm always checking in. How does this feel? How do you feel when you come in? How do you feel when you leave? So we're kind of doing that check in every single time. Very rarely does someone come in being like, yeah, I'm 100%. Let's go. So when they kind of say, wow, you know, my shit is a little cranky. Oh, my back's a little cranky. Oh, I'm tired, whatever it might be, I'm always like, all right, let's. Let's give this a try. Let's see if we can make this feel a little bit better, and then we can get into it. So having a couple different tools in the toolbox to kind of pull from, and then saying, well, how do you feel now? Oh, I feel better. That's, you know, that's me. For me, that's the number one thing. If they leave feeling better than they came in, then we've done a good job with them, and that's kind of always the goal.

Okay, so speaking of goals, what are you said you typically work in a demographic, so I'm curious, what are the primary goals that you typically work on with your clients?

For most people, it's just getting stronger. They want to learn to lift with better mechanics. They want to. Another big one is inclusive. Improve their posture, which for me just comes with proper strength training. Learning how the body feels in different positions, how it needs to absorb force, produce force, depending on where the demands are. Like I said, the most people for us that are coming in are looking to decrease pain of some sort. They're business professionals who sit a lot for a living, that's really the people we work with. So if they're sitting in a chair all day, they're going to come in with some stiffness. Any movement is going to be positive. So trying to just make sure that the messaging is okay. We're not trying to destroy you. We want you to be able to walk tomorrow, all that sort of stuff, but still push them a little bit outside their comfort zone. So for us, I think we probably have a bit of a strength bias with the demographic that we see where we just want them to get stronger and learn how to move and control their body better.

Yeah. Now, just out of curiosity, do you have to. Do your people come in wanting to. Wanting to improve their posture and strength or do you help show them that this will help them if they focus on this?

Usually people come in on their own in that way. Just the reputation that we have and the reputation that our coaches have is it's. We're not a very aesthetic based. We're not working with people who come in and say, oh, I want to lose, you know, 20 pounds in three months or something like that. There's nothing wrong with those goals. But that's just not usually the people that we attract based on the demographic we work with. So usually people come in going, you know what, I'm, I'm getting older, I'm slowing down a little bit. I'm in a little bit more pain and I want to try and reverse that. And as I was going through the process of opening this gym, when I really took a look at my demographic, I really realized that a big motivator for people these days was seeing their parents getting a little bit older and starting to slow down. And maybe they didn't take as good a care of themselves when they were in their 30s and 40s. And now that they're in their 50s and 60s, they're starting to notice some of those aches and pains. And I've had numerous clients go, I don't want to be like my parents. I want to be active now and be proactive about doing it so that when I get to that age, I can still live my life the best. Like, that was a. I think that's a very powerful thing for people.

Yeah, that is so true. And I think that people forget that. Right. Watching your parents age is not fun.

No, no. I've been very fortunate. My dad's been a great role model for me. He's very active. He's very hands on as a Grandparents and getting to see him move and just continue to live his life the way he was. Like, I want to make sure that I can do that so that I can do things with my kids, that I can do things with my future grandkids. And it's. It's such a cool thing when you have that in your life to point you in that direction. Go, yeah, I want to be like that. Or you see the opposite of, I don't want to be like that. In a lot of cases, that can actually be more powerful motivator for people.

Yeah. I mean, so true. So, I mean, it's so true. I. My parents are. They're not aging, but they're, you know, they're. It's different. It's different now as I'm watching them, you know, as. As time is passing. It's just different. So. Okay, so that's really awesome. I love that. Right. I feel like people get trapped thinking that the only thing that's profitable, it's fat loss. But that's just not true. Not everyone has a fat loss goal.

Yeah. And like I said, there's nothing wrong with that. I think working out because you want to look a certain way, like, it doesn't automatically mean you have this, you know, hate for your body. There's not this, oh, I'm, you know, there's this negative image, and I need to change it. You just want to get better. You want to be healthier. You, you know, losing a little bit of weight, I think your health markers are going to go up. You're improving your chance to be resilient and have a long life. And that's, I think, kind of the big message for me is like, I want to teach resilience with fitness and, you know, pushing your body and getting some of that stress is going to teach you to be resilient in your life. And whether that comes through fat loss, whether that comes through strength training or conditioning, there's a lot of different ways to do it. But I think. I think that's an important thing vendors can do.

Yeah. I mean, so good. Okay. So do you. Does your job only focus on personal training? Do you, like, are there open gym hours? Like, what does your business model look like? And how would you say it's different than. Than, you know, other facilities?

Yeah, we are fully private, so we're by appointment only. If you're in here, you're with a trainer. The fees for clients are strictly just the fee for the personal training sessions that you're doing. We don't host any open gym. One of our coaches does do some semi private, which means that they get three or four people in here, they're all doing a custom program at the same time and she's bouncing between them. So that is, that's something that is kind of the only thing that a little bit different from a one on one or partner personal training. We just, we just felt that that was what our skill set. And I know for me as a coach that's, that was my bread and butter was the one on one or the two on one setting. So I didn't want to all of sudden come to a new facility and be like, all right, we're going to do open gym, we're going to do group classes. Because that's not a market that I necessarily good at. And there's a lot of other options in the area of that school. And I was doing some of the market research in the area and I was looking at how many gyms were around here. A lot of them were boot camp style, group class. Kind of a little bit, I don't want to say cheaper fitness but like it's a cheaper option for people, which is great that people have that. But trying to compete with some of those people like that as kind of small fish, that wasn't really something that we were able to do and something I didn't think I really necessarily wanted to do. So I wanted to make sure that we stayed true to the one on one training. Giving people that really pro personalized like custom solid experience of working one on one or two on one with the high level coach.

Yes. Good. So what are some of the marketing efforts that you're using to get the word out about your gym that you would say is different than an online business?

I think for us we're using a lot of word of mouth, a lot of referrals. Because when you're hiring a coach work with you, it is such a personal thing that there's immediate buy in when someone's like, oh, I see this person, I've seen this person for three years and I love the service they offer. It's a lot easier to build that trust and build that rapport. And that's how we see most of our referrals is from word of mouth. That's how most of our new clients come is someone knows someone who you know, they mentioned us to. Getting into the online space is something we're kind of starting to do a little bit more. We're trying to do a little bit more of social media. We're trying to do a little bit more of some paid advertising. But again, for me, that's such an area where I'm just not really used to something that I've never really done before. So it's something we're moving towards for sure. But in such a personal industry, like personal training in person, specifically word of mouth referrals is really the biggest marketing I think they do is providing that high quality service and making sure that people want to tell their friends about what they're learning here and how they're improving. Minute.

Yeah. So good. So good. Okay, so, Trevor, I want to be mindful of your time. So for those of you who want to connect with you or want to learn more about your process, want to check out your. Your digs or potentially, you know, connect with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them?

Best places would probably be Instagram. At tav Training is my personal one. At a fitness YG is the actual gym space where we feature more of clients and more purely the business side. I'm. I'd like to be a little bit more personal, feel my family a little bit more on my personal page because that's such a big part of who I am and my identity and how I can relate to people. The website, just to get a little bit more of what our philosophy is. AIM Fitness. Ye G. Yeah. And that's. Those are really kind of the big. The big places that if people want to check us out a little bit more, they can connect with us through those channels.

Okay, awesome. So then I'll make sure that I link all of that up inside of our show notes. And I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for pouring into me and into us.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Beverly. Really appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us. If you would please leave us a review. Review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team atinfo simpson fitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from. From wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.