Relationship Building in Your Career and Beyond

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode 207. Today I'm going to be talking to you about relationship building in your career and beyond. 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, 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.

As you may have noticed, this is another Takeover episode. I am your guest host, Chris Little. I work within the B. Simpson fitness business. And today I am going to talk to you about relationship building in your career and beyond. Now, this is in terms of growing your business through the connections that you make, as well as growing a sustainable career where you are happy to do what you do and you're passionate to do what you do, and that when things get difficult, that you are able to be resilient and overcome obstacles. So there's a few key points that I'm going to go over in this episode. I'm going to try and keep it as concise as possible. One of the key points that I think is especially important and something that I can relate to with regards to my career, is that it's important to find key influences early in your career. Now, when I say that I am speaking to people that you would truly want to trade places with with regards to both how they show up on social, but also how they show up in real life, like their bank account and their lifestyle and their general health. So sometimes if we base something fully on just their presence on social, it's not quite what it may may seem. Sometimes we can compare ourselves to people who don't have it all together. So if you can find a general sense of a person's life beyond their social presence, that can be incredibly helpful. Some examples are a lot of people will look up to someone who has moved up in the ranks of their career. Maybe they started in a box gym and then they became a manager. They were part of leadership. Maybe they were a former athlete and you're a former athlete. There's little correlations there. And then you can look at things like their life today. Are they growing a family? Are they going on holidays? Is that something that you want for your future? So those things are very important to look at because if you try to model yourself after somebody that looks like they might not have any work life Balance, there's a good chance that you might not have work life balance. So it's just super important that you're able to see that the people that you're learning from and modeling yourself after are looking after their own wellness and making sure that they are on a sustainable path. So the questions that come up from that are, who do you learn from, why do you learn from them, what do you learn from them? And how do you learn from them? When I dig a bit deeper into that, the who do you learn from? You can have like a short list of names. A lot of us will shout out each other on social media. And, and if you can kind of have some names top of mind, that can be super helpful because then maybe you can start paying closer attention to their content, start paying attention to their offerings, their mentorships, their courses, things like that. Look for the opportunities. The next question is, why do you learn from them? So then you really want to assess, like, are you learning from them because of their dog, or are you learning from them because they're modeling like a business model that you aspire to have one day, or because they taught you something and you know that you could learn more from them, so you want them in your corner. Next piece is what do you learn from them? So you want what you're learning to at some point be valuable. So if what you're learning doesn't correlate with the people that you're serving, are you helping yourself reach your goals or are you going in an opposing direction? It would be kind of similar to me as someone who trains people in person and online. If I was to really dive down the rabbit hole of learning how to crochet, that might be counterproductive to me getting more skills and getting more success through in person training and online training. So it's just we want to make sure that we're following people for the right reasons and that we know what we're learning from them and we know how we're learning from them, which is our next question. It is how do you learn from them? So an important piece is, while you can learn a lot from Instagram, you also miss out on a lot of nuance. So you want to ask yourself, am I reading this person's books? Am I reading other people's books? Am I partaking in any kind of mentorships with one on one dialogue where my feedback is received and critiqued? Am I open to feedback? Am I open to criticism? Am I willing to put put forth effort that is required for case studies, am I willing to follow a plan for growing my business? Little things like that, where if you can't answer how you are learning from your people, you might not be quite learning. You might just be liking posts and thinking things are cool and maybe missing the message and stuff like that. So these are really important things to address as you're building your foundation for relationship building in your career. Because when you're a little bit more focused on what direction you want to go and kind of where you align and what you look to for inspiration for your future, that can be super helpful. So as you are finding these people that you might call your mentors, I think it's very, very important as you're building these relationships to find ways to give back to your mentors. This doesn't always have to be financially, it doesn't always have to be in the ways that you might first think, but. But support their products, get them a gift, provide a testimonial, that's an example of something that's free. If they have helped you and maybe they benefit from a testimonial, just reach out and offer to create a testimonial for them because it mean the world. And a lot of people out there don't quite feel in a position that they are comfortable asking people to be like, hey, can you promote my service that you paid for? So when you're able to freely offer it, it can be a game changer. Support their social media, it can never hurt. Promote their platforms. So if they have a podcast, share their podcast. If they are writing articles, share their articles. Because that it works two ways. And if you want somebody to keep you under their wing, you kind of want to look out for how you can support them back. I think that's super important. So if they are local, if you have a mentor that's local, there's probably little things that you can help them out with in that capacity. Like maybe they needed help moving a couch, maybe they needed help clearing some snow. Just find little grassroots ways to show love back to the people who have believed in you and seen your potential and taught you things. Because that appreciation goes a long way. And there's a good chance you'll get even better quality help and guidance when they feel just as appreciated as you do. So the next topic here that I wanted to talk about is local networking. Local networking can look a lot of different ways as organizations that create networking groups. And for some people that can be extremely beneficial. But for other instances, you might have better luck sort of creating your own path within local networking. So what I often like to suggest is finding other communities to be a part of that complement your offering. So you kind of want to look at the demographic and the value system of those communities. So is it a community that prioritizes spending on things that other people might consider luxuries? So a lot of communities might consider personal training services or online coaching or any kind of like health and wellness based product as sort of like a luxury. And they might not be quite on board with being the people that will help you build your business. But let's say if you go to like a boutique spin studio or maybe a yoga studio and you're like a strength coach, that could be an alignment because maybe that person wants to not only be mobile and limber or have great cardio, but maybe they also want to get strong and you shouldn't go there soliciting services. But if people know who you are and you're a good person and you're an active member of their community, you might pop into their head as they're looking for someone who provides the service that you do. So be a good person, look for ways that you can support that business. Wear their swag, whatever you have to do. Be very genuine in this. Because relationships like this, you want them to last a long time. Because if you're going to be in the industry a long time, I'm sure that they're going to be in the community a long time too. Then the next piece is you're going to want to look at ways to build your credibility. Because if you have credibility, then people take you a little bit more seriously. Credibility can look like your time in the industry, maybe past accomplishments or awards, but it can also look like the reps that you put in with your contributions to publications. So looking for relevant publications to contribute to, whether that be websites, magazines, blogs. I'll give you an example. Some places will have a regional fitness themed magazine that sometimes gives opportunities for local people to contribute articles. And you can even talk to the editor, see what's possible in that capacity. You can also look at different blogs. I know that in the past I've partnered with people who are specializing in minimalism and cleanliness and they're aligned with fitness and, and so I'm able to be a guest contributor for that. You can look at different websites, community websites, maybe there's like a neighborhood group and they wouldn't mind featuring a fitness article. Little things like that can be super helpful and you can link them from your website as well, which is going to just help you look more established, help you look like you know what you're talking about. And with the effort that will go into that process, with you having to work on your writing, work on your copy, work on hearing feedback, you are only going to get better at that part of your work. The other option is if you are limited for what you have access to contribute to, you can always start your own. You can start your own publication on something like Substack or WordPress. You can start a podcast, you can use a substack for your podcast or anchor or all kinds of different platforms. And if you want to know more about podcasts, you should certainly go back to the episode a few weeks ago where I talked more about podcasts. But by starting your own publication, that gives you more credibility, more practice, gives you more experience with speaking, more confidence. And it'll help you because then you'll have a platform where other people can collaborate with you, only then building your network even more, it opens up the door for you to have one on one conversations. Who with people who you would otherwise have to probably pay to talk to just simply based on the boundaries around their time. A lot of times if you need help with your business, you kind of have to pay for a one on one like consultation and just break down the business, do an audit, stuff like that. So whenever you're able to position yourself to get advice and learnings in a more sustainably free way simply by having a platform, I would say jump on that and it'll only help you. So something that I actually learned from Jonathan Goodman is when you have something like a podcast or even having a blog, a power move that you can do is you can interview local business leaders and become like a household name for your community. So if you interview enough of the people who are like the CEOs and like the presidents of all the businesses in your area, and they're modeling a very high performance lifestyle, there's a good chance that you will become a very familiar name when you come up in conversation. People will have an idea of what you do and what you offer and they'll honestly probably trust you a bit more than they would had you not had that platform. So it's definitely worthwhile that if you have a publication, it doesn't have to be all in on fitness. You can incorporate business people within that to help yourself network and to help find leads, to help gain trust and credibility within your local community and beyond. Because even with networking with businesses, we have this online space. You can network with businesses in other regions as well. If there was something that you wanted to specialize in or something that you wanted to learn, you can ask these people to contribute to your article or contribute to your podcast and it'll oftentimes benefit them as well. Oftentimes these people are very well practiced with these things. So it's a great opportunity for you to jump on. Something that is almost underrated sometimes is the value of going to conferences and seminars. So myself, my career has been incredibly impacted by going to conferences and seminars online, in person, everything in between. It's just the connections that you can make, the networking opportunities, the learnings, the real life experience. And I have many friends in the industry who would say the same. So what I would say is, when it is within your means, attend conferences where you can meet or see presentations from the people that you're modeling your career after, or your mentors, or even just being able to connect with colleagues that you've been talking to online. Because a meeting of the minds can be a very powerful thing. And being able to build a rapport with people beyond the screens, beyond social media, can be very pivotal for your career. Always be genuine, always act in integrity, always do what you say you're going to do. So don't pretend to be anybody else that you're not. I think that's probably the best advice that I have. And be a good person at these things and just be open to learning, be open to connecting, be open to making friends and enjoy yourself. When you're going to the presentation, sit close to the front. That's something that I think is important because as a presenter, it often feels a lot better if people are near the front versus if they're at the back looking like they don't care. That could lead to you getting certain people on your podcast. Pay attention to key points. So some people take notes. It can be very flattering if you start to create maybe some quote graphics based on a quote that somebody said at their presentation and give them credit and create the graphic, put their name on it, and then maybe they'd see it and they'd be very moved. Because oftentimes within this industry, the people who we look at as big fish, they're just normal humans. And so they can be just as flatters as we can be when our work is recognized and seen and appreciated. Be kind to your colleagues. Everybody that you see at these events always come from a place of patience and compassion. Because honestly, you never know who all your colleagues could become. One year they might be Brand new. Seven years from now they might be the CEO of a coaching company. So you just never know. So being kind is important and just conducting yourself in a way that is of an abundance mindset. What I believe to be true is that there's enough for everyone to be successful and we don't necessarily need to do anything but be positive and look for potential and look for opportunities and connect and make friendships and go from there. So on the other side of the equation, because I know a lot of people who may be listening to this, could be very new to the industry. If it is not within your means to go to a conference or seminar, that doesn't mean that you can't capitalize on some really cool networking opportunities. So I'll give you an example. Back in 2020 we had quite a few different virtual seminars and mentorships and little like learning events. And it takes a lot of logistics to put those things together and sometimes they go underappreciated. People will register for them and they won't watch all the things or they won't take opportunities to ask the presenters questions or maybe they won't showcase like what they're learning maybe to their, their clients and stuff like that. So first of all, keep your eyes open for when these things come up and make it a priority. If you have to move a few things to show up to a live seminar, a live workshop, make it happen and talk about it in your social media. So if you're going to somebody's presentation, share the post and say, hey, I'm checking this out, if anybody wants to join me, that can be super valuable for the host. They'll really appreciate it. It'll give you that credibility for your clients and your community and it'll help you connect with other like minded people who might see the repost, who might see you posting in the first place and they'll be like, oh, I never heard of that, that sounds really interesting. And they'll look to you as someone who is ambitious and a high performer, just someone who wants more for themselves. It's just a great catalyst to subtly make friends. If you can't travel, you can still do things pretty cool on a virtual scale. So when there aren't these offerings available, when there isn't an online seminar or online conference, something that I personally done quite a bit myself, is jumping on zoom calls with people you're connected with. So what I might do is if I've been connected with a trainer from a state or a province somewhere far away and I've never met them in person, but we're liking each other's posts consistently and we're kind of aligned. I might ask to, like, set up a time to just visit, talk about their story, learn about them, learn about their obstacles, and see if there's any ways that we can collaborate. Sometimes I'll end up helping people with something, sometimes they'll help me. And I think that's very similar to some of the benefits that you get from going to a conference or seminar. And so if you can create it for yourself, it's a very wise thing to do, especially if you're just looking to get a leg up in the industry and gain some momentum. It's better to do that than to sit at home and wonder why. Why aren't things working out? It's better to come up with a solution. In the meantime, when you're doing this, you're building stronger connections where a person has more than just like your Instagram handle. They actually have the personality behind it. So then they're able to kind of see your journey and they're starting to bet on you and they want to see you win, just like you would want for them because of that abundance mindset. And it can really snowball if you're finding that on these Zoom calls, you don't have so much colleagues, but you have, like, potential clients and staff or just like, friends. Set up a call with some of them. It can be super helpful because sometimes, even if they aren't someone who's ready to buy from you, you can get valuable feedback that could set up your intake form, it could set up some of the processes within your business. It can be very valuable feedback that you might have otherwise had to pay a lot of money for or might have had to learn in a way that was more expensive. I would rather learn from somebody that was on a free Zoom call with me how to approach different ways of pitching a client or communicating with a client or how they liked to be communicated with, whether they preferred email or text or little things like that. I'd rather learn that from, like, this free Zoom call than learn it from somebody walking away from my business forever because I just did something horribly wrong. So being super receptive to the feedback that we can get from people who don't pay us anything can be helpful. Also, I will say take that with a grain of salt, because some people will give us feedback and never invest in us, but. And sometimes we just have to put that to the side. So keep in mind you're taking feedback utilizing what will work for you and leaving what won't, but taking it seriously nonetheless. What I would say to protect your boundaries is most likely, whether it's colleague or prospective client, limit these calls to one call per person unless you're getting like an incredible amount of value, because otherwise you'll be spinning your wheels because it could just get to a point where maybe they're getting value and they're not admitting it. And you could just pivot that to a coaching call and offer a charge for that. Because your time is worth money and you do need to value your time. And so if you're not making money off a zoom call, then you should probably find a way to generate income maybe with in person training or something like that. So always being mindful that your, your time is worth money and you do provide a service. So while you can have a meeting of the just limit your time on that just so that you can run a sustainable business that doesn't go broke. So another piece here is if you are finding that you still have a lot of spare time, what I would say is if your goal is to network and build community and find new people to collaborate with, never underestimate the power of a part time job. So the reason I say that is because you can learn business lessons without paying paying the price. The business pays the price. So you could have a really tough interaction with a customer and you could be working a retail job or something and you learn communication skills, but you didn't lose the customer. That business lost the customer. You still got your hourly wage, you still got what you came for, and most likely you'll retain the position. The other thing is you can network with colleagues and customers who could be lasting connections beyond the role ending. So an example being is you could be working with somebody at a shoe store and then 10 years from then you could still be connected with them because you created such a strong connection. Maybe at that point they need your service and you wouldn't have met them had you not been open to working that part time job. It can help get you out of your industry echo chamber. So some people will find that the noise of their industry gets so loud that they get distracted from the task at hand. And it can be super helpful to get into a different environment, to kind of reflect on things and to get new perspectives and to kind of see things through the lens of maybe the general population. It can clarify your marketing, it can clarify how you communicate with people who might want to work with you, knowing that not everybody eats, sleeps and Breathes fitness. Some people talk about things like Game of Thrones and gardening and all kinds of other stuff. So it just helps with your interpersonal skills and at the same time it'll help with your bank account so you can finance your investments in yourself. If you wanted to invest in coaching, if you wanted to invest in something to grow your business, something like a barista job could not only help with your communication presentation skills because you're face to face with people, it would also help to finance these goals that might not be feasible. If you were just relying on your industry specific income and then by investing in yourself with that, then you're likely to speed up the process of growth for yourself. It's not going to be an overnight thing, but it could certainly be at a much faster rate than if you did everything by yourself through trial and error. So one of the other opportunities here is when you're looking at these part time opportunities, sometimes it can be a very strategic opportunity. Opportunity where you're not only gaining value from the wage, but you're also gaining value from the company. Whether it be an apparel company, a fitness company, fitness equipment company, meal prep companies, all those align with most fitness businesses. I myself have had positions with Lululemon twice now. And both of those are very strategic because it gets you around people who are the movers and shakers in your local community. Community. It connects you with great learning opportunities, you get lots of training, you get to practice presentations in some instances, depending on your role, sometimes it gets you more exposure to the greater community. There's a lot of opportunity there. And if you have the bandwidth and the time and the need for that income, then I would say do it. Rather than wondering how you're going to make that increment of income. Just fill in the gaps until the point where your business outgrows that. And then you don't have time to do this part time stuff anymore. And even if you are super busy doing something for maybe like five hours a week, I personally believe there's not significant detriment to that, not significant harm. So if you wanted to keep up like a retail job and it allowed you to keep the discount for the clothes and stuff like that, that can be a lasting, positive, mutual setup. Because then you're outfitted in the stuff that makes you feel confident, you look like a professional, you're still having a new outlet to be around like minded people and people who might want your services outside. And it's just a solid setup. I wouldn't say to do a part Time thing that didn't bring you joy, but if it was something that you actually enjoyed, I'd say go for it and just find the hours that works for you and keep it going for as long as what's sustainable for you. So when it comes to mentors, something that I think is important is establishing formal or informal mentors in your life, not only inside your industry, but also outside of your industry. So when I think about that, I'm thinking about people who have nothing to do with the fitness industry and they've demonstrated business skills, maybe they have, like a slightly different lifestyle. So I can see a fresher perspective. Sometimes I'm thinking about mentors in terms of family members or close friends and just like understanding how to navigate changes in life. Because if you're in your 30s and you have a mentor who's in their 50s, they can kind of help you understand how to navigate changes as we age. Because despite the fact that we're working on or in our business, we are humans and we go through a lot of different processes and emotions. So you want to have people that are a few steps ahead of you, that can be someone who can listen to you, someone who can give you advice and support, support and just emotional support. And if you just keep it just a fitness, you're limiting yourself on the amount of character growth and emotional intelligence that you could possibly have. So by setting a guideline to have both in fitness and out of fitness, I feel like that'll help you out the most. So they should be people that you'd be able to see yourself trading places with. And it's a little bit nuanced there because I think it's important to also be open to learning from people who are a little bit different from you. But when you're all in on learning from somebody, you should be able to kind of see yourself switching into their shoes. So if you want to be a parent one day and you're learning from someone who's a parent, I think that's a pretty good match. If you wanted to learn to lift heavier and the person who lifted the most happened to not have kids, that's fine too. So just looking at the context of the situation, I think is the most important thing when it comes to building a business, you want to find somebody who's been able to build business as a parent. If you want to be a parent, and when it looks to building a business and being able to travel, you want to be able to find somebody who's been able to build a business. While being able to also travel sustainably while keeping their business healthy and afloat. One of the other points that I wanted to bring up on this episode was how valuable it can be to take part in communities of hobbies that are detached from your typical communities but still align with your values or goals. An example could be maybe you are in a gym as a contractor like myself. And so I can see communities like the powerlifting community and the Olympic lifting community, because I'm a gen pop trainer trainer. And I could join them and they would be very aligned, but they're almost like too similar to what I do. So it's just going to have so much crossover. So then what I would suggest in contrast with that would be something like an improv club or maybe like a community neighborhood group. Maybe it's just a group of people that has barbecues or fundraisers. Maybe it's a church group. One thing I've benefited from personally is jiu jitsu, because you're still around, very ambitious, very like tenacious, strong people, but it's such a diverse collection of people that you just get a new outlook on things. Another option could be a climbing group. Whether it be outside on hikes or indoors on a climbing wall. Then you're still aligned with fitness, but maybe you're seeing some fresh faces that you might not have seen otherwise. By being part of these groups and communities, you're not only diversifying the exposure that you get to different personalities and people and demographics, but you're also helping yourself towards your goals. It helps you to be accountable to your own wellness and your own just personal development. Because without having something a little bit external, sometimes our careers can take us away from our own ambition. So the reason that I bring that up is because if you have a really good network, it won't matter as much if you're burnt out. So what I want to say is a well connected, burnt out person will probably be isolated. A well connected, thriving person is a force in any industry that they enter. So if you can reflect on times that you felt the most momentum, it's very likely that it had something to do with how well you were taking care of yourself as well. So perhaps you're someone who entered the industry because you started taking care of your health and now you want to do it for others. You want to find ways to sustain that throughout your career so that you don't start to deteriorate the service that you're providing to others, or so that you don't start to slip when it comes to the concept of leading by example and by having something a little bit more external that allows you to work on your fitness or your personal development or just competing or chasing a meaningful goal that can help keep you accountable to that, to help keep you in line. So when I talk about competing, I want to say you should be sure to find something you're competing for aside from money. So a lot of people have their financial goals and they'll have like different targets, but you want to detach from that a little bit and find something that's more towards like an accomplishment, something that can be seen and felt. So it'll help you set the boundaries necessary to get proper training, nutrition and rest. So the example that I would say is if you're in jiu jitsu, set the goal to get to the next belt level. So it's not necessarily going to come with a cash prize, although some competitions will, but it will come with this sense of accomplishment and it's also going to require a lot of just regiments from you. You are going to have to go to a certain amount of training, you're going to have to be adherent to your nutrition, you're going to have to work very hard, you're going to have to keep going when it gets difficult. And even if we transpose this to climbing, if you want to get to a certain rank of climbing or a certain like skill level, you're going to have to keep showing up, you're going to have to battle the adversity when you face injury. You're going to have to recover after you're ill. All these little things that help keep you in line, to keep you at your best so that all of the efforts that you've made towards networking and building connections and learning, learning and surrounding yourself with mentors pay off. So in closing, as we wrap up this episode, I want to remind Everybody that the PT Profit podcast is actually donating $20 for every review of the show during the month of November 2022. So if you take a screenshot of your review on Apple Podcasts and send it to me, Chris Bimson Fitness.com I'll be sure that that donation gets made and we will certainly appreciate it as it helps this show grow, helps to get out to more like minded people like you, and helps more people thrive in this industry. So I hope that this helped and if you have any questions, you can find me on Instagram at Christian Little and Thank you for listening.

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