Ep102: My 2025 Reflection: How I Tripled Income, Bought Back Time & Built a Team

Alrighty, team. Episode 102 I believe Matt from the PT Profit, Leverage and Lifestyle show. Hope you're having an amazing day so far. I'm doing a bit of self reflection today on this episode. I'm going to show you, show you what I did to be able to triple my income in 2025 and how you can do the same thing for your business in 2026. And the moral of the story is it comes down to one decision, which was I made the decision that I wanted to go all in on my business and I found someone that could help me, that had got the proven track record to help people in my situation before. So I'm going to give you, I'm always being open and transparent. I'll give you my numbers in terms of revenue that I've done in my business over the last 12 months and then I'm going to give you a bit more tactical stuff in terms of what I actually did to achieve these, these numbers. I've got a couple of questions I'm going to ask myself to give you guys some insights. But the first thing I did was I hired a mentor. I actually hired him November 2024. And then I've just been working with them for a bit over 12 months now and I've tripled or pretty pretty much tripled the business during that time. So the first thing I would say is if you're on the fence of working with me or working with anyone, then this is proof of what's possible. When you find someone that's done, done what you want. Key, keyword there is done what you've, what you've done and what you, what you want. Sorry, not done what you've done, done, done what you want to do and then work with them and copy what they've done. It's, it's not rocket science to be successful. You find someone that's done what you, done what you want to do and then just work with them until you achieve it, then that's exactly what I did. I'm not at my overall goal, but I'm, yeah, I'm getting closer and closer. It takes obviously a bit of time to do these things. So let's go through how, let's go through the actual numbers first. So I'm going to go into 2024 for a second and just give you guys some context because business is a long term game. The whole point of business is to keep playing the game. And so many people have a short term mindset regarding business and there's going to be ups and downs all the time. And I'm going to go through what that essentially looks like. So for majority of 2024, I was still doing PT, right? Still doing face to face PT for the majority of 2024. And then October 2024 is when I moved from face to face to online. Okay. So majority of my months for my business coaching was around 6 to 8k per month. For majority of 2024, I had a couple of months where I did big numbers like 40k in one month. A few months where I did 15 to 20k, but majority of them were around 6 to 6 to 8k per month. Now I started working with my mentor in November. Instantly, Instantly. So this is interesting. So I went from like 6 to 8k a month for most of it. And then September, October I did 11k, November 16k, and December did 23k. So I doubled my business in the first 60 days of working with XYZ Mentor. Okay. That is the power of mentorship. So if you're curious about working with me and you want to possibly get some help with your business, whether it's face to face or online, reach out to me right now. Send me a message called Send me the message of hybrid and let's see if we can actually help you. I don't work with everyone. Okay? So it's not going to be some crazy sales pitch. I don't work with everyone. You need to be a good fit for our program to be offered a spot. No, no one can just join the program. You need to need to make sure it's the right fit. But let's go into 2025 so a lot more consistent. I decided to go all in on, all in on my business coaching. So I'm still an online trainer to this day, but this is not including my online PT income. Okay. And this is just my business business revenue. So I'm not going to go through every single month because it obviously fluctuates. And same with PT income. Like sometimes I've been like 2025. I've had one month at 13k, for example, and my highest month has been 33k. Like consistently I'm. I'm hovering between 20 to 30k in income for my business right now. And I have done more than at the start of this video I said I tripled it, but I've actually done more than that because I was hovering below 10k. Now it's at least, perhaps at a bare minimum between 20 and 30. But anyway, that's not the point. The whole point here is that I wanted to get a different result in 2025 and I worked with someone that could deliver that result. Now, by the way, this wouldn't have happened unless I put in the work to do it right. So many people go into coaching programs and they just expect everything to be done for them. Like some people will offer a done for you service, but long term, you need to learn the skills to be able to do it yourself. All right? You need to be able to have the leadership to be able to do it yourself. So when I say, you know, I got all these results, it's because I've actually done the work as well. So much has changed in the last 12 months and it's amazing how much you can achieve in 12 months when you are on a set, set goal. So a couple of things that I actually set out at the start of 25 to achieve this is what some of my goals were. Some of the key things I want to point out here, the first one was 50k per month was my goal and to get 56 clients. We didn't obviously achieve that goal, but we're, we're getting close. So the whole idea is like shoot for the moon and you'll shoot for the stars. You'll end up at the moon, whatever, whatever the saying is. So if I just, if I set my goal at 30k, I probably would have only hit 20k. But because I said myself go at 50, I'm pushing myself a bit more to get towards that goal. 20, $26 get to 90k. So we'll see how we go in 2026. I had heaps of holidays, so Queenstown, Europe, Fiji. I ended up going to Mexico as well. And we actually, we didn't end up going to Europe, but I ended up going to Mexico and leverage what's a key one on there as well. I've had a huge year in leverage. Let me explain what I mean by that. So for those who don't know, I was a face to face PT for five years and October 2024 I decided to. October 2024 I decided to move all my clients from face to face to online. And I think I initially I didn't, I didn't lose a single client. Like some people tried it, but they didn't like it, of course. But I retained most of my clients and at that stage I didn't have that many clients because I was just kind of going through the motions. I was focusing on the business coaching side of things. So I didn't do a single bit of marketing for probably like 18 months from my PT business, which was on purpose, but in terms of leverage, I got back so much time because I wasn't in the gym doing sessions, trading time for money. I moved my clients to online, which enabled me to do more business coaching. Now the first thing that I did with my new business coach was I implemented a group model, a leverage model. Previously I was doing all one on one stuff, Everyone get one on one stuff. Now in our program right now we still offer the one on one stuff as well to compliment the group coaching. So we do like events. So just give you guys a bit of an idea. We, we do three events per year for our clients, all in a group aspect. We do two group coaching calls every single week. We do planning sessions every eight weeks. These are all as a group, so people get to connect to and form a community. People still get one on one coaching calls when they need them, but it's not booking like every single week like I previously used to do. So I've got so much time, like literally right now I've got a coaching call, a group coaching call today at 12. And then I've got nothing else in my calendar apart from the cleaner. We have a cleaner that comes this afternoon. I've pretty much got nothing else. So I'm purely working on the business. Yes, I'm obviously still communicating with my clients, but there's nothing booked in my calendar. Yesterday I had nothing booked in my calendar. So I, I am full of leverage right now. Leverage meaning I can choose what I do with my time and more importantly, I've got time to work on the business, which is the most important part because yesterday I didn't sit here doing nothing, although I had to click it on in the background. I wasn't sitting here doing nothing. I was updating onboarding videos. I was training a new team member that's starting with us. And by the way, if you haven't seen where we just hired another coach, Scott, he's going to jump on board as well. So we've got a team of five now, which is super exciting, which I'll go through in just a second. But I'm just preparing for 2026. I'm not just sitting here doing nothing type of thing. I'll never do nothing because I'll get too bored. So that's what I mean by leverage. So let's keep talking about leverage for a bit. I've hired a lot of people, not so much a lot of people. So I hired a Few people that have been part of the team now. And actually this is super interesting that I'm reflecting on this because I actually. So we've got Jason, AKA the big dog, who is ex gym owner, who's still doing PT right now. And we've got la, who's mine, graphic designer, content creation person. Then I've got Jessica, who is lead generation and admin. And now I've got Scott. So there's four others, so five, including me. And how this came about actually is Jason, who actually does all of our systems automations, basically all operations side of things. He actually reached out to me and said, hey, I love what you're doing. Um, yeah, it might not be the right time, but I'd be keen to do some, do some stuff with you. He actually reached out initially for, for sales because he's a salesperson as well. I was like, oh, cool, okay. Yeah, well, not right now, but I think in the future I'll definitely need someone for sure, kind of. His background is quite, quite heavy in sales as well. So we actually tested this in a number of different roles. So right now he does the operational stuff, which is what he really enjoys now. But at the start we actually did like, he was a closer for me. He was doing appointment setting, which it didn't really work out. But the whole point is we tried it, we tested the data or we tested it and analyzed the data and we figured out it wasn't really propelling the business forward as it, as it should do. So we just changed the role. And you, you got to pivot, you got to try things and you got to pivot for what, what works and what's not working. And that's the whole point of tracking the numbers. If we didn't analyze the numbers, we wouldn't actually know what was happening. So we've got Jason, who does operations, we got LA, who's been with me for 12 months now. She does all my social media content on all of it now. But I've got a video, I've got a videographer that, that we do content every fortnight. We shoot about two hours worth of content. And if you, if you, if you like the new content that we're making, by the way, just let us know. So I've got two people on social media. Then I've got Jessica who does lead generation for me on so organically generation plus admin or general tasks. And literally like, if I was to go back and if I, if I didn't have a team in 2026, the first hire I would make is a VA. A VA like from the Philippines or anywhere outside of Australia to do admin, social media or Legion or all three. It is so worth it to have someone that specializes in graphic design or admin that can get rid of all these little tasks that are just taking up your time. And literally every single week I'm giving my VA new tasks to do so I can not have to do it like my, my zero bank reconciliation. I get her to do that now. I get her to update my AI bottom single month with new content. You know, there's so many things I'll probably get her to pay me my, my wage through a software each week soon. There's so many things that I shouldn't need to do as a founder or a business owner that I can focus on sales and marketing. So my role in 2026 is to dominate sales and marketing. That's how we're going to get to 90k per month. Okay. So I need to be active on creating content organically plus paid advertising and I need to be nailing my sales process, finding the right people. That's what I'm focusing on. Jason's focusing on operational stuff so he's going to manage the team. We've got LA is doing the social media content. That doesn't really change. Jessica's doing the lead gen. That doesn't really change. And we've got Scott who's recently come into the team. He's starting in a couple of weeks with us. He's a client of mine. He's gone from 2k per month to 17k per month in 12 months working with us. He's going to be the coach or a coach in our community. So I'm still going to be doing coaching as well. But Scott's going to handle a lot of the coaching side of things as well. Like more the one on one stuff, client check ins, that type of jazz where I can still focus on creating content for my clients, all the newer strategies, et cetera, and then also focusing on the marketing side of things. So that's a little bit of insight on kind of how I run my business, which is pretty cool. The exciting thing is because 2025 was all about leverage and building the right team. Now that I've got the right team, I shouldn't really need to have many new team members for 2026. Everything is solid. And by the way, I've never had anyone leave my. I've had no one leave in the last 12 months in terms of my team which is super cool because a lot of people struggle with this. Uh, I did unfortunately have to terminate one of my VAs previously. Um, but I think I found a better one which is, which is awesome. But moral of the story is 2025 is all about leverage and building the right team in order for me to scale. So now 2026 is all about, all about scale and focus on sales and marketing and growing the income. Because when you get to, you know, right now, like, and I'll be open, honest, like if we're making 20 or 30k a month, it still cost me probably like 15 to 20k a month to run the business with all the expenses that I've got, ads, subscriptions, paying the team, paying myself, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But realistically my expenses shouldn't really change too much from 2026. So I'll probably, will probably spend 20, maybe 25k a month max. But once I start making, you know, 40, 50, 60K per month, that's pretty much all profit. So now I've got myself into a really good position where my, my expenses are pretty much fixed apart from ad spend and I can really focus on driving the numbers, which is what you want. So hope that gives you some insights team into kind of what I've been working on. A couple of questions that I did want to go through that made the biggest difference for me or the biggest difference for me was the team. The first thing was the model. I stopped trading time for money. That was the biggest thing, stop trading time for money. And I moved to a leveraged business model. So if you're a face to face personal trainer, we need to implement a hybrid coaching model. So you stop trading time for money. You're still going to trade time for time for money to a degree, but we're going to start to leverage you out of that and then eventually go into more of an online space. So yeah, the first thing I would do in 2026 is I would hire a VA. Virginia can be anywhere as, as cheap as three to five dollars an hour if you get them through maybe five to ten hours worth of work to start with. You know, five hours at five dollars an hour is what, 25 bucks a week? Yeah, absolutely ridiculous. Ridiculously cheap. They can do, you know, failed payments. They can, they can help you with some basic content creation, for example, to help get some time back for you so you can focus on, you know, getting more clients or serving your clients better, etc. Etc. The other biggest thing for me has been paid Advertising. I spent a lot of money in 2025 on paid ads. And realistically I have, I haven't got like a massive return on investment for ads. I've probably doubled the like, obviously, because you've got like cash collected from ads and then you got contracted value. So that extra money is still coming in from those sales from ads. So overall it would be like a 5 to 6 return, 5 to 5 to 6x return on investment for ad spend. And I just haven't got that, that cash from it. So, like, we're probably spending, we're spending between 2 to 4k a month on ads right now. But 2026, I want to take that up to, you know, 5 to 10k per month. That's going to really enable us to unlock new, new heights and new clients coming through the doors. Because we need, we need to hit 11 clients per month to get these results. And right now we usually average between four, around five, maybe six clients a month right now. So essentially, if the metrics are the same, we basically just need to double what we're spending. So I need to spend at least 5k a month on ads. Okay. And that's the main stuff I wanted to cover today. I just want to give you guys some insights into the year that I had and give you a little bit of insights into what I've been working on. But for the people that listen, listening to this context. So listen to this podcast is if you're listening to this in 25, 2025 didn't go how you wanted. This episode is proof that one year of focus decisions can change everything. And if that, if that's you, if you didn't have the 2025 that you hoped, now's the time to reach out. Let's start working together in 2026 and actually get you the results that you should have got in 2025, but we'll get them in 2026 for you. So reach out to me right now. Send me the message of, Send me the message hybrid and I'll see if we can, I'll see if we can help, but I'll leave it there for today's episode. Hope that was insightful for you. I certainly enjoyed that conversation. It's so good to do a little bit of reflection for where you've come and look back and to see, like, there's so many things that didn't go go to plan as well. I even mentioned some stuff around Jason, around getting him through appointment setting, getting him to closing, and it just wasn't really working. We weren't getting the same return on investment as if I was doing it. So we made the decision to change that. And the whole part of the whole part of the reason why we had such good progress this year is because we had a community of people that we were part. We were partnered with, like in my mentors group that we could ask questions. They can give us direct feedback based on the data that we had. And there was no emotion attached to it. It was just based on logic, which is what you need to do in business. So it's not just about like getting help from me, for example. It's being part of a community of people who also had the same desire and same drive to want the desired result that you want as well. And you all kind of bring yourself up together to achieve those goals. So yeah, I might leave it there. So also, drop me some, drop me a DM with some of the goals that you achieved in 2025. Give us some feedback. What did you guys achieve? Let us know. But anyway, I'll see you in the next episode. Have an awesome day. And remember, if you do want some help, make sure you message me hybrid, and we'll see if we can help you out.