Ep31: Building a Successful Business From Your Home Garage with Craig Justin!

Craig Justin turned his home garage into a fitness business in 2020 while working night shifts, then went full-time after resigning from traffic control. He grew Focused Health using local Google visibility, Bark leads, and pamphlet drops, then added his wife Laura as a PT and brought in online services alongside semi-private classes.
What's going on, everyone? Matt here for another epic podcast episode. I've got an awesome guest with me today. So we've got Craig from Focused Health and Body Transformations. He actually is relatively local to me, actually, so not too far from where, from where I live. So how are you today, Craig?
I'm good, thank you, Matt. Thank you for having me on today.
All right, warriors champion. So we've obviously, we've been friends on social media for a little while. Like, obviously you would have seen my journey because I was, you know, pretty much the suburb beside, beside you when, when I was growing my PC business. But yeah, you've obviously had some pretty, pretty awesome success in the industry, both on your personal journey but also business wise. So I'm super keen to, to dive in. But for those who don't know who you are, do you want to give us a bit of a summary of who you are, where you're located, what type of stuff you do in the industry?
Yeah, sure. So Matt's already introduced me. My name's Craig. So I own Focused Health and Body Transformations in Narangba, little suburb on the north side of Brisbane. Working with, working with obese, overweight people trying to get their life back, generally in pretty messy situations, let themselves go. We're working probably range about 25 to 50 years old, semi private, out of the garage at my home. So nice and. Nice and close and intimate and. Yeah, that's about it.
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I definitely wanted to get you on because it's a different perspective from, you know, being in a, in a gym where you obviously have to pay rent and stuff for having. So it's a different scenario. But do you want to run us through, I suppose, how you got into the industry? Because you've got a bit of a story there.
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I do. So I'll try and punch through this real quick and won't try and ramble on too quick too much. So I guess it all started like Laura and I, like, we're sort of childhood sweethearts and my wife as well is in the business now. We'll get to that in a bit. That will roll into what's happening here. So 2010, we got married. I've known Laura for a long time. We met each other. I was 19, out of school. Laura was 17, still in school. She's now 41, I'm now 44. So we've known each other for a very long time. Mucked around a little bit. When I was young, I was always the one mucking around. But we got married in 2010. We were always like I was always big. Yeah always well over 100 kilos still. I was sporty. Like I held it well. Still six foot like held it pretty well but always felt chunky. You've got got a lot of in high school for how big I was. So yeah. We got married in 2010, 2013. We had our first baby Lily, my oldest. And we were, we got to that point. Lily had just finished. Laura had just finished her pregnancy and we were both huge. Like she was big. We were always big and I think I was about 113 kilos at that point. So I was, I was big and over it. So 2014 we started the fitness journey. Started accumulo. We had a treadmill and an elliptical machine all the time because cardio was the thing that was going to help burn all this fat off. So we used to just log ourselves on that and no no nutrition nothing like just kept doing the same with the, with the nutrition. So was yo yoing for a long time. Had a few, had a. Started to acquire some some equipment. Once we started to do a bit of research. We started to get you know the Celsius barbell, got a little bench started to put that in between. Still didn't get rid of the elliptical and the cardio and stuff but you got some mats down in the garage. Started to get a little section of space in the garage. Started to lift, do bench press. You know started to incorporate some iron into our, into our what we were doing 2016 we lost the weight. We still weren't really weight training like didn't really sort of have any idea with the weight training heaps of cardio. We started to venture into like the seven minute workout. That was a thing about 10 years ago. And the freeletics was another one that we got really into. God workouts made us super fit. That was like so you got a time limit to do 50 push ups, 50 squats and 50 ball slams or something. You just get better at doing that time. Anyway they were gold workouts and got us, got us quite cardio fit. Laura was doing stuff like watching Kayla and Cena. She was big back then a couple of years ago Michelle bridges and then 2016 was the next bub so we sort of got traction and then the next bub came. We weren't really like we're still doing a lot of dumb. We're still still lost the weight. But we were, we were still yo yoing at that point in 2016. So at that point 2017, I was doing night shift. I was doing. I did a lot of stuff randomly when I was young. Working in, worked in cooking, did some car detailing. Just did random stuff. Didn't really have anything that was set on and then fell into traffic control. And that was, that was doing night shift because that's where the money was. The money for the day shift. I wouldn't wake up for that amount of money. You were getting paid to stand in the pissing hot sun for like nine hours holding a stop that. Yeah, like it was ridiculous. I don't know how these guys do it, but night shift was the go. We're starting at 4pm, not getting home till 6am like huge shifts. Working on the road at night, like fatigued, hardcore. So we had a three year old, four year old. Oh yeah, three and a half year old new Bob. So then 2017 came, started to study because I did start to. Traffic was not going to be what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Like it's not, it's not sustainable. It was too hard. Like we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be awake at night now. Like we're not nocturnal. We sleep during the night and we wake up during the day. That's what it was. Just really messy and like following these big people on online, you know, fit influences and stuff saying if you can stop doing night shift, stop doing night shift, like that's number one. If you can't, like nurses and stuff, you feel for these people. They're all generally on night on rotating shifts. Like they won't always be on night shift forever where traffic control, if you're on night shift until you stop doing traffic control or you want to go to days, you're doing night shift. So you know, we don't get a roster. It's always nice. So I took its toll. Had, had had good success. Got to my lightest ever. Doing stupid like keto and paleo and stuff like that. Did all the stupid. Running around kilometers and kilometers. Pushing two kids in a pram, still on the cardio train, trying to do night shift, trying to do get, you know, trying to find out like how to do this. Anyway, I started to get some momentum, decided to study PT in 2017, finished that in 2018. Had a really good face to face mentor as a part of the course. You'd know you've got to do your six weeks or eight weeks of three days at the gym face to face with a mentor. He was awesome. He was like full into his rehab and stuff. So he was like, he was a great mentor, Learned heaps off him. So I was doing all that study through 2018 while still trying to do night shift and support a family. Mid 2019, Laura lost her job. She got laid off. Sort of got into a like, what are we going to do? I didn't really want her to go back to work. So I was really heavy in the night shift. We moved houses, made a bit of money on that. And then I had a motorbike. So we sold that and decided to start setting up the garage, decking it out, floors, mirrors, cage, dumbbells, kettlebells, every single thing. So from the house we actually made a bit of money. We paid off all that debt and then the bike, technically we own. So we sold that and then that paid for decking out the gym in the garden. So yeah, got. Got a awning over the driveway. Just little things. Got a shed built, moved all the out of the garage so we had the space to get this gym happening. Mid, mid, late 2019, started to train some friends and family for free. Starting to get experience writing new programs. Sorted mum out down at the park with her stuff. She wanted to do a bit of stuff. Just started to help friends and family get, you know, get a little bit of experience writing programs, get them some results and stuff. That, that all started to happen really well. So that was good. So then 2020 focused health and Body Transformations was born. Okay. So we created a website, got the Google search planted, we got Internet presence, we started to. We used bark. I don't know if you. Have you heard of bark?
Yeah, yeah, I've used bark. One flare as well. Have you heard of that one?
We did get one flare. We had pretty, we had pretty good success with this stuff. And I got the first initial clients through. So we got the first clients in January 2020, had another new baby. He was a Covid baby. 2020, that was the third one now. So yeah, so January 2020, we all know then Covid hit. So we just started to get new clients. Gym was set up, we were starting to get a few clients in. I was coming home at night shift at 4am trying to stay awake to do my first 6am clients. So to this question after this about the struggles we went through. This was the shit like getting home at 4am trying to like hold the eyes open from dawn tonight, trying to stay awake so I could do my first couple of clients at 5am or 5:30 and then go to sleep and wake up at 2pm so new Bob Covert hit Just yeah, lucky. And I'll say, I say things, I say this to everyone, say this to all my clients. That things happen for a reason. And we didn't, I didn't shut down night shift. We weren't that confident. So I kept night shift on the side. I did shorten my hours, but they were always willing to throw me hours whenever I need them. So as covert hit with the clients I did have, I didn't move online and do any of that stuff. I'd said, I'll be down in the park, I'll be doing my workout. If you're just happened to be down there and just run up that hill over there and do some ball slams at the top and then come back down and do some body weight squats and yeah, if you just happen to be in that area then you know, we'll just social distance and we'll just do that. So kept a little bit of money, kept the clients I had, that was all good. And then once they started to release the, the, the lockdowns and like that, we moved forward. Still doing traffic at that point, mid-2020, we started to ramp up again. It's really started to tone down the hours of traffic control almost to like 10 to 15 a week. It was just, and it was just this level of like ramping up the business and still doing traffic. So still supporting the family, still making ends meet with the money. Mid 21 was complete letter of resignation. Talk to Laura. We're going all in. We're just going to make this work. It's done. I can't do traffic anymore. We need to do what we can to make this business work. If we have to eat stew and rice, then that's what we're doing.
So.
We then we had a bit of problem with lead gen. So bark wasn't like we were pretty much only really using bark and we were winging it for a little bit. We got a few referrals at that point. It wasn't great. So then I'm like, what are we going to do? We started to struggle. We started to get a bit scared that we weren't picking up the clients that we needed to survive. So I picked up UberEats was going out a couple of nights a week to deliver Uber to. Wanted to drop business cards in the bags and stuff but oh man, that's.
Actually a good idea.
Yeah, it was, it was good, man. And like look, it's a mud ski. You really got to do a lot of deliveries but you get out there and they have like, like they do with rideshare. You have the nights where you'll actually earn more money. Being out in certain times of the night when Uber's busy, like when people are eating, obviously being out at that time, you're going to get 1.5 times the.
Yeah.
To be in that time slot. Yeah. So it was okay. Like were weeks I was earning 800 going out four nights a week for four hours. Like, you know, it was okay. Made it anyway. Yeah. So better than night shift. Yeah. I was always complaining, but Laura's like, do you want to. Do you want to go back and do traffic control at night? I'm like, no, man, we do not want to go back there.
Yeah.
So it was just, it was. Anyway, that was that late 2020, late 22. We started to really think that it was going to be beneficial to start moving towards the nutrition side of things. Obviously we were, we would stay in our lane and nutrition obviously has a big part to do with people and their results, but really wanted to be backed and have a diploma or have a, have a. Be certified as a nutritionist to, to really look, I am a certified nutritionist. This is what we're doing like that sort of title, you know. So I picked up that. That was through Martin McDonald's in Europe. That was. So it is actually recognized as a level 5 diploma in nutritional science. So that's awesome. At that time, Laura went into the pt. So we decided. I said, look, I think if we really want to move this business forward, you don't want to go back to work, we're gonna have to. I really think you should become a pt. Like we, we started to really love what we were doing. She was doing all the admin stuff, the website, the Instagram, the Facebook. She was doing all that side, the books, running the business from that side. Like I was running all the face to face and looking after every client weigh ins, doing the results, doing the spreadsheets, doing the graphs. All that shit was me. She was on that other side.
Yeah.
I think, look, Laura, let's do it. You go do your PT course. So we were both studying in 22, Laura already when she left school, she did, she went to uni and did business management and marketing and stuff like that. So she had a good idea of, you know, so she was, she was pretty good setting up a website and stuff like that. So everything, even when you log onto a website today, it's all made by Laura. That's not made by anyone, which is pretty cool. Instagram's all good. So yeah, 2023 study was complete and now we've both. That's the timeline of that. So now 20, 23, 24, we've both finished studying. Laura's in there now taking on clients. Yeah.
Awesome.
That's how we came to where we are, like from. From 20.
That's awesome. Quite a, quite a timeline there. So you've obviously. Yeah. So you've obviously put in the work yourselves to figure out, you know, how to actually get the results, which I think is important as a PT as well. Like. Yeah, like if you don't know how to get the results for your clients or you haven't been through what they're going to go through and you know, it makes it hard to relate to their situation or what they're going through. Especially like with people, you know, they get addicted to fast food and type of stuff. So y. Y. That's a huge thing.
Yeah.
So. So right now. So you're both kind of. Are you both like full time in the business or like part time?
Yeah, yeah, no, we're both full time. So yeah, we just pick and choose. Like obviously if there's more of Laura's clients in the class, like it's not like once they settle down, you know, you know what it's like. Like they're very full on in the first couple of weeks because we're trying to. They're basically. And we've been doing dumb for the last 20 years. Like these guys, like their habits are ingrained. Like. Yeah, they have zero. They've been completely on the mindless spectrum. So they've been doing. I just, I don't know what I'm gonna eat for dinner tonight. Uber. And this is the big thing, man, about Uber. Like this has come to light and only really heavily in the last half a decade. Like we don't need to move, we don't even need to go. We don't even get in our car to go and get food. Now it just rocks up.
Yeah.
So we're getting even lazier. There's no drinking water, there's no non essential activity. There's no, There's. People are getting so laziness in such a bad place. So once that, once that settles down for them in the, in the, in the beginning, then we choose which classes we want to take. If it's small, Laura's heavy, heavy client of Laura, she'll do the class. If it's more heavy for me, then I'll take it. Like it's no point her taking 400 plus. Guys in a class, I'll do that class, you know, but if it's more the majority women or her clients, then she will take that class. But we're always available 247 via text. And that's all part of our package that we put together for our clients. So they always have access to us and us.
So like, are you only doing the semi private or do you do one on one as well?
We have the one on one option, man. But you know, you know as well as I do that's an expensive tmn. So when they complain about the price for semi private, I'm like, well, I actually do have a price that's. I actually do have a bigger package than that. Oh no, no, that's fine.
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I actually, I made the transition to do semi private a couple of years in for that reason. Like, obviously I still had the higher tier one on one option but like as you said, people like, oh no, I'll just do the cheaper one. That's, that sounds good for me.
They always ask and you know, you've done plenty of sales calls where they're like, have you, have you got anything cheaper? I'm like, no, actually I don't, but I do have something more expensive if you'd like me to go run through that option with you. They're like, no, that's, that's not. That first one sounded pretty good.
100. So there was, there was obviously a fair few pivotal moments there that you. Yeah. Pretty much had to go all in by the sounds of it. Which is in my opinion where you obviously get the best results because you don't have, you don't have any other option but to, but to make exactly right. Yeah. So I'd love to, you know, dive into what it was like when you. I wrote a couple of things down for some pivotal moment moments I'd love to dive in. Like how the transition was for when you, when you decided to. Or actually talk us through, like the conversations you were having with, with your wife about resigning from the traffic control stuff. What was that time? Like, that obviously would have been pretty stressful and challenging time.
It was. Look, I think like we had, I think what made us do it in the end was that we had enough clients to survive. Like. Yeah, it was, it was just, I don't know, it was just such a fine line. We just, it was either going to stay like that forever and it was just going to be. We weren't going to obviously. If you, if you've always Got something to fall back on. Then you've always. You don't have that. You don't. There's not that energy to push forward and just make it work. It's silly. So something's got to go and it's, it's. We're just going to make it work, man. If I have to go and stand down at Narang by train station with my trolley with business cards like the Jehovah's, talk to people that walk past me to come for a free trial, then that's what it was going to be. You know, 100. That's. That was what. That was the. Where we were heading. Like, I'll go stand on a roundabout. It's like, it doesn't, it's just what we had to do. Go to stalls, drop off pamphlets at. Swimming where the kids were doing. Drop off pamphlets at, you know, put a, put a community notice board business thing on the, at Coles Woolies, you know, with the tabs that you pull off. That's what you got to do. You just make it work. And I got leads from all doing all that stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
100%. It's. I think it's like, like I, I've had plenty of moments in my business where I had. Had to just, just figure it out. Just make it work. Just had to do whatever, whatever you had to do to, to make it work because there was no other option. You had to make it work because, you know, you got a family, you got, you got to figure that's what it was.
And I think, I think once we, once we came across the Uber thing, that was a game changer. That was pretty good. So we actually, we probably actually did go a little bit backwards. Like, we were good. When I pulled the pin on the traffic, I'm like, I'm good. And then we. Then like a month later or whatever, we had a bit of a drop off and we're like, we're gonna have to do something. Like. So then started seeing ads for Uber. I'm like, I wonder what it takes to be an Uber driver. It's like pizza piss. I'm like, sign up to Uber just automatically like that day. Oh, actually, no. I did get a criminal check that took a couple of days.
Yeah.
As soon as I got that through, I was on the road like that night, like two days. Boom. Making money.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember. Like, I'm sure, you know, if you listen to the podcast, when I was, I was an Uber driver. Oh. Just driving around people. Back when I was a Travel agent, worked, worked, you know, a stead of nine to five, then on the way home I did Uber for three or four hours. And then on the weekends I would study for the course. For the PT course. Yeah, literally this non stop.
Yeah, Hustling man. And that's what you got to do. That's what you do.
Yeah, 100%.
And I look, I think like one of the other things that we talked about before we jumped on this was what, what made us go the route of like doing this garage. Like I think like I'm 44 this year and I think I only really started my health journey when I was like late 20s, 28, 29. I started to, I was, I was big man. I was, I was going to lose, start losing this weight. And I think it was more the journey that gave us like there was always that thought in the back of my head that maybe I need the experience, maybe I need to get on the gym floor, go to Worlds, you know, work on the hustle a bit, you know, try and find like, go down that avenue, you know, like you've done you anytime, you know, working on the floor, trying to. And I think the niche that I wanted to help so like 30 to 50 year old busy men, professionals, don't have time, overweight, type 2 diabetes, like all this, this niche that I wanted to get into, I was not going to find at World Gym on the floor, no way. There's no way that like, yes, you're going to find some and they're going to be there doing the same dumb. So that's why I went this way because that was my niche. My niche was not looking after young 20 year old guys who want to get onto stage and do bodybuilding and you know, powerlifting and like that, that wasn't my niche, man. I wanted to help overweight men put life back in their years. That's what I need. Yeah, for their family because most of the guys coming through here have young kids and they're really overweight, man. Like 140 kilo clients I've got at the moment, like, yeah, new kids, little family, like your years are numbered, man. Like that's who I want to help. That's where my passion is.
Yeah, I think it makes a big difference, especially when you've got that passion and like that's, that's a really good example of, you know, a lot of the time your niche is someone who you used to be.
Yeah.
Like for example, you say you were overweight and you know, you've obviously got you know, kids and stuff now. So that's probably who you're attracting as well.
Exactly.
Naturally. So I feel like a lot of, a lot of PTs, I think, like, obviously I think the stat is like only 80 of or 80 of pts actually like quit the industry within the first six months.
Oh, 100.
Because I think they just try and help everyone.
Yeah, that's right, man. Yeah, absolutely. And look, sometimes we did that in business, like, and Laura, Laura put a stat out here yesterday. What did she say? I think like 70, 70 of leads are female. So I, when I first started, I was, I was wanting to help all these men, but I was getting all these females and because we were trying to make the business evolve, I took them on and actually had some very, very, very good results with fema, but gave me, gave me a lot of confidence and then made me delve into that area of, you know, learning about their menstrual cycle and, you know, diasis recti and started to work with mums and stuff like that. So that was, that was good. And we're still like, probably most of our clients are women. Like some of them do want to work with me, some of them now want to work with Lauren. Like moving into that question that you'll ask is, what's it been like since Laura's come on? That's, that's the answer to that. Like instead of leads coming through where a female would be, I only want to work with a feed, like for example on bark. It's like, do you want to work with female or male or both or don't you don't care. Prefer female, consider male. I'm never going to pay for that lead. I'm not going to pay for that late. But now, even if it says prefer like female only or prefer female would consider male, we're applying for that lead like that and we've got that 50, 50 chance now. Not 80, 20.
Yeah, I love it. So I'm curious to know as well because I, I haven't run a business like yours and I don't work with too many people that do. But I'm, I'm curious how you do most of your lead generation. Is it like through bark or is it, is it all organic through social media or like we have had.
So just naturally, we've never paid Google, but we're very, very high up on Google. So when people look for a PT in Morangba or Kangar, Dakabin, Burbankary, this area, like our area within 10 km, the North Mango Hill I've got clients there like Deception Bay. We're getting clients. We've got five clients from D Bay at the moment. Like they, so when we come up and they're looking for a pt, we're coming up like really hot, like top of the list, which is good for us. We haven't done shit for Google so that's good. But yeah, we still, we still dabble in bark a little bit. But I think the biggest bit of gold, and I can't remember who I heard it from was Own your postcode. Own your postcode. So we started to do pamphlet drops. Now when you, when you look for a company which is very expensive to do a pamphlet drop in your area, they actually find out how many pamphlets they would need to print to deliver to every house in Narangba. So there's actually a number of houses that they know is in Narangba. So there's actually like with this Kinmar Valley that's getting built up here behind on the way between Narangbar and Morocco, Nike Flat Road. There's a huge estate going in there called Kinmar Valley.
Yeah.
But all that gets built, this is all just still dirt. But as of now there's 6,000 homes in Narangma.
Right.
I don't want to be a millionaire.
Right.
Be nice and with, with the, with the future of the business and where we want to lead to, we might, you know, dabble in that one day. But for now I don't want to be a millionaire. I just want to be well into six figures which is cool. We only need 50 clients so you can't tell me that there's not 50 clients in the rainbow all the time.
Yeah.
So we're doing only postcode. We're doing pamphlet drops two to three times a year. We're doing the work. So we print out the map, we get our non essential activity out, we do it in bolt in, in our cutting phase. So we get more steps up and we do all the work man, how good. And we deliver it out and by the time we deliver it and because we're, we're doing it ourselves, you know, two days a week, we're probably dropping off between us like five to six hundred pamphlets every two weeks. So. And then at the rate, the rate that those leads start coming in, it's much nicer to deal with than actually getting a company to drop three and a half thousand pamphlets like that in two days. And you just little phones like, oh, you don't even, you don't even know what to do with 50 people like that, man. So with, with us delivering it by foot, it's actually staggering the areas that we're. We can, we can see where it's coming from. What. There's certain parts of Naremba that are doing, well, way better for our business than other parts of Naranga. So that's a hot zone. When we have a new pamphlet, that's where we deliver first because we've been getting success from that area. Like, there is money pockets in the rainbow.
So are you. So you, you would obviously track where you obviously get those leads from, right?
Yeah, yeah. Everything, man. So we. On the, on the pamphlet, we've got the hello form. That's the first point of call they have to go on there and answer. We get an email, get their phone number, how they heard about us, like what area in Narangbar they're from. So it's just eight questions that they have to fill out. Then we get the form in and then we answer them. We. We have our process of onboarding through that.
Yeah, yeah. It's one thing I learned from a lot of people, like even just talking to people on the podcast is you need to be able to track. Track the data.
Absolutely.
Right.
Yeah.
Without the data, you just. You're going blind.
Yeah, absolutely.
But that's, that's super cool though because, like, I haven't really shared this, but we even did. Like, obviously my gym was in Bethengary, so that's suburb, but we used to do door knocking and get people to come in for like a free trial at the gym.
Yeah.
You know, plenty of people.
Absolutely, bro. Yeah.
I think it's just a matter of how resourceful people are these days. I was just a lot of pts. They always tell me, like, they always struggle with leads, but I'm like, leads should never be an issue. People are more overweight than ever before.
Absolutely, bro.
Yeah.
And look, look, this is the, this is the pamphlet. Like, it cost us $280 to print out 4,000 of them. Like, few, few testimonies. We've always got a new recipe on the back. So even if they did nothing and kept this pamphlet every time like this, like last month we had. Or last, last drop we had a spaghetti bolognese. And then this, this one we've got a sweet potato brownie. So like, you could keep all these. Every time we deliver them, there's a new recipe on the back.
Yeah. Providing more value. I love it.
Yeah, man. Like, and if all they do is just try that recipe and they Go. That's actually pretty good. I wonder, you know, I wonder what else they've got to offer. Like we've got recipe books, we've got VIP Facebook page where all our communities. Yeah. Just we've had clients here. And I, I said, look, so. Because I, once we get on the sales call, then I ask him again. So you said you heard us, you heard about us from the pamphlet. But you know, how, how long ago did you, did you receive the pamphlet? Like, they're like, man, this pamphlet's been sitting on my bench for like four weeks, five weeks, just looking at me. And then I'm like, you know what, I've had enough, man. So I called your number.
Oh, how good? That's awesome. Just go into a different part of the pivotal moments. Yeah. When you both decided to jump into the, to the business.
Yeah.
I'm curious what it's like with the family dynamic because I got two kids now.
Yeah.
So I got a two year old and a, and a seven week old baby. Well, you know, that's obviously got its own challenges, but how do, how do you guys manage, you know, obviously being full time in the business but also, you know, being present with the family.
Yeah, look, I think, look, that's the other thing back to while we made the decision to try and make it work from home. Like, we're only like, I've got a class. Like, this is my morning. Tomorrow morning. I've got two classes. I've got 5am and 6am to wake up at quarter past four, have a shower, have something, have a quick protein shake, wake up. And then I walk down and I open my garage door, turn the light on, open the garage door, set up the equipment, the clients work up. Like, how good's that?
Yeah.
And then I finish and I walk in and my kids are like, hey, daddy. Hi, good morning. Have breakfast is done. Laura's done all that stuff because I'll do the two. But we just, we. It's just huge amounts of communication. Laura normally sits down on Sunday and says, this is all the classes this week. You know, our clients are always really good. If we've got like one client in one class of 6am and they're pretty flexible, we can, we'll always ask the question to see if they can move so we don't need to open up for that session.
Like, yeah, yeah. Yes.
But yeah, it's just like, okay, I'm doing 5pm today. You got to make sure kids are showered, bathed, make sure dinner's on. You're doing Dinner tonight. I'm doing the class. When she comes in, we sit down, we eat dinner. It's just huge communication, man. That's all it is. Just preparation on Sunday, finding exactly what we're doing during the week. And then. All right, so you're doing this, I'm doing that.
That's it. Yeah, I was. I was going to say that. I think a lot of the time it comes down to communication. I've spoken to a few other people that are both partners that in the business. And a lot of the time it just comes down to, you know, who's really good at this. So you do this and then who's really good at the other stuff. And you do that. Yeah. And like, you guys can. Obviously you have things that you. You're both good at, but if you're very clear on who's doing what, as you said, like, you're doing this class, you're doing dinner tonight, you're doing, you know, you're dressing the kids, you're getting ready for school or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's. Obviously there's gonna be challenges still. Nothing ever goes to plan, but. But as long as the communication is there, I think definitely works. How old are your kids these days now?
So my oldest has just turned 11. My middle child is seven and a half, and my youngest is just turned four.
Yeah, nice.
Yeah, so nice. Age gaps. And the. The oldest one's starting to step up now and, you know, take a little bit of sometimes me and Laura, if we have a new client, that's a bit of a struggle and, like, Laura hasn't been doing it as long as I have. Like, I've got the. I'll go in there and I'll push and get a little bit more like, just experience, man. You know, like just authority. And I don't put up with, like. So I'll go in there and, like, push them a bit because we both need to be in there. And then Lily will step up and just look after. Just make sure that the other two are playing nice just for 25 minutes, just while. I mean, I won't stay the whole class, but I'll come in there for a good majority of at least the compound movements and stuff like that and just. Just help Laura out and. Yeah, very good.
Love it. So you had a pretty epic journey so far. So what's the. What's the long term plan? I know you said you obviously don't want to be a millionaire, but obviously you want to do, you know, six figures or multiple Six figures. So is that the plan long term? You're going to keep the home gym or are you thinking of doing some stuff online as well?
Yeah, yeah. So I think. And also I should write this stuff down, where I get this stuff from. But another guy, another guy that I follow, he, his business did a U turn when he actually started to really zone in on the nutrition side of his clients. Like he was a one on one pt, was working on the floor, had a really good business, really profitable business. But he was always struggling with the clients getting like mediocre results. Like, because we're all. Unless you know how much. Until you, until you understand how much nutrition impacts what you're trying to do. Yeah. You and me both know that you can sit on the couch and lose weight, right. Without exercise. Okay. You don't even have to walk. You can still lose it. You can still lose weight. People don't understand that. I think you have to flow. It's like the same journey I had in 2010. I was flogging the out of myself, running kilometers and kilometers and kilometers, doing shitloads of cardio, dripping buckets of sweat because that was the way. And people still think that's the way. That's why you go to Planet Fitness and there's like 50,000 treadmills.
Yeah.
All of them are getting used. It's like so. And until they come to us and we teach them the best way. And this guy transformed his business, went online and just really, really, really hammered the nutrition. And I think now that I have this diploma, I think we will start to like, the business is like 80 face to face and 20 nutrition like now and 20 online.
Yep.
I think we want to, we want to try and reverse that. And the, the reason I have my online clients, about 15 online clients now, but they're all clients that have passed through here. And now I look up in their gym spaces, their reputable gyms, wherever they are, Goals, fitness cartel, whatever worlds, whatever they are. I write their programs and they've been clients of mine for years now. Like I've had still got clients here that have been with me for three and a half years. Like pass through here, dropped all the weight, fell in love with the weights and then now they're on their way their own and they've got their own. I'm writing their program still, but they're out on their own. They leave the nest and they. It's, it's a nice thing to see, man. Like, yeah, 100.
I think it's a really good Transition to have as well like see them face to face, understand the foundations, get the fundamentals right with their form and technique and then they pretty much only need the structure and accountability.
Yeah.
And then I think, I think it's a really good. Well it's relatively simple transition as well. See end up going online and then like long term as well. Then you can pretty much just have the online business if you really wanted to.
That's, that's, that would be the ultimate plan I would say. And you can still put someone on a. You know, all I want you to do is walk for 30 minutes at a decent pace three days a week, four days a week and just look at my guides and watch the videos and of all the content and stuff that I've recorded and what's Basil metabolic rate and educate them around nutrition and what they should be doing when it comes to food in the mouth. And you know, even if we have to, you know, I have clients daily because not a huge tracker of calories. I used to be where I used to get my clients to track load up my fitness pal. Send me your username, make your diary public so I can see, see what you're doing, blah blah, blah. But since I've done this nutrition and it was very, I would say I'm a holistic nutritionist. It's very evidence based, it's very science backed. Yeah. So it's not, there's nothing going on that is not scientifically verified. Yeah. So he was a very non tracker and I think there's lots of wins we can get before we move to my fitness pal. And I think them even sending me screenshots of what they're eating. Like everything that touches your lips today I want to see a photo. My library is just full of plates of food and the shit that my clients are eating because that's the next step. I don't, I don't want them to like fall into the trap of then becoming. Getting a dysmorphia with calorie tracking. Oh, what's in that? Oh you know like and that, that's what can happen. It's that it's one, one level to the next man. You, you introduce tracking. Then they get, they, they get really, oh, should I be eating that? Oh, what's in that? You know, look it up in my finish car. What's one tablespoon of this? Just like it's that whole habit that you don't want to have in the end.
100. I see that all the time. I see people when I'm having consults with people. You know. You know, I know I don't want to attract food. Like, I become too obsessed with what I'm putting in my mouth and sometimes I'll just starve myself because.
Yeah.
Xyz. That people are saying online or whatever. So it's. It's definitely like. Like I've got a sports and nutrition qualification as well. And I don't get anyone to track any food anymore. It's. Yeah, just.
Just like.
You don't need to do massive super strict things as well to get.
No, it's. They don't. That's another thing they don't understand. It's like, I have to eat if I want to lose weight. I've got to do shitloads of cardio and I've got to eat poached chicken and broccoli and brown rice. No, you don't. You just have to watch portion control and you have to just be mindful. As I was talking to you about before with the whole. They're coming from a place of complete mindlessness. 100 mindlessness. They don't. Not that they don't give a man. They're just unaware. You've got to bring that awareness back to mindfulness. Like when you're standing there and you're like, I'm having Guzman. What are we going to have today? All right. Well, Craig was sitting on my shoulder and I had this. This is an example the other day. Like, I was in a mad rush. I wasn't supposed to go into the office. The office called me in the morning. I didn't have an overnight oats ready. I had to rush. There's a Guzman right next to work. I had to eat. What am I going to eat? So she got rid of the bread, she got rid of the rice. She had double eggs, double bacon, and a little bit of avocado on the side. I'm like, beautiful.
That's it. That's it.
No big greasy 250 calorie wrap. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, that. That's progress. For me to see her, like, to say that to me. And she was really proud. I'm like, that's because that's progress. That's mindfulness. That's standing there making a mindful decision about what you're doing. Not just. I'll just get whatever I get. Normally. It's not. She actually made a decision. She looked at it, made the decision, this is what I'm gonna do.
Boom.
Lots of protein.
It's Matt. How good that's awesome. And those like small, small wins over time. Completely agree. So if people want to find out more about you, my friend, or want to follow you on the socials, where do they what's your, what's your handle?
Facebook handle Handle would be focused health and body transformations on Facebook. I think it's focused Underscore health, Underscore body, Underscore health transformations on Instagram. So quite lengthy on that one. But and then websites www.focus health and bodytransformations.com.
Awesome. I'll put the, I'll put the links in the description, everyone who wants to check it out. Because, like, like, obviously I'm based on the north side as well. People that listen to this are actually on the north side that might want to actually hit you up about some training and nutrition. So thank you for jumping on my friends. Awesome.
Thank you for having me.
More from Matt

Your staff aren’t lazy. Your systems, standards and leadership might be. Check out Episode 138!

Your team can’t take ownership of work you refuse to hand over. Stop being the bottleneck! #shorts

Slow lead replies cost you sales. The fastest business usually wins. Full episode in my channel!








