Getting Raw Ep #14 Ric Isaac Andre Sauer

Welcome to Getting Raw. It is Rich and Mark Turtungi, and today I've got two special guests. The first time we've had two guests on Getting Raw, and my good friends Rick. Thank you, Andre. Excellent. Now you would have seen these guys' heads around, probably Rick a bit more. He's the face. So we're in the space of Fit for Profit, and their business, they help personal trainers make more money. Is that pretty much the sum of it?

That's it, and make more profit. More profit.

More profit.

So that's a big point. So that's what we do.

So I see you guys at seminars, I've worked with you guys a bit, and your system is very good in regards to— it's a system. That's what I like about it. I wanna know first of all this partnership, right? There's a lot of business coaches out there, single-man bands. You guys have got something special where there's an engine and there's As a presenter, I like that style. Tell me, you know, how do you guys meet in such a way? Like, how do you work together like this? Andre?

Well, we started back in 2007. Rick and I met at a national marketing networking group. Yeah. And Rick was from Perth, I was from Perth, so we started chatting. I was working for a different company at the time, and we just talked about what was there in this industry and was there any help. Where do personal trainers turn when they need help in business coaching systems? Yeah. Sales tools, etc. And so we decided to talk more and more about this and decided to break into this niche market and get together and form Fit4Profit.

And you're not a trainer, your background is not a trainer, is that right?

No, that's right, my background is not a trainer.

Your background is not a trainer, is that right? Yes. Okay, because I've seen the TV stuff, I've seen the Today Tonight channels, I've seen the Current Affairs stuff. If you haven't already, Google it, you're going to find it. Tell me your background, Rick. How did you get into PT?

Well, look, I mean, I came back from living overseas in the late '90s and realized that I was sick of working in an area that I didn't have any passion for. Right. And I knew I loved fitness. So like you guys, I wanted to make sure I could make a difference. Yeah. So I did a sports science degree because I thought the tickets were really important, and then came out and embarked on my own business, which I knew nothing about. So that's really how I started, and that would go back a good 10 years now, and ran my own PT business for 10 years until I sold it a couple of years ago. And now I just work full-time because now I'm passionate about helping people who are like me, have got the passion to help others, but they don't have the business skills. And that's the challenge that we find, which is that people have got the passion to trained for, and they're great trainers, but they just don't have the business skills. And that might be— it might be marketing, it might be sales, it certainly is financial control, business management, staff management, or it could be all those things. There could be a weakness in any of those areas. Yeah. So that's what we found. And working with Andre is fantastic. I mean, I come from a small business background, but Andre comes from a much, much bigger corporate business background. So we can help businesses who are starting off, you know, to get to a good level of efficiency, I guess, and operating profit, but also take it to the next level for those people who want a much bigger business. business in terms of multiple premises, multiple studios, and that's where Andre comes in because his experience and that bigger corporate level where there's lots of management structures, there's serious organizational charts and, you know, management, then that's his forte. So working together—

So you work together in those, depending on what business, you'll come in and out of each business and that sort of stuff. So it's 2 heads better than one head sort of thing.

Exactly. And look, for anyone who knows me personally, finance is certainly not one of my strong points in previous lives and business. So, you know, It's like a story I need to listen to. Yeah, yeah, look, a lot of you guys out there, you know, I made a lot of money, as you mentioned, you know, Current Affair and Today Tonight, that's phenomenal publicity. Got a stack of clients, but often I wasn't managing the money really effectively. So, you know, I made some good money, but I didn't make the sort of money that I could have made. And look, we talk about money and Fit for Profit. Are we interested in running a successful business? We are. But we want people to remember, you're getting rewarded for the amount of people you help by the money you earn. So money equates to number of people helped you make more money, you've helped more people. And that's an important point that people need to understand.

And I think it's hard for a lot of trainers because, as you said, a lot of trainers love what they do, have the passion, yet the profit, the money, the business side is that. And that's why I love the brand of your company, Fit4Profit. Profit. It really gets us back to, hang on, we love helping out people, but it is important still to make sure you've got enough money in your wallet that you can feed your family and go on a holiday as well. And that is, that's why I'm so passionate about business too, because it's so important. Trainers need this information. So you guys are based in Perth, that's why we're here at WayFit, and you're always traveling around. I always see these roadshows, the roadshows are coming to town and they do the Brisbane, the Melbourne, the Sydney, Adelaide, Perth. Tell me about your roadshow and the structure of how that's helped your business, you know, as a publicity, getting new clients. Tell me about that sort of stuff.

Well, look, I mean, it comes down to relationships, like the relationship that we've got with you, the relationship that we've got together. You know, we work hard, but we also have fun. And that was one of the things that we realized early on. Both fans of a glass of red wine or two. Right. We like to enjoy the lifestyle that we have here in Perth. That's why we've based ourselves here. But the key thing is relationships. It's building relationships with the people who need our skills and our services. So we've got to get out in front of them. We've got to meet them and let them know who we are. Because the biggest barrier to working with someone is trust and understanding who they are and what they want to do. So that's critical for us is to get in front of people and actually meet them.

Face to face all the time.

Face to face. That's how we do business.

And I guess just like the trainers, they're all face-to-face, so it's easier to connect like that. I'm interested to know, Andre, more about your background because, you know, the marketing of what you guys do, and I think if you've been to a roadshow with these guys, it's like clockwork. It runs on time, results on time, AVs are working, everything's working. I mean, you guys must—

Is that me, Andre?

That's you, 'cause it's not Rick, you know what I mean? Well,

look, I've got a marketing management background. Yeah, I've worked in large multinational corporations, run big companies up to 30, 35 people in Malaysia, and I think part of my nature is actually to be organized. Yeah. And organization is important in my life, it's important in what I do in business, and I think that just shows in what we do. Yeah. We are very well organized. When we go to seminars, we prepare our checklists and our tick lists, and unless everything is ticked, we're not going to start the seminar. That's good. And I think everybody, not only you, like most people we've worked with, have a last few years in the industry said the same thing. They said, man, that was an awesome event, that really worked well, and, you know, fantastic results.

Good, I like it, I like it. So what I guess is the future for Fit4Profit? Where is the next 5 years going? What's the plan?

I think it's probably some of this and some of that. So definitely to grow more in Australia, acquiring more clients, helping more personal trainers become successful.

Yeah.

And then the next step is probably going to be international markets. Yeah. We see the Asian markets slowly waking Up to personal trainers. Yeah. Boot camps are starting to pop up.

They're big in Asia boot camps.

Exactly, that's right. Yeah. So I lived in Malaysia for seven and a half years, and I saw fitness first grow from one center to one of the largest in the country. Yeah. It's more of a gym culture because of the temperatures, of humidity. But still, there are trainers in the gyms, and they need help. They need help like they need here. Yeah. And so that's probably a natural progression for us. I spent yeah altogether ten years in Asia, living there, working there. Yeah. Speaking a bit of Chinese. Oh, you do, do you? It's a natural thing.

Very good.

Gravitate up north.

Very good. So you're gonna have to be doing the presenting.

That's right. You're gonna be useless.

I'm learning Chinese as we speak.

Okay, awesome. So let's get down to the nuts and bolts of your program. Now, your program, I believe, comes from the States, as far as I know, and I like it because it's systemized. It's not airy-fairy. It's follow the systems, you get the results. It's like Tupperware. Follow the system, you get the results. Yeah? Tell me a bit more about your system. For trainers wanting to get aboard, what's the process? Is it just, okay, go to a seminar, get some information, follow it? Is it a 12-month program? Just tell me a bit more of the insights of this program.

Well, look, it comes down to what they need, what the person requires themselves. So the first part of the process is what we call the diagnostic process. What is it that the person needs? Where are they at in their business? How do we help them both now but in the medium and longer term? So it all comes down to the individual, and that's why the relationship's so important. So we may help someone who's already got a, let's say, a $200,000 a year business. Yep. And we can help them to turn into a $300,000 or $400,000 a year business. We might have people who are just starting out and it's their first step in it, or people who've got multiple facilities and are then looking at taking it to the next level. So it really comes down to the individual business, and we spend a lot of time on finding out about the actual person themselves and what they need and how we can help them. Because, you know, we've got a lot of different services that we provide because we're passionate about what we do, but it really comes down to what that person needs then, and then progressing that in the future as the relationship builds and giving them more of what they need as they get to it, but not just dumping a whole bunch of stuff in there. Actually, I was thinking about it last night. I cooked a seafood gumbo last night.

Seafood gumbo?

Seafood gumbo. Now, I'd heard about these things and I thought, I'm gonna have a crack at it. Now, I'm not a great cook, let's face it, but I thought I'd have a crack. Now, you know, I didn't realize how bloody hard it was as well, quite surprisingly. But I've got this recipe, so I thought, I'll follow the recipe. And it worked out okay, but you know, in hindsight, I think I put a little bit too much lime juice Right. And you know, the reason why that happened is because I didn't have the chef who wrote the recipe next to me and saying to me, look, just do it this way, or add that a little bit softer there, you know, these sorts of nuances, I guess. So we've got the systems, but we want to provide the coaching on top of that so we can give you a clear direction through the system so it's not a barrier to implementing it. It's easy, it's fast, and at the end of the day, you end up with a fantastic seafood gumbo.

And hopefully we see Rick on My Kitchen Rules next year. That's right, that's

right. That's my restaurant. I've got a lot of work to do before I get to there. Yeah, no, my little boy enjoyed it. So, and

you've got how many kids?

Yeah, I've got the one, one boy so far. We're in the process of getting more. Yeah, that's the fun part. And I'm with Andre's my role model there because he's got the three or two boys.

Yeah, catch up, catch up time.

Exactly. Yeah, that's good. And look, I guess going back to your question earlier, you know, why do we do what we do? Well, one of the things we talked about right at the start before we'd even gone into business together was that we wanted a lifestyle business. You know, we do want to enjoy our time outside of our business as well. And it's important that there's that balance. So yes, we want to grow our business and we do want to move internationally in the future, but not at the risk of us going back to working 70, 80 hours a week. I did that in my PT business and you guys will appreciate that. You know, the early mornings, the late nights. I did it for 10 years. I'm not going to go back there again. Andre did the 70, 80-hour corporate thing as well. Our families are the most important thing to us and spending quality time with them.

I think it's very important because it's like a role model. If you're teaching trainers how to profit, And you guys are working the 70 hours and you're trying to teach them to work less hours. Well, it makes sense. It should be like that. So it's really good. I like going to your events because every year they run an event, Mega Training, and I love at the end they have an awards ceremony and they've got all the, all your past students for that year. You line them all up and you have this big check. Last year was half a million dollars or a million. No, it was a couple thousand dollars, right?

I thought I wasn't in that thing.

But they give a nice reward away for the winner of the best. Member of the Year. Member of the Year. It's like a 12-week challenge. I love it. Tell me about one of those success stories we like to hear. Like, what was last year's member like?

Yeah, look, Selena, right, she's from Mackay, so she's not in a big city, which is what we hear from a lot of people. I'm not in the big cities, it's not gonna work for me. She was brilliant. She'd been in the business for a while, but she approached us and said, look, I need your help. Things are going okay, but they've just been going okay. I really want to grow, and I want you to tell me what to do, and I'm gonna do it. So we said, okay, well, you can— these are the different tracks you can She said, I want it all. I went, great, fantastic. She just implemented quickly. She incorporated a couple of new services into her business and straight away added another $20,000, $30,000 of income into her monthly income.

Monthly? $20,000, $30,000 monthly?

Which was, and 90% of that's profit. So she was brilliant to coach because she was coachable. She wanted to learn and she wanted to implement it, which is fantastic. And she just kept going from there. And the interesting thing about Selena, we were just talking about it the other day, you know, and her partner came down to me And to see her up on stage there, and so worthy of the award, wasn't she? Absolutely. She really deserved it because she's had some major hurdles. You know, they had a cyclone up there, she had her facility broken into and trashed. Trashed. She's had staff come and go, as we've all had those dramas. You know, really key staff that just pull the pin in a flash. So it wasn't smooth and easy, which it never is. There's a rollercoaster ride to all business. You know, yours, ours, everyone's. So yeah, it was fantastic to see her up there getting rewarded in an area which is very competitive. Yeah. Doing so well, but also, as you just mentioned earlier, maintaining the balance in her life. You know, she started to do more with her free time. She got back into cycling and competing in triathlons. She ran a couple of half marathons. So she was really the perfect candidate, the perfect winner of our Member of the Year. And look,

which is not voted by us; it's our our clients, people at the MetaCon.

Oh, so the other clients?

Yeah, her peers.

That's right. So basically, your peers in the room vote for you. Okay. So they have to do a 15-minute presentation at the time. Again, it's organized 15 minutes. You don't go.

Love it, poker eyes.

And yeah, at the end of all the presentations, they have a ballot and the people in the room vote who's going to get it. We don't vote.

Very fair, peer-to-peer. Well, it's been a pleasure. I could listen to you talk to these guys for ages, but let me tell you, where are people finding you? Are you online? Are you on Facebook? Where do people find you?

Yeah, both.

Yeah, look, fitnessmarketingaustralia.com is our domain. We are on Facebook, probably can do a bit more work there. And yeah, that's where you can get us.

So Fitness Marketing Australia. And remember, Rick is also an expert on Meet Fitness Marketing, so you can find him there. That's right. Connect with him all the time. And I'm sure you're always open for a quick question here and there. People come in and want to know stuff.

Absolutely. And look, yeah, and we're also happy for people to call up and say, look, can I have a chat for a free diagnosis?

Oh, so they're human as well. That's right. You can call the phone.

Exactly.

Always good when you can call the phone.

And look, make sure you come along to our events. We want to meet you, want to find out more about, you know, their businesses and how we can help them. And even just to have a bit of a chat and give some free advice, you know. We're there for you.

Excellent. Thanks guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll see you around. That's Getting Raw, and, uh, we'll catch you next week for another great episode.