Getting Raw Ep #25- Kris Cochrane Rapid PT

Welcome to Getting Raw. It's Richard Mark Toutounji, and today I'm talking to Chris Cochrane. Welcome aboard, mate. Thanks for having me. Now, Chris is a person that I've really seen, I guess, grow in the fitness industry. He actually used to share an office here at Meteora, and that's where I've seen the heart The hardships and the struggles, the good and the bad times with him. And I wanted to get him in today because he's really starting to make a name for himself in the industry and is sort of one to watch, a trainer that's one to watch now in the industry. I wanted to find out how he went from, you know, he went from a single personal trainer working at all sorts and now, you know, having the genius idea to sort of approach a franchise before they had any systems in place. I actually want to talk about that because I think that's ingenious. leap and how hard was the leap? So, you were in Allsorts before.

Yep.

How long were you there for?

I was actually in Allsorts for probably about 10 months, 10 or 11 months. Prior to that, I spent time at a gym in Fox Studios. Prior to that, I was— I'd just moved to Sydney. So, I've been in Sydney about 3 years now. I moved up here to be a trainer in a gym in Paddington. It was just a boutique gym with a celebrity trainer at the time. And for that time, when I first moved up, I was actually living in the gym in a In a storeroom? Yeah.

So it's the rags to riches story.

Oh, kind of, yeah. I'd left everything in Tassie. I'd moved up from Tassie. So came up to Sydney, the big, the bright lights, and quickly found the realities of starting at the bottom was, you know, I was being paid $300 a week cash. I was living in a storeroom. I was doing about 30, 40 hours of personal training for the gym that I was working at down in White City. Spent a fair bit of time there, So I learned a bit and decided it was time to move on. Went to another gym where I spent the next probably year with a guy called Darius Alligan and Ken Lavender down there. So learned a hell of a lot from those guys and moved on to a franchise position. I sort of outgrew working for people. Went to the franchise in Allsorts and just started running my own show.

Okay, so you make it sound so easy, but it's not really. You've gone from a— you've come from So you went from working in the store for $300 a week to going to all sorts of— you're still running your own business there, right? And then you went to the inside.

Yeah, well, I mean, when I first went from Paddington to Fox Studios, I was working in a system where I paid a percentage of my personal training revenue to my mentors who I was learning from. And then, so that was probably the majority of the time I was there, I was paying 50% of my revenue to these guys. And the last few months we went to earning 100%. And the gym was kind of, you know, probably there wasn't enough people in the gym. So the decision to move on to Allsorts in Alexandria was purely because there wasn't enough people. There was about 200 members in the gym. So it just didn't make sense to stay there.

At Allsorts, I know you were, you know, when I met you, you were charging what, $100+ a session? Is that right?

I was charging, yeah, $132. $132 a session.

And so most trainers say, well, that's pretty good. Why are you going to move on? And at that time, you moved on. You didn't get your $132 a session when you moved on, obviously. You're working, working, working, working, working, working for nothing. And then, you know, the last couple of weeks it started to happen again. The higher-priced sessions are going up. What are you charging now?

It's $220 for a session, which is 45 minutes.

Okay, so $220 for a 45-minute session. Yeah. Great. So it's more than you were earning before. But now it's your own system at any time.

Yeah, basically. I mean, I suppose the reason why $220,000, and some people might think that that's just a stretch, but there are people that pay that money. Basically, it's, you know, if you've got a demand for service, and at the moment I'm at the top of my tree in the gym that I'm at because basically I'm, you know, my business Rapid Personal Training is the personal training organization in there. I employ trainers in there. So, you know, basically what I try to get people to do is train in the system with the trainers. If they do want to train with me, I've got limited I've had, you know, got a fair bit of experience and they do pay the rate.

And so you just put it out there and they'll pay the rate if they want to use you?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, they will.

But I think what makes you different and why people will pay is because I believe you've got passion and you get results. That's probably the most important thing we've got to think about here. I think at the end of the day you can charge those prices if you've got the results. Talk about any time the process of going into that organization. I think probably a lot of trainers would like to hear that. How does that actually— how do you get yourself running the personal training in there?

Okay, well, you know, as a personal trainer, if you're a sole trader and you're working for yourself, you've got an ABN and you're running your own show, you're charging your clients, you're taking their money, then you're paying tax at the end of the year. You are running a business and a lot of people don't realize that. And I kind of realized that a little the way through here. I pretty much thought I had a job, just turned up to work, did my training, went home. And I

started to really think, oh geez,

I need to get some sort of a system in place or learn something about business. Clients would come and go. How the hell do you wake up each day and know that you've got a business there or know that you've got money coming in?

So you realized you had a job?

Yeah, I realized I had a job, but I also realized the job was a business that I needed to learn about business. So I was a trainer, but there's no point being a great trainer if you're not good at business because how the hell are you going to get in front of the next client if you can't actually get anyone in front of you because you haven't done any marketing or you haven't created the lead gen to get someone in front of you. I went to a business seminar with Create PT Wealth, which is just a business coaching organization who I jumped on board their program. There was a lot of other trainers in the room with me at the time. It was a 2-day seminar. It was a 2-day business boot camp where you come along, you hear a lot of stuff about how to become wealthy, obviously as the name suggests. At the end of it, there was a call to action to see who's actually serious, who wants to do it? And 70% of the room left that day, went back to their job. I was one of the lucky fortunate few that took action. And from there, basically, you know, I've been guided, I've, you know, had an absolute, you know, crazy 12 months. And, um, yeah, that's where I started kicking ass.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was charging $80 at the time and just through the systems, just, you know, created the higher rate for personal training, valued myself.

Yeah.

Was doing a lot of hours of personal training, which was then thought, well, You know, what's the point?

You went to the top level of personal training.

Mm-hmm.

Like, tell you how you went to the 30, 40 hours.

Yeah.

I got sick and then backed down.

Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, if I was crook or if I wanted to go on holiday, the money stopped coming in.

No.

So that started the fascination.

The cash machine was turned off, basically.

Yeah, yeah, God, like, you know, what if everyone gets sick? All your clients are sick, they can't turn up. You know, you can't pay rent or— Yeah. So the thought of having a passive income, which, you know, was something I was familiar with, that was just a fascination. The move to Anytime came just with me just trying to work out how the hell I was going to get this passive income and it just sort of came through having a few ideas and building a bit of a team and wanting to actually

have that passive

income. Yeah, but oh man, I was very focused. I mean, I work a lot with universal law and one of the most basic universal laws is the law of attraction. What you focus on is something that gets bigger and stronger.

I know, and I can really back those up because I am fascinated because it came in one day in the office, it was on a Sunday, And there's Chris every weekend, Saturday, Sunday, smashing out hours here and just staying in his zone, staying focused in his zone. And eventually, like, something's going to happen. You know what I mean? Focusing on it, something pops up. An opportunity like that just popped up. And so that's where I think the focus is really important in these sort of situations. Like, if that's the decision you made, go for it and finish off the job at

hand,

which is all coming through now, which is good.

Yeah, but I mean, I was a PT, just a general guy, like 20, 25 at the time. And I suppose a lot of other guys would be out there kind of, you know, using their money on different things, on the alcohol or, you know, going out and partying or buying cars or doing stuff like that, which would be cool. But I mean, I chose to invest in business coaching. I was spending a lot of money on business coaching. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I probably needed an office. So with you, obviously invested in a space of my own, an office. So now I'm getting business coaching, I'm renting an office, I'm still a sole trader, Yeah.

But you're acting like a big organization. Yeah. That something's going to happen. That something's going to land right here and you're ready to go.

Nothing was going to happen. I had no plan. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do but I knew if I spent enough time in this office—

Yeah, you came in and you spent enough time in the office. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm going to be at the office. That's exactly what you did.

Yeah, I'll be at the office.

And you had the headspace here. The headspace was there which I think was a really valuable thing. The headspace was here and something happened pretty much.

Yeah.

Let's talk about your celebrity status. You know, from what I hear, from what I see in the magazines and things like that. I was in Coles the other day and here I am, you've got Chris Cochrane's head on the new magazine. What was the magazine called?

It's a Men's Fitness, it's a spin-off Men's Fitness magazine called Eat Fit.

Eat Fit. So it was the first edition of Eat Fit and here you are with chopsticks, like knives, in an apron, nothing else under the apron. I don't know why but you can just sort of see it's a great shot as well. So you've got a, you had a few like covers coming up and also then tell me about YouTube. Tell me the success On YouTube and how that happened? Because you're all over YouTube as well.

Yeah, it's funny actually. I was telling my brother this story the other day. He's 21 and he's kind of waiting for his big break down in Tassie. And I basically used the story of how, you know, being a fitness cover model. Now I can tick the box of saying, you know, fitness cover model as a personal trainer, which is kind of a big deal, which I'm really happy with. But that all came about, I didn't get a tap on the shoulder and say, You've reached this point now, you're going to be a fitness cover model. I went and paid. I went and got photos done. I got my body into a position where it was in great shape. And I was looking at people in magazines thinking, you know, if these guys can get in the magazines, surely I can get into a magazine. Yeah. And so I went and paid. I got a good photographer. Paid money. Paid decent money. Got some good shots done. And man, I just sent them out to everyone. So I wasn't sitting—

You just sort of sent them out to all the magazines? Yeah.

So I wasn't waiting for someone to write me. I was going to make it happen. And, you know, I sent it out to every magazine. I got 2 magazines I sent it out to probably 10 magazines. Not soon after that happened, I got Oxygen Magazine who came back and said they did a special piece with it. I sent it out to probably 10, didn't have any other responses basically, and 12 months later after I'd sent these photos, I had an email, just a random email from someone at Men's Fitness saying, we've got a job coming up, would you be interested? 12 months later? 12 months later.

So people do keep resumes on the desk?

Yeah.

It's not a lie. Yeah, like, they keep them seriously.

The moral of that story was, you know, don't wait for stuff to happen. And what happened was I ended up being a Fitzcarron model through, you know, just going out there, getting myself out there. I paid the money, I did everything myself. I didn't wait for it to happen and, you know, I made it happen. So I'm pretty grateful for that. But yeah, with the YouTube stuff, is it—

Yeah, yeah, YouTube. So you've got over 100,000 views on YouTube. You put a video on there. You know, what happened to just boost it like that? One of the videos just went viral sort of thing.

I mean, I started watching YouTube videos, you know, exercise YouTube videos when I started being a PT, just seeing these guys, and I got so many ideas off them. And I thought this would be awesome to start my own YouTube channel. And so I started my own YouTube channel.

Yeah.

And I put videos up like of me doing a squat or something like crazy.

Yeah, just videos, yeah.

And, you know, I'd look at the thing back a week later and I had 300 people that watched my video. I was like, I'd be high-fiving people saying, you know, this is awesome.

Yeah.

And so anyway, when I got on the program with Jay, Jason Brad, the Trade PT Wealth, and talking with you. I learned a little bit about marketing and keywords, what people are searching for on the internet. I just did a video on the tennis courts with my iPhone.

Just with your iPhone?

Yeah, just my iPhone on the tennis courts and all sorts. I had half an hour in between a PT session. I was bored. I was like, what am I going to do? I quickly thought, I'll just take 2 kettlebells up to the tennis courts. I'll film a video, edit it, and just whack it up on YouTube for my video. So just went out there. Made something up, said, oh yeah, actually, you know, it was the long cycle, so I thought I'll demonstrate the long cycle. And yeah, did some flips with the kettlebell, like nothing too special that I thought. And went down, quickly edited it all, and just tagged a heap of keywords like fat loss, stuff that people are looking for and stuff that I learned through marketing, just learning a little bit about marketing. Probably a month or so went by, a few views, and then one day I looked online and I had 8,000 views on it. And I was like, you know— Straight away. I wouldn't believe it. Yeah, 8,000 views. So, and then that grew to like 20,000, 50,000. So stuff obviously gained legs.

So it just shoots up. And shared and shared. And on the side, it probably popped up one day on the homepage somewhere.

Yeah, people would email. And now I get emails from around the world, you know, a few emails a week, people saying, hey, like, your kettlebells are inspirational, or, you know, cheers from Europe, or cheers from Las Vegas. And I also get people saying, hey, I just bought a kettlebell, what do I do with it?

So there's plenty now of opportunity to go down that road and take it to the next level. Yeah. Give education as well. It's good. Very good success story. So I'll put some of your links up here on the page down here somewhere, YouTube link and that sort of stuff. You can actually check out— the reason I wanted to interview Chris is actually check out his style and what he's doing because I think as you mentioned, you go through YouTube and just search people and just be there and just keep looking. And I think that's the most important thing to success. Before we go, I want to ask you your 3 biggest mistakes you've made in the industry that have cost you a lot of money, that have really hurt your reputation, something like that. What's the 3 biggest mistakes that you've made?

Well, that's a tough one.

You can't find 3, can you?

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm perfect. Too many, can't find 3. I'm absolutely perfect. So I suppose general baseline stuff with clients. Your bread and butter is personal training, and probably the most recent one has been losing focus on what is paying the bills And when I was setting up Rapid, which is the business I'm doing now, I lost a hell of a lot of focus on what the income that was coming in. I was too focused on this business, so I stopped sort of doing all the bread and butter stuff like client retention, like confirming clients, text, getting in contact with them, all that sort of stuff. And I lost a few clients that way. I lost a bit of income. I lost my capital, which if someone's starting a business, you need capital. So I lost a bit of capital that way. So probably just losing focus on what's important now and focusing on— Focusing on what's important now. Yeah, probably number 2, again, sort of personal training stuff, you know, just texting clients late, being hungover, making up a story. I was young and, you know—

Making up a story, running, oh, sick today, just got home from the club or something.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hey mate, so sick today.

And how'd they know? Clients knew, they picked it up pretty quick.

Yeah, like clients knew. And my client retention rate back in the day was really bad, like not really bad, but it wasn't It wasn't anywhere near what I expect from my trainers now and what I expect of myself. And purely because the service I was delivering was probably— I wasn't there in the session. I've learned a hell of a lot about delivering that one-on-one PT session.

Well, you're charging $230 a session now, not $80, so your whole mental state has to change as well.

Yeah, yeah.

That's

good.

Anything else? What's the biggest money mistake you've made in fitness, like in personal training, like all that?

Probably just investing too much in courses about the body, learning about the body, being fascinated about the body, and not learning about business sooner. Because, you know, something I've learned is just all you need is your PT certificate. You need a bit of an idea about how to do it, but then just learn about business and learn how to do systems, marketing, sales.

So don't just go and smash all these body courses and then just say, okay, what am I doing? Do everything in between.

There'll be people out there that just will be shaking their heads. But to be honest, I'm probably charging twice as much.

Well, this video is about getting results, about business as well, so we're not really focusing too much— we want to focus on the business ideas and how you actually be a success.

Yeah, and I've got no regrets, to be honest.

Good.

Yeah, they're just new things.

Awesome. Thanks, another episode of Get It Wrong. Thanks, Chris, and I'm looking forward to seeing Chris's success and his another 100,000 views on YouTube.

Thanks, mate. Cheers.