Getting Raw Ep # 46 Dr Avi Ratnanesan

Welcome to Getting Raw. It's Richard Mark Toutounji, and it's been a while since our last episode that I had, but today I thought we'd kickstart the series again, and I've got a really special guest here today. I've got Dr. Avi. Welcome, Doctor.

Nice to see you, Richard.

I usually call you Avi, so it's Doctor Avi, the official name and title. And Doctor Avi, you're a medical doctor, is that correct?

That's right. I originally trained as a medical doctor and I worked in— I trained in the UK, in England, and then came to Australia probably about 14, 15 years ago and worked in the medical system in Australia as well.

So this is the first time we've had a medical doctor on the show and you're probably wondering why we got a medical doctor on a On a Getting Raw series where we talk about business and strategy and fitness and everything to do with wellness. Well, Dr. Avi, I mean, you're responsible for pretty much bringing, you know, working with billion-dollar companies as their strategist. Is that correct?

Correct. That's right. I used to, after my stint in medicine, I did an MBA, a Master's in Business Administration. And I got into the biotech scene initially. I worked for biotech companies. and then subsequently worked at Pfizer, which was the largest pharmaceutical company in the industry. Initially, my role was more looking after the research and development of new medicines, and I looked after— I was in charge of Viagra.

Viagra?

Yes, that's right.

So you brought Viagra to Australia?

Well, no, Viagra was already in Australia and doing well. My role at the time was really to look at the science behind Viagra and see what else we can do with Viagra. getting into different populations. It was actually my role to also approve any marketing and advertising for Viagra in Australia, so it needed to get my signature before the ads went out.

And that would also have been tricky advertising as well, to get that as well.

That's right, it certainly was edgy. Some people say it was a hard job, but you know, some people don't get that joke. But you know, it was— I learned a lot because obviously Especially managing Viagra, things were in the newspapers all the time and you always get the statement that the company spokesperson denied this or proved that. I was the company spokesperson back at the time. And then I transitioned more into a business role. So as I grew my way through the company, I ended up advising the CEO there on strategy and innovation. So how do we plan the business side of it?

And that's what I really wanted to get you on the show for today because I mean, You're strategizing not just small businesses, not million-dollar, multi-million-dollar, billion-dollar companies here. You're strategizing CEOs. So I really wanted to understand the lessons and the techniques that you gave to those companies that are multinationals and how they're actually working within smaller startups. And particularly I know now you're getting in the space of wellness, so bridging the gap between— Yeah. Wellness and medical.

Yes.

I'm really interested in that because we all know that the best referrals come from your doctors and so forth, and people that are saying, hey, you need to get fit and you need to exercise. Yes. So I'm really interested in that to see how we can actually work with you because I've never actually come across someone of your caliber that can be talking about such a topic. We've got a lot of fitness entrepreneurs on the show, a lot of fitness people. Yeah, big in the industry. So it's like, how do we bridge that gap? How do we really do that gap?

So I'll just touch on— so it's really important, wellness entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in the health and wellness space. Yeah, what is that? So a bit about my background. So after I did the role at Pfizer and did pretty well at it, I actually then went off to start my own companies from absolute scratch. And initially they were in areas outside of healthcare, but then after a couple of years I realized I wanted to get back into healthcare, but look at it from not just a modern medicine perspective, but look at it from the wellness perspective. Because currently, particularly in Australia, we've got this division between sick care and well care. We tend to think of our doctors and our hospitals as sick care, and we tend to think of our personal therapists, our alternative health, allied health, our fitness coaches as wellness and wellness care. And never the two shall meet.

Sick and well.

Yeah, sick and well, right. Whereas that really isn't how it should be. It really is about a sort of combined approach that's the best to treat a person as a whole. So from an individual perspective, if you were Richard and you want to look after your healthcare, wouldn't you love it if you had your personal trainer talking to your doctor, talking to your alternative health therapist, and it was all in one system, right? Yeah. That would be the best solution for you. But as an industry, As providers of healthcare, we're still quite separated. Sure. We don't really talk to each other.

Most definitely. You go to the doctor when you're sick and you go to the gym when you're well. And then if you're sick, you're not hitting the wellness part of it.

Yeah, absolutely. Now here's the thing. If you're a wellness professional, if you're a personal trainer or fitness coach, if you're a gym owner, you know, you're starting to think of yourself, okay, well, how do I reach more people and how do I get into working with the healthcare side of things? And that's where you need to be a good business. Because we know from some of the statistics and we look at some of the stats within the industry, some stats say that up to 75% of startup wellness businesses fail within the first 18 months.

Yeah, I can believe that.

It's a really high failure rate and the reason for that is multiple-fold. Sometimes people don't realize or don't fully appreciate why they got into the industry in the first place. Yep. So a lot of people get into the industry because of heart, for passion, passion for health, and really want to help people with their health.

Yeah, they've experienced something and they want to do it again to somebody else.

Absolutely. And that's such a great story. It's a, it's a very genuine motivation, but passion will only get you so far. And after a while you need skills and you need business skills in order to help you grow your client base and see more people, right? Because you do need to generate revenue.

I like that, business skills. That's what it's all about. You can have the skills Absolutely,

absolutely. To keep yourself sustainable, right? So some of the mistakes that often there are people in startups say, okay, I'll do this for free, or I'll train you for free, or I'll undercharge. Yeah. And that really because you're trying to get your way into the market. In some cases that can work, but sometimes that's a win-lose situation where the client wins because they're not paying much, but you lose.

Yeah.

Because you're not getting paid as a business owner. So you've got to find that balance and that really comes from valuing yourself first and foremost, right? It comes from having that sense of I value myself and my services and what I can deliver.

And I think that's a big problem within the industry. We're not valuing ourselves, our time, because we're selling our time.

Yes.

And it's also like, as I said, a doctor practitioner, they're selling their time. We need to sell our time as trainers, as gym owners, or as practitioners. It's the same concept, right?

Absolutely. Valuing your time is fundamental because that's really where your revenue comes from as a personal trainer. The second thing is then having the right strategy around how you approach the market. You know, you gotta think about who are the kind of people that I actually want to help. You know, a lot of people scatter themselves across many different segments. So you might decide to— I wanna train men, I wanna train women, I wanna train kids, and really scatter yourself A bit too much, such that when people think of you, you're not clearly positioned in the market.

Or you can pretty much do everything. We ask, you know, who you target for. I'm targeting for male and females between 18 and 65. It's too broad, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, really whether you are a massive gym owner that owns a chain of gyms or whether you're an initial startup, strategy, your business strategy is really important. Because that determines your long-term future. So, you know, if you are an individual personal trainer, really think about who it is you want to serve in the world, who it is you really, really want to help. And when you find that type of person, then focus on helping those kind of people because that's when you get the joy from your work. That's when your value builds up.

Yeah.

Because as you learn about specific segments of the market, as you learn about, say you like to prefer working with kids, for example, You will learn the details of and differences of working with children compared to working with adults.

And you'll be the specialist in that area. So it's sort of like a surgeon becomes a specialist in a certain body part. You're talking about the same sort of concept.

Absolutely right. You know, it's a lot of fun being a generalist and working in different areas, but if you find that you really want to build greater value over time, then going that specialized route, maybe for 80% of your clients, is a very good way to go because then that builds value and you then build value in yourself, your expertise, and you're able to charge more.

Charge more.

And you can become a more—

I like that concept, I really do like that. I've heard of that before but you explained it in a very different way where if it's something coming out of love when you really want that— help that particular market, that's when you become that specialist in your field.

Yes.

And so what you're sort of— what you're also doing is saying okay, when you're a specialist in that field, teaming up with other specialists in different healthcare sectors. Is that correct?

Yeah. Look, right now the industry is saturated. We know that, right? We probably have more personal trainers now in gyms than we ever have.

We have more gyms and trainers. Exactly right.

Which is a good thing in a lot of ways because then we're helping, you know, we're helping a greater population. But on the flip side, if you're a business owner, then you've got to say, well, how do I actually penetrate this And that's why the specializing comes into play. Now, hand in hand with building your expertise is building your brand.

I understand. Yeah.

So as you build your expertise, you then now need to figure out, well, how do I now build my brand within the marketplace? How do I get it out there? How do I communicate my brand? And that's where things like, you know, good marketing principles like, you know, having a decent website that represents who you are, who you target, You know, the way you communicate and close the sales call, because it is a sales call at the end of the day. Having that conversation is so important. How do you structure a conversation with somebody in your market at the moment? Do you go, okay, I do this, this, this, and this, but I can also do this, and I can also do that? And how does that seem to the customer when you say you can do all these things?

I like that. It's very interesting you say that, Pardon. And you're coming from non-fitness industry as well, Mitch, which I might add, which is really I think probably the valuable asset right here because you're coming from a medical background where that is what, you know, you do as a specialist and each person is called in for a specialist task. So it's almost like, can we duplicate that, what's been successfully done over the years, into a fitness wellness market?

I think that's certainly, from my point of view, I think that's a It's certainly a way to go right now because the market is saturated.

Okay.

Because there's more and more personal trainers out there. It really does depend on where you are. If you're in a location where there's absolutely no personal trainers at all, then sure, be generalized. But if you're in a market where things are saturated, lots of personal trainers, there's lots of group training, etc., etc., really try and find a niche that you can go I think that's the key.

People you love working with is probably a very big key there we're talking about.

Yeah, absolutely. Look, you know, business is tough and helping people in healthcare is tough because you're really dealing with their problems, right? And you've got problems and they've got problems, so you're around problems all the time. So, you know, what keeps you going? You know, a few things keep you going. Your personal Inner motivation, satisfaction, your happiness and fulfillment. You know, ultimately that's what keeps you going. So if you do something that you love doing, you will keep going because you're motivated and you feel fulfilled every day of your life.

That brings me to my next question. You've come from a medical background and now at the moment you're actually helping wellness specialists, personal trainers, gym owners in that wellness sector actually work on their business. Why did you make the switch? What's the story of you making that switch? Why aren't you still in a hospital, you know, prescribing medication? Why have you switched to here for?

You know, it's a very good question. And the reason was, you know, I really got out of full-time medicine about, you know, 13 years ago. And I found that after practicing for about 2 years, 2 years as a doctor full-time, and then I went Part-time for another 2 more years. I found that one-on-one care, for me, there was something bigger, there's something missing.

Okay.

Right. And I did it for a couple of years and I didn't really know what it was at the time. But then I also— so I left, actually, I took some time off. I took about 9 months where I didn't do anything.

You did a gap year, did you?

I did a gap year, which is, which is, you know, an unusual thing to do. But I really took time to think. what is it that I love doing? And what I found was I started reading the Financial Review and business news and things like that. I said, well, this is really interesting. I actually really enjoy this stuff and I want to learn more. And I did that the only way I know how to do that, which is go back to university.

Right.

Because I already spent 5 years at university.

Go back there again.

I said, I'll go back there again. I'm a sucker for punishment. And I went and did a master's in business administration. And it was a 2-year course and I did it in 16 months. So, I fast-tracked it and I got on the Dean's Honour Roll. So, I was a distinction student. And I was working part-time as a doctor as well to pay for the degree, you know, as well. Great. And I found, yep, this is absolutely what I love doing. But I didn't want to just go purely into business. I was still passionate about healthcare. I am still passionate about helping people and helping them have better lives, you know, saving them from illness. And preventing illness. So that's where personal training comes in. And so I said, well, how can I bring the two together? How can I bring the business side and the healthcare side together? Because we know that, you know, in the wellness space, you have to get paid. You know, there's no Medicare here. You know, you've got to go out and get clients and get paid. You've got to earn your money.

Wouldn't we just like to swipe the Medicare card and get paid?

Yeah, that's right. But now we just still have to get that credit card. So, we still have to have those skills. We want to help people, yes, but we also still need to get paid. On the flip side, on the sort of hospital care and GP side, you've got patients coming through the doors all the time. In fact, sometimes you wish you had less patients.

Yep.

You know, but the problem there is bringing costs down because the cost of healthcare is too much at the moment and we need to look at ways of bringing costs down. So, depending on the side of the spectrum, and that's an economic issue. It's a major economic issue. And so again, having that business mindset helps that side of things

as well. And I mean, you hit it on the head, the cost of healthcare is huge. Is this a big enough— like, how are you getting the attention of governments and politicians out there to really say, hey, this needs more attention? Is it happening? Will it happen? Do you think it's It's big enough to happen right now?

Look, you know, I think the situation is everyone is acutely aware, right? Everybody in government is acutely aware. The Treasurer is acutely aware. He's scratching his head now, smashing all his subordinates, saying we've got to find a way to bring healthcare costs down. So everybody is acutely aware of the problem and trying different solutions out there. One of the things I'm working on at the moment is speaking to the top 20 senior leaders in government, business, of healthcare, helping to understand what's the integrative approach to solving this problem. How can we stop working in silos and working, you know, as a pharmaceutical industry, as a health insurance industry, as a wellness industry, fitness industry, and how can we start working together?

Sure.

Because in order to prevent chronic disease, and a lot of the A lot of the issues around the cost of healthcare comes from our aging population.

Yes.

Right, a lot of us will see or coach people that are, you know, 40-plus who are starting to get those chronic diseases and multiple illnesses and multiple injuries, and you're starting to see all those things come through, and that is the big burden of the cost. So if we can prevent that, if we can keep people fitter, healthier for longer periods of time, not only will they be more productive to society, they will actually avoid a lot of these chronic diseases that are costing the healthcare system a lot of money at the moment. So, here's where the big opportunity is for the fitness and wellness professional industry to work towards helping prevent these sorts of things.

And this is just one sector of many of the wellness sector that you're working with at the moment?

Absolutely, absolutely.

You've got a bit of a big job on your hands, I think.

Yeah, look, I think I love a big challenge. challenge. Yeah. Don't we love a challenge? We all love a challenge. I think even for fitness professionals and trainers, you know, don't you just love those clients that just, you know, are challenging you all the time in a way to not just improve how you train them, but get, you know, forcing you to be creative. Well, this person is not responding to this exercise regime, or, you know, I'm gonna bring some toys in next time. You know, I know I've got my personal trainer and she'll try different things, you know, say, okay, we'll This time let's just focus on some of the stretching, this time it's boxing, this time it's, you know, let's try a bit of some yoga techniques. So, you know, when you get that challenge, that's what forces you to think of new ways of doing things, you know.

And I think it's a big need and it definitely makes sense as well in the marketplace. I know right now though, I guess to start getting that focus into changing the mindsets of the fitness industry, the personal trainers, the gym owners and so forth, I know you're doing a lot of coaching, you have a lot of programs for that industry specifically to try and align them with the wellness industry, which I think is actually great because I don't think anybody's doing that in this industry. Pretty much saying, hey, if you're a business owner and you want to grow your business, you're an entrepreneur or you want to take your business past the million-dollar mark or million to $10 million, you've got the skill set because you've obviously gone from the billion-dollar companies and you're working your way through.

Yeah.

What does those sort of programs involve? Because I know you are working with a few people in the industry but you're working with the people that are thinking differently as well, not just hey, I want to get 10 sessions or 20 sessions. You're really trying to think their business skyrockets fast. Tell me about— quickly about that.

Yeah, so I've got— generally I work in a number of different ways and so I've got a mastermind group program which is a regular weekly coaching. Yeah. And that's in a group setting. And what that does is I help— let's say you are a fitness professional, wellness professional.

Yeah.

I help you grow your business by giving you advice on a weekly basis, making sure you hit those weekly goals that you've set for yourself, but also helping you think different to everybody else that's in the market.

I like that. I think that's the key here, is thinking differently.

Absolutely. Because if you are, as you say, if you are just Time is money. Time is money, and there's only so many hours in the day, and you can burn yourself out. Because, you know, even if you work with 6 clients a day, can you really work with 6 clients a day for 5 days a week? I don't think you can. And you might be able to in the short term, but not in the long term. So you need to think of different ways of earning revenue. Can you create products? Can you create services? Can you tap into partnerships? Can you create partnerships? Partnerships with other businesses. So you have more passive streams of income. I mean, look at Michelle Bridges, for example. She's your classic case of someone who's built her profile over a period of time. So she still works with clients, but she's got products. She's on a TV show. You know, she's got other services that she endorses. You know, she's partnered with schools. So these are the ways that you can leverage some of your expertise within the marketplace create other streams of income. And that's the real thing that a lot of people don't think about. This is where having good strategy at an early stage comes in.

I think it's important to have a good strategy and having a good team around you to give you that strategy that's thinking differently and that's come from a different cloth basically. Somewhere totally different which I know we've had a couple of conversations and it's taken a while to understand your concepts as well because You're coming from a different concept, but it's still, uh, I still think it's so valuable because it is a different, it is a different model of, hey, not fitness. You're coming from a different sector, which is, I think, very powerful.

Look, you know, thanks, thanks for saying that. And I think the other opportunity, particularly if you look at, you know, gym owners who are owning businesses that are, say, $1 million to $10 million, or want to go from $10 million to $100 million, then here the opportunity is to look at How do we get into other sectors, right? How do we partner with the sick care side of things? How do we work with hospitals? How do we work with other areas of the healthcare industry, even health insurance companies, for example, to form those greater partnerships and reach a broader number of people? And that's where we need to think outside the box, you know, just like Steve Jobs did.

Yep.

When he, you know, created, you know, everybody's got an iPhone right now, and when the iPhone first came When the iPhone came out, people said, what is this thing? You know, this is not really a phone anymore. You know, this is a completely different innovation. This is completely different. But look at how popular it's become. And the same with you. If you're delivering health and wellness at the moment, what are you doing that's different? You know, what are you doing that's outside the box?

Yeah, how are you being different to every other trainer out there, every other 24-hour club out there? How is that different? I think that's a really very interesting topic of conversation. Before we leave, I want to get you giving us 3, I guess, problems that you see from an outsider in the fitness industry. 3 issues that we're doing wrong within the fitness industry. Do you have 3?

I could point 3 out, but if I'm going to give the problems, I'm also going to give suggestions. Yes, okay. I suggest the solutions. So, I think let's talk about— Let's talk about different areas of the market at the moment. Sure. So let's look at individual personal trainers. Yep. I think the problems that individual personal trainers have is that you're limited in your time, in what you can deliver.

Time, okay.

Right, and you can get burnt out very quickly. So one of the things to think about as an individual personal trainer and owning a business is what can I do different? So the problem is I'm limited in my time.

Time.

Yeah. And so the solution to that is you've got to think about business strategies. Think of yourself as a business, firstly having that mindset and looking at the solution is how do I build my skills on the business side of things, right? Because I need those skills. And secondly, what can I do that's different to other personal trainers? What are the products or services or offerings can I offer that are going to help me generate long-term revenue? That's not going to rely on my time.

Great, I like that.

Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense.

If you're a larger gym owner, let's say you own an individual gym, again, it really depends on the area that you're in. If you're in a saturated area, again, I would say niche in your market. What is that niche that I currently cater for, and how can I understand the problems of that niche market in their health and fitness? fitness and describe it better than they can.

Sure.

Right, because once you get to that layer, you're no longer a gym. You provide all the different aspects of health and fitness for that market more than as a gym.

Yeah.

Right, you become part of their lives. And one big opportunity there is going online, right? So having that engagement not just inside the gym, but how do I serve people outside the gym?

So everybody can see what you do, so they don't have to come inside the gym.

That's right. And how can you offer them information outside of the gym, right? Because let's say you come to the gym 3 times a week, but you're still interested in health information, right? Why can't you be the provider of that information? Why can't you get some of your personal trainers to—

I think that's a very good element, and that sort of obviously comes down to your blogging, your video content, things like that within your website. Providing content.

Absolutely. Providing content, going digital.

Be the authority figure.

Be the authority in your space. That's another key thing. Now then we talk about the big problem for the bigger end of town. Sure. Where you've got the larger gyms and franchises. What are some of the challenges there? Well, again, in some of those areas you've been in the market for many, many years. You've got these replicable, scalable models. How else can you grow? Well, you know, you can go international and do all those things, but I feel there's still big opportunities to look at partnering with the sick care side of town, right? So the Be it the doctors, the hospitals, you know, health insurance companies, and look at partnerships in those areas because those are ways in which you can add joint value. You know, the problems that you're solving, somebody else in the healthcare industry is also trying to solve.

Hey, and doctors are always full, and you know those waiting rooms, there's a waiting room line of people. So I mean, it's crazy. Your market is right there, isn't it?

Yeah, just bridging that gap. Absolutely. And I think the other thing is just also not looking at— and this is for the entire spectrum of healthcare and wellness professions, is not just thinking of yourself as treating the body, okay? Because to treat the body and treat the physical health, first you've got to treat the mind. You've got to change behaviors. So really get good at learning how to change people's behaviors, because you're not just treating their physicality. You're firstly, you're treating their behavior patterns. It's only when people change their behavior patterns that they change

I like it. That's a good point to leave off with. I think it's an exciting time for the fitness industry.

Yeah.

It's a very exciting time because there's so much room for growth and there's so much room for those operators that maybe are getting a little stale and they need to take that next level. I think you're the person to have a chat with when you are at that position and you're not too sure where to go. Before you leave, just tell us where we can find more information. I will put something down on the website, but where can everybody find some information about you?

Well, very easy way to go is go to my website, www.energess.com, which is E-N-E-R-G-E-S-S-E.com. And, you know, I'm open to have a conversation with people. You know, I offer a free initial mentoring conversation, and I'm very happy to do that with people if they reach out to me. Yeah, always willing to help people in this industry get better. Right.

Thank you so much for your time. I think there's a lot of passion in this conversation and there's a lot of growth that can happen. It's about just lining yourself up with the right people. Thank you so much. Until next time, I'll see you later on Getting Raw. Thanks guys.

Thank you. Bye.