The One With Paul Timms (Industry Transformer)

Transcript of EPISODE 4:

Introduction

Okay welcome fitness professionals to another fantastic Fit Professional podcast today I have a special treat I’m going to be talking to a special guest a guy that I have known for a few years in the fitness industry. Throat clear…(Excuse me) In a moment I’m I’ll get him to introduce himself, but before we do I just want to paint a little bit of a picture and let you know some of the accolades that this man has achieved in the industry today. The person I’m going to be talking to you about is Paul Timms whom you may have heard or not heard about him, but after today you’re definitely going to want to find out more. Fortunes is one of Australia’s top business coaches known best for his incredible ability to discover and successfully implement strategies that will transform any business. Paul has been featured on TV, radio, those kinds of things you name it, and he has also worked with big companies such as Rio Pinto, VHT, Air New Zealand, LJ Hooker, and a list a mile long. Before starting this extraordinary experience as a scientist where he developed the latest, sharpest ability, the research…understand, and discover what works and more formerly just an image of perfection.

Paul has trained for these skills in developing countries first regional chain of personal training studios, and went on to be the finalist in franchises of the year award in Queensland and personal trainer of the year. Paul then went onto share his secrets with the entire industry and created the Australian Institute for Personal Training which his business now has over one hundred campuses nationally, and it’s turning over a ten million dollar per-annum. During his time Paul developed dozens of transformational and exponentially profitable business models which worked exact precision to appease with extraordinary results. Paul then used these models very successfully as a coach and quickly became known as the, “Killer Strategy Guide” that can transform any business. Now, is the CEO of the Australian Institute of Fitness Ass, Paul is offering a coaching model that is fit to revolutionize the business industry in Australia, and in turn businesses and business coaches that he works with. Paul is also a highly sort after professional tenure speaker, and delivers presentations to over a hundred thousand people in Australia and internationally and regularly speaks to influential organizations such as the Australian Institute of Management, Charter Professional Accountants of Australia.

When he isn’t speaking, coaching, transforming businesses, wearing a Super Man cape, Paul is financial property investor with twenty-six properties that he built with profits from his businesses. He lives in a stunning waterfront dream home and enjoys a completely decorative lifestyle dedicated to making a huge difference using his talent from businesses. Paul is President of the aspiring Australian movement “A Fast Process” which is inspiring Australians to achieve their greatest potential in life in their community whilst creating money for their their favorite charity. So, Paul that was an extremely awesome bio to actually read myself it’s an extremely inspiring accolade that you have achieved there, and I’m really looking forward to today to discuss these more in depth, so to get started Paul is there anything personal that we missed out of it other than…?

Paul:  No I think you have covered everything it sounds like somebody else been read like that, but it’s an amazing the journey that started from really just going from been a corporate employee from those early years in my professional career and then deciding to step into the  fitness industry. If I look back over the last fourteen years and then realized what started as a very simple goal has turned to quite a large business you know.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s an amazing and the thing that I have picked up there is where it started from you know because you don’t just acquire twenty-six properties and multiple businesses over night, so  it all means we start somewhere. When did Fortunes enter the fitness industry so to speak?

Paul:  Like a lot of people I was working in a job that and I quite enjoyed myself, and I was a complete fitness fanatic you know I loved the fitness and had always wanted that. I didn’t realize you could actually make money from been a fitness person it was a really unusual concept back in the ‘90s to actually make a living of been in the fitness industry. Having spent four years at Uni to learn about been a scientist to decide that I want to start my own business, so I basically went off and did a fitness course…back in those days it was called “Fitness Leader” it was a two week course, so I took two weeks of my job and went on holiday and basically did this course over my holiday for that year. It was really just for my own personal knowledge in the beginning that was in 1996, fast forward to 1999 I was growing increasingly interested in the idea of running my own business, and decided that something like, fitness would – if I could just earn enough money to live off of it I would be very happy. My goal, it sounds funny now, but my goal was to earn four hundred dollars a week from been a fitness person that was my big goal, and give up my day job and do that for a living.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s great mate a couple great things what I look at their when I talk to anyone who is a personal…I’ve always looked for key points and what I picked up there was you actually went on your own back you know, so you actually had a job – and a lot of people out there listening to this will be able to relate to that, and they may be sitting in their job right now wanting to be in the fitness industry, but just can’t get out there because you know the old quote, “Just Don’t Have time,” but you personally went out in your school holidays and you went an actually did a course needed to get into the industry.

Paul:  Yeah, and I had no idea I just really…I guess as a scientist you are always researching you know, so I did the course and for three years I did part time you know as a hobby, it was truly a hobby.

Brett:  Yep.

Paul:   The point where I used to do aerobics classes and I would never invoice the gym I would feel dirty and it wasn’t right. I loved it so much how could I possibly invoice for this work, so it was really just a passionate hobby it was never something that was going to provide me with a full time income, but as I started to learn more about corporate culture and the limitations of that I got more interested in how to actually make a living just doing something that I enjoyed. It wasn’t about making six or seven figures it was just, “Can I live of fitness” and that was my initial goal in 1999, so yeah it’s a good point.

Brett:  Sure, so when you actually…I’d be interested to know when you got your four hundred dollars a week goal what happened then? Yeah you retired your done what’s was going on for you then?

Paul:  Well interestingly enough I got to four hundred dollars a week pretty quickly as you can imagine, so I’ve got a bit of a cough my apologies to the listeners. We can’t catch it through the phone or the ear piece so we will be okay. What happened was in the year 2000 I kicked of the personal training full time and the first week I had about three or four clients and was charging twenty-five dollars an hour, because a person in this industry said to me that is what you need to charge because they’d been in the industry for twenty years and that’s what they charged. I quickly realized that when I looked at my colleagues their limiting beliefs into their own personal work was my compass, so when I started charging thirty-five dollars an hour I actually lost that friendship, because they felt that I was punching them away which is really interesting. As soon as I started making two or three hundred dollars a week I then went you know I really want to be my own employer, and went about recruiting my first staff member.

That took me a few goes, but in May of that year my first staff member happened to be this exercise psychologist who was completely intimidating back at that time, but he knew more about exercise than I did. He had fewer strides and less desire to be in business, so he was happy to work for me, so I effectively traded in all my clients and gave them all to him. By the first month of that business which was June we turned over ten thousand dollars in the first month, so I learnt a lesson in basically handing over my clients, and supporting him to be full time, and as a result I was freed up to actually go out there and market, and sell the personal trainers tended to all the personal trainers full time.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s fantastic you know a couple of things I get out of that one is, and it can be quite intimidating for people and I’m glad you mentioned you don’t always need the sharpest sword in the shed, as long as it’s the tool that continually knocks down the walls, and we relate that to when you actually brought on the first trainer you happened to omit you know the trainer was actually better than you at actual training which can be an intimidating thing for many people.

At the end of the day I guess if you look at people like, Richard Branson he’s definitely not the smartest guy that you’d ever meet, but he knows how to use smart people, better people for a position, so that’s a great lesson here for everyone as well. I guess Paul in regards to that let’s keep continuing you on your journey, because I think it’s very valuable you know any big ah, ha,  likeable moments that you have had that you think would be beneficial for our listeners.

Paul:  In that phase I think I guess a lot of people actually want to get out there and the first step is to how do your charge for your time. The thing that really worked for was having a printed piece of paper that listed all of my prices on it so I could just give it to the client and let them decide, and also making sure the products were listed as been programs not as been my time, so I didn’t sell an hour of personal training I sold motivation plus rapid results; those were two choices you had. The second thing was if you’re going to be a business owner release your role is to get leads and new clients on board, because most employees want clients and a business owner has to provide the avenues for people to get clients. That is what I did very well in the early days.

Brett:  Great, so in regards to…I’m picking up another valuable point where you mentioned not charging, u know.. having a price list…I like to refer to it as a menu I use that analogy in a restaurant you have got different menus and the customer will choose what is best for them at that time. Why wouldn’t you just have it listed as price? What is the importance of exactly writing down a name of a program?

Paul:  I researched the weight loss industry because I could see back in the early days the weight loss industry was really charging premium prices for support. And I looked at Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers and others like that, and I realized that what we are selling is we are selling results to clients part one, and in fact we place a high value on the number of minutes that we spend with the client. The client would actually spend less time with the trainer and get better results, so by selling the outcome rather than selling the time spent means I could charge higher amount of money for my time. I hope that makes sense…I think it’s a pretty cool lesson and back in those days people were selling – you could either do an hour session or half hour session, and do a ten pack or twelve pack or something like that, so literally your selling time which you are really losing weight. Plus the other thing Brett is that when you ever want to go on holiday you have literally sold your time to that client then you can’t go on holiday.

By selling a program and including sessions as part of the program then you have to like have to lift the lid as well.

Brett:  Yeah, great, great one, yeah you know that alone is worked to our suggestion now fitness as well definitely an important thing because you know we have a product called the “Bikini Body Shapeup Program” and you know it’s very results driven in regards to well, it’s sort of tells you what it is, you’re going to get a bikini body the gold body by the end of it, so yeah it’s extremely important and it’s great to see that you were doing that back many years ago you had already implemented those strategies. I guess if we fast forwarded to today’s fitness industry you know there is still many trainers and there could be people listening to this right now still trying to sell impact, so maybe you could just elaborate a little bit on you know if someone is listening to this and they are still selling ten packs time and time again let’s sort of hammer the point home why they should change their programs.

Paul:  As a scientist if you learn about primary and secondary data, so for example I’m giving you information that I leant in my life, because in my bone not in your bones because you haven’t done what I have done, so advocate this to do a survey, so if you know a hundred people what is your number one health and fitness goals? You actually mutually write down the answer from each persona and what they said. Then the next question to ask them is why is it important to you? You will find the data leap out of the pages they are very common things of what people want, and then if you test the following two strategies. So, for example I have done a survey of hundred people and I’ve found that sixty-seven people – so the number one health problem they had is to lose weight, and why that’s important to them is because they want to get into a bikini in summer, okay that’s the results.

Then tested clothes I tested this approach in first instances asked them would you like to pay for ten personal training sessions at eight buck an hour just ask them that question and see what they say. The second approach is say to the person if I told you have weight loss and I could guarantee you’d have a better body for a bikini in twelve weeks would you be interested in working with me on my Bikini Body Shapeup Program for twelve weeks, and results would be just stunningly clear. You know what they want is the outcome they don’t care about how you get there. If a book or a motivational speaker, or health retreat says that  you can go away for twelve weeks and come out with a bikini body or they will pay for it.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s right fantastic I think we’ve made the point clear there now you know you people listening you can go and test that theory or you can take our advise on that and run with that and go and change your programs immediately and test it out with your new prospects that come through your door your be pleasantly surprised. Paul I’m always interested when I’m talking to professional people you know what do you believe if we were to say what are three key things that you believe has been catalyst to your success to date?

Paul: okay!!  I think the first thing is to follow your passion and my passion is people. I’m passionate about helping people that is number one, so whatever I have done in my life is around the passion to make a difference to people that is the first thing be passionate. The second thing is to get the knowledge required, so my favorite quote is “Necessity if the Mother of Invention” and this was a quote by Winston Churchill in the Second World War. He was talking about whatever problems we have we have to create a solution to solve them. If you find that you have a passion to help people, but don’t have the knowledge required go get the knowledge first just as simply. If you have no passion, no context there is any reason to learn, and I leant in the early days, and even now the biggest challenge for me is the client asking questions that I don’t know the answer to, and I love it because I go and research the answer and get back to them. That has lead me to a lot of self development and a lot of courses to make sure I can close that gap.

The third point is to definitely surround yourself with the right people, and that means I guess first you have to be someone who is worth hanging around with. If you have a bad attitude and your really kind of in the wrong place, because people won’t hang with you, and I’ve certainly found to myself when I was desperately trying to find people that could give me knowledge I found it was harder to get my friends of since I’ve been somebody who is really making a difference and investing in my own knowledge the caliber of people I surround myself with is top notch. To give you an example I have friends that own airlines, multi-millionaires, a friend of mine has got a child with special needs and he’s a very passionate father and he’s also somebody who speaks professionally and earns over ten thousand dollars an hour. He is a great guy and he is somebody I regard as a close friend and mentor, so I don’t really have a great deal of room in my life to people that drag me down, and as a result my children and myself we are exposed to high level people, so very, very important to have the right people in your life.

Brett:  Yeah, couldn’t agree more with you on that you know the personal education, professional education, and personal development is the key thing that you know I have yet to meet a successful person who hasn’t been through that type of journey and classes, and you know one of the top things to have in their life, so I definitely agree with that one. In regards to business most businesses I guess you would say there is always a time throughout that course business, and you can pick anyone of yours – what do you believe is one of your biggest business lesson?

Paul:  Yeah, good question I’d actually, I was thinking about this because you gave me a list of things that you might like to ask, and this is one of the ones I found a bit challenging. But, to put it simply I think I think about meeting myself with a business coach these days, and the first

question I ask a potential business coaching client or business coach is, who is going to buy your business? And, it’s quite confronting because also I’m talking to people that haven’t even started their business yet, so I ask them who is going to buy your business? The point there is that people won’t buy your business if it’s not leveraged it’s not profitable and not systematized, and so by asking yourself the question who is going to buy my business before you start your create a much more sustainable and attractive business. You may not necessarily sell it in the end however; you might recruit a general Manager to make that business for you because it’s actually making profit. If your business is actually making good profits you pay good wages which means that you get a good caliber of people, and this is one of the hardest things to start a business is trying to recruit talented people to work for you which is virtually impossible until you have the cash flow coming through to do that.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s definitely right I totally agree with you on that one as well mate I guess it could be very confronting especially when you’re starting in this industry like you said, because again, they just want your first few clients, right, you’re not thinking about geez I’m not ready to sell it yet – let’s look at the importance of that and why do you believe it’s extremely important to go into with that end in mind type of attitude?

Paul:  Well, because if I ask people the question, “Why do you want to start a business?” they will say things like, “Because I want to work for myself, because I want to sack the boss, because I love fitness” and that is all wonderful, but to be successful in business your business needs to make a profit and if your business if making profit after your wages you have something to sell. I find for the first four years of my business I wasn’t obviously making a profit I was just interested in working for myself. The first business that I set up was really quite competitive I couldn’t sell it because it was so reliant upon me. My second business that I built and sold for quite a large sum of money was one that was built with the end in mind, so do you really think you’re going to be running this business when your eight-five? Maybe you do, but the point is if something happens and you have an illness or you just lose interest you want to expand yourself you have to be able to sell the business. I already find that most people who ask themselves those questions would do their business very differently. You do the things that make profit you do the things that work, and all those great things that you love that don’t necessarily make profit you leave those off to the side.

Brett:  Yeah great, and just another point to add to that as well is because what tends to happen you know myself coaching hundreds of personal trainers the key thing that I always found is I’d always ask them…you might be able to talk to this. I’d say, “Show me your sales price and let me have a look at it” and their reply to that if often not heavy, yeah, it definitely comes back to systems and procedures you know like the importance of that.

Paul:  Yeah.

Brett:  Have you had much experience I guess or anything you can elaborate on in regards to systems and why that is important?

Paul:  Well, when I…

Brett:  Even if you are a solo personal trainer we want to try and tap that mind set right of, “Hey whether I am going to be a solo trainer or not” and I still need to do X, Y, Z.

Paul:    Yeah, well you need have systemize..we need to have a business investor who is going to buy your business the ideal investment for them is a business that runs without the owner been present that is the best business possible, and most of the business goal is to have more freedom, more spare time, so you need to have well established marketing tips, and program that reliably generate a new client you need to have a good sound product that delivers what the client wants, and you have to have a really good system, so that every task in the business you have documented process in the system. If you get those three things you will be able to sell your business and interestingly they are the three most important things to have made your life easier in business.

Brett:  Definitely, so I guess it’s about that there moment if you’re not currently you know systematizing and creating procedures in your business you know I really, really encourage you to start doing that. You know I’ve been in this industry for fifteen, twenty years and they still don’t have a documented system. The great power of that as well as like, you said, if you go on holiday you know you can pass your system, so you can talk about McDonald’s for example they only reason they can sixteen year olds running the place is because they’re got books, manuals that tell you step-by-step exactly what needs to happen, so what we are not saying is don’t go down right now and create every system in your business, but as you go through your and your fine tuning your sales process write down the steps that you go through you know write out your own course, write down what are the key questions you need to ask every person that comes and sits down in front of you very, very important there. I guess Paul…I’m actually interested in what got you into the realm of both running and creating Australian Personal Trainers, so just a quick recap in Australian Institute of Personal Trainers one of the leading campuses in regards to qualified personal trainers if you could give us a little bit of run down on what got you to transfer in that area?

Paul:  Yeah, sure what is happening was we franchised our business by then and we had a big demand for personal training, and we just couldn’t get personal trainers into our business that were trained in our philosophy, so in the mid 2000, we found that the students that had come out of an RTO or wherever they’d be indoctrinated with the philosophy that RTOs…not saying that they are wrong it’s just that it wasn’t the same culture that we had. We didn’t have to ,When we employed somebody we had to I guess indoctrinate or create that culture with that person and sometimes they would be a really great trainer, but they had different beliefs in how things should be done and that came from the RTOs. We found it very frustrating that we couldn’t really get staff that were ready to go, and I went down to work around and ran a workshop for two days, and I found that he was in exactly the same place that he just couldn’t get the right sort of staff who had the right behavior and attitudes we wanted to employ, and it lead me to say to him, this was basically in 2006 I said, “I’ll come back here with an idea and solution on that” and I went back and I had a think about it and thought you know I’ve developed all these for people in business, but this is my own business and I want to make it available to everybody.

It lead me to actually just taking the labels of all my procedure in business that I developed over the years, and giving it to the person the model that was my franchise at no cost, and then giving him the step-by-step approach of how to train somebody to be a personal trainer. So, I did that for him and it wasn’t thinking this was going to be a large business at the time it was really just a one of thing. Then I decided to speak to the gym owner and found they had the same problem they just couldn’t get the sort of staff they wanted. So, yeah basically we created a model where we empowered the – it was interesting because our customer at the time was specifically the employer not the personal trainer, so we took on the culture internally. We wanted to provide the employer with staff, and that made a huge difference, because at the time people were coming out of the course been told, “Go and start their own business from day one” and that is the reason they would end up in the gym working for somebody else, so we went about creating that model. Because we had a number of people ready for that we just grew very, very quickly, and yeah that was in 2006, and by 2010 we were doing thousands of students a year and the as you say is history.

Brett:   Yeah, it’s great to see you can have such a profound difference in the industry not only starting from actually training the general public to then training people to train the general public, so it’s a great line of effective. I guess you have recently stepped away from Australian Personal Trainer and now – you tell us what’s getting Paul passionate now what are you working on?

Paul:   Well, I was going to say with regards to the growth of our PT it was basically because I went out and asked the students or potential students the ones that kept asking the hundred questions I asked them, “What do they really want before they ever enrolled in the course what do you really want?” and overwhelming 95% of them said, “I want to get a job” so they’d ring

you up to ask about a course and what they really wanted was a job, so that was the key difference – we didn’t make entrepreneurs of them we made personal trainers of them. Now, days I’ve, in the last few years I’ve worked with the Australian Sheila’s Life Coaches which was a start up institute, and we potentially started built and sold that business in twelve months. I’ve helped other people in other sectors, weight loss industry, horticulture industry, and other industries help them transform their industry through education. I’ve worked with numerous…I guess larger companies I mean in the fitness industry we regard someone doing in years been quite a large player in other industries significantly more zeros involved and my typical client now is large, I guess a medium size organization with a turnover of twenty million dollars, and around a hundred staff, so it’s quite a different kettle of fish.

I don’t know why but what I have realized is that the one thing that really makes the difference to performance in coaching, and in the fitness industry that’s the case, so as a personal trainer I found it wasn’t necessarily exercise it was how accountable were they held between visits that painted the biggest  differenence. I’ve discovered that I’m extremely passionate about the power of coaching and I’ve spent myself over a hundred thousand dollars on coaching over the last five years or so. Now, I’ve established the Australian Institute of Business Coaches and this is extremely exciting because we have an industry with a lot of passionate people, but no standardized training and largely people in business coaching sector are lone wolves, so they don’t really share or use information with each other, so I’m really enjoying a bit of cross- fertilization cross-pollination as business coaches.

Brett:  Just a…why do you think that is because I’ve said day in and day out people not wanting to share certain strategies because they are scared or whatever the reason been you know like, I guess we put on this podcast, and you know we are sharing anything that needs to be shared. But why do you think people have that type of mind set?

Paul:  I know for myself because I’ve felt that way at time as well I’ve felt like, I don’t want to share my knowledge and then be squirreling away my own learning, and it really comes down to necessity. There are times when I’m afraid of losing clients or losing revenue and it just comes from a scarcity mentality from the fitness industry we have got you know about twenty men Australian, and around ten of those men are overweight, so we take it as a huge amount of personal trainers to kind of fill that need. In the business sector we have got three million small businesses in Australia, and around two and a half thousand business coaches. Really, I believe that every business owner needs a business coach, but not everybody see’s it that way they are more concerned with getting their twenty clients or ten clients and sticking to their own. I think it just comes down to scarcity I think that is the main thing.

Brett:  Yeah, sure I guess on that you know there are some people out there who because I guess what we have said a few times today, and in the past episodes you know we are all advocates on coaching. What do you believe if you were to give someone advice listening to this, what are the key things you look for in a coach, because there are fair few coaches out there you know what do you look for in a coach if you’re a personal trainer?

Paul:  Yeah, in personal trainer the first thing…once again, if you don’t know what results you want it’s very hard to get a coach just like, a client who doesn’t know what their weight loss goal is, or health goal, so it’s really actually hard for a trainer to help. The first thing would be for you personally as a personal trainer to know where you want to be in three years time all right number one. Number two is to, when you work with a coach be really clear with that coach about the results you want to get not just information, but I want to grow my business by three times only working twenty hours a week, and I want to have five weeks off a year and I want to earn two hundred thousand dollar like, in my pocket. The more clarity, and that coach is a good coach will actually take those results been important to them a business coach who is suffering from self doubt will explain to you how I can’t get results how…it’s not about the results it’s about the journey, blah, blah, blah, blah all right. If your business coach starts talking about the fact that they will learn, grow, and develop, but it’s not the bottom line move on.

The third thing I would look it is where they have been trained, and what results they have in the past do they have a track record working with people like me. I always look for a coach that has worked with larger businesses than me, so my last business coach typically you know each client was twenty million dollars turnover plus, so I was his smallest client which suited me I’d rather be the smallest client of a coach than a larger client of a coach. Identifying all those skills is learning from a larger organization in my little enterprise.

Brett:  Yeah, great Paul all valuable insight there and definitely great and if you’re out looking for a coach you know there is no real rocket science behind you know it. What you can do is just reach out to someone you know and just actually send them an email to try and get through to them and let them know where you are currently at.

Paul:  I didn’t mention one more thing I think it’s a fairly specialized area, so if you can get a coach who has got some results within your you know if you went to a business coach with you know a dog washing company, and a lawn mowing company, and a video store you know you have to spend a long time explaining to them what your business is, so it is good to have a person that’s worked with your current business.

Brett:  Yeah, fantastic I couldn’t agree more. Paul if you were to give us an over view like, what’s the key thing? What is working for you right now that would be valuable for others to know about?

Paul:  Right now, the number one thing is been disciplined, have a good memory, so it’s disciplined, so I’ve got lots of business movies…just discipline. I’ve got my product it’s taken me two years to work out what it is, and now it’s about saying, “No” to shoddy objects or shoddy ideas, and I’ve got a thing called a “Parking Lot” which is actually a bookcase in my office with folders and folders of business ideas and things that I have, and they live on the parking lot, because I can’t do all those things; I have to do one thing at a time. Right now, I’ve got the Australian Institute of Business Coaches and we are in the start up phase I know its early days and we have been around for six months, and we need to go hard and fast and think about a cool business in the next twelve months. There are so many people coming up to me with opportunities and ideas and things that I could do. I should actually kind of ignore them to some point and just focus on my core business, so it takes discipline.

Brett:  That’s a really a valuable point and I’d like to talk a little bit more really it’s never going to be shortage of a bright shining object now, I mean I need to continue with this myself because I myself come up with a new idea every ten minutes I think. What are the key things you look at? Let’s say you’re a personal trainer and have just taken on your advice to be disciplined and not take on any other projects how do you know when to take on another project? What is it that will make you say, “Hold on a minute I’ve actually got limit this” what are they key things?

Paul:  It is…ummmm….Great question Brett you clearly are a coach because you drive some really powerful questions. It comes down to the scoreboard for each month it comes down to the scoreboard, so each month it comes down to a set of four or five numbers that I have, and that automatically comes down to the result the business is produces, so if the numbers aren’t right then I’m going to get my ass kicked, so I’ve got a business coach and, why I’d try and pull a couple because a couple of things I’ve been trying the fact comes down to the performance of the business, so that the only way I take this is be accountable there is no other way, and accountable weekly accountable monthly. I have got two coaches I’ve got one coach that sees me kind of weekly, so that person is very, very good at you know, weekly action what doing part of the business, the action taken taken, and the second person I have he’s actually not a coach they’re actually a business advisor and I can’t go to meetings without my profit loss and balance sheet they won’t talk to me without a printout of my loss and balance sheet. I’ve been doing wonderful things like, comparing actual versus budget which…you know all they look at is the numbers they don’t care about the amazing year that I have had they just care about their local counsel type person they are not an account they are actually different from that, but they only care about the biggest industry, so I just had a hard time finding a person who can be inspired and motivated and encouraging, and the same person is quite non-colleague, and dry and you know – I hate been mean, because there is no…You know I love the first meeting it’s like, all positive and great work, but the second meeting sucks they don’t care about anything, but profit and loss.

Brett:  They’re definitely entrepreneurs.

Paul:  The second meeting is you are sort of this person that will be reviewing my figures, so someone is buying my business the second person is the sort of person they engage to come and view the business to see whether it’s worthwhile, and I’ve already got that person involved, and yeah they don’t smile they just basically go, “A, huh, a hum, right,” so I find them both really valuable, and I need to have both in place though to make cheese.

Brett:  Look I’ve picked up a few things out of that and if we were to  look at it in comparison you know professional athletes need more than one coach.

Paul:  Yeah.

Brett:  You know they have got their coach their special conditioning coach, nutrition coach you know similar to someone in the person training industry you know. If you’re not a qualified nutritionist and you’re not too sure on what food your client should be eating then you need to outsource it to a professional nutritionist.

Paul:  I guess as a professional athlete you have a reality check which is lifetime, so if you lose you get silver you lost, so the second structure is – there is no finish line in business it’s always ongoing, so I had a very, very focused monthly game that I win there is no like, I a almost got there…it’s like, either I actually compete or I fail you know, so it’s not necessarily if I can feel the accountability and I do as I say, I have a number of people that are specialist that I engage in consultants to do things for me, and I think that a personal trainer needs to have a consultants that help them within areas of their business. The challenge is making enough money to pay all of these different people for all the advice.

Brett:  Yeah, that’s right.

Paul:  Your business coaches your weekly business coach and it goes back to having somebody who has been there and done it. If you engage in a business coach into a personal training business you sort of getting a lot how to do stuff advise on a weekly basis, so perhaps that is why we see a lot of entrepreneurs with turnover less than say two fifty replying on business coaching feeding on their stomach, because I know it can happen to the [inaudible 0:42:42.6] tools because they are coaching more with the coach, and also a bit of advisor and mentor as well.

Brett:  Yeah, sure that’s a great point as well Paul. I guess now sitting there are people talking about coaching and so forth and deciding whether to hammer to the nome, but I mean the importance of it is extremely vital. If someone is sitting there and going, “Well I don’t have enough capital raised or money to get started with a coach” what type of advice would you give them in regard – maybe you could give us a couple of your favorite books.

Paul:  Absolutely, number one my personal favorite a client weighs in and they weigh a hundred and thirty kilos and they say they want to lose weight, and they say I can’t afford a personal trainer… well what would just say. The same thing in regards you want results you have to spend the money, so some ways of getting I guess – you can get a advice that’s a nothing out there, but having a coach and somebody that cares about your results you have to put some money in their pocket to have them really engage with your business otherwise it’s just not worth it. I would suggest if you have no money like, if you’re really low on cash getting into a membership program or a group coaching program is the first step would certainly help. You can probably get something you know sort of one hundred dollars to five hundred dollars a month, and as an individual or group coaching context. You have to provide you have to take the advice of whether to make more money, so the last coaching guy that I employed was four and a half thousand dollars a day, so I had to take on that I create at least three thousand dollars a month extra revenue from his coaching and I did it.

If you’re in that sort of, basically if you want to aggressively grow your business doing a one-on-one coach it would be a good idea as well to say you’re looking at probably between I’d say fifteen hundred two and a half thousand dollars a month until you get a coach that is worth the investment.

Brett:  Yeah, I hundred percent agree, so I guess if there is someone out there and they just want to get started in regards to information what type of – what are a couple of your favorite books that will be able to get people started you know in that digital price tag.

Paul:  I think the first one you can read is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that is a good book to read by Stephen Covey the next one would be Purple Cow by Seth Godin, and that book is about heading out from the crowd which is really important at the moment in the fitness industry and its quiet different, and the third one would be…I think it’s Stephen Phaidon it’s a book called It’s Not How Good You Are It’s How Good You Want To Be and it’s got it’s got running ostriches and I love that book it’s short ten years late you know, but I think those three books are, if you really implemented those three books all the knowledge you need is in those three books as far as how to do it, so a good place to start.

Brett:  Yeah, great fantastic I’ve read all of those books and I couldn’t agree more. Another one I’ve add in there is The Emish by…I forgot mate who wrote that one?

Paul:  Russell Gansett I guess The Emish was the book of the generation X, you know that’s what we all read and know days it’s The 4-Hour Workweek which is the book of this generation. I guess I would probably…both of those books should come as a warning that actually you have to do a lot of extraordinary large amount of work. Most authors write books to sell books, so just those two books that’s great, but the fact is your going to have to be a technician, manager, and entrepreneur in varying degrees in your journey. You can try to start from day one without actually having to have an understanding of your product then you are going to be floored in the fitness industry, because the personal trainer I work is a personal that actually knows what they are doing and not just a business entrepreneur, so those books are definitely ones that I recommend, but I’d recommend them after the three if I had my way.

Brett:  Yeah, and lot’s of them right I mean how about just get all five of them.

Paul:  ahhh!!! Loads of stuff to read…

Brett:  So, I guess Paul a couple of questions that I just want to finish off on. Where do you see the fitness industry heading over the next five years?

Paul:  The fitness industry, there is actually a study of market research that show tools that plot the course of various industries in Australia, mining, childcare, and things like that. The fitness industry is actually in maturity at the moment it’s matured, so what that means is there are established players in competition etc, and it’s whole concept of been declined over the next five years, so we are going to see a gradual decline in the fitness industry as we know it. The drive of that decline will be things like online programs, and you’ve already seen programs like, Michelle Bridges program making a big impact on people. Online programs making a big impact so it’s not bad news it’s just what it is that we need to be really sharp about what value we create for our customers, so I think you will see personal trainers of the future been really clear about focusing on the weight loss, and body transformation and not about fitness. You are going to see additional niche markets opening up, so at the moment you know ten years ago the “The Firm” was the only provider of women’s only fitness, isn’t that amazing ten years ago only one.

Brett:  Yeah.

Paul:   Now, I take a peek everywhere and in 24-Hour Fitness you know for a very short time that was exclusively one provider and now there are a number of providers doing that. I think we are going to see a return of the value of personal trainers and how a personal trainer can make the difference between results or not, and the key is to be able to leverage your time through group coaching. I say the word coaching as opposed to fitness I think the lower level personal trainers will just focus on sessions for most of their clients, and the high level personal trainers will be almost like, the big guy you go to for the complex problems and they coordinate everything the client needs from exercise, nutrition, and mind set shifting.

Brett:  I guess it’s similar to what we have created with Fit, and now Fit-Chick location programs as we want to create a community something where someone can come in and you can help them on many aspects versus they just turn up, and that’s it…see you next week type of thing,

so yeah, I couldn’t agree more with that as well. If you’re sitting and you heard Paul say, “The fitness industry is going to be on the decline” and that’s just not his opinion that’s based on you know Paul been a scientist he looked at the fitness stats on this…

Paul:  I continued a report actually Brett I will email you the industry report.

Brett:  Yeah great, actually I’ll put a little gap underneath this podcast, and share it with everyone it will be great. I guess the point I was making on this there is no time like, the present to stand out from the crowd you know an how you operate differently from every other personal trainer that’s generally qualified. Don’t be alarmed by that you know the fitness industry people aren’t going to all get in shape over night there are always going to be people to train. I guess if we were to finish off on the last question there is something I like to ask people in the fitness industry if there is one thing about the fitness industry that you could change what would it be and why?

Paul:  One thing I would change would be that personal to redefine is how personal trainers see themselves, so I would think about – my mum is in her sixties and she has a crook back, and I think who could I refer her to a personal trainer knowing that that personal trainer is going to do a good job, and at the moment I couldn’t I’d have to make sure I really checked into that personal trainers approach, so basically I don’t think we have the problem right now, because probably we don’t have the trust in the community or the allied health profession like, GPs an doctors, so I think we have a lot of work to do in professionalizing things. I still see people doing ridiculous exercises with clients and just plain dumb things, so I think the hardest thing about the industry is there is no standard approach to how we train our clients, but there could be a standard philosophy how we respect our clients.

Brett:  I completely agree, and what would be the first step to make that happen?

Paul:  Lead by example, I’m engaged in and have a number of events running which are about developing leaders in the fitness industry and if you influence…I’m influencing the leaders just to tone and culture the personal trainers they influence, so I’m working with leaders and getting alignment on how they see personal training evolving, and deliberately going about changing the way it’s perceived.

Brett:  Yeah, fantastic Paul, but look we have a couple of minutes on the clock to go and I just want to finish up and get with anything else you want to add or any final messages to give our clients how they can go out there and you know mirror their clients, and what are the goals they want to actually achieve themselves. What sort of advice would you give them?

Paul:  I think if you sit down like, wherever you are in this podcast and sit done and just get a piece of white paper and just draw up that vision for where you want to be in three years time. What is your life going to look like and what is your business going to look like in three years time? I think it’s a teaching just really visualizing where you want to be in three years, and then second to that would be think about somebody who is effectively living that life that you really admire, and approach that person to, and say, “I really admire what you have done and would it be okay if you could mentor me?” to achieve what you have achieved. One thing you know about successful people is they are very generous, and if you approach people with the right intentions and that is to…I would say yes to anybody that is just looking to make money, because they want to buy a new car that does not inspire me at all. But, if I see somebody that actually wants to change the world then I will do anything I can to help them because effectively they are making a difference to the world I’ll make a difference as well. I think the confidence to approach somebody that has been there and done it, and you really respect you will find they will give you some time or at least give you some advice and help you along the way as well.

Brett:  Fantastic lead on questions Paul to finish off for our listeners out there who like what you said and they want to find out more about Paul Timms where can they go to, or can they reach out…give us some information?

Paul:  The easiest way to get a hold of me is to Google Paul Timms and so I have got a website called PaulTimms.com, facebook/PaulTimms I use that quite a lot as well, and I’ve got a system of attracting the right people in my life, so I run every  four months huh..every three months I run a leadership summit. It cost ninety-seven dollars it’s fairly cheap, but if you would come to that event – we are only talking about leadership skills it’s all about to be an inspiring speaker, how to run events, and how to make a difference, so if people come to that event I really take notice of them because they have already told me that they are somebody that cares about leadership. I think the easiest way to get a hold of me is to connect online, but also come to one of those events they are happening all around the place. My next one is in Brisbane, but they are happening all the time, so come along and meet me and bring me one thing that is a problem for you at the moment and what I always do is with people is say to them, “What is one thing that is a problem right now in business that you’d like help with?” I have a personal commitment to answering that question. I do that with my audience and I do that with people I meet, and I’m more than happy to do that for anybody that actually wants to get in touch with me to, to answer any personal questions your having about how to get to where you want to get to.

Brett:  Perfect, there you go guys there is an opportunity right there find Paul on facebook he’s on facebook.com/PaulTimms, that’s Timms with two MMs as well or of course you can Google him.

Paul:  Just Google me.

Brett:  And who will see what else pops up…I might get my SEOs thing now up to try and dig some stuff up.

Paul: I’m sure you will you got really!! I know how you people think.

Brett:  All right Paul look personally thank again, mate for taking the time out of your day I know it’s very valuable, and I know speaking on behalf of everyone listening that they got some valuable insight out of today fishing and what pops up here is we are definitely going to get you back on in a later session where we can actually talk about speaking because we never really got t talk about that today and I know it’s a specialty in your field and something your extremely passionate about, so we look forward to having you back on board. Okay, you enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll talk to you soon.

Paul:  Thank you Brett. Bye.