1000s of clients, 100,000s of followers: Building an Online Fitness Brand with Simon Johnson Ep 15

Simon Johnson is the Founder of Aesthetic Strength an online personal training platform. 

Simon started out aged 16 in his parents' garage doing 1-1 personal training sessions and has now built an online fitness empire centred in Dubai with a team of 10 staff. He has utilised social media generating over 250,000 followers online & has been featured on ITV news, BBC, radio, and Dubai radio as well as talking on the total mental performance and fitness entrepreneur conferences. 

This is an important watch for anyone interested in fitness, social media, entrepreneurship and 'becoming the best you can be'. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
01:08 Passion for Fitness and Starting a Business
04:38 Attracting Initial Clients
06:12 Transitioning to an Online Business
09:30 Differentiating from Other Fitness Trainers
11:49 Importance of Accountability
14:07 Ideal Clients and Criteria for Accepting Clients
15:48 The Importance of Fitness for Mental Health
17:23 Fitness for Older Adults and Long-Term Health
18:39 Client Retention and Phases of the Program
21:21 Importance of Sleep and Diet
23:44 Balancing Diet and Moderation
24:38 The Dark Side of Fitness and Realistic Expectations
26:41 The Influence of Social Media and Extreme Expectations
29:17 Advice for Young Entrepreneurs
31:22 Generating Clients and Importance of Social Media
34:44 Scaling the Business and Building a Team
36:13 Collecting and Analyzing Data
37:20 Attracting A-Grade Team Members
38:20 The Future of the Business and Social Media
39:56 Differentiating Your Business
42:24 Maintaining a Core Brand Message
44:42 Expanding into Other Ventures
44:59 Role Models and Mentors
46:32 Target Market and Competition
48:08 Taking Care of Yourself
49:30 Building Sustainable Habits
50:10 Choosing Dubai as a Base
51:01 Growing Social Media and Building a Brand
52:19 Simon's Values and Advice
53:52 Future Fitness Goals
54:21 Fitness and Business Parallels
55:17 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to episode 15 of Personable. Today, I am hugely honored to be joined by Simon Johnson. Simon is the founder of Aesthetic Strength. He began his fitness journey at 16 years old. He's one of the youngest to qualify for the EIF personal training. He was a county-level tennis player, rugby player and has built a fitness business to over 2,000 clients, helping people to cut an average of 10% body fat in their first 90 days. He is also very successful in social media, with over 250,000 followers across platforms, and has been also featured on mainstream media, including ITV News, bbc Radio, dubai Radio, and has been and has talked at conferences on mental performance and for fitness entrepreneurs. He's completed an Ironman, a math man, and he's also qualified for the British Championship for powerlifting. I'm hugely excited for our conversation. I feel like Simon has a lot to say and there's a lot that we can learn from him, so thank you so much for coming on today, simon.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Yeah, thank you for having me mate. I really appreciate it. It's been an interesting conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:08

So, Simon, I want you to take me to the beginning of when you first got into fitness, when you took it seriously I mean, at that time, as we've mentioned, you were a county-level tennis player and rugby player and how you turned that passion for fitness and for sport into a real business.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Yeah, absolutely Well, I think it's interesting. I don't consider myself a normal person because I'm definitely not. I always say like, ever since I literally came out the womb, sports has been my life. Whether it was rugby, football, tennis in the gym, whatever it might be, I was obsessed with it and I loved just performing, competing, challenging myself, getting out my comfort zone, meeting new people. That was my way of doing that. So literally from the age of three, four, five, I was playing sports and my fitness journey within, like the gym space more so, started when I was 11.

Speaker 2: 1:57

And back in Jersey, where I'm from, there was a program called the high performance program at the time. Now it's called One Foundation. Sadly, recently it's obviously been folded. But their whole goal was to take people from Jersey and giving them the opportunity to take their sport to the highest level. And it was part of that and just fell in love with the gym. Just fell in love with it Because I think at that time, being so young, I actually hated school, like probably a lot of people.

Speaker 2: 2:21

But what I loved about the gym was, if you turn up day in, day out, weekend, week out, month in, month out, you just do the work. There's no way you're going to fail Because you will see progress. It's a very you put this in, you get this out, and I love that because I've said I'm a very progress oriented, orientated person. I also realized what the gym gave me and what the character traits it taught me was hardware, consistency, discipline, focus and I would put those character traits down to you've been able to achieve any level of success. I hate the word success, but whatever you envision success being, in whatever area you want to take it to, because it's about the character traits that it embodies into you to allow you to achieve what you want to.

Speaker 1: 3:01

So where did that idea come from? From actually having this you said you weren't a normal person but actually pursuing this and thinking I've got an idea, let's, let's create this into a business. How did that idea come to you and going from an idea to actually putting it into action?

Speaker 2: 3:19

Yeah, absolutely so weirdly, growing up I knew what I wanted to do. It was played. Originally it was played professional tennis. Wasn't good enough for that, very simply. Then it was played professional rugby. Just didn't happen, wasn't good enough. Okay, I'm not going to try and silver coat it or line, it just wasn't okay.

Speaker 2: 3:33

And plan B was always be a person trying. I loved it and I realized that coaches had had such a key part in my life ever since. Literally, like I said, I came out the room from three, four, five. I knew what it gave me and I want to be able to give that back to other people. So when I was 16, I begs the old and borrowed from every family member and can get enough money to pay for EIF, the European Institute of Fitness, and I did that. The plan was to do that, become a PT, do a little bit of personal training on the side.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Whilst I was at school in a gym and when I was there, the last module was putting together a business plan and I'd never really even considered the thought of setting it up as my own business. It was always like I'll go to a fitness first or I'll go to somewhere else and do that and it just thought this idea of like, why would I build it for someone else when I can do it on my own? And I knew I was young enough to be able to take the risk and give it a go. And I was young enough to do it, and if it all failed it didn't really matter. And also I was very lucky that my parents were super supportive and gave me the chance to start training people out in my garage and the shed at the time, which you've trained in. That's where it all came from, really.

Speaker 1: 4:42

But how did you attract these initial clients? Because I think you mentioned that, although there's the, you hadn't got the risk element as much because you were young and you could go for it. But I'm sure that a lot of people would want a more experienced trainer or someone that's been in the industry for a while. So how did you get your initial clients after you decided to go for it?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Absolutely so. I remember I qualified. I then had did two weeks in the UK like seeing family, seeing some friends and stuff. And when I came back in two weeks I had 10 clients and I literally just went through all of my contacts in my phone Anyone I knew off social media, friends, family, friends of friends, family, a family and I just messaged everyone like hey look, I've just recently qualified as a personal trainer, do you want to come for a free session?

Speaker 2: 5:26

And then just did a really good job and they committed and the time I was selling blocks of 10 sessions and then do a really good job with them. They told their friends jerseys amazing in certain ways and a pain in the ass in other ways as we as we go. But the fact that it is such a small place and through playing years and years and years of sport, I knew you so many people. All it took was for me to just quote Alex or Mosey, give them an offer. They were stupid to say no to. It was going hey look, why would you come for a free personal training session? And then, when I got them in the door, just did a really good job.

Speaker 1: 5:58

When you, when you started and you start to get consistent clients, which is sound like you had a very smart idea from early on how did you transition that business model from in person events in your parents' garage to the online business that we have today?

Speaker 2: 6:12

Yeah, very difficult and a lot of mess ups along the way, to say the least. So I did about six years in person that between group sessions between one to one clients, and the goal was always to go online, unlike a lot of personal trainers, because growing up I saw a lot of people or personal trainers who were potentially late 30s, mid 40s, even in their 50s still on the gym floor selling their time for money. They've got a family now they've got to work on social hours and their incomes completely capped. So I always knew that I wanted to go online for a number of different reasons. One was the freedom to was the growth and be able to make more money. The other was to be able to help people all around the world and the biggest one for me was actually been able to work with people that I wanted to particularly work with.

Speaker 2: 6:57

So it wasn't training Sally from around the corner, who wanted a tone up in goings. No disrespect to Sally. Sally's a lovely lady, but where my passion lies, where my expertise lies and where I get the most fulfillment, is helping people who are in a good position. They want to go to a great position. They've got some area of success in their life where there might be business it might be their professional career, might be their family, but their health and their fitness is the last kind of missing piece of the puzzle for them to feel like they've completed.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Why would someone? You mentioned that missing piece of the puzzle, but I think a lot of people would be at their idea would just be to get fitter. So what do you think the real unique selling point of your businesses and why do you think you've got over 2000 clients that have come to you. Why not go to someone else? Why not go to someone like VShred or another online business or another in-person trainer?

Speaker 2: 7:46

Yeah, it's funny on VShred actually site tangent here I've been interviewing a few new people for a couple of roles within the business and the amount of people who have worked for VShred and now are leaving because they don't necessarily agree with how they do it ethically. Ethically, their unique mechanism is just a load of marketing. God like God, like there's nothing necessarily. Let's be realistic. You can find it like a study to back anything. I could find a study that's saying drinking water makes you fat. Wow, you could. You really could. Yeah, that's right. For example, kellogg's okay, the whole breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Guess who funded that study? Kellogg's, of course. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Intimacy, fasting Exactly.

Speaker 2: 8:34

What makes us different, I believe, is I have 10 years of experience within the field, working with such a range of people, because I didn't necessarily niche down. For the first six years, I was like I want to coach everyone. I want to become the best coach that I possibly can. Now, through 10 years, I know the science because I keep myself up to date. I also have 10 years of experience coaching thousands of people.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Now, health and fitness, weight loss, whatever it might be, is incredibly simple in theory but incredibly hard in application. What I think makes us different is I know both sides of that and it helped people find the middle ground where that it's scientifically backed but it actually fits and incorporates into their lifestyle. So it's actually caring about your client, understanding their goals, their lifestyle, their struggles and then having a range of different solutions that you can put together. Going okay, great, which do you feel is going to be the best one for you, rather than going this is how we do it. You adapt to this Because sometimes it's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole it's just not going to work.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Sure With that, and you make me a very clear point about V-Shred, and I've noticed that with a lot of other things, about social media and the problems that it presents how do you think people can find the right fitness trainers and the right people? A lot of people are using social media as their source of news, as their source of knowledge. People like V-Shred I mean it was seen by millions and millions of people and yet it's not really garnering the results it needs. So how can people find the trainers and the right information about their diet and their fitness and their goals and what they want to achieve? Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:03

We're shooting a lot of shots at V-Shred here. It's not necessarily my style. It's like bad mouth people Don't get me wrong. They still get some amazing results with their clients. But the biggest thing for me is not necessarily looking at just the results they get, but the consistency in which they achieve those results. If you have a million clients and you get 100 people insane results on social media, that might look amazing, but really it's awful. This is me just assuming.

Speaker 1: 10:28

They're probably doing it anyway and those people are probably training and doing things anyway.

Speaker 2: 10:33

They just needed someone to go do this. That's it. They just needed to get out their own way. I've invested a lot into mentors over the last couple of years and it's probably been the biggest catalyst for my progression. I will continue to. I've been a coach for 10 years and I still have my own coach. I will always have a coach. Now I look for people who have been there and done it themselves, people who are actually qualified. In 10 years of personal training, I've been asked what my qualifications are twice.

Speaker 1: 11:00

One big thing about this and one thing I've found particularly helpful, particularly working with people like yourself, is this idea of accountability. I think for a lot of people, accountability is physically having someone like their mum and dad to make them do their homework, or a boss at work to make sure they do their job. I've found that with a lot of these online programs, there's a lack of accountability because there's a limit to the amount of satisfaction you can get from just doing some online form, saying well done, you've reached a new PR For yourself and with clients across the world. How do you manage people's accountability and make sure that they actually are doing the workouts that you set them and actually going towards achieving their goals? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Accountability is the glue between your goal and your achieving. That's how I view accountability. How we help hold our clients accountable is also actually putting them up to them, because some people might say I just want to be spoken to once a week, but I want it to be more in depth. Some people prefer little and often that's one way that we start to navigate it, because if you've got someone who doesn't like lots of communication and you're giving them it, it's just going to put them off and they're not going to want to do it, whereas if you've got someone who has like you, don't get any depth to it. It's about understanding what the client feels like they need again, actually caring about your client. Alongside this, we have so many different forms of accountability. We have an app that people track their workouts on so I can literally see what exercise you've done, how many sets, how many reps, what weight you've lifted. We always prescribe, say, a progression method. If you're not following it, I'll be like hey look, harvey smashed it on this last week. That's just up the way to this.

Speaker 2: 12:35

We've got habits that people check off. Even though I might not be messaging a client or having a call with a client all the time. I always know day to day, week to week, what they have done or what they haven't done. We have like a minimum threshold. We know that 80% adherence will get someone amazing results. If someone's adherence starts to drop below 80%, that's when we're like get on top of it to make sure they're held accountable With that. The one other thing is probably actually just making sure someone understands what a successful week looks like. As high performers and I'm sure a lot of the people listening to this podcast are going to be high performers who have high expectations for themselves and high standards they think a successful week is perfection. It's every calorie nailed, every workout nailed, every meeting nailed, every step nailed, sleeping perfect, nutrition perfect, everything. It's about having realistic expectations. That set you up to success when you stack wins and then you build momentum.

Speaker 1: 13:33

Now, having that and having had so many successful clients, do you now have a set criteria for the type of people that you take on board, or is it really a case of anyone that wants to get fit?

Speaker 2: 13:46

I'm very person by person. I do this because I like to help people change their life. If I get someone on the call who's playing the victim, saying none of this is my fault, I haven't done this. This person did this because of this, I'm like you're probably not going to be the right fit. I'm very straight to the point person Me and that person just aren't going to align very well. I look for people who value health. If you value health and you see the importance of being healthy, we're going to be a good fit because I can talk to you on a level where you can understand why it's actually important for you to get fit here, get healthier, look your best, feel your best and perform at your best. If I've got someone who just wants to go to Ibiza and get shredded, sure I can do it. I can get them an amazing result, but it doesn't give me a huge amount of fulfillment. All my team.

Speaker 1: 14:36

On that. I follow you on social media along with a lot of my family members. Recently you've had this story of how you were training a lot and then you got out of shape and then you got much better into shape again, but alongside that you had the mental implications of not being as fit and then getting fit again. How important do you think fitness is for your mental health and what's the overall aspect and importance that it has for our fitness? Because you mentioned that guy or woman that's just getting shredded and that's the only focus and doesn't believe in actually getting fit and being overall healthy. So you taught me a bit about how that works and the importance of it.

Speaker 2: 15:13

Yeah, absolutely Well, the common human neurosis is we're all afraid of not being enough and we're all afraid of not being loved. Sorry to go deep, but it's true. Now, if you have wrapped your whole identity up and I want to look a certain way and that is your whole level of success what you see is success. The second you're not there. You see yourself as a failure and not worthy and not good enough. So if you're purely attaching yourself worth to your aesthetic, you're setting yourself up to fail and feel like shit, which will affect your mental health. So it's not a case of but sure, let's be real.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Looking good makes a lot of people feel good, and that's right. It should do as well. But it should be about how you feel when you look good, what it allows you to do. Does it allow you to run around with your kids? Does it allow you to be able to go out the door and run a 5K or a 10K, whatever it might be? Because it's about so much more than that and it's about understanding who you're becoming in the process of getting an amazing shape. And so I said before the character traits hard work, consistency, discipline, self-worth, dedication. It's just about understanding those and how that will then help you for the future. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 16:19

Yeah, so have you found that most people nowadays it's more about especially with the older crowd? I mean, a lot of younger people are just about getting shredded and getting the best they can be, whereas you mentioned that even with people with the older crowd or not even older, but even just having kids they want to be able to look after their family members. Could you talk a bit about how that helps, because I know that there's a statistic that something I think is over 50 years old that you lose a percentage of muscle every year, and I've read about how important it is to put on that size so that you can have that later on, but I'm not an expert in this field.

Speaker 2: 16:52

Well, the reason that a lot of people lose muscles they get older is because they stop actually stimulating the muscle. If you don't use it, you lose it. So it's not necessarily that you just get hit a certain age and you start losing your muscle. It's just most people hit a certain age and their priority shift and they forget about the health. So that's the major thing. But it's been interesting, a massive pivot, I would say, really since COVID of yes, there's the aesthetic side of things and that is a big driver for people. There's also a huge driver in terms of being fit and healthy. I think the industry is changing a lot from how big can I get? How jobs can I get? Can I look like a bodybuilder? To this new kind of like hybrid era where I want to be feeling, perform like an athlete.

Speaker 1: 17:34

So yeah, it's been a big. Yeah, I mean even yourself. You've managed to measure an Ironman, which is incredibly impressive, on the idea that People are just getting fit, and you pick clients based on health-based actions and you've got this quoted stat in which People lose 10% of body fat on average in their first 90 days. Do you find that your clients are staying on after those 90 days or after those 180 days? Yeah, is there a big drop-off after people have achieved their ideal physique?

Speaker 2: 18:05

No. So we seed in. So the reason I seed with that status, because I give people what they want and then we show them what they need. Okay, from a marketing aspect, we have to show people want the transformation. They want to use the fact because they think that will make them feel better. The key is to actually maintain results. So we have a full phase process that we take our clients through. Phase one is our priming phase. So that's habits, that's routine, their structure, because most people don't have control of their time. Time controls them. They feel messy, they were over the place, they're really passive, they put things off again and again and again and again. The first couple of weeks is purely focused on getting them into amazing routine, controlling their time, because if they can do that everything else becomes easier.

Speaker 2: 18:44

Imagine that was like building the foundation for the pyramid. Phase two is the fat loss phase, because most people need to lose some body fat to get Themself and just for health and aesthetics. Once we get there, we then run something called a reverse diet. So we slowly, strategically increase calories, helps ramp up metabolism, improves insulin sensitivity, makes people's bodies a lot more effective at utilizing the additional calories for their training performance.

Speaker 2: 19:09

Throughout that phase we focus on maintaining body weight and also making people understand what maintenance actually is, because if I'm 80 kilos, for example, people think maintenance is 80 kilos. It's not. In my eyes, maintenance is 5%, 5% of a buffer, okay. So 80 to 84. So if I fluctuate up to 84, I've then got a hard and fast stop to like Simon, you need to Tighten up on something or you need to get back onto it. So I fluctuate, I'll bring things back down. I stay within that range, because staying bang on is just unrealistic. But if you have Most people do that and then they gain two kilos and then I'll stuff it, I might as well keep going, okay. Whereas if you have the hard and fast stop and then our last phase is like a performance phase where they get fitter, you get stronger. You work on your performance because if you look after the performance, the health, the body fat, the aesthetic, to look after themselves.

Speaker 1: 20:01

What do you think are the most important aspects, aside from physical exertion and training and running, such as diet, sleep and and routines Particularly the idea of the diet, and how can people add those into their lifestyles to make themselves much better, healthy and happier?

Speaker 2: 20:19

Yeah, absolutely Well. Everything I teach is through a pyramid. So we have a training pyramid and nutrition pyramid and a transformation pyramid, the reason being that Imagine, if people are watching this, be able to see if Egypt, the Egyptians, built pyramids like that so the the right way up they stand. If they built them the wrong way up, upside down, with the smallest end of the bottom pyramid would collapse. So it's about understanding the law of diminishing returns. Most coaches focus on the 80%. That only gets 20% results. What we do is we focus on the 20% to get 80% results first. So, in terms of understanding how to incorporate that, I think sleep is your foundation for everything. There was a study done for people who sleep less than seven hours on average, they consume an extra 500 calories per day. To put that in perspective for people, 500 calories seven days a week, that's 3,500 calories. That's equal to one pound of body fat every single week just by not sleeping seven hours.

Speaker 1: 21:15

That's the second extra, like 20, 25% as well, exactly, yeah, and that's that's what I. What about diet wise? Because? Is it all about cutting out all of the sugar, cutting out the chocolate cake, not not going out drinking alcohol with your friends, yeah. Or is it about balance? What's the true side of fitness?

Speaker 2: 21:37

the truth. Okay. The truth is everything in moderation, but that never sells. That's why Be shred do so well is because they don't so Quantary in terms like carbs don't make you fat, whereas most mainstream is saying that okay, and they're saying you can still eat alcohol because everything in moderation doesn't sell. Okay, but diet is, in my eyes, the next thing on top of sleep. Okay, because you can literally train your ass off six days a week for hours and you'll never see the results that you want. Trust me, I tried for years. Okay, I'm gonna know. So many people do exactly the same thing. Now, when it comes to diet, again, there's a period.

Speaker 2: 22:12

The base of the pyramid is calories. This is the easiest place to start for most people. Now I Speak to a lot of clients on a weekly basis who have worked with nutritionists. No, it doesn't work for me and this isn't me saying nutritionist about, because there's some amazing nutritionist out there but I think the number one, most important thing for someone who's starting their health and fitness journey is seeing results, because if you see results, you get positive reinforcement. You stay consistent.

Speaker 2: 22:37

Most nutritionists it's like right, eat more fruits and vegetables and coconut into each meal, which is amazing for your health, but it doesn't make you see results. And if you don't see results, you're not gonna stay consistent. So the number one thing is just know your calories. Next thing is protein. Okay, if you know your calories, you get 80% of the results you want. If you know calories and protein, you get 90% of the results that you want. Once you're nailing those two, just make sure you follow the 80-10 tool. 80% of your food comes from good, whole quality sources. 20%. Do whatever the hell you want with. I do mine and ice cream pops.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Yeah, that's why I should cut out the extra 500 calories. So you got the rest.

Speaker 1: 23:14

Yeah enjoy, get your sleep. I've seen, and we mentioned, a transition away from the bodybuilding phase, some more of a hybrid phase, but a lot of social media Um come to his name. I think it's Joe. Something big bodybuilder recently recently passed away, in the last year. People's Exactly people are saying he's got the most ideal physique in the world Almost alien type muscles, but yet he's passed away. I don't know if it was directly related or not, but there is a dark side to fitness and that people are trying to get these physiques that they can never actually achieve Because they don't have the genetics, they're not taking a load of steroids and they don't have the resources all the time to achieve. Did you talk a bit about the dark side of fitness and how you stay away from that, how you stay clean and how you stay towards your goals while having realistic expectations about what you can achieve?

Speaker 2: 24:04

Absolutely. There's a huge dog side to the fitness and there is a Lot of performing, performing enhancing drugs that go around and I would lie if I'd say I haven't been tempted in the past, because I have. But I'm also out of curiosity because I managed to build what I think are pretty reasonable physique, naturally. So I wonder what that would be like. But I haven't touched anything and For me, the way that I stay away from stuff like that is understanding, like for the long term, what's important.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Most people want to have a family, most people want to have kids and not this isn't saying if you take that stuff, you can't, but there's always a risk. Okay, and is having three, four, five pounds of muscle More important to you now than potentially never having kids in the future or potentially dying of a heart attack at the age of 30? That's how I look at it. But it's not even just that. It's Understanding that social media is a highlight group. You're literally seeing people at their best.

Speaker 2: 25:01

I live in Dubai, the amount of influence I see around and they spend 90 minutes taking freaking photos by the pool, like when you see the other side of it behind the scenes, you see how cringy and how awful it is, okay, and a lot of people idolize these, idolize these. People think I want to look like that, I want to be like that, I want that lifestyle. When you see it behind the scenes, like sure, some of them will live a pretty amazing Lifestyle. Half of them are skint, okay, don't have a penny to their name and living in an overdraft because followers don't pay bills as well.

Speaker 1: 25:32

Do you think? I think one of the big problems about Social media, as you mentioned, is this idea of extremes and that what you said? You know, hey guys, watch this video. Today we're getting a healthy balance salads, 80% salad, and I'm having an ice cream and they're like what? And I'm fit and stuff, and it's like no, no, they want to hear that you're only eating ice cream and you've got a sex pack. It's all about extremes. Yeah, do you think there'll be a navigation away from that in the future or do you think it's gonna continually get more extreme or extreme, extreme? And then how do we navigate that? If that is the Art, if that is what's going to occur?

Speaker 2: 26:07

I don't think it will change, because people's attention spans are getting less and less and less and less. Like social media, we look even back. Like two years ago I used to post IGTVs that were like five to ten minutes long. Now I'm trying to make rails under 30 seconds. So this how shows how much people's attention spans like. Our average watch time on videos is like 10 to 15 seconds, that's it. So you have to capture attention and hold attention, hold interest. Within that time, if I turn around, I'm like well, today we're gonna do a healthy and balanced day of eating to gain muscle where? So if I went, how to eat what you want to stay an amazing shape? Oh my god, I want to do that.

Speaker 1: 26:46

But how do you, if you will have these morphed expectations, how do you match those expectations with what you actually need to do? Is it more just like a clickbait thumbnail? And then you know I'm not even just talking about the Social media and what's up with your clients and then people often have a more Warped sense of you and what it actually takes. So how do you? Is it about gently easing them into what reality is? Or yeah, it's. How are you for us?

Speaker 2: 27:13

Are you the greens, managing expectations from the get-go Okay, and we say real people, real results for us. And that's why we have that for phase process, because it shows people to understand the journey of how they not just get in shape but stay in shape as well. Okay, so you have never seen me market a six-week challenge. You've never seen me market a Four-week reset or a 20-day intermittent fasting 24 hours, 24 hours.

Speaker 1: 27:39

I'll get you a six pack. Yeah you know million pounds, you mean million pounds and I'll do it for you.

Speaker 2: 27:45

Yeah, literally. I don't know if you follow much of Alex from Rosie stuff. He talks about the value equation. Have you ever heard about that.

Speaker 1: 27:52

I've heard of Alex from Rosie, but I haven't heard of the value equation.

Speaker 2: 27:55

Yeah, so the value equation is to put this in perspective you think that people will spend $20,000 on lipo suction, but they won't spend 200 bucks a month on coaching. Why? Instant Effort and sacrifice doesn't take much effort. To have a needle wake up skinny Doesn't take any time. So our goal is how do we get our clients results as fast as possible in a sustainable way?

Speaker 1: 28:27

Having had this Experience and and deep knowledge that you've got now, what advice would you give your 16 or 18 year old self going about Rebuilding this business, and what advice would you have for other young entrepreneurs wanting to do the same thing, even in an even industry, jason, yeah, invest, invest into mentors.

Speaker 2: 28:46

Find someone who's been there and done it themselves, got the qualifications and they've helped other people achieve what you want to achieve. Number one Like I planned out the online side of my business for 18 months, I've still got photos, I wrote whiteboards and whiteboards. I'm gonna do a members there, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that and do this. Nothing ever happened for 18 months I'm a bit of an overthinker until I invested into my first mentor and it cost me 997 at the time and I remember trying to haggle him down on the call Until I invested into that mentorship, had the knowledge to bridge the gap, to get going, but also the accountability to take action. That's what that was the catalyst and it literally went from Three online clients to Over a hundred online clients in the matter of months. That's a hundred active, not just coached.

Speaker 1: 29:35

Do you think the idea of a mentor is more someone that can actually give you the advice, or you think it's more an echo chamber and actually be able to get your thoughts out and have someone that can trust you and be with you along the journey?

Speaker 2: 29:45

but I think both. It's the. In my eyes, the role of a mentor is to help you achieve what you could achieve on your own in less time. Okay, I listen. Related to fitness. Hey look, eventually everyone will lose weight. If they'll find the information online, they'll have a few less hiccups along the way. They'll fail, they'll get back on track. They'll fail back on track. They will lose the way. They might not keep it off, they might not do it the right way, but I'll lose eventually. The role of a coach is to understand what's the right way to do it from the get-go and understand that four weeks in, they're gonna finish the honeymoon phase we call so the easy losses are gonna change. They're gonna start to have some cravings, that energy might start to drop a bit, and it's the role of a mentor is there to say this is normal, this is how you combat it, rather than falling off track and having to restart again.

Speaker 1: 30:35

With social media and you generating Different clients through different means. Where do most of your clients come from? Is it referrals? Is it social media? Is it your website? Is it other means?

Speaker 2: 30:48

Yeah, so Referrals and social media, that's okay. We run a little bit of paid traffic in terms of like platforms and where most of our clients come from, it'd be like Instagram would be top, facebook and LinkedIn would be next, and then we've got over 130,000 followers on TikTok. I've had one client.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Wow, yeah, I Think that shows the the importance of the different social media. I think I was watching a podcast the other day by things Ali Abdul and he was talking about. Now some one of his guests was talking about on TikTok the other day. In that no one ever searches Simon Johnson on TikTok, you could watch one video and you have no idea who you watched before. So I think it shows the value of the platforms. But at what point did you realize through this journey how important social media was and really delve deep and go into generating high performance Videos and yeah, yeah, or your.

Speaker 2: 31:46

My first mentor said a said a line that stuck with me ever since and he said if you run an online business, it's now your job to post on social media and really hit with me.

Speaker 2: 31:58

I literally have not missed a day of posting since. Like you, look at my feed up posted 2000, whatever times, okay, but I would. I wouldn't necessarily, sarah. I was really Posting what I thought was good content at the time and I was staying consistent. In my eyes, just do more. Okay, to start with, because it's never ever gonna be perfect. So just produce more, post more, do more. You'll learn from it. And it's now that we've really started to actually dive into how do we increase watch time? How do we get more people to click? What content's actually working? What do people want to see? What do people want to understand?

Speaker 2: 32:30

For most of my stuff, if I talk about nutrition, people aboard people don't listen to it. I know that that's literally what they need to see results. But it doesn't give me eyeballs. And I need eyeballs to help more people. I need eyeballs to get more clients. I need eyeballs to grow the business. Okay. So it's again showing them what they want so you can give them what they need. So I show people lots of training content. I seed in a bit of nutrition stuff so they become problem aware. They see the training content that like, oh, that's cool, I follow it. They see the nutrition stuff so they realize I'm doing the training stuff but I'm not sorting out my tuition. Maybe there's a gap here and then our coaching helps and deliver the solution.

Speaker 1: 33:08

You have a sort of business development team or a social media team behind this and and how are you working out what to post? How are you being so consistent and pumping out so much high you know performance, such good content. How are you doing it?

Speaker 2: 33:22

Yeah, so it's evolved a lot, particularly this year. I mean now we have myself a Videographer, so the best thing I ever did in terms of producing more high quality content is have a videographer that I have once a month From the data is set in, so I have to be there.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Wow. So once a month you have a set date, Everything you want to film.

Speaker 2: 33:41

Yeah, we'll film 20 to 30 bills and maybe some other content in one genius thing. Just bang it out, takes us maybe three hours. Then that content gets sent to a guy who videos, edits everything for me. She puts into a Google Drive folder and then a virtual assistant posts it.

Speaker 1: 34:02

What's what's next on the social media side and for the overall business as you look towards 2024 and beyond?

Speaker 2: 34:11

For me now it's about building our team. In terms of our coaching team and our marketing team and things like that. We have a number of different people who help in different roles. It's now realising that I am the biggest bottleneck in the business right now. Everything I've done and built so far has just been out of Simon. Do more, I'll do it, just do it faster. Take action, do more.

Speaker 2: 34:33

Now, realising that I can only take that so far has been the biggest lesson in going from it being me in a shed at my mother's house my mom and dad's guarding to a team of nearly 10 now. It's been a lot of lessons along the way, but it's literally just keep doing what we're doing. Do more of it, but allow me to step back out of it more into the strategy side of it and training the team to be able to do the roles. So my big goal for 2024 essentially is to be able to get the business to a point where a client can see content, have a consultation call, get an amazing result, but I'm not directly having to do anything in there. So a business that can grow without me in it and still get the most incredible service in the dream result that they want.

Speaker 1: 35:18

Yeah, I mean, even on that point of scale I mean you mentioned it taking yourself out, I think you'll see some hopefully some really explosive growth. What advice would you have for because you're really in this transition phase now? So what advice would you have for a young founder wanting to get to that point and then for someone else to get from where you are for the next steps?

Speaker 2: 35:39

Zero to here is do more, do more, understand. There's going to be ups and downs. That's literally all part of it. The halfway through that phase, I would just say, is data like for me, honestly, because if you start to track data, you start to know what works and you can do more of that. Because at the beginning you just do more and you just get some clients coming, but then if you actually start to track the data and the numbers and understand what's working, you can do more of what's actually working. That helps to build scale.

Speaker 2: 36:08

And then after that, the biggest realization I say I've had in the last couple of months is if you've got the right people on the bus, things move forward. If you've got the wrong people on the bus, there's going to be a bottleneck. So my whole focus and everything now is literally just how can I find a great people for my team? Because if you have, you can tell when you've got an A-grade player and a B or a C-grade player. An A-grade player is coming to you with ideas going oh, we should try this. Why don't we do that? I've thought about this. I'm trying to improve that. A C-grade player does their job and asks for their paycheck at the end of the month.

Speaker 1: 36:41

How are you attracting these people and how can someone else or yourself find them?

Speaker 2: 36:46

Still a lesson, to say the least, for us right now. In terms of my coaches, I found through friends or networks or, for example, one of them. I just reached out to the personal training center in Jersey and went hey look, what are the best students you've had in the last 12 months. Other people we've had who have virtual assistants and setting and closes I've literally found through Facebook groups. Again, just do more. I'll literally search high ticket closes or high ticket setters within Facebook. It comes up with thousands of groups. I copy and paste a job description into everyone. Just do more. You can't go wrong with. Just do more.

Speaker 1: 37:25

This idea of you have a lot of different branches of your business that people can't see from under the surface. This key thing of data data on social media, getting watch time data on how people are training and how they're performing how are you collecting this data and how do you know what to look for? Nowadays, there could be so much data that it's hard to see and notice anything.

Speaker 2: 37:47

From a client perspective, there's certain key drivers that get results in my eyes, from a fitness business. Is a client's weight moving in the right direction? Are they adherent to their training and are they checking in and communicating with you? Because if they're using the service, they're likely to get results, and if they get results they're happy and they stay simple. That can be the same for any business. Really, Are they engaged in it and are they using it and are they seeing results? You don't need to know any more than that. If you then know which one is the issue or they're not doing their check-ins, how can we improve our check-in structure? How can we make it easier for a client to check in?

Speaker 2: 38:22

From a marketing and a lead generation perspective, we know how many people like inbound inquiries we get and we track it per day. For all of a sudden, on the 22nd, I got like double the amount of inquiries I normally get. Guess what. What did I post on that day? Probably going to do more of that. How many outbound messages am I doing? How many people are replying? How many calls am I booking? How many people are showing up to a call? How many people are signing up that? If you know, it just fix the bottleneck.

Speaker 1: 38:53

I did a podcast with a guy called Nick Wheeler who's the founder of Charles Turek. He was explaining about how you could build a business the slow way. Over time, he built a shirt company. I have a similar question for you. In that shirts there's lots of different shirts. I'm wearing one, you're wearing one. Lots of different types. People would say it's oversaturated. The fitness industry there's lots of personal trainers. There's people like V-Shred, there's people like yourself. There's tons. There's lots of no-it-alls all over the internet. What do you think you can do to make something like your business different? Your unique selling point Do you think that one even needs a unique selling point, or is there a big enough pie to go forever on?

Speaker 2: 39:37

I think to get going, do not niche down. Your niche will find you the last thing you want to get in going. Maybe you're investing capital, stuff like this is going. No, I don't want to work.

Speaker 1: 39:50

You don't fit my niche.

Speaker 2: 39:51

Get the person in. You might enjoy working with them, you might not, but you're fine-tuning your craft, even if it's a lesson in terms of who I don't want to work with. You've understood that, in terms of how to separate yourself, health and fitness is very different. There's only so many ways you can say eat less, eat more, move less, whatever it might be, but what separates you is you. This is the thing. Fitness is a very personal brand. You will do something within your day. You will find something interesting. There's an amazing book called A Thousand True Fans. I think it's called If you had a thousand true fans you will make more money than you can ever imagine.

Speaker 2: 40:33

You'll scale a business quicker than you can imagine. I actually think being slightly polarizing is very beneficial on social media, but that doesn't mean you have to go against your values and watch true. It could just be a genuine belief that you have. Now I have a belief that people should actually stop calorie tracking and start calorie planning. But people are not stopping calorie tracking. I'm doing that from marketing, because they are. I hate tracking my calories, but they're still going to track in calories. They're just going to track in a different way.

Speaker 1: 41:00

I thought we were going to hear something much more extreme. Maybe that is very extreme in the fitness world, but I thought you were going to say something outrageous. There's no, even that.

Speaker 2: 41:10

You can go. This is the thing where you, in my eyes, it has to last to align with your values and what you are important to. So I'm not going to turn around and say my metabolic priming diet, Because no one's metabolism is as a broken. It doesn't align with me. And then when I'm speaking to someone about it, I'm like, yeah, my metabolic priming diet doesn't come across as authentic. So I think, just be you and your unique differences will find themselves. I think if you're selling a product like a shirt and you can, all of a sudden you're the first person to make a zip collar yeah, it's going to stand out. I think when an actual service-based business, easiest thing to do is just get better results. Just get better results. At the end of the day.

Speaker 1: 41:50

How do you maintain a core brand and core message when so much of fitness depends on each person? You can't just be like you know, eat more protein, get bigger, get stronger. Yeah, that's a static strength when you know eating certain things, doing certain things, training certain ways. It's all independent, depending on from person to person. So how do you have a strong core message in the middle whilst everything else is so different?

Speaker 2: 42:16

Yeah, instead of thinking like we do it a certain way, I think it's understanding, like what we represent. So like for me. I represent hard work, discipline, consistency and the fact that I genuinely believe that if you have the right people around you and do the work, you can achieve anything. That's my message. Okay, it's not intermittent fasting as the way, weight training as the way it's like. Look, if you're here and you want to achieve something, we can show you how to do that, but it's understanding that if you do this, it opens up so much more for you. And how we do the nitty-gritty is going to be unique. On person, I'm not going to say it's different, because fitness is specific, because what works for you and what works for me and what works for John from around the corner is going to be slightly changed. There's still fundamentals that we have to abide by progressive overload, calorie deficit but it's not really a value or a brand in my eyes. It's understanding what you stand for.

Speaker 1: 43:15

With this idea of what you stand for. Do you think you're going to have a transition from that into, maybe, apparel or courses without coaches as well, or are you more just going to try and stay true to your core business in training people? Do you think you're expanding to other things, perhaps like a gym shark type thing? What's your thoughts on that process?

Speaker 2: 43:37

Not now, not for a while. I've got shiny objects in here. That's probably one of the biggest things that helped me back for a long time in terms of everything growing. So at least for now, in the foreseeable, it's literally just do what we're doing, do it better, do it faster and continue to scale that. And if we ever do want to go into gyms or apparel or low ticket kind of coaching and stuff like that, we'll have more brand, more authority, more reputation to be able to do that off. But right now just keep the main thing, the main thing.

Speaker 1: 44:08

A lot of what you're doing, at least from my standpoint and what I'm seeing, because social media can be very directed according to what you're interested in, but it seems very new. But who did you look up to and who do you look up to now in building this brand and building to what you want to get to?

Speaker 2: 44:25

Yeah, absolutely, that's interesting. That's a really good. A number of different mentors I've worked with over the years Adam Haley, phil Graham, frank Del Blanken, charlie Johnson I'd say alongside that is people like Chris Willink I love his podcast in terms of Mindset Steven Bartlett and Alex Homozi I absolutely love just in terms of how he makes complicated information very, very simple from a business aspect. But alongside that it's I think my biggest role models are just my sport, his teams. We use the quote world-class basics with our clients all the time and that comes from the hall blacks. They want two world cups with the motto world-class basics. Imagine if you just never missed the basic. Johnny Wilkinson, one of my biggest biggest eye looks just did more kicking, more practice, did more.

Speaker 1: 45:26

What does the market look like to you? I mean, you mentioned looking up to a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of fitness people in there, but, at the end of the day, building a business is you've got to have the market and actually having clients, which you are doing, you are achieving. Do you find that most of your clients are actually expanding the market size, getting people that weren't previously purchasing within the fitness industry getting them in, or do you find that you're getting people other people's clients? What are your competitors and what does the overall fitness market look like within your niche and your sector?

Speaker 2: 45:58

Within my space. I would say it's majority of people who were sporty when they were younger and they worked out through that and then have either fallen out of it and need to get back on track. So they haven't necessarily directly purchased from, say, a personal trainer or an online coach before, but they've trained and they purchased from a gym. I think with the online space you do not get as many like people who have never stepped inside the gym before, especially not with my space, my girlfriend Anna, she gets a fair few people but she trains, say, busy mums, that kind of space. So it depends on each dependent. Or we'll get people who have maybe tried an online coach through COVID and they were like a lot of people had a really, really bad experience with online coaching and then we have to show them what it's actually like, because through COVID, there was a lot of coaches who were personal trainers.

Speaker 2: 46:51

Covid happened. Now I'm an online coach. You're not an online coach, you're a PT. That went online because you have to and you don't have a system or structure or a program or process in place.

Speaker 1: 47:04

Building this amazing business, which seems to now well from my perspective, for a long time has been working incredibly well, but there's a big focus on processes Processes based on the social media side, based on getting clientele in and making sure that's keep taking over. I mean, fitness isn't something you know, it's a service business. It keeps ticking over, ticking over, ticking over. But there's also you. I mean, you're currently at the core of the business. Even if there's some other route not going through, you're still incredibly important to it. How does Simon Johnson look after himself? What's his process to build this amazing brand whilst being so happy, so confident, fit at the same time? And are you happy, simon?

Speaker 2: 47:44

Yes, I'm very happy. I'm probably the happiest I've been in a long time. My version of happy is like freedom been able to do what I want when I want with who I want, and working on means meaningful stuff. Like I do not work a day in my life, like I really don't. Okay, I love what I do in terms of my own personal processes.

Speaker 2: 48:02

Come back to a quote that one of my, one of my coaches says and you get, get the person thriving, the people and the profits will follow. I think it's amazing. I think at any time I think anyone can say this in business when you're looking your best, you're feeling your best, you're performing at your best, the business works. So you've got to think about how do I keep me as a high performance machine? So for me, it's little things like I wake up early, I walk, I do the important work in the mornings. For me personally, people are different, but one of the most basic things you can do, I believe, is just schedule your workouts into your calendar like a doctor's appointment. You wouldn't miss your doctor's appointment. You wouldn't miss your dentist. So why are you me missing your workouts? Block out the time in your calendar.

Speaker 1: 48:51

How do you make all these incredible habits sustainable?

Speaker 2: 48:56

Don't ask for too much. Everyone thinks how do I go from zero to ten, rather than how do I go from zero to one, and one to two, and two to three, three to four and build momentum? And why live in Dubai? Ah, great question. If you've been to Dubai you'd understand. No, for me. I never thought I'd like to buy. I'm literally one of the most like, least materialistic people you could ever imagine. I mean, I wear the same. I've still got t-shirts in the shorts from rugby days, from old rugby kit. Why here? Weather, opportunity, environment, simple, I didn't think I'd like it. I came here, got invited out here for a fitness conference and something just clicked. I was like I need to spend more time here. I love Jersey and we said there's a lot of benefits there, but there is no one in Jersey, in the fitness space at least, who is trying to do things on the level that we are. No, not even close.

Speaker 1: 49:58

What's in terms of actually having this amazing content machine? How did you initially grow your social media? I mean, I'm trying to grow this podcast, hopefully create something out of it one day and correct my own processes, and I often have this thing of oh, I need to. Everyone's asking what is it, what's your unique selling point, how is it? And try and think of this perfect thing that doesn't yet exist, while at the same time trying to give a message of other people, a positivity of growth for them to learn. So how do you create this core branding and things when you're learning at the start, whilst also getting new followers, new customers, etc.

Speaker 2: 50:35

Just enjoy the process. That's all I'd say is. Enjoy making podcasts, get reps under your belt. And the amazing thing was this is you're going to speak to so many people who are amazing at marketing, at branding, maybe had podcasts and everything like that, and you'll learn from these people and implement it. Okay, like you're more likely, like I'm, a rugby guy, if you kick a hundred conversions, let's say, you make 50, 100 your professional. If you do more reps, you make more. So all it takes is I posted probably 2,000 times of social media before I had a video that got a million views organically. So stop thinking like, just stretch the time horizon. You're playing on that would. My advice is literally, just think I'm gonna be doing this for the next 10 years. So whether it happens now or happens in 10 years time, it doesn't matter, because I just absolutely love what I'm doing right now.

Speaker 1: 51:36

What's one thing that you want someone listening to this podcast to take away about you, your values and or your business?

Speaker 2: 51:45

I'm not special, I'm not smart. Everything I've done has literally been through working hard, investing into myself and trying to realize where I've messed up and learning for it. That's it. Like I'm the guy who literally can't spell. Like I literally cannot spell. Okay, hardly seen my messages. I really can't spell. Okay, you don't have to have anything special. You just need to have a passion for something that is like deep inside of you and you refuse to settle. Keep working hard, investing to the right people. The only time you fail is when you give up.

Speaker 1: 52:19

What's your next fitness journey for yourself? Another Ironman, ultra Ironman, ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra Ironman. What's the what's the plan?

Speaker 2: 52:28

I don't know. Ironman is a big learning curve and it took a lot away from other parts of my life and that was a big lesson in terms of like it took a lot away from running the business, it took a lot away from my relationship. So this year is purely committed to just training because I love training, running if I want to run, swimming if I want to swim and gymming if I want to gym just really laying a solid foundation for probably the year up next year, specifying into some other bits and bolts. One thing I have on the cards is potentially a 600 kilo powerlifting total and a sub six half Ironman in the same day. So 600 kilo powerlifting total be 600 kilo total between squat, bench press and deadlift, which is okay. But then the sub six Ironman, half Ironman and same day would be pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 53:18

I mean that would be very insane. I feel hugely privileged to be able to talk to you today, I think for me, with fitness, my fitness has ebbed and flowed over time, but one thing I really like about fitness is the common attributes and the things that really make fitness important the motivation, the discipline. Sticking to it actually aligns a lot with building a business and if anyone listening to this has noticed the similarities, as Simon's talked about, who he looks up, looks up to isn't just you know, arnold or someone like that, but really people change in the way we look at business, look at social media over time and I think what you've done is really amazing in having had this idea to actually, first of all, follow your passion, stick to it, build an in-person business out of your parents basement to creating this amazing online brand that's growing. What looks, what looks now at a rapid rate, but has actually been a 10-year journey and another 10-year journey.

Speaker 1: 54:11

I love the way you utilize social media. I think your, your reels and stuff are very addictive and I find that my whole family are watching the whole time. My brother was trying to catch you out earlier and he saw one of your videos and it was a how to grow a bigger bicep, and then he wanted me to cut at the point where you said use steroids, and then you said not actually. And I think your journey is really inspiring and I think, even having known you for a while, your lingo has changed a lot in the way that you talk, in the way you think about things. So thank you so much for coming on, simon. I feel hugely privileged and very excited to see what you do next.

Speaker 2: 54:43

Likewise, mate. I appreciate it. I really, really do. It's been amazing to see you progress and evolve, and I'm excited to see where this podcast goes for you.