Interview With Successful Online Personal Trainer Nic Edgeton
Chris: Hey guys. Chris here from Tribe Fit and today we've got a very very special guest. Nic, how you doing today buddy?
Nic: Thanks Chris. Thank you for having me on this. It's an honour mate.
Chris: Mate, it sounds like you're pumped. We're just as pumped to have you aboard for this interview and hearing a little bit more about your journey, your story, what you've learned along the way, the ups, the downs and then anyone that's listening in on this can take learnings from it and as I always say success leaves clues, so find the clues of the success you've had. So mate I guess first and foremost jumping straight into it. For those who are listening to this interview who don't know that much about you, could you give us a bit of a background to where you were, where you've come and your online business, what it's evolved to today.
Nic: Yeah. Sure. I first started my, I'm 29 now, first started my fitness journey when probably about 16 and it was all bench press and biceps. [crosstalk 00:01:07]. That's all we ever know.
Chris: Yeah mate. That's all I did.
Nic: Plenty of that, you know in your friend's garage and stuff like that. And from that you fell in love with the training side of things. I think, you know I grew like a weed. I was still really, really skinny. It was that kid in school that was almost bullied for looking ill, for being so skinny. And I always struggled to put on size and I'd eat like an absolute horse. So essentially you'd classify that as a 'hard gainer'. So from there it evolved. I learnt about nutrition side of things and that sort of stuff and then it stemmed from really having to force feed to actually grow and put on muscle cause I'd always stayed so lean. I then, in 2014 got into competing in a men's physique category and just fell in love with it from there. I've competed ever since til last year. I took this year off to really focus on the business. They're the two people that I help which is the men's physique guys and the hard gainers. Business is called Dream Team Fitness TN and it's really grown since joining Tribe Fit, mate.
Chris: Awesome man. I know when we first initially chatted some time ago you had some online up and running, you had some clients but it just wasn't going in the right direction. Can you maybe give us a bit of an outline of what your online fitness business used to look like and the problems that that had and what it's evolved to now.
Nic: Yeah, sure. We started off, we made a launch, we put the posts out there. I think it was all about hope marketing then and it was about me marketing. [crosstalk 00:02:53]. I did this and I did that so you can too and all that sort of stuff. And to be fair we attracted some decent clients and some of those clients are still with us today and that's 20 months in.
So at the same time we were charging very, very little and delivering a hell of a lot of time. It was almost worse than the time for money trap as we say. And the profits weren't there. We probably had 10 clients but we didn't know how to scale. And what we were trying to do is just be that generalist trainer, so it was helping anyone and everyone.
As you know you can't be an expert in every field. So once I joined the Tribe Fit programme it was a fact of who is my avatar, who do I help? And it was a hard thing to grasp because you think that if I'm only helping one market then I'm gonna lose out on clients. However, it's the complete opposite. You said a saying once a time ago and it was, I can't remember what it was, if you were to [crosstalk 00:04:13] if you're an expert to everyone you're nothing to no one or something.
Chris: Yeah. If you try to be everything to everyone you're nothing to nobody. And once again-
Nic: It's a hard concept to grasp at first.
Chris: It is.
Nic: But it does work. And since I talked directly to the people that I'm the expert in the field at, that's where the businesses took off, because I'm helping the people that had the problems I had and the success is coming through that and people are getting great results and raving about it.
Chris: Beautiful man. Well hats off for that. In terms of before, you're online, you're charging very little as you mentioned and then obviously we talked about restructuring your packages, the prices you should be charging and whatnot. So I guess what were you charging and when you first heard about what you should be charging did you believe it straight away or you just go, “Oh, I was being stupid,” or was there a gap where you were kinda questioning it for a second?
Nic: I definitely questioned it. It's that whole thing of, my competitors are charging this rate, I can't charge three times them. However, my competitors don't have the expertise I have in my field. So I won't say exactly what we were charging but at the moment we're charging three times as much as what we were. We're getting more people through the door for it and we're getting a better quality of athlete on the team as well. So when we were charging very little we'd have what you say, it was probably a few nightmare clients in there that would message you all day every day. Now you've got a quality of client that are paying the higher rate. They're more invested. They're more serious about it. They're gonna do the work and there's not really gonna be many headaches or slip ups.
Chris: It's crazy when you think about it that way. That it's the lower, and this isn't a catch all but it's as you're saying a bit of a general rule of thumb, but the lower paying clients are actually your least profitable because they pay you less and take up more time and probably question your advice more and then don't get results because they're not committed, they're not invested. And it kinda like a vicious circle. You get good clients, they pay you more, they're more invested, they listen to you, they input, they get results, you get testimonials and then that feeds back into your marketing to get more clients. And so it is a vicious circle, a trap that a lot of people fall into. So in terms of the gap, the jumping from charging this to charging that did you have any sort of mental strategies or stages that you had to go through, in regards to believing that that was possible and how did you go about that?
Nic: Nah, to be honest, because I invested in this it was a fact of 'alright, they've got proven results. I'm gonna do what they say.' And it's the same for people that invest in me. It's exactly the same thing. So obviously you think in the back of your mind, “Shit, I can't be charging that.” However, when you break it down and look at what you do and what you deliver, more than worth it. And I think only from here we're charging a decent, a pretty high rate, it's only gonna go up from there. And I'm not afraid to do that because it's worth it. And at the moment with the people we've got, I think about, maybe 45 people on the team and they're paying clients and they're all raving about it. The party is in this team. They're all absolutely loving it.
We've got our private group for our members and I've structured it the way you guys originally had it in your private group, not the free one, your private one. Whereas you do the lives three times a week. So everything about questions, comments, wins, all of that get posted in the group and they get addressed by the live videos three times a week. Which kills 10 birds with one stone cause you're not getting 10 messages on the same thing and everyone's on the same page, your protocols and the way you run, which is awesome. So at the moment the party's in the team people are referring people on, they get a bonus, the referral gets a little bit of a discount, so it's happening really, really fast and really, really good. And like I said, month on moth we're growing and that's the biggest thing. We're constantly getting better as we add on more layers to the business. We're tryna scale that little bit more. So it's really, really exciting.
Chris: Mate, hats off and that's the exciting part, when you've got that belief and confidence and seeing it just literally go boom, boom, boom, boom and kinda the scariest thing for a small business owner is going to sleep at night, putting your head on the pillow and not knowing what's gonna happen tomorrow or where the next client's gonna come from or am I gonna lose everyone and not be able to find another one. So that's a very awesome place to be and it must feel-
Nic: Sure. I feel like probably six months ago, before the programme, I probably did lose a bit of sleep and now I probably sleep like a baby. So there's probably a good analogy for you know, because I'm very confident in what we do. I'm confident in what I deliver because I know that in my niche I'm one of the best at what I do. And I don't mean to sound like a dick but I know that that's true. And I always say the results don't lie. I proved the results time and time again and my people, they love me for it and they'll back me for it all day long. So if you not an expert in a certain area of fitness, and no matter how niched it is because in the group I've seen people that have niches that I think, “Wow,” you know? Like just crazy, crazy niches, and mine's not really a crazy, crazy niche however I know I'm one of the best at it. And these guys are killing it. And I feel like the more niched you are the more you gonna kill it.
Chris: Yeah mate. Awesome. Beautiful buddy. Well I guess if anyone is where you were previously, if anyone's either thinking to start or have a handful of clients and they're just like, “Oh, this isn't scalable or not going the right way,” do you have any advice for those people on what to do?
Nic: For sure. Obviously invest in Tribe. Don't [crosstalk 00:11:15] that.
Chris: Appreciate it. [crosstalk 00:11:17]
Nic: You need to find out what you're an expert in because I guarantee if you're charging what we were charging then you're kinda being a generalist trainer. There's no way you're nicheing your [inaudible 00:11:30]. There's absolutely no way. So find out what your niche is.
Obviously, you talk about the avatar exercises and that sort of stuff and I did all that and I went through all of those processes and at stages you think, “Oh, I can't say that, I can't do that. That's not gonna work.” But you trust in the programme, you do it, and the results don't lie. Like I said I put out the survey, so I surveyed my audience, like you said, and I'm thinking, “I'm not gonna get any responses here. Who's gonna answer those questions?,” and I got over 45 responses and I'm thinking, “What the hell man?” Each of those responses gave me loads of content. So the advice I would give is be an expert in a field. If you not an expert you not gonna do well. And that can be as niched as possible. It can be hot air balloon fitness. Something that's just so wacky and so out of this world because there's people with problems that need solving and there's not enough experts to solve 'em. So, be an expert in your field is probably the best piece of advice I could give anyone.
Chris: That's really powerful. And exactly as you said just a kind of second, or what you're saying there is that everybody, or most people, I'd say 99 percent of people are an expert at something. They might think, “Oh, but like you said, for example, I'm not the greatest, I go in the gym and I'm not the greatest trainer at getting guys, hard gainers packing on muscle but my hot air ballon, I can really change some peoples' lives." So everyone knows a little more than someone else about a certain aspect and it's just about finding what that is guys and owning it and as Nic's saying, becoming the best in the world at it and the go to person for it and helping change lives, helping impact and give results and it really kinda goes from there.
Nic: That's the biggest thing and I think a lot of the time as well something I've seen is a quote that you have in the programme from P Diddy, “Don't chase the paper, chase the dream.” And honestly, as cliché and as corny as it sounds, it's honestly true. If you chase the dream you'll get more results, rather than just chasing the money. It sounds like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” but I'm telling you that is dead true man. So really, really happy with the programme or whatever, can't rave about it enough mate.
Chris: Beautiful, mate. I appreciate all of the kind words and loads of stuff to take from that and hats off for the success you've had buddy, I know online like you said, continually growing, it's pumping for you guys, you're getting heaps of people chasing you which is phenomenal and the capacity and the view forward of just having it continue to grow and not hitting ceilings is is pretty exciting. And so overall Nic if anyone listening to this wants to check out, if there's any young blokes out there that are having a tough time tryna put on some muscle and wanna reach out and find out more about you-
Nic: Or looking to compete in men's physique, don't forget that.
Chris: -Or looking to compete, where would they go to find out more about yourself mate?
Nic: Yeah, sure. Facebook. Our Facebook business page is Dream Team Fitness TN. My free group is The Hard Gainers Association and comp prep which is very targeted [crosstalk 00:15:08] like you said. I think Instagram @nicthedreamedgy and like I said, I put up all my testimonials and results and stuff like that so you can check that out there.
Chris: Beautiful mate. Well you're an absolute legend. Thanks so much for your time and congratulations and hats off once again for all the results and success you guys are getting.
Nic: Thank you very much Chris. It's an honour to be on this video chat with you mate. When you reached out and said, “Do you wanna do this?” I was like, "Hell, yeah. That's awesome."
Chris: Beautiful mate. Well you're a legend. Appreciate your time and no doubt we'll be speaking soon.
Nic: Sure man.
Chris: See yah mate.
Nic: See yah.
