Money Mindset & Authentic Marketing - Nicole Spencer

So if you want to do a coaching program and it's like $3,000, $4,000, $5,000. And I don't care where you're at, if you aren't resourceful enough to find that money, you will not be successful in business. Like I just I believe that. Like there is always a way to find the money to advance yourself to the next step. And if you think that you can do it yourself, you're mighty. Right.

Hi, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 138. I get to talk to Nicole Spencer, one of my favorite people in fitness. So uh Nicole has a storied uh past within the fitness business. She's worked uh you know for large marketing companies, she's worked for uh herself as a gym owner, and now she coaches uh fitness professionals into achieving a higher level of success and freedom. And she's good at what she does. She really is. And that's coming from another business coach, right? Uh myself. And she she's really fun to talk to. Um, she's also committed recently to a uh digital nomadic life, uh, at least part of the year. So she's been traveling quite a bit, uh, exploring the world and uh doing it her way. And I think that's the cool thing about it. She does it her way. So uh we do talk uh about some big topics like the money mindset, right? What is your relationship with money and uh how does that affect how you deal with your clients, uh, your family, um, your business, all of that. It's it's really powerful stuff. So uh Nicole knows her shit, and this is worth your time. So enjoy the episode. But before we get into that, a couple plugs, elite gyminsiders.com. If you're a gym owner, um, want to be gym owner, or someone who works with gym owners, go check it out. You know, franchises, boutiques, crossfit, um, spin, yoga, health clubs, all of those, you name it. Uh, all those people are communicating. Uh, about 400 people within the online Slack community now, growing every day, and it's free. What do you got to lose, right? You get in there, um and you'll start to get discounts from things like digital marketing, uh, assets, uh, business coaching, um, educational on pieces, uh, certifications. Uh what am I missing? CRMs, all that stuff. Anything related to gyms, we're gonna be rolling out partnerships where you'll be getting discounts just for being in the group, not to mention all the value of the communication, networking information we put there on a weekly basis. So go check out EliteGyminsiders.com and certifiedcoursecreation.com as well. Might as well go there while you're on the interwebs, right? So Certified Course Creation, we are helping fitness, health, and wellness professionals create lucrative and beautiful online accredit certifications. So we've done it numerous times uh with great success, and uh it could be your turn. So all you have to do, if you think you have that, let's say you're thinking about writing a book. Well, let me get you to rethink that. Books are amazing, I read them all the time. But what if you had an asset like an online accredit certification that was your flag in the sand, right? As well as something that made money while you slept. Ah, it's pretty good, right? I mean, the world is going online, education is going online. It's it's happening now. I'm not even gonna say it's inevitable, it's just here. So why not get out there and do it for yourself? So go to certifiedcoursecreation.com, check it out, schedule a call. Uh, I'd be happy to talk to you about your idea and where it lands in the market and the opportunity that's there, and if we would uh want to partner with you. So, certifiedcoursecreation.com, check it out. Without further ado, episode number 138, Nicole Spencer. Enjoy the ride. All right, and we're live. Nicole, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me. I always love connecting with you.

Yeah, yeah. You're a rock star. Um, this is gonna be a lot of fun. Uh every conversation we have is is uh either about what's going on in the fitness industry, uh, body art, or um something about travel and nomadicism. So if it gives anybody like any kind of idea where we're going today, we don't know. That's probably gonna be somewhere in those areas.

Uh absolutely. But except we're opposites because you chase the snow and I chase the snow.

We should do like a timeshare.

Yeah, right?

That would make sense.

Totally.

So, Nicole, uh, for those people who don't know you, um, give us a little bit of your story and background.

Yeah, so I kind of accidentally ended up in the fitness industry. I was always like a dancer and a competitor, and I was a choreographer and um like hardcore yoga practitioner, and um actually found kettlebell training totally accidentally when I was in graduate school. And um during that time my dream was to work for the United Nations, which didn't happen for a variety of reasons, but I was living in New York City and um I like worked out all the time and I'd had this dance and choreography background that was like, well, why don't I just be a personal trainer and then I'll just keep trying to work for the UN or whatever. And long story short, uh I just kind of fell in love with it. I moved very kind of quickly through that part of my career. About two years later, I ended up uh opening a boot camp in Southeast Georgia after a big move and grew that business really, really fast. Um, sold it after three years. And uh I've been working more on the business coaching side of fitness for the last five years or so. So probably worked with about 300 fitness professionals, both brick and mortar owners, uh personal trainers, and online coaches, trainers, health coaches, whatever. Um, and I love it. I love every part of what I do. I love our industry, and I love getting to create impact in a totally new way by helping other fitness professionals now grow their businesses.

Awesome. Awesome. Uh and you've like you've been in the, you know, within the industry. I know you've worked for some some big companies too. You worked for MPE for a while. Um give us give us a little bit of background on like specifics within the fitness industry.

Uh specifics in the fitness industry. Um well, so actually my first job was working for Equinox, which is where I learned that I did not like working for corporate. So I worked uh for an Equinox in Manhattan and uh they promoted me really fast. So it was about four months from the time I got hired, literally in my first personal training session, to managing the whole PT department with 40 trainers. Um and uh didn't like that. Uh actually, what I learned about myself there and in the time that I worked for NPE is that I don't like managing people very much. Um I did not like managing 40 trainers. I was um I managed at one point almost 30 coaches uh when NPE had that kind of structure. So learned a little bit about myself there and since have been able to set up my business to where I can really do more and focus on the things that I love, which are creating content, supporting my clients, uh doing the marketing and growth of the business, and really having kind of more outsourcing um opportunities and contractors versus like actually having a staff, which is um really good. But what I'll say, so that's more personal, but what I'll say is that I feel the industry has shifted quite a lot over the last like 18 months to like two years, somewhere in that time span, maybe even closer to three years now. It's like and I think there's a lot of reasons for it, but the whole energy of our space has shifted. So it was like back when back when small businesses like personal training studios and boot camps like I had or whatever were starting to run Facebook ads. There, that was a time, you know, maybe 2013, 2014, when boutique style fitness was still kind of hitting the market. It's not that it wasn't there before that, but it's I feel like when it was really at its like peak for growth, and it still is. But that was a time when the market just had so much less awareness. They weren't being bombarded with all of these messages about fitness, and it was so easy. It was seriously so easy. You could put, you mean you had a business during that time, you could put $100 into a Facebook ad, make thousands of dollars back. It really didn't matter what you were selling or what your message was.

It was amazing.

It was it was super easy, right? Like, why wouldn't we want to be able to grow our businesses really, really easily, right? You can just copy and paste and you're good to go. But what I've seen really happen, I would say um, I started to feel the shift. Actually, I sold my gym in the summer of 2015 and I was already starting to feel it then, but it was about 2017 where it got pretty obvious. And it's this whole thing that not only is the market smarter, right? Um, people who are seeking fitness are much more aware than they were even a couple of years ago, but also um fitness professionals and business owners are a little bit smarter now, too, in a variety of ways. So whereas maybe you were the only one in your town doing ads or networking or, you know, like hitting the speaking circuit five years ago, now everyone is kind of at least has some level of awareness about how they need to be out there getting the word out about their business, versus like again, five years ago, most people were just kind of sitting there going, hook people come in, right? And so what's happening is the message is really flooding the market. People are really confused, but they're also like on alert for scams and for you know replications of past negative experiences that they've had. So fitness professionals need to do more work than they've ever done in terms of their marketing and client services to keep people and to continue growing their business and to survive in a in a comp in a market that's so competitive and growing every single day.

Yeah. Yeah. That's I I I completely agree. And I do think that time frame you mentioned, like 18 to 24 months. I have seen that's essentially I've sold my my gyms about 18 to 24 months ago, right? Um and I was starting to notice the changes. I I think I started my first major Facebook campaigns around 2015. And it was unbelievable, right? Like, you know, I started in a challenge format, 220 leads in a week, 40 new signups. I was like, well, I guess my work is done here. Like I'm just gonna run this every, you know, 12 weeks and uh you know, book really nice vacations. And that it obviously I should have known, I probably knew in my gut. I'm like, well, there's no way this this can last. It can't be this easy. Business isn't this easy from a marketing standpoint. It has to have multiple arms and legs to it. Yeah, it's it's an interesting thing that you say. Um so I had a specific question for you, but now it's fleeting in me. But tell me about how one of the things that fascinates me about what you do is I don't even know how if I knew you before or if I just was flooded with your Facebook lives, right? And then I'm like, oh she's everywhere, right?

Tell me how you build how we connected. I don't even remember initially.

Yeah, I don't remember. It's just the fitness industry, right? Um it's small, but it's huge at the same time. And uh so tell me like how did you how did you start that? And people, um, you know, if you haven't yet, go go friend Nicole, you know, on Facebook and and start seeing she's so consistent, right, with that. Um how how did you get started in that? Was that it how was that strategy conceived? And is there anybody else doing with as much consistency as you do?

Yeah, no, I totally think that there are. Um in terms of yeah, there definitely are, even in terms of my competition. But um I got, I mean, I got started with it. I had left NPE and uh was launching the first part of my business authentic conversion, which was a content subscription service. So I write down for you content for fitness professionals every month, and I was at zero again, right? It was like when I had my boot camp, I was at zero, and I knew that I needed to do a couple things, especially now entering online space only growth, right? And social media really is a huge part of that. So I uh was like, okay, what do I need to grow my business? I need uh good social presence, I need messages that resonate with my market and help them see that I can solve their problem. And I need an email list because email list is magic, right? I love email marketing still. And so I was like, okay, well, how do I grow an email list? So it was like, I didn't have like lead pages, I didn't have anything except um my email service provider at the time. And I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna uh repurpose some content that I had created for my online weight loss coaching business that I had, and I'm gonna give it to fitness professionals. And I had done a lot of Facebook lives, like in groups and things like that before, but never on my personal profile at that point. And it was so scary. And I just turned on the camera and I was like, hey guys, and then like you start seeing people's names pop up, and you're like, I didn't even know this is like this is a person on my friends list. It's like you just start seeing all these people watching you, and especially the first couple times you go live. I don't know if it's like a Facebook algorithm thing, but they like alert everyone apparently, because those are some of my highest videos ever. But um, but so and as extroverted as I am, and as many times as I've gone live and stood on stages and spoken and led events and things like that, I was really nervous just because it is like a whole new realm when you have thousands of potential like people watching you and people you dated, and like, you know, people who like all kinds, I mean, just it's just you know, all over the place. So um, so I did it, and with two Facebook Lives and a series of posts, I was able to generate my first hundred or so emails, uh, which really led to the launch of my business um and led to really massive growth within about six months. So uh, so you know, when I if it's if it's about like, you know, how do you stay consistent or how do you have the motivation? I'm like, this is my business, this is my livelihood, and I have to, right? It's like number one, it's not optional. And number two, I love sharing value with people. I love coaching people, I love helping them solve their problems, I love speaking my mind and speaking my truth, even if it's not gonna make people happy all the time. Um, so I think if you can, you know, get that like obligation side of it out of your head and just know, like when I do this, I help more people and I make more money. And I get to talk about the things I'm passionate about. It's not like I'm getting on there trying to teach someone how to how to like do long division. It's stuff that like I really enjoy talking about anyway. Um, it actually becomes easy. And I tell people all the time, they're like, because when I bring clients into my marketing intensive program now, I coach them on a variety of marketing strategies, but social media is of course one of them, and they have to post ideally daily, right? And for people who are not doing anything or they're like once a week or they're sporadic or whatever, they're like, How do I even get there? And I'm like, you will, you will get there. Here's here's how you post, here's what you post, here's how you use calls to action, here's how you build engagement. But then it's like they start to see the results of it. Like I have one guy who was um he's awesome. We talked for like two hours yesterday, but um, he was doing like the Facebook funnel, six-week challenges, and it like kind of destroyed membership culture in his gym, and he was very close to losing everything. And he started working with me, and now he's getting like a couple clients every single week consistently because of his social hosting. And it's like instead of him showing up with this offer that he didn't even stand for, now he's showing up as like the truest version of himself and attracting people who want that, right? And it's like it gives me chills because it's such a transformation of his business, and he's just one example. Like he told me, I think he got three clients last week, like two this week. Um, and that's been very consistent since he started showing up using our strategies. Uh so when you start to see the result, when you get the engagement, when you get the money in the bank, when you see how you're helping people, it will literally become habitual for you. Like it's just part of what you do. And if you think you don't have time for it, then you don't have time to grow your business. So put it in the calendar.

Yeah.

It's so good. I mean, I um, you know, when it comes to social media, I tend to resist, right? But you fully leaned into it. And then once you get that habit going, because it's generally just those few. Last year I did this experiment, right? And I did it for me personally. And like I did 30 days of of videos, right, posting to my my uh personal Facebook, just me walking with my dog talking about random stuff. So it was deep thoughts with River. River's my dog. And uh, you know, once I got into the habit, it wasn't bad, but first I wasn't doing it live, I did a couple live. Um but it's it's scary and daunting, right? Because like you said, like, oh god, who's gonna see me? Right? Is it gonna be, you know, an ex uh, you know, ex-girlfriend, boyfriend? Is it gonna be, you know, a competitor, like someone gonna call me out on on, you know, being full of it, like whatever, right? It's all that that imposter syndrome that comes into it. And it's uh you know, obviously what you said makes a ton of sense, right? Like, okay, once you find out that it's serving you, right? It's getting to the audience, it's actually affecting your bank account, it's making an impact. But those first few, right? I would imagine like what period of time, like if you're if you're coaching someone into you know, doing a live social media presence or live YouTube or any kind of live uh event on a consistent basis, how do you get them through the mindset of doing that?

Yeah, so I have an exercise that I was doing with all the new people who entered my marketing intensive, and and uh for most of them, except the ones that were like, they were so far from being ready to do this, I didn't give them the assignment, but I would give them an assignment. So what we would do is define essentially a personal purpose statement, and I would have them get on a Facebook Live, share their personal purpose statement, why they've chosen fitness as their vehicle to fulfill that, and then they invite engagement. So basically, what they would do is say, um, you know, if you worked with me, I would love for you to share what that experience is like. I'd, you know, I'd love for you just to comment and share your thoughts. So they're inviting a lot of engagement, and what would happen? So for many of my people, it was the first time they ever did a live video, but what would happen is they would just get this like outpouring of love and support, and they would get tons of client testimonials, like just in one video. Um, and it really would build their confidence because what I don't want is for them to like show up and get backlash, which rarely happens, but like show up and not get any type of engagement or anything. It's like uh I found a way to to make them feel really good about it. Because I mean, who doesn't get those you know, dopamine hits when you've got tons of people all at once telling you how awesome you are and how you've changed their life? So I just think you have to set people up for success with it, um, and then they'll see the the value and the benefit. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think we all have, we all see uh, or a lot of us do. Some people are just innately positive, but we always imagine the worst case scenario. Like, oh, I'll go live, someone will say something that I haven't seen in a while, who's mad at me about something I totally forget, and then everything's gonna fall apart, everyone's gonna hate me, and I'm gonna have to, you know, go work at McDonald's.

And uh it doesn't happen. I mean, you well, you will. It's happened to me actually, and it's happened to some of my clients where where people will like be really challenging what you're saying during a live, and um it's kind of like those I don't know what you call them, they're like these like know it-all people that have to prove a point and they want to argue with you while you're trying to present. So it does happen. Yeah, they're trolls. Yeah, exactly. Um, so it, you know, it can happen, but it's not something that I I don't let the fear of that stop me. I think for fitness professionals, one of the places that they really get stopped is because typically fitness professionals have a lot of other fitness professionals on their friends list and audience, they're really afraid that they're gonna say something that's like wrong or against someone else's beliefs. Like I had to hold my my tongue today because you know my background is like strong first kettlebell training, and in the workout today, you know, everyone I go to CrossFit, everyone's doing American kettlebell swings, and it just makes me like crazy.

That old argument, yeah. Yeah.

Um and so I'm like, you know what, it's not your place to say that. But I think that those are things that we have to, you know, it doesn't make sense for me now to like go spouting off about it. But like if I were still I used to do that all the time. Like when I had my boot camp, um, I was very strongly positioned for Russian style kettlebell training and not for what I still consider to be wrong. So yeah. So I anyway, my point is like you can't hold back or you can't express your voice and your truth because you're afraid it's gonna be like wrong to somebody else.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And uh you know, once you start doing that stuff, you know, I've I put a lot of content out there um in the last year, year and a half. Like five hundred over five hundred interviews, right? I'm I not once have I heard any negative feedback on anything I've ever put out there. You know. I thought for sure I would have said something by now, right? That would have just no me. I'm sure I would have said something. But no. Nobody you know why? Because everyone's all wrapped up in their own shit.

Yeah.

That's what we miss in all the time is like, you know, we're people aren't thinking about you. Sure, there's there, there's always gonna be out of a hundred people, there's gonna be one asshole in every room, right? But you know, that one troll, but it's it's so inconsequential to do it. When you do your lives, how how long is each segment?

It depends. So um they mine used to be kind of quite long, like 15 to 25 minutes. Um on my personal profile now, I try to keep them a little bit shorter. Most are like probably in that five to eight minute range. But what I'm doing more now in my group is so I do more like conceptual type stuff on my profile. And in my group, I do more like teaching and like QA and that kind of thing, and those tend to go a little bit longer, um, where I'm actually like breaking down steps one, two, three, or like explaining the difference between a couple of different things. Um, so I do tend to go live longer in the group and shorter on my profile.

Do you ever have like with that much consistency, do you ever have struggles coming up with stuff to talk about? I mean, that's that's my never no.

So, and I'll I'll tell so actually there's a video on my profile that you can check out if you need uh content ideas. But um, I had that question posed in my group yesterday and I shared the video again to them. And um I think it was really, really helpful. And what I've gotten in the habit of, and actually it's so funny. Um, one of my clients posted in the group the other day, I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but it is like Nicole, like working with Nicole makes you not right in the head because like he was like, All I do now is walk around thinking about what content this is. So he got like cut off in traffic or something the other day, and there were like horns beeping and almost got hit by a truck and stuff. And then from that, he was like, as soon as he got over the anger, he was like, Okay, what can I say about this? And then he ended up writing this whole post about like only focusing on the things that you can control. He shared it and got like a great response from it. So for me, it's like just finding a story or a lesson in everything. So, in this particular video, because I, you know, I'm essentially selling the opportunity for other fitness professionals to make more money. That's my business. I'm a marketing coach, right? And so in this video, I talk about how I bought one of those um trays of pomegranate seeds that have like an ounce of seeds for five dollars. And I like went to open it and I dropped it all over the floor. And um, and then you know, but I was taught in this is an example of how you can find a lesson in every minute detail. And because my clients want to make more money. I talked about there was a time in my life where I would have been so angry. I would have been like, I just threw $5 in the garbage. I can't believe I did that. And this time I'm like, that's fine, it's no big deal. And so the lesson there was talking about how your mindset shifts around money as you create more success. And um, I don't remember everything that I said, but like there's literally a lesson in everything. So I look at everything that goes on in my day-to-day life and look for those lessons. That's number one. Number two, I pay really close attention to the questions and the conversations that I have with clients. So my client roster averages about 30 people at any given time. That's kind of my my happy place. And um, and they're constantly engaging. We have group calls with different groups four times a week. I do some one-to-one coaching. I have a group, it's like I'm getting emails every single day. So it's like all the content I could ever want is actually coming from clients and prospective clients. And then you may not know this about me because I haven't really shared that much of this. But if I am ever stuck for content, so I'll show you what I have here. So I have this deck of Oracle cards. Okay, so well, here's a little like guidebook that goes with it. And I will I will just think to myself, okay, what do what do people need to hear? Like, what lesson do they need to hear? And I'll draw a card, and the book gives you guidance based on the card. And I don't think it's like you know, predicting the future or anything like that, but all I can literally create a lesson out of anything from that to apply to fitness professionals in their business. So a couple things, yeah.

Yeah, just a few things. Uh yeah, no wonder you have an endless amount. You know, there's another resource that um is great for I used to use it a lot when I was writing for emails from my gym, is the Daily Stoic book by a stoic lesson every day. And 365 of them, like you can't go wrong.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there are so many like books and calendars and things like that out there that have like a writing prompt for every single day, or like like the Daily Stoic, like a lesson for every single day, and you can always use that for inspiration and then share your own philosophy, ideas, lessons from that. Yeah, okay.

Your anecdotes too, right? Yeah, so you you um you said something, and one of the one of the reasons I love interviews is because it's so easy to create content. Like there's a million things you just said that now I can go off and ask questions about for the next 30 minutes, right? Um so that's another thing, too, is people realize. And you know, one of the reasons I interview too, or many reasons that I do it is because A, I get to learn so much, right? Um I get to network with people, and it's an easy way to create content. The time flies by, especially if you're the right guest. So there's a lot of ways to skin that cat. Um you had briefly brought up money mindset through that whole thing, right? And that's something in the last, you know, one or two years of my life, I've I've put some deep work into and realizing where where your your relationship with money comes from and how it needs to shift. Um how do you do you have a personal journey through evolving your money mindset? And then how how have you applied that to working with your clients?

I'll say, you know, so we all have like different money types, like different ways that we attach to money or like what it means to us. Like for me, money is security. So from the time I was a kid, like I think maybe eight or nine years old is probably what I remember. But I had like rolls of $20 bills stuffed in this green sock in my parents' bedroom. Like I still remember that. And I would like go in there and I would count the money, and I just always I always had money. Um, through high school I worked, and like I was just a saver, but it was like it was weird, and I still can't quite figure out how this works, to be perfectly honest, because I've never really like just like denied myself of anything I want to do. I've traveled a ton, I've been through college and graduate school, and like I've done a lot, and I have always been in the positive with money, like it's just never been a struggle for me. Um I I honestly I can't figure out how it works. Like, even you know, when I was um in grad school and like making almost no money, I still had money. It's it's just this like weird thing. So um, which somebody told me I'm a money manifester. Um so maybe something to look at.

It's a nice thing to be, yeah.

Right. But the the downside of of that, like looking at money as security, is that it really like like it really stresses you out. It's like and and what you learn is that there's never enough. So it's like I'm making now probably five times what I was making a year ago, and it still doesn't really feel all that different. Like, yes, there are there are things that I'm a lot more flexible on. Like, it doesn't, I don't think about spending $200 on a nice dinner or whatever. Like I don't think about that as much anymore. But there's never for me a point where I'm gonna go, oh my gosh, I have enough money now, right? Like it's the just this feeling of never enough. And again, it's not for materialistic things. It's you know, I I do donate, I give back, I I love to help. But for me, that's the money mindset. And it's interesting because I talk about this a lot, especially like with the mastermind clients that I work with. And like there's some who have no emotional like attachment to money, it's just this thing that comes and goes, and it's fine. And if they struggle or if they're doing well, it's like it's gonna be fine, right? And so, and then for other people, it's you know how they express love and significance, and so we all have these different feelings around money, and I think a lot of it comes from you know how we grew up and how our parents were and and that kind of thing. But um one thing I have never been afraid of is investing in my education. So, like whether it was, you know, again, going to graduate school out of state or um particularly as I've become a business owner, like well, actually, even as a trainer, getting lots of different certifications, hiring business coaches before it felt comfortable, having multiple coaches at different periods of time, investing in softwares, or or like I just bought almost had a heart attack when I got the quote, but I just paid for someone to um to build this particular funnel for me that I'm really excited about and I don't want to do myself, and I couldn't do myself. Um, and so I've never been afraid of making investments that are going to grow me, which is interesting because I will spend, I could have literally bought a car for what I just paid for this, and I have a 2004 car. I have like a tape deck in my car, no joke, and it's covered in dog hair. So it's like when it comes to my growth, I have never once been afraid of investing. I mean, it's felt a little scary, but it I've never not done it. But when it comes to like material stuff, that's just not where my head goes. So um, yeah, I don't know if that really answered your question.

Totally, and you you led it to where I was gonna go with it anyway, which is um investing in in yourself. And I think that's um, you know, ultimately when I am, I I came so in my upbringing, I and I I had to realize this too, is my dad had a a a great dental practice, right? He started my dad went back to dental school at the age of 30, which was unheard of back then, right? Left pharmacology, you know, pharmaceutical sales, went there, started his practice, didn't really get it going, you know, until 40, maybe mid-40s, something like that. And there was always um, even when the practice was booming, I don't know how much my dad made, but he did really well. You know, and uh but there was always my mom was always worried about money, right? She was always like, Oh, I don't I don't think the practice is doing well. Meanwhile, the practice is always doing great. I was inflicted with this like, well, what happens if everything falls apart? Kind of mentality, right? And it took me years to fight through that. I brought it into my own business ownership days. When I started really um noticing when I flourish financially, is when um I put myself into the whole flow. Like money, money comes and goes, right?

Yeah, it's energy, it likes to move.

It needs to move. And as soon as you stop and stagnate the movement in your own, in your own world, then you get cut off. And it's I know that sounds ethereal, and people are like, well, they're talking about woo-woo energy stuff, but it's just true. I've just noticed it. And one of the things is, you know, once you start investing in yourself, you know, if you go for that coach that's a little bit maybe outside of your comfort zone for pay, for paying, you start to see things happening, right? And it's it's I urge people out there, if you feel like you're stuck for money, then you're gonna have to try something new and you're gonna have to invest, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and actually one of the coaches I'm working with right now, she's awesome. She did a live video. She's way more direct and like in your face than I am. But she was talking about like, I mean, I think she was, she was like, why the F would you would you ri put your financial future and the like your future wealth in your business? Like, why why would you price shop for that? Right? It's like, um, like like and I always tell people, I'm like, if I needed heart surgery, I probably don't want like the second or third best heart surgeon because it's a little cheaper. Like, I want the very best, and I carry that belief through every other area of my life. I mean, because the truth is, is that like, I mean, okay, if we're talking about like Tony Robbins, like I can't afford to work with Tony Robbins. I have totally owned that. He's a million dollars a year for 12 hours of coaching. Okay. Can't afford Tony Robbins. But for the average coaching program, which is anywhere from like five to $25,000, almost anyone can afford that. It's just a mindset thing. It's about resourcefulness. Like to me, if you are not, so if you want to do a coaching program and it's like $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, and I don't care where you're at, if you aren't resourceful enough to find that money, you will not be successful in business. Like, I just I believe that. Like there is always a way to find the money to advance yourself to the next step. And if you think that you can do it yourself, you're naive, right? Because um, I certainly couldn't have the reason I'm sitting here talking to you today, literally, is because I hired a business coach six months before I opened my gym and I avoided a lot of the brick and mortar mistakes. And um I mean, that is the reason that I'm sitting here talking to you. Um, and also because of the coach that I hired last year is the reason I'm earning five times the money that I was earning one year ago, which is like crazy to me. And that's the beauty of entrepreneurship. Like, there's no job you could go get, and they're like, yes, we will give you a 5x raise within the next year, right? So um, so part of you know being in control of your your future and your finances is is taking risk. And if you're risk averse, go get a job, really. Like that's kind of the point about it.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And uh I'm curious too with with everything you have, because you mentioned you know you don't have um employees, right? You outsource a lot of it. What is your team?

Yeah, so I well, I have a guy who's doing sales for me now and a virtual assistant, but it's it's different than like managing a staff, you know what I mean?

So what does your team look like and what do they do for you? Like what do you what do you focus on a weekly basis? I would imagine coaching and content creation, right? And then how do you fill in all the gaps?

Yeah, um, I mean, that's literally it. It's like I kind of look at it this way if I'm not working with clients, creating content or doing something for my marketing, it's like I really don't need to be doing it. Um, I mean, of course, like there's email and and that kind of thing. Um, but so the people, the like the two primary people I have on my team or my my marketing guy, or I'm sorry, my sales guy, which is a recent thing. Um, some interesting things were starting to happen. Like it was you were on my interview series, I was kind of like getting weird, like weird calls booked, and it was just not working for me. And I don't have the time to take all the calls. And so I brought him in, it alleviated a lot of pressure off of me and prevented the weird calls from coming in. Um, so there he there's him, and then I have my virtual assistant who some weeks should I don't ask her to do anything, other weeks she does a lot, and um, that's worked out really, really well. Uh, I also have obviously the coaches that I work with and um a Facebook ads manager who's amazing. He um he does so much for me just uh in terms of like running all of that, and uh actually he he consults with my mastermind clients also. Um, so he's awesome. And um then I have this person that I outsource to every now and again for um the more complicated marketing things like building a sales page, she's building this funnel. She's like worked with Russell Brunson, so she's really, really good um at what she does, way better than I am, um, and way more detailed than I am. So yeah, that's kind of what it looks like right now.

Yeah, that sounds like an awesome team.

Yeah.

Yeah, it really does. How did you uh I know a lot of people tend to um and just just just recently, just an hour ago, I had a conversation. I'm like, you know, it's time for you to get a virtual assistant.

And they're like, oh, it's so easy. I felt like that.

So easy.

Yeah.

How did you find how did you find yours?

Um I posted on Upwork, and I got a bunch of applicants, and I mean, I don't need super complicated stuff, but I was really clear on like the programs they they needed to have comprehension with. So between like I had two people that I narrowed it down to, and I ended up hiring the one with the better reviews. I mean, it was easy, and she's awesome. Like she's in Italy. Um, I think she's Russian, but she lives in Italy and she likes to work in the evenings, which is perfect because I'm on the East Coast. And um, yeah, she's been amazing. And I mean, it's I'm not asking her to do anything that I don't know how to do. It's just stuff that I don't need to be spending my time doing, like building landing pages anymore.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a cool thing. And it's such a it's such an awesome time to be an online business person because you have these resources that are literally uh endless. You can find someone who do just about any job now from anywhere in the world. And it's it's a really cool thing because you just spent two what two, three months in South America? Is that right?

Three months, yeah.

Three months. And you ran your business from there, right? Brought your dog.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah, yeah. And of course I use like Fiverr and stuff like that all the time for any design work. Um, it blows my mind that people would rather spend hours creating terrible design than spend $50 to have something designed, but Fiverr all the way, like great experiences on there too.

Yeah, me too. I'll vouch for that. Um tell us about your experiences down there. Where did you live?

So I was in um Buenos Aires in Argentina for seven weeks, and then about six weeks in Santiago, Chile. Um, and it was it was awesome. I loved Argentina. Uh actually, like uh the city is segmented basically into like three very large neighborhoods. So I was in one called Palermo, and it's like the hip trendy one. And so on every like multiple on every corner, there were like great restaurants and cafes, and um the culture there was incredible. And in fact, like I actually didn't leave that neighborhood except for three times the whole time that I was in that city. Um, and then I didn't really do any research before I went. So what happened was I was in I I knew I wanted to start traveling internationally, running my business, and bring my I have two dogs. I brought the small one with me. So she and I went to um Lisbon. We spent half of November in Portugal and I was there um the last night for dinner and it was like mid-November, and it had been a little like colder than usual there or rainy, and I was like, I cannot do this for the next four months of my life back at home because I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and it's not terrible winters here, but it's not ideal. Um, and so that night I was like, well, where could I go? That is the same time zone or similar time zone in summer. And I was like, I'll go to Argentina and Chile. And I literally booked a plane ticket into um Buenos Aires and out of Santiago. Um and the reason I said I didn't do any research is because I did not like Santiago at all. Um the city, not at all. But uh every weekend I went on excursions out into the Andes Mountains, which are like breathtakingly spectacular. So it certainly made it worth it to be there. But it was hard to be there after being in such an amazing place in Argentina. Um won't go back, but I'm sure that there are other places in Chile that are also when you're um when you hit the road like that, right?

Certain amount, obviously you're you're a brave person because a lot of people would you know be a little scared to take on an adventure like that.

It doesn't even like like people were like, You're gonna spend Christmas alone? I'm like, yeah, I'm a grown-up.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just another day. Uh what were there any unexpected challenges or things? Because you know, it's it's a romantic thing, right? The digital nomad work from anywhere. Um, but you know, I've experienced it obviously, and there certainly are some downsides, right? People things that people don't talk about too much. Um, besides the obvious upsides of seeing new things, experiencing new cultures and foods and you know, travel and sites and all of that exciting stuff, because that's really like that's the exciting part is the newness of everything, right? What what was an unexpected challenge? Did you have any?

Um well, I dropped my laptop and it took like four weeks to get repaired.

Um, everything off your phone.

No, I bought for uh about 50% higher price than you pay in the US uh an iPad with a keyboard so that I could do my work from there. So it was really frustrating. It sent me back like a little not just like financially, but just in time. Like I wanted to launch that interview series sooner, but I couldn't. I like didn't have a way to record stuff. So everything's just a little bit slower. Um, but honestly, like I think there would be I think there can be A point after about two months where I really missed like connection because I met people and things like that when I was in Argentina. A lot more people in Argentina spoke English. Um, once I got to Chile, like uh actually a good friend of mine was there. So we got to do a bunch of stuff over the month of February, but then I was there a couple more weeks uh after that. But a lot of people didn't speak English. Um, so it was like I was really starting to not have any connection with people. Um, and I was kind of working so much the last couple weeks I was there anyway, but I would say that was the biggest thing, but just in terms of no, like you figure it out. It's kind of the fun part of the challenge is like, okay, I need to get from here to there. How do I do it? Okay, you know, I gotta cross the border from Argentina with my dog. Okay, what do I need to do? It's like to get her paperwork done. It's like I I like that kind of stuff. I like the challenge of figuring things out. So yeah, aside from missing connection, I would say the last couple of weeks I was there, nothing particularly challenging.

Awesome. Do you speak Spanish?

No.

Awesome.

No. Uh I actually my it improved quite a bit. Um I didn't speak, um, I took like eight years of Spanish in school, but like never practiced it, so it all disappears. And uh, I went with quite a lot of like vocabulary, just like words that I would remember. Um, but conversationally, no, but my reading comprehension improved quite a lot. Um, and then I was able to have the most important conversations in Spanish, which were like ordering food in restaurants, basically. Um so yeah.

What were some of your favorite food dishes while you were there?

Oh my gosh. I gained weight in Argentina, it was like the best food. So uh I don't know if you know this, but Argentina, uh, they eat more beef per capita than anywhere else in the world. And it's like the best ever. So I ate so many like fillets and rip highs, and I was just and they're not big on like fresh vegetables. So it's like lots of meat, lots of like breads and things like that. And the ice cream in Argentina is the best I've had anywhere in the world. And actually, I was talking to somebody about it the other day, and they were like, Yeah, it's actually like better than what I had in Italy. I'm like, Yes, it is that good. So I ate a lot of ice cream. Yeah, and uh yeah, and empanadas. So like the Argentinian empanadas are different than the Chilean empanadas, and they're also good.

Um we travel, we tend to do it around food.

Yeah.

Like activities or food, right? If there's not a distinct activity like skiing or climbing or whatever it is, we're like it's all about food.

Yeah. Well, I'm doing Central America for next winter, and I'm thinking it's probably just gonna be more like fresh fish and like fruits and stuff, because I don't need to have the that ice cream experience again.

Where uh what are you thinking for Central America?

I'm already booked, so I'm spending January in Belize, uh, February in Guatemala, and March in Costa Rica.

Nice, nice Costa Rica's amazing. Here we go.

Yeah, I'm a little worried about the Wi-Fi where I'm gonna be, but yeah.

Well, that's part of the adventure, right? Yeah. That's it. Amazing how resourceful you can get um when you need to be. So yeah, awesome. Well, Nicole, um, there's a lot of ways you know people can find you online. Um where do you send them?

Well, uh my Facebook profile is where I really give a lot of value. Um, you can join my group from there. And my website is convertauthenticely.com. Um, and I have some great free resources there as well. Uh, particularly if you're looking for more insight on how to create content for growing your business. Um, I have a guide on there that you can download and uh been downloaded hundreds of times, and I just get tons of great feedback. So go grab it.

Yeah, right on, right on. Nicole, thank you. It's always a pleasure.

Yeah, I I love connecting with you and um seeing where your adventures are taking you as well.

Yeah, yeah, likewise. So uh hopefully we'll get you back on for another episode. Yes, yeah. When you're when you're in Belize, something like that.

Yeah. I have a beach, it's literally in the sand on the beach, which I don't even like the beach that much, but this feels very peaceful.

Yeah.

Um yeah, a studio. Yeah, so I'm excited.

Yeah, you're gonna be you're gonna be just fine. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh, it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel, our fitness marketing alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And we're we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh, trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness Marketing Alliance.com.