Client Spotlight: How Amanda Tress Grew Faster Way to Fat Loss to Beyond $1M Per Month

Transcription

Hey guys, how’s it going? Welcome back to the show, Yuri here with you, and today I have got one heck of a treat for you. I don’t know why it’s taken 161 episodes to do one of our first client spotlights. I don’t know why it’s just occurred to me, “Hey, maybe you should get some of your clients on the show and talk about their journey,” because we’ve got some amazing clients who’ve done some tremendous stuff in this space, and one of them is Amanda Tress.

Amanda Tress is the founder of a great program called the FASTer Way to Fat Loss which spread like wildfire across the internet, especially over the past three years, most notably over the past 18 months, and it’s just incredible to see what she’s been able to do.

When we started working together, she was one of my first mastermind clients. She reached out to me two years ago looking for some help because she was working 30 hours a day, and was really burned out.

She’s the mother of three young kiddos, she’s married, and at the time she had two businesses and she just needed a bit more structure to move things forward with what she was doing , and was really happy to work with her for the following 12 months and help her get clarity and moving in the right direction.

It’s been amazing to see what she’s been able to do with the FASTer Way to Fat Loss. They’re doing more than a million dollars per month and growing, with their fitness/nutrition based program to helping women lose fat in a science-based effective manner.

What I love about Amanda as you’ll see, is that she’s very driven.  That’s one of the first things I noticed in her and that she’s very committed to doing what it is she wants to do and that’s a big part of why she’s had the success the she’s enjoyed.

She also believes in herself and what she’s doing and the mission that she’s on, which is to help empower women because she understands that women are more likely to give back to their family, church and community, and that’s  her driving mission with what she is doing.

So I’m excited to dig deep with you into Amanda’s journey, taking her way back to the beginning and showing you how even though they’re enrolling thousands of clients a month, it didn’t start out that way and some of the trials and tribulations that she’s learned along the way.

So without any further ado let’s jump in and let’s bring Amanda onto the show.

Amanda, what is up? Welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast.

Amanda Tress:                  Thank you, I am thrilled to be here.

Yuri Elkaim:                         This has been way long overdue. This is episode 161 and I’m like how have I not brought one of my first mastermind clients on the show, it’s crazy.

But I’m super excited to have you on the show because you’ve done some amazing things since I’ve known you. Since we stopped working together to see your continued growth and progress is incredible and I’m just super proud to have had a hand in a piece of that, but also to help highlight your journey and give our listeners some good perspectives because as we talked about before we started recording, a lot of people especially on social, they see the after, right? They see the shiny objects, right? The fancy cars, the jets, the success, but my goal is really to highlight a lot of the journey because most people don’t recognize that.

Let’s start by sharing what the first iteration of Amanda Tress online looked like, when did that start? And how did that all come about?

 

How Amanda juggled personal training, blogging, and a digital marketing job

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, that’s a great question. So the very first Amanda Tress initiative started several years ago. It was when I was pregnant with my first who is now seven. I started a blog and had been working with clients as a personal trainer in the gym. Prior to starting a blog I had, as many of us did, traded dollars for hours, grinded for hours and hours per day in addition to working my full time digital marketing job.

I started this blog when I was pregnant with Emma just simply to get some valuable content online regarding a fit pregnancy. I had googled quite a few things during my own pregnancy and found a lot of misinformation, a lot of outdated information regarding what women could and should do. I started this blog that then turned into some pretty cool campaign partnerships with fitness brands.

I then decided while I was pregnant with her that I should try a concept of online training. The reason I wanted to do this is because I had a lot of former clients, previous clients who I had worked with in the gym who had since moved away and I said, “You know what? Why can’t I just simply leverage online tools like for example Skype and train clients online.” So I started training clients online one-on-one, and again, this is seven years ago, and at the time I was also leading in-person boot camps, and it occurred to me that if I wanted to scale or if I wanted to have the opportunity to impact more than one person at a time online, I could do a virtual boot camp concept. So I was the very first trainer in my area to launch this concept.  I called it my virtual Body After Baby Boot Camps.

This was shortly after delivering Emma.  I started small Yuri. I started with four clients, five clients, six clients, and then 11 clients for these little virtual boot camps, had a lot of fun getting to know people over Skype and in different capacities online, Facebook, and so forth, and over time iterated.

It’s been a seven-year process to perfect what is now my virtual boot camp that has scaled pretty significantly and we bring on now over 2,000 clients a month. Those are new clients and we serve over 5,000 clients total per month. So it’s very humble beginnings and got a lot of pushback, a lot of criticism online from people like, “Who are you to think you could train someone online? The only path would be to trade dollars for hours in the gym. You can’t possibly get that same impact with someone online?” So anyway, yeah, it’s been quite the journey but that is how it started.

 

Amanda’s entrepreneurial journey and evolution

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s awesome, and how did you get those initial clients when you first started? Were there existing clients that you brought online or how did you go about getting those?

Amanda Tress:                  That’s a really good question, and I always joke the fitness industry found me, I didn’t choose the fitness industry. The reason I say that is because I am financially motivated but I did not see the potential to be very successful financially in the fitness industry. When I initially started training clients in the gym I was charging $8 a session, then $10 a session, then $15 a session, I felt terrible. With my initial virtual boot-campers I think I was charging, literally Yuri and this is embarrassing, like $25 for a virtual boot camp. They were former in-person clients or family members. I started to get very small, very humble, and it was just simply because I had a passion to transform lives. It wasn’t about the money.

And then when I continued to iterate and to morph the virtual boot camps, I would literally go belly to belly, meet with people who I had previously worked with in the gym and say, “Listen, I have this new virtual boot camp concept I think it’s a perfect fit for you because you don’t have time to meet me in the gym anymore, I want you in. It’s $60, write me a check, I’ll be by your office in 10 minutes to pick it up.”

I was strong-arming people into my initial beta groups because I wanted success stories, I wanted the opportunity to test things, and so that was how I got started. It wasn’t anything fancy, no 17 step ClickFunnels. It was literally belly-to-belly or texting people and saying like, “Hey, you got to join this because I really want you in and if you’re my friend you got to be in it,” so yeah, that’s how I got started.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well that’s one of the things I love about you, and I think for people who may or may not know you, I mean you’re very good at “selling” and not in the typical closer douchey type of way, you’re just very passionate about what you do.

Amanda Tress:                  Yes.

 

The benefits of her program and why she believes in it

Yuri Elkaim:                         This is an area that a lot of people struggle with, right? They have lack of self-belief or self-doubt or whatever it is. What was it in you or your program or what you were doing that gave you that belief to be like, “I don’t care, I’m going to drop by your house and get this money because you need to do this thing.” Where does that come from?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, that’s such a good question and I’ve asked myself that question multiple times, and frankly it all comes back to the why, the passion and again, fitness found me, I didn’t choose the fitness industry. It’s just the fact that I am genuinely passionate about transforming lives. I’m in the business of helping people get well, prevent disease and fulfill their purpose with the energy I know they should have, and so for me it’s like if I have the cure to cancer I’m going to shout it from the rooftops.  If I have the way to prevent illness, if I have the way to help someone feel more confident, if I have the ability to equip and empower women to be the catalyst for their family and their community then I’m going to do it and I’m going to talk about it.

I work very hard to develop good programming, but at the end of the day it’s like I just know that if someone truly wants to see a significant body composition change or an increase in energy or wants to prevent disease, they have to go through my program.

There are so many big companies out there who don’t have other people’s best interests at mind and I know I do and I have those core values of generosity, excellence, bold action and integrity, and so I want to again, get people on my side and through my program so that they can once and for all see that big change, but yeah, it just comes down to that purpose and the why. I don’t even really consider what I do selling, I just consider it sharing and teaching and transforming lives.

Yuri Elkaim:                         For sure, it’s serving, because I mean if people do not enroll in your program they’re not being served and I think you’re such a great example of this is like you really understand that and you kind of go above and beyond to make that a reality for you and the people you serve. Probably I think and honestly every time we hung out, whether it was one of our masterminds or anything else, I remember several times it would come up in conversation where you would say, and I don’t even know how it would come up but you would say, “I believe I’m the best trainer in the world,” something along those lines. Several times I remember you saying that, and guys I want you to listen to this because this is important because there’s no shortage of trainers, there’s no shortage of health and fitness experts, but you believe that you are the best.

Now objectively, whether or not that’s true it doesn’t matter, right? But you believe you’re the best and I think that’s part and parcel of why you have this massive drive to really get the message out and help a lot of people, I think that’s great.

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, thank you. I believe that what is happening with the FASTer Way to Fat Loss specifically is the most important thing happening in the marketplace for women and for fitness professionals who want to earn significant income, and I don’t necessarily believe that I’m the best trainer but I am absolutely able to surround myself with the smartest trainers and the most talented individuals who can help me elevate the business and the brand better than anyone else. So yeah, I appreciate you remembering that and mentioning that.

 

The lesson Amanda learned through having a baby

Yuri Elkaim:                         Well so when we first started working together, one of the things that you were saying was you were working like 30 hours a day pretty much.

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, totally.

Yuri Elkaim:                         You were super busy, doing a lot of things. You had two businesses, you had the agency side which is more kind of done for you, marketing different businesses, then you had the FASTer Way to Fat Loss, talk to us about the journey and the recent epiphany/decision you’ve made to really zone in and focus on what really matters in your business.

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, absolutely. So a little bit of background for everyone listening. I started my fitness business as kind of a side hustle 15 years ago, then seven years ago started the online virtual boot camps, but I’ve always had a career background in digital marketing, that is kind of my 9:00 to 5:00 job background,.

When I was on the labor and delivery bed with my five-year-old I decided to start a marketing agency for wellness professionals. I landed my very first client when I was in labor, had just stepped down from my full-time job to be home with my baby, and I was able to scale the agency pretty quickly, but you probably heard me say and I’ve said for years, “I have 99 problems and they’re all agency side.”

I tried really hard to ramp up in agency, and again that’s my career background so I felt like that my real job was the agency work and marketing, funnels, sales pages and then kind of my hobby was the fitness side.

Well something happened after I had my third baby who was a bit of a bonus baby, a big surprise. When I had her in January I was extremely exhausted, I was getting very little sleep. She was my worst sleeper that first month, and I said to my team, “Listen, I cannot physically take on any agency consult or clients right now, let’s not take on any.” I said I just want to focus on surviving with the FASTer Way, keeping my head above water, so I focused only on my virtual boot camps and we started having these massive record months.

And it was like this weird concept where I wasn’t taking on any agency clients, I wasn’t doing a single consult, I wasn’t helping anyone with their own digital marketing, I was just saying, “Listen, kind of out of fairness for my baby who I need to spend as much time with as possible and for my clients, I’m only going to focus on the virtual boot camps.” Well again, record month after record month and I finally looked at my team and I said, “We just have to stop accepting clients for the agency side.” I said, “We’re going to go hard, we’re going to listen to the marketplace.” Because the success of any business is really based on timing in the marketplace and the market readiness is evident for my virtual boot camp specifically, so I did quite a big move and stopped accepting clients for my agency, best decision I’ve ever made in my career.

At the time I felt like a massive failure because here I had spent years and years and years ramping up an agency and then kind of in a day decided to shut it down, but we are now earning over seven figures per month with just simply fitness, with just simply one vertical, so that for me is proof that we made the right decision and we’ve been able to do a lot of other things to support the fitness side. So again, really, really difficult decision. I think you probably told me like two or three years ago to only focus on one thing and I didn’t listen at the time and now finally did and it paid off but yeah, it’s quite the development recently.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So the lesson or the moral of the story is you don’t need a coach you just have to have a baby.

Amanda Tress:                  Absolutely, that is the lesson, everyone should have a baby.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, but I think it’s as true as well, like everyone kind of discovers the answer for them at different times, right? So I think it’s great that you can say that, because I mean the power of what you’re doing when it’s focused is compounded exponentially, and there’s just so much energy. Even if you’re not physically putting a lot of effort into another thing, it’s just even energetically, it’s there. It’s almost like it’s just kind of weighing you down like an anvil in some way.

Amanda Tress:                  Mm-hmm (affirmative) absolutely, totally agree.

 

Social media marketing, conversions, frequency, and her certification program

Yuri Elkaim:                         So let’s talk about how you’ve been able to fill your programs with thousands of women a month. You’re a social media machine, I think it’s incredible what you’ve done with Instagram and Facebook Live, so how early did you start using Instagram? And how often do you post to social?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, really good question. I settled on Instagram pretty early. It was, gosh, six years ago that I initially started on Instagram. I have leveraged different platforms at different times and again for me, the success of my business has been based on timing the marketplace, really listening to the marketplace and meeting my ideal clients where they’re at. I was active on Snapchat when Snapchat was very popular-

Yuri Elkaim:                         What’s that?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, exactly. I was very active on Periscope which is one of the main ways I was able to scale my business and it provided quite a few tipping points for my business along the way. Periscope which was then acquired by Twitter was a great practice for Facebook Live. So I was able to show up every single day for my own TV show 3:00 PM Eastern and people, my users got used to hearing from me every day. I’d have people find me organically on the Periscope Map and within 24 hours convert into my program.  You couldn’t do that with any other platform at the time and now you can’t do it. I actually am really sad about Periscope, that their user base was so compromised because that was my favorite platform by far. I wish I could still be leveraging periscope like I had for an entire year.

I do use Facebook Live. Facebook Live is okay. The very first Facebook Live I ever did my mom hopped on and she immediately commented, “Amanda, why didn’t you say hi to me?” Like in the middle of my Facebook Live, and that’s kind of like set the tone for my Facebook Lives from then I do it like, “I know my mom’s watching, my dad’s watching, my mother-in-law’s watching.” I’m not able to be as authentic as I was on Periscope.

Instagram has been really powerful recently with Swipe Up To Shop, that’s how I personally get most of my conversions. And in regard to frequency, I tend to post at least once a day on Instagram and primarily Social Proof, and I think you are even the one who said, “Amanda, all you really need in today’s marketplace is social proof and a Buy Now button. You need a testimonial and a Buy Now button.”

And so right now I just do a lot of testimonials and I share success stories of my clients. I do a day-in-the-life on Insta Stories similar to what I used to do on Snapchat. But yeah, I mean I don’t like to spend time on social media, I rarely spend any time on Facebook unless I’m posting or checking in with clients. I don’t scroll through Instagram, I just don’t have time. I just cannot even be bothered with looking to see what everyone else is up to from a competitor standpoint. I just kind of put my head down, do what I can do, share things when I’m inspired and call it a day.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s awesome, and do you plan out your social calendar or is it pretty much impromptu when you’re inspired, what you’re feeling like sharing on the day?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, it’s all impromptu and that’s because I have horrendous rebel tendencies, so if I even try to tell myself to come up with a content calendar, I’m just not going to do it. I’d rather stick my head in a toilet than try to come up with a broadcast calendar, and even like this morning I broadcasted a video but I tried to force it. I had planned it a few days ago and then I broadcasted it today and it just didn’t come off right so I deleted it. I have to be in the moment passionate about something for it to really be effective.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. It’s a good lesson because it’s important, if you guys were listening to this, to understand that not one strategy is right for everyone. So some people need that structured calendar and they’re very systemized and structured and they can do the same thing at the same time every single day with a plan, and then there’s people like you. I’m pretty much like that as well where I’m like, “All right, I know what I’m going to talk about today, let’s go for it.” So you just have to really honor who you are, and I think that’s really important. And I think a lot of people and maybe you see this with some of the coaches you work with is I think a lot of people struggle with that. They try to be like someone else and in the process they lose themselves and then they’re like, “I don’t even feel like myself. I don’t feel authentic.” Is that something you see with the people that you bring on as coaches or other people in your space?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, absolutely, I see it with other people in my space constantly. It’s that concept of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and it’s like no one is going to be successful if they’re just simply trying to emulate someone else, and so when we bring on a certified coach through our program we try to remind them consistently like, “Listen, you do you. This is about you. It’s about you staying on the platforms that you enjoy.” If you hate Instagram don’t try to be on Instagram posting every day, that’s just not going to be the best use of your time. If you love Facebook do Facebook. If you would rather be belly-to-belly with people. If you want to go to the bingo night and get to know people there and bring them on as your clients that’s fine too.”

And the thing is like there is no cookie cutter approach for how our coaches are successful, and people who we notice just copying what we’re doing, they do fizzle, they’re not successful long-term and it’s kind of easy to see through that too if there’s an end user kind of looking from the outside at what’s going on, so yeah, totally agree with you.

 

Growing and hiring; the importance of giving roles and delegating

Yuri Elkaim:                         Let’s talk about the delivery of your program a little bit. So you can only work with so many clients, I mean I think you were reviewing macros and so forth back in the day and what was the moment where you said, “Okay, I need to start thinking about maybe bringing on other coaches to support this,” how did that all start for you?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, really good question. So I have been bringing on staff team members to help with my groups for a couple years, but when I got pregnant is actually the time that I’m like, “You know what? I’m so exhausted and sick right now that I need people to help me in a big way if we’re truly going to expand this movement.” And so I launched a coach certification shortly after finding out I was pregnant with my third, and literally I was so sick through the first trimester that I couldn’t get into the groups and check on every single client’s macronutrient chart and look at every single question, and so I said, “Okay, I’m going to accelerate some people through the certification and then turn around and hire them to help co-lead my clients through the program.” And so again, it’s kind of like yeah, everyone should just have a baby to see what their real priorities are.

That’s the true story, that’s what happened.  I literally needed to go to bed at like 8:00 PM and I’m puking all night and all morning so I’m not going to be on besides like two hours a day so what can I do to continue generating revenue? So out of necessity I created this certification program to be sure that people understood the science behind the strategies, and then I empowered those women to help with my groups and now we’ve really helped take the certification community to the next level and said, “Okay, we’re going to help you grow your own business with your own clients, and we’re going to gift you with a very significant commission for every client that comes through the program.” Yeah, that’s how it started and kind of the rest is history now.

I like to say you can either have control or you can have growth but you cannot have both.

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s good.

Amanda Tress:                  And I’ve become very good at delegating because of the reasons that I mentioned, really more out of necessity but that’s what’s helped us scale in huge ways.

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s awesome. That’s very true, it’s control or growth. I agree with you on that because so often we’re like, “Oh it’s got to be done exactly my way and I don’t know if I can relinquish the reins here because if we lose control God forbid …” But that is where all growth happens. I think even personally when we kind of allow ourselves to not be in control of everything that’s when we get uncomfortable, that’s when we grow, that’s a really good insight. Speaking of growth, what were some of the growing pains you had to go through as you started certifying these coaches and bringing them on? What were some of the trials and tribulations and how did you deal with that?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, really good question. I’ve learned many important lessons over the past 18 months after bringing on coaches. I have a very high standard. We run our business with excellence, integrity, generosity and bold action, and at certain times through the past year I’ve noticed that different certified coaches within the community were switching up programming or they weren’t abiding by our code of ethics and unfortunately I had to make some really difficult decisions regarding canceling a handful of contracts and even for people who had scaled their FASTer Way businesses pretty successfully and some of the hardest decisions I’ve made and it’s because it’s people decisions, it’s going to impact relationships. Of course, we try to have multiple conversations like, “Hey, this needs to change. This needs to change. We need to kind of get some quality control going here.”

I’ve learned the importance of better contracts. We continue to improve our contracts. I’ve learned the importance of also having the right team in place to really kind of help me develop a strategy, a thoughtful strategy with some of these legal decisions or harder decisions, and then also having a team in place who can help minimize my exposure to some of the issues, like for example we’ve had a couple, a few former coaches literally copy/paste the program, meaning Command-C, Command-A and rename the program slightly and continue to grow in scale, and it’s like we’ve sent multiple cease and desist out which is also difficult. And at first I was very weighed down with all of this, it’s like, “I learned in second grade that you shouldn’t copy someone’s content and literally paste it and use it for your own.”

I remember Jordan Stuckey got in big trouble because he copied the encyclopedia, and it’s like other people in my industry haven’t learned this concept so it was very difficult, but even this past week I realized how fortunate I am to have the very best team surrounding me, whether it’s attorneys or people who help with the trademarks and the copyrights and a COO and a director of technology who scaled her own $25 million brand and then sold and had similar issues. It’s been a very, very difficult year with some of these issues that weigh me down and I can even feel the stress and anxiety as I’m talking about it, but I have the right team in place that has helped really address these issues so that moving forward we know how to address them, we have a system and we can scale big and we can make a massive positive impact in the marketplace.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s amazing. I want to come back to talking about the hires and kind of the mindset around that in a second, but first, a lot of … not a lot, but I mean there are obviously coaches out there who have their own methodology that they want to certify other coaches in and I think one of the concerns that we’ve seen is, “Well how do I …” Again, using the word control, “How do I control the message. How do I make sure that they’re not bastardizing this methodology, and they’re staying within the confines of this protocol?” How do you guys keep track of that?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, well now we have much better systems, we have one portal, one website that everyone goes through, whether it’s my client or the client of coach, we have key staffers in place for quality control. We actually have requirements for our coaches, for example they have to send us training videos that they film for their clients and we review those. We have different checklists of different items that they have to go through as well and at the end of the day, again in the contract we reserve the right to cancel a contract for any reason at any time with seven day notice and it’s after seeing that maybe someone is deciding that instead of doing the 16/8 protocol they’re going to do a 27 day fast with their clients, like you can’t do a 27 day fast with your clients through the FASTer Way to Fat Loss, that’s not what this program is about.

So just making those tough decisions, but it’s a very number of people who do try to compromise the programming, and so thankfully it’s been small scale but yeah, I think for us is just code of ethics, really fantastic contracts and then also that business in a box and one website, one portal that everyone goes through, so every client is having the same experience.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s great, that’s awesome. So let’s talk about team building for a second. I mean could you foresee, three years ago for instance, were you able to foresee where this could go? Did you have any doubts of you as a leader being able to lead this? What did that look like from a vision perspective for you?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, that’s a great question. I have always known that I would lead a movement or a substantial company, I would manage significant wealth, even when Brandon and I were in our teens we were listening to different financial cassette tapes because we were like, “We are going to be multimillionaires someday,” and we were so young, and I remember our parents just laughing and I had a financial planner when I was like 19 and I named my retirement account, retire by 34, multi-millionaire blah blah blah and he’s like laughing. It’s like we knew it, we just didn’t know how. And one of the very first people who was a boss or a leader to me who kind of saw my potential, I was like 21 or 22 and I was like, “I’m going to be a multimillionaire by 30,” and he was like, “Okay, how?” And I was like, “Oh huh, good question. Let’s talk about it.”

And he was one of the first bosses that was like, “I see something in you, let’s not have you doing stupid projects at work, let me try to kind of help empower you to go above and beyond,” and I actually looked back around and hired this person to work with my team this past year and it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done for the company. It’s like someone who saw my potential a decade ago, now I have the opportunity to employ, and so the two of us have been quite the partnership moving the business forward. And there’s been several other really key hires that we could get into if you’d like to that I’ve made just to help elevate and take things to the next level.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, I mean so how big is your team and who are those key moving pieces for you guys?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, really good question. So we have several directors on the team now. I recently onboarded a wonderful director of technology who’s also providing some leadership for the six week virtual FASTer Way to Fat Loss Program that I have. She has scaled a business from an idea on a napkin to 25 million in the process of selling, just very sharp individual and has decided that she doesn’t want to be a CEO anymore, she wants to be number two. And with this person in particular, I got to know her because she initially was a graduate of my alma mater and then a client of my program, but immediately I was like, “I need to keep this person close, because I don’t know how or when I’m going to work with her but I know that I will at some point work with this person.”

And I just also hired a web marketing specialist and technology specialist, same thing, I’ve known her for four or five years and I’ve even met with her over the past couple a few years and said, “Listen, I want to hire you at some point. I want you on my dream team. I don’t know how, when, where but it’s going to happen and so when the timing is right and I have a position opening are you interested?” And those are the types of conversations I’ve had over the past several years, and just now I have these three or four new hires within the past six months who are just key hires helping us elevate the company, and so I feel like this quarter I have the dream team and I’m on the verge of being able to fire at all cylinders.

And the thing is in the past I’ve said, “Let me hire someone who’s affordable and who has a little bit of time to help,” and I’ve hired people who are cheap and unfortunately when you hire someone who’s like cheap labor you get-

Yuri Elkaim:                         You get what you paid for.

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, you get what you paid. So now it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to pay a little bit more. I’m going to target the dream team. I’m going to just …” Like literally this one person that I hired, I mean like a year ago if you would’ve asked me I would’ve said there’s no way he will work with us. There is no way he would step down from where he is right now and work with my team, no way, and it’s just a matter of writing it down, casting that vision, being really specific and just throwing it out there into the universe and saying, “This is who I want on my dream team,” and then pitching it. It never hurts to ask, and it’s amazing what people will respond with. So yeah, it’s been just awesome to make some big asks and move forward with some pretty strategic hires and then also move some people into other roles within the team that are better suited for them.

One of the guys that I hired, he helped me within a month transform my org chart and really empower people in the right way and get them in their zone of genius and that has paid off in incredible ways. Like just giving the right person the right leadership role or the right responsibilities has been amazing, and so that for us we’ve done 10X just by shifting people around and moving their roles and giving them raises and showing them that they’re valued, and so it’s been really exciting.

Yuri Elkaim:                         That’s awesome. Well I mean you can’t have a guitar player playing the drums.

Amanda Tress:                  Right, exactly.

Yuri Elkaim:                         It doesn’t make a lot of sense. One of the things I think is a really important lesson for our listeners here is that you have these relationships brewing on the back burner.

Amanda Tress:                  Yes.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And you weren’t looking last second to hire someone. You knew you saw potential for future collaboration in some capacity and that’s really, really important. I mean guys if you’re looking to hire, hiring is an ongoing process. It’s a process of continually building relationships, of continually thinking ahead, “All right, in a year from now I’m probably going to have an opening for this type of position, this person can be a good fit,” and I think it’s really important, it’s a great example of what you’ve done with that, so key lesson for you guys there. Amanda, this has been awesome.

 

The Rapid Five

One of the things I forgot to tell you about is we have five rapid fire questions called the rapid five, are you ready for this?

Amanda Tress:                  Oh, love it, can’t wait.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Okay, but before we get to those, where can people learn more about you, follow the work, join the FASTer Way to Loss Program if they wanted to?

Amanda Tress:                  Yeah, thank you for asking. So the best place to connect with me is on Instagram @amandatress. Again, I post a day-in-the-life, you’ll see my baby Lily, you’ll see all of the new decorations that I’ve bought for my house but then you’ll also learn about the FASTer Way to Fat Loss there and I’d love to connect.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Awesome, all right guys we’ll link up to that in the show notes as well. So are you ready for the rapid five?

Amanda Tress:                  I am.

Yuri Elkaim:                         All right, here we go. So number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Amanda Tress:                  Oh that is a great question. I am absolutely horrendous with details. I don’t respond to people on texts well because I forget. I could not manage a spreadsheet to save my life, thankfully I found the right team members to help with the details behind the scenes but even my friends know, like my best friends don’t even text me anymore about weekend plans, they text Brandon, they’re like, “Hey, we want Amanda to meet us for such-and-such on Saturday at 5:00, can you tell her to do that? Can you put it on her calendar?” That’s how bad it is.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, I can definitely relate. I think a lot of people in this kind of visionary role can relate to that, because I had to do, for my account, they send me a bunch of transactions over the past year that I had to identify and I was like, “What the …” Like I got to go back through my bank statements and try to figure out what this $4,300 transaction was for-

Amanda Tress:                  Oh, wouldn’t want to stick my head in a toilet.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Totally, I mean those are the things that I procrastinated on massively because were the same in that, details, forget about it. All right, so number two, what is your biggest strength?

Amanda Tress:                  My biggest strength is casting a vision but then also believing that it’s possible. I want to be a 100 million dollar company and it’s going to happen here in the next few years and just have that confidence. I like to say I’m a perfect package, I’m confidence and competence wrapped up in humility but anyone who knows me knows that’s not really true, it’s just that knowledge, it’s that belief that we can crush any goal.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, that’s awesome. I have no doubt you’ll get there for sure.

Amanda Tress:                  Thank you.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

Amanda Tress:                  Hiring, yeah hiring for sure, and a year ago I would not have said that but like you said, just kind of being in a constant state of hiring, even yesterday I wrote someone else down on my dream team list and I’m going to develop a relationship and hope to hire that person within the year. She has no idea, and if I asked her today she would say, “Absolutely not, I’m really happy with my current business and where things are going,” but by next year at this time I believe I can get her on my staff.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Amanda Tress:                  Oh, that’s a good question. I do have a morning routine, the very first thing I do in the morning is I hop in the shower. I need to be clean to be productive. I don’t know how people do it with the dry shampoo, I take like three showers a day and I like to be clean and that’s what I value and then-

Yuri Elkaim:                         You take three showers a day?

Amanda Tress:                  Oh yeah, I do. I just love being clean. I take a shower in the morning. I take a shower in the afternoon right after my workout and then I take a shower at night before I go to bed.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And you live in humid Florida so that can kind of-

Amanda Tress:                  I do, yes. But yeah, I take a shower and then I do my daughter’s hair.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Nice, awesome. And finally complete this sentence, I know I’m being successful when.

Amanda Tress:                  Oh, I know I’m being successful when I am fulfilled with my impact in the marketplace without feeling so burned out that I can’t serve my family well at the end of the day.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Awesome, I love it, and just so you guys know, Amanda is a badass competitive mini-golf player as well, that was a pretty epic game, that was a lot of fun.

Amanda Tress:                  It totally was. We need to do that again.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Totally, I will bring some donuts as well so there you go.

Amanda Tress:                  Oh, perfect.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Amanda, thank you so much for joining us, this has been a lot of fun and-

Amanda Tress:                  Thank you, I really enjoyed it.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, and again, thank you for everything you’re doing, for serving your community, for expanding the FASTer Way to Fat Loss message, for really empowering more women with their personal transformations, but also helping them with their financial aspirations as well which I think is awesome. And again, it’s been an honor to work with you as one of our clients and to see your continued growth and I’m really excited to see what the future holds for you guys.

Amanda Tress:                  Thank you, my pleasure.

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Yuri’s Take

So I don’t know about you but I’ve got chills down my spine after that interview. There’s a couple of things I want to really highlight from this conversation. Number one is that belief in yourself is massively important to success in life, and it’s the belief that what you’re doing is making a difference, it’s the belief that you’re here for a reason, you’ve got a purpose to serve others. And when you’re driven by that, little things like what are people going to think of me, go by the wayside, because when you put yourself out there in the degree that Amanda has done there are going to be haters, there are going to be people who say you can’t do certain things, there are going to be things you do that gets you way out of your comfort zone, and at the end of the day what’s going to move you through that is having belief which is going to fuel that courage muscle to keep moving forward, and I think it’s really important to remember that.

And if you’re somebody right now who doesn’t quite have the belief, who doesn’t quite have the self-confidence to knock on doors, make those phone calls, do whatever it takes, then I really want to challenge you to dig deep and figure out what is it going to take for you to get that level of belief because I believe in you. I believe you have a message, something really important that can transform many people’s lives, and the way I see that is if we’re playing small, if we’re not doing whatever we can to get that word out there to help those people, we are being selfish. We have to get out of our own way. We have to get out of our own head, and we have to think about the bigger why, the bigger reason that we are doing what we do.

In my Courage Code talk I talk about six ways to build courage because courage really is the bridge to help you go from where you are to where you want to be, and … excuse me. One of the steps to building more courage is having that belief. Now one of the other steps … excuse me once again. One of the other steps to building courage is to surround yourself with other courageous people, and this is why I continue to say and you continue to hear that the most successful people that we’ve had on the show get themselves around other successful people, it’s the very reason why I have a mastermind. It’s the very reason why we have a group coaching program which is our health business accelerator, because we know that one-on-one coaching is fine, but there is so much more synergy and power when you’re in a group setting.

When you can sit beside someone who is 10 times further ahead of you in business or you can teach somebody something or get something from them in terms of their journey, this is how we grow, this is how we borrow other people’s beliefs. We borrow their courage to help us move forward, because just like living a long life is impossible in isolation, so too is growing a successful business. You cannot grow a successful business in isolation. There are simply too many obstacles and challenges in the way for you to figure out and overcome all by yourself.

So here’s what I’d like to propose to you is if you are ready to step up and really make your dream a lot bigger than your fear then I want to invite you to take the next step with us, and it starts by watching our 7-Figure Health Business Blueprint Training, and start there.

If what you’re watching resonates with you, and you’re thinking to yourself, “Yeah, this is exactly what I need. This is a process, a strategy that I can deploy in my business, I deserve this.” If that’s what you feel after going through that then book a call with our team and you’ll be given the link at the end of the training and then let’s get on the phone.

Let’s have a chat about where you are, where you want to be, what’s holding you back and let’s put a plan together to move you forward, because I’m going to tell you this, you will not achieve the results you want to achieve by yourself. And I’m not saying that I am the solution or Healthpreneur is the solution for everyone obviously because that’s not true, but you cannot be delusional in thinking that, “Oh, I don’t have the money yet. I’m going to save a little bit of money first and then I’ll do all that stuff.” No, it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that.

You have to put yourself out there when you don’t have the means to doing so a lot of times. Every single time that I’ve invested in a coach, a mastermind, a group, some type of experience, it’s always very often, if not always been above my pay grade. It’s always put me out of my comfort zone because that’s how we grow, and we see it so often that … I mean we have a lot of calls every single week with amazing health coaches and trainers and experts who can transform the world, and what it comes down to is that they let their fear overshadow their dream. They let their fear of, “Oh, I don’t know if I can pay for this,” overshadow the possibility of what they can do with the right support and the right strategy.

And I want to challenge you, I really do want to challenge you and then really ask yourself and look in the mirror, “Am I happy where I’m at,” and if you are, tremendous, keep doing that, but if you are a high performer, if you’re a growth-oriented individual who wants more, who wants to contribute more and who wants to become more, then it’s time to step up.

I invite you to go through our training, book a call with us and then let’s see if we’re a good fit.

Start the journey, go to healthpreneurgroup.com/training, watch the training today and let’s get that started.

Thank you so much for joining me for this podcast today, this interview, hope you’ve enjoyed it. Hopefully it’s inspired you to see what is possible from humble beginnings with the right strategy, the right focus, the right support, the right team around you. And remember, I’m no different than you, Amanda’s no superhero, right? These are ordinary people.

We are ordinary people just doing some pretty cool things because we believe, we’re focused, we get the right support and we keep moving forward and we’d love to serve you as well. So thank you so much for joining me once again, continue to get out there, be great, do great and I’ll see you in our next episode.

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