Building a Personal Brand in the Fitness and Wellness World | Trainers Talking Truth

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In this episode of Trainers Talking Truths, we have the pleasure of sitting down with a seasoned industry expert to discuss their personal journey and insights into the fitness industry.

Podcast Introduction:

Welcome to Trainers Talking Truths. This is an ISSA podcast dedicated to exploring the fitness industry and uncovering the whys and hows of personal training. To do that, we'll talk directly to the industry experts and certified trainers. We'll dig into fitness programming, business tactics, nutrition, and more. You'll even hear from current training clients who offer insight from the other side. We've got the fitness industry covered, so turn up the volume and enjoy the drive.

Jenny Scott:

Hello, world. Welcome back for another ISSA podcast Trainers Talking Truths. It's your co-host, Jenny Scott here with my favorite podcast co-host, Dan the Man Duran. How are you, Dan?

Dan Duran:

I'm great, Jenny. You know speaking of fruit, so we were talking about fruit before we pushed record, and Jenny claims—y'all try this at home and we wanna hear from you—but if you feel a sneeze coming on or somebody in your vicinity feels a sneeze coming on, yell out the names of various fruits.

Jenny Scott:

Yes.

Dan Duran:

And it'll stop the sneeze. And she started naming some off. And I am excited because I am a mini farmer. I have a farmstead and my cherries are ripe, Jenny. I have over 80 trees and we are doing picking this weekend. We have people coming and paying us to pick our cherries. So this is life on the ranch.

Jenny Scott:

Oh see, my mom loves cherries, Dan. I've never been a fan of like fresh cherries. If it's a Marichino cherry in a jar with like all the syrup and stuff-

Dan Duran:

The sugar!

Jenny Scott:

I know. It’s just sugar. That's all.

Dan Duran:

Well, you're still not gonna steal my thunder. I'm excited and I'm very excited about our guest as well.

Jenny Scott:

Yes, we have an amazing guest. I had the pleasure of meeting her and working with her on our YouTube series, so make sure you guys are checking that out. ISSA Talks on YouTube. But she has an amazing background. Former D1 basketball player, celebrity trainer, has her own brand, which hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about a little bit today. Has built herself. And she was a big part of bodybuilding.com, which was really big, you know, five, 10 years ago. They're still of course around, but they were huge when I first got started, like 15 years ago. And she had like a whole profile, whole setup on there. I'm super excited to have her with us. Ashley Conrad, welcome Ashley.

Ashley Conrad:

Hey, thank you for having me.

Jenny Scott:

Yes. So excited you can join.

Ashley Conrad:

I should have you manage me. I mean, with both intros, I'll send you into meetings before I go in. 

Jenny Scott:

I can do it. It'll be like the old days. I'll have my little trumpet.

Dan Duran:

<Laugh>.

Ashley Conrad:

Yes. You make a great hype woman.

Dan Duran:

Absolutely. You treat her like a queen. I'll feed her cherries.

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, <laugh>. I love it.

Jenny Scott:

There you go. Cherries, grapes. Got it all. That's amazing. 

How did you get started in fitness?

Jenny Scott:

So, Ashley, tell out listeners a little bit about how you got started in fitness.

Ashley Conrad:

Okay, yeah. So I was an athlete my entire life. And obviously very active being a D1 athlete. I ended up in fitness because I was going to school for sports medicine and chiropractic. I was working at a bar to make extra money and it was literally ruining my life. So I thought I need to go and do something that's in alignment with where my career is headed. So I went and got a job at a local 24 Hour Fitness and that was the start.

How did you go from working at a big box gym to working with private and celebrity clients?

Jenny Scott:

Nice. Yeah. So you started off training and then tell everybody, so you work with, you still work with some pretty high end clients, you've told me a couple, you mentioned some in our YouTube channel. I would love to know more, but I know you're like bound by confidentiality and stuff. But how did you go from working at 24 Hour Fitness to finding private clients, let alone celebrity private clients?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, so that's a great question. During my time at 24 Hour Fitness, I had never been in any sort of gym environment or worked at a gym or been involved in the fitness industry. So, you know, they always say that it's people that come from the outside of any industry that are able to disrupt it because you come in kind of with a fresh set of eyes. And so, working there, no disrespect to them, I just saw a lot of mismanagement of getting results for clients. It was all about sales and selling people training packages, but there really wasn't a focus on the results component. And so, alongside that, being at the 24 Hour Fitness in Hollywood, there were naturally high profile people that came in there. And so understanding their needs, their needs are slightly different than normal people because they'll get booked on a movie and they need to transform in eight weeks, what would typically take six to 12 months.

And so what I began to realize was there really wasn't a solution, an all-in-one solution where there wasn't a company that people could come to where everything was taken care of for them. So, their training plan, their nutrition plan, hiring a private chef, their rehab, the massage therapist. And coming from a background in sports, I just saw it didn't make any sense to me. You know, if you wanna take clients from point A to point B as quickly as possible, you need a team and you all need to be working off of the exact same plan, right? That's with anything in life. So that didn't exist in LA and I thought this is a really massive opportunity for somebody to kind of step in and start that company. So I had been at 24 Hour Fitness for about three months and I started getting a lot of high profile clients.

The reason for that, this predated me starting my company, but it was because I was results driven. And my background in sports and training like an athlete, you know, I'm gonna totally date myself here, but this was back when trainers were taking people into gyms and doing one set with them. And then, oh, we gotta rest. We gotta rest for 60 seconds. You need it. And I would come into these situations and go, that's not gonna work because you're not on anabolic steroids, you're not on performance enhancing drugs. If you wanna get people shredded and you wanna put muscle on them very quickly, you need to stress the body to a point where it's forced to adapt. And so I kind of came in guns blazing using my background in sports and that sort of training would create quite a scene in the gym. Cause my clients were dying, you know, and pouring sweat. People were like, what's going on? What is that spectacle over there? And so quickly, you know, I got one big, I got one celebrity client and then they went and told all of their friends because I got him results really fast. And it just began to snowball from there.

Jenny Scott:

That's awesome. Yeah. So a lot of people seeing you do it and, and one person after the next. I love that. And yeah, time and place. Cuz Hollywood, obviously, if you're in the middle of Hollywood, you're gonna come across quite a few different people.

Ashley Conrad:

Yes, correct. Yeah.

Jenny Scott:

It's always important to set a realistic expectation, right? Absolute. Cause there's lots of people out there who want celebrity clients, but if you're not around where the celebrities are, you're probably not gonna encounter them. So to be fair-

Ashley Conrad:

Yes.

Dan Duran:

Yeah. We don't have any here at my gym. Jenny probably not even in, yeah, I don't even actually,

Jenny Scott:

Do you know where he lives? Tell her where you live. 

Dan Duran:

Well, I live in Emmett Idaho, but Mr. Deluca, who I believe you used to work for in Meridian, lives in Meridian, which is sort of minutes away from me. 

Ashley Conrad:

Yes, of course. Yeah.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah. He lives with like 20 other people in Idaho. Just kidding. Don't come for me.

Dan Duran:

<Laugh> I said Farm.

Ashley Conrad:

Don't sleep on Idaho. I almost moved there when I was under contract with them. I enjoyed it and I love the people there. It's a very cool, like, it's a very cool culture and a very cool community.

Dan Duran:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Lots of pleases and thank yous and sirs and ma’ams and people talk to strangers. It's pretty cool.

Ashley Conrad:

That's, that's what gets me is I remember I was in the back of a taxi going back to the airport one time, and I asked the taxi driver, I said, let me ask you a really weird question. Why are you so happy? And he said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I've never, I'm from LA and I've never sat in the back of a cab and had the driver be happy. Everybody who works in the restaurants here, they're happy. What is the deal? And he, this whole rundown about how you can have such a great quality of life there and things aren't super expensive. And it was just, at the time I was still in my twenties and my mind was just like <explosion sound>, you know, it was like, yeah, unlock this key to life, you know?

Dan Duran:

Yep. Lots of talking to random strangers. We could go on and on. I mean, but twice yesterday approached by random strangers asking me questions and smiling and yeah, it's a great place.

Ashley Conrad:

Yes.

How can knowing your craft contribute to long-term success and staying power in the fitness industry?

Dan Duran:

So you mentioned something, you know, Jenny and I have had the honor and the opportunity to talk to a lot of great people over the course of, what, two years we've been doing the podcast, Jenny and I always learn something new or I connect some dots that I've never connected before. And I just connected some dots I've never connected before that you did that really launched you in your space. And that is treating clients, so, you know, personal training clients at a gym, like an athlete. You think about athletes, they have a whole team. They have recovery, they have nutrition not only to increase and sustain performance, but to get 'em back on the field after they're injured. Right? It's a whole team working together. And basically, you need to understand if it's one person, numerous elements, because you're a personal trainer versus a team of specialists. So nutrition recovery, principles of strength training, et cetera. So I think we would call that a craft, right? It's knowing your skillset,  your knowledge, your education, which we always promote here at ISSA. So how can, like the significance of really knowing your craft, multi-level like that, how does it contribute to long-term success and staying power in our industry?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, no, that's a really great question. I think when you understand the body from a 360, you know, a view, you're gonna be able to bring clients through transformation much easier than just being a nine-to-five trainer. Because ultimately, I mean, we all know this here, health and fitness is not about the one hour that you're in the gym. It's about all of the other things that you're doing. Because the reality is, is you can be in the gym an hour and blowing your recovery, blowing your diet, your mindsets, all of that stuff. And what you're doing in the gym is really gonna have little to no impact on you aesthetically. And so for me, you know, I always tell people I'm a dinosaur for this industry. People usually be like, move on to real estate. I've been in this industry for 20, or something else, some other venture, they do fitness when they're young and hot.

 But I've been in this industry for 20 years, and the reality is, is when you see yourself as, I've always seen myself as primarily a problem solver, that's my job. My job isn't to train people. My job is to solve a problem. And so the problem for one person may be weight loss. The problem for another person may be, I can't put on muscle. Another person may be, I can't break the habits of overeating or binging or whatever it may be. And so I think that the, you brought something up that's really important, which is you have to, in branding yourself, be narrow in your approach and focus on being a specialist. What I've found is, is when you do that and you become a specialist at problem solving and understanding how the body works comprehensively with hormones and all of these different pillars of health, you'll always have a job because there will always be people that will need what you have.

And I recently had a client that I was working with in person and within the first week of us working together, her and her husband said to me, “Well, we can like fire four people now that we've been working with.” And I said, “Yeah, this tends to happen.” And I always tell people it's, it's bad, bad for other staff when I come into a situation because people typically end up getting fired because you have a nutritionist and a life coach, and a massage therapist and a rehab person. And when you become expert in all things with the body, you really ensure not just job insurance, but it's just like any career, you should be constantly evolving into something more, right? I mean, I've been in this industry 20 years. Somebody should be able to come to me with almost any problem, and I should know either how to solve it or I should know the person to send them to, to solve it.

And I think that when that's your approach and your mindset is, hey, this isn't about me. This isn't about social media numbers. First and foremost, this is about how can I serve my clients and how can I transform them to my greatest capacity that will help lead you down a path with your career. Because your passion, everything that drives your day-to-day is gonna be solving those problems as opposed to self-promotion and branding. Right? So it's like, if the main thing is there, which is service to other people, then the branding and all of that actually becomes very easy because it's authentic, you know? People connect to that. People, especially in a day and age where everything is so fake. I mean, people come to me all the time and they've bought into 10 different Instagram model programs that just left them high and dry with all of these new issues that they didn't have before.

And I asked them, well, did you really believe that they cared about you? Like, lemme ask you this, when you saw the ad, did you really believe the person? They said, well, no. I said, well, exactly. You know, people are drawn to authenticity, but it's also something I try and instill in clients. Like, you have to really think, does this person really care about my health from what I know about them and what I can gather of them on social media? And if you really do care about people's health and you're an expert, you're gonna be great at what you do, period, end of story.

What advice would you give personal trainers wanting to start their own brand?

Jenny Scott:

Yeah. I love that. And I think so many people are focused on, like their social media, the number of followers that they have, and all the, just because people are following you doesn't mean A, they're actually looking at your content. B, they're buying anything from you if you're selling something, right? C, they buy into what you are selling, right? So it doesn't mean much of anything. And there's ways to buy it too. We all know that. But Ashley, you've taken that, you have had a following, right? You have a following, and then you've even turned it into a supple supplement company with Clutch Body Shop, and you're growing that now. So many people out there aspire to that, right? Not just to be a brand themselves, but to have a brand. So I wanna know what kind advice would you give somebody who's trying to build a brand for themselves and potentially a brand outside of themselves? And are there any common challenges, like other than not being authentic, are there any common challenges you see people going through or something that you've been through where you're like, hey, don't do this. I already did this, I'm telling you now don't do this. What would you give them as far as advice?

Ashley Conrad:

Oh, I think that the first piece of advice that I can give is solve a problem. The reason that I started a supplement line wasn't as a vanity project to make money. It was at the time, there really was not a line of products in the market that was good for you and performance based. It was either or. It was either we're gonna jack you up with stimulants and all these chemicals and just, you know, try and, and for the sake of shredding your body out, but bad news crashing your adrenals in the process. Or it was go to Whole Foods. I call it like the granola cruncher supplements, like so good for your cells, right? <Laugh>. So there wasn't, there wasn't this sort of in your face on the formulation side, like, hey, we're good for you, bam, and we're gonna get you results.

And so that was the problem. And so understanding that there was in the market a gap, I knew stepping in, I already knew who my customer was. So that made it a lot easier. And so I think one of the things that's really important is, again, like I'm really big on doing everything with a purpose. Be intentional about what you're doing. Don't go out and waste time and energy and money trying to do something that there isn't even a need for, right? That's like rule number one in business. Is there a need for this? Because I see a lot of people do things as vanity projects and it ends up tanking because that's all it was. People are not gonna buy from you if they don't have a need for what you're selling to them. And so for me, that was, it was that aha moment going, okay, the product that I need to use with my high profile clients, it doesn't currently exist on the market.

So let me, again, being of service, let me just start there. I wasn't looking wide, like maybe I can do a major distribution deal with bodybuilding.com. I was thinking if I could use this line just to help my 20 elite clients that I have, it's gonna make me better at my job. So it's worth exploring. And then it was in that exploration that I found out all of these things. All of these things about the industry, all the dirtiness of manufacturing. I mean, it's just all the fraud. And it just disgusted me. It truly disgusted me to a point where I was like, now I have to do something about this on a mass scale, because now what I know I can't unknow, and what I know is people are being misled. Companies are spending millions of dollars in marketing and advertising and zero on actually creating quality products.

And that just absolutely pissed me off because I grew up in a home where my mom was trying Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. And so I got a firsthand view of what happens when good people, hardworking people need help and they trust someone who's selling them crap. But you're trusting somebody who's selling you crap all because the marketing is on point. And so again, I saw a problem and I thought the great thing about me is I thought, I was like, I'm a free agent. None of these companies own me. I'm not under contract with anybody. So I can come into the space and say what I want, do what I want, and tell the truth. And again, currently, there wasn't anybody doing that because all the experts or influencers were owned by brands, right? And so for anybody that's looking to get into this space, you know, what I'll tell you is it's a difficult space to be in. The supplement industry is hard.

What I wish I had known then was that it's nearly an impossible endeavor to do if you're self-financing. 

Jenny Scott: 

Sure. Oh yeah. 

Ashley Conrad:

And that gate got me a lot of respect because when we launched, you know, we became a top 30 brand in the world. And so I became like the rising star. And all of the dudes in the industry that were running massive brands that I really admired were calling my cell phone. And I'd never met them congratulating me. And I'm like, yeah, this is all great and fine, but I really have no clue what I'm doing. Like I knew, but you don't know when all of a sudden something takes off. And so one of the things that I wish I had done back then is I wish that I had-- I had surrounded myself with mentors, but I needed somebody in the business that knew the business that had done this before, who understood not just how to scale, but who understood where all of the booby traps were.

Right? Because that would've helped me navigate with so much more ease, it would've allowed us to eliminate the majority of the issues. I mean, there's things that you don't even think about when you're starting a brand. Like what happens if our manufacture ships to our fulfillment house and the numbers don't match in regards to the inventory? The amount of time we spent reconciling, things like that. And nobody teaches you those things, right? So, step one, is your product gonna solve a problem? Step two, is there a need for it? And then step three, you really have to weigh out, am I gonna be better suited doing this myself or am I gonna be better suited being a personality and getting signed to a brand and let somebody else go and deal with all of the headaches? 

Because I can tell you trying to be the talent, the ceo, the creative director. I designed all of our packaging. I mean, it was just craziness. And I say this to people a lot who wanna get into business. It's also really important to understand are you an alpha or are you a beta? Are you a number one person or are you a number two person? It's just as important to be a number two person. And if you know that about yourself, then you-- Cause I watch a lot of people get into business and they don't really understand the difference between those two things and they get crushed. This industry, I don't care what industry you're in, you're starting a brand, you better be tough. You better be ready to not sleep. You're gonna deal with stresses that are at 3:00 AM you're coming outta sleep.

Right? And that's not for everybody. It took me out of doing the thing that I love most, which is helping people. And that's what you have to understand, those things going in, and decide, is this worth it? A and B, am I the right person for this? Am I built for this? If the answer is, I'm not built for this, go partner with somebody or go get yourself signed to somebody else's brand and promote that brand. Right? Everybody has this-- I'll give you an example. There's a guy who signed to bodybuilding.com. He was under a licensing deal with them. Jim Stoppani, right? Huge in the industry. Editor-In-Chief of Muscle and Fitness Magazine for many years. He did a license deal with bodybuilding.com. So they were manufacturing for him. They were handling everything and all he had to do was shoot content and show up and collect a check from the mailbox.

I was so jealous of him. <Laugh> Cause I was like, oh my gosh, to eliminate all of those headaches. So he was able to scale a lot faster than I was. And he wasn't going home with all those headaches, cuz he had a whole team that was running all of those operations, the manufacturing, carrying all the manufacturing costs, financing everything. So those are important things to ask yourself, you know, what do I really want? It's not, you don't wanna ask yourself, what do I want? And go money. Okay, but at what cost? What's the path? Because there's a lot of ways to make money in this industry. It really comes down to what you're built for and what you wanna spend your time and your career doing.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah. And I love this candid conversation though too, Ashley, because like there's people out there who are gonna be like, oh, well maybe this isn't for me, or I feel scared, she's telling me not to do it. She's not saying don't do it. Whether it's a supplement company, whether it's a clothing brand. I know several people who have started their own clothing brands. Or you know, a product that you have or a piece of equipment or something. The bottom line is this world is filled with over 8 billion people, right? There's a market, there's a piece of the pie for pretty much anybody. But if your intentions are right behind it, you are the right personality for it. Or you have the right people in place to do this, right? All the right things have to be in order. And there is a market and there is a way to make money doing this or doing pretty much anything in this industry.

But to your point, you have to have the right intentions behind it and just understand like everything that goes into it. So maybe having a mentor, which is Dan, that's something we talk about all the time. Have a mentor, somebody who's been through it or at least can direct you in the right path so that you're not out there floundering and figuring stuff out. Cuz again, watch our YouTube show guys. We did two parts. Ashley tells some great stories about some stuff that she went through where she was like, oh my God, if somebody had told me this before either A, I wouldn't be doing this, or B, I would've been like, okay, let's take a different route.

Ashley Conrad:

Hundred percent. A hundred percent. One of the great things in today's kind of marketplace, though that didn't exist 10 years ago, is there's such an opportunity if you're an excellent digital marketer and you understand how to run ads, you understand customer segmentation, you understand all those things, or you get somebody on your team that understands those things, you can have a very successful brand and somebody who understands operations. Those are really the three key things. And then you as the person who's the CEO, you just have to be really tough. You know? You really have to be, in order to succeed in business, you have to be tough. For me, I didn't ever have a plan B, like when I started my supplement line, me investing all of my money. I think the day I invested every penny I had ever made, the day that I launched with bodybuilding.com, I'm not exaggerating, I had $300 combined in my personal and business checking. I mean, I triple-quadrupled down and my accountant was, everybody was having an absolute meltdown. And I was saying, this is what it's gonna take and I believe this is gonna work, and if it doesn't work, I'll do anything to make it successful. And luck-- I think that's another part of success, is don't give yourself a plan B. Like plan, strategize, put all the pieces together, and then fully commit to your success. You know, because if you do that and you believe in yourself and you have all those pieces in place, you can, even in a very overcrowded market, I'm a very good example of that.

Jenny Scott:

Love it.

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Dan Duran:

That is definitely an amazing success story. And to, like Jenny said, thank you for being honest because—

Ashley Conrad:

No, of course. 

Dan Duran:

You know that it's all pie in the sky and dreams and all of that stuff. It takes work. Have we said that before, Jenny?

Jenny Scott:

Pretty sure <laugh>

How can you stand out on social media platforms?

Dan Duran:

It takes work. Nobody's gonna hand you anything. Nothing. Zero, zilch. You have earn every bit of it and you have to take risks. I really like what you said about having an alpha and a beta, right? So who is going to kind of be the puppet master or the face? It could be two different things. It could be two different people or the same person that's gonna be pulling the strings and the face of the company. So you talked about, you know, solve a problem, find out if there's a need. Solve for it, and then am I gonna do it or am I gonna have a team do it? Let me ask you, because you did both, right? What would advice, would you give our listeners just succinctly, like, this is what I learned, therefore this is what I suggest to stand out. How do you stand out in a social media, multiple social media platforms that are just inundated with quote unquote experts?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah.

Dan Duran:

How do you stand out?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, that’s really good. So I would say 10 to 15 years ago, I would've said just be authentic. Because that was the reason that people connected with me on bodybuilding.com. They could sense that I wasn't BSing them and I wasn't feeding them a line. And I think as human beings, we can sense BS, right? You, when somebody speaks passionately to you and from the heart and they truly care, that reads and people will connect with you. The second thing is, is in today's market, that's not enough, right? Because there's just so much information, there's so many experts. And so the other thing is, is find your, find your niche. My niche was transformation. I can transform you faster than anybody else. I have a proprietary system to do it. You're not gonna have to cut all your carbs out. You're not gonna have to exercise for four hours a day.

And that was my thing. And I was going specifically after, without even realizing it back then, it's just what came naturally to me, I'm going after high net worth high profile individuals because they're the ones that have this need that's not being met. So when you start, what I see a lot of people do is they start too wide and they go, okay, I'm a trainer for everybody. Don't do that. Figure out what am I the absolute best at. I'm the absolute best at taking people through a process that would normally take 12 months and executing it in four. Right? That's what I do. I'm not a rehab specialist. I'm not a corrective exercise specialist. If you're dealing with an injury, I'm not the person that you come and see. And so, because I stayed super focused, this is what I do and this is what I don't do, it eliminates 90% of the distraction in regards to your actual craft off of the table. And then you can just begin to speak directly to the customer that you're after, your ideal avatar if you will.

Social media, if you understand, okay, here's what I'm the best at, and then you understand who your customer is, what you have to do is you have to continue to take the social media and prove to them that you're an expert and you understand and you can help them. And one of the ways-- I mean, I haven't really been super focused on my social media for years until recently. Because candidly, I just haven't had to, you know, it's one of the luxuries of my career is I haven't had to go and appeal to millions of people on social media because behind the scenes I'm working with high profile people and that's what I do. So I don't need to be hammering social media day in and day out.

But when you do that, do live streams at least once a week so people can see that all of your stuff isn't just scripted. I think one of the biggest components of today's fitness expert is I don't see a lot of people doing live streams where they can answer live Q&A. If you can't go on a live Q&A and answer people's questions, you have a problem. You're not an expert yet. Don't worry about building a brand. Let me tell you, kids today, <laugh>, these darn kids today, everybody wants to be like Insta-famous, and get celebrity clients and become a fitness expert. And you don't even know the first thing about the body. Your body just looks good, but you don't really know anything. You just have great genetics. So if you wanna have a career in this industry, become an expert first, become really good at doing one thing really, really well that you can give to a certain segment of customers and they'll pay you for that service and just stick there, just stick there until you have honed that and refine it and refine it, refine it, and then start to branch out.

How can personal trainers boost their presence or credibility on social media?

Jenny Scott:

I love that. And you know, as far as social media, like you said, you, it's not something you really focus on cuz you don't need to. But I think somebody, I forget who told me this, but somebody was telling me, if you're on your Instagram profile, they only give you so many characters, right? To put who you are. Like put any tags or apps, like if you're partnered with somebody, but when you list out the things, like mine says dog lover, candy lover, nutrition coach, personal trainer, you know, volleyball coach all the things that you list there, your content on your page should match up with what's in your profile. I was like, when somebody said that to me, I was like, my brain literally exploded and then imploded and then started to burn. Like I could not, I was like, I didn't even think about that.

Yeah. Cause when I look at someone's profile, that's the first thing I scan is who are they associated with? Do they have a significant other, do they have a dog? Like kind of names out what you're about. But then if you all are all post posting about like hiking and my kids, but I never mentioned that anywhere in my profile, that makes zero sense to most people. Yeah. Right. But if I post that I'm a dog lover and a personal trainer and a nutrition coach and a figure competitor, then my posts should be about those things. And like it all just has to match up. So when you're using, when you do use social media outside of like what I just mentioned, matching up your posts to what your profile says, right? It should all go along. What other tips might you have for somebody who wants to like really boost their presence or their credibility through their social media?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, so that's a great question. So I, for the last few years, just like, I just don't want to do like the, “Hey, this is what my body looks like, like, come train with me.” The truth is you have to do it because it builds credibility. Right? And so the formula for what you're talking about, and there is a formula to it. What you wanna do is in, in the bio you want, number one, you need to use your name. You know, if people have these really creative, don't do that. Use your actual name. My name on social media is Clutch CEO, but that makes sense with my brand. So my brand's Clutch Body Shop. But the first couple lines you want to assert, this is who I am.

And then you want a call to action, right? So, DM me, coach for training or fitness inquiries. Below that with your highlights. That's where you, that's where you really begin to market to people. So you wanna have a couple things there. You want to have a testimonial reel so that, or I should say a testimonial highlight so people can quickly go through and see people that you've already helped. You want to have a, like a “my life” highlight so people can kind of see you in your day-to-day life. And that's where you put things like your dogs and they're like, oh, you're so relatable. Right? <laugh>. And then the other thing that's good to put there are things about your programs. Different information, maybe about different programs that you, that you have.

And then if you're going through your own body transformation, that's another great place to go. You know, my transformation. So when people look at your page, it's almost above the fold. They can quickly go through those highlights and see exactly who you are without going through and opening each one of your posts. So it's like by the time they get to your posts, your posts should line up with, I mean, if you're a coach and you're a trainer, it should be extremely obvious to somebody when they come to your page, that's who you are. There's pictures of you at the gym, there's call to actions, you're educating people. And the touch point usually for somebody to buy in an online e-commerce setting is there has to be, they usually need six hours of content from you. Six hours. And six to seven different touch points, right?

So the content piece of this is extremely important. So I've been very fortunate because of all that content that I created with bodybuilding.com, people typically have already gone to those programs. They've already watched all of these things on me. So by the time they come to my social media and they watch a live stream, there's like four or five touch points right there. So as long as your content is then lined up with all of your other messaging on your social media, that's when that call to action comes in and people will start messaging you to work with you. And then you have to have a flow of how you handle those correspondences in the dm. Yeah. Right? So, and if you don't know how to do that, you know, get a coach or go through a program that can teach you how to do all those things and under, and teach you how to use a CRM so that you're at, you're systemizing your entire business online through your social media.

Jenny Scott:

Love it. That's a really good system that you just laid out. Super important. And I had never thought about using the highlights. I think mine like created themselves. And I was like, sure. It was like it prompted me to create a highlight. I was like, okay, I don't even know what that is. I guess I need to look into that. <Laugh>.

Dan Duran:

I dunno what either one of you're talking about. I'm like-

Jenny Scott:

We're speaking English.

Dan Duran:

Are you talking about Facebook or Instagram. Because I don't really know.

Ashley Conrad:

This is, I'm talking specifically about Instagram, right? Because Instagram is literally the front door for business now. And so I just changed all of these things on my social media recently that all the things that I'm telling you guys that I just told you about, the highlights and the call to action. My messaging for people wanting to work inside of my elite coaching program went absolutely through the roof. You know, so it, it, it absolutely works. 100%. And yeah, social media is a great way to get clients and customers with zero customer acquisition costs. You know, you don't need to take out ads, you just need to appeal to that audience. You know, go on there, search by hashtag. One of the things that you can do too, that I've used before is you can give people something for free.

Create what's called a lead magnet where you're giving them some free content. Go on there, search by hashtag weight loss. Look at people's social media pages that pop up and see if they fit your ideal customer and engage them in DMs. “Hey, I just released a new 21-day weight loss program for the summer. I noticed that you're- it looks like you're, that's your goal. Mind if I send it to you? Is it something you'd be interested in?” Yes. Get their email. Now you have their email. Send them that, that, that lead magnet. Well now that's one touch point. Then follow up with them, you know, two weeks later, how is it going? Would you be interested in X, Y, and Z? Offer them something else. You know, and that's how you can build a, not just a following, but start generating revenue online without spending any money on ads or anything else.

Jenny Scott:

Love it.

Dan Duran:

Good stuff. I'll try to figure out what you were talking about on the Instagram thing next time. I might have to reinstall it on my phone, but I have one final question for you, Ashley. You know, you've talked a lot about the journey to building a brand, building a company, building a business, and so forth. And you mentioned more than once the challenges associated with it up to and including depleting all of your savings accounts, all your finances. I have an incredible amount of respect for people who are entrepreneurs like that. That's not in my blood. I'm the guy that wants to play it safe. Right. <laugh>, I'll be your alpha, but it's gotta be your money.

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah. A hundred percent. Smart.

What tips do you have to help entrepreneurs boost their resilience?

Dan Duran:

Yeah. And so I have an incredible amount of respect for that. And one of the things that I love that I'm fascinated with, and I'm just gonna use the word resilience. Through my various careers and athletics, et cetera, I love to study and practice the ability to overcome really difficult situations mentally. Physically is cool too, but mentally. So for the folks out there who wanna take some risks, maybe wanna empty out that account or jump ship or change careers, what are some tips you would give for that resilience to say, you know what, stick it out another day. Stick it out another dollar. Because if you put the work in the, the fruits will, you know, they will grow like my cherries.

Ashley Conrad:

I love the analogy. Yeah. You know, like I'm in a season right now with my business where I just relaunched the protein line and the supplement line, and that comes with new challenges. And I was just saying to a friend of mine on a call that I had with them a couple days ago, I am more stretched currently than I've ever been in my entire career. And so I'll give you what I do. When I wake up every day, I have to ramp myself up. And see, people make this mistake where they wake up and they don't have any sort of morning routine where they're setting their mind on and they're being very intentional. This is what's happening today. No matter what happens, I'm gonna stay focused on the goal. I'm not gonna allow myself to get frustrated. I am not gonna give into fatigue.

I'm not gonna allow myself to even think I'm so tired or I'm so stressed. You've got to get yourself in the game. Like literally. You have to approach business like you're ramping up for battle every day, especially when you're hitting-- I'm not in a season of hardship. It's almost just incredible blessings and tons of opportunities. But that comes with a lot of responsibility and trying to manage many different things. And so when people are going through hard times, and I've been through those hard times, I don't necessarily subscribe to that you just have to show up for one more day. Because sometimes it's that attitude that keeps people stuck. If you keep doing the same crap today that you were doing yesterday, you're gonna fail. Right? And so it's like you have to check your ego at the door and kind of remove yourself and step back and go, and I've had to do this so many times over the course of my career when I've launched different things or where I've hit a wall or where we weren't growing or where I started losing money. I had to kind of step back, check my ego and go, okay, what about this isn't working?

And do I know how to fix it? Yes or no? If I don't know how to fix this, then I need to find the person that does know how to fix this and I need to see how much it's gonna cost for them to help me. And then that's where the real work begins, right? Because sometimes that means you are having to spend the last $5,000 that you have in your business checking account. That sometimes that means you have to ration your own personal resources to go and put it into the business. But when you're a person that has the ability to do that and you know how to sacrifice and you know how to go through hard times, you'll always find your way. You know, you have to have a certain amount of like street smarts and ego in one sense, but no ego in the other.

Because if you look at a problem and you sometimes you are the problem. I have been the problem multiple times in my own business, just for lack of knowledge. I mean, I started a supplement line when I was 28 years old. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. So when I look at all the problems that existed, the problem was me. The problem was I didn't know what I didn't know. Right. You don't know what you don't know. And that's usually the issue in most businesses. So if you can figure out, okay, what do I need to know? What is the missing key here? And then you're willing to just grind yourself out and push, push, push, push, push. I'll give you an example. Wait. Without exposing who they are, I relaunched my protein powder line. We have had problem after problem with our fulfillment house, and they're one of the biggest fulfillment houses in the US, like best in class.

It's been six months. We can't resolve the problems. They continue to do the same stupid stuff, which is costing me a lot of additional money. I finally made the decision last week, that's it. I'm having them ship back all the product to here. I'm gonna set up the fulfillment house. I'll hire the people in, I'll oversee it among all the other things that I'm doing during the day because I can't allow this problem like a cancer to persist in the business, not one more day. So if that means I'm up until 1:00 AM every night as I'm trying to, you know, get this thing under control, that's what I'm gonna do. And those are the small things in business that I say, it’s not to discourage people, but it's like you have to weigh the cost.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to ensure your own success and the success of whatever business or brand you want to create? Because especially as you're scaling, especially as you go higher, higher, higher, if you think it's to start, wait till you get some traction and you start dealing with problems like I'm talking about, those are the things that you're moving a million miles an hour in different areas of the business and you have to stop everything because your fulfillment house doesn't know how to put your protein powder in the right size box. I mean, how ridiculous is that? <laugh> You know what I mean? And then the question becomes, ok, so what are we gonna do about it midstream as we're shipping all of these units? And so, you know, to your point about you have to be able to be resilient and persevere and self-regulate.

You know, I talk to myself all day long, you know, you can do this, this is gonna be fine. You know, I'll bind certain thoughts of stress or anxiety, all of that. And the lucky thing for me is I grew up in my twenties working for some of the greatest business minds, billionaires. So this is what they do. You know, the people who are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars who have exited out of massive brands, they stay steady. Right? They hard decisions, they make decisions that are going to cost them financially and cost them time, but they always make the decisions that are going to ensure the livelihood and the sustainability of their brand. And they don't allow things to come in. I mean, I've never watched one of my clients that's worth 500 million to a billion dollars, sit around and go, this is so hard.

Never, I've never heard those words come out of their mouth. I've never heard the words “I'm just so tired, and I'm just so tired of people not being able to do what I've hired them to do.” They don't complain. They just act. Right. They're like so solution-oriented. They're so onto what is the solution and whatever, what is it gonna take for me to fix this? And I feel very fortunate that that was how I really learned, like, okay, this is what people that are uber successful do. This is how they think. This is how they act. This is how they speak. They don't speak about problems. They think they're speaking about solutions and they keep themselves level. Right. And it's so incredibly important because if you can stay level, it's incredible what the human mind is capable of solving. We can solve anything if we can stay in a position of peace and not allow our emotions to do this while your business is doing this, you need to stay here. It's so powerful. It's been one of my greatest secrets and weapons. That's how I've been able to continue to reinvent and ride these different waves of problems and highs and lows and just stay steady.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah. I think that's a life lesson in general right there. Cause that's a big takeaway from what you're saying. Yeah. Like, control yourself. I always laugh. Like I've been in a car accident before, a long time ago and I got out and I was like, well, alright, let's call somebody. And the person was like, are you not upset? I'm like, well, I mean, of course I'm upset, but being upset and getting all frantic right now is not gonna help the situation. Yeah. It's already happened. What are we gonna do? So I can move on? Cuz this is more of just an inconvenience at this point. Right? But, and then when you said sometimes you are the problem. Ooh girl. Somebody out there needed to hear that. Sometimes you are the problem. Cause I said that in bootcamp today, people like to blame other people.

Things or other people. Yes. For them not being successful. Right. Oh, it's your fault. Oh, it's this person's fault. They told me to do this. Or it's their fault over there. You didn't do this, you told me to do this. Well, what about you? Sometimes you are the problem, you are standing in your own way. But we, we refuse to look at ourselves because it's uncomfortable, it's painful sometimes to look at that person in the mirror and be like, oh snap, you messed up. So I think that's super important and that's for anybody, any stage of your career in fitness. And that goes along with like, not even just your brand, you guys, but when you're working with clients, if a client isn't getting what they need or seeing results, sometimes it's them. Yeah. A good portion of the time it’s them, they're not reporting correctly or they're not doing what they need to do. But what role do you play in that as their coach, you're their coach. How much of that is you and why aren't you taking a look at you in the way that you're coaching that person or presenting to that person? Maybe you're not presenting what they need in the right way. Have you thought about that? Sometimes you are the problem. So I love that. 

Ashley Conrad:

It's our job. It's our job to hold people accountable. That's the assignment. So if you don't know how to do that with yourself, you shouldn't be in this industry. If you can't keep yourself under control, if you can't regulate yourself, if you can't humble yourself and go, this is my business. See what's happening with the fulfillment house, it is my fault. You wanna know why it's my fault? Because I didn't fire them the first three times there was an issue.

Jenny Scott:

Yeah.

Ashley Conrad:

Any problem that exists inside of your business is your problem. You hired them, you decided to work with them, you decided to engage in the partnership. And when you approach your business and your life that way, it becomes so much easier because when we give that away and we make it somebody else's fault, we give all of our power away with it. And we know this as health and fitness professionals. That's why when you come in and you're trying to get a client to hold themselves accountable and they finally do, that's where the transformation and the breakthroughs start to happen. I tell people this all the time, like, I just want to say this one other thing. Like, if you're a trainer, if you're a health expert, like for the love of God, get your own health together. Stop going out and partying, stop doing all this stuff that's bad for you.

I mean, when I got into the fitness industry and I started going to some of these expos and stuff, I was just absolutely shocked. Trainers and people who are in this fitness industry are doing some of the most horrendous, heinous things for their health. And when you take your health seriously, first and foremost, you have yourself under control. You have your habits and your mindsets and your behaviors under control. You will be so much more effective, not just in business, but in helping clients as well. You can't help somebody master something that you can't even master yourself. You have nothing to teach them.

Jenny Scott:

Agreed.

Dan Duran:

Mic drop.

Jenny Scott:

Yep. Agreed. And notice guys, she didn't say you need to look a certain way or be a certain weight or anything. She didn't say anything about that. She just said, get your health in order, whatever that means to you. But have your, have your ducks in a row, <laugh> is what she's saying.

Dan Duran:

Well this has been amazing, Ashley, and this was the first time I got to meet you. It sounds like you've spent some time with Jenny before. 

Jenny Scott:

We’re best friends. 

How can listeners connect with you to learn more?

Dan Duran:

It's been a real pleasure. And inspiring. And again for the, the entrepreneurs out there that want to try something, you know, like you said, Jenny, there's what, 8 billion people and you're like, oh, I don't know if this thing will work. You know what, it just might. So take that leap of faith, get your mind right. Keep your side of the street clean. Take good care of yourself. And press on. So how do people find you, Ashley? How can our listeners follow or find you?

Ashley Conrad:

Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram, it's @ClutchCEO That's probably the easiest place. And then my website is clutch body shop.com.

Jenny Scott:

Awesome. Perfect. Thank you so much guys. And like I said, Ashley was on our ISSA Talks on YouTube. So definitely check out that episode. It should be coming out very soon. By the time this gets released. We talk a lot more in-depth about her business and things that she wished she knew when she first started and some, some stories, really good conversations. So if you guys are interested in this, you want to grow your brand, you want more information from someone who's doing it and has done it definitely check that out cause it's a great resource. But Ashley, thank you so much for joining us again, taking some time out of your busy day to, to spend with me and Mr. Dan,

Ashley Conrad:

Thank you for having me.

Jenny Scott:

Absolutely. And thank you guys for listening. Go out there, do all the things. You can do it. There is room for you. So don't tell yourself anything else. But guys, go out there, be fruitful, do all the things. Go eat cherries with Dan <laugh>.

Dan Duran:

Yes. 

Jenny Scott:

Bringing that full circle. And as always guys, make good choices. We'll be talking to you soon.