This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up listeners, community. So glad you're out there. Hope you're enjoying the holiday season, enjoying maybe even thriving. But if it's a difficult season, we'll just remember we've got a new month around the corner soon, a new month, a new year, a new, I don't know, everything, a new chance for setting new goals, for having a different mission, for moving forward differently in your life or whatever is good for you. I'm all about setting goals.
I set a bunch of goals over the past couple of weeks as I've been thinking about my next year. So without further ado, let's jump into today's episode. And by the way, my name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. You are listening today to Throwback Thursday.
Throwback Thursday slash Where Are They Now, our weekly segment where we take an in-depth story at someone who's evolved a bit since their first feature. Now, last week, we heard from a Los Angeles film editor who sets out to create a business serving other industry professionals. And that business has gone very, very well. He now earns as much as his previous salary with just three hours of coaching per day. So, you know, as I said, that's doing pretty well.
Today in our latest feature, we're gonna hear from Gabe, a personal trainer who has built up an impressive roster of clients. I believe Gabe is from South Africa, in fact, where I was just recently. So what has happened since we last heard from him? Well, he continues to grow the business. That's one thing.
So let's hear more from him and I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. [Music]
Hello, everyone. As I sit in my little office in the corner of a gym where I rent a space, I can't help but reflect on all the changes that have happened since I was last featured on the podcast. At the time back then, I had just started my own personal training business and was struggling to attract clients. But thanks to the exposure I received from being featured, as well as my own hustling efforts, the business took off.
I quickly became known as the go-to personal trainer in my area. And my clients list grew at an impressive rate. I was even thinking of bringing on a few other trainers to help me keep up with demand. But with success came challenges. As the business continued to grow, I found myself spending more and more time on administrative tasks, such as scheduling sessions and marketing my services.
This left little time for me to actually train clients, which was part of the job that I enjoyed the most. I also had less of a personal life, which my girlfriend wasn't happy about. One day, I realized that I needed to make some changes in order to maintain my passion for personal training. I decided to delegate some of the administrative tasks and focus more on training clients. This allowed me to rediscover the joy of personal training and continue to grow the business.
Looking back on the last year, I realized that one of the biggest lessons I had learned was the importance of finding a balance between running a successful business and maintaining my passion for personal training. I never got burnt out, but I could see how that could happen. So I'm trying to be more careful. I also learned that it's okay to ask for help and delegate tasks when necessary. Despite the challenges I faced, I remain grateful for the opportunities that had come my way since being featured last time.
I'm excited to see what the future holds and I'm determined to continue providing high-quality training to my clients. Charging $100 per hour for my personal training services, I started with $60 per hour. So this is quite a jump, but it feels right. Thanks, Chris, and all the listeners out there. You guys are a true inspiration.
[Music]
Gabe, thank you so much for sharing that update. Appreciate it. Listeners, let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories. I especially liked how Gabe touched on his price increase, going up from $60 an hour to $100 an hour. Hopefully he can go even further in the months to come.
With a thing like personal training or any kind of service business, you have all kinds of work that is not chargeable or billable usually. So that's why it's really important to have those billable rates high. It's something that service providers tend to learn as they get into things. They think, "Oh, well, whatever the number is, "$60 an hour, that sounds like a good number. "I like that." But then they realize they're not actually making that all that often or at least not the majority of the time because of the other stuff that's involved.
That's why the more you can raise those rates, the better. Something to think about for our service providers out there is they're looking towards next year and whatever you're up to looking towards next year. I hope you're doing well over there. Today's show notes, sidehustleschool.com/2182. Of course, I'll continue to be here every day throughout the holiday season and on into next year as well.
I'm excited about that. Thanks for joining me. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
