He’s a fitness trainer. A good one. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he realized he needed to do something different from all the other trainers who were competing for attention and business. He needed a difference maker. An edge.
In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host and author Scott MacMillan talks with fellow author, health and fitness trainer, and founder of the Personal Revolution Method™ Jay Quarmby about how authorship not helped him weather the pandemic storm, but also how his new book became his ‘magic key’, opening doors he never thought possible.
GUEST BIO: Jay Quarmby
Australian born, now Canadian resident, Jay has been building a name for himself as a Fitness Professional and Lifestyle Specialist in Toronto since 2008. He is known for helping overworked executives and entrepreneurs achieve balance in their life through health and wellness optimisation. He has written a best-selling book called Your Personal Revolution: 5 Steps to Taking Back Control of Your Health and Fitness and has recently launched Personal Revolution Reset Experiences – bespoke day events for small groups designed to bring people together to reset and rejuvenation their bodies, minds, and spirits.
CONNECT WITH JAY
Jay on Instagram: @thepersonalrevolution
FREE OFFER
Contact Jay through his website thepersonalrevolution.com to request a free copy of his best-selling book Your Personal Revolution: 5 Steps to Taking Back Control of Your Health and Fitness.
CONNECT WITH SCOTT
Entrepreneur to Author™ Select membershipentrepreneurtoauthor.com
grammarfactory.com
scott@grammarfactory.com
Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/scottmacmillan/
Scott on Instagram: @scottamacmillan
Scott on Twitter: @scottamacmillan
Scott on Medium: @scottamacmillan
Episode Transcript
Scott A. MacMillan:
You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, episode number 20.
Mike Manz:
Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business, and now, here's your host, Scott MacMillan.
Scott A. MacMillan:
You've heard the analogy about the tree falling in the forest? Leaning into that same theme, if a book hits the market and there's nobody there to use it, does it still make a noise? For the entrepreneur, no. A book is an incredible asset for growing a business and building the author's profile and authority. But despite what some might tell you, it's not enough to set it loose on the world and then forget about it. The entrepreneurs who succeed with authorship are the ones who understand their book's value and commit to putting it to work in their business. They're the ones who use the IP laid out in their book to create unique products that stand out from the competition, the ones who get their book into the hands of their prospects to move them along the buyer journey, the ones who use their book as an authority signal with influencers to garner media attention and amplify the exposure needed to get noticed by their ideal clients. In short, they have a plan, and they stick to it.
That, my friends, is just what our guest in this episode did. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, few industries were more negatively impacted than his industry, personal health and fitness. As gyms closed and in-person gatherings were restricted, many clients of personal trainers around the world found other ways of staying in shape. Many more simply succumbed and deprioritized their health, whether intentionally, or simply through inertia. Gyms and trainers responded by taking classes online, but soon, the market was flooded with free classes, making it hard to stand out, let alone bring in revenue. The pressure forced many to close up shop, and even leave the industry altogether, but some stuck it out. Some doubled down. Some have made it through the other end. Bruised, not broken, they've come out stronger, and yes, perhaps physically, they're trainers, after all, but I mean competitively. Some, like our guests today, have a stronger foundation to their business than they did two years ago. That is not by accident. Stay tuned, because we're going to find out how he did it in this edition of Entrepreneur to Author.
My guest today is a friend who I've gotten to know personally and professionally through the pandemic. He and I were both part of the first Canadian cohort of the Key Person of Influence business accelerator, and we're lucky enough to be part of the same accountability group, which we've maintained to this day. At Grammar Factory, we had the distinct honor of publishing his book earlier this year, and what I've seen the book launched is a bit of a masterclass on how to leverage your book, which is why I wanted to have him on the show. He's a fitness and lifestyle coach, author of Your Personal Revolution: Five Steps to Taking Back Control of Your Health and Fitness, creator of The Personal Revolution Method, and founder of Personal Revolution. He's been featured on global news, Get Out There Magazine, blogTO, and on Citytv's Breakfast Television, just to name a few. Please join me in welcoming Jake Quarmby to the show. Jay, thanks for being here.
Jay Quarmby:
Hey, Scott. Thanks a lot for having me.
Scott A. MacMillan:
First off, could you give the listeners a little bit of a sense of your background and the sorts of people that you help through your business?
Jay Quarmby:
Sure. Originally, I'm from Australia, as you could probably tell, and obviously, you already know, but for the listeners at home, I've lived in Toronto since 2008 and I've originally just started through the corporate fitness scene, I guess, starting off at a gym and working as a personal trainer and working as a head trainer and then a fitness manager and then a functional training director and exceeded that path as far as it would take me, and so then I decided to leave that and start my own business, and kind of did the exact same thing. I started as a personal trainer, then I started a boot camp, and I just kept stacking and stacking until eventually I've sort of now just exclusively working with executives, entrepreneurs, kind of the top tier of Toronto's executive talent, I guess, people that work at Dyson, Apple, places like that.
Scott A. MacMillan:
The big companies.
Jay Quarmby:
The big companies, yeah.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah. Now, the past couple of years have been a bit unprecedented, haven't they, in our lifetime, and your industry was hit harder than most. Could you share a little bit about that experience from your perspective, what it was like?
Jay Quarmby:
Sure. Yeah, you're not wrong there. I think the fitness industry was probably hit the hardest. It's hard to remember now, but gyms were one of the first things to close down and they were the last thing to open, so it was extremely challenging, and for someone who works in the fitness industry, it was extremely demotivating because I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to understand that looking after yourself, being healthy, working out, is one of the key things that you really should be doing as a part of your life on a good day, let alone a bad day, and so it felt like what really was critical for everyone was stripped away with no real explanation and just made working in that industry extremely, extremely challenging.
Like you said, there were people switched to online, and then there was a whole bunch of free stuff, people working from home, people unsure whether they wanted to leave the house, or not. It felt like every possible excuse for not working out and looking after yourself was available to everyone, which was really, again, really discouraging because it sort of was like, "Okay, if I were going to give you an option of, okay, let's work out via Zoom," it's like, "Oh, my Internet doesn't work," or, "Let's work out outside," "Oh, it's too cold," or, "I don't want to leave the house," or... It just felt like people were just placing whatever down that they had, and they had the whole deck, yeah, so it was really tough.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because with something like fitness, as important as it is, it requires dedication, doesn't it, it requires a commitment, and oftentimes, people are looking for a reason not to get up early and put in the of time because it does require effort, so yeah, I can totally get how the pandemic offered an unprecedented excuse to not take care of yourself.
Jay Quarmby:
Yeah. One thing that I remember is when the gyms did finally reopen, a friend of mine was talking to me about how he really wants to get back into the gym and he wanted to look after himself and I said to him, "Well, the gyms are reopened. Go and join." Straight away, he just said to me, "Oh, I'm going to later. I'm too busy right now," and I thought, "Wow. You just told me in one hand that you were desperate to go back, and yet 30 seconds later, you were too busy." I think that's a good sum-up of how people are feeling about trying to get back into the gym and looking after themselves. It's really polaring pools at the moment, and most people are just sort of sitting right in the middle.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah, yeah. I totally understand that. Let's talk about the move to online because I think a lot of businesses, not just in your industry, but lots of industries took advantage to bring things online, and in some areas, I think that works really well, and others, it doesn't. How did you respond to the challenge? Did you try to bring things online? What would you say was similar to what you did compared to some of the others in your space and what was a little bit different compared to the others?
Jay Quarmby:
I found it really challenging to... Well, there's two sides to it, actually. I moved the boot camp fitness classes that I've been running for, I don't know, 10 years or something, I moved that virtually, and funnily enough, I'm still actually doing it virtually because everyone who switched to doing it virtually actually realized that it worked well for them. I have a lot of couples that previously only one of them could go because they have kids, and so now they figured out that both of them can do the class. The advantages is that a 45-minute when you are doing it from home is actually 45-minute class. You don't need to go 10 minutes, 20 minutes to the studio, and coming back, so that was kind of surprising for me. I thought that originally would just be a part-time thing. Now, that's a permanent thing and those people have no interest going back.
On the other side of the coin, the personal training, and one-on-one, I did originally move that to online. I think because of the kind of clients that I have, who are executives, entrepreneur, people who are type A, really switched-on people, it just didn't gel well with them. I feel like they needed the interpersonal connection, the conversation, the coaching, the other elements that I bring into it, and so I just found for me, personally, that it didn't jive with my clients. It also didn't jive with me because I also benefit from the one-on-one, the interaction, the conversation, and I realized that I just didn't want to sit in front of my computer all day training people. I might as well have just got to corporate job. It was exactly the same thing, so yeah, it was kind of an interesting... I was surprised at how the online thing panned out and some people love it and I know some trainers just went completely online, everything, but for me and my clients, it didn't really work.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah. Like a lot of things with the pandemic, I find things are very bifurcated. Things work really well for some people and just a complete disaster for others, right?
Jay Quarmby:
Yeah.
Scott A. MacMillan:
You think about all of the people that were trying to homeschool kids, right, and could get absolutely nothing done, and then you've got others who, without the distractions, were super productive. It sounds like the same thing was true in fitness as well.
Now, part of what was different, I think for you, is you wrote and published Your Personal Revolution during the pandemic, and I'd love to chat a little bit about, first, the experience of writing it, and then delve in a little bit into how you've been using it, because like I said in the intro, I've been really impressed at your approach. Let's first, tell me about the writing experience. Did you find it hard to get your manuscript written?
Jay Quarmby:
Okay, so that was something that, yeah, at the start of the pandemic, originally, I was just in shock of just not working at all when everyone was completely terrified of what was going on and there really wasn't anything happening, so instead of me just playing video games all day, which is probably what I would've liked to have done, I really dove into writing the book.
The experience of writing the book, I'm a pretty disciplined person, and I tackled it as a discipline, which I think really worked in my favour. I specifically chose a time of day to write and I wrote Monday to Friday for an hour, hour-and-a-half, to get... I just felt like if I just chip away at this, then it'll eventually be done, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought, which was kind of funny for me because I work in a gym and I haven't written since university. I haven't had to really write anything major for years and years and years, so what was interesting is that I found that I did have a creative streak in me, I guess, and was able to, what I think, come out with a pretty good book, so yeah, the process of it was good.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Did you find that the ...? Because there's two parts to writing, there's the act of getting words out onto the page, and then there's the process of coming up with the ideas that ultimately need to be converted into words. That second part is your intellectual property. To what extent did you already have that established, and so it was a process of extracting that, versus to what extent were you developing your intellectual property through writing, if you know what I mean?
Jay Quarmby:
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. I had the intellectual property and the processes and everything that I learned, it was sort of in a vault, I guess, and the writing process helped me extract that because when I sat down to write the book, I had a pretty brief outline. I didn't say, right, "I'm going to write a book and it's going to be exactly on this and I know exactly what I'm going to write about." I went into the process thinking, "Okay, I am a very knowledgeable trainer/coach. I haven't really thought about myself as being knowledgeable."
I think people can relate to this, where you're working and you're just constantly working, and maybe you're excelling, you don't even really realize you're excelling, and you're just caught up in working and doing the best job that you can. In reflection, you can sit back and say, "Oh, actually, maybe I do have a skill and I am an expert in this field." Writing the book, for me, really allowed me to see that that was actually the case because I had to extract this information, put it together, lay it out in a way that... It's one thing to, to be writing for yourself, I guess, if it's a journal, but if you're writing a book for someone else, that really then solidified that knowledge because I also had to figure out how to explain it to someone. That's a whole different kettle of fish to say, "Okay, well, I have this knowledge, but how do I transfer that knowledge to the reader?", which then made me become even more of an expert in those topics.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah. Well said.
Jay Quarmby:
Does that make sense? Does that answer the question?
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah, makes perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah, and that point about expertise, that really ties in a lot to the second point that I wanted to talk through about your book and in writing it, because shortly after you launched it, you did something really effective that got your book some great exposure in local media, specifically on Breakfast Television in Toronto. But what was really smart, I think, was how you took advantage of that opportunity. Can you tell us a little bit about what you did and how you pulled it all off and what's come of it?
Jay Quarmby:
Sure, yeah. I have always approached my book as the ultimate business card. I honestly almost look at it as a key, a magic key, that's the analogy that I keep in my head. I think with this book using it as a key, as the ultimate business card, what doors will this key fit into and unlock? I think it's really important, particularly, obviously, we're Entrepreneur to Author, we're talking about entrepreneurs and books here, is that I'm under no illusions that I'm going to retire off this book, from the selling of the book. However, the doors that this book opens are going to make me money, and so it's a little bit of a different way. It's funny. Not to go on a tangent too much with it, but people always ask me, "Oh, are you selling tons of books? Are you making money?" It's funny that the layman thinks that that's what the book does, and it's like, "No, no, no, that's not what my book is for."
Originally, I've tried to get onto... I mean, everyone wants to get onto Breakfast Television or a news slide, I mean, it's the pinnacle of exposure in everyone's mind. I tried before, but how do you try when you're like... What do you say? "Hey, I'm a trainer, let me on the show"? I've sent emails or whatever before. Obviously, I had no responses. Now that I had a book and the book got some traction on Amazon, was a bestseller for a week or so, yeah, I'm going to claim that, so that was the magic key is that I was able to reach out to someone who I know who works at Rodgers and was able to say, "Hey, listen. I've written this book. It was a bestseller. Do you know anyone who may work at Breakfast Television?" and used that key to open that door. They just said straight away, "Oh, yeah. Sure. No problem at all."
I think, undoubtedly, if I just reached out and said, "Hey, can you get me on Breakfast Television?" they would've been like, "Eh, I don't know," but they were able to then reach out to Breakfast Television. They were able to say, "Okay, this guy's got a book. Here's his bio. It's a bestseller," et cetera, and Breakfast Television, just within a week sent me an email and just said, "Hey, do you want to jump on a Tuesday?" It did feel like a magic key because it just felt a little too easy.
I went on the show and it was about exercising in the morning and I did the segment. How I used the book, this was a real strategic thing for me is that actually, in the background, I'd set up my house as a studio. In the background, I'd set up all the books in a display that were just subtly in the back. I didn't talk about myself at all, I just did the best segment I could, and then the last 20 seconds of the segment, they were like, "Okay, Jay. Where can people find you?" I had a book really close by and I just grabbed the book and I held it up and I just said something along the lines of, "Thanks, everyone, for watching. If you'd like a copy of the book, just send me an email and I'll send you out a copy," and that was it.
I thought, "Okay, I mean, who knows what's going to happen?" I had hundreds of emails from all over Canada asking me for a copy of the book telling me that they really enjoyed the segment. It just felt like really organic, natural traction and interest and desire and I thought, "Okay, I absolutely nailed that."
Scott A. MacMillan:
How quickly did those leads come in?
Jay Quarmby:
Oh, within three or four days.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Wow.
Jay Quarmby:
I mean, within 24 hours, I'd already had 50, 60 people send me an email.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Incredible.
Jay Quarmby:
Yeah. What was really interesting was that they were genuine emails of interest, not just, "Hey, send me the book." It was a really good lead. I obviously sent out the book. What I actually did, I think, was a little bit different, too, is I thought, "Okay, I've been given hundreds of addresses." Now, I don't know if there's anytime that you've just happily given your address to someone, so I thought, "Okay, great, they want something from me," so I sent out a little brochure and a letter written specifically to them and the book and my business card and some stickers and was able to send this beautiful little package to them, which just makes me someone that they want to know.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, you also launched a product called... Well, you've launched a series of products related to the IP in the book. I think the most recent that I've seen is Personal Revolution Reset Experiences. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and the connection between the product and the IP in the book?
Jay Quarmby:
Sure. Yeah, so definitely, now that the book is out, it just elevated not only my own confidence, but also my stature in the fitness industry, I guess. I mean, if you think, I mean, I know probably 50 trainers, if not more, over the years that I've worked here, and none of them have a book that comes to mind, so it just really pushed me up into a different level, which, I think, gave me the confidence to really think outside the box a little bit more and think about, "Okay, well, what can I create and offer to clients that is unique? If I'm a unique trainer, what can I do?"
Over the pandemic, people really didn't look after themselves and really neglected health and wellness. About maybe two months ago or so, I created a health-and-wellness day for a group of friends of mine where normally we just catch up and go for a couple beers or whatever, and I think all of us were just lacking that health and wellness and looking after ourselves, and so we said, "Okay, let's do a full day of just taking care of ourself," which is highly unusual for a group of guys. I think guys don't normally want to do that. We did a workout and then we went and grabbed a protein shake and then we went and did a meditation and then we had some more lunch and then we went and did some hot-and-cold therapy and we just stacked this huge day together.
By the end of the day, I just couldn't even remember my own name, and all the stress. Yeah, normally you feel pretty good after one of those things, but trust me, when you do three or four and fill a whole day with that stuff, just taking care of yourself, yeah, I had the best sleep I've had in months. One of the guys during the day said, "You know what? Someone should organize this. Someone should actually do this as a business and provide this for other people because this is so fantastic. I would even take team on this particular day," so I said, "All right, if you want to take your team on this day, I'll organize it, and let's talk," so he said, "Okay, cool."
I came home and that was where this Personal Revolution Reset Experience was born. Now, I'm offering it primarily for men because men generally don't look after themselves as well as women do. Women are happy to go to a spa and get their nails done and do a facial together. Men, we steer away from that, so yeah, I'm really excited, and it's exactly what people need right now coming out of COVID is that connection with a small group of people, looking after yourself, hitting all aspects of the body, mindfulness, fitness, relaxation, rejuvenation. It's all packaged up in one day, and yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Scott A. MacMillan:
That really is exciting. What I love about that from a business perspective is that it's a true example of listening to the market, right, and having some intellectual property that you could connect to a need that you heard from this guy that was on that experience with you, and then crafting that into something that's repeatable and scalable. That's such a great example of product development. What's next for you? Where are you focused now in terms of continuing to build your profile and authority as a thought leader and expert in the health-and-fitness space?
Jay Quarmby:
I got a number of things. One actually is that I want to utilize the book even more, to be honest. I've done some good things with it, but going back to that analogy of holding this magic key, I haven't opened as many doors as I could with it and I want to explore what other doors can I open. Maybe it's going on more podcasts like this and talking about it, maybe it's using it for partnerships with other companies. Again, if I reach out to maybe a supplement company, or a fitness equipment provider, the book's going to really open that door for me. I know that. I just need to figure out, "Okay, who do I need to speak to? How do I use the key?" I really want to start exploring some of those things in building up this bigger partnership and using all of these other companies and other partners to build my health-and-wellness day into a even bigger and a better experience, I guess, because if I can get partners that with supplements and other things, and maybe there's a clothing brand, that will turn it into a pretty extraordinary day.
What else am I interested in? The industry is still struggling a lot and people still are on the fence about getting back into the gym and into training and so I really want to focus on trying to build up some of my one-on-one class as well and just preaching the good news about looking after yourself and getting back in the gym and it's okay and looking after yourself. That's something that I'm really passionate about, so I think that's the two main things that I'm going to focus on over the next 12 months.
Scott A. MacMillan:
Yeah, amazing. Amazing. Well, listen, in that vein, what's the best way for listeners to learn more about you or get in touch with you, whether they be individuals looking for a reset experience, or maybe their partners, right, looking to help their teams or partner in some other way? What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Jay Quarmby:
Probably the easiest way to get in touch with me is just go to thepersonalrevolution.com. All the information about me is on there and there's a contact page. You can send me a message off that. You can also find me on Instagram, The Personal Revolution. Don't message me on that because I don't use it a lot, but if you want to keep track of what I'm doing and that kind of good stuff, feel free. I guess I need to back up what I was saying before about using the book as a business card and opportunities, so if anyone who's listening would like a copy of the book, send me a message. Just go to my website, say you'd like a copy, and I'll send you out a copy for free.
Scott A. MacMillan:
That's amazing. Very generous. Okay, great. We'll be sure to put that those links in the show notes for easy reference. Listen, Jay, it's been great speaking with you today. I mean it when I say I'm really fortunate to count you as a friend and it's so great to have front row seats and watch how you've evolved and continue to evolve your business to stand out positively from the competition, so again, thank you for being here.
Jay Quarmby:
Thanks, Scott. Thanks. Thanks to everyone who's listening. Hope you have a good day.
Scott A. MacMillan:
I just love chatting with Jay, not only because of his charming Australian accent, but because there's so much we can learn from entrepreneurs who've traveled the entrepreneur-to-author journey and are using their book effectively. As I think about this conversation with Jay, here are a few important takeaways to consider, so remember this: When it's hard for people to know just how good you really are without first working with you, you need to find a way to elevate yourself above the competition. Your book is a magic key that opens doors that were previously locked to you. But even with a book, you still need to find those doors and open them. Jay shared how hard it was is to get media coverage, but how his book set him apart, and that is the sort of credibility boost that every entrepreneur needs. Just like health and fitness, writing a book takes dedication, but by consistently setting aside a bit of time every day, it's amazing how much progress you'll make. Now is the time, time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott MacMillan. Until next time.
