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[Transcript starts at 1:00]
What is up y’all? Welcome to another episode of FitBizU. I’m your host, Jill Coleman. And before we get into today’s, uh, topic, I wanna remind you that we’re gonna be launching FBA very soon. FBA stands for Fitness Business Accelerator. It is my intro to business course, and we have an amazing group of people on the wait list, on the interest list who are getting ready to get some more information about the program.
And so if you’re not on that, I wanna make sure that you have. To it. So go to Jillfitfree.com/fba-waitlist. It’s jillfitfree.com/fba-waitlist. That is our interest list. And again, there’s no obligation to be on that list, but those who are on that list are gonna get early details, early enrollments, also an exclusive discount and some amazing bonuses.
So even if you are just the tiniest bit interested in learning about our offer at Jill Fit and what we do here, go ahead and get on that list, Jillfitfree.com/fba-waitlist. Now today I am excited because we’re gonna talk about something that’s funny cuz a lot of this stuff we’re gonna talk about today.
We’re gonna talk about, uh, delegation, automation, opening up more time in your schedule, uh, how to delegate and just outsource things if you need them. And I’m gonna share with you guys some of the things I outsource at Jill Fit. Um, but it’s something that for me, feels really natural. You know, it didn’t always feel that way, but I think I’ve mentioned this book before.
It’s called The Powerful Engagement by Tony Schwartz. And I read this book and like, I don’t know, gosh, it must… 2007, maybe 2009. And it was when I was in the thick of personal training. As you guys know, I was a full-time personal trainer and group fitness instructor for, uh, over a decade. I was doing probably 70 to 80 hours a week in the gym.
And I loved fitness, like maybe a lot of you do. I loved health, loved fitness, loved people, helping people with their health and fitness. And it was something that when I got into it, um, I just wanted to help people. And over time it just became so draining. And if you’ve ever worked in, especially in the fitness industry, there is a scarcity in the fitness industry, like gym owners are worried that, you know, trainers are gonna leave and take the clients with them and, you know, coaches are worried or trainers are worried that the clients are gonna leave every second. And, you know, there’s a, a level of unpredictability and a level of uncertainty that sometimes can manifest in feeling of scarcity.
And so I know for me, I was definitely that person who was training anyone who wanted to get trained for any amount of money at any time of day. And I liked it because I loved the idea of if I work more, I make more money. Right? I was always incentivized by that. However, it got to the point where I was training people for like $15, like at eight o’clock at night on a Friday night, like Saturday morning at 6:00 AM Like literally any time they asked.
And it just got to a point where I realized that I was someone who was busy, but not productive. And when I read this book, it was probably, it’s probably top five books that changed my life. And the reason why is because it didn’t focus so much on time management. It focused on energy management, and I’d never heard that term.
Basically the, the premise is very simple, and in implementation it’s a little bit harder, but the premise is really simple, which is, uh, as your brain, right? If you have willpower, you have decisions, you have a finite amount of mental energy and things that you can do, can refill your energy, like going to sleep or taking a nap or, you know, leisure walk, maybe working out for people.
There are these things that you can do that refill your mental emotional battery, right? Charge your mental, emotional battery. However, for a lot of us, especially if you’re just, everything is output all the time. You know, for me as a personal trainer, my first client at 5:00 AM you know, working five to 9:00 AM five to 10:00 AM having a little break.
Then starting to train clients again at three in the afternoon all the way to maybe seven or eight o’clock at night, coming home and being like, wow, I’m exhausted mentally and physically, but I don’t even… What I did today, and it’s not that that’s not fine, right? That’s kind of a job, like what we just talked about.
It’s kind of a job. But the problem was I really wanted to start my online business, but I didn’t have the mental capacity. Even if I had an hour here and there, right? I had an hour at lunch, or I had a couple hours at lunch, like I had the actual time, but I just didn’t have the mental reserves because I was so drained and I wasn’t doing things that helped me fill up my cup again.
And so when I read this, it encouraged me, its reader, to build in strategic downtime and recharge time, like during the day, and this is really foreign to me because as someone who is very driven, very ambitious, I was like, if I have an hour open on my schedule, like I need to be working. That’s how I felt.
It was like, oh, if I have, you know, I got, I’d be working. It can be any downtime. It made me almost feel lazy to take downtime in the middle of the day, like go for a leisure walk or you know, read a personal development book on the couch at like noon on a Tuesday. Like all of these really like a, what felt odd to me at the time, and the promise of the book is when you start doing these things and really looking at manager energy better.
When you start to do these things, you’ll actually be more productive. And when you do sit down to do work, like write a blog, at the time for me it was writing blogs. When you sit down to do it, you’ll be much more focused. And I didn’t believe it. Cause I was like, really? This sounds lazy. But what happened was I started doing it and I was like, holy shit.
I am getting so much more done in so much less time because the mental energy, I would sit down. I was super focused, so I just became absolutely obsessed with this concept. And for the last 10 years, I have done everything I possibly can to protect my energy. And that’s really hard because a lot of it does come down to things like boundaries and honest communication, right?
Stating boundaries and forcing boundaries, enforcing boundaries. An online business can materialize in, you know, clients who are maybe like a little bit extra, um, need extra attention, maybe people in your dms asking for free coaching, maybe you know, someone demanding something at a certain time of day.
And we got ourselves in early in Jill Fit. We got ourselves into a little bit of a pickle where we had sort of promised our clients we would be available 24 7. And not only was it bad for us because they’re like texting us like 70 times on a Sunday, which is our fault, by the way, but then they felt like they couldn’t really do anything without checking in with us, which is also bad for them.
And so we’d implemented a lot of boundaries at that point. This is like about 20 11, 20 12. Implemented a lot of boundaries, had a lot more conversations with our clients, and this obviously extends into your personal life. I mean, I think if you’re listening to this, there’s probably someone in your life, whether that’s a client or a family member or a spouse or a child or a parent who probably needs to know what your boundary is somewhere. And I became obsessed with this and I became, uh, obsessed with understanding boundaries and energy management. And one of my earliest mentors, Rachel Cosgrove, said, people respect people with boundaries. And that just blew my mind because y’all having boundaries. Sometimes it doesn’t sit well with people sometimes, right?
They’re kind of like, oh, she’s a bitch, or, oh, she’s too good and you, and we take, we take that in and we’re like, oh, what if they think this about me? When Rachel said people respect people with boundaries, Even if they don’t like it, they respect it. And that’s literally changed, sort of like how I saw things.
In fact, I think boundaries are the kindest thing you can do to someone, for someone, because here’s the thing, if you don’t have boundaries, right? If you have no boundaries and you, what’s the emotion you’re gonna start feeling at times, you’re gonna start feeling resentful. You’re gonna start feeling irritated.
You’re gonna be annoyed by certain people in your life. You’re gonna start complaining about them. Imagine. Your client is just asking for help and you show up to that coaching caller, you show up in that container, irritated, annoyed, and resentful. That is like absolutely selfish on your part because you haven’t managed your energetic resources appropriately.
Now, this client who’s just trying to get a result with you is feeling some kind of way because you’re showing up in that way. So when I talk about boundaries, it’s really, it’s for me, but it’s actually for my clients too. It is selfish to not take care of your energy needs because your clients need you at full capacity.
Not only do they need you at full capacity and like not being resentful and, and pissed off, but they need your focus. They need your attention. They need your presence. If I get on a Zoom call with a client, I’m not, you know, on my phone doing other stuff. I’m not like talking to someone in the background.
I’m not checking outta the conversation, looking another shit on my computer. I’m literally so focused on the conversation, what they’re saying so that we can get the most of our time together. So if I show up to that container drained, imagine now they’re not getting what they paid for. And so when I thought about it that way, I was like, fuck, I really have to figure this out.
I really have to get better at boundaries. And also things like delegating and automating and outsourcing and things like that. Now I’m like a complete disciple of this. It’s been what, 10, 12 years later. And this is literally anyone who knows me knows that I am very boundary heavy. And I also know what, what we call my zone of genius is.
And as a business owner you need to know that and you know, we can have the conversation about bringing on team and stuff like that, but you can do a whole lot of things just when it’s you. You can start delegating and outsourcing just when it’s you. You’re a solopreneur. So think to yourself, out of all the things I do in my business, what am I the best at?
If I could do it all day, every day, what would be the best use of my time? Now I know for me it’s probably gonna be content creation, like creating the products and services, putting the IP in there. It’s gonna be probably social media, uh, podcasting obviously as part of, you know, social media or content creation and coaching.
So those probably are the three, uh, my three best uses within the business. It’s content creation, uh, coaching, and you know, kind of social media I guess. Um, so content creation being, uh, back in like product creation and then of course front facing be social media and then coaching. It’s not that other people can’t do that stuff, it’s just that my brand is sort of predicated on my voice and my IP, right?
My intellectual property. And so I probably wouldn’t delegate those things, at least not right now. We’ve del delegated some of the social media. For example, Courtney does the Fit Biz U. Um, she does the Fit BizU Instagram account. She does the Fit Biz U YouTube account. She does the Best Life Podcast stuff.
And so we are doing some slow sort of outsourcing of some of the social media, but the Jill Fit stuff is still mine. But then I think to myself, what else can be automated? What else can be automated? So my very first quote unquote delegation or automation was cleaning my house. And um, I know this maybe feels, if you felt like I did when I first hired my first cleaning lady, this must have been back in like maybe 2010 or 2011.
I remember feeling like a lot of shame around this. Like, I should do this myself. It’s something a woman does, right? Or we clean the house or like, ah, it’s not that bad. It just takes an hour on a Sunday. Like, I was like having all these feelings about it. What I kept seeing was not only was it not getting done was it wasn’t getting done a great way, and also I was dreading it so it wasn’t just the hour or two, it took on a Sunday to clean the place.
It was all the thinking about it the whole time before I got to actually doing it. It was like, ah, I gotta fuck. I gotta do that. Right? So the dreading of it that’s draining my mental battery, all of that, all of the thinking around the thing. And so I said to myself, look Jill, this, this isn’t for rich people, like, figure it out. Isn’t just for rich people. How much money do you need to make to have someone come in and help you? And I found someone who would do it for 50 bucks twice a month. And I was like, okay, that’s a hundred dollars. And I was in a, you know, I was in like a 1200 square foot condo at the time, so I was like, all right, 50 bucks twice a month, I can do that.
That’s a hundred dollars. How can I make a hundred dollars this month, an extra hundred bucks this month? And that’s how I started it. Uh, you know, I call this preemptive funding, but I think to myself, how can I make that extra hundred bucks? That was the very first thing I outsourced. And y’all, it was a game changer.
It’s just like this thing is completely off your plate. You trust someone else fully to do it. You do not have to do anything with it. Not only do you have to think about it, you have to do it. Nothing like that. And so I was like, whoa. And then over time, of course, over the last 10 years or so, I’ve outsourced quite a bit more.
But having someone clean your house, just get over your ego shit. Get over your, like, I’m supposed to do this myself. It’s supposed to be hard. I’m gonna martyr myself out. It’s like, no, just hire someone who, who does it better than you, who actually might like doing it. So that’s one thing. Um, you can certainly do this for cooking.
You know, there’s a ton of food delivery places. I live in Los Angeles of course, and we have a ton of different stuff here, but I think you pretty much have it everywhere now. You have Uber Eats, you have DoorDash, GrubHub, some of this stuff. You can get fairly healthy like salads and healthy meals like that.
You can also use things like Instacart to uh, get delivery of your groceries, stuff like that. I personally still love going to the grocery store myself, so I usually don’t use Instacart. Uh, Combing the shelves and seeing what some of the newer things are. So I like going and doing that myself, but I do not cook and I have not cooked in over a decade.
Um, so it’s either Whole Food salads, quick takeout or something like DoorDash so you can eat healthy and still outsource. And again, I use something called a dash pass cause we have DoorDash here in Los Angeles and dash pass is like, I don’t know, I think it’s like, Uh, I think it’s like maybe 4 99 a month or something, or 5 99 a month.
And it’s like, and so it takes care of all the delivery fees. You pay like five bucks a month, and so I order probably from DoorDash multiple times a week. So for me, it definitely makes a difference. I don’t have to pay delivery fees every single time. It’s just like a one, a one time thing, right? It’s a, it’s a recurring billing.
The other thing I do that’s recurring billing is photo shoots. Now, I’ve mentioned this before because I think sometimes we think, oh, I need to be rich to do that. It is very affordable. Of course, I live in Los Angeles, so everything’s a little bit more expensive and I work with someone who’s a professional, like very professional.
Um, and so, you know, it’s probably a little bit more expensive than it might be where you live. But I pay Vio who is my photographer, and she gets paid monthly and we do a little brand shoot each month, and it’s like literally. Two hours. It’s two hours. We go in, we get some social media content or from launching our products or service.
We do some, some brand photos for that. And it’s a subscription, so it’s not like it, it just comes outta my account each month. So it’s actually not like, Hey, I wanna do a photo shoot next month. It’s like, it’s constantly coming out. So then we, when it comes out, we just book it. We’re like, okay, what date this month?
Right. When can we do it this month? It’s not a big deal. I don’t diet for it. I don’t buy a whole bunch of new clothes for it. It’s not a full day thing. It’s like two hours and it’s really easy and I really personally like that. It just comes out of my account and she likes it too because now she has some recurring revenue each month, and so having that photo shoot for me to get fresh images as a personal brand, it does make a huge difference.
And you could probably find someone in your local area to do this for like one or 200 bucks a month. Not a ton, especially, maybe it’s an up and coming photographer. You could certainly find someone who would be willing to do an hour with you once a month for like one or 200. Easy. So easy. And then you have fresh images all the time.
Uh, we do batch recording for podcasts. So previously I think I’ve shared with you guys, I did work with a company that was doing all of that, like literally did all my recording for me. Now Courtney is amazing and she’s the one who does the podcast for both Best Life and for FitBizU and for Take Care Radio, which are all the like sort of Jill Fit podcasts.
And she does all from the backend now. But what I used to do is I used to pay a company that was here in Los Angeles locally, and I would go and I would sit down and I would record all the episodes at one time. And again, this was recurring billing, so every month they would charge me for the recording session and they would charge me for some of the promotional materials and the, you know, just to manage the back end of the podcast. Now, we did split ties with them a couple months ago because of some things that happened, but for me, this was a massive service because for me to, you know, sit down, record the podcast, I’m sort of doing that now, but that like monthly, just going to a recording studio, sitting down and recording like six or eight episodes at once.
Yes, it was a lot, but it was nice that it was just once a month. I wasn’t having to do it every single week or multiple times per week. And so the batch recording for the podcasting worked really.
Next thing I do is I have a membership with Dry Bar Now. Dry Bar is a, um, it’s a blowout service for your hair, and I actually got it when I was dislocated my shoulder when I was snowboarding.
I hit a tree and I dislocated my shoulder and I couldn’t lift my arms, so I couldn’t do my hair. And so I was like, well, I guess I’ll just go to Dry Bar. We have one, like two miles away, and they had a monthly subscription. It was like four blowouts a month for however much. and I was like, well, maybe I’ll just do this because if I get a blowout, it lasts like multiple days and I can just get someone else to do my hair.
And then once my shoulder mobility, my shoulder was healed and I got my mobility back, I was like, I really like this. And with how many, um, you know, podcast appearances I do. Um, you know, sometimes I’ll get my hair blown out for just my, if I have webinars that I like, important webinars, I wanna look good for, uh, you know, live events.
I run like seven or eight live events every year. Maybe I travel to other events. So like, for example, I’m gonna be speaking. Like Scottsdale, I’m gonna be like, oh, there’s a Dry Bar in Scottsdale. I can get my hair done before my speaking gig. And so anything where in all the photo shoots that I’m doing right each month, it’s nice to have that blowout.
So I just kept it after that. It’s been really nice for me to just outsource that. And who knows? I dunno how long I’ll keep it. Maybe I’ll just back it down to two a month instead of four. But so far it has worked out really well. Um, other more basic things like accounting and bookkeeping, for those of you who maybe don’t and aren’t in a position quite yet to need someone, but as you start bringing in more revenue as maybe you have some team members and contractors and things like that, you probably wanna get someone in.
To do your bookkeeping or accountancy. So our bookkeeper is Sandy York, and I think some of you guys might know her, especially from the Movement Maestro. She’s @fitmoneycoach on Instagram. She does our payroll. She also does our bookkeeping, keeps an eye on our expenses, things like that.
Um, and then of course, really easy things like Amazon Prime subscriptions. You know, I, again, live in Los Angeles. I can order something in the morning and it gets here by the afternoon. So make sure you guys have some sort of, especially if you’re just ordering some simple things like toiletries, uh, you know, toilet paper, you know, trash bags, laundry detergent, you know, I’ll get protein bars, uh, energy drinks, supplements, stuff like that.
Amazon prime’s super easy. 99 bucks for the entire year, and then there’s no shipping. And so, and, and it’s obviously a priority as well. So something like that. And then I’ll say just the last thing, and this is not a comprehensive list, this is just the ones that I came up with. And there’s other, obviously when I have contractors and people who work at Jill Fit, who take things off my plate too, we can do a whole separate episode on, on like team and who does what, an org chart.
But at the end of the day, I also wanna give you this last tip, this last productivity tip, which is, Some things just don’t need to get done. Some things just do not need to get done. And when you are someone who, like I was really valued busy, right? I valued being busy because it made me feel important.
It made me feel like I was doing something important. I liked being busy. I like when someone’s like, how are things going? I’m like, oh, so busy. I don’t know. For some reason it made me feel good inside and then I just kind, it’s completely flipped the script and now I’m like, I wanna be the least busy person.
Like that’s my goal is to be like, I’m not doing anything, but I’m still making money. Right. When I was someone who was very busy and really prided myself on that, I love the idea of like checklists and to-do lists, and I’m checking all these things off a list. It just made me feel accomplished, right? It was like one big dopamine hit.
I just like check off all these things and I’m like, I’m good. I’m good at progressing. The problem was I was running around all week long, like a trick of my head cut off and nothing was actually getting done. So I think you have to ask yourself, am I doing little things like errands, like, I don’t know.
Running to CVS for me is like such a drag. Cause I’m like, first of all, I get this shit on Amazon, right? I don’t wanna go, like I have other shit I wanna do, but for some other people it’s like, that’s their entire day. I’m gonna go to Target, gonna pick up the dry cleaning, I gotta uh, you know, go to Kinko’s, whatever.
It’s like, how can we figure out how that stuff either doesn’t need to get done or can be automated? Because those things, while you feel good that you’re checking ’em off a list. There are things that could get done elsewhere, so asking yourself, am I choosing to do a lot of little things that don’t move the dial so I don’t have to look at this big thing that I really wanna do?
We see this a lot of times with beginner business owners where there’s like a big project, like, I wanna launch this thing, I wanna create this lead magnet. I wanna write my sales page. Right? Some of these things that are really time intensive, energy intensive, so we know it’s gonna take like a full day to.
Or a whole weekend to do it. And we keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it off in favor of some of these really small things that honestly someone else could do or could literally go undone. And so ask yourself, am I prioritizing shit that doesn’t actually matter to avoid putting myself on the hook to do the hard thing?
And I think when you look at it that way, maybe there are a handful of things that you’re like, yeah, I keep doing these little things for people. I keep saying yes to shit I don’t wanna do because I am potentially avoiding doing the big thing that I really. Wanna do that I say I wanna do, but I just keep never making a priority.
And so check yourself. Is there a reason why you’re doing that? Is it imposter syndrome? Are you feeling like I’m not good enough? Are you feeling it’s just like massive in your head? So this is what I tell my, my students in F B A, especially when they’re like, ah, I know I need to do my sales page, or, oh, I need to create my lead magnets just, I know it’s gonna take a long time.
I say, look, It’s probably a lot bigger in your head than it actually is. You’re making it out to be this like massive task. I guarantee you, if you just set aside, just set aside 45 minutes, go to Starbucks, get away from the family. Do whatever you need to do. Lock yourself in a room. Set your time on your phone for 45 minutes and see how far you get.
Start with that. Just see how far you get in 45 minutes and then give yourself permission to be done. And I think you’re gonna see that number one, either you got way more done and it was way easier than you were making it in your head. Or number two, you wanna keep going cuz you’re on a roll. So I think you have to rip the bandaid off and like overcome that initial activation energy.
So now I run everything through, is this worth my time? And if it’s running to fucking CVS, my friends and fam will tell you, I will not do that shit. Right. Clean your car. I mean, and luckily I have a partner who’s amazing, who when he is off work, he doesn’t have anything to do like we do. Right. He’s very much like, you know, he works out and plays sports and whatever, but he doesn’t have any like responsibilities outside of work.
So he’ll do stuff like that for me, which of course, I’m so grateful for, but he’ll like, he’s like, I’ll take your car to get washed and I’ll take it to get the oil changed and whatever. And he doesn’t mind it. He, that’s how his brain works for me. I’m like, that’s a whole day. I’d rather like write, you know, six social media posts.
I’d rather record a couple podcast episodes. Be discerning with your time and energy. Be discerning with your time and energy and ask yourself, am I putting off big things that are actually gonna move the deal in favor of small things that really don’t make. Any waves. And that’s I think, the hard question to ask yourself.
But if, if the goal really is productivity, then you have to be real about where you’re spending your time. Do a complete time audit and decide what things could literally just go undone. Can someone else do it? Can this be automated? Good. All that is all I have for you today. It went a little bit long on this episode, but I wanted to get to this episode ironically.
I actually did record this episode back in September, uh, and it was one of the, uh, the files that were corrupt, unfortunately, so we didn’t get to air it back then. So I rerecorded it again and I think this is a better one than the first time. But thank you guys for being here. Thank you for time and attention and we will see you on the next episode.
Bye guys.
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