From Corporate Salesman to Online Fitness Coach: One Man's Quest to Bankrupt the Industry that Scammed Him with Richard Fearn

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network with great shows like CEO School. Today, we'll be breaking down the story of going from corporate salesman to online fitness coach, one man's quest to bankrupt the industry that scammed him. To drop these value bombs, I are brought Richie Fern into EO Fire Studios. Richie went from being a successful multinational salesman to an online fitness coach determined to help entrepreneurs and salesmen avoid the fitness industry scams and achieve lifetime results. And Fire Nation, we'll talk about being different and unique and how to really make that your strategy.

0:41We'll talk about the story of Richie being scammed. We'll talk about key marketing and advertising strategies that are working right now. We'll talk about how to measure the success in your business and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Richie and our sponsors. If you've been sizing NetSuite up to make the switch, then take advantage of their special financing offer today. Defer payments of a full NetSuite implementation for six months. No interest, no payments. Visit netsuite.com slash fire to get the visibility and control you need to weather any storm.

1:13That's netsuite.com slash fire. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts. Richie, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What is up, Fire Nation?

1:52Success. I personally believe that becoming successful is a fiction, which is very controversial. role. And I say that because you don't wake up one day successful and then ride that wave the rest of your life, which I think is what most people think of. So for me, I define success by asking myself a few questions. Am I doing something that excites me? Am I doing something that can make a difference in the lives of people? And is my spirit in alignment with my actions? If the answer to all three of these questions is yes, then I'm living a successful life no matter what. Fire Nation, we're talking about the story of going from corporate salesman to online fitness coach.

2:26We're talking about one man's quest to bankrupt the industry that scammed him. I love that. This is going to be fire. And you used to work for a multinational company, Richie, and it influenced your current business strategy as an online fitness coach. Tell us how. Yeah. So I worked for two large multinational companies, actually one that was a mattress brand and one that was an equipment manufacturer. And both of these, I was a salesman. Loved it. The biggest thing I took away from that, though, was that valuing people isn't necessary to be massively successful, but it is necessary to make a big impact.

3:03In both of those industries, everyone always wanted to talk to me about what kind of voodoo I was doing, my sales metrics, et cetera. But they didn't want to hear my answers to those questions. To them, again, it was all about the metrics. But at the end of the day, my secret was always believing in what I was selling and caring about the people I was selling to. So that's something that made me stand out in the field and led to my success. And that's something I brought to this industry because to me, people in this industry don't care about the individual. They care about getting the sign-ons, saying that they have 400 clients.

3:40And so I take a very people-centric approach. I'm always working for them. I'm always serving them. Fire Nation, I love this concept that we're already talking about, serving. And that's really the importance of being different and unique in your offerings, in your industry, because so many people, they don't serve. It's metrics that don't matter. It's metrics that don't add up to the bottom line. It's people focusing on the wrong things. Because we talk about the importance of being different and unique in our offerings as entrepreneurs a lot, Richie, on Entrepreneurs on Fire. I want to talk specifically about how your business model differentiates you from other fitness companies?

4:23Yeah. So first of all, all of my programs are truly custom to the exact needs of the individual client. So many people out there, you know, it's cookie cutter PDFs or the exact same program and everyone's running it. What I discovered from doing this and getting scammed out of a ton of money by people that I was trying to get to help me is that there's so much BS and it's very profitable to keep propagating that, right? It keeps people coming back, buying the next book, buying the next workout program. So I work very hard to not sell more or less than what my clients needs. And then I'm also super selective about who I take on.

5:02So my first question every single time I talk to someone is, does this person need me? If it's yes, great. Then I say, can anyone serve this client as well or better than me? And if the answer is no, then I ask, can I get this client the results they need? If it's yes, let's roll. If it's not, if any of those questions are off, I give them some resources. I tell them they're not a good fit. And I've never taken on a client that I was not 100 % sure that I could get results for. So that's simply because I believe time is our greatest resource. I never want to waste mine or anyone else's. And I offer a 100 % money back guarantee.

5:41I mean, I take people through six month programs. And at the end, if they didn't get the results, they get back every single penny. So I cannot waste my time or their time, right? Like that, that just kills me. So it really separates me from the crowd because most fitness coaches just say whatever you want to hear to sign up and they will take on literally anybody. Whereas I have about a 10 % rate of the people I talk to that I invite. Fire Nation, I need you to understand that your reputation is everything. And when you have a reputation that you get results, that you make people win, that you serve people with the highest integrity and success rate of anybody around, you're going to win at a super high level as a result of that.

6:25And so few people care enough about their customers' results, their clients' results. Because listen, those customers, those clients, they talk, they share, they're excited to talk about their wins. And in Richie's case, by the way, they just look at, they're like, whoa, what have you been doing? you look fantastic. And then that is where these conversations start up. And then when you are that person that's over delivering, that has that reputation that's flawless, that is fantastic. And I love how he slipped it on his head and just 10 % of his potential clients become actual clients. That is absolutely a killer stat.

7:01Now, Richie, you were scammed. I want to talk about this story and how it influenced your approach to transparency and customer trust within your business? Yeah. So honestly, that goes back to my previous answer a little. When I was looking for an online fitness coach, essentially I'd been in traveling sales for six years at this point. And I was crushing it, but I was really losing energy, losing steam. I didn't feel good, right? I just didn't. And so I reached out to all of these people. I gave them all of my information. I was like brutally honest, you know, vulnerable with these people that I didn't know.

7:39And they all assured me that they could get me results. During that time, I spent over $50 ,000, John, 50 ,000 on trainers. And not one of them was honest with me. You know, I was traveling, so I didn't have access to gyms. I didn't, you know, have equipment. I was new. I never really worked out before. And what I ended up getting was, like I said earlier, glorified PDFs, these super cookie cutter workouts that I had already seen online when I was researching it myself, you know, and then I got a bunch of, well, it's not our fault. You can't make this work. You don't want it enough. Despite the fact that, you know, maybe I'm landing, you know, from Europe in the middle of nowhere, Iowa at two in the morning and there's no gym, right?

8:22Well, you should have thought about that, Richie. You just don't want it enough. So I'm incredibly upfront with my clients and my potential clients from the very beginning. If I don't think they're serious, I straight up tell them. That's why I only take on 10%. If I don't think I can help them, I tell them and I try to point them to someone who can. And then before we even discuss payment, if I think they're good for the program, I lay out the entire program that I've been formulating while we're on the call in my head based on what they're telling me. I tell them how it works, what my expectations are.

8:55And then I say, can you commit to this 100 %? Because unless that we are in 100 % agreement on it, we never get to the next step. And I wish someone had done that with me. But more so, all of my programs are made, no matter what your needs are, where you can do them at anywhere and anytime. So there's zero excuse. And I give you literally all of the tools. I send you a package that has stuff that is a carry-on approved. You take it with you. There is zero excuse. I've done it in sky lounges. I've done it in customer parking lots. I mean, there's no excuse. Fire Nation, don't you want a no excuse solution to one of your biggest struggles, one of your biggest obstacles and challenges?

9:39Think about if you could offer that to your customers, to your clients, how much more business would you win? And we have a lot to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Do you have legitimate visibility and control over your financials? It's critical for the success of your business. If you earn millions of revenue, this is for you. NetSuite by Oracle just rolled out the best offer we've seen to help you gain the visibility and control you need to make better decisions faster. For the first time in NetSuite's 22 years as the number one cloud financial system, you can defer payments of a full NetSuite implementation for six months, no payment and no interest.

10:18And you can take advantage of this special financing offer today. NetSuite gives you everything you need in real time, all in one place to reduce manual processes, boost efficiency and increase productivity across every department. The value of having all this information in one place, priceless. 33 ,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite and now it's your turn. If you've been sizing NetSuite up to make the switch, then you know this deal is unprecedented. No interest, no payments. Take advantage of this special financing offer at netsuite.com slash fire, netsuite.com slash fire to get the visibility and control you need to weather any storm.

10:51netsuite.com slash fire. Tech is great. It can help us grow and scale our businesses in so many ways, but it can also be clunky, time consuming to manage and expensive. That's why I'm excited to introduce you to HubSpot CRM, the best platform to speed up your sales and scale your business without blowing your budget. HubSpot's all-in-one CRM helps you automate tedious tasks, keep track of all your deals in one place, and make sure your whole team has access to the same data. No need to worry about the management and cost of a massive tech stack. HubSpot gives you everything you need all in one place.

11:26Plus, with fast activation, HubSpot makes it easy for the entire team to get up to speed, saving you precious time. And best of all, you can try before you buy. No commitment, no hidden fees, not even a credit card is needed to sign up. Get started for free at HubSpot.com. That's HubSpot.com. Rich, you are back and I want to talk about the key marketing and advertising strategies that you are currently using to build your online fitness coaching business. What's working for you right now? Well, John, you actually crushed this earlier. So I would actually say that marketing isn't my strongest suit.

12:06You know, Facebook ads, cold DMing in the beginning, that was kind of how I got started. But now it's really word of mouth. And that's the most gratifying part of what I'm doing. Most of my clients have been through this before. They've done the diets. They've bought the magazines. They've hired the coaches, whether virtual or in person. And they've had the same or similar results as I had before. So when you get people the massive results and confidence to know that they now know how to sustain and maintain their trajectory after working with you, they become walking billboards for your brands.

12:40People notice and boom, out of nowhere, you get more business. Having said that, I do hope to up my marketing game and expand my team some over the next year. I really want to make sure that there isn't a salesman or an entrepreneur out there who doesn't know about my company because that's who I'm going for. I want to protect my people, right? And these are my people, salesmen, entrepreneurs. That's what I've been my entire life. And if you get scammed, I don't want it to be because you didn't hear about me, because I wasn't present enough or getting myself out there enough for you. Fire Nation, I would love if you could get into a situation where that is your number one source of real viable leads.

13:22It's that referral engine that you can just create and then runs on itself. And there's a huge quote that I love, Richie, from Peter Drucker that's, what gets measured gets improved. So I want to know how you measure the success of your business. Well, to me, success is twofold. First, it's always doing what's best for my clients and making sure that they succeed, putting them in a position to succeed. And again, just doing whatever it takes on my end, right? Because the industry I'm in, what I'm doing is it's people's health, right? And again, like I said earlier, time, health, all of that goes together.

14:05So it is vitally important to me that the people that are like me, these entrepreneurs, these salesmen, they've got something to give to the world. And I need to make sure that they are in the best shape to go out and serve those people. So again, I always keep that first and foremost in mind. And then second is to spread awareness and make sure that, again, like I said, there isn't a single person out there in this industry who has not heard of Ready Anywhere Fitness, my company, because it's truly based around protecting them from the billion dollar scam that is the fitness industry. And I can only do that if they know that I exist in the first place.

14:46So as for expansion, I want to eventually build up a team of coaches that have the same ambition to spearhead other industries using my systems. Entrepreneurs and salesmen, those are my people. Those are the only people I'm ever going to work with. But they're not the only people being scanned. They're just the closest to my heart, right? So I would love to have a team of people that are spearheading the same philosophy, but into other industries, right? No matter what that is. Iron Nation, this is powerful because listen, one thing that we talk about a lot are challenges that we face in our own businesses.

15:22And we can learn so much from other people's challenges, other people's successes. Now, Richie shared a lot of the successes that he's had and why he's had them that we can model in our own verticals, in our own niches, in our own industries. But I wanna move into challenges because we can learn from those as well. So let's get real about the challenges that you face in establishing and growing your online fitness business. Honestly, the biggest challenge that I've faced is just getting the word out on a large scale and then getting people to trust me if they've been burned before. Right. There are a lot of people who seem to think that if I was successful in sales, that there's no chance I would have given that up to become a fitness coach.

16:04Right. Considering it's a much less lucrative career choice. And they're 100 percent correct on that. But it's really funny. This was something I had zero desire to do. None. Like fitness was not on my radar. I'm a salesman through and through. But it just made me so mad seeing myself and people like me being pried on, right? Because people know, oh, they're successful, they have money, we can take that from them. And so the way I've dealt with that is just radical honesty with my clients and letting the results speak for themselves. I did make a massive leap. And no matter how well I do in this industry, it's unlikely I'll ever reach the income level I was at in my sales career.

16:47But that's okay. Money is not my motivation with this business. I've been there. I've done that. And honestly, I am perfectly content where I am. My goal now is to be of service and improve lives. And in the end, the passion I feel every day, the messages I get from my clients when they achieve their goals is something that no amount of money can buy. And that fuels me like nothing else ever has. Fire Nation, what do you want to do day to day? Something that you're passionate about, something that you know is changing the world, or just check a box because it's bringing in a couple more dollars into your bank accounts.

17:19And this is a conversation we consistently need to have with ourselves as we're living this one life that we have. So Richie, give us the one key takeaway that you want to make sure Fire Nation gets from our entire conversation today. Fire Nation, I am one of you. I've been following John for seven years, I believe. You've never missed an episode. Whoa. If I could impart one thing to you, it's that we should all wake up every day and ask, how can I be of service today? What I've learned is that most people want to be rewarded for everything they do, right? They wake up and they want people to serve them.

17:57And this goes in every facet of your life. But the people who win, the people who are truly happy are the ones who go out and live life as servants of others. And that can be serving yourself. that could be serving your spouse, but always try to be the biggest servant in the room and you will succeed. Richie, how can Fire Nation connect with you? If you want our listeners to learn more about you, to learn from you, to maybe work with you, give us that call to action. All right, they can reach me on all the social media platforms, but what I encourage them to do, what I challenge them to do is reach out to me at readyanywherefitness.com.

18:37they can literally book into my calendar. And let's just have a chat. Even if you're not super interested in what I'm offering, I love talking to people. And if you are interested, I have some really special bonuses lined up for the Yo Fire family. And just to be 100 % honest, John, I've never offered a discount in the three years I've been doing this. Not once. I've never dropped a penny, but I have some really cool things lined up for the Yo Fire family that I'm not going to tell right now, but trust me, anyone who hops on one of them calls, they're going to be stoked. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

19:15You've been hanging out with RF and JLD today, so keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com and type Richie in the search bar, and this episode will pop right up. It is going to have the links to everything that we talked about. And Richie, one more time, what is that URL for Fire Nation. Readyanywherefitness.com. And remember Fire Nation, mention that you are Fire Nation, that you listened to the Entrepreneurs on Fire episode for a little something, something special. And Richie, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, brother, and we'll catch you on the flip side.

19:56Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Richie for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire nation, what can 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side.

20:34If you've been sizing NetSuite up to make the switch, then take advantage of their special financing offer today. Defer payments of a full NetSuite implementation for six months. No interest, no payments. Visit netsuite.com slash fire to get the visibility and control you need to weather any storm. That's netsuite.com slash fire. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks.

21:11Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.