Today’s talking point:

I’m joined by Busy to Boss Academy student and my personal trainer Emma Munn! We chat about being authentic online, changing up your business, managing guilt and trusting the process! Emma also shares her approach to working and retaining clients.

Join the Decide to Thrive workshop designed to help you future-proof your business.

Emma is my wonderful client AND my personal trainer. This is such an incredible conversation, where talk about starting from scratch with your business, making necessary changes and the importance of being authentic if you want to build an aligned business.

There are going to be a lot of light-bulb moments for you in this one.

What we talked about:

Every Busy to Boss interview starts by talking about why we do what we do. After working on her own relationship with her body, Emma realised there was no one in the fitness industry that she felt was there for her. Emma wanted to be the honest and realistic voice that she saw the fitness industry needed.

“I honestly think that I wanted to be PT so someone could tell me what the secret [to getting the perfect body] was. And then really suddenly realised that there wasn't one. And only once I realised that I also realised that there was nobody really out there in the fitness industry that I felt was there for me.

I didn't feel like there was somebody else, supporting women who were in a very similar position to I was”

an authentic voice

I feel like the fitness industry definitely needs more honest and realistic women who help other women to kind of fix their relationships with themselves and I hope that in some small way I do that for my clients.

Emma is extremely passionate about being authentic, showing the realities of fitness and making fitness more accessible. For Emma, this is a conscious choice.

“Even as a personal trainer working in the industry, I find so much fitness content really alienating. And it messes with your opinion of yourself, your self-confidence, and your self-worth.”

It’s Emma’s mission to create content that helps women feel better, more empowered and more confident in their relationships with themselves.

Emma’s fitness business is run on the concept that: “fitness only works for you if you can find a way to make it realistically add it to your lifestyle.” Everyone’s fitness journey is going to look different, it is about finding your own way to making it work.

Making business changes

Emma is no stranger to adapting her business. The pandemic changed Emma’s business from in-person to online.

“I feel like the last couple of years, completely changed the way that my business looks in a way that's quite unexpected, really. And it's strange, because for me financially, I actually had the strongest year during the pandemic.”

After buying a house in London and moving location, Emma took more one-to-one clients online permanently. Emma constantly adapts her business to ensure she is best serving her clients. Alongside one-to-one, she has an app for monthly clients with bespoke training plans and also a 6-week and 12-week group programme.

“It's just this kind of constant adaptation, I guess, to what I offer what's available online and finding ways to support women with their health and fitness, virtually, and in the most comprehensive, I guess, way possible. It's definitely made me have to kind of think outside the box about what my business looks like and what it can actually offer.”

retaining Long term clients

Emma never wanted to be someone in the fitness industry offering the ‘transformations’.

No matter what life stage her client is going through, Emma is able to support them. Whether that’s wedding preparation, having their first child, trying to conceive, postnatal or going through menopause.

She is focused on maintaining long-term clients and has been strategic in business planning to support this:

“I took a step back, and I was like, okay, where, what am I potentially going to lose this client, in this journey in their journey, what stages are they going to drop off and not be able to work with me? For all of those stages, I went away and made sure that I was not just qualified, but confident that I could look after them during that period of their life. And that when they were ready, they would always come back because they knew no matter what stage they were going through, I was capable, and I was there and I was ready.“

Emma loves that she can build such lovely relationships with the people she works with, stating it makes her job the “best thing ever”.

Joining the academy

Emma loved the community element of the Busy to Boss Academy - something she was missing after moving locations and reducing her in-person clients.

She was also ready to grow her business but didn’t want to do it alone. Being part of the academy gave her the support and perspective to make changes she wouldn’t necessarily of made if she was going solo.

“I think for anybody who's running their own business, no matter what industry you're in, or no matter what your business it is, sometimes you have the ideas, but it's not the ideas that are problem, it's the execution.”

Emma found the community within the academy to be a real driver behind her decisions, as they helped her with a fresh perspective and constructive feedback.

Emma also feels much more inspired and confident to share ideas since joining the academy.

“I feel much more inspired, I think since I joined the academy, and I'm able to actually take those ideas now and shape them into products that I think will actually work and help people in a way that maybe before I might have thought it was a nice idea. “

“And it's nice when you've got that excitement about something new and when you share that with the group you have other people who are actually excited for you. These are incredible women who are running very successful, amazing businesses and completely different in various industries, but for them to be supporting you as well is a really lovely feeling. “

Guilt-free time off

Emma recently got married and found taking time off around the event harder than she thought.

With the support from the academy, she really slowed down and scaled back so she could enjoy the lead-up to the wedding.

“I remember you guys saying to me “you never get that time again, and you really need to embrace and enjoy it” and you were 100% Right. I think that has been probably one of the most recent standout things that really, I needed from the academy”.

When she returned to work, she had a plan of what she needed to do next.

“l think for anyone running a business, you do still get that little bit of guilt when you take time off. And I think [planning] is a great way to combat that because you feel like you're being productive and proactive about what you're going to do when you return, without trying to force yourself to do like a million things before you switch off”

celebrating the wins

The biggest win for Emma is the amount of new ideas and projects that she’s had over the last couple of years, especially whilst she went through big life changes.

She celebrates that her business is sustainable and fits within the life that she loves. She is now much more confident and excited for everything to come in her business, knowing that she can handle it.

Speaking to her past self

If Emma could speak to the past version of herself before joining the academy, this is what she’d say:

“You don't need to worry, it's all going to be fine. I was worried to take the leap in the past and go like 100% online, but like I look at the business now and I think you know what we're doing absolutely fine.”

Make sure you follow Emma and her journey on Instagram.