Boosting employee wellbeing: One exercise at a time
After becoming a father in 2014, Frank quickly discovered how challenging it became to find time for exercise or afford the luxury of a gym membership and started focussing all his energy into providing a solution for clients to access Award Winning Personal Training anywhere in the world!
- Over 5,000 clients helped so far.
- One of the fastest growing Personal Training programmes in the world.
- Featured on Channel 4, Sky, ITV, BBC News, Daily Mail, Closer, Bella and many more.
- Trained Ruth Langsford for her appearance on BBC Strictly Come Dancing.
- Fantastic Portfolio of Celebrity and High Profile Clients.
- Winner of Reigate & Banstead High Street Hero Award 2022.
- Winner Theo Paphitis #SBS Business Award 2018.
- 15 years experience in Health & Fitness Industry.
- Ambassador for Surrey Half Marathon, Weybridge 10k and Colour Me Krazy 5k running events.
- Under the thumb of three women – Wife, Katie and Daughters Ella (8) and Chloe (5)
He’s even trained Ruth Langsford for her appearance on BBC Strictly Come Dancing, and he’s got a fantastic portfolio of celebrity and high profile clients. I might ask him later to namedrop a few, if he doesn’t break any confidentiality agreements. Also, he’s an award-winning trainer as well. And he’s won awards for his great work, including most recently winner of Reigate & Banstead High Street Hero Award 2022, and 15 years experience in the health and fitness industry.
In this episode, CommsHero podcast host Asif Choudry and Frank Sinclair discuss the importance of exercising for your mental health, the challenges people face to keep motivated, how the pandemic has effected personal trainers and how Frank markets his personal training business.
Key topics
“That’s a good question. I did fall into the industry, I’ll be honest with you. I fell into it. So, it wasn’t like I was born and thought, “Yep, this is me.” But what I found, I was working in a bank at the time, behind a screen, sitting down all day, didn’t know it, but I didn’t feel that good. I didn’t feel that good. Didn’t like it, didn’t enjoy it, didn’t have a purpose. And then I found a job in the gym. They trained me up and it was almost immediate. I just loved exercising myself, because you feel better in the mind and across the body, but you just had more energy about you.
So, then I was like, why not help other people do it? And now it’s like I don’t view it as a job, which sometimes is bad. I try and keep it as a job and as a business, because you have to, to keep the thing going. But yeah, because I’ve felt the benefits myself and now I feed off seeing my clients and their benefit and how they feel. And even more now after this pandemic, or still coming out of the pandemic, I don’t know where we are in the pandemic now. But this new world we’re in, I feel like it’s more important than ever because everyone started going outdoors and moving because they had nothing else to do. I feel like we’ve all had to stop and pause and reflect on what we’re here for, what we’re doing. And exercise plays a role for all of us. Even if it’s just a little bit each day, like nipping out, you guys on lunch breaks, or hopping on a video with me to do a quick bit of yoga. I think it makes your day better. And that’s why I do it.”
“It’s got to be the emotional side first of all, because you get that pretty quick within the first week or two of doing something for someone, you can see it and feel it and they’ll say, “Oh, I feel so good.” And then, so I think the main benefit is the emotional one. Especially if you are someone who is sitting at home all day, or a lot of your day, you can easily fall into that lull of not moving, or not feeding your body the right stuff, or not thinking about how your stress levels are being managed, all of that because work’s always in your face. You guys, you’re busy people, you’ve got loads on your plate. Other people asking you to do things. If you allow them to take over and other people to take over, you lose sight of yourself and how you feel.
So, the main benefit I think is just regaining that, I suppose, self love a bit. A bit of passion for yourself and your body and yeah, that’s a real quick change that happens. You could just say this week, “I’m going to go out every lunch time, I’m going to walk 10 minutes,” and it will make a difference. So, this is the biggest. And of course, you get ripped shredded, like you Asif, you get great body, but that’s a byproduct.”
“That’s the gold question that we’re always trying to answer, but it has to start from in yourself. So, we always start, in my community anyway, we start at the why. So, you have to ask yourself why, and it might not come straight away, but I could sit here and say, “Go exercise every day.” But if you don’t really feel it inside yourself about why that’s going to improve your situation, you’re not going to get up tomorrow and do it when I’m not in your face. You’re not going to have that purpose built inside you.
If you can really get in tune with what it is in your life that could improve. And that could be personal, it could be work related. I operate so much better when I’m exercising every day. I force myself a little bit to exercise, even when I don’t want to, knowing that the other side of that exercise, I’m going to be able to push forward and do what I want to do with my business. Whatever the driver is, the why for you, you got to start there because if you haven’t got it, you just won’t do it.
Because it comes down to you at the end of the day, doesn’t it? It really does, it comes down to the person, the individual. I just think that’s the only thing that I’ve ever found that works for everybody. It’s that constant reminder to yourselves and I think what you do well, and that’s why you’ve got me onboard I guess, is you create an environment in which people can be accountable as well and feel like they’re around other people that are trying to better themselves.”
“Yeah, I mean it’s different except I feel like … I was talking about this yesterday actually with another trainer. I feel like it’s going to be a positive. I feel like it’s largely positive in terms of what can come positive out of a scenario that we’ve been through, in that people are more engaged like we said, in the mental health aspects and linking exercise to that. I do think that’s huge. So, our purpose as trainers is not just on the six packs and the weight loss, although we still provide services for that, of course, because people always need it.
I just feel the shift in our industry has certainly gone more towards the emotional, mental benefits. So, post-COVID and it’s happening right now, I just think the conversations are different.
I’ve actually gone opposite here, I’ve gone and taken on a facility. I’ve taken on some bricks and morter after the pandemic. Whereas it’s been such a tough time for people that had those already in terms of how we deliver it. I feel where I am down here in Surrey anyway, there is a real urge to have connection with other humans because it’s not as often now, certainly in our jobs, people are still doing hybrid working down here, as you guys are. Some people are just in the office. Some people are just at home, there’s a real mix now. Just feel like there’s a thirst to be around people who again, are in a positive mindset as you.”
“The community’s been the word, the big thing I’ve been using and I’ve put on my wall and I keep reminding myself every day and I’m trying to create community wherever I can and I’ll try and communicate that in any way I can. So, we’ve discussed social media’s a great way of connecting our community. And then I would, I guess from a marketing perspective, once you’ve got communities built and you have certain demographics and for me, it might be we have a group of women who are all on the same journey. We call them Team Fabulous. We met up at the weekend. We created a community for them to be surrounded by people that they feel like they fit in with, and I market and sell my products within that community, for that community, specific to them.
For me as well, it’s worked with setting up companies to create communities within companies, going into companies and asking them, “What is it you need? What is it that your people need to thrive?” And then making sure that my face and what I do is in and around that community as often as possible. So, then I can create products and services that suit that audience. So yeah, it starts with the community. And you just find, for me, different demographics that have similar missions.”
“Well, so my understanding is a lot of companies who pre-pandemic had a budget for wellbeing to help their employees, would give things like gym memberships, or I don’t know, maybe hand out Fitbits or whatever they were doing, and around their teams. Since the pandemic, since this shift, of where people are and how people are working, there’s a issue around not knowing how to help their employees best. And as a personal trainer, I understand people and what you need, and there’s lots of different things. I’ve been able to sit down and listen to companies and say, “What is it you want for your people?” And give them some sort of means in order to deliver that.
So, from my perspective, it is delivering things like an exercise class on Zoom or on Teams, virtually together, like we do. Talking about the importance of stretching and yoga, which we do on our CommsHero Week. Why should you do that? Why do I do that at lunchtime? What’s the point? Let’s go do it together. Let’s feel it, let’s do it together. And just being in and around, sharing articles and different things you think are appropriate to that company are what we do. And it’s not just one thing, it always starts with listening, listening to the person, what is it you need? What’s the problem? So you used to pay for gym memberships. That’s not working anymore, because people aren’t next to the gym necessarily as much now, lots of gyms have shut down, sadly, because they’ve struggled through this period. What can we do? And generally it comes down to creating a positive community environment within the workplace. I think with the technology we’ve got now, it’s very easy for us to do that via Zoom, Teams and these services.”
“Top three tips are, understand why. Start there, that’s number one. If you can sit down and do that and we make you do that with a written sheet, we love a sheet. Write it down, digitally or paper. Maybe we’re being more sustainable now, do it digitally. But sit with yourself, get that, get your why. And then you can move on to the next step.
Tip two is to make it very simple, very achievable to start with because you’ll see programs that are great. And you’ll see maybe the top celebrity in your eyes doing the most mega program there is, six days a week, four hours a day, whatever they’re doing, it’s unattainable and unachievable. So, make it really simple. If that’s doing 10 minutes at a lunch break, start there, that’s it.
And then tip three and you’ve already got this ticked I think, is be around people that are on a similar path to you. As much as you can, surround yourself with them, whether it’s virtually, in the office, wherever, down your neighbourhood, be around people that are trying to do the same as you, trying to better themselves with fitness and you are good to go. Honestly, I think once you’ve got those ticked, you’re off.”
“Yeah, I suppose I’ve got a very strange perspective on it because I’m not in that industry, but I feel like I’m part of it. You always say you don’t need to be in comms to be a CommsHero. I do genuinely feel like it. And I think that’s probably the biggest selling point, biggest USP. I don’t know if any other network like yours, that’s doing what you are doing and trying to create such a great community. So, why would I recommend it? It’s positive. It’s going to push you forward. It’s something different. To me, you seem like incredible people. I haven’t even met most of you. I don’t even know if we’ve ever met physically yet…we’ve never met, physically. We meant to, we meant to, it never happened, did it? So yeah, I mean, it’s aligned with how I view my industry. And like I said to you, tip three is being around people that are on a similar path. You seem to be very positive about what you’re doing as a community. You’re so active, engaging with each other, as I love to be in my communities. It just all ticks boxes. So yeah, if you feel like you’ve got a hole that needs filling, be a CommsHero.”
Resources
Click here to view Frank’s website
Fancy getting in the hot seat and sharing your CommsHero wisdom? Contact Asif Choudry
You’ll find this podcast on Spotify, Apple and on our website www.commshero.com. Please leave a rating and review.
Tickets are now available for #CommsHero week, 19-23 September. The week-long virtual event with over 35 sessions live streamed and available on demand for a year. Great value at £180 and you can find out more at www.commshero.com