While social media can be a great tool to put your message out there and connect with people, it's never the ultimate means to build and grow your fitness business.

It takes more than that, one that ensures not just short-term but long-term success.

To a certain extent, it helps but something more profound works better.

Sahmura Gonzalez is a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC) and a NASM Certified Personal Trainer. She holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and completed her Integrative Health Coaching Professional Training at the Department of Integrative Medicine at Duke University. Over the nine years that Sahmura has spent in the fitness, health, and wellness industry, she has trained and coached over 20,000+ sessions and worked with hundreds of clients with a wide variety of goals and abilities.

No matter which hat she is wearing (Personal Trainer or Health Coach), her goal is simple: to empower her clients to take their health into their own hands and to drive measurable results by working with them to create attainable goals and action steps and provide accountability.

In this episode, Sahmura shares her transition from being an in-person trainer to an online health coach, the benefits of being one, and how it completely changed her life, releasing her from exhaustion and burnout. 

She talks about giving value and impacting her clients' lives, making her build a business from referrals, and putting out a message on her website that speaks from her core and resonates to the right audience that shares what she stands for.

She underscores the need to develop one's essential communication and listening skills as keys to genuinely connecting and building relationships and a business for the long term.

"Ask to understand, not to judge; seek to understand them."

-Sahmura Gonzalez

What you will learn from this episode:

01:17 - What it was like during the time she started in coaching when social media wasn't 'a thing' yet 

04:30 - Her social media posts that worked and a tool that gained for her a large number of followers 

06:11 - Actions she needed to take to make a successful career right from the start

09:37 - business practices that weren't sustainable 

13:52 - Hitting a plateau and heading towards burnout Having a clear and direct mindset to running a business 

15:43 - Her transition to health coaching

19:00 - Getting clients by referrals and through her website and not so much from social media

20:31 - Having the edge by learning how to communicate your value 

24:17 - Talking about COVID as a blessing in disguise for her business

30:25 - How people resonate and get pulled in when she put out there in her website the core of who she is The importance of core values in your website and its impact on clients

33:34 - Risking to show her real self and building a long-term relationship out of it

38:20 - What she hopes to see happening in the fitness industry in the year 2022 and beyond 40:39 - What showing up and listening to your clients can do for your business

43:32 - Asking, listening, and not judging

Connect with Sahmura Gonzales:

• sahmuragonzales.com

Connect with Gavin McHale:

• maverickcoachingacademy.ca
• LinkedIn
• Instagram