BTS of the Eat Like Ruby business

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello fam, welcome back to the pod. I am back today doing a little bit of a different episode. I'm actually a little bit nervous about this episode. I do not get nervous to pod. I've been podding a long time, but I am a little bit nervous today, just a bit of a different topic. What we're gonna talk about today is almost like a behind the scenes of Eat Lack Ruby, the business. And really what I'm gonna talk about today is why I unscaled my business. And that might seem like such a random niche topic to talk about to some people, but there'll be other people listening who are either in the business world and or in the coaching world who will know that this is a huge conversation in that world. And when I say this is a huge conversation, I mean like scaling your business and growing your business is a huge conversation in this world. And we're gonna talk about that today. And I'm gonna talk about essentially why I unscaled mine and I don't even think this is a word, but like why I ungrew mine, like downsized my business. And I have thought about doing this episode for probably 12 months, I would say maybe even a little bit longer. But I was in the process of changing the business while I was thinking about the episode. And it was just one of those things where it was like in my mind, like, should I podcast about this? And then for whatever reason, I would just be like, nah, nah, I won't right now. And then over the last, I mean, over the last 10 years, I've been building Eat Lack Ruby, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit today. I'm gonna talk about kind of like the starting point of Eat Lack Ruby and where things went. Um, and then over the last year, I have changed so many things. And really, I would say over the last, like, honestly, over the last month, maybe two months, all of that change and all of the grind and the work and the ups and downs, which we're gonna hear about today, got to a point where I was like, oh my god, like I actually did it, like I actually got this where I want it. And when I say like got this where I want it, most people, and this is what we're gonna talk about today, most people think about a quote, successful business as being like as big as possible, like as many people as possible, as much money as possible, etc. That is not where I got it to. I got it away from that, and I got it to a point where I was like, this is where I want it. When I think about the work that I want to do for the next decade, it is this, and it is the work that I get to do now because of the changes that I've put into this business. So it's honestly only been in the last couple of months that I've just been like, oh my god, we got there. Like, oh my god, we got there, and holy shit, there were so many times that I did not think we would. And we'll hear all about that today. Maybe, but that's why I've just kind of landed now where I'm like, I think I'm just ready to do that episode and just do it from like a really positive place. And I guess my point with this episode is I think there's a couple of points. First of all, sometimes like episodes like this are just good for me to do. I did the episode probably a month or two ago about Shaq and his events and like some of the anxiety and stuff I'd been feeling with those events. And even though there wasn't like a lot of point to it on the podcast, because the podcast is predominantly like educating and helping people, that wasn't really an educational episode, it's very helpful for me. It's like therapeutic to just speak it out. Um, but then at the same time, I think it's just cool, like so many people have been in Eat Lack Ruby and part of the Eat Lack Ruby journey in some way over the last decade. And I think just kind of cool for you guys to hear different episodes like this from time to time. And then that kind of comes into the second reason that I wanted to do the episode. We do have so many long-term Eat Lack Ruby girls. Whether you've been in Eat Lack Ruby, whether you're still in Eat Lack Ruby, even if you're just a podcast listener and I don't say that lightly, like I know we have so many people that have never actually been an Eat Lack Ruby client, but they've also never missed a podcast episode, which is unreal. I love this so much. But what I'm getting at is I think anyone who has been around for a long time has probably seen some of these changes. And I think for some people there would be an element of like, I wonder why she did that. Like, I wonder why she took that away or bought that in or changed that or whatever. And I just thought, like, kind of cool to explain it today for that reason. And also I think like we just work or like I just work in kind of like a random field when you think about it. Like most of us grew up with the number one lesson we were taught was don't give money to strangers on the internet. And any of you that have paid for anything in eat like Ruby is like, wow, I've given money to a stranger on the internet. And so I just think it is such a weird industry, it's such a weird world when you think about it. And I just thought it might be cool to kind of give a little bit of context from someone inside that world. I've been in this world for a long time, and I think the changes that I've made and the things that I've been feeling and doing over the last few years are quite different to the way a lot of other people navigate this industry, and that's why I just thought it'd be cool to bring this combo forward. And I feel like that kind of segues into the last point, and this is probably one of the main points. They all are actually, but I know we have a lot of online coaches or similar, like trainers, nutritionists, online coaches that listen to the pod. And I just think not enough people are talking about this side of business. Like, there are obviously so many podcasts and you know business coaching things out there, but nearly all of them are like grow your business, scale your business, more, more, more, more, more. And that can be an effing nightmare. Speaking from experience, that can be a nightmare at times. And that's where I just thought I want to speak about the other side of this whole thing for some online coaches who might hear this and be like, wow, ropes can relate. And it's actually really cool to hear someone talk about it from this angle. So before I get into it, there are just like a couple of tiny things I want to preface. The very first thing I want to say is I am not doing this episode to get advice from people. So, with all due respect, if you reach out to me with advice off the back of this episode, I am actually just gonna ignore it. Only because I have navigated this. I am very, very happy and very content with where I'm at right now. I do not want or need advice, I don't want or need opinions on this. This shit has lived rent-free in my head for years and now it doesn't, and that feels great. So I don't want, I don't care what you think. So even if you listen, I think we're gonna have a lot of business-minded people that will listen to this episode and go, oh, like I wonder if she thought about this or has she ever thought about this? I'd nearly bet you a million dollars, I've thought about everything. Like I said, this shit has done laps in my head for years. So I'm not at a point where I want to change anything. I'm so happy with where things are at, and that's why I want to speak about it now. And I just don't need any business experts, whether you think you're a business expert or whether you really are, and you've had a lot of success in business, absolutely go off. Like nothing but respect. It is such a freaking hard thing. Business. So I have so much respect for anyone who is having success, whatever that looks like for you. But I don't need to hear it. And that does bring me to the other thing I want to preface. I cannot stress this enough, guys. I'm gonna talk about some things today that I have navigated in business that just didn't feel right for me, but I can't stress enough. I'm not saying these things are wrong. So if you're doing any of these things, if you're working towards these things, if you've done them and they felt really good for you, again, literally nothing but love and respect for that. I'm so stoked for you. I am not saying that certain things are right and wrong. I'm saying that just certain things were not right for me and not what I wanted long term. So please don't take offense or please don't think like, oh my god, Ruby said that's the wrong way to do it. Definitely not. I'm just gonna speak about literally my own personal experience today. And like I said at the start, guys, I'm pretty much gonna talk about unscaling my business. And like I said, some people might think that's random, some people might not even know what it means. So if we look at that really quickly for a second, a quote scaled business, especially if we're looking obviously at like an online business, fitness coaching, whatever we want to call it, there's a huge conversation around quote scaling your business, meaning having a business that is built in a way that infinite people can come in at any time. And essentially you can make infinite sales and you can just like have no cap on how many people you can help, how much work you can do, how much money you can make, how much sales you can make, etc. And so if we think about an example really quickly, and I'm sure we'll get into this more today. But if you have a program that is kind of like pre-made or you have an e-book, is a really good example. Like if you have something that someone can just come along and buy at any time and like literally a million people could buy it tomorrow, right? And you wouldn't have to do any more work. If you've written a book, it's like writing a normal book. If you've written a book, you've done the work, it sits there if a million people buy it tomorrow. That's a scalable thing because it's uncapped, it's infinite potential. As opposed to if we think about a one-on-one coaching business where it's like, well, obviously you can only help a certain amount of people at a time, you can only have a certain amount of clients at a time. That's not a scalable business. And when you are in the thick of this industry, that can get really demonized. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today. And it's so funny, I think we've all probably had this conversation with our friends in some way, how like everyone has different sponsored ads and different algorithms that feed them different shit on the internet. My algorithm just feeds me either subs, like gels or electrolytes, because I constantly look up gels and electrolytes for clients. Like if I talk to a client and they say to me, like, I use Morton Gels, I look up Morton Gels, I use Pure Gels, I look up Pew Gels. So I'm constantly looking up gels, so I'm constantly getting these ads for gels. I'm constantly looking up the dates of events, like when is Sydney Marathon? When is Melbourne Marathon? When is Port MacIon Man? So I'm constantly getting fed these things of like get your ticket for this event. And we all know I'm not doing any of these events. And then the final thing that my algorithm just hits me with all the time is scale your business, scale your fitness business, scale your coaching business, and just skipping ahead a little bit here. This is definitely something we'll probably come back to today. Definitely, probably. Um but the thing that they say on these ads, or the thing that they really get at you on these ads, is are you stuck doing one-on-one coaching all day? I am not stuck doing one-on-one coaching all day. I studied nutrition and training so I could do one-on-one coaching all day. I literally studied this shit so I could help people with this shit. I'm not stuck. And I just want to point that out straight away. Like I said, I'm sure we'll pull that apart as the episode goes on. But I think any online coach who has ever either got hit with these ads and these algorithms or just kind of sees what other coaches are doing, and you kind of just start to get fed shit through the industry. If you've ever been made to feel like, oh my god, you're stuck, you're capped, you've got like a limit on how much you can do, just stop for a second and ask yourself, yeah, but do I like doing it? And is this actually what I want to do? And therefore, am I actually stuck? Am I capped? Am I limited? Or am I literally living my dream? Because as a person who has done all of it, and that's what we're gonna talk about today, I can tell you that when I'm doing one-on-one coaching work with nutrition and training, I'm definitely not stuck. I am literally living my dream. And it's so funny because there's like one, there's one chic in particular, I don't even know her name, I don't know lit like what she actually does, but she's just constantly in my sponsored ads about like, I make 200 grand a month in my coaching business. I do this, I do that, I do two calls a week. Like, this is the thing, again, if you know, you know, but this is the thing they come at you with. Like, I make X amount of money and I do fuck all work. And it's like, okay, cool, go off. Like, some of us enjoy the work. But the funny thing about this one particular ad is she talks about, like, she always says, I put my money into sponsored ads and that does the work for me. And I literally just feel like replying to this person and going, just an FYI. Like, you've put money into this ad for me to see it, and I'm trying to work out how to block you, how to get you out of my algorithm. I'll never be standing up to your thing. So it's just like the like contradiction of her being like, This is how I make my money, and me being like, just FYI, like you've invested into this ad and it's been a complete waste, but go off. But really, like that is what I want to talk about today. And I guess if I go back to the start of Eat Lack Ruby, kind of, I'll keep this short because this could be a whole episode in itself, but I just want to kind of like talk through the process. I started Eat Lack Ruby. I actually made my Instagram page, Eat Lack Ruby, in 2018. And I again, this could be such a long story, but this was me when I was studying nutrition, managing a gym. So I'd been a PT. I'd literally been a PT since 2008. So I'd been a PT for 10 years, and then I moved into gym management and I was studying nutrition while I was managing the gym. And I literally just made my Instagram name, Eat Like Ruby, because I'd started just posting more of my food. And like anyone who was doing Instagram back in 2018, like you would literally just take the ugliest photo of your lunch and upload it, and everyone was like, oh my god, like love this. It was so effing easy back then. But that's how the actual name Eat Like Ruby started, and then it just started to get like a bit of traction, good following, good engagement and stuff. And back then, again, it was so easy, it was so authentic, like you didn't even have algorithms, you didn't have sponsored shit on Instagram. It was so genuine and it was awesome. I side note, I don't know how people start this shit these days. Like, I could not, I don't think I could start an Instagram. I shouldn't rain on that for people that are, but I would find it so hard to start that these days because it was just so chill back then. But then I just was like doing my own thing, like using that account to just promote my own stuff, like what I was doing. I wasn't taking clients or anything at this point because I wasn't qualified enough to take clients. And then when it got towards the end of 2019 is when I was qualified enough to take clients, and I literally remember, I shit you not, I remember taking my first four clients at $25 a week per client, and literally my system was like, here's my bank details, transfer me the money, right? And anyone who owns a business now or anyone who operates in Eat Like Ruby right now is like we don't operate like that anymore, right? But that's just how it started. Like everyone has to start somewhere, and I remember thinking, like, oh my god, I have four clients. Like, I've got four online nutrition clients. I've made it, I have made it because that was literally my dream. Like, as I went through the fitness industry and then started studying nutrition and started to get into social media, the whole online coaching thing I was just like, oh my god, like imagine just helping people online with nutrition. That genuinely semped like SEMT? Is Semped a word? Seemed like such a stretch, and like, oh my god, imagine if I could get there. So I feel like I even just need to give myself a little bit of acknowledgement for a second because there was a time in my life where I was like, imagine if I could help people online with nutrition. Now look at us, right? So that's awesome. But that was end of 2019, and then I finished studying then. So when we came into 2020, I was still managing the gym, but pretty much my life over like in the back half of 2019 was managing the gym, studying, and having a small handful of clients. And then because study was finished in 2020, I was like, okay, well, I could just replace that study time with some more clients and still manage the gym. So I took on a few more clients at the start of 2020, and then obviously COVID happened. So I live in Queensland. COVID was really predominantly like March through to July of that year in 2020. And then after July, we still had all those like random lockdowns here and there and all of that shit. But like the real kind of stay at home permanently time was that four-month window in the middle of 2020. And I remember when that first happened, you know, like everyone in the world were just like, what the hell is going on? And then when I realized, like, this is not just gonna be a few days, this is a big thing. I was just like, well, I'm just gonna take on even more clients. And so again, long story short, when they reopened the gyms in the middle of 2020, I was chock a block with clients and then like, oh my god, I have to go back to managing a gym. Managing a gym that's just been shut for four months has to be cleaned like five times a day. Like it was gnarly. And in the back half of 2020, I just worked like a lunatic. I mean, I feel like I've been working like a lunatic ever since then, but I managed the gym full-time in those COVID times and had pretty much like a full-time online business as well. So then when I got to the end of 2020, sat down with Shaq, who is my husband. If people don't know, he's been along for this entire journey. Massive shout out to Shaq. Pretty much sat down with him and was just like, this is where things are at. Like financially, we were pretty good. We'd built our house. Like it was just not to get into all the details, but we were just in a position where it was like, if you're ever gonna have a crack, have a crack now. And worst case scenario, you can probably walk into any gym in Australia and get a job if you have to. So I did that from the start of 2021. In 2021, I did part-time gym work and just like gradually cut back on that more and more. And then pretty much at the end of that year, I was completely done with the gyms and completely in eat lacquery full-time. So coming into 2022, I will speed this up, I promise, but coming into 2022, I was just fully booked, online coach, working for myself, and it was awesome, but it was also like I never studied business. I never studied, I don't even know if you can study. I mean, these days you probably can, but back then, like I'd never studied having an online business and what all of that looked like. I like not to shout myself out, but also to shout myself out, I am the definition, and like Gmot says this to me all the time. People don't know Gmot who works for me. She says to me all the time, like, you are the most insane person when it comes to just figuring shit out. Like, and that is honestly so true. When I think about everything we've done in Eat Lac Ruby, I never studied technology, I never studied business, I never studied anything, but I will just friggin' figure it out. Like I just will. And I will stay up all night and I will work for months on end and I will do shit the hard way, and then I'll realize six months later, like, oh my god, that was such an easier way for me to do that. But whatever, that's fine. We spend six months doing it the hard way. That is business. If you know, you know, like that is business. But in 2022, I was really in that position where I'm like, yes, I have a fully booked online business, I'm fully working for myself, self-employed, happy days, things are good, but also like I am literally just figuring shit out as I go. And then I specifically remember I have such a good memory with like dates, numbers, etc. This is why I can remember all the shit about my clients, which we'll probably talk about at some point. But um, I specifically remember in May 2022, I had just been through like, you know, just eat lacquer B had just grown and grown and grown, and you know, me going through the gyms and then becoming self-employed and all of this stuff. And like side note, that's not really something that my family had done or anything either. Like, I didn't learn this from anyone, and like my family are friggin' unreal. Like my parents worked so hard for their whole life, but no one in my life had really gone into this self-employment thing and like started their own business, and I had no one to kind of follow in that trajectory. So again, she's just like, what would I have been? 29, probably 30 at that time, and just winging it, just working it out along the way. Happy days. Anyway, May 2022, I was just like, I'm so booked up, busy, flat out. Shit's just so full, and it just has not stopped for like two years. And I just said to myself, like, I'm not taking any new clients this month, I'm not even advertising anything. I'd never really advertised to this day, sitting here right now, 2026, 10 years in business. I have never ever spent a cent on advertising in Eat Lack Ruby, touch wood. And I mean, that's probably a whole nother conversation in itself. But Eat Lack Ruby has always just grown from things like this podcast, absolutely, and just you know, Instagram, social media, and just genuinely being like, I love this shit. If you love it too, let's go. And if you don't, feel free to piss off. You guys have heard me say that a million times, and that has just worked for us. So, anyway, coming back to 2022, I was just like, keep everything on the download. Like, don't talk about coaching, don't talk about anything, just don't take any new clients, just give yourself a month to actually like work with the clients that you have, kind of find your feet, settle in, see where we go from here. So, in that month, we just had like a wait list, literally like a Google form on the Instagram page for people to join the wait list, but we weren't advertising it or anything, we weren't mentioning it, and 187 people joined that wait list in May. And I didn't just pull that number out of my arse. Like I said, I remember this shit. So I remember in June 2022 just being like, Well, I typically work with like 40 people at a time. I've got 40 people that I'm working with right now. We also have 187 people sitting here that were. Also, like to work with us. And so at that time, I can't even remember exactly when, but Eats by M, if people know Eats by M, she's been on the pod before. I think a lot of people would follow her if they follow me. I had reached out to M, I reckon that was probably start of 2022, and just said, like, are you taking clients? Like, if I get inquiries that I'm too booked up or I can't help or whatever, like, can I send them to you? And so Em had kind of like a subcontractor role in Eat Lack Ruby for a few years there, where clients would come to me, I would say, I'm too busy, like I'm too booked up, I can't help you right now, but I do have this person that I would recommend. And then if they were happy to do that, we would hook them up with Em and she would just pay me like a percentage. And I mean, I don't think she will mind me saying, but we're talking like five bucks a client or 10 bucks a client. Like again, none of us were out here doing crazy shit. I was just like, yeah, Em, just like give me 10 bucks a client. Like, I don't know, whatever. And so anyway, like come into the middle of 2022, we've got this massive wait list. Like, yes, we've got Em, but now she's kind of fully booked. She's also like advertising her own shit, running her own business. I'm running my own business. It's just a lot going on. And 2022 was the first year that I started to do group programs. When I did the first group program in Eat Lack Ruby, I completely winged that. And not in terms of like the nutrition and training, like I didn't have to wing nutrition and training because that's the shit I know. What I don't know is like, how the hell do you run a group program online?

unknown 23:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Well, guess what, Rubes? You're about to figure it out. So I did. And just to like put into context for you guys what this looks like behind the scenes, I mean, I'm sure every online coach is probably laughing and relating in some way. And I think it can even be refreshing for online coaches that are still building a successful business to hear people like me say this. But I remember when we would do things like group calls, I would get Shaq to go in the other room before the call and be like, join the call. I need to actually work out how Zoom works. I need to see, like, if you're gonna be in the waiting room, can you see me? I would be yelling down the hallway, can you see me? And then I'd be like, go into the waiting room, leave the waiting room. I want to see what happens when people leave the waiting room. Can they get back in? Get on the call, get off the call. Like, like I said, guys, Shaq has just been like whatever I needed. If I need a punching bag, he's there. If I need a test client, he's there. Even to this day, I say to Shaq, can you click the link in my Instagram buy? Tell me what comes up. Like, is it just working on my phone because I've built it or can you see it as well? And so you like, you just do shit like that, and I still do shit like that to this day. But first group program in 2022, and I remember we had about 30 something people in it, and that was really cool. We did live calls, like every week I would do a live call, and just again, like nutrition training has never been the thing that I've had to wing. That's the shit that I know. So I just kind of sat there and said, like, well, if I was gonna teach someone about flexible dieting and everything that we talk about across eight weeks, how would I divvy that up across eight calls? And I mean, fast forward, and anyone who's been in it like could be over the last few years would probably know, like, this is eventually what became the fat loss phase. And every single round that we went through, it just went through like an upgrade or a change, or like, oh, people are always asking about this thing, so we should make a whole call about that. No one really gives a shit about that call. Should we take that one out? Like, it always just got these little upgrades and stuff, but that's where it started. It was July 2022. It was called eight-week program. How'd you come up with that one, Rubes? Right? But literally just winging it and just building it and just trial, error, and if shit didn't work again, like you have to run these things, and people would reach out and be like, oh, when I click on this, it doesn't work. And again, I'm like, I don't freaking know why it doesn't work, but I'll work it out because it's it like Ruby and I'm Ruby. I've got to sort this shit out. But even if we think about that right there, that's probably something that I'm gonna come back to today, or that's gonna build up to my bigger point here. If I kind of speed this story up, we went through 2022, 23, 24, and into 2025 with different group programs to different extents. Like I said, we built the fat loss phase. The fat loss phase was huge in terms of the amount of people that did it, the amount of weight that people lost, the amount of success. Like it was unreal, but it was massive. It's a massive part of Eat Lack Ruby and everything we've been through to get to this point. But over those years as well, like we would run that, but then we're also on the podcast talking about like people shouldn't pursue fat loss all the time. So then you've got people being like, Can I join anything else besides the fat loss phase? And I'm like, ah shit, we need another program. Like, so then we've done different muscle game programs and stuff over the years. Then you get people that get to a point where they're like, I've learned all the nutrition stuff from Rubs, that's awesome. Do you just do training only? Shit, let's whip up a training only program quick, get that sorted. And again, we've just gone through so many levels and so many variations of these things over the years, and it's been awesome. Like, I literally would not be sitting here right now. I'm sitting here on a Monday morning, 11:30, recording a podcast. Like, I wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't for everything that we'd done over the years and just for me literally just friggin' figuring it out along the way. And then Gmort came into that equation, I'm sure I'll talk about her in a second. But it was all awesome and it was all great, but the biggest underlying thing throughout this entire time was the more people come into things and the more programs we offer, and the more rounds we run, and the more people are like, Do you have a program for this? Do you have a program for that? Can you help me with this? I've done that program. What programs next, etc. You're constantly building and I don't even know what the word is there, like adjusting, growing, pivoting, scaling as we're here to talk about. And what can happen there and what did happen there to me to an extent, and this is the thing is like we would kind of push to this point, and then I would push back against the business and against Gmod. So I guess we'll talk about GMOT for a second. I had different assistants and different people helping me just in different ways in it. That could be, like I said, I had M in some programs and stuff, and then I had virtual assistants that would do more of like the admin side of things. And then when you have virtual assistants and things like that, again, no disrespect to them, like they're just doing their business, but their hourly rate is usually very high. And then you, because they don't work in your business all the time, you're telling them shit, you're like you're constantly updating them. Anytime you get them to do a job, you've got to explain this job, and they're charging you this wild hourly rate, and then you just think, I should just do this myself, because by the time I explain this to you, I mean it like you're gonna send me an invoice for $100 to do a 10-minute job that took me 20 minutes to explain to you because you don't work here all the time, you don't know what's going on. So again, like no disrespect to them, but that system just didn't work that well for me. And when I got to that point, I shouldn't say I just want to clear that up because I've had virtual assistants that were awesome and they might be listening. Not that it didn't work that well for me, but I was just like, I don't like this system for like a long-term way to do business. So middle of 2023, I was like, I'm just gonna hire somebody because then they can just be around all the time, they can just know what's up. And I think we've done episodes talking about how I found GMOT. Gmot is literally the most perfect person to work for me, even now to this day. I G's coming over here in like an hour and a half to record the podcast with me. And we just constantly talk about how we are just the best fit for each other. So that was awesome. It was so good. But Gmot came in part-time in the middle of 2023, and then after, I think after about three months, I was just like, mate, can you just be full-time, please? Like you having a day off every week is just annoying. So just want to make sure it's okay with you. But I would love if you just were a full-time employee here. So she became full-time at the start of 2024, and like I said, that was awesome. I I could not say a bad word about her. She's like I said, she's gonna be on the podcast next week. You're actually gonna be hearing a lot from Gmod over the next few weeks and months. So hopefully people like her. But um, I love her, and that's the main thing. But coming back to what I was saying, when when we were like running all these different programs and trying to offer these different things, and really you're just trying to keep everyone happy because you've started to grow this big audience on social media and you've got a big podcast audience, and that's awesome. But then obviously the bigger that is, the more you've got people that are like, I want muscle gain, I want fat loss, I want flexible dieting, I want nutrition only, I want training only, I'm doing a marathon, I'm doing a triathon, I'm playing the sport, I'm doing all these things. And it's like, oh my god, how do we help all of these people, right? So you're just constantly, constantly like, what are we doing next? Who are we helping? Who does that work for? Who doesn't it work for? What are the pros? What are the cons? All this shit. And like I was saying a minute ago, I was just at this point where I would constantly be like, all I want to do is nutrition and training work. I don't give a shit about the system or the programs or the admin or the technology or the way that it works or what the start date is or who wants what program. I just want to talk to people about nutrition and training. And this is where like we would offer things in like Ruby and it would go really well. And then Gmot, like Gmot was the business manager. That was her title. And we've changed that title since then because of like all of this shit, right? But that's a whole different story. It's kind of gonna play out here. But she, as the business manager, and she's obviously getting all the emails and the inquiries and the things from people saying, like, does Ruby do this? Does Ruby do that? Does Ruby do this? And then she would kind of come to me and be like, I think we need to run a program for this, I think we need that, I think we need a membership, all of this stuff. And like again, go off Gmodch. Like, she has a brilliant brain. But I would just be like, I don't give a shit, mate. I just want to talk about nutrition training. And that that is where we were getting to in the business, especially when I started to make these changes. We were at this point, and this is why I probably couldn't record a podcast about this at the time. We were at a point where G would be like waiting for me to make these decisions, and I'd be like, I don't want to make that decision. I'm gonna go and record a podcast about like nutrition for running. And she's like, Okay, Rubs, like, do you really need to go and record a podcast to help runners for free when we need to have paid programs here? And I'd be like, I don't care. And so that was such a like obvious thing for me. And it kind of brings me to the whole point of this episode and the whole point of you know what I've been through over the last few years is I literally just got to a point where I was like, I don't want to be an operations manager, I don't want to be a CEO, I don't want to be a business owner. I'm happy to be a business owner enough to be able to run the business that I want to run, but the business that I want to run and the work that I want to do is nutrition and training. And like I said, the most key thing that kept sticking out to me there is like, I don't want to be an operations manager. And when you're at a point where you're just running these big programs and you're like, okay, this program's gonna go for 10 weeks, and then what are we gonna offer after that program? And everyone is in week six of this program, but they're asking what happens at the 10-week mark. I don't freaking know. Someone asked me about nutrition. I want to talk about nutrition. But then at the same time, and on that note, you find yourself like so busy and so, you know, like thinking about all of these big business things that you're just like, geez, I hope no one asks me about nutrition because I'm freaking flat out. Like, I'm so busy, I've got so many things to do. Gmot needs answers, everybody needs answers, I need to sign off on all these things. If someone asks me about nutrition training right now, it's just gonna be too much. And that to me, like that is the biggest red flag. And I would say if you're an online coach listening, again, like there are people, there are people that have grown the biggest, most financially successful, scaled fitness business and they've done such a good job of it. Like, go off. I think we can all name like the big dogs in the fitness industry. Nothing but respect. Because if you've been through things like I've been through and you've felt things like I've felt, I have nothing but respect for you for like getting to where you've gotten on the other side of that. But to me, I was just sitting there and I was just like, that is not the goal. Like to just to me. And that's where, like I said at the start of this episode, I cannot stress enough. Like, if you're working in that direction, I'm not saying you're doing it wrong. I'm just saying that was wrong for me. Like, I could literally feel it in my soul. It's gonna make me emotional right now. I did not plan on getting emotional. I'm like laughing and crying, but it was just this like genuine feeling in my soul of like, I don't want to have a big scaled fitness business. I just want to help people with nutrition and training. And so you've got this whole aspect here of, like I said, because things are just growing and moving so quickly, you just have no choice but to be that kind of like CEO, boss, operations manager person in terms of like what's next and what are we gonna run? And if we're doing this in jam, we're doing this in February in March, and when we get to May. And then if we sidestep from here, and there's going to be so many business people listening to this, like business-minded people, or if you run a business, own a business, etc., you're gonna hear these next few things and be like, no shit robes, that's business, right? But for me, being at that point where you're like, okay, we've got heaps of programs, heaps of people doing the programs, that means we need heaps of software and admin and like the tech side of things, like all the expenses goes up to be able to do those things. I also need more help. So, just to put into a bit of context, at the peak of all of this, we had a round of the fat loss phase with 234 people in it. And at the same time, we had 150 people doing training only. So we had about 380 people in Eat Lack Ruby at this time. And I'm gonna come back to that in a second because there's something else I want to say there. But when you're at that point, you're like, okay, well, I'm one person, so I can't do all of that. So we do need to bring in Emma and we need to bring in Gmod. And at the most, I had six people helping me at that time because I remember when we came into that round of the phallus phase, I was like, I can't do this by myself. So we had six people helping me at that time, and it was awesome. It worked. Like, I cannot stress enough. This is where so many business-minded people would be like, Yeah, but Rubes, it was working. And I'm like, Yeah, but it wasn't working for me because I didn't want to be an operations manager and a CEO who spent her days making sure those six staff members were good. And side note, like, it has always been a priority to me to look after my staff. Like, I will look after GmOP before I look after myself, right? But that's not what I set out to do. That's not what I want to do with my days. I want to help people with nutrition and training. And this is what I always kept coming back to. And then when you're in this position, it's like this vicious circle. And again, this is where business people are gonna go, yeah, Rubes, that is the circle, that's the point. But you're in this position where you're like, okay, well, we've got all these people in this program, so I'm gonna need all this staff to help me. If I've got all these staff and I'm committed to paying all these staff, we need to make sure all these people stay in this program and they don't have failed payments or they don't have any of this. And then that program's up and running and that's fine, but we've now got six staff members. So what the hell are we gonna do next to keep paying these staff members? So it's week one of this program, but we've got to start thinking about the next one. And then we've got to start advertising it and then we've got to start marketing it. Have we marketed enough? Should we send another email? Should we do more Instagram stories? Should we hound people more? We need to get more people in this because we've got six staff members. We've got six staff members because we've got all these people, but we need all these people because we've got six staff members. It's such a vicious loop. And I mean, side note, you've got businesses out there with 60,000 staff members. Like, I don't know how they sleep at night. I do not know how they sleep at night. But again, that right there was just the indicator to me was like, you don't enjoy this roofs. Like, you don't enjoy, you know, quote, sitting at the top of this business running a business. You enjoy literally talking to your clients about nutrition and training. But now you have no choice but to spend your days thinking about marketing, advertising, staff. I mean, when you've got staff, and side note, I've never had a bad staff member in my life, they've all been awesome. But when you've got six chiefs working in a business, people have bad days, right? So you're always like, okay, cool, who's having a bad day? Yep, all right, she's a bit snappy, gonna keep her off the front lines today. Right? Like everyone's got their days. So you just find yourself, or I just found myself in this position where it's like, I'm spending such little time just doing the thing that I love. And that is why I love the podcast so much. The podcast became like, I said, I would run away from the business, be like, I'm not dealing with that shit today. I'm going to record a podcast and just like lock myself in the studio and like record all these podcasts. While everyone was like, Has anyone heard from Rubes? And like, did anyone uh find out what she wants to do next after this round of this program? Because no one knows what to do until we hear from the boss. And then I'm over here being like, I don't want to be a boss. And even in that, you have moments like I genuinely have had moments where I'm like, Do I hire a CEO for Eat Like Ruby? Like, do I step away as the boss and I'm just the nutritionist? And we literally bring in a boss. And do we make Gmot the boss? Like, she was the business manager, she was really running the admin in the operations side of things, but we did so much of that together, and she would always want my opinion. And that was never a fault of hers. That was her just being like, it is eat like Ruby. I want to know what Ruby wants to do next. And she would always say to me, like, I'll take as much responsibility or as little as you want, Ruby's. Like, just you just let me know. And I'd just be like, Yeah, I'll let you know tomorrow. Again, like, I'm just not a good boss because I don't want to be a boss. I'm a good person to my employees, but I'm not good at telling them what to do. I'm like, yeah, do what you want because I just want to go and record the podcast. And then they're all like, Well, you've paying us a salary. Like, is there anything you want us to do? And I'm like, nah, find something to do. And so, I mean, I'm probably like making jokes about this, and it's one of those things where it was probably one of the biggest struggles of my life, but at the same time, like it wasn't that deep, but it did feel very deep at times because I'm like, this is my life's work. Like, I've dedicated such a large part of my life to this, and at so many times it just didn't feel right. And even that was so conflicting and so hard to navigate because you would, you know, have like a big program or have something running. And I could be sitting there going, I don't really want to run program after program after program. But then someone would pop up in that program and just be like, oh my god, it's the first time I've ever been taught flexible dieting this way. Oh my god, it's the first time I've ever been able to lose weight. This is the first time I've ever eaten at maintenance. You're the first person that's ever explained this to me. To the point where so often, like, so often people say to me, Rubes, you've changed my life. And I'm not oblivious to the fact that a lot of people do work for their entire life where no one says that to them. And so even that to me was such a red flag where I'm like, people are literally telling you that you are changing their life and you still don't feel like this is right. And it wasn't that that didn't feel like it was right, and that was what was so conflicting is like I'd be feeling like just the way this business is running isn't the way that I want to run a business for another 10 years. And I'll come back to that in a second, but just having that overall feeling about like the trajectory and the overall business model, but then having people just reach out and be like, Rubs, I just want to let you know how much you've helped me. I would be like, oh my god, like that is what I'm here for. So this is awesome. So if we are helping people with this program, like maybe it is right. And it was just like the biggest conflicting thing where I'm like, we're doing the work that we want to be doing, but the way that we're doing it just doesn't feel like how I want to be spending my days. And then the other huge factor to me, I don't know if this is gonna have to become like a two-parter episode or just a really long episode. We'll see how she goes. But I feel like I've still got a lot more to say. I feel like there's been about 10 things I've said or come back to, and I can't remember one of them. So we'll see how that goes. But um, the other huge thing that was happening alongside all of this is when you have a group program or a scaled business or whatever people want to call it, but when you have something, if we think about those numbers I said before, at the peak of this, like at the highest point of having people in eight, like Ruby, we had about 380 people. I was never, I never wanted to go in the direction, and I never did go in the direction of being like, I'm gonna step away from those people and let the staff deal with it. And if we think about so many of those big fitness businesses that I mentioned before, I think everyone can kind of picture some. I don't want to name names, but there are so many like quote online coaches, online fitness businesses, where if you think about like the main person in that business, they're not talking to the clients about nutrition and training anymore. Like they are the face of the business, they are the CEO, they're the the big dog. And then they have co-coaches, staff, group programs, however they run want to run it, where other people do the actual nutrition and training work. That was never ever something that I wanted. Because if you think about the one thing I'm saying here, the only thing I was enjoying in this process was the nutrition and training work and actually talking to people about nutrition and training. And so I was in this position where I'm like, I can't help 380 people every day, but I also don't want to step back and tell other, like hire other people to help them. That just completely defeats the purpose of why I set out to do this work in the first place. And so I never went in that direction. Like I never said, like, I'm gonna step away. Are I'm gonna anything, but then what happens there is you find yourself in this position where and I shit, you know what? This was probably my reality for a year and a half. Is the second you wake up, you can't help but think 380 people might need me today. That's gnarly, that's very gnarly, and you then are like I need to be available if that happens. So I would have times where I would wake up, you know, like wake up randomly if Nutella's gone off or something. Nutella's my dog, if he's gone off at like 3 30 in the morning and wakes me up, and then I'd look at the clock and be like, wow, it's 3 30. And then I would be like, should I should I get up? Like, should I get up and you know, if it's a day where I'm like, I want to train and I want to record the podcast and I want to do XYZ, I would think to myself, okay, I want to do all those things, but also 380 people might need me. So like, should I get up right now and like get a jump start on this day in case that happens? And it's so funny because it's like very unlikely, very unlikely that 380 people are gonna have a question today, but they might. But they might. And that feeling alone was probably the deciding thing where I was like, I don't want to operate like this for 10 more years because I can't do that. Like, I as one person cannot do that. I don't want to step away and bring in 10 other people to help me do it, just completely defeats the purpose. Like, I want to work with my clients, but I can't work with 380 people. And that's where, like I said at the start of the episode, there'll be people who are very business-minded and their wheels will be turning right now. Where they're like, why didn't she hire people? Why didn't she get co-coaches? Why didn't she do a group program? Why didn't she do this? Why didn't she do that? I went through all these scenarios, and the one thing that I came back to every time was I want to help people with nutrition training. So I don't want to have a group program that's built and it's like set and forget, you can buy it any time, but you don't get to talk to me. I'm laying on the beach because I built the program once. And so many people do that, and you know, good on them if that's what they want, but that was never what I wanted. I feel like if that's what you want, you're a business person, you're not a nutritionist and a trainer, and that's fine. There's there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But to me, it always came back to when I wake up every day, I want to talk to people about nutrition and training. And then the other big factor that I feel like if I haven't convinced people of you know why I made the decisions that I made, I think this will convince everybody. If we think for a second what it is like to be a female carrying the emotions of body image, scale weight, diet culture, navigating food, navigating dieting environments, social media, body image, all of these things, right? Think about what it's like to be a female, carrying the emotions of that at times. Now think about what it's like to be a female carrying those emotions for 380 females. Now ask me again why I changed things. It is so heavy to carry that yourself, and it is so hard to carry it well for those people. And that was really the position that I would get to is like, I want to be available for every person that's in Eat Lac Ruby. I don't want to hire people to do that for me. I don't want to outsource, I don't want co-coaches. But I also don't want to wake up at three o'clock in the morning and go, oh my god, 300 plus people might hit me today with something. And this is the thing: you can have 300 people hit you with Ruby's, you've changed my life. You're the best person I've ever met. It's like, that's great. Get a thousand people in here, hit me with that one. But at the exact same time, those 300 people could be having a bad day, bad scale weight day, bad body image day. Again, think about what it's like to be a female who navigates these things. You've got a group of women navigating these things. If everyone just happens to be having a bad day, that's a very gnarly position to be in. And one thing that became so apparent to me throughout this whole process, and it's one of those things where you look back and you're like, yeah, I knew this all along, but I just didn't see it until it was like, you know, right in front of my face or until I'd been through the opposite or whatever. But I mean, I think we can all agree. She loves to yap about nutrition, and I love to break shit down and really get into like the nitty-gritty of like why people are saying certain things, what's going on, what's all of the factors. If we think about anything I've spoken about on the podcast, I'm always talking about like we want all the information, we want to know what's going on, we want to work out what this means for you, like we want to absolutely pull shit apart. Nutrition is not just like yes, no, good, bad, right, wrong. There's so many factors that we want to look at before we give advice or set protocols or whatever. And so if we think about running things in that like group style program where it's either just like a program where people buy it and they completely take themselves through it and they literally never speak to you, you don't even know who they are, like that doesn't appeal to me. That's kind of the point of the podcast, is like we'll give all the information. But then if you want to actually break this down for you, come hit me up. And that's why I've built the business model that I've built right now. But you know, some people do have those programs where you just buy that person's program and you work through it at your own pace. Again, that's fine. That can be great for some people. And then we have that other style, which is kind of like what we had through the fat loss phase in different programs over the years where it's like a live program. So, like, yes, you kind of download everything and you go through it all, but then you can come into the group and ask questions and we kind of like give updates and we give different advice every week. So I did love it. Even sitting here right now thinking about it, I'm like, oh, that was so fun. Should we bring it back? And there's so many people, there's so many people who, like I said, wouldn't be in the position that they're in with their nutrition, their training, their body image, all of that stuff if it wasn't for the fat loss phase. There's so many people that wouldn't have, like I wouldn't have met just as like a client thing. There's so many people that I wouldn't have met. Like, I've got people that I would say like more than just clients to me right now, or just more more than just customers or participants of eat like Ruby. There's so many people who did multiple rounds of the Fat Loss phase, did different training things, came to some of our events, like we did some in-person events in 2024, 25. So many people are I'm like, none of that would have would have happened if we didn't run those programs. And then, like I said, even sitting here right now thinking about it, like we used to do live calls every Monday night in the Fat Loss phase, and we'd get on the live call and I'd be like, hey Ellie, hey Sam, hey Kat, everyone's here. Woo! Like I genuinely did love so many elements of it. But if you're in that space where you've got 200 people, let's say, that can ask questions and navigate different things. If someone does ask a question, they're doing it in the form of like a post or a comment or something. So then I'm reading it and I'm thinking, like, again, you guys know the way my brain operates now. Like, my wheels are just turning. I'm like, oh, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? But what happened there? Give me more info on that. Like, I can't give you advice. I can't really tell you how to navigate this thing without more information. I want more information. It's so hard to do this back and forth in comments, in a group. And then I would be like, okay, I'm gonna make a live video to talk about this thing. Like, I was just always so in it and so invested, and like I need to do more and help more and do this just because I love talking about nutrition and training. And so it was just not practical or feasible or sustainable, however, we want to look at it, to have hundreds of people in there all the time, forever. Like we would run these rounds and I would give a hundred percent of myself to this round because they'd be like, we've got a hundred people or two hundred people, like we're different numbers in every round, but we've got all these people in here. I love this shit. These people love the podcast, like this is their time to just go all in and eat like Ruby. I'm gonna go all in to make sure they get what they need out of it. But for me to do that for 200 people is freaking exhausting. And then if we come back to what I said before, at the same time, you've got the whole business side of things to look at as well, where Gmore and everyone start saying, like, okay, cool, Ruby, it's like we're in week one of the fat loss phase. So that round is closed, it's shut off. People are now coming to the website and asking, what's next? I can't join that because that's already started. What can I join next? So we are week one of this program, and I've got 200 people asking me about calories, training, flexible dieting. And I'm like, F yes, this is the shit that I love. Let's go. But then I've got this whole business model to be like, well shit, now what? What are these guys gonna want as they get towards the end of this round? If someone comes along right now to join, what are they joining? There's nothing there. Gmot needs shit to do all day, every day. She's on a full-time salary. I also need to collect a full-time salary, so we've got to sell something here. And it's just this like vicious cycle, there's a rat race where it essentially is like Rubes, you can't spend too much time working on nutrition and training because you've got so much else to work on. And again, come back to what I said before. This is where you start to look and go, Well, do I hire a CEO? Do we, you know, promote Gmod or whatever to just make her completely run shit? Do we get her an assistant? Like, honestly, so many options, so many different scenarios they played out in my head. We like dabbled in different things over time, but I continuously came back to all I want to do is help people with nutrition and training. And I don't want to get into the financial side of things too much today. I don't mind talking about money too much, but just to put in like a little bit of context for people, Eat Like Group is a company. I'm fully like I'm a full-time employee of that company. So regardless of whether the company makes $50,000 a week or $2,000 a week, I walk away with a weekly wage. And it's a great wage. Like, and I love that. I love the fact that I've built something where I can employ myself full-time. Like, even that, I think I forget how awesome that is at times. But what I'm getting at here is, and this is gonna be one of those things again where business people listening and gonna be like, yeah, Rubes, that's how business works, you idiot.

unknown 54:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

But anytime you run these big things and you make big money, it costs big money to run it, and you pump that money back in and you go again, and you pay all the staff and you pay all the insurance and you pay for all the apps and the software and all the shit that you're using, and all of the like merch and the prizes, and even you know, we had a year where we spent $30,000 on a new website, and that was a whole other thing that nearly killed my soul. We might talk about that another day. I don't know if I'm ready to talk about that one, but really what I'm getting at is I was just in this position where I'm like, I just want to collect a full-time wage and be a nutritionist and a trainer. And I love doing that for myself. Like I've done it for so long, I don't know if I could do it for someone else. And to be completely honest, I had times where I thought, should I just go and do this for someone else? So I don't have to think about the business side of things and all of that. And I think that they were just bad days or bad moments where I'm like, should I go and do this for someone else? The thing that would always stop me is I would think to myself, no, because I absolutely love having the podcast, and I would wonder how that would fit in if I worked for someone else. And I love the fact that I can work with my clients, they can listen to the pod, they can kind of piece it all together. Like, Eat Lack Ruby actually does work so well now that I've got it to this point, and we'll talk about that in a second, I promise. But what I was getting at there with the money side of things is when you're sitting there, and this is essentially like the conversation I had with Shaq. I sat down with Shaq early 2025, and I just said, like, this is how I'm feeling, this is where I'm at. Coming up towards my mid-30s, which I know is young, I'm not saying I'm old, but I am thinking in terms of like, what work do I want to do for the next decade, give or take, right? Like through my 30s and into my 40s, what do I want to do? And I was saying to Shaq, I can't keep doing it the way I'm doing it. If I keep going the way I'm going, like if we want to keep running big programs, we need to hire a lot more people in the business and in our life. Like, we're gonna hire a cleaner, we're gonna hire someone to walk the dog, we're gonna hire people in the business to do the marketing and all the different shit because I don't want to do this for 10 more years. When I look at this rat race, I don't want to do this for 10 more years. What I want to do for the next 10 years is help people with nutrition and training. And like Shaq, I could say Shaq, like, I want to go to the moon, and he'd be like, Oh, go out in the backyard and start building your spaceship. Like, he is the most supportive human being you've ever met. So I could have said I want to pick up dog shit for a living, and he'd be like, I'll get you a shovel. Like, he's so supportive. But I was just saying to him, like, I it can't keep going the way it's going. So I need to work out where to go from here. And I said to him, like, these are kind of our options. Do we go all in on eat like Ruby? And if we do, this is what it's gonna look like. We are going to need to hire different people to do different things. Because right now I wear like 25 hats and it's fine. I've done it for a long time, it's fine. I'm not complaining, but I don't want to do it for 10 more years. Or do we take away anything that I don't enjoy doing? Strip it right back. And I can hear the bratdiness in that of people being like, wow, heaven forbid you do something you don't want to do, Rubes. Like, I have worked my freaking ass off from four o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night for years for this business. Like, I will do shit that I don't want to do, trust me. But it was more so thinking about, I am the boss of this. This is actually up to me. Why would I keep moving it in a direction that I don't want to go? Or do I slowly try and remove as many of those things as possible? Get this to a place where it's like I get to do the thing that I love, I will happily suck it up and do the other little things around that that I have to do to be able to do the things that I love. Like I'll do the admin that I have to do, I'll stay on top of different shit like that that I have to stay on top of if that allows me to predominantly be a nutritionist and trainer every day. I don't want to do that shit to be an operations manager every day. If I'm gonna be an operations manager, I'll go and work for someone else. I'll operate the shit out of anyone's business. I've built this business, like I said, from four people transferring me $25 a week to getting to a point where we had six employees and hundreds of people, right? Like I can build operations, but I don't want to do that for the next 10 years. And so, I mean, I feel like this could be a whole second episode. I don't think I'm gonna give it too much detail to make it a second episode, but really for the last 12 months, like that was my driving thing. And I would just sit there and go, what do you love and what do you hate? And I would literally just be like, Okay, I love the podcast. So the podcast is staying. And if we think about that for one second, the podcast doesn't make any money. Like, I'm not sure if you guys have realized, but when you're listening to this, you're not paying. Right? And that's fine because I love it. But to me, that was clear as day is like, Rubs, you want to cancel programs that literally pay everyone's wage, but you want to go off and record free podcasts. Have a look at what that means. Like, there is shit that you just genuinely love and there is shit that you don't love. And so coming back to this time 12 months ago, I was just sitting there going, like, what stays, what goes, what do I love, what do I want more of? What do I want less of? Even to the point now, like if we think about so many online coaching businesses, so many online coaching businesses, and I'm not ragging on this at all, I did this and I think it can work really well, but so many online coaching businesses, when they do work with people one-on-one, use like weekly check-in forms or fortnightly check-in forms where people fill in all those forms about like, how was your week on a scale of one to 10? How was this? How was that? What was good, what was bad, whatever. I was literally like, I don't want to read that shit every week. I just want to talk to my girls about it. So my girls are gonna do fortnightly calls with me. They're not gonna fill in a form every fortnight. Filling in forms is so annoying. Filling in forms is so annoying. And I, and that was even something where like I'd done coaching with other people in the past, and every time that form came around, I was like, oh my god, like whatever. And I would just be like, oh, like I don't want to fill in a form. It's like, you know, how's your week on a scale of one to ten? What's three things you did well this week? Bro, I did everything well this week. I'm a freaking queen. Next question. But honestly, like I was just like, I don't like to operate like that. I like to communicate and talk. So when I started bringing on more one-on-one clients in the back end of last year, like I'd had a fully booked one-on-one business for ages. We'd moved away from that, done some of these different programs. We had some one-on-ones alongside that. We went back to one-on-ones. Like I said, I've been through it all. This is why I don't want people's advice. You name it, I've done it. And I've landed in this position where I'm like, I want to have a certain amount of clients that I can manage the workload for my sake and for theirs. I want to be able to wake up and think, yes, my workload is manageable today. And I want them to know that they could message something today. And I can A, fully know their situation in order to be able to help them. And B, I've got the time and space to be able to help them efficiently. So even thinking like right now is Monday morning, I don't do any calls on Monday morning. I keep my Monday mornings open. So I can literally go into my app, check all of my girls, make sure I haven't missed anything from the weekend, haven't missed anything for the week. Anyone who's meant to have like a new training program has one. And then anytime my girls start a new training program, they're all personalized now because we have the time, we have the space to personalize the programs for them. And then anytime they start a new program, I literally say to them, first week is just trial week. Let me know after every session what you loved, what you didn't. Did your gym not have something? Does something not work with your setup or whatever? We'll just adjust it throughout the week if we need to, and then we can know your program's good for a few more weeks. And so, like Monday morning, right now, I've had two clients come in, like Rubes love the first session, but my gym didn't have a landmine hip thrust. Awesome, I'm gonna change that to you right now. We'll try a Smith Machine hip thrust, let me know how that goes, or we can change it to something else next week. That is the shit that I want to be able to do. When you've got 300 people in training, the programs are pre-made because you can't write 300 personalized programs. And then if someone does come forward with a question, it's like, well, we don't really know you, we don't know your setup, so we don't know what to tell you, we're gonna have to try and get all this information off you. Like it just did not work for me. And again, no shade on it. Like if we think about, I don't want to name programs, I don't think it's bad to name programs if I'm not ragging on them. If we think about things like Move With Us, like they sell hundreds of thousands of programs every week, go off, right? But I don't want to build programs once and have them there for sale. I want to be able to come in on a Monday morning and be like, Kylie, how was the new session? Jen, how was the new session? Lance, how was the new session? How's the hip feeling? How's the harmy feeling? How's the back feeling? Do we want to move back to four sessions now that the school holidays are over? You're going on holiday next week. Do we want to move the sessions around? Do we want to extend this program? Do we want to cut this one short? You've changed gyms. Oh my god, now you've got a hack squat. Yes, let's piss off the leg press. Let's bring in the hack squat. I love this shit. Even if we think about the episode I did a few weeks ago for one of my clients who had had a few months off and was getting back into gym, no way would I have been able to have those conversations and be able to personalize that and structure that and then talk to her along the way and get her back in. Like that client has been back in the gym now for a month and consistently getting those sessions done. And that is what I love being like, I was able to talk to you about your situation and put the best personalized program in place for you and check in on you and make sure you were good with doing that. I just don't think that you can do that in those big scaled businesses. And there's pros and cons because obviously you look at those big businesses and the training can be like $7 a week. Go off. And that's fine because that's what you're getting. Like you're not getting a personalized service, you're not getting someone being like, hey, it's me checking in on you. This is all like one-on-one, personalized, whatever. So, like I said, there's pros and cons, but to me, it was just like this is how I want it to run. This is it like Ruby. This is not it like anyone else, this is no one else's business. I'm the one that's gonna wake up at four o'clock every morning and think that's what I'm doing today for the next 10 years. So if I want to change that, I'm friggin' changing it. And that is really the position I was in last year. And like I said, when I had those conversations with Shaq, I had conversations with Gmot, and Gmot was like, she's like, Ruby's, I've seen this coming for so long because every time it's time to build something new or do something new, you go hiding, you go running away for three days to the podcast studio. And so she fully got it and it was awesome. And it was such a grind. Like, I'm I'm not gonna get into that today, but I would say just to like put into a little bit of context, from September, especially from like September through to November last year, I was just like, okay, well, like I've made these big decisions. I have to do a lot of work behind the scenes in order to behind the scenes and on the scenes, because you've got to kind of start changing your whole, you know, offers and everything. Um but like behind the scenes, that was huge. On the scenes, that was huge. And it was such a grind, and it was just one of these things where it was like I knew eventually, like I knew it was right in the long run, but for like a daily grind for like three months, I would just literally I would say to Shaq, can you remind me that I'm doing the right thing? Like, can you remind me to keep going? Literally, I would say to Shaq so often, can you just remind me to keep going? And he would be like, Keep going, you've got this just so amazing, you've built something so awesome. And I'm like, Thank you. And now I'm tearing up again. But honestly, like just it sounds dramatic, but there was a lot to it. And it was essentially kind of like starting, starting again, and starting again, but being like, I do have a lot of clients that have been with me all along and they're gonna stay with me. You know, I've had a lot of girls, probably 20 girls off the top of my head that have been training with. Me for three years, so they were with me right through this process, and then obviously brought in new clients at that time. And some people finish up and you bring in new clients, and like that was awesome! But like doing all that on the scenes and then behind the scenes, just being like, Wow, okay, like I'm essentially rebuilding the back end of this business from scratch. This is a grind, and you're also at a at that point now where because certain parts of the business are still operating, like I said, we've still got clients and different things, you still got a lot of the expenses. So you're like, you know, we've got like the training app and insurance and so many things, like the amount of shit you pay for. Again, if you run a business, you know, you know, it's like work cover. Are you kidding me? Work cover? We all work on laptops in beds every day. Like, are you kidding me? But that's fine, we'll pay work cover, on we go. Like, you're just getting it with so many things. And again, I know businesses, that's the point. Don't come at me, but what I'm getting at is like just going through that process and being like, we are changing so much of this business. What if it doesn't work? And in the meantime, in this transitional period, we're not really offering many things. I don't have the space to take on too many clients because I'm rebuilding a freaking business. So you are just in that position of being like, Am I doing the right thing? Is it gonna work out? Should I go and work with someone else? Should I go and work at Woolworths? Like all of the things. But every day I would come back to, like every day I would come back to. And this does result in like I'm not oblivious to this, and I know this can piss some people off, but it is what it is. And I'll explain that in a second. But this obviously does result in us getting to a position where we're fully booked at times. Like from April through to now, we've been fully booked. We haven't really taken on any new clients, and the websites pretty much just said like fully booked, come back later. And that can, you know, to business people, they're like, wow, Rubs, that's a really dumb way to operate. And to clients that like listen to the podcast and do different things, then they come along and they're like, Oh, I want to work with Ruby, and I can't, you know, obviously I'm aware that can be annoying. But my thing was always, first of all, selfishly, this is eat like Ruby, this is my business, this is how I want to do it. And then at the same time, like I said, I work with a handful of people now and I know the ins and outs of these people, and I'm available to talk to them about nutrition and or training, whatever they're doing at any time and to help them with things when they come up. If I was to go stuff it, let's open it up, let's take in double the amount of people. Well, how available am I going to be to everybody? How much am I gonna be able to personalize shit to you? I am gonna start rushing through your shit because I've got a hundred people to work with now. So even though I know it can be annoying for people when we are fully booked and all these things, it'd be more annoying if you were paying for a service and you're like, wow, like I've either been put with a co-coach, that is something that I have contemplated so many times, but I don't think, I mean, never say never, but at this point in time, I have no desire to hire a co-coach because I just personally think like if I listened to someone's podcast every week and then I inquired with them and then they said, like, oh, you don't, you're not gonna go with Ruby, you're gonna go with Coach Sammy. I would be like, who the F is Coach Sammy?

unknown 1:09:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

Like, just to me personally, I just think not to say this in the least like ego way or whatever, but I think people listen to this podcast and then they go, I want to work with Ruby. And even that, like, I love that. I have intentionally set this business up to operate that way, to the point where on all of our application forms and everything, it literally says, do listen to the podcast. And side note, if you tick no, I mean, if you tick no, you're not gonna be here hearing this. So if you tick no, that really red flags you, in my opinion, when I look at those applications. Not because I'm judging you for not listening to the podcast, it's because when someone does listen to the podcast, and especially if somebody says something like, oh my god, yes, listen to every episode, like resonate so much with what Ruby says, we can be pretty certain that you and I are gonna be a good fit. To the point where, guys, like I'm not even joking. If you go to our website right now, I'm gonna go to our website right now. On our website right now, it literally says, like, you know, you got the intro stuff, whatever, and then it says, start here. If you're brand new here, welcome. Start with listening to the Eat Lack Ruby podcast. Explains a little bit about the podcast, and then it says, the last thing you want to do is start paying for our services when you don't even know if you like us. Listen to five episodes of the pod, and I guarantee you'll either be saying I love Rubes or I don't. I would rather people come to our website, read that, listen to two episodes of the pod, and go, this chick's not for me, and never apply for coaching. As opposed to someone comes along, or even worse, we're paying for like Instagram ads, Facebook ads, all this shit, people come along like, oh my god, this chick eats Nutella every day. Oh my god, her dog's name's Nutella's so cute. I'm gonna apply to work with her. But I actually don't know her, I don't know her style, I don't know what she's about, I don't know any of this stuff. So I don't know if she's the right fit for me. I'm definitely not the right fit for a lot of people. I can be an asshole at times. If you want someone to hold your hand, I'm not the right fit for you. If you want someone to be like, oh my god, I'm your online bestie. Oh my god, you got up Ellie and went to the gym, clap, clap, clap. No, mate, just get up and go to the gym. If you don't want to go to the gym, don't be here. And so there'll be girls who hear that and they'll be like, Yes, I love that you say things like that, Rubs. You are the coach for me. And equally there'll be other people that hear that and go, wow, she's a bitch, I don't want to work with her. I would rather people think she's a bitch, I don't want to work with her, or she's too harsh, she's too direct, she's this, she's that. I've had people say to me, You're too Australian. Sorry, mate. But again, I would rather people find that out and then just be like, no, that's not for me, and then not waste their time, their money, their energy, not find myself in a position where I'm coaching someone, thinking, Do you even know what I'm talking about? Do you like the way we do this? Do you want to do what we're doing here? Like that's such a disconnect. And so I have worked so hard. I can't even really remember where I was going, but I kind of can. When I was essentially rebuilding Eat Lack Ruby and just thinking, how do I want this operate? How do I want this to operate for the next decade? I thought to myself, I want the podcast to be there as just this big information hub for people. And then if people listen and they do resonate and they think, like, yep, Rubes, you are talking to me, or I loved that particular episode, I love when you talk about this. I would love to either work with you in a one-on-one coaching way because I have an event or I have a fat loss goal, a muscle gain goal, or whatever. And I think you're such a good person for me personally to work towards that goal with. Let's do 10 weeks, 20 weeks, whatever it is. Let's do online coaching, or we have the other option of nutrition consults, which is something I never did, but I bought these in last year because I was like, we have given so much on the podcast. And again, people would say this is a really bad business model, but it's a good business model in terms of I enjoy the hell out of it and it makes me happy and it's my friggin' business. And so I realized last year, I'm like, we have this podcast with so much information on it. People understand the information. They don't need a lot of one-on-one coaching, but they would love to just talk to me and ask a bunch of questions and get a bit of a plan for themselves, but then they can go off and follow that plan. They don't need to do the fortnightly calls or whatever. And we have girls that come in and out of things. Like we have girls that do 10 weeks of online coaching, work really closely with me, fortnightly calls. They're like, yep, I'm honing in on this goal, I'm doing this particular thing. We're doing like, you know, if someone's doing like fat loss or muscle gain, it's like, do this for the two weeks, we'll do our call in two weeks, we'll see how that's going, we'll adjust if we need to, message me between the calls if anything comes up because again, I've got the time, I've got the space because I've set the business up that way. It's freaking awesome. Or if people are working towards an event, obviously, like half marathons, triathons, marathons, etc., we're like, trial this supplement, trial this carbload, trial this gel, let me know in the next call how that worked, let me know when the next big run is, we'll do more gels. Like the way that I want this business to operate, and it is now the way that the business operates, because I just said, like, if I'm doing this for 10 more years, this is how we're doing it. And I literally I said it to Shaq. I kind of said to Shaq, like, I want your opinion because this is our life and our finances and whatever, but also like this is how it's gonna be, mate. And then I said to G Mot, like, this is how I'm doing it. You're with me or you're not, and she's unreal. Like, she's helped me in so many different ways over the years. And so the way that I want things to operate now is like I said, people do have a specific goal, specific event, specific phase. Some people stay in that for three years, some people stay in it for 10 weeks. But that's perfect. Whatever people need, whatever they need, whatever we think they need, like we can navigate that because we know you. And then you get to the point where you're like, okay, cool. So many of my girls come in and do nutrition and training for a while, and then they get to the point where like, okay, I'm all good with nutrition, I'm just gonna do training only. And that's where, like I said, we end up at this point where we've got girls that have done training with us for three years and they did nutrition at different times, and now they even still come in and go, hey Rubs, I'm gonna do a fat loss phase in August. Can I add nutrition back on for like a 10-week window there? Absolutely, you freaking can. You know why? Because I've built the business exactly like this so that you can do this. Let's F thing go. And so again, I kind of gonna fully remember where I was going or how helpful this is, but I am just at a point now where I'm like, wow, I love the podcast and I can just use that to talk about whatever I want and whatever sort of comes up with my clients and different things in the industry. That is awesome. People can then come to me for ongoing coaching or one-off support to implement everything we talk about on the podcast. People can listen to every episode, they can listen to all the running episodes if that's what they're into, they can listen to all the fat loss episodes if that's what they're into. They can go back to 2024 and listen to the fat loss episodes if they want to. Like, that is awesome. I absolutely love that. When you run something like a 10-week program, you're saying to people, well, there's only two weeks to go. Make sure you save everything, make sure you download everything because we've got to cut you off because we're gonna start the next program. We don't cut the podcast off. Podcasts are still there. Go back and listen whenever you want. And the thing about the podcast, I'll wrap this up soon because I know I'm just like rambling now. But again, so many business-minded people can say to me, like, what's the point of the podcast? And even if we think about having an unscaled business, which is what I have now. So right now I have an unscaled business, according to the online coaching fitness experts, whatever they want to call themselves. I would question if they go through some of this stuff and then therefore, how much of an expert are you? But that's fine. Some people might be killing it in this sense. But so many people would look at my business now and go, you are completely capped, like because you hit those points where you're full and then you can't take on new clients. But again, to me, I go, yeah, I'm full, doing the thing that I set out to do from day one and the thing that I absolutely love to do. So people can look at that and go, oh, that's not a successful business because it's not a scalable business. If being fully booked doing the thing that you love is quote, failing, I'll fail every day. I'll fail every day for the next 10 years. I've set my business up to fail, if that's what failure means. Because to me, that's the dream. But then coming back to the pod, like people can then say, Well, what's the point in having a podcast where you essentially give away shit for free and you kind of expose yourself to people? I don't know if expose yourself is a really weird thing to say. Expose your coaching style to people. Let's say that. And, you know, like people could look at the podcast and go, well, the point is that people listen, they resonate, so then they want to come into Eat Like Ruby. If Eat Like Ruby is a capped business, when you're fully booked, what would be the point of continuing to drop podcast episodes? And so a lot of people can hit me with that question when they think they're a business expert. And for me, it is as simple as number one, I love it. I absolutely love it. So I'm happy to do something every day that I love. Secondly, I have so many girls who are on really similar pages or navigate similar things again because they've listened to the pod, we've called in this particular type of client and they're awesome. And so when I do my coaching work all week, I have these conversations with people and I think like six of our chicks are navigating this one thing. I'm gonna do a podcast about it, and then that's so beneficial to them. So it's like you can talk to people in this one-on-one setting, but then you can be like, I'm gonna record a podcast about this where I'm gonna go off, write out all the notes, really map this out, and then speak about it in big detail, and then you can listen to that 10 times if you need to. That's awesome. And then on a similar note, we're now at a point with the podcast where there's so many episodes, and we've talked about so many things, where if people come in and ask me a question, like if a client asks me a question, nine times out of 10, I can say, go listen to this, right? And people might think that that's like a cop-out. It's like, oh, you don't answer their question, you just send them to the podcast. Well, if the podcast is 45 minutes, it's like, do you want me to give you a 45 minute answer? Or do you want to go and listen to this episode? And then I say to my girls, like, go listen to this, come back, let me know if you've got any questions, if anything like didn't make sense, or if you want to talk about anything off the back of that, like that's awesome. But we have like anytime I do a podcast on a topic, I was about to say I dot point and make it really clear. I haven't done that in this episode, which is why we're still here hours later. But I've taken all the info that I have on that topic and really delivered it in what I think is one of the best ways I can. Like, I really try and give that topic everything I've got. So if a client then asks me about that topic, I can be like, go listen to this, because it should have everything you need. And then you and I can talk about how all that information is going to apply to you personally. So to me, this is literally the dream business. Like, I feel like I've been through so many ups and downs, ins and outs, trial and error, so many different things, and I've landed in this position where I'm like, wow, I have the podcast platform where I can speak about the thing that I love as often as I want to. I can do it daily, once a week, once a month, whatever I want. So I can speak about what I want, when I want, how I want. I can use that to help my clients. I can also use that to help get the right clients. Like let people know who I am, how I coach, what I can help you with. And if you resonate, you can come on in. Happy days, let's go. If you don't resonate, wouldn't you have rather found out through a free podcast instead of committing to 10 weeks of coaching and then being like, shit, this chick's not for me. That's shit for you and it's shit for me. I don't want a business that runs like that. And so it makes me so happy to be at this point now to just think like I can work with a handful of people at a time that I love. I can have that ongoing coaching service to help people with their goals. We can have the one-off consult service to help so many of the podcast listeners just ask the questions that they want to ask and get the plans that they want to get for them and then go off and implement those plans. Like that's unreal. We've got training for our training girls. We also do have our e-books. I feel like I don't talk about the e-books enough. They are the one scalable thing. But I love those because it's like I can build those and put all the shit that I want to put in them, and then they can just sit there and it's like if you sell a hundred, awesome. If you sell one, who cares? Like, I just could not be happier with where things are at after going through so many ups and downs. And I feel like it's worth mentioning. I mean, I think I made it clear, but I feel like it's worth mentioning every program that we have run in Eat Like Ruby, I have loved the nutrition and training side of it. But it's when we then have to look at the admin and the logistics and the marketing and like I said, the operations. And I just feel like I wake up and my days are just like operations, marketing, HR staff, wages, paying for shit. That's like, why do we have to pay for this thing? Oh, that's right, because we're a company in Australia and friggin' ATO gotta take half of everything we got. That's fine. And we won't talk about that today, but you just are like on such a grind, and you're just like, all I want to do is help people with nutrition and training. That's literally all I want to do. And so I'm actually sitting here right now, like three days out from my 35th birthday, and I just feel like I literally feel like it's been 10 years in the making, but then also 12 months, like the last 12 months of just me really doing hard shit, making hard decisions, like doing hard days of just like wow, I'm gonna have to build this myself. If I want this to run like this, I'm gonna have to build this. And remember me, without the tech, without the skills, well, Rubs, you're gonna have to learn those skills because you want it to run this way, you're gonna build it. And just feel like I have come out the other side of that right now, and I'm just in a position where I'm like, wow, could you do this for 10 more years, Rubs? Yes, you absolutely could, and you actually want to. And that honestly makes me so happy. And like I've said throughout the episode, guys, if you have a business, and especially if you have an online coaching business, like similar to this, I know we have a lot of coaches that listen. If you're going in those other directions, please do not take that as, you know, that's wrong. Ruby said I shouldn't. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't. Ruby said it doesn't work. I just didn't enjoy it. That's all it was, is I just didn't enjoy running a business that way. I only enjoyed the nutrition and training side of things. And then I just got to point where I was like, why don't I just f everything off that is not nutrition and training related and just bring it back to being able to do as much of that work every day as I possibly can. And so I think at the same time, if you are in this industry and you are constantly getting hit with these, like, grow your business, scale your business, don't cap yourself at one-on-ones. Don't cap yourself at one-on-ones if you don't want to do one-on-ones. But if you do, don't see it as a cap. See it as, oh my god, I'm literally doing the thing I set out to do. You studied nutrition and training for a reason. And if that reason was so you could help people with it, ask yourself, are you really capped? Are you really stuck? Or are you living your dream and you've just got these idiots in your algorithm telling you you should be doing it differently? And again, like they're not idiots, it works for them, but I think it's just so important to ask what really is gonna work for you and what you really want. Because I sitting here right now, I am 100% evidence that what I want and the way I want this business to run is pretty much the opposite of how so many people tell you a successful online coaching business should run. And with all due respect, fuck them. Because coming up to my 35th birthday, I feel the most at peace and honestly just the most content. Like it is the best feeling to wake up and think, like, yes, I have a successful business, but it's successful in the way that it's like, I want to do this business today. I want to do this work. Everything that I have to do today, I'm happy to do. Yeah, maybe gotta do a little bit of admin, fix that thing on the website that's pissing me off, whatever. But that is now like 10% of my day. And the 90% is just the shit that I love. So happy birthday to me. I think by the time the episode comes out, my birthday would have been and gone. But I am just very stoked to have been in this position. There was definitely times last year where, like I said, I had to say to Shaq, can you remind me that I'm gonna get there? Because today I don't feel like we're gonna get there. So that was a lot, but massive shout out, Shaq, massive shout out, Gmot, and honestly, massive shout out to the Lac Ruby girls because none of this would have happened without you guys. And I just feel like we are at a point now where it can work for me and it can work for you guys to whatever capacity you need it to at different times. And if you do come along for coaching and it's fully booked, just know that you're better off seeing it fully booked than seeing like, oh, I could join coaching, but Rub's is gonna palm me off to another coach, or she's gonna take on too much work and she's gonna not have the time for me. If I take you on as a client, it's because I genuinely want to and I genuinely have the time to do so. And I think that is awesome. That makes me very happy, and I'd like to think that it makes the Lac Ruby girls happy as well. I'm gonna wrap this one up now. This could be my longest episode ever. Thank you so much for listening. I will be back very soon.