Learn the secrets of the Entrepreneurs

We’ve got a special treat for you this issue – an exclusive interview with 8-times bestselling author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and multi-million pound property investor, Rob Moore. Rob is the Guinness World Record Holder for the world’s longest speech (totalling 46 hr 21 min over the course of three days). But all of that is just the start. Rob isn’t just building a business empire; he’s building a legacy.

With a laudable focus on giving something back, Rob has helped over 400,000 entrepreneurs achieve their business goals. His Disruptive Entrepreneur podcast is one of the most popular business podcasts in the world – it’s had over 400,000 subscribers growing at 2000 a day.

The Disruptive Entrepreneur podcast is a fantastic resource of innovative ideas and insights from some of the most respected figures in their field. Rob particularly wanted to feature Matthew Januszek on the podcast to get his take on what busy entrepreneurs can learn about staying fit when they haven’t got much time but don’t want to compromise.

Today, we reveal Rob’s thoughts on how fitness entrepreneurs can use his tips to carve out a unique proposition in the fitness industry. So it’s over to Rob to tell you where his appetite for disruption comes from…

The disruptive voice

Disruption comes from not wanting to be the same as everyone else. There’s a voice inside me saying, ‘I dare you; I double dare you to do things differently’. It’s all about getting away from the boring, repackaged, repurposed approach to business. Sometimes you have to shake it up. I really have no idea where it came from, but I do know that it’s wound up in the desire to go on improving myself.

And I know that, if I can look at something in a different way, then it will be valuable to someone. And if what I do matters to them, then that’s a great feeling. I’m not quite complete unless I’m fulfilling that drive.

Sometimes you may even have to disrupt things that already work – not to be contrary, or to do it for the sake of it, but just because you know you can make them better or more efficient. Let’s face it, there is a lot of vanilla advice out there. And there is a lot of downright inaccurate and incorrect advice out there too.

But the bottom line is: you don’t disrupt for the sake of it. You don’t do it recklessly. You do it because things could be better. That’s the best motivation you can have.

Growth and contribution

I used to be more of a risk taker, but having children changes that. As a parent, you consider the ramifications of your actions a lot more. It’s always a careful balance.

For me it’s about achieving the right balance between growth and contribution.

How do you achieve growth in the fitness industry? How do you things better?

You need to ask what people actually want… Do they want to be fitter, happier, healthier? No matter how good you are, how strong you are, there’s always room for improvement.

If Matt woke up feeling that he couldn’t get any fitter, or he couldn’t push Escape any further, he would stop

What about contribution?

If you want to make a genuine contribution, you need to ask what difference do I make? I used to see ‘contribution’ as a fluffy thing – but now I see it very differently. It’s absolutely interlinked with business – with growing and scaling your business. In fact, you don’t really have a viable business if you don’t serve your customers and solve their problems.

There can be a selfish component to it – knowing that you’re helping people – turning their life around – can be a powerful feeling, and really addictive.

So what advice would I give to fitness professionals wanting to blaze a trail?

The single most important thing is this: care about your customers enough to find out what their problems are, and find out how you can solve them

Ask what their challenges are, but don’t settle for the superficial answers. Probe deeper. Why do they want to get fitter and healthier? Is it to extend their life? To get into that wedding dress or wedding suit? Perhaps it’s to attract a mate?

Think about how you can package your services around the things you can do to help them achieve their goals. That’s how you will make a bigger difference and hit your goals.

You’ll find even more ideas on how to blaze your own trail in the interview with Matthew here.

What about holding your nerve?

It all comes down to vision – if your vision is clear then short term problems and disruptions won’t matter to you. The greater your vision is, the easier it will be to overcome any problem.

When people fall by the wayside and their business fails, they might blame the economy, the state of the market, or customer apathy, but it’s a lot more likely that their vision just wasn’t strong enough to sustain their business. They didn’t start with the why.

Your vision can overcome any problem.

On finding out Matt Januszek’s secrets…

I knew I really needed to speak to Matt. I wanted to delve deeper into the health and fitness side of things from my perspective as an entrepreneur. I wanted to look at effective training, effective sleep etc and see what tips I could apply to people like me. As a busy entrepreneur it can be easy to let fitness fall by the wayside so I wanted to find out what he would recommend.

But I also took the opportunity to delve a little more into his vision and his life story. I think we find out a little bit about what really drives Escape Fitness.

Check out the Disruptive Entrepreneur podcast

We’d like to thank Rob very much for taking the time to share his insights with us.

Don’t forget to check out his interview with Matthew Januszek here.