James Smith is a polarising (yet popular) personal trainer turned business owner.
James is originally from the UK but now resides in Sydney with his partner, dog and new-born son. James has taken his days from personal training on the gym floor to operating several 7 figure businesses of which exist because of his social media presence which has now amounted to 5,000,000 followers across platforms.
- Tell us a little bit about your business…
My first business I stumbled upon really, as a personal trainer I was repeating myself over and over when onboarding new clients. Not to mention PT isn’t exactly cheap, so I partnered with another coach out of a Fitness First in Sydney and we created The James Smith Academy (now rebranded to “affordable online coaching.”)
We’ve trained over 100,000 people across the past 7 years, hiring a team of coaches permitted me to focus on growing the social media channels, writing 3x Sunday times no1 best selling books and then creating a touring and events model off the back of the books. Selling out the Hammersmith Apollo and Sydney Opera House being the best attendance events yet.
In the last year I’ve gone into a mentorship / consultancy role starting my own business helping personal brands to grow their businesses from social media upwards. The majority of my clients at present are in the fitness industry and I teach them how to utilise the amazing tool of social media to not only grow business, but brand.
- How did you get into the industry?
To be honest I just wanted a job I would enjoy. I worked in door to door sales and within IT Security sales back in the UK for years in a suit. I didn’t much enjoy any of those roles but certainly learned some great skills that I applied to personal training when I got into it.
Fitness was always an area of interest for me, so I thought if I am going to spend all day doing something, it would be good to do something I enjoy. I’m a firm believer that passion isn’t a reason you start doing it, it’s a reason you stay. Also, wearing shorts to work is always great.
- What are the biggest opportunities and challenges in your industry?
The opportunities are massive where most personal brands think that tiktok is for kids and that pulling a tripod out and recording yourself makes you an attention seeking narcissist. However, the landscape is evolving and people want to do business with people. I feel the future of strong brands are people and that if people understood that social media isn’t just a place to get likes and follows but for a place to get strangers to potentially trust you, know you and like you, they could have massive impacts to their lives.
As far as challenges, there are just a lot of frauds in the world who promise the world, charge huge amounts of money and leave people in the dark without direction. This hinders the trust that people put in businesses like myself. This dilemma is of course, as old as time.
- How would you describe your leadership style?
Terrible, as far as an employer. I have pretty bad ADHD so even as a director and majority shareholder in almost every business I operate in, I actually need to be managed. If you give me a big task to complete tomorrow, I’ll have it done perfectly by midday. But if you ask me to do 4 things by next week it just won’t get done.
I don’t think my leadership skills sit within the role of a CEO or director, more so to forge new paths within being an outlier. For instance, not many personal trainers spoke to camera and called people fucking nobs, until they saw it working for me. I would say I’m a leader amongst my peers as far as leading by example, not perhaps leadership as it’s traditionally known.
I also struggle with delegation, I like doing things like editing myself. It’s very hard to train people to do things the way I do them. Although it’s a struggle it is something I am trying to get better at.
- How do you get the most out of the people who work for you?
Truth be told, by sharing my businesses with them. I’d rather a 50% stake in a business with other owners who can take part of the areas I’m not strong at. I have no interest in owning the entire business. I like for other people to have skin in the game so I can do what I do best, be creative and strategize the social media side of things so others can use their skillsets to do what they’re good at.
- What are the most crucial elements to your business running smoothly and being successful?
Great business partners. Great family life. Without these two essential relationships being top tier you’ll really struggle. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows when you see a nice selfie in business class. There are nights where the laptop needs to come out at 10pm and other days where you mess up as a business and you need your office and your home life in order with people who get it. So they can understand why you’re stressing, being successful in business is an obsession that others must understand, without that it’s just chaos.
- How has the past 12 months been for you?
Great, I managed to take my last business to 7 figures within 6 months which was great as when we launched it, it was a bit of a proof of concept to see how the business would operate.
I’ve invested a lot of that capital into starting a drinks brand with Chris Williamson called Neutonic which is crushing it in the UK & USA. I had my first born son and finished my first ever USA & Canada tour, so it’s been a bit hectic but incredibly rewarding.
- What will the next 12 months look like for your business?
Good, (I Hope) I wish to continue building out my new business whilst building up the other brands and I have another business planned to roll out in the next few months which will be fun to roll out.
- What are the highlights of your career so far?
Whether debating Piers Morgan on GMB, whether selling out the Hammersmith Apollo or the first time surprising my partner flying first class. It’s all a weird dream that I am loving.
I can’t think of a single occasion because they’re all soo good, I also would have to admit one of my biggest pitfalls is that I don’t celebrate any highlights enough. So I may need 6-12 months to really think what the highlight would be and tell you honestly.
- What’s the biggest business mistake that you’ve learnt from?
Probably to do with personal brand and volatility. You can push it to the limit when it comes to polarising audiences and as your business grows sometimes you need a bit more stability. I haven’t been sued in a few years and it’s been quite peaceful.
- What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve been given?
Know what’s wild. It would have to be a Tim Ferriss quote, I don’t even listen to his podcasts, I only read one of his books and I don’t even think I follow him on social media. But when he said “the opposite of happiness is boredom.”
I haven’t been able to shake that for years. So pretty much, if you want to be happy, do things that interest you and avoid boredom at all costs.
