Episodios

  • 85: Building a Career as an Exercise Physiologist - lessons from 20 years as an EP.

    85: Building a Career as an Exercise Physiologist - lessons from 20 years as an EP.
    Nov 4 2025

    Today we bring you an episode of the Kinetic Careers podcast with Jeremiah PEIFFER.

    Dan Williams was lucky enough to be invited by Jeremiah for the very first episode of his podcast, which helps sport and exercise science students and graduates to develop their career.

    Jeremiah and Dan had a wide ranging conversation where they covered:

    • Dan's pathway through exercise and sports science
    • How the EP profession and ESSA have evolved
    • The way Dan has designed his businesses around being a present dad and building a lifestyle not just an income
    • The role of failure, networking and lifelong learning in career growth
    • Practical advice for students and new grads on positioning themselves, building business acumen and creating remarkable client experiences in an AI-shaped future.
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    33 m
  • 84: The AI takeover. Why coaches can no longer compete (and what to do about it)

    84: The AI takeover. Why coaches can no longer compete (and what to do about it)
    Oct 21 2025

    If you are an online coach, or you program for your clients, this is for you.

    In this episode, Dan Williams talks about the very real threat that AI is bringing to people who provide programs for their clients.

    Dan explores how AI is transforming exercise programming, why online coaches face potentially career ending risks, and how fitness professionals can pivot to protect their careers in the AI-driven future.

    5 things you'll learn in this episode:

    • Why AI-powered exercise programming is advancing faster than most fitness professionals realise.
    • How real-time data from wearables, sleep, mood, and recovery can reshape training sessions instantly.
    • The limitations of empathy and human connection as a defence against automation.
    • Why online programming is becoming a commodity and what that means for pricing.
    • How to pivot your business towards unscalable, in-person experiences that AI cannot replicate.

    If you are in the business of exercise programming, everything is about to change. You may think that empathy and human connection is going to save you, but in this episode Dan shares a story that shows how difficult it will be to compete with AI.

    Your action steps:

    • Reassess whether online programming is your long-term career plan, given AI's rapid advances.
    • Explore ways to integrate AI tools into your business as a facilitator, not a competitor.
    • Build in-person, non-scalable experiences that prioritise connection and value beyond what AI can deliver.
    • Educate clients on the unique benefits of human-led training and the experiential side of fitness.
    • Begin shifting your offers towards services that are harder to commoditise, such as bespoke coaching or community-driven experiences.
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    21 m
  • 83: How my business earns me 23 hours a week

    83: How my business earns me 23 hours a week
    Sep 28 2025
    Summary: In this episode Dan explores why business owners should stop measuring success only by money and start valuing time as their true currency, helping you design a more profitable and balanced business life. 4 things you'll learn in this episode: Why revenue and profit can be misleading measures of business successHow tracking hours worked reveals your true hourly rate and workloadWhat it means to switch from 'dollars as currency' to 'minutes as currency'Practical ways to redesign your business to earn time, not just money Need a website? I can help. Transcription: I think just about every single one of us is measuring the wrong thing in business. I'd like to share something I'm struggling with a bit at the moment. My very first business was selling shells I'd picked up off the beach. My business premises was the top bunk of my bed. My customers were Mum and Dad. I was six. From this moment, the measure of success of my little business was how much money it earned. And from that moment forward, every business I had was measured by the same metric. Money. And it makes sense. We live in a capitalist world. And I'm fine with that. I believe that people should get paid for solving other people's problems. But living in that world makes it really hard to gauge the success of your business by anything other than the size of your bank account. That mindset has been drilled into us since before we could walk. Money is our measure of business success, and for some of us, it's also a measure of life success. Society tells us that dollars are the currency that matter – they're the scoreboard that tells us if we're winning the game. And we know it shouldn't be like this, but it is. So back to the thing I'm struggling with. I'm struggling to break way from a lifetime of 'money as the measure of success'. Within the last couple of years, I've made some major structural changes to the businesses I run. Let me take you back to what business looked like before these changes. I was working around 45 hours a week on multiple businesses, I had a team of 12 staff, brick and mortar premises, and my wife and I owned a home and three investment properties. Revenue was high – I was earning more than I ever thought I would. But the nature of running businesses in that way meant expenditure was high too – but not so high that there wasn't a very tidy profit margin. And it's that profit that was my scoreboard. If I profited more in February than I did in January, I was becoming more successful. Sure, it was pretty stressful, and I was always worrying about something, but that's just a cost of doing business right? But then, I made some very deliberate and intentional changes to how I worked. Fast forward to today. Zero staff, no premises, no investment properties, lower revenue. By most traditional measures, you'd say I'm now less successful than I was. However, expenditures dropped by about 75% and profit (which is the only financial metric that only really matters to me) dropped by only about 10%. And importantly, most importantly by far is something the accountant can't see. I'm achieving this off the back of an average of 22 hours per week of work – that's all types of work – billable work, admin, business development… everything. You'll remember I was working 45 hours a week. And it's now about 22. That means I'm doing HALF the amount of work I was. 50% of the work for 90% of the profit. That's a massive increase in profit per hours worked, and probably a 90% drop in stress too. But you know what, there's a tiny little niggling part of my brain that's still telling me I'm less successful than I used to be. Because of that small drop in profit. Part of me is still a slave to the notion that dollars are the true and only measure of success. I'm working really hard on this, and I think I'm slowly winning. I'm slowly honestly believing that the currency that measures the success of my business is not money, but time. Time is the currency. Time is the resource I'm earning. I'm flipping my thinking. I no longer engineer my work to optimise for financial earnings, but to optimise for temporal earnings – earnings of time. I base business decisions on the time they'll earn me, not the money. The changes I've made are paying me 23 hours a week. That is the value of the business I've built. That's the salary my business pays me. Not money, but time. A traditional approach would see people put that 23 hours back into their business. For my highest financial value tasks, I charge my consulting out at a rate of $300 an hour. That's just under an extra $7000 a week if I was to trade my free time in for money. But you know what, I'd rather have the extra 1,380 minutes per week than the extra $6,900. Bear in mind that I started my business 19 years ago – and I'm not denying the need for hard work and long hours. But I am denying that that mindset needs to continue just out of habit. Just look at the number of ...
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    11 m
  • 82: How to turn your website into a lead generating machine

    82: How to turn your website into a lead generating machine
    Sep 16 2025

    In this episode Dan Williams explores the six essential sections every fitness business website needs and the psychological strategies you should include to convert more leads into paying clients.

    Check out the demo websites Dan has built to accompany this episode.

    Let Dan help you build a beautiful, one-page website that generates leads for your business: Learn more.

    6 things you'll learn in this episode

    • Why your website should be the centre of your fitness business marketing

    • The six must-have sections that guide visitors towards taking action

    • How to write customer-focused website copy that speaks directly to your audience

    • Psychological principles like scarcity and loss aversion that boost conversions

    • Practical examples of how to apply these strategies to your own fitness website

    Your action steps:

    1. Redesign your website around the six core sections to guide visitors from interest to action.

    2. Use customer-centric language that speaks directly to your target audience's pain points and goals.

    3. Add short, clear testimonials and client stories to build trust and social proof.

    4. Apply psychological principles like scarcity, loss aversion, and the endowment effect in your calls to action.
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    27 m
  • Quick thought: Is your work becoming your identity?

    Quick thought: Is your work becoming your identity?
    Sep 12 2025

    In this 'quick thought' Dan asks us to rethink identity, not as what we do for money, but as how we actually live and spend our time.
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    7 m
  • 81: Listener Question: Help! How can I stop new leads ghosting me!?

    81: Listener Question: Help! How can I stop new leads ghosting me!?
    Sep 8 2025

    Like a lot of poeple, Ben Luckens from Life's Peachy FIT has a great conversion rate when his leads come in for a trial.

    But the issue is actually getting them in the door.

    In this episode, Ben asks Dan about his strategies for less ghosting and more conversions.

    You'll learn:

    • Why adding friction can actually improve lead quality and boost show-up rates.

    • The surprising response time that multiplies your conversions by nearly four times.

    • How to deliver remarkable client experiences before someone even sets foot in your gym.

    • Five psychological triggers that ethically nudge leads from enquiry to committed member.
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    29 m
  • 80: How to bring back ex-members to increase revenue

    80: How to bring back ex-members to increase revenue
    Aug 19 2025
    Dan explains a simple client reactivation system for fitness businesses, show how to track resurrection rate, and share easy steps to win back ex-members. 5 things you'll learn: How to build a list of ex-clients and calculate a monthly resurrection rate for your fitness business.How to improve offboarding with quick exit interviews that record clear reasons for leaving.How to trigger win-back messages the moment a client's original blocker is removed.How to use Fresh Start timing and milestone contacts to lift replies and bookings.How to reach past clients with Meta Custom Audience ads and a direct booking link. Transcription: If you're looking for a new way to grow your business, generate a list of all your previous clients and members. I've never seen anyone do this and not be shocked by how long that list is. There's a huge number of people who, at some point, used your service, but are no longer paying customers. People who once needed you, but who, for some reason, got to the point where they didn't need you any more. And this list provides an opportunity for reactivation – converting ex-clients back into current clients. And that's what I want to discuss, a strategy guide to client reactivation. Generally, we spend most of our time on two things, client retention, and lead generation. We build systems and pipelines for lead generation, and we design client journeys to provide valuable experiences to keep people around. But once they leave our business, too many businesses cut them lose, going back to focus on retention and new leads. And sure, these things are important (particularly retention), but reactivation often seems to be forgotten. I want to fix that. But first, there are five things you need to do before even beginning to think about client reactivation. I've spoken a lot about these before (and I'll give you some recommended content if you want to dig deeper), but I'm not going to go into detail, but let me summarise what you need to do BEFORE you start the process of reactivating past clients. 1: Provide a remarkable experience so people don't leave in the first place. Check out my article 'Delivering an Experience: The Strategy of 'Being Different' or listen to episode 69 of the podcast. 2: Build a system to alert you of your three clients who are at highest risk of departure each week and add value to them that week. Read my article 'Increase retention to 98% using this 10 minute strategy' or listen to episode 26 of the podcast. 3: Conduct an exit interview with all departing clients, and identify the reason they're leaving. Keep a table of all the reasons for departure in seperate columns, with the list of all the people who left for that reason under the heading. 4: Identify how long into their client journey each customer is when they leave. Identify the most common time to leave (for example, it might be between four and 6 months, and increase the experience people are receiving for the eight weeks leading up to that point. This will plug your biggest leak. Read: 'The Only Thing Fitness Business Owners Need to Do For Retention'. 5: Make sure memberships on hold (dormant customers) receive weekly contacts of some kind. Ok, so assuming you're doing those five things, we can move onto some ideas to help you reactivate your past clients. If you're not doing those five things, the strategies we're about to discuss won't work as well. It's really common for business owners to bump into ex customers who say to them 'oh, I've been meaning to get back in touch with you guys'. It's definitely something I've experienced. This tells me people are open to working with you again, they just need a bit of a nudge to take that first step. Firstly, what gets measured gets managed. So start measuring what's called your 'resurrection rate'. This is the percentage of past clients who you come back to you each month. We calculate this by dividing the number of returning clients in a month by the number of past clients at the start of the month. For example, if you start March with a list of 200 ex members, and during the month of March three of them restart, that's 3 / 200, or 1.5%. So your resurrection rate is 1.5%. This number will allow you to gauge the success of the reactivation strategies. Ok, so once you've started measuring your resurrection rate, we can start the process of increasing it. Client departure: And we begin with the client departure. How can you make this a great experience? People expect a great experience to START their journey with you, but it'll really blow their mind if the END of their journey is equally remarkable. How you do this is up to you, but the litmus test is whether your departing client tells a friend about how good the departure experience was. That's the definition of 'remarkable' – able to be remarked about. As part of this departure, you need to have some sort of exit interview or survey which will tell you why they left. ...
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    20 m
  • 79: The one page fitness marketing checklist. Just do these things.

    79: The one page fitness marketing checklist. Just do these things.
    Aug 6 2025
    In this episode Dan shares the one-page marketing plan he recommends to every fitness business he mentors, focusing on 11 proven marketing areas that consistently drive long-term growth without chasing fads. Download a PDF version of the one page marketing checklist here. Four things you'll learn in this episode: How to simplify your marketing by focusing on 11 essential categories that actually work.How to build systems for storytelling, referrals, and reactivating past members to drive growth.The most effective way to run paid social media ads without wasting money.Why consistent, low-glamour marketing actions outperform chasing trends and short-term tactics. Transcription: I've spent 19 years in business searching for the magic bullet of marketing – first for my own businesses, and then for the hundreds of business owners I've mentored. And believe me when I tell you I've tried everything. Spoiler alert, there is no magic bullet. And the more people search for it, the more they're distracted from the tried and tested basics of marketing… the things that actually work. There's an exercise I've found myself setting for a lot of the business owners I mentor. I tell them to create a list of non negotiable marketing tasks. A one page marketing manifesto. A list of actions they need to regularly take to ensure they're covering all bases of marketing. Then, as long as they're ticking these boxes, I don't have a problem with them running off chasing the shiny objects and short term trends that they hope will be the next big thing that promises to bring them 30 clients in 30 days. Almost always, this thing will be a waste of time and money, but if they're incessantly doing the basics, at least they'll experience the consistent, persistent, regular, steady growth that comes from doing the basics well. So I thought I'd formalise this one page marketing plan, and share it with you guys so that in a world of distractions and broken promises, you've got something simple, tried and tested to come back to. Here's how I'm going to structure this. First, I'll give you a list of the 11 areas of marketing you need to focus on. Second, I'll give you a broad description of each, so you know how and why that marketing strategy works, along with a rough overview of what you need to be doing. Third, for each of the 11 areas I'll give you a very short and succinct, and HIGHLY actionable task list for that area of marketing. I'll tell you what to do, and how often to do it, with no bullshit. And finally, I'll summarise each of the 11 areas into a weekly task lists to give you your one page marketing plan. Two big caveats before we kick this off though. Caveat number one: The single best marketing strategy is to be so good they can't ignore you. Without this, your churn rate will be high, and retention will be low. You can build a solid business with no marketing strategy other than providing a remarkable experience to your clients. By the same token, even if your marketing plan is absolutely world class, you simply won't be successful if the product and experience you provide isn't up to scratch. You should combine this with a system to identify clients who are at high risk of departure, and a system to minimise the risk of this departure. Caveat number two: If you don't know who you're for, don't waste your time starting the process of marketing. A marketing strategy needs to begin with an intimate awareness of your avatar – your target customer. You need to create highly detailed documentation of the avatars your business serves. This should include demographics, relationships, dwelling, occupation, education, values, personality, spending habits, content consumption, future goals, and roles in purchasing decisions. For each avatar, you should understand their level of awareness and summarise their pain points clearly. These avatars should guide your decisions about your products, services, and customer experience. Your marketing needs to be purposefully designed to speak directly to them. Ok, with those two disclaimers out of the way, and remembering that a red hot customer experience and an understanding of your avatar need to come first, let's jump in, we're going to cover the following categories: WebsiteDocumentation and StorytellingContent MarketingMicro-Influencer MarketingReferral ProcessEmail MarketingCustomer/Member ReactivationPaid Social Media AdvertisingPaid Search Engine AdvertisingOffline MarketingPromotions and Tactics WEBSITE: Your business needs to have a professional, functional website with a strong user experience. It should act as the central hub for both current and potential clients, serving as both a marketing destination and an educational resource. The site needs to be optimised for organic search traffic and include dedicated landing pages with clear, low-friction calls to action for each service. The messaging should focus on who you help and how you help them, not just what you do....
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    27 m