Fitness Professional Online Show 019 : Sandy Hancock
iTunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fitness-blitz-radio/id1385238100
Welcome to the Fitness Professional Online Radio Show where you get access to fitness industry news, tips and insights from professionals around the world. Visit us at FitnessProfessionalOnline.com and now, your host, Doug Holt.
Doug Holt: Hello everyone and welcome to the Fitness Professional Online Radio Show. I’m Doug Holt and I’m here with you again today for Episode 19. Thank you again for all the feedbacks and if you haven’t had a chance to choose an e-mail, let us know what you think, good and the bad. We’re always are looking to get better. This is our way of getting back to the fitness community that has given us so much. It’s not just myself. We have a big team. Carol, Darcy, RJ, Eric and everybody else over here at FPO, all want to thank you.
Thanks for the feedback. One of the comments, suggestions we got was to get a new person on the microphone. Thanks to Brock from Oregon for sending that in. Unfortunately Brock, I am the only one that’s doing it right now but we wish we had some radio talent. One of the other suggestions we did get was to bring some more women on in interview and I couldn’t agree more.
So today, I’m very excited to have with us on the phone, Sandy Hancock. She’s the owner and CEO of Body by Sandy which is a fitness consultation business for women and has been in the fitness industry for over 15 years. She’s a national figure competitor. Works with women who want to achieve weight loss, weight gain or do a bikini or figure competition.
She has one-on-one personal training in her home gym or online training, a nutrition for women who can’t come to her, we talk quite a bit about that in this episode. Both of Sandy’s programs are designed individually which I found very interesting and the way it should be personally.
She specializes in body sculpting so people can look trimmed, fit and achieve their weight loss goals. Something interesting also that we talked about with Sandy is how she integrates not only the physical but also the psychological components. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and bring on Sandy.
Sandy, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it. I know you’re really busy.
Sandy Hancock: Well thanks for having me, Doug. I’m excited about being here with you and having this interview.
Doug Holt: We are too. You have so many irons in the fire right now just by looking at your bio which everybody heard but also just seeing what’s going on your website. What do you loving right now the most in your business?
Sandy Hancock: I love the one-on-one that I do with my women. I love just giving to them everything they need and giving them the support and helping them get through every process they need from beginning to end. I love just focusing on one person and guiding them and helping them reach their goals.
Doug Holt: That’s fantastic. That’s the reason most fitness professionals get in this business, right? Is really just to help people. There’s not many careers that you can do it the way that we do.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah. And I just really enjoy helping and preaching to women. I feel of course a great connection towards women. But I understand a lot of their trials and things that they are going through and the struggles that they’re going through. I tried just so to really understand their process and how to help them the best that I can.
Doug Holt: You’ve been in the fitness industry for over 15 years. Have you always worked with women or is that more of a recent kind of narrow down niche?
Sandy Hancock: I know that down. At first, I did worked with some men and I enjoyed men but I’ve really enjoyed women more so just because the connection thing and I just I feel like I understand what they’re going through more. I feel like I can help them more. And I just enjoy it more and I’m pretty busy so I get to pick and choose what I want to do and I chose to go that route just because it’s what I enjoy more.
Doug Holt: I think it’s fantastic. I think the connection that women have with each other tends to go so much deeper than men. Frankly, I think women are just more emotionally intelligent than those guys can be.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah. I think that women too like to have a women that understands what they’re going through. I get a lot of women come to me that say they’ve been working with men and they don’t feel like they truly understand what’s going on with them and what’s their struggles are and how to help them. And so, they are looking for a women to understand some things little more, that’s why a lot of women come and see me.
Doug Holt: Totally makes sense. And you’ve expanded that, right? So you do your one-on- one training but something that I think that is unique that you offer that a lot of people don’t is online training. How long have you been doing that?
Sandy Hancock: I think in the online probably as long as I’ve been doing the personal training. It’s just kind of what’s hand-in-hand with women that couldn’t come here and meet with me. I have people that when they come from other states that just can’t come here and so obviously, they will add an online personal training with them.
But it works truly well because they submit pictures and we have a lot of connections via email that were always talking and making sure that the process is working. But it works great. It’s still one-on-one, I still work with them one-on- one and I design their program, their nutrition according to how their body is responding and how they’re doing on the program. So I updated according to them. It’s not just like some cookie-cutter or things I send out at. It’s still very individualized.
Doug Holt: Fantastic. So when this women reach out to you, if you can kind of walk us through the process a little bit because I’m really curious about how you’re organizing this. I think a lot of the fitness professionals whether they’d be specializing in tennis players or executives really could learn a lot from what you’re doing and really expanding beyond just your own regional location. I mean, getting through different markets. So let’s say, I’m a woman and I find you. First of all, how am I going to find you and second of all, once I find you, what’s that process look like for me?
Sandy Hancock: Okay. A lot of people find me by word-of-mouth. So a lot of my clients refer other people to them because they had great transformation and they have enjoyed their journey. And then I do get sort of several women that find me through Google, through Facebook, through Instagram and I guess online. I do a lot of online marketing that way so they find me that way.
Then when they find me, they contact me and we talk about what they’re looking for, either they are looking for personal training, one-on-one. If they’re looking for online training or if they’re looking for competition I also give a bikini and figure competition process for stage.
And so then from there, I have them saw a question here that I have on my website and it gives me a little bit of information on what they’ve been doing, where they’re at, where they’re going, you know, what they’ve been eating and kind of what their goals are.
From there, I set a consultation either via email or they come in and meet with me if they’re local. They kind of talk to me and we go through, just getting to know each other and maybe doing their measurements and their body fats and see where they’re starting at. Probably have some good goals we can make. I do have them send me pictures, you know, front and back so I can see what they look like and how I need to design their programs.
Then from there, I design their programs for them and send it to them or they start the one-on-one and then every 3 weeks, we reassess everything, I do their measurements and look at their picture again. And so see how the process is going and make sure is working properly and they’re still good on it and they’re happy with it. And so according to all those things, I redesign it to make sure that they’re still achieving their goal and their still working the way they wanted to work.
Doug Holt: Fantastic. With the measurements, with somebody who is doing it online, are you giving them kind of a guide on how you want them to measure themselves so you keep it consistent?
Sandy Hancock: If they are doing just online and I don’t meet with them, I actually just do the pictures every 3 weeks and I just kind of have them send me their weight which is which in monitor. The scale is not really something that I really focus on but it’s just how we see the nature that they’re not losing weight too fast or it is working.
For one to two counts a week is all you want to lose when you weight train and do body sculpting in that way, you’re not sacrificing the muscles and you’re losing body fat. So I don’t like to focus on that, that’s a good way to make sure the nutrition are working properly and they have enough calories in their nutrition. So I just do online and just do before-and-after pictures and that’s they’re able to come and meet with me, then I will do their measurements.
I do like doing measurements because a lot of times when we weight train, we don’t lose the weight as quickly because we’re transforming weight for muscle. The body fats are muscle. A lot of women, we come and get frustrated about that because we’re off-deck on the scale, it’s kind of old school, “Oh my gosh, I’m not losing a ton of weight,” which is really not body composition and it’s not about the scale. So I don’t like to focus on that but I do use other tool.
But if you’re weight training then weight is not dropping a lot. So what do you do, do at measurements in the body fat, the client can tell that they are making a big difference because they might lose 3 to 4 inches or 2 percent to 3 percent body fat. And I called “My gosh, I lost 2 pounds” and then like it’s a body competition and that’s what we’re focusing on.
Doug Holt: Fantastic. So you’re obviously assessing with have any tools that you have available at that time and sometimes, the scale is just the only tool?
Sandy Hancock: Right, exactly.
Doug Holt: I saw something else that’s interesting that you offer that I think a lot of trainers should offer that don’t besides online training is you have something that I think you call “mindset training”. Can you walk me through what that is?
Sandy Hancock: Yes, I guess they’re like the mind is so powerful and what you think about, you can create in your life. So if you think that past is about your journey and you’re having fun and things are easy for you to do, it definitely makes the journey easier.
The problem with a lot of people is we self-sabotage ourselves and we’re facing for self. I call, “This as too hard, I don’t have time to do this, I don’t have time to get my fit food, I’m tired, I’m ugly, I’m fat,” whatever we say to ourselves are things that hold us back from really achieving our goals and reaching our journey.
So what I do is I have my clients ready in-take form and it just goes through a bunch of questions that kind of talks about the goals and what they want to achieve and why it’s important to them and may what barriers they have and what’s holding them back and how they feel they can overcome those barriers.
And then from that, I take that intake form in all design affirmation worksheet that kind of work them through what they should be saying to themselves so they have a positive journey and they feel good about it and they know exactly what they want to go and what they need to get there.
It just helps to make the journey fun because you have to enjoy what you’re doing and it doesn’t need to be hard. If you say it hard, then it’s hard. If you say it’s easy and fun, it’s easy and fun. It’s as simple as that. And then I also have tracking cars along with that where [inaudible 00:10:59.12] if they have done their training, they cut their cardio in, they cut their sodium, they cut their sleeping.
8-hours-a-night, they being their affirmation which is a way they could check-off and make sure they are on track. If they are struggling with things, we write down on the back of the cardio, “What are you struggling with?” And the things that are consistent that they are struggling with will incorporate those into the affirmations so that we’re reaffirming things to the positive way so that they can eventually push through that and eventually not have that be such an obstacle that’s holding them back and that’s helping them work forward and achieving their goals.
Doug Holt: So true, mind is just so powerful. It’s been scientifically proven now that thoughts do become things and something we hear consistently on the show, Sandy, with people that we interview is they’re always feeding their brain. They’re always feeding their mind with positive mental pictures or positive books or just growth. But very few trainers actually break it down to a program to help their clients. I’m really impressed the way you’ve done that. That’s really neat.
Sandy Hancock: Thank you. Yeah, I enjoy that part of it.
Doug Holt: I do too. I myself can be a little guilty of not bringing it to the program as much as I should. Such very inspiring to hear the way you’re doing it.
Sandy Hancock: Thank you.
Doug Holt: Sandy, that brings me up to a great point. You’ve been in the industry for 15 years. You’ve made a name for yourself. A lot of the people listening right now are seasoned professionals but some people are just breaking into the industry or been somewhat new at it, what advice would you have for them if their listening to this and say, “Geez, I want to be like Sandy.” Where would they start? Where do they focus on?
Sandy Hancock: For me personally, I have something I specialized in and I think the size that we specialize in, it basically gives you an extra way to create your business. I had the competition and I started competing myself in any niche and where they start contacting me to help them with competition prep and helping them with their posing and the nutrition and training and what do they need to do to get on stage.
And so for me, just to have that little niche really pulls me through a lot of tough times in my life let’s say, when the economy was really bad. It was a great niche because women really wanted to compete and so they needed somebody and I have that specialty. So it was great to have that in place and that’s actually how I gone into this business was through a competition.
And then after that, I was just basically doing it part-time actually at that point and it’s all been to do in this full-time and I started working more with everyday women and so I guess specializing with women also has been very helpful for me. But just finding a niche and finding something that you really love to do and so it makes it special for you. It makes it so that you really want to work hard and you really want to make that person that you’re working with achieve their goal because it’s something that you love to do yourself.
And so just finding the specialties that you enjoy the most and the people you want to work with the most and then educating yourself in that area and of course, getting your certifications are definitely very important. You know how to train properly from beginning to the end and how to evolve people from each level is very, very important.
Also, to build your business and get your business licensed, have somebody build you a website so you know where to send people. I think all those things that I put in place slowly and were working on have all helped my business evolved to the level it is today and it’s getting me pretty busy and keeps me still thinking about ways I can evolve. It’s kind of great journey.
Doug Holt: What fantastic advice for those listening. I mean, I asked you just for one thing. I think you gave us about a dozen that everybody needs to focus on. But I mean, that’s great. You find a niche, focus on your business in that way you can help more people. We hear it time and time again, people like yourself are so successful. It really comes down to a few basic steps and persistence, it sounds like.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah, persistence for sure, everyday.
Doug Holt: Absolutely.
Sandy Hancock: You need to push it forward and that’s what I get. Every day, you do one thing to push it forward and I did.
Doug Holt: One percent better every day, right?
Sandy Hancock: Exactly.
Doug Holt: What piece of equipment or software are you using right now, Sandy? If someone is listening in that kind of looking for something new, what are you utilizing or what are you using right now?
Sandy Hancock: Well equipment-wise, I would just have to say that I love the free weights and I know that’s pretty old school but it’s what works. When it comes to equipments, I love free weights. I do use some equipments but free weights definitely are my go-to and my favorite.
Software, there’s a lot of software but I would say that I kind of love the social media thing and just working on Instagram and Facebook and using that for marketing has been awesome. I mean, it’s just the best way, it’s free and it’s easy and it’s fun. So I use all these things I can trust just to get the most popular kind of social media platforms that people are going through have really been beneficial for me.
Doug Holt: Online marketing is by far from my business is the number without a doubt. It’s so surprising although I understand that so many fitness professional shy away from it. It can be cumbersome at times but you just have to be online. There’s just no way around it.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah. It wasn’t easy for me but I just jumped out in trying to teach myself, learning every day.
Doug Holt: Absolutely, as we all are and where this we should be, right?
Sandy Hancock: Right.
Doug Holt: Well, that’s the perfect segue to my next question for you is, as somebody who’s really big into development and making sure not only you grow your business but also yourself, what book would you say or books have made the biggest impact on you personally or professionally?
Sandy Hancock: I reach out to say that one book that I have loved for a long, long time is The Secret. I know that’s not really an educational book but it’s a way of life book and the way of making your life evolve. I love the Law of Attraction and what you think you create and I feel that has really helped me build my business and become who I want to become because if I didn’t believe it, I never could have done it. So I would say personally, that’s my ultimate saver.
Business-wise, I’m always educating myself through certification education and just learning more about how to be a better trainer. I’m always researching things and just learning new things on how to train in educational like just educating myself and finding the ways to educate myself.
Doug Holt: Yeah. There’s so much out there nowadays with the internet and podcasts and audio books and just traditional books as well and courses. Your opportunities are really endless.
Sandy Hancock: Right. And I’m always getting programs online also like “how to market on Facebook” and “how to do video and learn how to do more videos”. I thought a program to help me learn how to do videos for my business because that’s another route I’m looking to go. There’s just so many areas where you can educate yourself. I enjoyed learning and I tried to find something new all the time to take my business to another level.
Doug Holt: Where do you see yourself in 2 years from now? You get on in this learning, where are you 2 years from now when you do your own visions?
Sandy Hancock: I’m looking ongoing more online and I’m in the process of building an online virtual program where women can just purchase a program and it will take them step-by-step through each module and they have to go through each module before they go the next module.
So it gives them some accountability like, “Here’s your program. Go for it.” It’s just so overwhelming. Create something that just takes you down a little bit so it’s not so overwhelming so that they can take it one day at a time and they know what they need to do each step at a time. The process of developing that and getting that online and that’s my next project right now that I’m hoping to accomplish at the end of the year.
Doug Holt: Obviously, I having a reoccurring revenue that’s what any trainer should go for.
Sandy Hancock: Right.
Doug Holt: Any business professional.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah, and I would like to reach out to more women and just doing the one-on- one, I find I only can reach out to so many women and I would like to reach out to more. So that’s the way for me to do that, reach out to more women and help more women at a bigger scale.
Doug Holt: Yeah. It is certainly needed and you’re definitely the professional to do that. So with that within 2 years you’re coming up there, we see you’re going to be more online. Obviously, you’re a social media maven, you know exactly what to do there. With that said, where do you see our industry going? The fitness industry as a whole, where do you see that going into the future?
Sandy Hancock: I know there’s a lot of information online and I think more people are looking for online help just because we’re also busy. I think that there’s going to be a lot of programs online to help women and to help with accountability and help guide them through their process and how to make it work with their lifestyle. That’s really where I see it going is that direction.
I do think there is still the need for the one-on-one and the personal attention. It’s like if everybody is so busy that they still want that personal attention and want that one-on-one, I feel like that’s still going to be important in the future but it’s like there’s just can be more avenues for more choices.
Doug Holt: Absolutely. The advent of the internet or just the way it is now, it kind of leveled the playing field for everybody and allowed everybody access which is been tremendous.
Sandy Hancock: Yeah.
Doug Holt: Sandy, where can people find you? People that want to know more information about you, what’s the best place for them to find that?
Sandy Hancock: They can go to my website, it’s www.bodybysandy.com. They can find me at Facebook under Body By Sandy and also Pinterest and Instagram under Body by Sandy. I am also on Instagram as Sandy Hancock Fitness.
Doug Holt: Okay, perfect. So wherever they are on social media, they can find you?
Sandy Hancock: Right.
Doug Holt: We’ll jump on the internet. Sandy, thank you so much for your time. There’s so many good things and we’ll make sure to put all these links into the show notes. I know you’re busy and I know there’s a bunch of people waiting to talk to you and get some help from the fitness side of things.
Sandy Hancock: I’m sure happy to help whoever in the need. It’s great and I enjoy it. I appreciate you’re having me on the show. Thank you.
Doug Holt: Thank you again Sandy for being on today and thank you listeners for being with us and giving us all the feedback and support that you have in the past. Go on over the Facebook, shoot us a comment. Let us know what you’d like to see on the next episodes. We do this for you, so please let us know. This is your chance also to leave us feedback. And if you like the show and you got an extra 30 seconds or so, swing on over to iTunes, leave us a review. It really means a lot not only to me but to also the team that put in a couple of hours of work for each of these short podcasts that you here. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes and we really appreciate that feedback. That keeps us going and that gives us the fuel. And without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to my announcer and you guys have a great day.
Thank you for listening to the Fitness Professional Online Radio Show. You can share your thoughts and join the discussion on this episode by going through our website or on Facebook.com/FitProOnline. Let us know what you’d like to hear on future shows and please feel free to contact us via e-mail or give us a call at (805) 500-6893. We look forward to hearing from you.
Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Book Mentioned:
Sources from Sandy:
Sandy’s website : Body By Sandy
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