Month: July 2019

  • The Kelly O Show

    How do celebrities like Jennifer Garner and Cindy Crawford get fit and LEAN? Valerie Waters shares how — and tips for YOU!

    Celebrity Trainer Valerie Waters Shares Tips For Losing Fat and Getting LEAN!

    Valerie Waters is a personal trainer in Hollywood and has been sculpting celebrity bodies for over 20 years. She is most known for training Jennifer Garner to get in crazy lean shape for “Alias” (one of my favorite shows of all time!) She started getting into fitness when she was still in high school and trained for track & field. She fell in love with strength training as she found weight lifting as a form of stress relief, which she said really helped when she was stressed over high school issues.
    Her first job was as a gym membership sales agent, but she barely got anything out of it. It wasn’t until she got hired as a personal trainer did her career start to flourish. Even though her experience mostly came from working with people for thousands of hours, she was known to get people into shape. She would eventually land a gig with Cindy Crawford, the first of her long list of celebrity clients.
    Today, Valerie shares with us how she got to where she is right now, the difference between celebrities and average clients, her thoughts on how to motivate people to achieve their goals, and why she thinks it’s okay to not be as hardcore as most people are.
    “All of us can change, it just depends on what your level of commitment is.” Valerie Waters
    In this episode, you’ll learn:
    • Celebrities are like us except they get more motivated when they get a movie offer.
    • She figures out the strategy for busy people. Even if people were pressed with time, so long as the motivation is there it will work.
    • People have to be taught the lifestyle. Food is to be enjoyed and it’s okay to be not so hardcore. You just have to be alright with only having a certain level of fitness versus what you could have if you raised it up a notch or two.
    • To get to the next level, doing more of the same thing won’t work. You got to take it up a notch.
    • Raise your standards, especially in clean eating. Don’t fall off because of M&Ms. It’s alright to get cravings, but you have to fill yourself with clean food as much as possible. So even if you fall from your goals, you won’t fall far.
    • Planning your meals can be a great deterrent to snacking. Don’t leave your nutrition to chance.
    • Excessive cardio makes them so hungry and ends up ruining their diet.
    • The more you eat clean food the harder it is to eat junk.
    • The body adjusts to new habits and ends up preferring it. It becomes your new standard.
    Key Takeaways:
    • The difference between who gets results and someone who doesn’t is the person who’s willing to do the work even when they don’t feel like it.
    • We change our lives through changing our bodies and it starts with fitness.
    Connect with Valerie Waters:
    Mentioned in this episode:
     

    About Valerie Waters

    From her online bio:
    Hi, I’m Valerie and I love changing lives through fitness. I’m a personal trainer, food coach and body transformer, but my clients just call me the body whisperer. Give me a goal and a deadline and I can help you get there. My style is very effective without being overly restrictive and extreme. I will lovingly hold your feet to the fire while also showing you that making a change doesn’t have to be so hard!
    Having worked with Hollywood’s hottest talent for the past 20 years, I know how to produce results fast, but I also know how to make it sustainable. I will make sure you work hard enough to get results, but not so hard that you want to quit! Remember, there is no such thing as maintenance because a healthy lifestyle is a lifestyle choice you make for life!
    When I’m not training clients (or myself!) I love to bury myself in a good book, get outside to hike, surf, run stairs or just see the sun, go to the movies and get lots of snuggles from my dogs Cody and Lexi who bring me endless joy. I also LOVE sharing on my new favorite finds or things of inspiration on Instagram.
    MORE ABOUT ME
    My Motto is: “You’re are one workout away from a good mood”.
    My Life Code is: Be nice. It matters.
    My Favorite Foods: Breakfast burritos and movie popcorn
    My favorite foods when asked by a fitness magazine: Baked salmon and green smoothies
    My Favorite two exercises: Valslide Reverse Lunge and the Valslide Bodysaw
    My Favorite Movies: Crazy Stupid Love and Blue Crush”

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  • Fitness, Personal Blog

    How to tackle time management for success in fitness AND at work.

    Some people simply suck at time management. Accept that you might be one of those people.

    Is this you?

    • Do you find yourself getting to the end of the work day and you feel BEAT and tired and run-down, and you know you have been working hard all day but you are baffled at all you DIDN’T GET DONE?
    • Do you start the week with big goals for eating right (cooking at home) and working out, and then you get to Friday and look back and realize you did about 50-75% of what you intended to do? 
    • Do you get to Monday and often feel like you had no weekend because you spend all weekend running around doing STUFF and errands and fitting in everything you can’t during the week- and thus, by Monday you are more exhausted than you were heading into the weekend?

    I can relate to ALL OF THE ABOVE. And sadly I can say it’s been my life not just for weeks and not just for months but years. 

    Gulp. 

    I have read dozens of books and blog posts on time management. I understand all the concepts. I have bought more planners than you can possibly imagine, in addition to Todd Herman’s 90-Day Year, and I have completed maybe 10% of that. 

    Nothing has clicked for me. I have been challenged by (that’s professional speak for “I suck at”) time management for longer than I can remember, and I know it got the most out of hand when I left corporate america to run my first startup. 

    Holy Heck. Talk about being busy and understaffed! 

    I’m writing this blog post to tell you that I feel I may have found the answer to finally conquering time management and productivity problems. Read on.

     

    What's the missing link in becoming a productive goal-reaching person?

    Based on my own experience and some pretty epic A-HA moments, I believe strongly that the missing link below is what will help all of us make massive change in our unproductive, procrastinating, time-wasting days. 

    The Missing Link is this:

    You have to define your two primary lighthouses. (Watch out here comes a possibly bizarre but hopefully effective analogy). What do I mean by lighthouses — well, lighthouses help ships aim toward a destination when it’s foggy and/or dark out. In other words when they can’t see where they are going. They focus on those lighthouses to guide them.

    The problem with time management and getting the stuff done we need to get done is this- we focus way too much on the tactics vs. the bigger picture. 

    What do I mean by that? 

    We focus on “should I use an online calendar or a desk calendar?” or, “Sally swears by this program to help her get organized, I should use that….” or, “Everyone says it’s all about getting up at 5am so I should do that…!’

    Nope. 

    These are tactics. Any of them might work for you. What you need to figure out are the 3 primary components of the YOUR big picture:

    • What do you ULTIMATELY want? (This is your to die for goal: I want to be a size 6, I want to be at 18% bodyfat, I want to be debt free, I want to start my own business) Far too many people haven’t taken the time to REALLY think about- in specific terms- what they want. They’ll say “I need to lose weight” – that’s great, we ALL say that. But- if you were more specific and said “What matters to me, what would mean so much to me would be to be able to wear whatever I want. I am tired of going in my closet and only being able to wear half of the clothes in there because some of them are too tight. I’m tired of feeling not 100% confident in my clothes. I work out hard and eat right, I want to LOOK the part”– that’s far more specific. And of course, you can take that further by enhancing those statements with only positive ones– what you DO want not just what you DON’T want. So you’d say “I want to be confident in my own skin. I want to rock my bikini, all times of the year, not just after a “diet”. I want to be able to wear any and all clothes in my closet and not feel fidgety in them because they are too tight.” Figure out what you really REALLY WANT in specifics and — you know what is coming- it’s recommended you write this down in a journal or a spot you can see daily. 
    •  What’s been keeping you from getting there? This is also something a lot of us miss. We might say- again, being far too ambiguous (are you picking up on this- that ambiguousness doesn’t help us reach goals…??) “I need to eat better” but hello how do you know when you are doing that? What exactly IS “better”? The other thing a lot of us do is we aren’t honest enough with ourselves to admit where we are really dropping the ball. In my world, I’ll give you 2 examples. I knew I was doing something wrong with getting to my fitness goals- I’d lost a good amount of weight earlier in the year but started to plateau again. I KNEW deep down that my food was off but until just recently, I did not get back on MyFitnessPal and start TRACKING MY FOOD. I just kept saying “I’m sure I’m not getting enough protein and I’m probably at too many carbs”. In my work-life, I kept getting to the end of the day frustrated AF because I’d be working hard all day but I’d always say to myself “what did I actually get DONE today??”_ and I’d look at my list of things to tackle and a lot of them were on my list in January (things like Continuing Education/Training classes I bought a LONG time ago– you know it’s bad when you are on a 6-month payment plan for a course and you are paid in full before you actually start consuming the content…..grrr!!) I knew I was not effectively managing my time but— I just kept doing it, kept working the same way. 
    • What do you need to do differently to make progress and reach your goals? Ok this is a KEY point. You might think this is the same as the above point but it’s not. When you are really honest with yourself and see how you have been dropping the ball, that’s part one. Part two is being VERY SPECIFIC in what you need to do differently to stop the bad trend: — For me, I realized I needed to 1) Schedule my workouts in my calendar and STICK TO THAT COMMITMENT to myself + 2) Religiously track my food in MyFitnessPal and do it in advance each morning so I’m not trying to catch up on macros at the end of the day + (in my business world) 3) I need to get back to writing out my top 6 most important TO-DO’s for each day and start with those, nothing else + 4) I need to SCHEDULE my day in chunks of time and schedule my priorities vs. just winging the day and going from one thing to the next to the next and never really finishing anything. If you don’t do this last part– and ideally announce this as a big commitment to yourself– share it with your partner or your bff or your online accountability partner– I’m telling you, sharing my new challenges/goals/commitments online keeps me going so much- if you don’t identify how you change your bad habits and then implement them while being accountable to someone for it– you will be back at square one shortly. 

    Why you can't 'BACK END' success into your day anymore.

    Watch this video I recorded on instagram live (are you following me on instagram? I’d love to know if this hits home with you and what changes you plan on making for greater success– starting TODAY!! Let me know in the comments below and be sure you are subscribed to my newsletter (you can do so in the sidebar) so you don’t miss a thing. Cool things coming up my friends!  It’s so good to be back blogging again! 

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  • Business Blog

    Clue Phone: The Real Costs For Influencer Marketing.

    Understanding the real costs behind effective Influencer Marketing campaigns.

    The Top 10 Biggest Myths Around Working With Influencers.

    After running a successful fitness influencer agency for 7+ years and executing close to 700 blogger/influencer campaigns, I have more than enough experience with influencer marketing to speak on this topic. Frankly, I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about this- both for the sake of influencers and for brands/agencies, because while influencer marketing continues to grow in popularity, it is VERY CLEAR that there is a HUGE LACK of understanding by both brands and agencies as to best practices in working with influencers and also– the real costs for effective influencer marketing campaigns. 

    I’m going to break down a LOT of these points in great detail, including:

    • EFFECTIVE: there’s a big difference between doing an influencer marketing campaign and doing one RIGHT, where you actually create results, like, business results. 
    • CAMPAIGNS: why brands and agencies should stop thinking about CAMPAIGNS and start thinking about long-term partnerships and brand ambassador programs with sales incentives.
    • COSTS: This could be a whole book. 
    • WORK: Understanding the WORK that influencers do is a MAJOR point worthy of discussion. 

    To start, I’d like to share my observation of some of the biggest MYTHS permeating the internetosphere (I just invented that word):

     

    Change the way you do "CAMPAIGNS".

    Want to win in social media and with influencers? Stop doing campaigns. 

    Campaigns are like commercials: staged, fake, temporary and truly reflective of a myopic mindset in marketing. 

    Think long-term. Develop a brand ambassador program. Work with influencers for the LONG-TERM and treat them like a true business partner. You’ll sell more product, guaranteed. 

    Stop doing useless "Media Events".

     I cringe every time I hear an agency say they are planning a big “Media Event”. Honestly I think so many folks in the PR and Ad space are so used to talking the industry terms and doing the things they’ve always done, they have failed to stop and think about things logically. Media events are typically stunts that are expensive, take a lot of planning, and usually end up with the brand/product getting some featured articles written in print magazines– and how does anyone know if that WORKS? Last time I checked you don’t get analytics for press in magazines. Not surprising to read the following:

    “It’s no surprise to publishers that the magazine industry is in a decline. The PwC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2015-2020 predicts that by 2020, the magazine industry will have dropped 20% of its 2015 rate, representing a loss of approximately $19 billion globally. While 134 titles launched in 2017, 50 others closed, and overall there are 207 fewer titles than in 2008.” SOURCE: NEWSCYCLE 2019 click here

    What’s funny is that brands will still spend $250K for a full page ad in a print magazine offering ZERO analytics and no tracking of how that ad affects the consumer reading it (and don’t get me started on how magazines manipulate subscriber numbers– you aren’t REALLY reaching those million subscribers– a vast majority of them are subscribers who cancelled and are given the magazine for FREE for years so they can count them as a subscriber and charge you for it. Wake up!) and they’ll spend six figures on “media events” that last 2 hours– and provide NO tracking or analytics, yet when they remit an influencer payment of $500 they expect an analytics report that is Biblical in length from the influencer. 

    Change the way you view influencers and their audience/followers.

    You are reaching out to bloggers and influencers for a reason. They have your target customer tuning in to everything they say. THEY built that audience. THEY built that relationship. THEY control that dialogue. YOU are a guest. Thus, if you are asking your host to do you a favor and introduce you to their audience, understand the roles. Understand the ask. Be respectful and grateful and view it as a business partnership, because it is. 

    Understand that today's consumer relies on social media AND on the recommendations of their friends/social media BFFs to inform purchase decisions.

    Do I really need to share the stats here on today’s consumer relying on recommendations from others? Why do you think Amazon.com grew so fast? RATINGS ON PRODUCTS. I can literally point to 15 appliances in my kitchen that I bought because of my influencer besties on instagram. 

    Do a minute of googling on social media and how it influences purchasing decision and then another search on how influencers of all sizes drive purchasing decisions and you’ll get it. This is no joke. 

    Social media and influencer marketing are THE single best place for you to spend your marketing dollars AND also the most trackable and tweakable methods available. You can literally watch your potential customers’ reactions and engage DIRECTLY with them…..and even get product/service ideas for yourself on the daily. 

    Focus group + R&D + Customer Service + New Client Acquisition == it’s all here. Why on earth are you not directing all of your efforts here?

    Understand that most influencer platform recommendations for influencer fees are RANDOM and usually not accurate whatsoever.

    During the 7+ years I was the CEO of a fitness influencer agency, we used several influencer management platforms. Today, there are hundreds– and all of them brag about having the most influencers. Typically, a brand or agency pays these platforms a fee to be able to find influencers and then hire them for CAMPAIGNS and the platform will also usually handle the payments and w9 situations. 

    I can tell you from experience that while the technology is impressive for most of these companies, the real truth is this:

    • The analytics provided for campaigns is lacking. When I audited what was spit out from the dashboards of 2 big platforms and saw that it was just an excel spreadsheet of likes and comments and traffic, I realized what a sad joke that was. 
    • The fees that the platforms will suggest for the influencers are RANDOM and based on their metrics, not based on what the actual influencer will charge. So, there is almost no way to effectively budget for a campaign in advance because if you do, you’ll be wholeheartedly surprised when you go to hire that blogger and they say “Oh that rate is not accurate, I don’t charge $345 I charge $1500. Sorry! Let me know if that works!”

    The best way to plan for an influencer campaign or brand ambassador program is to — truthfully- execute manual outreach where you can find out exactly what the influencers require. Relying on platforms is not recommended. 

    STOP TRYING TO CONTROL THE MESSAGE.

    I wish I could scream this message from the mountain tops. I have worked as an influencer with hundreds of brands and I’ve managed campaigns for hundreds of brands, and many of them were for companies so insistent on controlling EVERY ASPECT OF THE MESSAGE, you had to wonder, why on earth are you using bloggers or influencers if what you really want is an editorial piece dictated and published or a commercial? 

    People view commercials and print ads with a completely different attitude than the way they consider a recommendation from a friend or a TRUSTED influencer they follow.

    If you are hiring an influencer to reach their audience, why would you try to tell them how to share your product? If you’ve never had a baby or cared for a baby before or held a baby, would you approach a mother with her child and tell her how to best breast feed it? I doubt it.

    If you hire an influencer who has carefully cultivated a dedicated following over months and likely years, TRUST THEM to know how best to promote your product. You’ll get FAR MORE genuine interest from the influencer’s audience when they speak in their own language. 

    I remember working with an agency for a sports water brand. And the degree to which this agency and brand had to pre-approve any and all content before it went live was insane. Blog posts were rejected because there was a glass of orange juice in the background- and consumers “might think it’s a competing sports drink”. 

    SERIOUSLY. 

    I also remember a protein drink brand freaking out that an influencer was wearing a sports bra top and showing her MIDRIFF– even though they specifically asked for TRAINERS after a workout in workout clothes. Apparently I Dream Of Jeanie restrictions are back in place in 2019.

    Control the message and worry about STUPID STUFF like this– expect mediocre results EVERY TIME. 

    Compare the costs of Influencer Marketing + Social Media Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing Methods or Advertising.

    As referenced above, social media marketing and influencer marketing methods are NOT cheap but they are the most effective in driving traffic and in converting consumers to paying customers. There is NO other medium that is less expensive or offers as much tracking and analytics or targeting capabilities. It’s time to understand that this is not only a legitimate method of advertising and marketing but one of the most effective ones available. Period. 

    Stop thinking it’s cheap just because it can appear fun and frilly. Social media content requires a TON of time and creativity and talent — and then there’s the audience. When you are paying for social and influencer marketing, you are paying for quality, creative content AND for access to an audience ideal for your product. Be willing to pay for that!

    Presence is not enough.

    My favorite thing to tell clients as they begin taking social media marketing and influencer marketing seriously is this: It’s not enough to just have a PRESENCE on social and with influencers- you have to have a PURPOSE. That purpose should be GENERATING SALES — and you can use social and influencers to do that, but it requires strategy, a solid strategy, and capable execution. Stop winging it. 

    If you are needing assistance in this area, you guessed it, we can help you. Head over to Socially Fit Services and reach out if you’d like to talk about getting started. 

    If you are an influencer interested in joining our influencer community- fill out the contact form and we’ll be in touch– we focus solely on long-term brand ambassador programs for our clients with the occasional legitimate/sensible product review opportunity. (and our goal is to pay you your asking rate, not try to low-ball you, so there’s that.)

    A Reminder to Influencers/Bloggers:

    via GIPHY

    This post is not written to give you a Get Out of Jail Free card– this post is not written so you can become the Mariah Carey of bloggers and be an unreasonable diva. Not at all. 

    My goal is to teach bloggers/influencers how to cultivate more confidence, how to understand the business of making an income online (via various methods and products) and how to promote and sell with authority and unwavering belief. I feel strongly that there are thousands of women out there working online either as a side-hustle or trying to build their already launched business, and they are stalling. Further, when they work with brands they have no ability to enter into business discussions from a position of strength, because they are uninformed, not experienced and not confident. 

    All of this can change. It’s been my pleasure to watch hundreds of bloggers/influencers I know personally start businesses online and THRIVE– and watching THEM transform as their business exploded was even more inspiring than the sales numbers sometimes!! 

    This is so doable for you. If you feel lost and frustrated about making solid income online from your blog and your talents/expertise– I strongly recommend you check out my course designed specifically for women like you: The Opposite of Nice Isn’t Nasty: Sales Training For Women in Business. I’d love to help you level up in a big way. 

    Finally, if you like this post, SHARE THE LOVE– pass this on to another influencer/blogger or, if you are in the brand/agency space, pass it on to a colleague. And be sure to SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter on the sidebar, so you don’t miss any future posts.

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