Do You Need a Fitness Coach? How to Tell an Information Problem from a Support Problem

This past year, the author became a complete beginner again. …it didn’t go how I expected. I’ve been a coach for over 15 years. It’s my passion, and why I was hired at Nerd Fitness back in 2018. But my role at Nerd Fitness has grown. These days, I’m not just responsible for our coaching. I’m also responsible for making sure the right people out in the world – the folks we were built to help – can actually find us. As it turns out, that’s its own huge, complicated, overwhelming problem. I had a million questions: How do I write a good newsletter? How do I make a video that someone actually wants to watch? And WHAT DO I DO WITH MY HANDS WHEN I’M FILMING?! Long form? Short form? SEO? AEO? Social media? I haven’t posted anything on my own social media since January 2021 (no joke). Better start figuring that whole thing out. What data is important to track? How do I track it? What about software, and split testing, and all of that? And most of all, how can I do this in a way that feels authentic to who we are: nerds who are turned off by all the rhetoric, hacks, and false promises rampant in the fitness industry? And everywhere I looked, there were competing voices telling me what mattered most, what to focus on, and how much time to spend on what. So I did what any good nerd does when they’re confronted with a new problem… I started collecting underpants. I read dozens of articles and how-tos. I subscribed to Youtube channels and binged their content. I went to live workshops. I bought programs. You name it. And it helped. At least a little. But I kept catching myself in a familiar loop. I’d look at what I made and think: “This isn’t good enough yet.” “Is this actually the thing I should be working on?” “I need to do better before I put this out there.” “Maybe I should just collect more data.” I was stuck. I could tell it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, and that would freeze me from taking action. I’d re-film a video 10 times before quietly canning the project. I’d feel butterflies in my stomach every time before I clicked “send” on an email. Classic “all-or-nothing” mentality. If I couldn’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? Then I Had a Moment of Realization During a conversation with Coach Justin (one of our awesome team members ) – it dawned on me: I was craving…a Coach. Just for the marketing version of how to reach people more effectively. Not another article. Not another 40-minute video from another expert. I wanted a person. Someone willing to sit down with me, learn about our situation and our history, take this whole complicated mess and say: “Hey, I’ve seen this before. I’m here to help. Here’s where we start.” Someone who would check in when I hit roadblocks. Who would keep me focused on getting actual stuff done instead of en