Why the new name?
Last week I announced on my Facebook and Instagram pages that I was rebranding my personal and group fitness training business. I thought, seeing as I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment with this lockdown, that I'd explain the reason why I decided to do this - in case anyone was interested.
360 Degree Fitness was a company that I started from scratch. I built it with the help and support of a great many people. People who probably don't even know how much they supported me. To those people - my clients, my suppliers, my friends and family, those random people who read my blog posts when I was writing terribly and wondered if I would ever find my own "voice" to write with, I want to say a huge thank you. I truly appreciate every blog view, every time you liked a post on my social media accounts or share it with your friends and family. You truly have no idea how much that has meant to me over the years. It kept me going when I thought I was making no impact on people.
But after close to 7 years of running 360 Degree Fitness, the business wasn't giving me the opportunity to help as many people as I wanted it to and it was time to take stock and reevaluate if the company was telling the story I wanted it to tell.
We contacted Wellington-based branding and design company called Ocean Design who met with myself and my wife and business partner Sarah to talk through what our problems were, where we wanted the business to go, and what other issues we had. They also privately talked to a few of my clients to see what their thoughts were.
When Ocean came back to us a few weeks later to run a workshop and get some concepts to work with around design and branding they did an exercise that I will always remember. They put my old 360 Degree Fitness logo up on the wall with some of the other big-name gyms in Wellington. My logo just blended right in with them, it was just part of the wallpaper. I was surprised by this - I never looked at the logo right next to all the other gym logos before. They then summed up to me what my clients had told them.
My clients had told Ocean that they never thought of me as 360 Degree Fitness. They didn't hire the company. They hired me. This was something I hadn't really thought about in any depth but made complete sense once the Ocean team started explaining the conversations with my clients.
Looking back at why I chose 360 Degree Fitness as my company name when I first started training clients, it made perfect sense to me at the time - I wanted to take a holistic look at fitness - especially looking at nutrition, exercise, sleep, recovery and mental health as areas of focus for my clients. But at the same time, it also meant I didn't have to put my name out there - as an introvert this is a terrifying prospect for me.
But the time has come to get past those issues. My clients enjoy the personal service they get from me, they like that I don't treat them as a number, it is time to put my name front and centre in all that I do. As the proverb says, take a big step when one is needed - you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
So if you want to check out my new branding and the website I've designed to go along with it, you can have a look at it here!
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| My new company branding |
But after close to 7 years of running 360 Degree Fitness, the business wasn't giving me the opportunity to help as many people as I wanted it to and it was time to take stock and reevaluate if the company was telling the story I wanted it to tell.
We contacted Wellington-based branding and design company called Ocean Design who met with myself and my wife and business partner Sarah to talk through what our problems were, where we wanted the business to go, and what other issues we had. They also privately talked to a few of my clients to see what their thoughts were.
When Ocean came back to us a few weeks later to run a workshop and get some concepts to work with around design and branding they did an exercise that I will always remember. They put my old 360 Degree Fitness logo up on the wall with some of the other big-name gyms in Wellington. My logo just blended right in with them, it was just part of the wallpaper. I was surprised by this - I never looked at the logo right next to all the other gym logos before. They then summed up to me what my clients had told them.
My clients had told Ocean that they never thought of me as 360 Degree Fitness. They didn't hire the company. They hired me. This was something I hadn't really thought about in any depth but made complete sense once the Ocean team started explaining the conversations with my clients.
Looking back at why I chose 360 Degree Fitness as my company name when I first started training clients, it made perfect sense to me at the time - I wanted to take a holistic look at fitness - especially looking at nutrition, exercise, sleep, recovery and mental health as areas of focus for my clients. But at the same time, it also meant I didn't have to put my name out there - as an introvert this is a terrifying prospect for me.
But the time has come to get past those issues. My clients enjoy the personal service they get from me, they like that I don't treat them as a number, it is time to put my name front and centre in all that I do. As the proverb says, take a big step when one is needed - you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
So if you want to check out my new branding and the website I've designed to go along with it, you can have a look at it here!
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