We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joyan Calhoun a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joyan , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Last year the idea came to me. The theme was easy to come up with as dinosaurs are a very marketable concept for business.

I got the website from ISSA after getting my personal trainer certification from them. Then the journey truly started and it has been a crazy journey.

Coming up with prices for example was a challenge. You don’t want to charge too much and you don’t want to charge too little or you need way too many clients for a profit. I’d say now they are in a great middle ground.

Creating programs lol crazy fun too. Sooo many revisions and changing the names of programs to get to this current point. Chat gpt is a useful tool for business. Then promoting it has been a massive undertaking. Honestly that has been my weakness for the longest time until recently.

I did what I should have done at the beginning and lean into the dinosaur theme and completely overhauling how I did ads and I started getting more leads for potential sales. And I have my own clothing line with my brand name Jurassic Gain Fit.

We have hoodies,t-shirts, crop tops, and we’re working on other forms of clothing. Since I use a distributor financing that with my job at as a personal trainer for a gym has had its difficulties but it’s getting off the ground. Currently I’m in a great position and I’m looking forward for what happens next!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I got into enjoying training people in job corps for free and loving it. My favorite win was watching a kid squat over 300 pounds safely. I thought hmmm maybe I could turn this into something. I applied for the gym job I have now and started as a front desk worker. Then when the guy who was supposed to replace the old trainer never came in I applied and got it. And here I am now.

I offer multiple fitness programs for whatever your goals are with future programs on the way. And I am very flexible!

I help people with their fitness goals like for example: let’s say you just want to grow big biceps and have a six pack. Cool I got you. Now having said that I am realistic and I will work with you to get to a more realistic goal that works for you.

In my opinion what sets me apart is:

1. I understand the struggle of body image and having jokes made about your body. Absolutely hating the person who you see in the mirror but doing nothing to change it. The mental health battle we face is a battle I myself constantly fight. I make sure to express my personality openly on my profile because I’m more than fitness. However my passion for fitness and watching people succeed is as immense as the universe.

2. Very personable and I love to get to know clients. I want every client to succeed and I have had clients at my gym job who came in having a bad day and leaving smiling. I refuse to let any client demean themselves because the person they are meant to be is in them and it’s my job to bring that person out. A quote I have told clients is: “ No one can tell you what your limits are not even me.”

3. My creativity largely due to having ADHD allows me to never run out of ideas. Once I get a good idea of what I need to do the ideas start flowing. And I’m constantly trying to learn new fitness exercises and looking at what the data says about certain movements.

What I want people to know about my brand and me: I’m easily approachable and I want my love of dinosaurs and my love of fitness to be intertwined with a love for changing people’s life’s and minds by giving them life long habits and knowledge.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I wanted to quit so badly. I wasn’t doing well mentally and I wasn’t even actively working on the business at that point. It had been months at that point. But one day I felt compelled to return and try again. And I decided to never give up on the business and the thought to quit did appear several more I persevered through those rough times. Each failure was a great learning experience for me.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

How I was initially promoting it was asking people at my workplace to shout me out. Lol yeah that ended poorly the last person I asked to do that there was drama involved and I almost got written up and could have potentially gotten fired too. That failure burned but that’s when the pivot to solo social media promotion started. Something that I should have did from the start but live and learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.issacertifiedtrainer.com/jurassicgainsfit.edit?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.issacertifiedtrainer.com%2FWebsiteEdit
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jc26fit?igsh=MWxyenlzOWk4djZoeQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr