Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Whitney Miller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Whitney , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I had been an athlete my whole life and a very active person. After having three kids, the value of fitness and moving well became very evident, along with the fact that busy moms don’t have much time to work out while juggling the demands of raising young children and other family obligations. As a former athlete, I loved the feeling of accomplishing goals and as a tired mom I just wanted to have more energy and feel better. I found the sport of Ninja Warrior and the supportive community of athletes and coaches. I fell in love with learning to move my body more efficiently, conquering obstacles through creative problem solving, and reaching goals and skills that once seemed impossible. More amazing is that I rarely had time to go to a ninja gym (or any gym). I would train once a month or so in the gym, but most of my training was done at home. My husband and I eventually started adding ninja like obstacles to our house which was great fun, but prior to that I was able to effectively get in the best shape of my life with little equipment during my kids’ nap time or after they went to sleep at night. Part of my story from competing on American Ninja Warrior is that I want to inspire others by showing them that even busy moms can become ninjas training at home. Knowing that a lot of people feel stuck because they are also in situations where hitting the gym multiple times a week isn’t the best option, and maybe feel like working out from home isn’t as effective, I wanted to show them that it is possible and start a business that reaches that often overlooked demographic. So often I think working out from home is viewed as second rate to working out in a gym and I love helping clients see that they can be stronger than they ever have been and do all of their training at home at a time that fits their life. I became a certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist through NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) and started my own virtual personal training business where I meet with clients at times that work best for them. I work with my clients to figure out how to best make fitness “fit” in their life and design monthly training programs customized to their schedule and goals.

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

My business is all about helping people make fitness “fit” into their life. I am busy homeschool mom of three littles who had never done a pull-up in her life until age 33. I effectively trained at home, and am now a 2x American Ninja Warrior competitor and personal trainer looking to share effective home training strategies with others. I am a creative problem solver and a creative mover. I love helping people assess when they could workout, helping them think outside the box, and create fitness plans with their input incorporating movements/exercise that they enjoy. I have one client who loves roller skating so I include that in her training plan. I have helped parents add additional games of tag with their kids as a creative cardio workout. I firmly believe that moving our bodies should be fun and if a client tells me that seeing “burpees” on their training schedule is a discouragement for them to wake up and do their workouts, then, I don’t program burpees for them. There are effective and fun ways to move and I love helping people find what works best for them. I also do not use the scale to measure progress. If our goal is to move better and get stronger than how does that number tell us where we are toward that goal? I have my clients do strength test progress checks every six weeks where they get to celebrate what their bodies can do. I love seeing my client’s faces when they crush their progress checks or acquire skills they never thought were possible. I love when people get their first pull-up or push-up. Their face lights up, their confidence grows, and you can see them start to believe more things are possible.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the most important lesson that I had to unlearn was that there isn’t a script for what running my personal training business should look like. I think its always tempting to try to do what seems to be working for other people, which may have some wisdom, but at the same time it forgets what is unique about you and your business. I have found more success in being unapologetically me and really trying to focus on the particular person I want to work with. That way I am able to communicate a more specific message when I am trying to attract new clients. I think for a while I thought I had to communicate in a way that made my service seem palatable to everyone. In doing so, I think I lost focus of the fact that training at home isn’t for everyone. There are people who train at a gym and its going great and thats awesome. I am here for a specific group who that is not their best option so I learned I needed to tailor my messaging to effectively communicate to them.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have found a lot of success using instagram to grow my business. I have never run any paid ads. I have shared my journey as authentically as possible. Starting off more as a training journal – where I shared as I was learning pull-ups or cliffhangers. As I grew and became a Certified Personal Trainer, my social media reflected that and my followers were along for that journey. I think people love storytelling and like being inspired so I have tried to make my page a positive place where I encourage my audience to dream bigger and pursue their goals. People have found me and reached out about training. Then, those happy clients refer you to their friends and I think instagram provides a really nice way for them to do that organically. So, I can have a client share their successes and tag me and their friends see it, or I can tag them in stories. I think advice I would offer is to really think about storytelling when you are posting/sharing. It doesn’t have to be perfect – share your mistakes/fails too because it builds trust that you are a real person like them. I also think that focusing on your current followers and engaging with them to build community is priority one – think about how a post will serve current followers before you think if the post will attract new followers. When creating content think about how shareable or savable it is. Remember you want our current audience to love it, and it provide value to them. Bonus if they love it enough to share it with their friends/followers too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://whitneymillercoaching.square.site
• Instagram: whitmiller1

Image Credits
Claire DuKatz Photography