Work From Home News

Chris Thompson: Fitness Club Operations Manager to work from home Health and Wellness entrepreneur with international income.

My day is flexible. I get up when I’m finished sleeping. I have time to work on myself as a person. I am free to go to the beach on a beautiful day and as long as I am disciplined enough to make up the time doing a few simple things I have been trained to do everyday, my business and income keeps growing.

I always saw myself as a successful person – a business owner.

It was my dream to have a fitness club of my own and develop that into a chain.

Opportunity knocked when I was 26. I was offered a position as a duty manager at a fitness club in Glasgow, Scotland. My boss was looking for someone who could
learn quickly.

After a month of shadowing people in various positions I was promoted and asked to implement some of my ideas. I was literally thrown in at the deep end as “operations manager” and had to learn on my feet for the first few months. The learning curve was steep, but I loved it.

I was earning £2500 in 2006 after deductions, which in South African terms was a good salary.

Naturally, the money came with a lot more responsibility. Often my day started at 5am and ended at 10pm sometimes working everyday of the week. I had to be there to make sure everything got done. None of this was a problem – I understood that success would cost me in time and energy.

What worried me about the business model was the high risk and relatively low margins. We needed to sell a lot of memberships just to keep the doors open. We increased our memberships by about 5000 in ten months and were still only just making ends meet. The previous manager had also been creative with the books making the business seem more profitable than it was.

Rent, wages and other running costs just kept increasing. We were struggling to compete against the larger chains who were offering more for their members and new clubs opening every year. We were being squeezed out of the market and had to drop prices to compete – this meant we had to sell more memberships to achieve our budgets.

I realized that this was just how ‘doing business was’ and I became disillusioned. Where would I get the kind of money required to start my own gym in such a competitive environment?

I had to start looking for something else.

I came back to South Africa and began looking at everything from franchises to start-ups. Nothing satisfied my criteria:

• I wanted a business opportunity with low overheads but the potential for large profits.
• I wanted to avoid the responsibility and stress of staff
• It needed to be international as well so I could travel
• Most importantly I wanted to do something I was passionate about – ideally in the health & fitness industry
• I did not want to work in an office – a work from home environment would be ideal
• I wanted to be able to expand my business as I grew in confidence

Eventually I had to make a decision.

I was ready to go back to my old job and start earning an income again when my parents suggested I take a look at an Independent Herbalife Distribution License as it satisfied all my criteria.

I was extremely resistant – There was NO WAY I could see myself “selling weight loss products.”

After listing their gym business on the Stock Exchange, my parents Chris & Jean Thompson had been very successful with their Herbalife distribution business for some years, but it was never something I could see myself doing.

I knew that people were making a lot of money in the business. I saw this first hand. I also knew that the products were fantastic as I had already been using them for 12 years to fuel my sport and work-outs, but it was just a matter of me not ‘seeing’ how I could do it. I just didn’t feel it was a good fit for me. I had no experience in marketing or sales, I am not the jump up and down with excitement type of person and always saw Herbalife Distributors as extroverts with lots of energy and excitement.

When I realized that I only needed be myself, that the marketing plan and products were established and that all I needed to bring was my unique personality, skill set and energy to a ‘happening’ business, I became hopeful that I could find a way to do the business that suited me.

I could totally do it my way!

I knew that, just like any business there would be certain things that I had to do to be successful – like being consistent in applying a few simple things – but if I committed to doing the work and being ‘teachable’ that success would come to me, just like the thousands of people who are already successful in 73 countries.

There are warehouses and staff in 73 countries (and growing) waiting to take my call and help me do my business. I saw the ability to be mobile and take my business almost anywhere in the world I chose to be.

Success is different for everyone. For some people it is cars and money, for others it’s an education for their kids, or a reliable pension or retirement plan. For me it was travel and freedom to be wherever I wanted to be. Every business I had seen would require many years of hard work to make it profitable and be “chained to my business”. This was like a dream come true!

I made a commitment to do whatever it took to be successful with Herbalife.

I decided to start my business in Malaysia. Within 6 months I had already built up my residual income (the money I make while I sleep) to over R10 000 per month by helping others to learn the simple skills I had learned to generate income so they could do the same to whatever degree they were prepared to work for. I still get paid for the work I did in Malaysia. Every month. In US dollars.

There is almost no capital risk or overhead in this business, so while I’m learning new skills my business is still very profitable. This is not the case when owning traditional businesses where mistakes and lack of experience can seriously cost you – or in many cases put you out of business.

So I’m earning more and more money as I learn new skills which are taught to me by successful mentors and am becoming a person who is ‘worth more’ to that marketplace.

Interestingly my income has not been affected at all by the recession.

I’m having the time of my life and the future is looking very bright indeed!