Jen Dugard (00:01.176)
Sierra, welcome to the podcast. How are going?
Sierra Ryland (00:04.578)
Thank you. Yeah, I'm going well, although definitely the case of the Fridays today, or this week. Well, that's my word. Well, kind of. Yeah, yeah. Well, it kind of like frantic Fridays, very much end of the week type things, trying to fit everything in before school pick up, basically. I'm squeezing you in, yeah.
Jen Dugard (00:09.944)
What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? Oh, cool. Let's go straight in there. Give me your word.
Jen Dugard (00:26.808)
and you're squeezing us in, so thank you very much. Yeah, appreciate it. And we've got literally the hour, don't we? And then you've got straight on the road, straight to school pickup. So that is your word. What are you winning at at the moment?
Sierra Ryland (00:33.408)
Yeah. Yeah.
My win is actually I've this week just heard back that I've been appointed to the panel for the Hooks Bay Women's Triathlon. So I'm going to be like their coaching resource for their triathlon. Yeah, so that's good. So I've been working with them, I think one or two years doing like
Jen Dugard (00:54.23)
How cool is that?
Sierra Ryland (01:02.19)
Masterclass triathlon one-on-one masterclass for them. So now they're formalizing that relationship a little bit more, which is nice.
Jen Dugard (01:09.496)
That is awesome and it just goes to show how long things take, right? You you go in there, you build the relationship, you create the credibility and then, I mean, it's the shit that it takes that long, but it's that consistency, right?
Sierra Ryland (01:15.202)
Mm.
Sierra Ryland (01:20.238)
Yes.
Yeah, well last year, because we had this conversation, it was, I think you'd said, can you promote your services? Can you do something more with them? And I'd ask them and they were like, no, we don't want to promote one person over the other. And now that it's kind of completely flipped and gone, actually, no, we do want you. And they'll have some other people like physios and that sort of thing too. But they're like, we will promote your services. yeah. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (01:49.43)
Amazing. What's changed do you think for them?
Sierra Ryland (01:51.894)
A new marketing manager potentially who maybe is just, I don't know, maybe a little bit more driven to create that community approach because before I don't think they really had that. They're quite successful at running a women's triathlon, getting people participating and involved. But then the next step is like, what's the support? Because they're a, it's the Hiratanga Women's Center. So they're
their bread and butter is not triathlon, it's a women's centre. So I guess recognising potentially that they need that further expertise or draw on the community for that expertise where their expertise is putting on this event.
Jen Dugard (02:37.496)
Awesome, and you're the perfect person for that job, which we will delve in and share more as, as we go through this episode. And what are you working on at the moment, Sierra?
Sierra Ryland (02:41.409)
Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (02:47.096)
So related to that, because this is what I've been working on, is growing that coaching side of the business. When I first started, it was very much personal training, doing a few group classes, but the long-term goal was to grow the coaching side because I can do that online, remotely, with more flexibility. So I've been growing my coaching numbers, I've been growing the organizations that I can work with to promote my coaching, and so that's all. Yeah.
coming together a little bit more this year and a little bit more clearly this year, I think.
Jen Dugard (03:19.766)
Yeah, I love it. So in order to get people up to speed, because it's like we've dove straight in with these awesome partnerships and new appointments, tell us a little bit about how you started in the fitness industry and how you got to specifically coaching women to do triathlon.
Sierra Ryland (03:38.998)
Yeah, so I've always been very sporty, very athletic, very just naturally that way inclined. So I've always done some form of sporting endeavor. It was cross country running. Then I moved into adventure racing. Then I moved into triathlon. But my career was actually a lawyer and I was a lawyer for 13 years straight out of uni.
Thought I had this really amazing career path. On the back of all that, doing my triathlons, competing at world championships, had my daughter, and then it basically, I don't know how much you wanna swear in this, but it hit the fan. Edit that out, but yeah, literally the shit kinda hit the fan. Started suffering from what I guess would probably be.
Jen Dugard (04:22.488)
with much you like really yeah
Sierra Ryland (04:32.75)
called reactive depression in terms of it's not actually clinical depression, but the struggle of juggling all these balls, adding a new family aspect and then still expecting to have this career, doing my sporting endeavors, which were so tied in with my personality just led to this meltdown.
was an eye-opener for me because I didn't want to go back to law then if that's what it was going to push me into. And I also didn't want to be a martyr to try to reform the profession because people would ask me, why don't you just change jobs? Why don't you do this and go into a different firm? It wasn't the firm. My firm was actually quite good, but you're fighting something that's much bigger than just an individual organization.
Because I'd already been quite athletic and that way inclined and about 15 years ago, I remember saying to someone, if I couldn't be a lawyer, I'd be a personal trainer because I like being fit and active. So I thought, this is now the perfect time in my life to do that. And let's not wait any longer because then I'll be too old to have a career progression or start a new business and then build it. But I was very clear that I didn't want
to go into a gym. I needed flexibility. I wanted to be in control of my hours, my life, how I ran everything. So I thought I will start my own business and it's going to be catering for women who basically have lost their sparkle. So my maiden name is Sparksman.
And so that's where Sparkle Fitness came from as the name, because I felt very much like I had lost my Sparkle, my passion for what I wanted to do and was feeling like a bit of an empty shell. And when I was Googling, I it was quite a common theme for this phrase, like women feel like they've lost their Sparkle, they feel like they've lost their Spark, they've lost their drive. And it's nothing to do with being competitive or elite.
Sierra Ryland (06:55.448)
performance, it's just they just don't feel like themselves anymore. So I wanted to provide that space where women could feel like themselves, could be doing something for them, recognizing that this is a healthy thing to actually have hobbies and interests and exercise outside of your family unit. I'm not a big believer in women staying at home.
if that's because society has told them to, it's a little bit different if they want to, and that's fine. But I didn't want to be in that feeling of resentment, and I don't want other people to be in that feeling of resentment, that they didn't look after themselves better, they didn't do XYZ better. So I started with personal training, and my focus was on mums because of the fact that there were so many things that weren't told to me.
about how I should be exercising after having a baby. A lot of the stuff was just assumed because I was fit and healthy. Like I get told you're so fit, you're so healthy. But yet, you know, these things will still go wrong and the journey isn't perfect or what I expected it to be. And they sort of deal with you in the first six weeks and then you're like, off you go. You're all good now.
But I wasn't all good and I suspect a lot of other people aren't all good either, but it's very hard to find that advice, or at least it was at that time. So, yeah, but what I also wanted to do, as I said, long-term was I was still planning my return to triathlon. I still want to do well and win in my triathlons and...
I keep proving that to myself by winning my age groups. I did the World Champs last year. So the performance aspect is still there, but I definitely had to train differently and learn how to accept a new sort of normal in terms of when I could train, how much I could train, and really adjust the expectations from there and some smarter training techniques, which...
Sierra Ryland (09:18.124)
That's all part of that postpartum journey, that journey into perimenopause and will be that journey into menopause as well. And that's where I want to evolve the business, not just on the personal training side, but MumSafe has taught me quite a lot that will also apply into the coaching side. And that's why I continue to focus on women of all life stages, because even these things that we focus on.
as a mum, like say the pelvic floor, for example, the research is coming out and, you know, our teenagers that they should be learning how to engage in control that muscle as well, because in particular, a lot of runners, regardless of whether they've had babies, will run into this issue later on in life as they start to get older and things lose their tone and everything. So yeah, that's...
where I'm heading.
Jen Dugard (10:17.268)
it, I love it. Sarah, one of the things that stood out to me was I heard you say it wasn't what I expected it to be. What was your experience and what was different to what you expected?
Sierra Ryland (10:24.877)
Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (10:29.932)
Yeah, wonderful. So that's some of the things that I was thinking about before this podcast, because as I said, I was quite into all my sport, into all my running, into all my triathlon. So everyone was telling me, don't worry, you'll bounce back. You'll be faster after you have your baby. And I was like, this is going to be exciting. How am I just going to be faster? And I mean, of course, the research is there in terms of
I think it's like increased oxygen uptake and stuff, but the research is done on people who, I think, Russians, Olympic athletes who then had got deliberately got pregnant and then had abortion so did not have a baby. Yeah, this is like all this historic stuff. So yeah, it's totally not okay, but it's one of the things that when you're pregnant, you know, there's more blood flow around. Yeah, yeah. So then you can still retain some of those benefits.
Jen Dugard (11:10.06)
What?
wow, I didn't know about that.
Jen Dugard (11:20.886)
I understand that part, yeah.
Sierra Ryland (11:26.196)
even if you don't carry the baby to full term. So they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it'll kind of be like that. But of course you have a baby. It's not the same thing. So what it didn't take into account or what these well-intentioned people were saying to me is my life after giving birth was a complete, completely different from what I expected.
Jen Dugard (11:29.048)
Huh.
Sierra Ryland (11:54.956)
And it's one of those things that it's like when you don't have empathy for something because you haven't experienced it, you can be sympathetic or you can, you think you understand, but you don't. So I had a relatively normal pregnancy. There was no major complications there, but I did end up having an emergency caesarean. Everything got thrown off after that. When I tried to run again,
It was like, well, I'm dealing with like a lack of sleep. I'm trying to breastfeed unsuccessfully, but mentally because of my drive, I'm just gonna push through this and just think that I'm gonna push through this. And I was just slowly going into a hole and nothing was getting better. And it wasn't until I think I started speaking with my personal trainer and a friend,
an older friend of mine about running and it was like, no, you're gonna stop running all the time. We're gonna strength train, we're gonna work on your hip mobility and then enabled me to work on my strength once I got my hips mobile. My legs then moved better when I was running and I stopped running junk miles because my friend said, you don't have time to do a normal training program. But because of my background, she said any run
that you're going to do, it's going to be a quality session. Like we're going to do speed work, we're going to do this. So that was where, because of my background, I could go into that relatively successfully. But what it meant was I didn't have the time to train like I used to. So I needed to be much smarter with the time that I had and go what sessions are going to get me the best bang for my buck in terms of the goals that I wanted. So with doing that, working on mobility, improving my strength,
I was then able to start running like I used to pretty much. And then of course you just now have that juggle of how much training injury as you get older, that always still wants to come in and throw things up. But it has meant that I was able to maintain a consistent running and enjoy it again for the main part and feel like I could be competitive. Like I said, like I still won age groups in triathlon and I've still went to the world champs. Like I wouldn't have been able to.
Sierra Ryland (14:17.41)
do that if I didn't change how I was running. yeah, being the main thing that's going to sort of injure me cycling and swimming was always a little bit more forgiving. So yeah, it was about training smarter.
Jen Dugard (14:22.732)
Mmm.
Jen Dugard (14:31.192)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think that's the overarching thing that I'm hearing from you. It's as a mum, you're in recovery from giving birth. So you're in rebuild, maybe rebuild is a better word. And you want to get back. You want to move forward to achieving the things that are in line with what you were potentially achieving beforehand. But there's absolutely no way that you can manage the same training volume and you don't have as much.
Sierra Ryland (14:56.098)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (15:03.436)
I'm gonna call it disposable energy, going into those training sessions. So the key message is if you are a woman, specifically a mum, and you want to return to doing triathlons or start doing triathlons as a mum, you can't just do it like the people that don't have children and don't get it.
Sierra Ryland (15:06.146)
Hmm. Yeah, exactly.
Sierra Ryland (15:26.69)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I like that phrase about what you say, energy, because at the end of the day, before I had my daughter, I would come home after my weekend sessions, go have naps, fall asleep on the couch, binge watch TV, because you know, I was too tired to do anything else. I can't do that now. So I've got to have energy and reserve for all the other life stuff. Like someone has to put dinner on the table.
at a certain time before kids start to lose it. You don't sort of have that flexibility and luxuries that you had beforehand. So yeah, you've always got to have a bit of energy left for the rest of it.
Jen Dugard (16:02.796)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (16:08.172)
Well, it's almost the other way around, right? Is that, do you have enough energy left once you've finished being a mom and handling business and life to be able to train? So it's almost like that's always gonna be, the kids are not going anywhere, you've got to sleep at some point, do you have enough in your tank to go and have a quality training session? And I really like what you said about not running junk miles. I think so many people just run way too much and it's not quality.
Sierra Ryland (16:15.832)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (16:38.306)
training.
Sierra Ryland (16:38.542)
Yeah, it's not making them faster. It's not getting them to like, if they are trying to run faster, it's not actually making them faster. The classic mistakes that anyone will make is they'll run their easy runs too fast. And it's like a classic example. But it's the things you will no longer get away with when you're a mom, because as we're talking about, you don't have that energy to just give for additional stuff. And it's one of the reasons why with my coaching,
Jen Dugard (17:00.461)
Mmm
Sierra Ryland (17:06.03)
And even like my personal training, is holistic. We're not just looking at the 45 minutes that you're spending with me because there's, I've written it down somewhere, did a little calculation, you know, 150 plus hours in the rest of the week. What are you doing with that? Because the 45 minutes that you see me for is a very small percentage of your time. So how are you sleeping? How are you?
Eating, like with women and women who train, it doesn't matter how good you are, but if you're deliberately training for something, like you don't have the luxury of skipping meals and losing your muscle mass and eating poorly because it all comes back and affects your energy that you want to be giving to your training or to your family, to your work. So you do have to be.
in some ways a lot more stricter on those things. You just don't get the wiggle room anymore.
Jen Dugard (18:11.0)
Sierra, what are some of the fundamental things that you would say to either a trainer that works with mums that want to return to doing some kind of endurance, whether it's running or triathlon post having a baby or a woman themselves that might be listening that's going, well, I want to go through that rebuilding process. Like what are the three things that I need to start with?
Sierra Ryland (18:38.114)
Yeah, so I think what we start with is we train the individual. Even when we're talking about mums as a group, we're still training the individual. We work out what time we have available to train and then we work out realistically what time we have available to train, which may be two different things. And even if you're not gonna be training for that full
Jen Dugard (18:59.372)
Hehehehehe
Sierra Ryland (19:07.214)
say that full availability to start with. It's just understanding where can you fit things in because the main point of any training is consistency. If you can't do it consistently, then you're always going to feel like you're not achieving something. So whether it's one run a week, two runs a week, three runs a week, what does consistency look like? You'll add the other stuff in like speed work and other things later, but we just wanna start with
achieving consistency. Then we want to look at the other things like sleep quality, you know, whether there's other complications in their life. So particularly when you're looking at mums, so are you dealing with mums with newborns and the baby's not sleeping? Are you dealing with a mum with older kids but still has to do a lot of say,
running around with extracurricular activities or has a high demanding job, when can they actually fit things in? And then I think the next important thing is to really start to drive home the importance of nutrition and not a diet sense, in a, we've got to get away from women waking up, going for a run and not eating anything.
beforehand, it seems quite clear that because of the way our hormones react, our bodies want to eat themselves. And so if we're not giving it fuel for the activity that we're doing, it will source that fuel from our bodies. So why go out and do like a run or training, strength, gym workout, get that gain and then just have it completely eaten away?
at a very high level. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (21:04.36)
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, a lot of women will come back and say, well, because it's going to burn fat. That's what they will say.
Sierra Ryland (21:11.114)
They might say that but the thing is with women's bodies it there's a bit of a I'm not sure I used to believe in that sort of fat adaptation point I don't think it's quite as simple for women because women's bodies seem to be more primed to Burning carbohydrates so it can take a long time to become fat adapted if women do at all
But in the other sense, it's like when I'm talking about eating in the morning, it might be something very small, but it's just getting the body out of that sense of, I need amino acids, I need glycogen to do what we're doing. I haven't got, you haven't given me anything in the form of food, so I will break down your muscle tissue in order to get that. And yeah, it's the one way to sort of,
get that tone that a woman want is to keep lean muscle mass. So if you're having your muscle mass being constantly depleted or the workouts being ineffective, it doesn't really matter whether you're burning fat or not because you're not actually gonna achieve the body composition look that you actually are wanting, if that makes sense.
Jen Dugard (22:27.512)
It makes total sense and I think that was a really great explanation. It's like why would you not eat because you're diminishing any gains that you're going to get which is a good way to phrase it to motivate anyone that thinks otherwise.
Sierra Ryland (22:34.988)
Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (22:39.618)
Yeah, and this is the thing where it leads on to like different stages of life because postpartum if you're breastfeeding, you can burn, I think it's around like 700 calories a day. Obviously that depends on the person and the amount of breastfeeding you're doing. But 700 calories a day is a lot of extra calories. And so then if you're going out and trying to run and you're just not fueling the body, you're going into a low energy state. That's when things like stress fractures and other injuries start occurring.
And if you're deliberately training for something, you do not want a stress fracture. You do not want bone injuries. And it's a good point for like puberty as well. Like, cause if you start doing that sort of stuff then and going into low energy state, you kind of screw your body over for the rest of your life, unfortunately. And then even post breastfeeding, when you start to go into menopause, again, we want to give our body fuel because the depletion of estrogen is meaning
we're not retaining our muscle masses easily. So we need the protein, we need to fuel and recover by eating to maintain the muscle mass so that we get the body composition that we want. And then that's actually the trick to not putting on weight or putting on weight in the wrong areas or the wrong type of weight when you go into menopause is actually by fueling the workouts and not just running more, eating less. So yeah.
Jen Dugard (24:03.88)
awesome. I wasn't expecting to talk about nutrition so that was really really cool and so important as well because I think and unfortunately in the back of a lot of women's minds is well if I do an endurance event I'm gonna get skinnier and I'm just gonna burn fat and it's really hard to shift that underlying you might be able to intellectually talk about the fact that that is not it.
Sierra Ryland (24:04.834)
Great.
Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (24:33.848)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (24:33.912)
And then, you you want to feel your body and you want to do well and there's so many other reasons you want to do it. But because of the way like a lot of us were raised in that kind of size zero, it's like, but then there's going to be this little extra, you know, plus point. And then if I don't eat properly, it's going to fuel that along a little bit quicker and faster. And I've just heard very clearly from you that that is absolutely not the case. If anything, you're going to be
Sierra Ryland (24:57.92)
Mm. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (25:02.284)
going backwards in the long term.
Sierra Ryland (25:05.442)
You absolutely are. You will definitely get short term gains. You see that and this is why people keep doing it because they're like, my friend lost some weight and she did this. But you've got to lose the weight in the right way if you even needed to lose weight in the first place. There's definitely, overweight people running is not great, but it is done in the right way. And I think the culture and societal norms around women, I was thinking about this before.
Jen Dugard (25:19.319)
And yeah.
Sierra Ryland (25:34.178)
I don't know if there's a time where women aren't ever told or expected that they have to lose weight. In teenagers, the focus is around weight. And when you're pregnant, again, there is a focus on not putting on too much weight. Now, of course, that is health related, but when you then have your baby, the focus is on pre-baby body. Then when you're going into menopause, you're putting on weight and told, we can't put on weight. So at every stage in their life, there is a focus on weight.
most of the advice or what we get tricked into thinking is we've just got to eat less then. No one up until more recently really talks about, no, that's not actually the way, it's actually eating more protein. You might have to make changes to your diet, but you need strength training, you need protein. It's not actually about starvation or eating less and doing more cardio work. I think that was like the two things, you're saying, what's the three things. So I think the third thing.
Jen Dugard (26:25.26)
Hmm.
Sierra Ryland (26:33.153)
that I'll talk about, yes, so we've got like consistency in training, we've kind of talked about that sort of holistic approach, and then it's actually listening to the mum, the woman, and changing things as you get that feedback. A lot of the training programs that you'll see, there's no real magic to them, like they will kind of be the same.
or not too much variation. The actual magic comes in the trainer's ability or the coach's ability to change things as they're getting the feedback from the person. And that's where the value is. Because that's, if it wasn't, you can just go and get a free plan off the internet and follow it and get amazing results. But more often than not, you don't because you're not adapting it to what's happening as you're going along the journey.
Jen Dugard (27:32.808)
I really like the way that you phrase that, like there's no magic and it's such a good way of differentiating a cookie cutter program versus what is the value of a trainer or a coach that truly understands the demographic that they're working with. And it's so simple, it's because there's magic in that. It's like they can see you and they can take that.
you know, give them a cookie cutter program, but by the time they finish using that program for 10 different people, it's 10 individualized programs specifically for where you're at your life stage, your body, your energy reserves, your, you know, recovery components. I love it. I really like that. Yeah. Yeah. And Sierra, let's flip a little bit into kind of your business journey. So what you were sharing earlier on was, you know, you, you,
Sierra Ryland (28:15.042)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, cool.
Sierra Ryland (28:22.286)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (28:26.338)
do you one-on-one or you were doing one-on-one training, which I know you're still doing some of it, but you've made this really great transition to delivering coaching online, which is really hard.
what was the thing that helped you to do that? So were you, you were known in your local area pre-going online? Like give me a little bit of an insight into, yeah.
Sierra Ryland (28:52.566)
Yeah, so I guess the thing is, yeah, being known in the local area obviously is a big thing. I initially tried when I first started to do like an online program for mums or like a, you know, online workouts. It didn't work because no one knows who I am. And it's kind of like in that class that we were on the other day, like if you don't have 10,000 followers, like why?
why would people trust you in an online sense? Because they just don't know you. But what I kind of realized I did have was I had incredible credibility in running in triathlon. But I had that kind of tall poppy syndrome of not really talking about it or sharing about it. And my personal trainer keeps on going to me like, you know, you are...
so amazing and all the things that you do, you have done way more than, you know, so many people, but you don't say it. There are people out there who have done far less than you that are writing off what they have done and being as successful at it. There's no reason why you can't be an expert in this area. So then I tried to lean into that a little bit more with being like, yeah, well, I've been to Kona for Ironman, so.
you know, why does that, why do I think like, I don't know how to get people there. I did it myself. I had a very good plan to follow year on year on and I did it. And then also I realized I'd made so many connections in my local community with my triathlon club, with my running club, even with work colleagues and other people in the circles. Like actually I did have a network where I could start to
use my business and not just me personally turning up for like a training session. But again, it was it was a confidence thing because I was like, people I don't want to seem like I'm selling or like I'm coming in and be like, yeah, you should train with me. You know, so there is definitely and still to this day a little bit of, I guess, fear or lack of confidence around
Sierra Ryland (31:13.006)
putting that part of it out there. I will quite happily talk to people about running in triathlon till the cows come home. But then when it's like, well, talk about your business part of it or how you can help someone, then it's like, yeah. So that's part of getting better at that has enabled me to grow that, getting involved with partners like the Wellington Marathon.
that the Hawkes Bay Women's Tri that I mentioned and also the Kapiti Women's Tri. And again, being more confident to go and ask those people, can I do something for you? How can I be involved with your event? Because I'm a triathlon coach and I'm good at what I do.
Jen Dugard (31:59.756)
Yeah, and I've got the credentials. Do you want to share those credentials? Just to get used to sharing.
Sierra Ryland (32:01.549)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm an accredited triathlon coach, but with specific qualifications in women's health, like done like period tracking, menstrual health courses, menopause courses. And then last year, one of the big things was I put myself forward for personal trainer and studio facility awards for the Exercise New Zealand Awards and got through it into a finalist for both of those.
And yeah, obviously another big one is the mum safe trainer one, of course, with the safe return to exercise credentials with that. So I feel like I've really developed quite a special offering for women, which your personal training qualification really just gives you the base for that. So I've gone really above and beyond that now. And even now I continue to
do the upskilling, particularly on the coaching side. And some of this is around women specific stuff. And some of it is actually around how you coach and how you deliver your personal training plan, but annual training plans and thinking about the long-term success of the person you're coaching as well. So taking it just further than a specific event. yeah, so that's been really interesting as well going through that.
Jen Dugard (33:33.164)
and share some of your credentials, like you mentioned, Kona.
Sierra Ryland (33:35.95)
Oh like my purse, yeah so I've done Ironman five times and on I think the fourth one I qualified to go to Kona so I was actually second in my age group and yeah went to Kona did the World Champs there, also done and qualified for multiple half distance Ironman World Champs with the most recent being in the
70.3 distance last year in December. I've also World Champ qualifications for Exterra, which is off-road triathlon, which involves mountain biking, which I always think is really funny because I'm not a mountain biker, but know, fitness gets you so far. And then I have various running medals as well. This is a funny thing because sometimes it's like track is really intimidating, even to runners, they won't go and run on the track.
Jen Dugard (34:14.808)
Cool.
Sierra Ryland (34:33.624)
but I've managed to get like some track medals because the thing is people don't turn up and so sometimes just turning up gets you medals. yeah, one of my favorite ones though is I'm the three year in a row defending champion for our local tough guy, tough girls. So that's next week. So if I win that it'll be four times. So pressure, pressure on that one.
Jen Dugard (34:43.128)
Take them, take the medals, yep.
Jen Dugard (34:53.303)
Yeah, nice.
Yep.
Nice. Very cool. Very cool. So Sierra, I'm glad that you shared both of those things because number one, it gets you saying them louder. And number two, I think it's a really good example for other trainers and other coaches listening. if you have, you can have a speciality within a speciality. So being a triathlon coach alone is, would be called a niche. Being a women's or a mum's,
Sierra Ryland (35:08.472)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (35:28.344)
coach or trainer is also a niche. And then you bring those together and you've got this like, you know, it's the intersection between training women and triathlon. And there's, like you said, and we've had so many conversations about this is very few people are doing that well. And once you become known in your local area, you're also known in these triathlon groups. And then that's how you become known and you can start to run a really solid online coaching.
Business. Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (35:58.784)
Exactly. And one of the differences I've noticed this year, even compared to last year, is the people or the inquiries that I'm getting, women are starting to look for female triathlon coaches or coaches with expertise in training females. Whereas before the conversation was, you know, a bit more generic, like I'm a woman, they're a woman, but we're not really talking about women's stuff. Now we're starting to talk more about.
Jen Dugard (36:18.328)
Mm.
Sierra Ryland (36:25.838)
how are we gonna train you as a woman and people are wanting that. So yeah, it's a good evolution.
Jen Dugard (36:29.559)
Yeah.
Yeah. Now, Sierra, you jumped from, so you've been part of MumSafe for quite some time. And then a year ago, 18 months ago, you jumped into the, I guess, the mastermind side of things and you set yourself some pretty decent financial goals. Tell me a little bit about the goals that you set, the reason you decided to do that and what that journey's been like in kind of transforming your business.
Sierra Ryland (36:44.173)
Mm.
Sierra Ryland (36:56.94)
Yeah, so the whole reason I jumped into the mastermind was to kind of kickstart things. Like I don't necessarily have a problem with motivation, but I think as we've identified, kind of sometimes jump across different things. The sparkle. Yeah, which was an interesting learning because I do think I have ideas, but I'm also quite detailed orientated and I hadn't really realized I was jumping around.
Jen Dugard (37:10.326)
You like the shiny things, don't you? She's like, I've got this idea. Hmm, is that really what we're doing?
Sierra Ryland (37:25.646)
from ideas to ideas. But I also, for better or for worse, like immediate successes. So when something doesn't work, it's quite easy to be like, okay, well, we'll just try something else instead of maybe investigating why that didn't work. So that was something that through you in those sessions would challenge. So what then ends up being that the refinement happens and then things do actually start working.
But it is time and you have to be willing to look at the reasons why they might not be working or be like, well, you're not actually going in and talking to any businesses in person. Why aren't you doing that? Because I don't like to go in in person. yeah, you know, so. But I think it was only last year that actually I started to see a bit more of a. Should we say a financial goal that was?
It's going to be challenging to me, but it's where I want to be. So that was where I think I set that it worked out around $110,000 a year or $120,000 a year, which then it made me have to break down the services that I offer and work into more detail. How many numbers in each of those do I need to fill? But then even further than that, well, if I don't want to be spending
20 hours a week on personal training, how many coaching clients do I need to reach that? How many postpartum, run confident, run strong running programs do I need to sell to do that? And so that helped me, as I say, start to shift into the online. mean, most coaching is always online because people don't train for you to go for a run with them. But...
that space and working out, if I need to grow this, what do I need to do to grow this? Which we've been playing around with Facebook ads and again, refining the offer of how I like even email and interact with the people who are coming in. And then that makes me feel or seem as well more professional in what I'm offering them and able to clearly get points across to, you know,
Sierra Ryland (39:46.518)
my niche and what I'm actually there to do and see if they're the right person, if that's what they're wanting, because that's what I'm wanting. So we're maybe say about halfway there now, which is good because every year it's been growth upon growth. And now it's just, yeah, that challenging to actually set that figure of where you want to be. Although I know you'll also say, well, that's not the end figure. We can keep going. We can keep going higher.
Jen Dugard (40:12.364)
Well, you can always go higher if you choose to go higher, right? Yeah. And what are some of the key things that you're doing? So you've talked about partnerships. What are some of the, so partnerships are a really good way to grow your audience, especially, you know, an audience that you know is already bought into triathlon because they're doing what you're doing. What are some of the things that you're doing with them in order to, I guess,
Sierra Ryland (40:16.684)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (40:24.334)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (40:39.874)
bring people closer to you and then ultimately sell programs to them or sell coaching to them.
Sierra Ryland (40:46.094)
Yeah, so for those women's triathlon organizations that I mentioned, at least one thing that I do with them is a triathlon 101 masterclass. Those organizations, the women that are coming in, it's their first time doing a triathlon for the majority of them. And for some of them, it's the first time that they've done something for ages. Like you do see there's a lot of moms who haven't exercised in a while, and then they've gone, I'm gonna do this.
triathlon and train for it. hence the triathlon one-on-one, I give them all those training tips how to train for triathlon, but then I do offer a specific six-week training program for them as an example.
And that sort of works quite well with the sort of style of person and also the distances that they're offering for their triathlons. So then we get a bit of an uptake in there through people who want to take it a little bit more seriously and want a little bit more guidance in how to train. Then for one of them up here who's more local, every Saturday for six weeks, we actually take that woman out and we do an in-person training session. And that's something that the
the organization pays me to do, but it gives me that opportunity to get in with them and they get to know me and the style of coaching and yeah, just that opportunity for those tips. So it's really good value for them because they only have to pay like five bucks to join. and then yeah, the other one that I work with is the Wellington Marathon and we have the expo and
That's again a really good in-person one, but it's the day before the event. So you're not really capturing people for that one, but you are capturing them for next year or their next event. And what we've been working, or I've been working more with them this year is to do more social media for them, video posts, more training articles for them as well. And again, this year for them, we're gonna do a get race ready.
Jen Dugard (42:36.321)
Hmm.
Sierra Ryland (43:01.634)
with our Sparkle Fitness Masterclass, which I didn't do for them last year. So it's just growing those touch points with them and getting more in so that people get to spend more time with me. And then hopefully by the time they see me at the expo, we can have a few more meaningful conversations, because it's not just who are you. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (43:22.252)
Hmm, yeah. And it's, think, like one of the things that I've observed you do, Sierra, is go, who, these are the partners, whether they're proactive or not, you're always either turning up to a mastermind or thinking about when you're in your own time to go, how can I build on these partnerships and how can I suggest things that we can do? you know, the fact that some of them are now coming back and saying, well, we want you to do this is testament to the fact that you're consistently showing up.
and yeah, built, your focus is on relationship building for the long term. And that's what comes, starts to pay over time.
Sierra Ryland (43:58.35)
Mmm.
Yeah, but that's one of the things actually that the mastermind stuff has taught me really well because even when I was a lawyer, I knew the stat, takes 18 months before someone will like say bye from you or hire you as an average. But the mastermind sessions and you push me to be like, no, go in and ask them this or go in and offer them this. So then I think it's becoming a little bit more natural automatic that'll be like, I actually have to go in and.
ask, can I do this session for them? Or can I do this for them instead of going, they haven't come back to me. So I just, they obviously aren't interested. It's that next step. So again, that's the confidence thing of not just sitting back and going, well, I didn't hear from them. So they must not want to do anything for me.
Jen Dugard (44:52.106)
it's actually working. It's like you're getting that positive reinforcement of going out and doing it. That's the key. Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (44:58.124)
Yeah, because I guess like with mums, businesses, they run by mums too. At the end of the day, everyone's got their own stuff going on and they might not respond to like an email or something like that because they're just too busy with other stuff. They're working part time and then things just drop off. yeah, it is a good, and there have been definitely those examples where I go back and they're like, yes, of course, we want you to do this or.
get your follow up on a lead a couple of even a couple of months later and they're like, yes, I do want to come to that class. I just was the wrong time for me last term. But they just don't tell you that at the time. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (45:37.485)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (45:41.524)
I love that you just put the business analogy to mums because you know that is the other that's the part of your business that you're dealing with mums. you're operating in that way to build the partnerships that connect you to the mums and then you're continuing to operate that way in the follow-up with the clients and we've been talking about speed to lead right. Do want to share a little bit about that and what maybe you're doing before and what you're doing now?
Sierra Ryland (46:01.794)
Yeah.
Sierra Ryland (46:06.001)
Well, yeah, it was we were talking about with the like Facebook ads and The the issue that I had was a lot of people like that You'd be scrolling on your phone at night and you'd fill in the form that you're interested in my race smart program but then I wasn't going to Do anything with that information that night because I'm not working. I'm not I'm not gonna do anything the evening I'm not gonna call you because it's evening. So do it the next day
But then there is, I think that's that stat. If you reach the person within six minutes of their contact, you're 80 % more likely to convert them into a sale. So then I was sort of struggling with that. Well, how do I keep my own boundaries of not wanting to work in the evening or just be on the phone all the time with reaching them as quickly as possible? So then that's when we came up with
Jen Dugard (46:42.167)
Yep.
Sierra Ryland (47:01.794)
Well, you're going to send a text. I have the text saved in my phone so that I can just quickly send it off. Just saying that I know it's late, it's the evening. I don't want to intrude on your time. I just want to let you know, thank you for registering and I'll call you in the morning. Let me know if there's a good time that I can reach you. And then at least...
catching them hopefully when they've thought about it. Because actually so many of the women, when I have got them on the phone, will go, oh yeah, I was just flicking through that actually and I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing. So some of they're like, who? Did I? I'm like, well, I've got your name and number, so you must have. Yeah, so then that's helped because it helps them get that engagement because yeah, they remember they're thinking about it. And then obviously if I get something during the day,
then I'm trying to call them as quickly as possible again like you made me do yesterday, even though I was on the phone with you or on the Zoom to you. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (48:05.386)
Yeah, I love it. yes, you're constantly taking on feedback and just giving it a go. And that's what business is all about, right? Absolutely.
Sierra Ryland (48:13.73)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to say it's one of the things I think I thought would be easier. When I was a lawyer I'd be like, marketing, you know, all of this sort of stuff. I'd run my own business and in my mind I somehow thought that would be easier. But yet I'm doing, I'm doing all the marketing. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (48:29.504)
Now I am responsible for all of the marketing. I love it, I love it. And Sierra, I you've got school pick up soon. Tell me, what do you stand for?
Sierra Ryland (48:41.902)
I stand for training women effectively in all life stages and one of my main goals is to ensure that no woman leaks when they run. So again, it's that whole holistic approach to smart training for where you're at and not just treating you like someone else.
Jen Dugard (49:06.4)
I love it. And one piece of, I'm going to say the word advice, but the advice has got to come from your experience, not just random advice, to a coach or trainer that is listening, that has a passion to work with women or moms and maybe there's an intersection. What would you share with them to get them either started on their journey or continuing to fly?
Sierra Ryland (49:13.464)
Mm-hmm.
Sierra Ryland (49:31.276)
The main thing is to ask questions and it's don't be afraid to ask questions and the more you ask, the more you're gonna get back. And it might be even you don't have to directly ask the question to start with, you just have to listen to what they're saying and then ask those follow up questions. Don't be afraid to talk about their menstrual cycle. Don't be afraid to talk about their postpartum journey because it's all relevant, especially when you're talking about to a coach.
Coaching is a long-term thing. If they demonstrate to you that they have, say, issues with sticking with a program in the past, you don't just go, yeah, well mine is going to be better because it's me. It's actually, why is the reason that they didn't stick to it in the past? Is it because they actually weren't sleeping and so found that they couldn't do five runs a week because they just didn't have the energy levels?
Is it because actually they get really bad cramping around the time of their period so that kind of cuts them out for a few days and then they get off track and find it hard to get started again because they're beating themselves up about and going, should be sticking to this schedule. Why can't I stick to the schedule? So it is very much about asking questions, listening to the answers and then doing something with that information once you've got it.
Jen Dugard (50:52.44)
you
Absolutely. I love it. Sierra, thank you so much for spending time with me and with us today. It's an absolute honor to share your journey, both inside MumSafe, inside the Mastermind, and to be watching you really, like this year and last year. I feel really excited every time we get on a conversation and you're sharing the next partnership that you've got or the next thing that you're doing or the closer you're getting towards that financial goal. So well done for being consistent. Thank you for being a really valuable.
Sierra Ryland (50:58.979)
You're welcome.
Jen Dugard (51:22.685)
of our team and thank you for sharing your experience with us all today.
Sierra Ryland (51:26.646)
Not a problem, there's that word again, consistency. That's the thing.
Jen Dugard (51:29.004)
Consistency, that is it. It is. Have a great day, Ciara. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Sierra Ryland (51:34.382)
Thank you, bye.
