The Lounge Q+A: Trea Cotton, Fitness Trainer

Fitness Trainer & Bodybuilder

Trea Cotton 1.5k
PocketSuite is very affordable, versatile, fits all of my needs.
Trea Cotton

The impact is in how versatile it is. It meets every need that I have. I’ve been with y’all a good while…PocketSuite is very affordable, versatile, fits all of my needs and everything. I started growing and I like it. Every time somebody asks me, how did I do it, I always mention PocketSuite.

Trea Cotton
Trea Cotton
PocketSuite Fitness Pro

The interview

Next World Fitness Pro Trea Cotton is a Fitness Trainer in Mississippi. His athletic background and positive mentality make him a great asset to our PocketSuite Pro community. Trea talks to Managing Editor and CEO, Chinwe Onyeagoro about what inspires him and where he finds stress relief.

Where did this all begin for you?

Well, I was always an athletic person. I played basketball throughout the years, but pretty much got it from my dad. He was a bodybuilder back in the day. So him doing pushups and I’m on his back. He took me to various gyms. Eventually, he got me my first gym membership. It started from there. But it was around that time when he was first diagnosed with cancer. So after he got diagnosed and went back to work, that’s when he got me my gym membership. Then he passed on.

But seeing what he went through kind of helped me. What motivated me to stay with it is that they said he survived almost nine years longer because of his health and physique. So that was an eye opener for me. That started it. I started like everybody else, slow. Go in for two weeks, then the next week you don’t see me. Until I started seeing results and people started coming to me, complimenting me, asking me questions, wanting to workout with me. That was for me when I decided to become a fitness coach. Like I said, the rest is history from there.

What was your best decision as an entrepreneur?

If I had to think about it, the first thing would be “just doing it”. I had plenty of fears and there were plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t have done it. There were people who told me, maybe you should wait and do this or do that. But me getting out there, jumping in, even though I didn’t really know what to do or how to do, was the best thing. I jumped in and did it! Like I said, stuff started happening for me. The more I progressed, the more I learned, the more I bumped my head and learned from my failures and so forth. Stuff started coming, clicking and everything, and it all started working for me from there.

You have a lot of heart. How do you stay so upbeat every day?

Well, I try not to dwell on the negative. It doesn’t help you in the long run. I guess, being in the fitness world, that helps with the stress. There are times that I want to privately just tear something up, but I tear it up in the gym. I’ve been working out myself for 15 years. So that’s usually, I would say, my stress reliever there. That helps me through a lot of things.

How do you keep your workouts with clients fun?

Well, I would tell them I’m a fun trainer, but I mean business. So I like to joke around. In most of my workouts, I have fun games and challenges that I do with them. So if it’s in a group setting and I have them teaming up, going against each other. Little challenge I do is playing with dice, playing cards, make it interesting. They even like musical types. I don’t know if you know, like musical chairs, but you’re doing it in a sense with a type of workout with music and everything. So I make it interesting that way.

Do you prefer training clients in classes or private sessions?

I’m pretty much doing online classes now, but I started off as a one-on-one coach. So I do like that one-on-one connection with the client. Also, you do have benefits with groups too. Because it’s not just the one-on-one connection with me, they have other people to help motivate them and get to connect with and help them push even more than probably what I can do for them one on one. Some of them don’t want to be there with me. They want the group. I say it’s almost a split tie, but I probably would say one-on-one.

Do you love or hate selling?

Well, I started out blank, not knowing anything about business. I didn’t really have a fear of sales. I just didn’t really know how to sell. I wasn’t a sales person. Until I started learning business, participating in mentorship programs. There’s some program I found out about how to make being a sales type person easier because I was all over the place. I was really just selling them on the features and not selling them on what I could do for them. So once I started learning how I could sell how it’s going to work for them, that’s what helped me.

You shared that online training isn’t easier than in person coaching. Why?

One reason it’s not easier is because it’s still kind of taboo. Even though there’s a lot of us out here and there are a lot of trainers who are going into the online space, it’s still taboo to a lot of people – especially in my state in Mississippi. In Mississippi, people don’t usually even want to work out in-person, so you’re telling them, “I don’t even get to see you.” Most people are still in that traditional mindset where they feel like in order to reach their goals they have to meet the trainer in-person. That’s really far from the truth. It’s really about what they do outside of our sessions, not in their meeting/session with us.

Any message for the PocketSuite community?

Oh, there’s always going to be that uncertainty. No matter where we are or what climate we are in. I would say just stick with it no matter what you’re going through. The stuff I learned is if you are going to fail, fail fast and fail forward. That’s what’s going to get you to your wins quicker. So don’t be scared to fail. As long as you learn from that failure, that’s going to help you to prepare for it. Don’t worry about what the naysayers are saying. Whether it be your family, whether it be your friends, keep striving for what you believe in and what you desire.The world is going to mold and shift around eventually to what you want it to be processing fee, then they charged a monthly processing fee for using they system and everything like that.

What impact has PocketSuite had on your business?

PocketSuite. The impact is in how versatile it is. It meets every need that I have. I’ve been with y’all a good while. So what it was was I was with Mindbody. Mindbody was very, very, very clunky for me. That’s what really got me. So it was very clunky and confusing. I couldn’t really understand it. PocketSuite is very affordable, versatile, fits all of my needs and everything. I started growing and I like it. Every time somebody asks me, how did I do it, I always mention PocketSuite.

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