Stridist Stories: Rash Dhanda

Hello! Who are you and what do you do?

Hey, I’m Rash! I’m part of the marketing and social media team at Stridist and I also run a gym based and online coaching business with my husband. 

What’s your backstory and how did you end up in your current position?

I never had the slightest interest in fitness until 2007, which is when I met my husband who was a PT, training others from a studio at the back of his family home. When we got married 2 years later he spent a few months getting me in shape but afterwards I went back to my old habits. I was recently out of uni with a psychology degree, thinking that I was going to be able to land a high paying job in London straight away, we’ll buy a big house, get a nice car and start trying for a family lol how wrong was I! The competition was high, I had no relevant work experience (5 years part time on the fragrance/beauty counter at Boots didn’t really count even though I could link-sell products or correctly guess the fragrance they would like by just watching them). So when I got sick of applying for graduate jobs I decided to search locally and found a really good paying role as a Customer Services Advisor in an office. Fast forward a few years, I was selected to become a Customer Service Team Leader and eventually Manager within the same company and found myself with a team of 12 to look after! It was an extremely stressful and high pressured job but it taught me so so much at a fairly young age and I developed many transferable skills. A few years later, I randomly sat through a bodybuilding show that my husband was watching (I would never normally sit through it) and suddenly became really inspired by a female coach who was in the most amazing shape. I decided then and there I wanted to set a really high goal of going on stage in a bodybuilding show looking something like that (I was skinny fat, with a pancake butt and had barely any muscle) and I ended up hiring her as my own coach. I went on to do 2 European shows the following year and placed 5th in both. Despite my husband always going on and on about how important it was to eat properly and train (and I didn’t listen), it took all that for me to realise that by eating healthy and training, I had actually managed to get rid of many health and digestive issues, as well as have the body that I wanted. I knew my lifestyle was about to change now and I started adopting healthy habits. After a few years, my husband, who now owned a personal training gym in Bromley (as well as still working from his parents’ back garden!) was reaching full capacity and knew he would need help. He had tried getting another PT in previously but it didn’t work out. Now was my opportunity. I did my PT level 3, which taught me absolutely nothing by the way, and in 2014 I decided to quit my job and join my husband! This is where it all started…

What were your first few months like in the fitness industry?

I had just completed my course but still felt I wasn’t qualified enough, I didn’t feel like I could suddenly be left on my own to train people. So when I first started I was so nervous and had major imposter syndrome but since I had my husband to guide me, I felt like I got over the nerves and anxiety of training clients quickly. He taught me literally everything I needed to become a great trainer and corrected me where I did things wrong. Every day in the gym it was just jokes and banter, I felt like the clients already knew me from my husband and it really didn’t feel like work. I spent my whole time there laughing whilst getting my clients amazing results. It was a dream and I was really loving it.

What has the journey been getting from those first few months to where you are today?

A couple years later I became pregnant and knew I would not be able to work long hours in the gym or do the early mornings/late nights for much longer. I really wanted to stay within the industry so in 2016 we decided to expand online. It was still a really new concept back then and not many others were doing it. I decided to do an 8 week group transformation package and created a video of clients training in the gym to put out as an ad (I didn’t know any other way). I read online how to do Facebook ads and just went for it. I didn’t set my wufoo up to get notifications so thought that not a single person had applied but the next day my husband logged in and found over 300 women applied!! I replied to each one manually and quite easily filled all our group coaching spaces! I still had no idea how we were going to deliver it but it went really well and we managed to improve it each time we ran it again and get some good results. However, after having a baby I struggled with keeping up the day to day of the online business (I made the mistakes of setting no boundaries, had no systems, people would be messaging me 24/7, I did lengthy check-ins and basically provided a 1:1 service for £99!) and then my husband came across the OFB course, which he completed and I realised then how I did many things wrong so learnt from it. When Sukh was looking for a Student Success Manager to help with the course I jumped at the opportunity because I felt the course was amazing, it meant I could stay within the fitness industry, work set hours rather than all hours and it was totally what I had been doing in my corporate role with my team but with customer service agents instead. I learnt the course inside out, learnt about Sukh and I also had lots of experience to help other coaches with. A year later I was pregnant again and when I was ready to get back into work OFB needed someone to help with Instagram so I came back as a Social Media Exec and created lots of content. I loved it so much that I knew I wanted to stay on this path and I started to move away from coaching. I took over socials upon the launch of Stridist and we grew so rapidly that we needed a Marketing team. I have since become a Marketing Exec and worked on other areas such as Youtube, the Podcast and also the website. 

What’s been the hardest moment/biggest challenge of your career so far?

Definitely the changes after having kids! My hardest moment was leaving the gym in Bromley after having kids and knowing that I might not be able to go back to something I really loved and having the fear I’d never enjoy anything like that again. I loved the clients (most have been there 15 years and they are like family to us), loved the banter, loved how I wasn’t sitting at a desk all day, loved that I could train myself in between sessions. Most of all, I got a real buzz out of the confidence, happiness and health that my clients gained from their programmes. It’s been challenging ever since as a mum trying to juggle everything and work around the kids and family life but I’m lucky to have kids and also lucky to be still enjoying what I do!

What’s been your biggest win / proudest moment?

I’m grateful to have so many, especially working as a success manager but one that’s related to coaching is definitely filling all the spaces in my first ever online group coaching program without having a clue what I was doing. I was able to upsell at the end of it and work with a client called Jodie to get her to feel the best she’s ever felt and completely stop bingeing. She’s been to others and comes back time and time again because she struggles to get the same results. Her words to me have been so touching. It’s my proudest moment because she was my first ever 1:1 online client and at the time I was experiencing imposter syndrome and didn’t know how to even deliver online. I had nothing fancy, most of it was literally just chatting through Messenger and it worked. 

How and what are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Today my focus is on developing my marketing skills even further. Obviously I’m learning from the best by working with Sukh. I’m currently really enjoying the work I do for Stridist and helping the other coaches in the SCC. I have started taking on clients again since both kids started school and it’s pretty easy as we have systems in place now so I will continue that but I think my future is going to be in marketing.

What does a day in the life of you look like?

On a typical day I wake up around 6:30am and get the kids ready for school. By 8am I am finishing my breakfast, grabbing my coffee and getting ready to get down to work. The work I do is dependent upon what I’ve scheduled in to that day but one thing for sure is that there will always be a social media post going out each week day. At the beginning of each week I have already written my to-do list and prioritised the workload. I pick the most important tasks I need to get done for that week and then schedule them depending on importance, how long I think they will take and what the deadline is. I always try and do my most difficult or most dreaded task first in the day. I usually work through my lunch and eat at my desk. By 2:30pm I’m getting ready to pick the kids up from school. Once they’re home and I’ve sorted them out, I’m usually back to work for a bit. I then do dinner, help with homework/reading, and then bath and bed for the kids after cleaning up. My husband works until 9pm but on the days he comes home for a bit to pick up the kids from school I may be to squeeze in a workout! 

Advice for people who are considering or have just started in the industry?

1.) Get out of your comfort zone and say yes to opportunities or new things even if it feels scary at the start. Working with Sukh, I have got used to being in the deep end, figuring it out/finding a solution as we go, not wasting time getting it perfect (this was hard for me) and as a result I have taken lots of action, solved lots of problems and my confidence has just grown. I would honestly never have put a talking head video of me out on social media (really don’t like my own voice) but because I didn’t really want to say no (it probably would have been a straight no to dancing on reels though lol) I practised and did it. I’m sooo glad now that I agreed to.
2.) Continue to expand your knowledge, but that doesn’t necessarily mean more training and nutrition courses, unless your PT course was rubbish like mine. If you can get your clients results but you need to get more clients to get the results then you need to learn marketing, learn how to write copy, learn more about the social media platform you’re using, learn sales and learn how to run a business/create systems so you can be more efficient. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or procrastinating or your limiting beliefs are holding you back then you need to learn about time management, productivity or work on your mindset. Figure out your weak areas and work on those.

3.) I did a lot of goal setting in my corporate job and this would highly increase chances of success with my team. Write down your goals and work backwards. Start with with your end of year goal or 5 or 10 year goal, however far you’re able to look ahead. Then work backwards from there to develop your plan by breaking it down in to yearly, monthly and then weekly goals. For example, if you want 12 new clients by 2024, you need 4 new clients in each of Oct, Nov and Dec. That’s a client a week. Then create an action plan of how you’re going to get a client a week. Hit your small goals and you’ll surely hit your big goal.

4.) Be yourself and show your personality! You even see big brands revealing their personality these days which I think is great. Share your own thoughts, beliefs, stories, your own struggles. You will draw in people who relate to you and eventually they will buy from you.

What have been the key moments in your career so far what was the impact of those moments?

I never in a million years imagined that I would be helping coaches. It started with my Student Success Manager role and has continued ever since. I’ve had lots of amazing feedback from coaches and it’s so rewarding knowing that I’ve contributed personally in some way to helping them succeed in a particular area. The impact of this? Whether the result has been that the coach gets more clients or whether it’s that they provide a better service, the outcome is that they have been able to help more clients improve their health and fitness. Knowing that I’ve been able to assist more coaches in helping more clients is a wonderful feeling. 

Where can people find you?

Instagram

Website