Transcript

00:00:06 Introduction

Welcome. You are listening to Links at Bain and Gray. A catalogue of podcasts centred on all things business support in the workplace. Our aim is to bring you interesting and relevant content that will keep you up to date and thriving in your role.

00:00:20 Emily

Hello, Nancy!

00:00:22 Nancy

Hello Emily, how are you doing?

00:00:27 Emily

I'm very well. It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet with you.

00:00:27 Nancy

Thank you.

00:00:30 Emily

Um, Nancy. I've been particularly excited after being introduced by one of our wonderful, both our communities, the wonderful Sarah. Nancy is Nancy Best from Ladies Who Crunch and I've purposefully had very little to do with you until today because I have so many questions. I don’t really know where to start.

00:00:49 Emily

Nancy, in your own words, do just tell us about Ladies Who Crunch. Just give us a little overview to kick off with.

00:00:55 Nancy

Absolutely. Thank you for that lovely introduction. And yes, Sarah Hackett should absolutely get the credit that she deserves for introducing us. So Ladies Who Crunch is a female training community that I've been running since June of 2020. And actually pre Ladies Who Crunch, I've been a personal trainer for a number of years and I run a female only strength training gym, but obviously with COVID, I had to sort of divert and sort of evolve my business to fit with that remote training model that so many people were desperate for in that kind of early lockdown phase.

So I started the community originally as a free platform for my clients to kind of get to you know get to connect with each other do some exercise and and it really started to grow from there and became something people were really, really sort of invested in engaging with and I decided to make it into a plate. Fantastic platform.

00:01:46 Emily

So you actually benefited from COVID?

00:01:50 Nancy

I think so. I think. I think the fitness industry in general is still recovering from that period because everybody sort of oscillated between loving home training and then absolutely getting sick of it. And in a way, I think one of the things I've had to be really careful of is continuling, continuing, sorry to evolve that offering to make sure that it fits for …

00:02:08 Emily

Yes. Yes.

00:02:11 Nancy

… different lifestyles, because particularly with like hybrid working, some people are doing a couple of days at home, couple days in the office, some people are 100% back in the office. You kind of have to make sure that you don't get left behind on any front.

00:02:17 Emily

So you almost now feel that you've created a one size fits all where you're catering for every single type of client.

00:02:29 Nancy

I hope so. Yeah. I really hope so. And I mean, there's quite a sort of, there's quite a specific demographic of Ladies Who Crunch members, um, average age of 25 to 45.

00:02:40 Emily

Oh gosh, that means I'm too old.

00:02:42 Nancy

Haha no, no! Listen, we've got, we've got very, very amazing senior women, including my own mum who is 62, um, and yeah, we've got a couple of ladies that are kind of in their, in their, not that you're in your 60s, but you know in that chapter of life.

00:02:54 Emily

Yes, sure.

00:02:58 Nancy

But yeah, it's kind of women who are very busy and have a lot going on at work at home and they sort of need that short chapter in a day, a week that they can just press play and do something for themselves.

00:03:00 Emily

Mm-hmm. Wonderful.

00:03:10 Emily

I want to talk a lot more in detail about exactly what you offer across the platform, but I want to go back a little bit, um, earlier. Yeah, so am I right in thinking that this started off as a side hustle.

00:03:22 Nancy

It did, Emily. Yeah. So I actually sort of started my career in consulting and communications, and I worked for a big agency for a while. My very first job was actually at L'Oreal and working in their corporate team because they have, you know, like I think it's something crazy like 30 or 40 brands under their corporation. So I worked there. Then I went to an agency and worked there for over five years. And to be honest with you at the beginning it was a hobby. You know, I really loved strength training.

00:03:39 Emily

Mm. Mm, hmm.

00:03:50 Nancy

I love working with women. I really enjoy that social element of being a personal trainer. And so I sort of started it on the weekends and then over a sort of two plus year period, it really grew and grew. I went part-time at work …

00:04:04 Emily

Wonderful. Good for you.

00:04:04 Nancy

… so that I could start to grow it sort of slowly and just test it really because I think going completely cold Turkey from one you know sort of revenue stream of work and you know, PAYE and then suddenly on your own is a big shift.

00:04:14 Emily

Terrifying!

00:04:15 Nancy

Yeah, it's huge. And I think like I have so much respect for people who do it, but I just didn't have that bravery, I wanted to be quite slow and steady and yeah, and I built up my client base.

00:04:25 Emily

You built up your client base slowly and surely.

00:04:27 Nancy

Exactly. And I built my gym. So originally I was just quite a sort of freelance PT. I would come to people's houses. I would maybe do it in the park.

00:04:34 Nancy

Mark at one point I was literally moving my kitchen table and doing it on the floor in the kitchen.

00:04:39 Emily

Listen, everyone's got to start somewhere. Bain and Gray was set up from my apartment with my business partner and I sharing a flat.

00:04:46 Nancy

Well there you go! And actually, you know, those experiences mean that when you get to the next phase, it feels so special and and then yeah, exactly, so building my gym felt huge…

00:04:55 Emily

Well it’s literally like watching a baby grow, isn't it? You start from sort of where you go back to literally the minutiae detail. But I think that also reinforces anybody that's setting up a business is that you don't really need the singing and dancing and the all investments you can just do it through sheer hard work, passion and the basic things that you need to really showcase your skill set, basically.

00:05:19 Nancy

Totally. Totally. And I think in funny on investment side of things, there's kind of been a few opportunities where I felt, you know I'm right on that sort of cusp where I probably could start to look for some investment. But actually I feel really happy with growing it on my terms. And for now, I'm kind of where I want to go.

Though, because as you say, you sort of start it from literally nothing from an idea into an actual product like I just think there's a bit of a myth that you always need to have third party money thrown in at, you know, in in the mix and obviously to scale if that's your goal, then that's fine. But I think what the products I really want to continue to grow and build is actually quite small, you know, the community is at 80 members now and I would love to get it somewhere closer to 100, but I think that's enough, you know, a community, really.

00:06:06 Emily

That's enough for you, yes.

00:06:09 Nancy

You know, and you all know this is Bain and Gray like you don't, it's about quality of connection and the product being really strong and people will, you know, the retention speaks for itself.

00:06:17 Emily

Mm, yes. Also, Nancy, there's only so many hours in the day, and there's only so many Nancies. And if you had any more than 100 signed up at the moment, you wouldn't be giving the quality of service that you feel you can give everyone. So just to sort of talk through your career to date. So when did you actually launch and and stop your career in the corporate world? When did you launch fully?

00:06:37 Nancy

So just literally before COVID, so December 2019 I left as my final month in my agency role, and from January of 2020 I was like woohoo, here we go. So kind of got off to a cracking start. And again this was obviously all pre Ladies Who Crunch doing a lot of one to one training, growing that business, take taking on more clients because I had suddenly more hours which was great.

Cos, for so long I've been doing, I got to a point where I was doing before work, I'd do a client, I'd go to the office, get changed into my suit, off I go. Or, you know, dress or whatever, and then come back and do another one in the evening and so actually being able to wake up and be like, OK, I actually have the day to do as I, you know to to structure it a bit focused focused and a little bit less erratic was brilliant. And then COVID hit, I started that sort of online open community I guess for my clients there I said you know invite your friends, invite your sisters, invite your mums. It was female only and then that sort of transition to June of 2020 when I suddenly said, OK, this is actually a platform that you can subscribe to.

00:07:37 Emily

Sure. I have two questions for you. Well, the first one, why have you targeted purely for women?

00:07:45 Nancy

So I think my ethos is very focused on the holistic health of women. So it looks at strength training, mobility, nutrition, mental health, and I think there's not really a product out there that does that authentically without sort of taking you down the weight loss route for women. So much fitness is always really focused on aesthetics, you know, even if you look at the language of fitness, it tends to be shred, cut, you know, fat blast, etc. I really wanted to differentiate the products and I think when you bring women together who share those values, something really special happens because you're kind of all there for really positive reasons, you know, and that tends I, in my experience to to really kind of motivate and you know consistency wise I just think it's a lot more powerful for people if you're doing it for you know for your whole for your long term health and you've got members who are in their 60s who are still you know, super active, healthy, it's really amazing.

00:08:31 Emily

Yes. And I think you're right, actually just talking about those particular words, which can be quite sort of aggressive and potentially negative. You know it's it's, it's something that I've only learned even in my late 40s that it's not necessarily about what you look like, it's actually how you feel totally after your body. It's not about the weight loss or the calorie counting, but it's so much more than that. And I think even science, you know, day-to-day we're learning you know, fasting is very sort of in vogue at the moment and people saying calorie counting perhaps doesn't even work. So I love your approach in that it’s not one-size-fits-all. Everyone's different. It's very holistic and we look at everyone's wanting to get something very different out of their their, whether it's their eating or their training or, you know, mental health etc. So so talk to me about your 360 platform.

00:09:23 Nancy

Yes, totally. So my 360 programme is the way that I work with women one to one remotely. So there's there's kind of three parts of my business. So I like to do Crunch Membership, which is the sort of the most accessible option if you're somebody who wants to kind of dip into my thoughts, become part of the community and, you know, do the classes kind of on your own.

And then 360 is a way that I work with women, one to one on essentially kind of a full lifestyle plan. So that's everything from you know what you should eat and when I say what you should eat, you know recommendations that are bespoke to you. So I'm not somebody who, I don't do calorie counting, but I do sort of help women particularly things like protein consumption.

Which you know, there's loads of research about how women tend to under index on their protein on a daily basis, so helping them that. Relationship with alcohol, you know, hydration all that kind of stuff and then training, obviously, so helping them really get into a place where they can consistently maintain a routine. They're seeing progression.

And then the third part of this is, is the sort of pure PT, I guess, which is coming to my gym or actually a lot of my clients are now still remote on Zoom.

00:10:36 Emily

Mm. And where is your gym? Is it based in London, in Islington?

00:10:38 Nancy

Yeah, in Islington. So it's it's been, you know, brilliant, because actually a lot of clients of mine tend to work near where I'm based. You know, there's kind of Old Street, Chancery Lane, Holborn, it all kind of walkable.

00:10:50 Emily

So quite accessible.

00:10:51 Nancy

Exactly. So if you're commuting, even if you live in South London, you can kind of come on your way, or, yeah, or or on in the evening time.

00:10:55 Emily

Sure. And is your gym built for can you do sort of more than one person or is it?

00:11:02 Nancy

It's just one to one. It's very small, Emily. I'll be honest. It's it's served its purpose. I would love to, I think my sort of next big step is to move to a bigger facility, but it's got everything you need because I've managed to build kind of a barbell area, which is the big this long pole that people do with weightlifting.

00:11:20 Emily

Even I know that.

00:11:19 Nancy

Haha! You know, just in case people listening don't know because I didn't know for a long time what that was, what you called it. I kind of recognised it. I was like, what the hell is that? And and yeah, and all the weights cause cause like I said, your strength training is the kind of bread and butter of what I offer. So I really wanted to have enough of that equipment to really empower women, and I love the fact that the clients that come to my gym then probably on top of that, go maybe once, twice, three times a week on their own and do their own training …

00:11:44 Emily

Doing cardio or something? Yeah.

00:11:48 Nancy

… doing that exactly and they do and they see Crunch videos and stuff like that. But they've kind of learned properly how to do things and empower themselves to kind of go to that section of the gym.

00:11:54 Emily

So when you sign up, you can access pre-made videos that you've created and they can download that. It's fabulous.

00:11:59 Nancy

Exactly, yeah. And and also there's a there's a fresh calendar every month of new content. So there's always themes. We've done everything from kind of sleep to hormone hacking, you know, helping women really understand the different parts of your cycle.

We've done some work around pre and post Natal training, so getting women kind of engaging with their pelvic floor before and after they have a baby, which is such an opportunity. So many women I think, don't get the support they need to really rehab properly if they've had well any delivery, but particularly bad delivery

00:12:09 Emily

Wow. Gosh, I wish I had met you 15/16 years ago.

00:12:28 Nancy

Ultimately, yeah, but you know it's it's amazing to your earlier point about how like, science has changed. I just think the conversation has evolved so much now that even saying of even saying pelvic floor on a podcast like our mums, they they'd be like, oh my gosh! But actually, you know, it's really important to to know see that. So yes, so there's so there's kind of a huge on demand library of kind of 400 plus videos. But then every month there's new content coming through and we also do a lot of events. So literally this Saturday I had an event and I tend to do those in partnership with other female business owners cause it's quite nice to bring in other expertise and justice kind of have a bit of a kind of community collective energy.

00:13:03 Emily

Wonderful. Yeah.

Nancy I can see a Bain and Gray / Ladies Who Crunch event brewing!

00:13:11 Nancy

I would love that. Well, you know, funnily enough, I've been doing a lot more corporate kind of work because I think post pandemic, a lot of HR teams are really understanding that this is a priority for them to invest in, whether it's like talks, for example, I'm going to Conde Nast on Thursday actually to give a talk about body confidence and help to really like address particularly I think language around the office around food and you know how you sometimes can trigger other people without even realising by talking about you know restricting food cutting carbs, all that kind of stuff which you know even though it is 2023 it's still quite old school for a lot of firms I think that kind of conversation around sort of negative, really around food and particularly in a quite female dominated office.

00:13:54 Emily

Mm, absolutely, yeah.

Well, we're obviously an all female office, not intentional like your community, but we are nearly 20 females and I know that they'd all love to be involved in Ladies Who Crunch.

So I'm quite interested, I read somewhere on your website that apart from obviously all this fabulous fitness and nutrition etc, but you also do some other some other crazy things for your community. Is that right? It was it cooking with chefs and

00:14:23 Nancy

Yes! Yeah. So we do and probably monthly or at least bimonthly. I do a cook along with a amazing chef called Charlotte and and it's basically it's a bit like Saturday Kitchen. But you get your ingredients list ahead of time and then you know you can log on and do it either live or catch up. So sometimes you know if you're a mum, you might miss the kind of live cook along, but then you can go and do it again.

And the kind of focus of that really is just to get women excited about food again. Because again, I think there's been such a long history of restriction and also stress. So, for example, we did a whole series actually with a different chef at the time called Tara, who was also fantastic. But it was all about pasta because I kept hearing, you know, ohh God, I've had pasta twice this week or like pasta, you know, like carbs. And I was like, we need to just completely re-address, like to start from scratch, address this and just re-educate people that you know.

00:15:10 Emily

Hmm. Re-educate, yeah.

00:15:16 Nancy

Pasta is not going to make you fat. You need to understand about your nutritional balance and about actually how important carbohydrate is, particularly if you're somebody who does a lot of this very intense, You know, these sort of HIIT classes. A lot of women to, you know, get up at 6, go to a class and go to the office. And can you at home huge and it's so important. And if you're an athlete.

00:15:32 Emily

Well, it's a fuel, isn't it? It's fuel and we need it, yeah.

00:15:36 Nancy

You know you will be really kind of closely monitoring your totals of carbohydrate to make sure you've had enough.

00:15:43 Emily

Mmm, to give you the output.

00:15:52 Nancy

So exactly so I really wanted that sort of focus and then we've we've, you know we've we've got to gone into all sorts of different avenues and different kinds of foo, plant-based cooking is getting more and more popular now. So wanted to get an expert that's why I chose Charlotte because she's got a really solid background in plant based cooking.

But yeah, we do that. And then I've got a fantastic yoga teacher called Fran, who's also really into her mindfulness and breathwork. So she does these brilliant classes that really sort of lower your cortisol, kind of calm your central nervous system

00:16:10 Emily

Oh, the fight or flight. Yes, yes, which is so relevant. And something that I've only heard about recently. Gosh, Nancy, it sounds like you're doing everything and more. We need to clone, Nancy, get more Nancies.

So what do you feel in, in your experience, well, what? What for you, since you've started your journey, what so far has been the most surprising thing that you've learnt?

00:16:37 Nancy

Um, so from a business perspective, yeah. So I to be honest, I think the slightly sad thing is that I would be a lot more successful if I sold a different product to be honest. And what I mean by that is I think we've still got a long way to go for strength training and kind of a holistic, healthy approach to be “popular” - like there's still stigmas, yes there's still stigmas, and there's still, you know, “thin” or whatever you why do you want to use still aells? And you know, that kind of even the, you know, the Kaylas of the world, these big, big, big fitness influencers, female fitness, fitness influencers who've done fantastically. Fundamentally, they're selling weight loss. That is what they do and and I think I think my, the surprising element is that you know you're so kind to say you know offer all these great things. And it's true. You know, I really believe my product is unique.

00:17:37 Emily

Mm.

00:17:38 Nancy

But the reality is I would never get to that sort of scale in my in my generation. I'd love to think our daughters daughters, that would be what I'm offering would be sort of bog standard pure gym classic. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But we're just a bit. I'm a bit too.

00:17:45 Emily

Yes. Yeah, totally, yeah. Well, it's it's interesting because as a mother - I have a daughter and a son. But I feel sadly, it's more so targeted at my daughter. But you know she's on social media and she watches content which I can't fully manage and know exactly what she's up to all the time, but I'm always talking about being healthy, being well and looking at your body and being fit. So I try and use all those words at home rather than “thin” or, you know, we talk about sort of sugar, not necessarily being good for you, yeah, etc, but it's trying to educate her and like you say, she's just heard other things like thin.

00:18:28 Nancy

Totally. Yeah. On TikTok, these kind of crazy diets. I know.

00:18:32 Emily

It's awful. It's really scary, actually.

00:18:34 Nancy

I think the role modelling thing, you know, there's there's such a sort of exciting prospect to me to think about this network of women who are literally setting up the next generation of women. You know, because most women in my community, not, not all of them, have had children, but they're either kind of thinking about that or they have had children and, you know, you can see a journey where even some of the younger group that hopefully will be in their future, this kind of positive conditioning hopefully will continue. As you know, as you're doing with your daughter.

00:19:01 Emily

Sure. Well, I wish I even knew now what I knew when they were babies in the weaning stage. You know that sugar you know, because I feel like I sort of made an error of judgement back then because I was none the wiser and now I would understand more. So what you can achieve? I mean, I know you're saying it's a slow sort of step and you you're almost having to re-educate but I think keep going, because we need you Nancy!

00:19:25 Nancy

And also I guess you know job satisfaction for me. Going back to your question. You know, it's surprising and I guess a bit of a shame that it's not a hugely scalable thing, but actually what I've really I've done quite a lot of work into kind of my values as a business owner and what do I really feel passionately about and actually it is those smaller connections and those tighter knit that having that tight knit community is actually what drives me and what I feel really proud of.

And I think you know, to your point about your daughters social media, I mean, I social media for me is like a necessary evil because people double check that you're legitimate, right. They look at your website and if you've got no social media channels, they'll think you're basically a fraud or like, oh, no, like a scam or something.

00:20:04 Emily

That's probably how you started your business, especially in in. Yeah, yeah.

00:20:06 Nancy

I didn't even have a website. Initially I had an Instagram first, but when I'm like off, you know, if I'm on holiday with my family or with my partner. social media is just, I’m gone.

00:20:15 Emily

I did see that. I looked at your Instagram. I saw you in Antigua and you were off?

00:20:20 Nancy

Yeah, Antigua and I had something crazy like, I think it was 12 minutes of screen time a day or something mad.

00:20:23 Emily

Good for you, did you miss it?

00:20:25 Nancy

Not at all. Not in fact. I had, really, I was saying to my partner, Thomas. I've got the worst anxiety about re-downloading this. And he was like, it's like a plaster, he said once you rip it off, you'll be fine. Yeah, but when you've been away from that sort of hamster wheel and that's why, like, all respect to those, you know, those girls who run these huge social media type businesses but that is a constant strain because you're only really as good as your followers, your content, you know you've got it, and there's always someone who's younger, that are better looking, slimmer.

00:20:59 Emily

Mm, awful pressures.

00:21:00 Nancy

You know, there's always going to be those kind of pressures. And so like with social media, for me, I follow basically just my client base and people that I respect. Yeah, but I don't. I don't really follow a lot of those big names.

00:21:10 Emily

You don't go down those rabbit holes.

00:21:11 Nancy

Because honestly, you end up thinking I'm rubbish, I've got no business. I should just sack it all off.

00:21:15 Emily

Hmm. No, you're absolutely right. That's very good advice, actually. Yeah. Just focus on you. Yeah.

00:21:18 Nancy

Yeah. And actually you get so much, particularly like I try to sort of follow like more creative characters or maybe it's artists or designers or even like in fashion for example, because even our businesses are not the same. You get inspiration in a different way, you know, and then you start to think about things like, oh, maybe you know, for example, on Saturday we did a fantastic workshop with the business owner. She's called seven. Well, she’s called Georgia but her business is called Seven Collective, and she makes these beautiful bracelets. I'm actually wearing one here, which has got a rude word. So I'm not gonna say that out loud on this podcast.

00:21:50 Emily

Gotta say that I have to have a look, but you don't have to say the word, it looks absolutely beautiful.

00:21:54 Nancy

It's got the F word in it.

00:21:56 Emily

Ah! We can all guess from that. Oh wow, it's gorgeous though.

00:21:59 Nancy

So we did this amazing workshop. But you know, that's a good example where like, you're bringing that different kind of creative energy to your business and it's not let's do more hit training, yes.

00:22:04 Emily

Yes, well, exactly and your, you know, your community. And you know what they want to do and and get involved in. I mean, it's very much like Bain and Gray and our community. And like you say, it doesn't just stop at recruitment.

00:22:19 Nancy

No, it's it's connecting people and supporting them, I'm sure at different stages of their careers, because if they stay with you on your with on their books from the beginning, right through to retirement. I mean that’s a long time!

00:22:31 Emily

Well actually, Sarah has been with us since she left college.

00:22:35 Nancy

Wow.

00:22:35 Emily

And I think we found her fifth job. Yeah. Before she goes off to have her baby, which is all very exciting. I'm gonna return to some sort of some questions for you, Nancy, in your business, cause I'm sure our listeners will be really, really interested in this. Um, I think we've talked about your demographics and and you probably won't want to answer this, but do you have a favourite demographic to work with? I mean, we're all going through different hormonal changes or different life lessons or etc. But do you have a particular age that you…?

00:23:04 Nancy

I I don't know. You know, I probably say not an age, but I do get really excited to work with women who've never done weight lifting before, and that could be at any age. So that could be, you know, there's a lady who actually my, my mum's been sort of weight lifting since obviously I started my business and I've been helping her and stuff and she did a interview you kind of for me, she did me a massive favour actually. I did an interview with The Independent and I got quite a lot of inquiries off the back of it, of women of her age reading it and feeling inspired.

And there's a lovely lady called Anna who’s joined and you know she's in her 60s. She's got, you know, grown up children and having somebody like her join our classes is really exciting because it’s probably, well, I can't say for sure, but it's probably going to have a significant impact on the next 20 years of her life, because as long as she maintains mobility and she builds her core strength and she can kind of move functionally very well, that will make her kind of 70s and 80s hopefully a really energetic chapter.

00:24:04 Emily

When you talk about strength training, are we talking about bodybuilding or are we talking…?

00:24:09 Nancy

No. OK, so good point, good question. So strength training is anything using resistance.

00:24:17 Emily

Yeah. Body Pump? Showing my age here.

00:24:19 Nancy

Absolutely. Love. Yeah. Body Pump is fantastic, Body Pump classes, it could be Kettle Bell classes, it could be barbell lifting. My class is predominantly dumbbells and there's quite a sort of simple, almost like a starter pack. You need to have just to kind of kick off in the with the classes, but it's pretty straightforward because at the end of the day, particularly if you haven't done a lot of that kind of training.

00:24:38 Emily

Gotta start slow. Hmm. Hmm.

00:24:40 Nancy

Meaning you will just get, exactly. Exactly. A you don't wanna get injured, but B, like, even picking up twos, threes, 4 KG's it's actually huge because you haven't done any of that kind. Your body is gonna adapt and progress so quickly.

00:24:50 Emily

Mm, yeah. I I came into sort of fitness later in life. Yeah. And it's a sort of a need rather than a want. I it's it's I find it amazing for mental health. But funny enough, I did hear that actually the strength training or conditioning, whatever you call it is is is actually much better for someone in your 40s in the cardio they said you should be doing that three times a week. I mean I love a kettlebell, not gonna lie.

00:25:12 Nancy

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's so empowering, isn't it? And I think you just, you sort of feel a lot more restored then if you've done a lot of cardio, I find I get quite tired. You know it's quite exhausting and sweating a lot. You feel you need to have a shower.

00:25:24

Hmm. But you do also build up quite a lot of what's the right word here, but with using kettle bells I get quite out breath.

00:25:32 Nancy

Definitely your heart rate’s up,

00:25:34 Emily

That's it. Heart rate. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, yeah.

00:25:36 Nancy

Definitely heart rate, absolutely. And your recovery really improves. I mean, going back to your point about the, you know life in your 40s and how important it is for women, I mean, it's important for women of all ages, but particularly perimenopausal women.

You know, going through menopause, your your bone density changes and your bones will become more brittle. You can suffer a lot of breakages, hip, knee, etc., all the joints. So the more that you can, you know, strengthen your body and build your bone density through resistance training, the less chance you have of these injuries that really hold women back and you know, particularly if you've had a long career, which most of my clients you know are very successful women who, you know, running businesses working at mostly senior level,

00:26:14 Emily

I think sitting quite a lot as well, yes, yeah.

00:26:15 Nancy

Exactly. So their backs, you know, not they, they, they kind of need to help strengthen their core to support their back.

00:26:21 Emily

Nancy, are you going to move to Oxfordshire so you can do me?

00:26:24 Nancy

Haha! Funnily enough Sarahs living in and sorry went down to see her and her lovely husband. And we were having a giggle about me moving to Surrey.

00:26:30 Emily

Oh, you're going to regret saying that. We’re all going to be demanding that you set up satellite offices!

00:26:36 Nancy

Well that's a great thing about remote though. We’ve got international members in Ladies Who Crunch, which is also really exciting.

00:26:41 Emily

Ohh wow.

00:26:43 Nancy

Yeah, because it's really cool, you know, thinking about this sort of little mini network globally of, like, women who are kind of, yeah, doing their strength training and and building their confidence from all kind of corners of the globe.

00:26:54 Emily

So I've heard you talking about, you know, how you want to change things and re-educate people, etc. And you know, this is obviously a huge mountain to climb. But where do you see the fitness world being sort of in in the coming years? Do you think that there's gonna be huge changes with nutrition and fitness or what are your feels on it?

00:27:17 Nancy

Yeah. I think I think on the one hand, going back to your point about social media, we're in a bit of a tricky spot because essentially, if you have a platform you are marketed as an expert, which is a problem because if you are somebody who has got a lot of followers and young people in particular are absorbing every word you say.

00:27:36 Emily

MHM.

00:27:37 Nancy

If you're not evidence based and you haven't got training, you know. Unfortunately I don't believe you should be commenting or giving advice, and I think that sort of we almost we've got to a strange time where yeah, you know, followers and platform is more important than qualifications for that generation.

00:27:44 Emily

Of course. I think that that’s quite scary.

00:27:57 Nancy

Yeah. And I'm not quite sure how we overcome that, to be honest. So I think that's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out. I think there's more and more debunking going on, which is brilliant and actually science is becoming the good thing is, is that science is a lot more accessible for everybody, including myself, to understand because you've got people who are really smart, who can break it down and you kind of to your point about nutrition, you can start to learn, OK, this is actually what I need to know rather than get caught up in all the kind of fluff and definitely don't read The Daily Mail, whoever listens to this don't follow their nutritional advice.

00:28:35 Emily

Well, they seem to change their mind sort of day in, day out. So really.

00:28:39 Nancy

Like, hold on a minute. I thought I was allowed to have this, and now I'm not. And this celebrity is loving it. And then this one's hating it. And it's like, yeah, that's not a thing. I think. I think it's great that the conversation around mental health and training is kind of getting closer and closer together. And I'm really hopeful that that's going to continue.

And you know, certainly kind of in our lifetime, we've already seen such an evolution and change in the conversation around mental health. So, you know, long way that continue and hopefully get even more mainstream and I think probably what's interesting is like in in the celebrity world, mental health has become almost like cool to talk about. But I think in the corporate world, there's still a big gap like we don't see that many big CEOs.

00:29:23 Emily

Well, that's interesting actually we've just recently done we we do lots of surveys to our team. We do a lot of ensuring that we're providing what they require and we've just done quite a big thing on on mental health and yeah, where we can help with our benefits etc and well-being.

00:29:38 Nancy

Yeah. Fantastic.

00:29:40 Emily

And actually I get a lot of direct access to our clients and a lot of them in the HR sort of division of of the businesses. And it is since COVID, ‘cause a lot of people's mental health suffered, you know, from all all demographics. So schools mainly but but in the workplace people really felt disengaged and disconnected and neglected and lonely. And actually it is it behind the scenes there is a lot of work being done. When I talk to business owners, HR CEO's and we certainly are very aware of it in our office, there's a very strong pastoral support.

00:30:14 Nancy

Yeah. And I guess also talking about, which it sounds like, you know, even when you're speaking about your own training, you sort of mentioned that it's related also to, you know, helping boost your mental health. Like, I think, senior, particularly women, talking about their mental health is really important and. Absolutely. And so, you know, sending an e-mail that says, actually, I'm not in today, you.

00:30:29 Emily

So do I. And setting examples.

00:30:36 Nancy

Absolutely. You know sending an email that says actually I’m not in today, taking some time off and you don't have to go into any more detail if you don’t want to. Sort of just setting that precedent that that's OK.

00:30:40 Emily

Absolutely. And I think being not frightened, being bold. But you're right, it's it's it, there is a stigma attached to it. I think it we've made huge progress in the last five years. Huge. Hmm. And I think we've got COVID to thank for that because I think it propelled employees to have a voice and not be frightened and to be supported and and I think as a result in fact statistically when candidates are now looking for a job obviously the package is very important but a lot more of it is now based on lifestyle and benefits. You know the hybrid office or the opportunity to have a package that they can sort of dip in and out of, which might provide a gym membership or a massage or something that is actually becoming really, really important.

We run a six monthly salary survey through all our clients and candidates and actually we're due to published one in April, but the last one, the biggest change we saw in the last few years was all about health, wellbeing, benefits.

00:31:23 Nancy

Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

00:31:44 Emily

Yes, across across all sectors in the industry.

00:31:46 Nancy

That's fascinating. That's really positive.

00:31:47 Emily

It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful and it's more someone said it's more the soft packages rather than the hard packages. You know, they're not interested in perhaps DEN plan or you know, they want sort of. Yes, I can work from home two days a week. Yes, I can be flexible.

00:32:00 Nancy

Yeah. Or I can come in at 10 because I have my yoga and that's respected as a reasonable reason to be late, well not quite late, but you know, to start the do these flexi hours.

00:32:03 Emily

Absolutely. Why does it matter if you start at 10 or if you start at 8? We are we've offered flexi time in our company since even before COVID, so that people, totally.

00:32:15 Nancy

And it's essential because everybody is, you know, as the studies always show, everybody's concentration is different. You know, some people are morning people, some people aren't. And if being able to go to the gym or make that person more productive, happier and you know, retain them for longer. Why would you be so, you know, pen pusher about that single hour difference?

00:32:30 Emily

Exactly and I think what's interesting is some companies are really dated about this and they're losing staff. I mean, there's a, there's a, there's a lack of talent across the market and has been for, for, for nearly a year now and retention as well and if you're not going to create an environment where your employees are happy and want to stay and gonna be nurtured. You will lose them. It's that simple.

00:32:56 Nancy

Oh, there was actually. I mean, literally this event I was at on on Saturday. There was some great conversations between the women. You know, it's so nice seeing them chat and share stories. And one of the conversations that came up was examples of employers demanding return 5 days, you know, sort of with immediate effect and the huge impact that's had particularly on women who tend to be predominant caregivers at home, have got complicated childcare set ups.

There was one lady who was talking as a member of Ladies Who Lunch. She was saying, look, I don't have children, but I do have an exercise regime. I do have, you know, my pee. I have commitments. I want to go to therapy, I go to my Spanish class, so I've got an infrastructure that really works to me at the moment. I'm still going to the office three days a week. Those two days are really important for me to have that home, I get things you know, it's quite, I think it's quite surprising that employees haven't anticipated that that will, she said. Oh, I've immediately started looking for new roles.

00:33:49 Emily

Well, it's happening and there is a sort of knee-jerk trend we've been talking about it where some companies are starting to pull people back in. Hmm. But there's no evidence that's gonna make more productive. No. And actually, you know, not that Bain and Gray is the only industry business at the moment, but our productivity has never been as high as it was since we came back. We operate a hybrid office flexi time. We're not going to be changing that anytime soon. Our team love it. They asked for it, the business supported it. Yeah, but there is definitely a trend.

00:34:21 Nancy

You think that's because you’re a group of women, though?

00:34:23 Emily

That's a very good question. I feel like you are interviewing me now, Nancy!

00:34:26 Nancy

Well, I'm interested because I do think that, you know, without bringing it back to gender too much, though I do have a tendency to do that all the time. You know when you have got a lot of responsibilities, you're a little bit more sensitive to other people's responsibilities outside of just sitting in a desk in a communal office environment.

00:34:46 Emily

I think and not not having to be careful here. But you know Claire and I are mothers. We've both had a one child before we set up Bain and Gray and then another baby very close to one another in sort of trading of year four I think it was. I think Claire and I always wanted to create an environment that supported working women. And actually what I love about COVID is that it really changed the childcare issue. People don't have to pay for childcare so much anymore. They can work around hours with their husband if they're both working. And I love that. And I really support that actually. And we try and create that environment, I do think because Claire and I have been there. Yes, in the environment, you know, knocking off time to go to a Nativity play or a sports day.

00:35:27 Nancy

Yeah. So yeah.

00:35:28 Emily

We let those things, that they're just part of the part of the of the role for, you know, we don't flinch. Our team is so brilliant they make up the hours in another way, or not. It's irrelevant. It is part of it. And yes, I think COVID and perhaps Claire and mine's background has definitely enabled us to create a flexible, more understanding, grown up working environment.

00:35:53 Nancy

Yes. Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? Because that's one of what the conversation was alluding to on Saturday. It does feel a bit like school, you know, and and. And actually everyone's “graduated” to use that analogy already. So you can't just sort of pull everyone back to GCSE's and, like, write that these are the rule books.

00:36:04 Emily

You're so right. That's a really good way of phrasing it, and I think it all boils down to trust. Yeah. Which again, is one of our values. And I mean you can't, you can't force trust. It's something that's in built and actually COVID you had to just trust you couldn't. I was actually in France during COVID. That's where I lived. So, you know, we were all away and suddenly have to trust. And the team were absolutely magnificent. Yeah. And that trust is still there. So I think that's what it's all about. But but I hope the world doesn't revert back to the five days weeks in the office, because like you said fitness, nutrition, everything that you're doing is so important to some people's lives. It's it's, it's, it's.

00:36:48 Nancy

You can't just delete it out, no, it’s essential.

00:36:50 Emily

It's not a luxury. It’s actually, it’s an essential. Exactly, yeah.

00:36:55 Nancy

It is an essential. And I think the good thing is, is more and more women are feeling empowered to say, actually that doesn't work for me. This is really important. And it's interesting. I've noticed a lot with the hours of coaching I do with my one to one clients. How much, both their confidence and also their kind of quality of their training has improved when they choose the hours that they want to train with me. So you know, traditionally before COVID I would do sort of 6789 AM in the morning at at like 9 was like pretty sort of unusual, unless it was someone really senior.

00:37:15 Emily

Uh-huh, well quite late, haha.

00:37:27 Nancy

Exactly. And then you do 6789 in the evening. Now I'm training people. I still do early slots, but you know, probably my last clients, maybe 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. Because people have got, you know a lot more connected to their bodies and actually for most people 6:00 in the morning is not a time to be doing exercise.

00:37:47 Emily

Oh. Well 6:00 at night for me, actually. Actually I’m done by them.

00:37:51 Nancy

Exactly. I hate that, I'm such a morning person. I'm exactly the same. But you know. But it's great because that because that evening person, they wanna do the afternoon slot and they've, you know, they've got up. They've done their meetings, they've kind of had that you know that mature power back that we should all have had from before. But, you know, let's see if that continues. I think I'm lucky because the women that I work with are all pretty badass.

00:37:18 Emily

A lot of your clients, are they are they, is it a real mixture or is it sort of professional women? Is it business owners, is it?

00:38:25 Nancy

Definitely professional women. Some some self-employed. Yeah, a lot of them are in quite kind of big, big corporations. Mixture really. Finance law. Yeah.

00:38:38 Emily

So quite corporate.

00:38:39 Nancy

Corporate. Yeah. And then I've got a couple who actually, a couple who are kind of side hustling as well alongside, as I've said, yeah, it's.

00:38:44 Emily

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we love a side hustle.

00:38:47 Nancy

I think that's also probably COVID been great for side hustles because it gave people a bit more time to really grow those things. Think about new ideas.

00:38:50 Emily

Yes, yes. Absolutely. And like you, a lot of people have had a side hustle, which has been a passion and then has grown into a a career which is absolutely wonderful. Um, Nancy, just because you've obviously done so well with your business and you've got so much energy and I know so many plans for the future, what's the best piece of advice you've been given by anybody?

00:39:13 Nancy

For growing your own business, I think the most important thing you have to do is be completely connected to the purpose of your business and doing something because it's going to make you rich quick or it's really trendy like, you know, doing a coding course and thinking going to become the next you know Facebook or whatever …

00:39:33 Emily

Bill Gates.

00:39:36 Nancy

…Bill Gates exactly like, if you don't get up every day and absolutely believe in what you're doing and and you don't have to love it every day, I think it's really false economy that you're supposed to ever, and you all know this so well from running Bain and Gray like you don't have to love it every day, but you have to know and believe in what you're doing.

00:39:52 Emily

In what you’re doing. You do, yes.

00:39:56 Nancy

And actually, that authentically I think sells for you. In a, in a way that you know often, I can't say too much on this of who, but my partner is working with someone who runs a business and it's to do with childcare. This person has no children and doesn't really seem to like children at all. Now, without going into too much detail, I think that's going to be a difficult business to really scale and get behind.

00:40:20 Emily

What they're setting up a childcare business, but they don't have children and they don't really? Hmm. That is going to be interesting.

00:40:21 Nancy

It’s gonna be interesting. So, so, yeah, so we won't go and see which one but the but the the point being that you know I can't believe that that person is really living and breathing the vision.

00:40:38 Emily

I want to have this chat with you in a year's see where this person is. It's gonna be so interesting.

00:40:42 Nancy

I think they're gonna be back in full time employment. Let's see.

00:40:47 Emily

Nancy, finally, cause I could talk to you all day about your your business. I mean, I I have a real interest personally with, with fitness, which I came to late and I've and and and nutrition for sort of medical reasons. But I I love what you're doing and I love the community and I love the approach that you're going to, get get approaching with with Ladies Who Crunch. But I want to talk to you about your assistant.

00:41:11 Nancy

Ohh, yes!

00:40:13 Emily

Well, it just seems right that I talked to you about your assistant, because this is what Bain and Gray do. And I sometimes think especially being on your own, setting up a company which I I'd imagine it goes at 150 miles an hour, and you've got so many ideas and not enough hours in the day, yeah, Jules must be very, very important to you.

00:41:28 Nancy

Yes. She is fundamental.

00:41:33 Emily

OK, tell me about Jules.

00:41:34 Nancy

And Jules is brilliant for me as a small business owner because she is a freelancer and for me, I think you know lots of businesses obviously are are you know are far more mature than mine and have you know unlimited revenue to put towards employee packages and things like that. But for me personally knowing that I have somebody who can bring her energy and her support into my day for a closed period where we just get shit done, excuse my French.

00:42:02 Emily

MMM, MHM.

00:42:04 Nancy

She can go and do other projects and I don't feel this huge pressure of having a big team around me, but I've got that kind of best of both. It's been fantastic when she and I worked together in our old agencies, she was kind of a an assistant and we worked on teams together. I ran teams and she kind of worked with me on those.

00:42:22 Emily

Wonderful.

00:42:24 Nancy

And then she just contacted me to say, you know, I'm setting up on my own. I've been following your business for a while. I'm, you know, kind of just seeing if you're interested. And it's so funny because it's classic example of, so I for like two years I've been thinking I need to get help. I need to get help. I need to help but it was almost like I'm such a control freak, I was like, it's got to be someone that I know that I trust and actually also, you know that you feel you can be really open with when you're having a terrible time or something. You've launched something and it's kind of flopped or it has a bit, you know, the kind of more difficult stuff.

00:42:43 Emily

Mm-hmm. It's just bouncing ideas and having a sounding board. Cause like you say, you can't go at 150 miles. You know everyday you just can't just.

00:42:59 Nancy

No, no, no, no. Exactly, exactly.

00:43:00 Emily

Life doesn't work like that. And actually that's also a testament to you. So it was your community that brought her to you?

00:43:05 Nancy

You. I think so. Yeah. I think also probably because I imagine she felt the same about starting on her own, that it's nice to work with people that you've worked with and we always work really well together. We get on really well, she’s actually going on maternity leave and I've got a kind of cover for her coming in, which is gonna be fantastic for six months. But again, going back to your point like I’m loving setting up a business that I hope will give both of those women flexibility to do the hours they want to do, you know, she can come back when she’s ready to. But if she says to me I wanna do 11 till 12 and 7 ‘til 8 in the evening. Crack on.

00:43:39 Emily

That's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

00:43:41 Nancy

Absolutely. Yeah, obviously, I’ll be asleep but go for it, you know. So yeah, she's been fantastic. And like, I think also, you know, you can't especially as a woman, you always have this gremlin in your head all the time about, you know, “you're rubbish”, “you're not doing enough like the business is…”. You know, much as you can like, try to be super confident and brave, there's always going to be those days when you don't feel up to it.

00:44:03 Emily

And you need a little push or a little bit of guidance.

00:44:05 Nancy

You need a push and you need a, all you need, a caring person to be like “well done!”

00:44:08 Emily

Of course, “you're doing well”!

Well, I can tell you, Nancy, you're doing more than well. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

00:44:12 Nancy

Thank you. It’s been such a joy.

00:44:16 Emily

I can feel that there's a lot more that we can talk about, but for the sake of today, I've loved hearing about your business and I look forward to meeting you again to perhaps dive a bit deeper.

00:44:22 Nancy

Thank you, Emily. And so do I. And if anyone's got any questions or particular topics, then we can have another chat.

00:44:30 Emily

Your details will be attached to this and everyone in touch.

00:44:32 Nancy

Yes, can get, everyone can ask away and we can come back. Thank you so much.

00:44:35 Emily

Lovely. Thanks Nancy.

00:44:36 Nancy

Thank you.