Online Fitness & Nutrition Coach

Julia "As an online coach, I work with women all over the world to help reach their fitness goals, to help them learn how to eat for a healthy, lean, happy body, and I give them strategies to implement for the rest of their lives."

Education

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Required License(s) You need to have at least basic certifications in CPR, Personal Training, and Nutrition.

Required Degree(s) None

Importance of GPA not very important

What do you need to do to maintain your license(s)?

You must take Continuing Education Classes or re-certify every 2 years

Julia's Highest Degree: Bachelor's degree
(Note: I am also a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist.)
Julia's College GPA Range: 3.1-3.5

Salary

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Not consistent across the board.

(You get out what you put in.)

Getting the Job

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How did you get your job?

A mix of obtaining the proper certification, prior fitness studio experience, and personal experience.

How important was networking to landing your position?

I am my own boss, so to get (i.e., make) my position, it wasn't important. But it is hugely important to build my business!

Life on the Job

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What is a typical day (or week) for you like?

A typical day for me is exercise, answer client e-mails, respond to social media, create client programs, write for my site, and create healthy recipes for clients and readers.

How closely does your typical day (or week) match up to the general "job description" for your position?

I'm not sure a general job description exists for what I do! But I imagine most online trainers have similar experiences.

Does being a woman affect any aspect of your career?

I believe it helps me relate to my female clients. I know the struggle that it is to have constant pressure to look good, to have a family and a job, and be this super woman. It's tough! And I want to create programs for busy woman who want to be healthy because they want to feel great about themselves, and let go of that undue pressure.

What is the best thing about your job?

The best thing about my job is the excitement and enthusiasm my client's get when they see results.

What is the worst thing about your job?

The worst thing is the uncertainty of where another client will come from.

How demanding is your job?

My job is both physically and mentally tough. Physically, I train clients as well as myself. Therefore I have to put energy and effort into actual physical activity... practice what you preach! Mentally, my job is tough because I create programs from scratch for my clients and I feel vested in their success.

Do you have any advancement opportunities?

This career/business is what I make of it. I hope to grow it to a level where I am reaching hundreds if not thousands of women across the globe.

Advice for You

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What are the skills, characteristics, or talents that are most important to be effective in your position?

Knowledge and the desire to keep learning, communication skills, and the ability to relate to people.

What advice would you give to someone thinking about pursuing a career like yours?

It's not easy, so be willing to put in a lot of time, effort and passion. But believe in yourself because it is possible and the job is so worth it.

If you could do it over again, would you still pursue the same career?

Yes. I still think about going back to school to deepen my education.

Follow Up

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Want to learn more? Check out Julia's site here. Want to read later? Pin me -->

Four Easy Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Emails More Effective

About ten months ago, I left office life and started working from home. And since then, I've been living dream: answering work emails without pants.

Since I’ve stared working from home, I've also become a lot more reliant on email. You see, walking over to someone’s desk is no longer an option for me, so about 90% of my daily interactions take place online.

That said, when it comes to the art of email, I've become a Van Gogh of Outlook.

It wasn't always this way though; at one point, I was more at the finger painting level of things. But like all great artists, I learned.

And today, I’m sharing four tips I've learned that have helped me make sure my emails are as effective as possible, and which I hope will help you polish your own online communication.

Use active voice.

Here’s a test: which sentence do you think is easier to understand?

a) The blog post was written by the wordsmith.
b) The wordsmith wrote the blog post.

Or how about here:

a) Eyes were rolled by the unamused blog readers.
b) The unamused blog readers rolled their eyes.

If you’re like me, option b (the active voice) is a lot easier on the brain. My readers' brains are important to me, so whenever possible, I use the active voice. While this tip has helped me in all of my writing, it is especially helpful when emailing, when clarity is key.

Put down the thesaurus.

Working under my general assumption that everyone knows and loves the show Friends, I’m sure you remember the episode when Joey writes Chandler and Monica a reference letter. In that episode, Joey uses a thesaurus to come up with sentences like: “They are humid prepossessing Homo Sapiens with full sized aortic pumps.” (In normal speak: "They're warm, nice people with big hearts.")

When writing an email, clarity is almost always more important than impressive language. In other words, it’s fine to use words like “use” and “said” in your email instead of their fancy cousins, “utilize” and “articulate.” Basically, don’t be a word slob, but also don’t be a Joey.

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Don’t be a word slob,

but also don’t be a Joey.

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Two is better than one (sentences, that is).

Once, after a long day, I received an email with a sentence that had many different points, from a person who had many different thoughts and a particular fondness for commas, which he used without hesitation to come up with the longest sentence I ever read, thereby forcing me to reread the email with my very tired eyes at least five times, much to my dismay.

Don’t get me wrong—I love a well-crafted sentence. But like point #2, email is all about clarity. One sentence may be more impressive, but two is a lot easier to read.

Be obvious.

People are busy, and busy people generally don’t like reading a lot of words—which means a lot of times, people are just skimming your email instead of reading the whole thing. So whenever possible, I make my point within the first sentence or two of my email. And if I can’t, or if there are multiple important points, I make sure that each important item jumps out at the reader. (Bolding things is my friend.)

And as an extra special added bonus, here is a fifth point: Stop apologizing. I could write a whole blog post about this one but that, my friends, is for another time.

Do you have any tips to add to this list? Do you like online communication, or do you prefer face-to-face?

Team Manager Success Team, Chef Software

Note from Nicole: Marsha is a Team Manager for Chef Software. "Chef" is both the name of a company and the name of the software the company provides. Chef, the software, is an automation platform, meaning it focuses on the relationship between parts of a system to understand how changing one part of the system might affect the system as a whole.

However, the career advice Marsha provides below spans career industries, and is worth reading no matter what job you are seeking.

Marsha "I ensure post sales customer satisfaction, through pro serve consulting and technical services delivery, to maintain and/or increase product adoption."

Education

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Required License(s) For initial credibility, I had to get a few InfoSec certificates. It was useful for my job but not critical.

Required Degree(s) A Master's degree is good because it is often an interviewing gatekeeper.

Importance of GPA not very important

What do you need to do to maintain your license(s)?

To maintain my certificates, I need to do professional hours against criteria set by the certification authority (usually about 40 hours of continuing education a year, plus some fees).

Marsha's Highest Degree: Bachelor's degree (Bachelor of Arts) and MBA
Marsha's College Major: Bachelor's in English
Marsha's College GPA Range: 3.1-3.5

Salary

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For Technical Project Managers (where I was about eight years ago) the range was about $110,000 -$130,000. 

As a leadership team member, you generally make more. 

Getting the Job

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How did you get your job?

My initial job in consulting was landed in great part due to my security clearance I got during my time in the Army. In that first job, I spent nearly a decade learning all I could to be better technically, responding to proposals, and volunteering for many projects to be as well rounded and employable as possible. After I left that first job and moved to a new company, I began to set only 3-5 year goals before I would anticipate a transition to a new employer. Sometimes that transition took place sooner, sometimes later. Either way, knowing I would need to demonstrate substantive impact in a year or two kept me sharp, or the resume would look unimpressive for that job, right?

How important was networking to landing your position?

9 out of 10. I have always valued networking over all. And not as a catalyst to my success but also as a way to help others succeed too. Kind of a Career Karma bank.

Life on the Job

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What is a typical day (or week) for you like?

I am fortunate in that for my last three jobs I have worked from home/worked remote. My current company has about 70% of staff remotely working. So my weekdays are pretty routine. (Let the dog out, let the cats in, take kids to school, get more coffee, head to my home office and start work around 8am.) I am managing a team of 7 folks at this time, and I am ensuring they are happy, busy, engaged, enabled to do their job, and learning more each day so they can be more helpful to other team members and our clients. We use Slack for 75% of communication, and Zoom for our meetings. I feel very connected to both my internal team, but also the many other Chef team members because of our level of use of these mediums. I talk with many clients per week, interface with our sales staff to write proposals and contracts, and I propose ways to improve our business processes and get the word out about our great company and product.

How closely does your typical day (or week) match up to the general "job description" for your position?

The job description is filled with tasks and activities, like most jobs have. However, the nuances of listening and being a true consultant require me to be an advisor, focused on earning trust with my team, my managers, my clients, really everyone I interface with, and that is a day by day demonstration of positive, friendly interactions and behaviors that help me achieve my professional goals for my company. So I rely heavily on soft skills that do not easily translate to a job description per se.

Does being a woman affect any aspect of your career?

It has. I enjoy being a woman in a to-date male dominated profession, but it has taken many jobs to get to a place that wholly values what I bring to the table as much as the technical engineers bring. It is hard to find companies that understand that to create a world-class team, there need to be a balance of both soft and hard skills, and that everyone benefits when one-upsmanship is frowned upon while collaboration is lauded.

What is the best thing about your job?

The people I get to work with every day, and that I get to contemplate the future of cloud computing and automation (I'm a dreamer that way) and help my customers find their way to get there.

What is the worst thing about your job?

I don't know. Nothing really. I think I would still work here even if I won the lottery.

How demanding is your job?

I view the need for mental toughness to be a requirement to protect oneself when there are political issues rife within a company, or when the culture is broken, morale is low, turnover high, and you leave each day exhausted for the struggle. So in that way, I do not need a flack jacket at this job. I don't steel myself each day. I actually look forward to interacting with my team members. And we have unlimited PTO [paid time off], so if I need a mental health day, or the day off to take my kid to a doctors appointment or chaperone a field trip, I just do it. I've worked long and hard to get to this place. I absolutely do not take this for granted.

Do you have any advancement opportunities?

Yes, I can transfer laterally to work with products or be an Engineering Manager. I can move vertically when the company grows or someone departs. But since I have only been in my position for 6 months, I feel it is incumbent on me to serve as a strong leader in my current position until I have made it the best it can be and I have identified and trained a sufficient backfill so as not to leave the team in a lurch. I love to imagine being more to a company whose values so closely mirror my own and that push me to learn and grow.

Advice for You

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What are the skills, characteristics, or talents that are most important to be effective in your position?

Me personally, the ability to use my high EQ [emotional intelligence] to put myself in the shoes of my customers who may in fact be struggling with a challenging, politically charged difficult environment. I care when people hurt, and to gain insights to their issues and respond with kindness, warmth, and a potential solution is pivotal to my success (and in my opinion, for anyone doing my/my kind of job).

What advice would you give to someone thinking about pursuing a career like yours?

Nowadays, plan only 3-5 years ahead. You will be exposed to so much in that time that I am sure if you have any energy or drive or ambition, it will redefine what you think you want. That does not mean you are wishy-washy—it simply means you can go with the flow. That, in my opinion, will be more and more critical to your professional survival should you find you do not win the lottery this week and need to continue to work for the next 50 years.

If you could do it over again, would you still pursue the same career?

I would not say I pursued this career. But would I follow the same path? Yes. Were it not for my crappy, I'd-rather-do-anything-but-this-job jobs, I would not have worked so hard to find the perfect-for-me-right-now place, where I currently, happily find myself.

Follow Up

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Want to learn more? You can connect with Marsha using LinkedIn here. According to Marsha, "If you personalize your request to connect, I almost always will connect back. I love to meet motivated, like-minded professionals."