| Focus December 1, 2008
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Natalie Waples got her
start at SeriousAboutFitness.com, but now she's featured everywhere. Most recently, she
appeared on the cover of Inside Fitness. |
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Tomorrow's Stars Can Be Found Here
Today
When I started SeriousAboutFitness.com, I wanted it to be
different. So, from the very beginning, the articles had to be timely and relevant, and
the people we featured had to be unique. But what I didn’t anticipate when we started
is that we’d become the leaders in finding and promoting talented new people who,
over time, would often end up being stars in the industry and getting featured elsewhere.
The person who best illustrates this is Natalie Waples.
When Natalie entered the competitive figure ranks, she was just starting out and had yet
to make a name for herself. SeriousAboutFitness.com sponsored her and I became her coach,
overseeing all of her contest preparations. We did this because we knew, even back then,
that she had the potential to go far.
In just over three years, Natalie went from being a novice
to becoming an IFBB professional figure competitor. She also became the 2008 SAF Elite
Champion. Natalie’s quick rise to the top surprised many people, and her healthy,
attractive look helped make a role model for other women to look up to. Pretty soon,
everyone seemed to know who she was. Not surprisingly, besides being featured here, she is
now a regular in magazines like Oxygen and Inside Fitness, is being
showcased in an upcoming issue of DXL Magazine, and has recently started working on
commercials in the U.S. No doubt, there will be more opportunities for her in the future.
Talk about a success story – and it all started here.
There are many others too, including Chantal Dicaire. Like
Natalie, SeriousAboutFitness.com supported her early on in her career and I stepped in as
her coach. Since then, Chantal’s won five national-level Canadian fitness titles and,
like Natalie, is now a newly crowned IFBB professional competitor and has been featured
here and in other publications since we first started working together. Christy Wolfe,
Stacey-Lynn Mlinarevic and Michelle De Maria are other women who come to mind who were
first featured in SeriousAboutFitness.com and have become, or are becoming, well-known
names in the industry.
There are two reasons that we’ve had such great
success discovering new talent. One reason is because I’m so intrinsically involved
in the industry and am always on the lookout for people with potential. Frankly, I think I
have a good eye for recognizing talent. More recently, though, it’s because of the
SAF Model Search competitions.
Our last SAF Model Search was held on November 1 and, like
the previous three, it was an amazing success for us and for everyone who competed. Dozens
of women from across Canada entered the competition, all with the hope of getting
discovered and becoming part of our SAF Elite – the same team Natalie, Chantal,
Christy, Stacey-Lynn and Michelle are already part of. The SAF Elite get preferential
treatment from us in terms of promotion and publicity, and now the winners from the
November competition also get the same kind of opportunities to move on to even bigger and
better things.
From what I can tell, few publications are aggressively
trying to find new talent the way we are. But, obviously, it’s something that
we’re going to continue doing because it helps us to stay on top. Besides being
unique, SeriousAboutFitness.com has become the place to get discovered –
it’s where tomorrow’s stars can be found today.
. . . Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com |
