Create a MOVEMENT!

people, community, gym, business, kids, talk, works, movement, coach, weight loss, exercise, impact, spend, money, selling, learned, care, idea

Tyler 00:04

Welcome back to the podcast. Guys. I'm your host, Tyler. On the other side of the screen is John John, greetings. So we've been doing a lot. In the last few weeks, we've been talking a lot about making sure that we're speaking to the general public about their needs. And we're focusing very, very much on what they're trying to accomplish fitness wise. And I think that still is very important. But we don't want you guys to zoom in too much on that and think that that's the only impact that matters. So one of the things that we're getting at with this episode today is when we're talking about the impact that you have in your community, in your city, your town, your region, outside, just your gym community is far greater than just, you know, so and so lost a certain amount of pounds. While I still think that those results are really like the thing that's going to attract a bunch of new people, if you want to play the long game and start to build a true reputation in your community and altruistic positive, you know, like having a positive impact throughout your whole community is to really build your gym into a movement. And that movement can be really just getting people in and mobilizing them and getting them active, but the impact that your gym has is so much more than just pounds lost. And you have to make sure that you're shining the light on that so that other people notice. And this is an opportunity for you to kind of switch up your messaging a little bit. So you're not just focusing on weight loss and over-patronizing things or, or you don't need a million transformation photos or anything like this, you can start with just the little things. And those little things can be as simple as how many people, how many extra hours of exercise your community has done in that year, right? If you have however many people's hands, how many sessions they attended, or that you can probably check it out, what a great number to start putting out there, right, we're trying to make a healthier Cleveland, because Cleveland fitness has dropped, you know what I mean that we have 10,000 hours of exercise has been done here, that is 10,000 hours of people coming in and putting in work and trying to get themselves better. So you're not just speaking to the individual about their individual goals. But you can also know that like, alright, that person should also care about the society as a larger your community as a larger as a larger system. And that works very well for lots of other things, right? There's plenty of if you go have a system that's very much about recycling green energy being very, whatever, right, environmentally friendly, there's plenty of people who will be attracted to your business because of that, right? And staying in your wheelhouse, of course, with health and wellness is there's tons of opportunities for you to shine a light on the things that you're doing and the impact you're having on your community. And we want to make sure that while we talk about results and weight loss, that you're not forgetting all of these other great things that you're doing in your community. Well, because



John Fairbanks 02:53

of this niche, because of the business that we all have chosen to be in, that you've chosen to be in to kind of build as a foundation of whether you're a personal trainer, a coach, a gym owner, whatever. The idea is, this type of business holds a unique position in every community that you're in to make a significant difference, or dent, or the ability to benefit a community more than what I would challenge is any other type of business out business, outside of maybe like hospitals, you know, I mean, like it's, and you said the phrase movement earlier. And if you take a look at the word movement, you look it up, right? It's like it's and see what the definition of movement is: an act of changing physical location, or position, or of having this changed, or a change or development. The idea is, the word movement is a noun, but it's so ingrained in action. Like it has to be a verb. And I think the idea is like, what does it mean to generate or to create a movement inside of your business? It takes action. And I think there's so many things that are going on right now in societies in general and everywhere, to where we really need to be able to have people that are dedicated to take action, to benefit their communities. Because if you sit back right now, and just hope that someone's going to come and make your community a better place to live in, more pleasant. Are you hoping that the government is going to show up and help everybody start getting healthier, or start having areas of your community get better? I think I'm going to be sitting around and waiting for someone for quite a long time.



Tyler 04:51

Yeah, of course. And you're already doing those things. And that's the other thing we want to really make note of here is there are little things and I poke at these things a lot sometimes because of how they end up becoming right. But there's a way to frame the things that you're doing well, and shine a light on the best parts of it. So look at say a lot of people have a CrossFit kids class, right. And of course, when you're selling the CrossFit, your youth class or your youth group fitness stuff, where kids are going to come, what is that really, very often, it's your babysitting, kind of, it's a time slot that you're filling while the parents could drop the kids up. But if we're being really honest, what is happening is these kids are coming in, and they're learning to feel comfortable in the gym. Right? And you need, that's the way that you need to sell this not only to the people who are coming in, but also to shine the light on what's going on. Like you can outward leave your community, we here we have every summer, we have 85 kids that come in here, and they learn to appreciate exercise, they learned that exercise is fun, they learned the value of it, they learned that it makes them feel good. And they learned that the gym is a fun, safe place of personal development. So that messaging alone, in framing the things you're doing versus to in, in the context of the impact that has on your community will make literally just that program. Much, much more enticing to people out there. Because yes, a lot of people go, you're right, I'd love to dump this kid off from three to five or whatever. And it's true. And it's better than maybe the arcade or the mall. But it really is so much more that when you start to list the things that you're doing like Hey, aren't, we have taught 100 kids every year that come in now, and that is 100 kids that learn that value, John, you and I, I don't know about you, I did not learn the value of exercise. I did not learn the value of nutrition. I always kind of played sports and stuff. But I never learned to care about training or anything like that until I was an adult, even specifically with nutrition. You know, if you have a community of 100 150 people, that's probably 100 or so families out there that are now making an attempt at eating better if those people are buying nutrition products from you, or nutritional coaching, you have now planted that seed and an entire family which will I promise you change the generational trajectory of a family because I grew up eating hotdogs and corn dogs and frozen pizza and pizza rolls. And I would McDonald and bake a bag of tater tots at a time that was like the you know, I mean, that was just what it was man, we didn't have the information, we didn't have the we didn't understand the cost. It took me until I was in my 30s to sort that stuff out to figure it out. And then and then have to correct all those behaviors, the impact of being able to interject earlier on in that cycle. And with a family, a young family and then kids like that impact is huge. And I think that's the thing that you need to really be speaking about that you're doing. That's what a great story for you to tell. Right. And when we talk about when you're trying to attract people, we use the weight loss and transformation stuff as a great storytelling device. Because people can always plug themselves into that person's shoes. I am this person, I feel like this, I want those results. But it can be more than that for people who don't just want to lose weight, right. And you don't want to always beat the same drum anyways. So you can go at this like, you know what I mean? Like, make your family and your kids and your kids kids family like and by the way, that's now a product that sits outside of your group fitness right? Now, we're not just selling memberships, what we're selling is a membership and nutrition and the type of things that are going to change your family's life for generations to come if we can get this stuff implemented and make you healthier.



John Fairbanks 08:27

And I think that that's not hyperbole. Like the ability to say generational change and generational difference, that really is Israel because the fact is step back, step back and look at your community's look at kids. Just like you said, the reality was probably you and I were on a very similar track when we were younger. The difference was, I don't know if you were enormously fat when you were a little kid. No, I didn't get there till I was an adult. I was enormous. Right? So when we talked about me, right, it was fourth grade, I was about five foot and I was 185 pounds. You know, I mean by the seventh grade, I was already 255 It wasn't until like Husky



Tyler 09:09

clothes aren't even in the wheelhouse. It was no way dude.



John Fairbanks 09:13

Like it was. I was like 36 waist. Yeah, in the seventh grade. It wasn't until I got into sports in middle school, that then I started to have the value of movement. Because again, my dad didn't play sports. My mom apparently played softball, but never talked about it for obvious reasons. And the reality was that she didn't, it wasn't a thing. It wasn't on the menu. And just like you said, not only was movement on the menu in my family, but food, get the fuck out of here was terrible. And so the ability to make generational change, if you look out right now, and you look at kids and youth and communities today, especially in the United States, you have a massive group of kids that aren't playing sports. And they're almost exclusively inside on video games. Yeah, but parents know, they want to get them out and move. And so again, not to harp on just that topic too much. But the reality is just saying those phrases while being engaged in your community, but it immediately asks the question in the back of my mind, how do you do that? How do you start getting more engaged in your community, when you're busy running to your gym, or you're trying to focus on different things in your business,



Tyler 10:35

it gives you opportunities to think, you know, a thing like that happened for you is you got tricked into finding your way to exercise by like, sport works, right? That kind of works. And we, we kind of start, we kind of lead with that in the fitness space where like, I come in, learn to exercise, and then when we got to clean up the food stuff while we're at it, or else, it's not gonna work for me. And that ends up still being the long challenge. But you can go right at it, you can go right at the thing that we described here, which is, Listen, you need to teach your kids to eat well, which means you have to do it, you have to lead by example, we can do this here, we can help you can make healthier families. And remember, if you zoom out on what your goal is, I want to make a healthier community and I want to make some good money doing it. I want to enjoy myself, and I want to do it my way and do it safely and all those other things. But if your goal is to truly impact your community, the overall health which should be if it's not, you're gonna have a tough space, or you're very specialized. Right. Of course, if you're very specialized, you're, you're in there solving very specific problems. But most, I think the space with the most room for growth still is the overall general fitness thing, which is great, because there's a lot of people that are ready for it. But we don't have to go in and trick people in by getting them in and like, Oh, we're I'm gonna be a really good Coach and Trainer, and we'll get them the exercise bug, and then we'll do this slow game, you can lead with what you're trying to do here. And that's important, like really putting yourself out there. What is your reason, right? What is your why and most coaches don't, or coaches or gym owners don't even communicate what that is outwardly. And it's a big problem. So we're trying to attract people about, hey, I'm awesome, or hey, this is like the type of thing we do. Just put your money where your mouth is, put the stamp on it and say, I want to make sure that we get 50% more people and 50% more more workout sessions, hear that in our community than last year, whatever we have to do to do it. And that may mean let's open up some more public stuff, let's do some outside stuff there. Let's make some events. Let's drum up and think that's how you make a movement and that movement requires action and you gotta do it, you got to talk about it, you got to mobilize these people. And you can do it because this thing is appealing that people want it. People will take action on two things, right? If they think that it will make them feel good or help them or do you feel good doing something that helps your community that is better that is a true that is in human nature, we are inclined to be as a society to be like a hive, you know, what I do, you do want what's good for the people around you do. And the things that we do can very, very easily start to grow by leading with that, start talking about it, put that out there and make that your mission and come up with ways you can act like taking 10 action steps that you can do. And that may be results, you may be results focusing, or it may very well be simply let's do this singular action. But that becomes your strategy. For now you're jammed into a movement.



John Fairbanks 13:24

Once you get firm on how you talk about this, how you talk about the things that you do, how you talk about how you talk to the correct people that you want to be attracting into your gym. That is step one. And just like you said, Tyler, the action steps that need to happen if you're gonna have 10 things that you're going to go after that take action. Don't get confused with the fact that social media is taking action. The one thing that I get a lot of that we hear a lot are folks that are like I don't know how to play the social media game. Or they're putting out a lot of content. And maybe it's not, maybe it's missing the mark. Or there's confusion where your followers oftentimes if you are a gym, most of the time, they're already your people. So you really run the risk of an echo chamber, where all you're doing is talking to the people that are already in your pond, they already are supporting you. And you're kind of almost just recycling, whatever you're saying in person at the gym. Now you're just saying it on your Instagram account or on your Facebook page. And so I would love to be able to hit some real action steps that you can do in your community. That is maybe a little bit old school. And Tyler, you and I have talked about this a couple of times where your gyms are empty for a large portion of the day. And the reason that is, is because people that are paying you to come to your facility, they work. So that doesn't make sense for you to be open. Now, it would be awesome for you to come up with creative ways to fill your gym all day long. But assuming that you're like most people, or most personal trainers, you only can personal train most folks in very similar blocks of time, which means you have wide open spaces kind of in the middle of the day or in the morning, where there's networking opportunities to get into your communities and be able to engage with people. My favorite idea that you ever gave out before Tyler was the idea of becoming a coach or getting involved in a community organization as a representative of your business.



Tyler 15:53

Yeah, yeah. And there's so many ways to do this, right? There's, by the way, also, for me, I hate this type of business when it's done, not done my way, if I'm being totally honest, I cannot give a fuck about our chamber of commerce, I couldn't give a shit about the Downtown Association, because like, all they want is me to give a discount, and they put their name, I don't care. That's not what I'm talking about. If you don't like that kind of fake, glad handing members type shit, but like get it and join something. And none of these people are going to join your gym, and none of them really care. And they're all there to get out of work for two hours. And they're all overpaid. And none of them do anything of any real significance at their job. They just are present and look nice and smile and have the name. That's it. I don't fucking play those games, either. I hate it. Because it's fake. It's disingenuous. I'm not interested. Fake business is not what I do. But I think it is very, very, very valuable. If you look through your community on say Facebook events, you actually want to care like you should care. First off, right. And that's why I won't do that stuff. Because I don't care about that other stuff. The stuff I'm talking about is there's little things out there that cost you very little money a little bit of time, and you can be present and earn a lot of goodwill, which is everything from personal fundraisers when someone gets sick to community fundraiser, those types of little events where someone comes in and has like a silent auction, and you can have a couple of drinks, you should be there as a represent representative of your gym and just bid on 10 things then you might get two of them and you spent 100 bucks on something that ended up you like you had a couple of drinks, you had a good time you talk, whatever that may be, but then you're out there in a place where they know you actually care. As opposed to going somewhere where everybody wears the same shirt and has to put a nametag on and they just say "Oh how's your business going? That sucks. That's not real. But that can earn you really goodwill because you actually are helping somebody because they're there to raise money and this is so much cheaper than your fucking advertising and how much money you can spend on advertising that doesn't go as far in your community. As you'd be in there saying hey, man, you know, we I saw this thing It spoke to me my mother had cancer that I want to come in. And that's it. Be a fucking person. If you get done with your gym and you gotta go home and turn on your fucking TV you're gonna sit on ass until tomorrow let's not pretend like you're doing anything outside of what the people who aren't joining your gym are doing by sitting on Ask not doing anything outside of work. Okay? Well you understand you're not going to be able to speak to that change that you need them to make. Being out there trying those types of things is great. If you have kids, it's John, you do this you're running all over the place already for the kids stuff for the kids. This isn't for everybody, but and not at every age for sure either. But coaching kids T ball, you're already there. But then what you have is 25 parents' eyes, you should care. By the way, this isn't about doing this just for the business. These are dual purposes. Everything I talked about is to create a feedback loop of success. This is dual purpose. You're spending time with your kid, you're creating foundational memories, you are serving your community because those positions are not filled very often by people that say they have a hard time feeling um, so you are helping. And then everybody knows this guy is a nice guy. They see you do well, they see you care. They see how you are with a kid. What does he do? And that is the question you want. The last thing I really liked was that guy. What does he do? Oh, no shit. Well, that's interesting. And then the next question would be no, it does look pretty fucking jacked. And now you're done. Now you could essentially close anybody with a moment they come and just ask about your gym. Now you're already in because they care about you as a human.



John Fairbanks 19:23

My kids, we have six functional fitness gyms in a five mile radius of where I am. Yeah. And we chose the one for my boys to go and do some stuff during the offseason to be able to do, you know, CrossFit type movements and in a kid's class, because the owner was not even a full time coach. He just came to help at a wrestling camp. And my kids loved interacting with him. He didn't coach the kids in class. He wasn't there the whole time. He was there like two or three sessions out of the 15 total that my kids did. But when it came time for me to decide where I wanted to go, I said, Oh, I know that he has two gyms in our area. I want to do the kids' class at his facility. Just because he was there. He smiled. He was good looking, dude, he's fucking jacked. So when I talked to my kids about what gym we wanted to go to, to have them do the stuff. I'm like, remember that Dude, that was like super jacked in our wrestling camp. Like, yeah, we're like, we're gonna go to his gym. Like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, exactly.



Tyler 20:40

And there's the thing, too, you'll understand this, I think is that it bothers a lot of gym owners. I think a lot of coaches in general, when social media influencers, like can really move the needle on ship, that's dumb, because you can sell a lot of $40 programs all the time. But why is that, because they've already got your attention. And once they have your attention, you're able to get to know them, or whatever. But it just seems like once somebody has your attention, that's all it takes with a long enough time, they're able to move the needle and will make you take action if there's a fit. And so that's very important to when we talk about this strategy, just community involvement, get out there to events, this is the most approachable version, this doesn't mean there's not that nothing bad about this. But this doesn't mean you have to rent the like a wall space at the at the home run wall, at the end of your local baseball field, this isn't spending $1,000 To have your logo on the back of some high school program, that's fine, if that's the type you want to do, because maybe you do just kind of want to help raise money for that stuff. But understand that your name on that thing has no impact on anyone doing business with you at all, it's fine. So sometimes it's a necessary evil up to a certain scale, businesses just have to saturate enough of that shit out there. So that your name is visible. Saturation marketing is front of mind stuff, you just have to constantly be in people's eyes for them to know that you exist. You don't have that as a gym, you probably don't have the money or the advertising budget to do it. But instead of spending, I mean, if you by the way, I'm not against ad spend, right? But if you're gonna spend 500 bucks or 1000 bucks or 2000 bucks a month on ads, maybe try spending half of that out there and actually, like help someone in your community, like really do it like as a family that's in need, where there's a, there's a local place that builds bed frames for kids, so they don't have to sleep on the floor. Right? Why don't you and your coaches go there, donate some money for supplies, and just spend a couple hours doing it? It's always a great photo opportunity. Your members like it. You could also mobilize here's a very, very important thing that we got to do with my gym. You can mobilize your members to help you with these things. It's not just you out of the gym, it's your community now helping these people meaning if there is something that speaks particularly true to you, my sister, she worked for the mental health place in town, and there was they have a lot of hard time getting people placed in the new new houses and they don't have anything, they don't have candle burners, they don't have canned goods, they don't have anything. And they need this stuff to be able to get somebody in a place like on two days notice, get someone out of a bad situation, whatever that may be. So we just ask our members, hey, if you want to bring canned goods, or you want to donate some money, or whatever it is, just let me know, because we're going to make a big donation over here. Next week, that's it. But then we come in and end up with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuff and load all this stuff in and, and I did like to do most of that stuff silently, that type of stuff, where I'm not making, I'm making sure it's not a PR move in that like, here we are on social media posting us doing doing the thing. But the people in your community know that you're doing it, and the people on the ground on the other end, know that you're doing it. And that matters a lot more than singing it. Like one of those people that's gonna embarrass some homeless person by giving him money and filming it, you know that, that type of patronizing shit I'm not into. But you can do it in a way that has an impact even beyond your own financial means.



John Fairbanks 23:58

And definitely, just as you called out earlier, this isn't going and trying to sign up for rotary, or some horrible networking group. And understand, like, Okay, so the height of those horrible things exists. And I learned this history, because I had to belong to a bunch of those when I worked for private schools.



24:27

Oh, yes, yeah, and are evil.



John Fairbanks 24:30

And it was horrible. And it's exactly as you described it, but I learned the history behind a lot of those programs, because as I joined, there were just tons of all these alternative networking groups that were forming. And as I spoke and learned more about and spoke at these groups, I learned that when the bottom fell out, we're talking like, oh 70809 Because people were in such dire straits. To be able to try and get businesses back going again, they just created these false fake groups of people to be able to come together to be able to try and pass business and lift each other up. Where back in the day, you didn't do what you didn't need to have and you still had some of these ones that are pillars of communities where it's Rotary, or Kiwanis or Key Club or whatever. But there's been so many different things that have grown, because of the idea that people lost the ability to be like, how do you network? I'm talking to an old school network. Yeah, well, it was your fucking Butcher. And then the butcher's kid did a thing, or the butcher supported a thing. And he was your butcher, so you supported him. And the idea of these communities were way tight, tighter knit to be able to support one another in different endeavors. So kick it way old school, if you don't have kids, or you don't have the time to go coach, or you don't have the ability to do that. And just like the example that you gave for the canned food stuff, or being able to help those different organizations as like Silent supporters, even though if you're mobilizing within your gyms, you have a dentist, you have a guy that maybe is a chiropractor that helps you with different programs, in your gym or in your facility that you've partnered with, or nutritionist, well, you know, that they're going to have events that that are involved in, or things that they care about the ability to go and give a shit about their thing, like you said, put in some face time and support whatever it is that they care about. You realize how that word of mouth and referral business works. You put some time and give a shit. And you'll watch how that comes back to you tenfold.



Tyler 26:55

Yeah, and there's, like you said, Now, I want to go on the other side of this, right? So we're talking about networking for the sake of almost kind of drumming up business or getting your businesses the word about your business out there making people appreciate your business that it exists, make people recognize your business has an impact. That's important. The other side of some of those networking things, there's also like, you know, being around people who are business people who strategize and there's a lot to be learned from my experience and all of those other ones is that that's very not very useful, at least for the way I think, you know what I mean not to use those other things for me learning as like a, what's the word, like a mentorship? I know that's not a place, you're going to find such things, right. So on the other side of after doing outreach, trying to get business in your gym, I think it's important for you as a business owner, or a coach to at the very least assemble informally to begin, people who think like you, and like just to be willing, like, Hey, you do your business kind of this way I have in this town, I've got about four or five people, right here. And I've probably got about 30 around the world. But here's about four or five people that I will have a question about one specific thing or one specific strategy, and I'll bounce it off them because I've already kind of said, like, Hey, man, I really liked the way you do this. I liked how you're doing this this way. And everything else I don't. Everything else that I see out there sucks. I really respect the way you're doing that stuff. I would really appreciate being able to chat with you about some of this stuff. Sometimes if I run into some that I think could help, is it alright, if I reach out? Yeah, totally, totally. And in doing so, them and their network and the people around them, you learn to really respect where someone's coming from, you really can respect that person. And they can learn to respect you and why you're doing things and how you think and your passion for your business. And one, they can help you with your decision making. But two, it's also very, very, very useful to have people who do respect you who do understand what you're doing out in the community who can advocate for you as well. And I think that's super important. So networking, networking does serve two purposes, right? I do think mentorship strategy and all that other stuff is great. And also being present and visible in the community is great. I think networking is better done on a human level than an arbitrary level. And that's where that's to me where I go to things like fundraisers, events, community events, find opportunities to volunteer those things, those things are worth, they're really worth more time than you could ever earn in or more money than you could ever earn. If you spent that time coaching. Truthfully, if you want to, if you volunteer two hours a week. That's it, like that's worth so much more money than you're gonna get advertising.



John Fairbanks 29:31

Yeah. And again, so it's helping your business, helping your business being able to benefit your community at the same time killing a whole bunch of birds with one stone. But understand that you can look at this if you can be very cynical about what we're talking about. Where you could take a cynical view and say it's, well you're only helping the community because you want to make money And I would want to challenge that thought, because we've talked a lot about this lately, probably not on the podcast. But this is the notion that it's if you really want to do good, if you really want to help your community and help make them better and make generational change, it is imperative that you take the steps to get your gym, your services out to as many people as possible, before they get captured, before the fitness industry gets tainted for them. Because they come across somebody that is a snake oil salesman, or does it badly. And now, that whole branch, that whole generation of that particular family, or those group of people are lost, or at least it's going to take, you know, five years of ditch digging and suffering for them to be like, Alright, I guess I gotta find a better way of doing this because they were set on the wrong path. Because what you're better, you feel like it? Yeah,



Tyler 31:12

you don't want Yeah, you don't you don't want to give somebody's money and show up and shake a hand for their cancer fundraiser because you don't want what? Right? That's it's crazy sometimes, but, but again, I do understand that right? You don't want to just be doing nice things for the sake of your business. But understand that if your business your goal should be to actually help people to actually help your community. Understand there are people who are in organizations who maybe they mean well, but I promise they suck and they will do more harm than good. The sharks are circling already. Right? It's just a thing. That's the thing that's been going on for I've talked about this fuckup, Sanford hospital here and this place in this area, right? They start getting into medical weight loss, right, which is, the thing is you go out and you do stuff in your community, everything we described, it's about earning trust. That's what it is. It's about earning trust and teaching people that you care. You have the big juggernaut hospital that's in your whole region and your whole state now they're coming in saying Come we'll help you lose weight will come in, and it's whatever and now they have health insurance behind it. The whole system is dogshit. It's essentially starvation. It's fucking very short term. It's, I mean, it's made for if you got to lose 200 pounds in two months, and you'll die. That's probably the way to do it. But it is certainly unsustainable, and doesn't teach them anything. It's not built in anything. The one of the places in Sioux Falls, they were having trouble that people that were on that their weight loss program, they had to tell them do not exercise, do not go to the gym, they were collapsing and falling down walking on treadmills and ellipticals and there because they were starved and so depleted for so long, right? But people trust the hospital in your area, because they have the hospital name. And they sponsor the local football field. And they fucking buy the equipment in the gym at the high school and they hire a college coach to go in and teach them how to fucking front squat. Like, that's what they're doing, and you are competing against them, and they will kill people hurt people harm people, they do dogshit work when it comes to that stuff I have, I have known people who worked in that organization doing that thing, they quit because it was like we are going to hurt people. It was crazy. But that is what you're up against in a billion dollar organization that's trying to get their hooks into these people who need to lose weight, you need to be better than them and you need to be more human than them. Because your people in your community already trusted these organizations. They do because they're out there. Because when mom gets sick, you're good. She's going to that hospital. Right. So when that hospital says By the way, we got weight loss, you're gonna go in and by the way, they also sell you you have to buy their shakes. There, it's like meal replacement shakes, it's no different than an MLM scam signed off by some fucking doctor who doesn't think anything about it. It's not. So your job is to be the human who's not that the one who can who really they could be someone can have a feeling attached to and can know you, and they don't know the hospital, but they just know that it exists. And because it's so large, people will trust it inherently for some project like weight loss. So you are up against people who are already doing this in your community. They're investing a massive amount in your community. And now granted, the weight loss game or whatever this is, it's not like their primary thing. And that's why they suck at it, by the way, because they don't care. But you got to care more, you got to do more, and you can't spend the money on the scale that they can. So you got to just be out there. And it's but that is the thing you got to do. And that's the thing you're up against. And that's gonna get worse by the way, if you think there's not going to be national organizations that will come in and offer some online remote. Those things like this, it'll get people all fired up. That is what's coming and you have to be better. And we can do it by being in our community and connected to people and helping people and letting people tell people about you instead of just your sign being on all the shit.



John Fairbanks 34:48

And the good news is, doing this executing it like the literal talking part to people is simpler than you think. And we learned this This, as you and I were building our processes that we do here now with personal trainers and gym owners and everything. But we learned this the fact that how you were taught in your prior lives of working as a technician, for me, and my prior lines of how I was taught within Web Design and all these other pieces, the fact was, the ability to sell someone well, and to be able to close a sale or get an understanding of where someone's pain points were. At the end of the day, it was like, This is how you're supposed to talk to people period. And it's, ask them, take an interest in what matters to them. Ask them those probing questions so you can learn about them, learn what they care about. And then as they are telling you what they care about, you tell them back in their exact language, that you understand what they just said, and that you show an interest in what they care about. And it just works back and forth, back and forth. And that's some of the core and some of the most basic pieces of how you can start to serve your community by serving each person that walks through the door, take an interest in, what do they want to achieve? What do they want



Tyler 36:27

to tell them? And you don't get to tell them? They're wrong right away? By the way, my biggest temptation? I mean, don't get me wrong. I've had people come to me who have 100 pounds to lose whose goal is to, quote, get big. Yeah, well, we're not gonna do that the right way. Sorry, man. You know what I mean? You're big. But what they want to be heard, what they want to do is they want to be heard, they want to be understood. And this is one of the things that we see often in good sales. The quorum is when someone mentions something that seems like it's resistant or something that you need to resist, I guess if it's something that's worth resisting, you cannot come up with a barrier, right? You cannot say no, that's stupid. What you have to do is take that thing and give it momentum and massage it and pull it forward, and then take it into something that works for what you're trying to do. You can't just come up and say, like, Oh, you're already a big dude. That's not what we're doing. You want to get big? You already did this. I can't see that. There's other reasons why I couldn't write that I wouldn't. But I have, you know, we start getting to the root of it. Well, what do you like to do? What do you like about that? That's all I do. I do some we do some really cool stuff with that type of train, I think you'll like, and then when we get down to the bottom, and so we want to do we want to get big, I want to get you leaner a little bit first, so that we can scale the system up. So if the end goal is really to get big, let's just get some of the stuff knocked down first, while we get to have all the fun getting stronger living these exercises, will get you jacked. And then we'll grow from there. And now you've done a much better job than coming in and presenting barriers. And I think, take that. That way. You don't have to be the person that has all the answers and fitness. And that's a tough thing that we do. I always catch myself doing it. People ask me questions. I don't have the time for everybody in every question to do that with. So I'm like, No, that's wrong. That's stupid. No, no, you know, you. You just want to fire off answers, and it makes you insufferable and unlikable. Trust me as an insufferable and mostly unlikable person. This is the way to trust me. I encourage you guys out there to come up with some benchmarks, pick one thing you want to hang your hat on in your community. And that may be like, that may simply be hours of exercise, right? That may be a count of sessions that you guys did last year, how many people, how many sessions and you can start to grow that by getting some of your people to come more frequently or more consistently, right? Also, you can use that same thing like we set this goal for I don't even know a number that makes sense. 10,000 hours of action, I don't know how many people you got, how many classes you ran, 10,000 hours of that 10,000 hours of exercise last year, we'd like to get that to 15,000 this year, right? Which means maybe we need some large scale Park workouts where you can bring a friend for free, but we're gonna get their information, we're going to contact them and say, and then you say, hey, our goal is to create a fitter community. Can you bring some friends into these things? Let's see if they like us like the group. And then we'll talk and now it's not just your free class thing. It's about getting people to try to help the community. And when they're there you say you know what our goal is to get 15,000 People 15,000 exercise if you'd like to join you can be a part of this thing. And now we are very creative. That is a great way to talk about transformations, weight loss and all that other stuff about transforming the community as well as transforming the people around you. That is still a very, very, very viable sales pitch. That works great or total pounds loss you want to double down on weight loss, right? If you have people whose data you're collecting, well you know are they self report like you know, as a community of people that came into our gym we have lost 500 pounds this year. 1000 pounds this year. I'd like to get that to 1500 if you have some weight to lose. Our goal is to help our community lose weight. Not just you, right everybody, that's what we sound like. That's what we do. And when you start to communicate that way, you can be a very great attractor for people who want to be a part of that movement more than they want to join your family, or your community. That's true, I want to be a part of the change and how it's trending. More than joining in with a bunch of other people that I don't really know.



John Fairbanks 40:20

Another one that I've seen a lot, inches lost, usually that is saved. It's saved for like the biggest loser 30 day challenge or whatever you're gonna do. But man, talk about something that you hate, it gets talked about all the time, like it's heart health, you know, how many inches is your waist, in comparison to like you now have something that you could tangibly sink people's teeth into of like, this is how many inches lost our community, not just the gym, our community, our city, our county has lost and you are doing your part, right for a federal your health



Tyler 40:59

care as well guys, you can build this even further. Another idea you can do 24 Hour Fitness gyms do the stuff very well because they don't have a lot of opportunities to grow community to grow people together to do this. So what they'll do is I've seen this on like, reverse the climbers. I've seen us on stair steppers, where it'd be like how many steps you do in a month, there'll be like a challenge or two months or whatever. But you can do that. In your yacht errs, you can do miles, you can just do miles on Earth, or however you want to go how many meters on the earth, you can do skiing and us running, you can use rowing or biking, however you want to do it right. And your people can take that as a great challenge for something they can do during class or class just mark, mark your miles. That's it, it gives them something extra to do, it's not a bunch of wear and tear. You want to take that one step further. Then come up with this challenge and take it to every other gym in your area. 24 hour gym CrossFit gym doesn't matter, that's in your answer. Guys. Here's what we're trying to do. We just want to make everybody so let's all come together on this thing, right? And we can have it be a friendly contest between people or we can have twin gyms or we cannot. I don't care. But let's just do it. Let's try to get this going where like I have my people in my gym, you have your people in your gym. Shit, by the end of it, you could have everybody come together for some fun little picnic and you have all the damn gyms and all the damn fit people in town and it's not about competition. It truly is a growing movement. And that's that's the thing that's the thing that you guys need to look at. Look at any metric you can track. That's an easy thing for someone to get an idea. I'll contribute to this. And I think that that's a great opportunity for you to build something to get people talking. That isn't just a waste of everybody's breath. All right, guys, that's got us wrapped up. Yeah, our soup our super premium offers paying for all of your guys's offers. That is, I think , expired at that price. We've been rolling out a lot of those that's going to be changing. We have some other offers that we can run through if you want us to start fixing your offer. If you want us to get your main offer up and running or you want to get involved with Jim hacking University, want to start making money coming up with strategies that are going to help you and your business get to where you want to be without selling your soul. You can shoot us a DM and we'll throw you kind of a few of the options that we have. We can go with you that we can put you in right now to start getting moving so money by the weekend is still an option. So if you do want to get in contact with us we can get you going and you can start making money next weekend. We had some great successes last week. Clients sold I mean almost 4000 to one client. Yep. What a tremendous opportunity to come in normally by selling 150 or $200. And because you did not have to coerce them you just had it on the sheet someone picks I want to spend $4,000 No sales no pushy, no slimy bullshit like this is what this is what we do here we want to put the best version of you and your business and what you can do on paper and put it in front of your clients and let them choose the most basic thing you do up to the greatest thing you possibly can do for him. And that alone can make you a ton of money and get you very very very invested clients. So shoot us a DM you can DM me at Tyler Elphinstone on Instagram. You can message the podcast at the gym owners podcast you can message John at Jay banks FL on Instagram. We're all also available via email at the dudes at hacker gym.com.



John Fairbanks 44:12

That's where I grew up. Join our immigrant Facebook community dot hack your gym.com gym owners personal trainers skills based trainers from around the world are in there. Sharing, listening, talking and if you're only listening to this, you can see us see our faces because that's the only spot that we released the video version of the podcasts



Tyler 44:35

were so hideous we kept it behind the private Facebook. Absolutely.



Tyler 44:40

Alright guys, thanks a lot for listening and we'll see you next week. Bye bye