DOMINATE Your Market and Get TONS of Leads With This FREE Strategy!

google, business, reviews, people, gym, work, search, meaning, instagram, social media, owner, star review, social media platform, facebook, paid, copywriting, talked, personal trainer

Tyler 00:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Tyler over there is John, John.



John Fairbanks 00:05

Hi, Tyler.



Tyler 00:07

I guess so today we want to get into something. John and I have been working with social media for quite a few different brands and quite a few different spaces, right primarily in the fitness space, but as well, as was John's will, how would you describe your other business your digital was what is it in nature,



John Fairbanks 00:25

the way we've always described, it was the virtual assistant thing. So you don't have people that are there. So it's all the virtual side of things of whether it was from answering emails, to Oh, man, totally to social media,



Tyler 00:42

through social media, you manage those things remotely, which means you kind of have your hands and lots of things beyond just the fitness space. And so we, we talked last week, a lot about social media posting and copywriting and getting letters last week, maybe a couple of weeks ago, kind of getting your messaging aligned with who you are, who you're speaking to try to avoid some of the major pitfalls and big turn offs and things like that. And so that's, that's the process of constantly refining what you do how you speak, as I was talking to one of our clients the other day, who had to use some of the strategies we talked about, and they asked, Well, hey, man, we got this, you know, we didn't get this result here. We got this. And I said, Well, did you Did we go back and one of the things I wanted to make sure that we always are doing with anything we're doing in our business or social media is go back again, a week later, two weeks later, and look at it go, what would I have done differently? What could I have done differently? If this didn't work at all? Is it just that maybe I don't have much traffic at all, or maybe I need to improve things, but I always look at something for room to improve. Otherwise, we are just doing things without course correcting. But we of course talked about that in the context of social media for social media sake. And one of the things we've been finding lately is there's something else out there that can help you in your business, especially with on the fitness side of things that may be more valuable than social media, or at the very least if you're not social media savvy, and you're not a person who can put a ton of time or money into content creation. Maybe there's something else out there for you that can get you a bigger return. What is that job?



John Fairbanks 02:15

Well, if you go to any new city, or you're prepping, you guys might be prepping the move soon. What are probably some of the first things that you're doing as you're trying to figure out where you want to live, places you want to eat, anything about the city? What are you gonna



Tyler 02:33

The first thing I'm going to do is go to Google. That's it. And by the way, let's stay in the context of gyms and like the services right primarily. I will go to a town. I will look up gyms in this town.



John Fairbanks 02:47

Gyms near me. Yeah.



Tyler 02:51

near me, what a great way. By the way, what a great gym teacher and the gym is near me. Was that a thing? Someone's already done. I think we've talked about that before.



John Fairbanks 02:58

There was a dentist, there was a Denver dental



Tyler 03:01

The dentist is near me. Yeah. Now, SEO for lots of brands, if you're a digital and online brand, SEO is important, but probably not nearly as important as harvesting your social media. Your influence on your audience for social media is very important. If you're an online brand, if you're going to influence a route, Google is fucking hard man and good for you. Right, right. However, if you're a brick and mortar location, and getting prioritized on Google, my business is a very, very productive strategy. And it is I described this as a, it is a legacy strategy because the groundwork that you cover, let's talk simply in accumulating reviews. Yeah, if you can accumulate an embarrassingly much an embarrassingly higher number of reviews than all your other competitors. You are already perceived on the first Google search as the most reputable person in that space. It really is local. So there's a thing we did with one of the heating companies that we worked with here was we had our employees actually incentivize the boss tipped out and every employee cash 20 bucks if we got a client on one of our calls to just leave us a Google review. Yep. Right. That would be we leave a little card that you can do lots of things with, you can leave a little card with a QR code that goes right to the leave your review thing, or you can simply have the cover, hey, we really appreciate it. But get them to leave the review for you right there and not just the stars, but let them write something. That doesn't mean leveraging it for testimonials. You can of course do that for the most ideal one. But that number behind the stars matters a lot. The quantity and so this strategy we did over the course of whatever I think we ended up getting to 300 reviews over the course of a year or two. Right? So I'm going to a small town when you look up. My furnace is broken. Right? And you see a company now that has 300 reviews and the next most reviewed business has like 30 We do business with or who are you more inclined to call. And that is, that is a single thing that costs very little money you can do by just simply asking. But just on the review side, that alone puts you head and shoulders above everybody else by simply being willing to harvest more reviews than the next guy. That doesn't mean you have more clients.



John Fairbanks 05:18

An interesting thing to realize the contrast of what Facebook has done with their reviews, they did the same thing that Netflix has done. They got rid of the stars. Yeah. So for whatever reason, stars obviously hurt one's feelings. And there were enough complaints, obviously, by large brands or businesses that just didn't like one star reviews. But if you look at Amazon, and if you look at Google, they've held strong to that star, and how many reviews have come in to generate that star rating. So it's really hard to hide behind. Now Facebook's Like, recommend does not recommend, but you can't get a star rating anymore. And so it really is huge. And I just don't hear people talking bad anymore.



Tyler 06:13

Yeah. Well, and we talked about this with social media strategies in general, what platforms are you putting your energy into what platforms you putting money or time into whatever that is, whatever your resource is that you're putting towards promoting your business, what you're doing should be always doing something in something that is emergent, right? Or at the very least, is showing itself to be more useful. And you said something earlier today, which is that what is old is always new. Is that?



John Fairbanks 06:38

Yeah, what's right, no, yeah, what's old is always new again.



Tyler 06:41

And all of this stuff does come full circle. It really does. And there was a point where in some businesses, I would say that Google has, like worrying about Google is useless. Really, like it's not our priority. Let's build social media, let's build engagement, engagement matters a lot in Google, you're maybe not getting a ton of engagement, because it's not a platform that people are spending a lot of time on. But what they are when they're looking for the thing that you the category that you are in, what they are right then is far more valuable, they are farther they are ripe for the picking when someone is Google searching for gym near your town. That is the hottest fucking action that you're ever gonna get more so than somebody scrolling on Instagram, and all that other stuff. So that strategy is, again, this is slowly emerging, again, is a thing that is equally or even more useful. For a lot of gyms out there. And do you want to talk about the thing that you had run into? Maybe not specifically who it is, but brands that have transitioned away from the social media stuff?



John Fairbanks 07:41

Well, yeah, cuz. So we do some work as Tyler's alluded to, with another business. And within that business, we do some social media management where we do not so much the posting, but being able to manage your data with up to date reviews that come in, you want to respond. The reality is, if you take a look at a place that you're interested, that's brick and mortar in a community or a community, you're gonna go to, if you see some horseshit reviews, but then you see that how the owner has engaged with those reviews, either positive or negative, but it goes a really long way, with a negative review of like the professionalism of how they've handled it, or maybe the lack of professionalism. Maybe you like the fact that if someone's kind of being shitty, in a review, the owner comes back, and it's just like, hold my beer, and just give them both barrels. But what we have found is we've done a lot of brick and mortar stuff for social media, as we worked with the owners of these different companies that are not gym related. There was so much energy towards Facebook and Instagram paid ads, when Facebook started when we started having like, here in this country, right, like the right versus the left, and Facebook is the left. So everybody on the right is bailing. Like I had the owners talking to me about fringe social media. Yeah,



Tyler 09:13

moving over to like alternative totally new platforms with proven anything, which by the way, on its own, it's fine to dabble, right of the resources. But pivoting to something new is crazy.



John Fairbanks 09:27

And replacing Instagram, replacing Facebook with one of these alternatives, which is kind of like the wild west of just hoping you're going to strike a rich deal because you figured it out. At the end of the day. If you're a really large company. your social media strategy A lot of times is just going to be putting money into advertising just to generate eyeballs until we started seeing random emails getting pumped out by Google. And so the owner had created a couple Google businesses. So it's Google My Business. So that's the phrase that you would Google to go figure this out. If you've created this for your brick and mortar location. Well, Google gives you this big, huge, robust Profile Manager, that's all free, that's tied to your business, you can get the blue checkmark, because you're verified. You do,



Tyler 10:27

like a social media platform truthfully, right? Because you're in there, you're able to engage with comments and all these things as a



John Fairbanks 10:32

newer Yeah. Right. So they've always kind of had it. But what we've realized recently, in the last three months, Google has been pushing emails to the owner, letting them know, hey, you've gotten this many views this month, or, and what he didn't realize, because this owner is a franchise owner, that the franchise as a whole had started putting out social media posts, but through Google business through Google My Business, and all sudden, the owner started getting all these statistics and all this feedback, and it was brand new, it took three minutes to realize that just as you called out of the importance of when the story came out, and then the reels come out for Instagram, and everything that's new, that a platform really wants to get engagement and buy in on, it's obvious that Google is now making a big push for people to post regularly, post updates, and almost start to treat Google, like a social media platform, but it has a huge leg up. All of you right now are fighting to get eyeballs. The fastest way to get eyeballs is to pay for him. And that's slowly becoming less and less make sense. Cost wise, but you're fighting to get likes and followers. Google already has all the likes and followers baby. Yeah, at the end of the day, you just have to appear in a search. So gyms near me, CrossFit, near me, CrossFit. And then just the name of your city,



Tyler 12:16

trainers,



John Fairbanks 12:18

any of those things, that's



Tyler 12:19

a big one too, for personal trainers, as personal trainers, I believe tried to exist in the influencer space. The fact is, you really need to market yourself more like a brick and mortar in my opinion for this strategy to work. Because otherwise you're appealing to too many people that are beyond the literal region in which the physical region in which you can actually coach them or get business from them. So to operate as a personal trainer, look up personal trainers near you right now. How many people are registered as a business on Google business? Not as many as you think. And it's a very interesting strategy I think people use, you mentioned also that people, you can now make posts and run promotions and things like this through here. Now, the real value in that is this is a social media platform, essentially. But it has such a high level of specificity now, meaning you're not sorting through a you're not posting, putting yourself out there for a bunch of people who would rather argue about politics or see pictures of food, or whatever else or just post pictures about their vacation. And you're not trying to carve out this huge, huge space, this very, very specific need and show people that they can actually like being attracted to that thing. Now you just need to make the thing and anyone who's interested in that thing is going to find it. In my opinion, it's the most accessible way for you to get people.



John Fairbanks 13:46

Because when you're on Facebook and Instagram, you're not there to buy shit.



Tyler 13:51

No, you're there to kill time. To avoid the rest of your day, or whatever it is you're doing hunting



John Fairbanks 13:57

down thirsty asked posts on Instagram, and Facebook, you're just trying to find somebody to argue with. Yeah, so you have these two platforms that are not truly built to spend money. So it feels like a weird spot. And the way marketers have really tried to carve out the money making sections of Facebook and Instagram. really feels gross. Like very seldom does it feel like I don't know, like, I bought some stuff, because I've seen it on Instagram. Like one of my favorite shirts I bought. But it wasn't because some jagoff was doing some dumb ass thing in the shirt. The shirt was just a picture of the shirt. I'm like, I want that shirt and then I clicked that I'm gonna go buy it. But man we've so the difference psychologically is when you Google for something, or when you're Google Maps, because this is what's super awesome about Google because Google owns everything then an apple. And it's because Google owns everything when everybody who uses Google Maps is directly linked up with whatever you do in your Google My Business account. And guess who also likes Waze, right is a great app to identify cops. So like, download that shit, but it's owned by Google. So they bought that shit a while ago, I think. And so you now have a lot of these saying that Facebook has its tentacles within social. Google really is double downing on pulling that data, data analytics, but also brick and mortar. So if you have a brick and mortar, there were tons of arguments back in the day. Remember about all the blog, how important Yeah, how you wrote blog posts for what you used, and the phrasing and headlines and subheadlines was really what used to



Tyler 16:01

be have a level of complexity. And like it got what happens, it just got oversaturated. In my opinion, YouTube is like this as well. People that do a YouTube channel the best now they all do the same thing. They all come in and they go with a heavy handed statement, a big eye catching thing to get to engagement, fun entertainment in the first minute with a quick recap, and then three second intro beaten, they get into the thing, it's almost a new intro, and then off you go, the duration can't be too long, you probably need to be in that three to 15 minute portion tops, ideally 1025. And longer, you're getting into some way it's just not worth doing. But that is what kind of abuse you're gonna build a YouTube channel, those are like some of the bases and appealing thumbnails, get right to the thing, be entertained, pop, pop, pop, and then you drag it out. Blogs started with people just kind of reading a thing. And then it ended up being something I gotta do. I got to get them on the hook right away. And then I got to kind of draw the thing out and the blogs were a very, very big deal until social media 10x 100x 1,000x out there. And then people just would rather see you post about your food or a video of doing the thing. And it's just easier, you can get this that you could people could get the same reach if you were creating a blog for another purpose to say so I don't know, crappy tech equipment or whatever, you're better off just using the reach that you get off social media post a quick picture or video, it just was worth it. That just became worth the effort. And therefore right now you know it's dead. What is essentially dead in the world now is writing. Literally long form writing content, in my opinion, is just like Google business is a thing that will come back. Because now it is so easy because everybody makes a video if I wanted to explain to you how to, I don't know how to set up this podcast piece of equipment. The most useful way probably still honestly, for someone to revisit and retain the information and really learn it is probably still in writing step by step, you can stop, you can go forward, nobody's really pausing a video every 15 seconds to execute the steps. So a very long form written tutorial is, in my opinion, extremely effective. And if you look for things right now, you will not hardly find any of those about anything because it's just easier to make a video, YouTube prioritizes Google prioritize YouTube videos because Google owns YouTube. And therefore everything just became worth making in a video now, which means the blog space is dead. Nobody's doing it. And if you want I'm telling you what this is my Titus is Tyler's prediction here because logs then became like the intermittent thing. And then it ended up becoming more precise even than vlogs. And so now it's just a video explanation ship. So the blog space, in my opinion is very, it's going to be another new emerging thing. Maybe not blogs as you think but long form writing for the internet, I think is coming back. And that'll be very interesting for you. If you want to communicate longer form about who you are and what you are, that's a worthy skill to do. Will it give you any return immediately? Probably not. But I promise right now there's way too many gyms all posting the exact same shit on your social media. They're all doing it. Everybody, like look, look at other gyms that are in your niche, whether you're a CrossFit gym, or whatever it is you do, just look at him. And it's okay to imitate things that work. But just make very certain when you look around there that like everybody is doing the same thing, meaning at some point, we're going to all start to need to speak a little bit differently if we're going to stand out, because everything ends up becoming the same thing. By the way, Do you know why Google by business is doing this? Because of all these other social media platforms, what are they doing right now? They're all adding the most useful features of all the other social media platforms. Do you unders people don't even understand what YouTube can do right now? Do you know YouTube can operate it just like you can operate Facebook. If you have a YouTube shot you can make posts that are just a picture and text you can just type and make a post. You can just do that. You can make shorts you cannot make shorts now they're just like reels you could before YouTube was I upload my video and people can comment on it. That was it. And now it is essentially YouTube that can operate just like Instagram, basically just like tick tock. And that's all they try to do is all these ones are trying to slowly add these other features. So everything starts to feel like itself or like each other. Google My Business is such an interesting thing, because this was a Do you remember when Google tried to do their own social media platforms a Google Hangout, and then that just became a messaging service? Do you remember that?



John Fairbanks 20:32

Yes. It wasn't Google. Plus, that's Yeah.



Tyler 20:36

And it was dogshit. But what this is, essentially is that but just for business, and it's a way for Google to get their hands on Facebook's market share and under market share as far as actually engaging, because normally, it was just search results, search results. And now Google has found a way to harvest engagement. And if you know anything about what the internet's job is, it is to harvest your engagement. It's the only thing they care about.



John Fairbanks 21:00

And because Google can't act, when someone's going to use Google Maps, or they're going to Google something, they're going to Google gym near me, gym. Wherever Newport Beach, California, whatever it is, that's what they're going to Google to find you. Those are organic leads. So those aren't paid. And it's because Google has become synonymous with search, Yahoo, and Ask Jeeves are not fucking relevant anymore. And Google did that for years. And they have gotten themselves there. And by just merely playing in their sandbox, you can be there now. The big, big thing was, how did you? How did you rank well? Do you remember this? Did you play this game at all? Tyler? How did you rank? Well, in a Google search, back in the day, like, what were the things that were harped? We've already talked about one of them?



Tyler 22:03

Well, it also depends on what you're doing. Right. So we were very much focused on rankings for SEO when we're talking online. Right? On that side of things, which meant you had to do have articles linked back to other things, the more your articles were, or things were linked on other platforms that that network of, I don't remember what they call it, but like connections, especially the more the more things that linked out to your traffic, the higher it will prioritize you. Really specifically keyword based stuff was significant. However, it needs to be very deliberate to like this as a word or phrase that will be searched. And that needs to tie in with everything else. Everything from like, spelling, coherently selecting your titles, like you had to lean a lot of things into what the search was. Also, like now those very much, it's just location. Right? For a lot of these people. Now, it's just, it's great. There's 20 gyms in your area, you're in the top 20, bro. And now, work your way up. You don't have to have content in order to do this anymore, before you needed content and lots of it.



John Fairbanks 23:05

And it needed to be tied to a good looking website. Right, you need to probably be on WordPress, which we needed to have somebody that knew what the fuck they were doing with WordPress. And then you needed to be able to have blog posts and do all those things you just talked about link back and backlinks and all that other shit or whatever it was, Well, Google has come straight out and said, if you use our shit, if you post on it regularly, and put updates and interact out of your Google, my business profile will improve your SEO will improve your search results. Also,



Tyler 23:39

I kind of don't think I even need a website at this point. If you did not, if you did not have a website that you are updating or operating for your gym. Or if you're just starting even as a personal trainer, find a call to action, put a phone number there, do whatever it takes, go to link to whatever a singular landing page, whatever it is you need to have. But the truth is your contact, how they contact you directly on a Google Google My Business is the most important thing. There it is really location reviews, and what are you doing within it. And now you don't have to manage a website because the whole reason you had a website was so that when people Google searched you, they had somewhere to go, Google My Business is now essentially able to operate as an intermediary as long as your website doesn't have all this other functionality built into it, which is no reason for it to you're fine. Like this can kind of be the thing and I you know, don't fucking up and all your stuff because I said so. But y'all gotta be trying with this and tinker because by the way, what are you going to do on Instagram in the next month, you're going to figure out, it's going to change the game for you not much. You should always be tuning up tuning up a strategy, tune up your tone to nothing, but this is a thing now if you try it and you got good at it, I think it could make a serious impact on your business in weeks, in my opinion,



John Fairbanks 24:53

especially because social media, they have devalued just the average Joe's participation in that platform, because they want to make sure that people are paying for eyeballs, there was a stretch there, maybe two months ago, I swore every third thing that I saw was sponsored, see to normal people, and then a paid thing. I was like, God, this is a lot, this a lot of paid sponsored content, that I don't care, I don't care about any of it. And Google has not gotten into that game yet. Now Google searches Do you, they're always the ones at the top. And that's what you're paying for. But the one thing that you can find is, if you go into Google Maps, and you search for something, you're just gonna get just like you said, this is in this area, closest to this. And the fact is, I don't even I hit the filter, every time, four stars and above, if you are under four stars, for what people have reviewed you for, you don't even fucking pop up on my search results. So that's the importance of if you are trying to catch people, just like you said, get people to review and get but your phone number is there. And it will link back to it. The Facebook page is what you've built, or the Facebook profile is what you've built, or your Instagram account is what you have built for your business. It'll be there. It's an icon.



Tyler 26:36

It's actually a great access point to those other things that you've already put energy into. Meaning this is the thing what you mean, you don't have to pivot and make this be the centerpiece of your thing. However, it is positioned itself to be the centerpiece of your thing. Meaning it can be the hub for where most of your traffic comes through at least most of your ideal traffic, the traffic is really meant to be for you the traffic you would pay money to get probably because they're searching for shit in your area. Now, there's another piece of data we had brought up a few weeks ago, Stratos might have been a couple of months ago. Now, why do most clients join the gym or join the gym that they join. And the reason is, where it is located , it's closer to where they live. That's the primary reason they give. I said I respect all you guys, I think all you guys are great coaches, you've probably run wonderful businesses that have tremendous communities. And you're wonderfully compassionate, caring people, the people don't care in the beginning, if they're going to join your gym, they're going to join probably because it's nearby, for them for some of the drives 15 minutes out of their way to go to you versus someone else who as far as they see just is still a gym. That is asking a lot of an uninformed person. So you can either spend a ton of resources informing the uninformed, that you're better than the competitor and worth 15 minutes drive each way better than your competitor, which is a bad look for you. If you're sitting around saying fuck these guys do suck, we're better drive to us. That's a bad look. But just being the best in this proximity when people are searching in your area. And you can do that, by not even being the best by being the best at managing your Google business. And you're gonna beat everybody, you're gonna be



John Fairbanks 28:15

there being yeah being the best in a five mile radius. Like it did. And, and never, I think we, especially when you talk about like communities where there's gyms and there's beef, and there's ill will or whatever. I live in a small town. I live in a small rural place. And there's 20,000 people that live here. Stocked people are to have 50 members in their gym, 100 members in their gym, let's say something insane, let's say 500 members of your gym, you realize how small of a percentage that is of the 20,000 people that live here 20,000 And I'm small. If you live in a 300,000 like, get the fuck out of here, you realize that all you need is just to capture those people that are in your area



Tyler 29:12

and when they're ready to take action and so this is a segment that we want to cover is when we talked about copywriting because I had helped a friend of ours out with some copywriting stuff one of our clients actually from up north way up north with some copywriting stuff and one of the things we want to make sure we position Alright, who are you talking to? These are basic things like who you are talking to very specifically and what where they are in their process? Are they right? Are they about to join the gym? Are they about to make that step or do they know that I'm going to join a gym now, which one or like that's where they got to be if they're sitting around asking, "You know what, I just want to feel misery if you're trying to convince the person. It was a piece I always kind of did wrong with my gym as I felt like I needed to inspire people to get off the couch. Or you got a long battle ahead of you and I kind of work by the way, but if you're the reason that nudges them up there, they may not stay because now you're the reason not down. Right? So it's even a harder proposition to keep people from getting them when they're truly ready. So you need to speak to people when they're truly ready. Right? So of course, your copywriting and all this stuff should reflect this, you know, like, you know who they are that person, you know, what decisions are in their mind, you know, what the way they're thinking at that point, I'm ready to make this change. Now, what? Where do I go? Where do I start? Those are the things you want to answer in your copywriting. The best thing about this Google My Business stuff is the only people you're talking to are people who are looking for a gym in your town. I mean, I mean, that is the jam. And you don't gotta worry about somebody on Facebook, sharing it with someone they know who hopefully has their settings turned to the public so that enough people in their circle see it, and that it shakes a couple of those people who are loose, because your copywriting was perfect, because then it works. This way, you don't have to be flawless, but you just have to be present in that space. And it will do the work for you. Meaning all that filtering out of where they are, what their wants are, like you already know, hey, you're about to join a gym, what do they want to see? Then you can really let them know about you and let all your testimonials and reviews speak for you. Be just entertaining, welcoming and boom, you don't gotta be slick, you just got to be good at that one thing because you're speaking to exactly the people you need to be speaking to.



John Fairbanks 31:23

And the reason why this is so important is that we have to keep it always in reality. Best case scenario, Facebook and Instagram have made it to where the people that have said yes, I like you, I follow you I follow your page, I want to see your shit. Because of the algorithm, I think the last time I looked at it, it was like those people that said, I love I want to see all your shit, only 17-12% of them will actually see your ship. And that is where it's kept in the forefront of your mind . How much time are you dedicated to creating content? My wife goes, I really liked those videos where she was making straw making strawberry jam. She goes, I want to make one of those videos that I think is really cool, where you like, you have the strawberries, and then you drop them, and then it just turns into jam. So I talked to her about how we could do that. She's like, that's fucking insane. Who is doing it? I don't want to do that. That's crazy. Like, how much time are people dedicating to make that 27 second clip? I said too much time. And that's and I think a lot of I think we're getting caught in that loop of being and we've talked about it before of being a content creator and an influencer, which is why do you have your Why do you have your business? Why do you do what you do? And make sure the time that you spend on different aspects of your business are always proportional, proportionate?



Tyler 33:08

Yeah. Content Creation is an endless thing. And is the thing that by the way, should in my opinion, should there be some necessary evil components to it, you need announcements. You want a lot of people to know what you gotta do. Social media, I think is not something you should abandon as a gym, I think you should still do it. People need to find it. If I found a gym, and it's a community based jam, like a CrossFit type space, and they don't post anything for months on it, it's gonna be a bit, I'm gonna go, are they still you just wonder if they're still open? Yeah, the truth post COVID Are you still in business. So just let people know that you exist and that you're friendly. Like if you want to have that on autopilot, totally fine. If you enjoy creating content, we'll make sure your messaging now really fits what the people need to hear to give value, of course, but should know who you're talking to and know who you want to talk to and do it that way. But the Google My Business thing means you can do it without such a front loaded content creation burden, you can just come in and beat and you can work because the thing is the tools that you have on the back end is just allowing you to kind of fill in the gaps, all the information. And then what you need to do in your community, in my opinion, is you need to ask, "Let's do this first job, homework for all of you who want some shit, we'll give you some free shit. Make sure you Google My Business to set up most of them . By the way, most of them you've done, you've got the thing they send you the pin that has your address, it knows your location. It's been verified in one way or another right? Most of you have that if you are a brick and mortar place. If you don't start that right now, for sure. The next thing you need to start doing is getting reviews from all of your existing people, all of them and you know how you're going to get them you're going to ask them via email. First off, you're going to ask all of them and just tell them, hey, this is really important for us to help other people. Just leave us a five star review. If you can leave us some words describing and say leave us a five star review. Please don't say leave us a review. You don't want your people who are still in your channel. Leave me a two star review. If you do, what are they paying for here? But really, you need to get them to leave reviews and you know how you're going to get them, you're going to ask and you're going to ask them always you're going to systemize that. You're going to ask them regularly in the gym, those that haven't. You can even incentivize it. I don't think it was made against the rules. I think, is it? I don't think it's against the rules, is it? I fuck it. I don't work for Google. Fuck them. You want to do a raffle? Do a raffle jam and give a giveaway $500 cash to everyone who leaves you a fucking Google review this time? And have us I don't shout out to everyone to do a draw or to one person. I don't care. Do whatever fucking Google manipulate this thing. I don't give a shit. This isn't a jury. Right? Who cares? So bribe your people to leave you Google reviews, it'll work, it'll work really well, the more of those you have, you will instantly I think that will be the top if you can get double the reviews of the next business in your area, it's in your space, you will automatically be the single number one search result, especially when it comes to Google Maps, which is what they're also going to prioritize if they search for gyms in your area and a 24 hour gym that has a franchise it's paying ads. Of course that thing's gonna pop up. And it's gonna say and it's gonna say sponsored. But who gives a shit, I never click on those



John Fairbanks 36:14

maps. Exactly right, I skip those paid ones.



Tyler 36:17

So get as many reviews from your people as you can. You need to ask whether you do a raffle thing where you ask in good faith, or whether you say we're gonna have a drawing, please get in on this. I tell them, it helps us. It helps us find new people, we want to be able to, you know, keep us open, you want us to do the thing, we would really appreciate it if you shared your thing. But don't beat around the bush, tell them you'd like them to do it. Because it helps you and will save you time and effort and advertising resources. Don't be like, hey, we'd love to hear from you. You don't fucking care that much. You see them every day. Okay, get their reviews, get that done. And then start tinkering with some of those back end tools. But if you do that, over the weekend, if you implement this thing, and then you ask people in your gym, make sure your coaches ask everyday, Hey, we got this promotion going, please go leave us a five star review. You can search for us here or whatever. And you can remind them of the email however you go about it. But make sure you're mentioned in class every day for one week. Shoot out one last reminder email is two emails you got to send about this subject. If you don't harvest emails from at least 20% of the people that are currently in your gym, I would be surprised. I think reviews 2020 Or I'm sorry, 20 to 3010 10 to 2030 reviews added to your thing helps a lot that is an absolute game changer. Because for some people, that's five years of doing business.



John Fairbanks 37:32

Oh, easy. And you already gave a freebie at the beginning of this through your example of what the H vac company that you worked for did, which the owner incentivized you? Yes, the coach asked the staff to get a review. So it's like, no, I work with a one on one person. They left a Google review. They took a screenshot and they sent it to me. I can't tell you how many times there's a really morally or ethically questionable zoo, near my home, where I live generally. But Goddamnit, for wanting my kids to see a sea otter in the middle of Virginia, I need to go to this morally. Yeah, problem. Inside that zoo, they got the wheel. And if you leave a Google review, and show one of the employees, your Google review, which is five stars, so this fucking place has got like 2005 star reviews, oh, yeah, you could spin the wheel, which means your kids can, I don't know, feed the leopard, and do whatever, like you get all these sweet things. Because the other thing



Tyler 38:44

that works with that, too, John is it's not just now that they're searching for that thing in that place. The other thing is whatever categories you're in now, those levels of reviews and your ability to float to the top will allow you so people search for if you're going to search for I want to lose weight. Well guess what's going to pop up now, weight loss stuff, there's going to be gyms, all those other things are going to pop up in your results. And you now can win those searches. Not just people who are directly looking for gyms, where you get people in your area who are searching for weight loss, whatever categories that we that your space that your gym, starts to occupy, which should be weight loss, fitness, health, nutrition, fucking exercise, gym, fitness centers, all those things, just kind of multiple different categories, you'll fall into not just one, there's lots of adjacent categories. You can own all of that stuff as well meaning someone's like I'd like to lose weight. And then you know that they're going to hear 100 reviews from people who have loved working with you and had fun on their terms, not yours, not your ad campaign and their terms. This is a very very very high potential move for you that will cost you no fucking money. If you don't I mean you can invent the wheel thing rules do that also. That's great. Do that in your gym every day. You put cash gifts people tend to do, hey, do this, please, please, please, I don't give a shit. Getting those things will be in my opinion, if you got 100 reviews is worth $5,000. In my opinion, if you had 105 star reviews next to your business, it is worth five grand, it's probably worth 1020 grand if you paid for it, you know what that exposure can do for you in the long haul. So do it there's find a way to make it happen.



John Fairbanks 40:24

There's one other thing that I want to call out because there are a few folks that I know because they've reached out to us over the last several months that listen to the podcast, or they are a part of our community, community dot hacker gym.com They're part of the community, they want to open a gym. They know right now where they are in life. The goal is to open a gym, they might even be they may just be kind of starting off as a personal trainer, whatever. But that's the end goal. We need to call out that we made a joke about it earlier. But I shit you not. The gym near me needs to be the name of someone's job. And the reason is, don't underestimate the name. And normally I don't harp on this week, throw stones. I like what the name of a program is. And it doesn't matter. But the name of your gym. If your gym or your fitness business is named Yoda Lers delight, it's going to be really, really hard to win the SEO game for people to find you. Because whoever's



Tyler 41:33

spelling, clever spelling in this section sucks. So if you're starting to spell your stuff, the way words are spelled that helps you of course, there's one we know we talked about their main reason is spelling it the right way your website costs a quarter million dollars, right in a different category, that's a quarter million dollar decision you made. Not one, but there are things to do, lino basically, like if you're, if your name Stephanie and you spell it crazy, maybe tone it, maybe tone it down for SEO sakes, we don't want to spell the six s here. You know what I mean? So there is some value and making sure that the name is at least cohesive. The other thing you can do, though, like you said, if you're just getting started, start your Google My Business thing as a personal trainer and start accumulating some action in your area. Because now you can get started. You know, you can start with what all businesses should start with before they start with the building. And before you start with a whole bunch of equipment, you know what you need first, I'd recommend everyone take it. Start with clients. Start there, meaning I want to start a gym, start coaching people, figure it out, create your business, create your brand, do it on Google My Business and you can slowly adapt that from personal trainer, to gym to brick and mortar location, you can do all of those things.



John Fairbanks 42:46

I have another non fitness example.



Tyler 42:51

I'm gonna start with a charge for this podcast. Whatever,



John Fairbanks 42:55

how real for, for how real the name game can benefit you. So we do social media management because it's a family owned business and my wife's family. They sell hot dogs in a tiny, tiny location and have done it for 30 years. They did not get on Google until I married their daughter. And I built their Google My Business account 15 years ago. Okay. Their name is depot, hot dogs. That's their name. Yep, they get over 44,000 searches a month. Do you know why?



Tyler 43:40

Is it just for hot dogs? Or is it for train depots?



John Fairbanks 43:44

depot is the reason depot is because of Home Depot home fucking the so because that word is shared?



Tyler 43:54

No way Donald MacDonald fitness center. Let's go. You might be singing to the wrong people.



John Fairbanks 44:03

That is brilliant. People are gonna search for Burger King. No way. My father in law anticipated that back in the early 80s, obviously, but because we lose you lost Yeah, John,



Tyler 44:20

Do you want me to read it? Or do you think we got a quick solution? We're on a three



John Fairbanks 44:29

because the depot is in their name. It generates insane amounts of search. Now, ultimately, at the end of the day, all their business is going to come from you know, legacy. I came here as a kid and it's all word of mouth. But holy shit. I can't even track it. But I can only assume how much business they get. Just because it's like somebody searched for a depot. Oh because Holy shit. Remember back in the day. Do you know what they served out in front of every Home Depot? Where did you go?



Tyler 45:03

No, there's no Home Depot's where I'm from okay Menards country Dude, what are you talking about? Okay,



John Fairbanks 45:11

so Home Depot's, I'm from California, Florida raves all there, they sold hotdogs, our Home Depot for years and they stopped. So anyone that would be like man, I'm missing the hot dogs out in front of Home Depot immediately all of a sudden if you live in that area now a hot dog place that almost has the same name. So for those of you that are thinking about starting again, don't have a random queue or three x's in the middle of your name and man Jim near me, I don't think you're gonna beat it.



Tyler 45:45

Yeah, and there's no reason to have underscores or special characters in your social media handles either out there if you're a business so that is the most valuable free information we've given so far on any episode in my opinion, take those things so go harvest reviews from your system people get those reviews numbers up there is that is that is a metric that you can very easily manipulate to your favor. Now by cheating leave yourself a fucking review do all of it I don't care but get as many as possible accumulate as it's far more valuable than five star reviews on Google podcasts which are Apple podcasts which also can do for this one Spotify. But it is something that you definitely should do. Get back in on Google My Business, do the tinkering, do all this stuff. And I think I think you'll see a big big big return that's got us wrapped up. Follow me on Instagram at Tyler if installed follow John at J banks FL o 101. You can follow the podcast at what are we as the gym owners podcast Instagram. Yep, and community that hockey gym.com If you want to work with us directly you want us to come in and help you with some of your offers. We have some very limited time to be doing these types of things at the moment but we can work you in if you want to get started want us to get your offers right start tinkering with your business and get your business moving in the right direction make sales easy for you without being slimy let your clients choose to spend you more and spend more money with you the ones that want to and not the ones that don't know being pushy and they'll get shitty will find an easy way for you to start making the most of every sales opportunity you get. Especially now that you're going to have all this new stuff coming from Google My Business so hit us up you can message us directly or you can email the dudes at hacker gym.com And that's got us wrapped up for today. Thanks a lot everybody. We will see you soon.



Tyler 47:41

John is not going to stop recording. I push