STOP Posting Like an Influencer, and Start Acting Like a BUSINESS

people, social media, business, work, influencer, gym, content, brand, clients, post, fitness, coach, important, person, views, meaning, money, instagram, strategy

Tyler 00:01

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



John Fairbanks 00:06

That's me, John. Hi, Tyler.



Tyler 00:09

Hi. Well, we've had a bit of a road trip last week, we are going to give you guys some last last week, the most recent episode you've seen or heard is the one that we talked about how Google My Business is the really, I think, a really new segment that you should be putting effort into that I think, will probably be able to give you a higher return than just been a lot of various than a lot of your social media, unpaid social media efforts over the long run as far as making sure your brand is represented very well very easily to the level of specificity that people are specifically looking for your services in your area. If you are neglecting it, and not making the most of the new opportunities that Google by my business is presenting you. I think you're making a huge mistake with the way social media trends are going. And because social media has shifted, especially in the fitness space, if you have not noticed this, you have not been paying attention. And if you have not noticed this shift, and you're still doing things the way you think they should have been done years ago, or the way you've always done them or emulating whoever you thought that you liked on social media before. You do need to understand that every peep at people are using social media for very different reasons. And there are very different emphasis on social media now than there was 567 years ago, most gym owners now. And really a lot of coaches like me, you guys probably came up in the fitness influencer heyday, which was the 2000 I would say 1314 15 All the way on to basically pre COVID I think 1819 has started to decline. In my opinion, I think that generally it gets very saturated. Once everybody got there. What was there was the point where everybody had a CBD sponsorship. And what was the other stuff there there was like, everybody ended up having like two or three of these same like super, super generic, like everyone had something that was plugged in every influencer shifts out at the same and there was no message you were just being paid for being paid for being pretty or being on camera or just posting consistently. But that thing ended up absorbing itself into all sorts of other aspects of the fitness industry. And so the thing that we see the most now is people that have been around the fitness industry for a while imitating shit that they thought they liked on social media from people they just kind of grew up liking, which I'm all all cool with emulating things that you did, assuming that they're going to work out for you. The biggest thing that I see with unless you are actually a solopreneur where your brand is you your brand is you and your personality. If you're a personal training coach, and you're doing a lot of remote coaching, I am okay with you being an influencer with you going that route speaking like I do this, I'm an expert. Here's my cool things. Here's it's all about me. And here's what I can do for you that works in my opinion for personal trainers, as a one guy, one man outfit one woman outfit is if you're a gym, if you're a business, if you're trying to project project out their professionalism, and all this other stuff, the end a diverse amount of services, emulating influencers for the way that you write your ad copy for the types of content you create. And in almost any other way, the way that you manage your social media is a colossal mistake. And it's extremely off putting. And I think it's very important for gym owners and businesses to understand that we're not trying to tell people that we're experts here. We're trying to tell people what we can do for them. So we don't need to toot our own horn. We don't need to talk about all the cool other stuff that we like. They don't care if you take an example. For example, what your car dealership does, there is something to be said about car dealers. They've been selling stuff for a long time, right? So one of the things that a car dealer is not going to do is they're not going to tell you all about themselves. There, they'll study a little bit. We're a family owned company, we do this, but what is it? We're gonna try to get you into the car that's right for you and your family. That's the real mo that's the thing. It's not that we know the most about cars, we've got the best cars, but no, they don't. Nobody says they've got the best cars. They just have cars and come in and pick one. Right? That's the fucking thing. So I think it's super important for you guys to realize that while we want to make this thing you can have your personality and your brand. I think it's important that you are represented in your brand. It is okay to have yourself in your business. But your social media is not all about you. And that's a very, very, very important line that people need to draw



John Fairbanks 04:36

in something that you and I have spent a lot of time on because we went and got a coach that helps us do this is how do we talk? Right: How do we talk to other people, especially when we're on camera? Or if you're going to do podcasting or you're going to communicate? What's the style in which you communicate to the point where like we got a coach that was all like specific for A video and style and your particular style and finding your style. And that's why it's so quick. I don't think people can see it as quickly as they can feel it. That's either you feel someone being cringy, or disingenuous to where you're like, I don't know what they're doing wrong. But boy, I feel like right in the pit of my stomach,



Tyler 05:26

and being disingenuous is the thing that comes off. And that's where bad influencer style marketing is an issue. That's where it comes across very well. You see lots of MLM stuff, people sell shady supplements, or whatever else is going on out there. That That stuff is getting put out in the most cringy formulaic way, meaning people are getting told, post this stuff in this style of plugging these pieces of information, and you have somebody who's not really into it, and you have people just fucking parroting stuff, they're almost reciting. It's just drones. Just being a drone we talked about navigation is, yeah, imitation is just fine. By the way, in this industry, you can save a lot of time using templates, formulas, but at some point, if you look and sound like everybody else, then what are you what is the point, this is the thing that is very common, probably more so around here in the Midwest, where you have smaller town areas where there's like, there'll be a handful of like pop up like personal trainer type people that will pop around. Whether any of them actually take many clients or not. Everyone's kind of like pretending to live the life you know, that's very common, right? A lot of people will pop up and just kind of pretend it was okay. By the way, take part time, take up a client's work and try to grow. I'm all about it. But it is very hard, it's very hard to tell the difference between any of them. They'll post the same stuff, they'll talk about the same stuff that I'm talking to the same person or about the same thing, it's all a picture of your food, or it's all a picture of your workout. So it's hard. Another thing trying to set yourself apart is less about you and more about your potential client. And that's the important thing to know. setting yourself apart is not have anything to do with who you are, what you eat, what you do, what your personal coaching philosophy is, the better you can just speak to the person who you want to work with their customer avatar, their their psychological profile, their needs, their wants, where they're currently at the things they're currently thinking about. The decisions are currently weighing. And if you can do that, now you're onto something, now they go. I connect to that person, because they speak to me, everybody else speaks about themselves. And it's one of the biggest mistakes by the way that I did. I had to tell a client the other day. I was talking to a good client of ours who was going over some social media stuff and kind of reskinned in a few of the ways. And I told him I said, Listen, I'm being totally honest with you. The biggest mistake I made early on in my fitness social media stuff, especially with my gym, was trying to put myself out there trying to communicate as though we were the experts. And by the way, were we doing better work with better principles and with a greater focus on what's actually right than anybody else in the area. Yes, hands down wasn't even close. Saying that makes you sound like an asshole. Yeah, sound confrontational makes you sound like you're constantly trying to prove something. And again, your car dealer is not trying to prove to you that they've got the best cars, they've got the best service, meaning here's the things we got, let's come in, let's get you something that works for you. That is the way that it works. And I think that you gotta take it. We got to take responsibility, because as coaches, we've talked about this a lot. As coaches, we are trying to learn the best way from the smartest people on how to get people healthy, keep people safe, all that stuff. So that is the way we seek information on the internet. I need the best guy with the best way to communicate the easiest thing like that's what I need. I need the person who is the smartest, who knows that everybody else is wrong. That's what you need. And there's and by the way, that is the ultimate strategy for all fitness educators on the internet. Now, here's what I know. Here's all the things that are wrong about the other thing. Here's one red X for the way you don't do the thing. And here's the green checkmark for the way you do the thing. And that's that. That's gospel. Well, none of that says anything that is about people in the pursuit of truth. If you're a coach, that's what you need to learn. I need to learn what is right. I need to get my way to the truth. That is false , that is true, that is wrong. That is right, that works. Your clients don't give a fuck about right or wrong. Results are not results, that is the game. So they don't care that you need to communicate that you want to communicate to them the better way to do a thing or that this exercise at this angle is better than the other ones are that brown rice is better than fucking white rice and all this other stuff that nobody gives a shit about. They don't care about that at all. You just need to be the person who can get them the way they want to be. And that's it that has little to do with expertise and more about you knowing who they are and where they want to go. If you identify that I know where you're at and I know where you want to go and I can do that. That's all the certifications at the end of your name, all the big fancy muscles that you want to talk about that nobody cares about. Nobody cares. And so it's very important to remove the influencer language, remove the fitness, education language, from your copywriting, from your social media presence, from the way you communicate in public because it is a cancer on your brand, in my opinion, because people don't think you're talking to them. Like, oh, I don't know that shit must just be for coaches.



John Fairbanks 10:24

Because they don't understand what you're saying, yeah, they're not there to immediately speak above, which again, that's where it's starting to refocus. Are you trying to be an education brand? Then, if you're, that, that's fine, if that's what your brand is, but as doing a focus, a focus check of like, what is it that you're doing? And why are you doing it? And I think that the question is where you and I have been going very hard at from the very beginning, which is taking the time to step back and assess or reassess. Why do you do what you do? You know, why do you do it? And should you keep doing it? And if you own your own business, then there's literally no one holding you back. If you are a solopreneur. There's nobody holding you back. But how often Tyler have we sat with people that literally are explaining to us how they're chained, or kind of shackled by what they've always done in their business? And it's like, Well, why do you continue to do that? Well, it's, you know, this is what we've always done, but man, I don't like it. And it's like they just need you just need the permission to be like no step back. Reassess every coach that I've ever had business, or even fitness, there's always a quarterly reassessment, some, some refocus or check every three months of what have we been doing? Is it working? Would we want to change anything, and then start to implement or do those changes? And I think we, you mentioned something that I really agreed with, which is the idea of on the coaching side, we really seek out who is the best who really speaks to us. So we can then be all knowing, in this topic area to help our clients. But on the business side, when it comes to doing things that are business related. I think it's so abstract. It's so foreign, that we don't know in general where to turn or what to do. And every time that we, at least anyone that I've spoken to the folks that we started working with, we aren't the first folks that they've ever worked with. No. And they dip their toe in the business water. And it was usually not a super positive experience.



Tyler 12:54

Well, I want to go on the social media side, John, the thing that you had mentioned was, why are you doing something? What outcomes are you hoping to accomplish, and one of the things we went through with some of our training stuff that we did last week with one of our coaches who coaches us was something that is, is about starting out when you're gonna make content, and let's just sue your Instagram, your Facebook, whatever that is, whatever you're doing on social media, you're making content. Now you can do a lot of making a lot of content, you can make a little content, you can maximize your, you can do what they call a minimum effective dose. Which by the way, if you're not satisfied, that is the place to start. I think Google My Business is a better place to start, in my opinion, actually. But the minimum effective dose on social media holidays, the occasional announcements, maybe some programs stuff, you have got to shine a light on a bunch of personality. Now, I still believe that social media is a great tool to allow people to actually see a little bit of what goes on in your gym, then kind of see a bit of a tour and kind of see the vibe, which means you need to curate that very carefully. Which means doing throwaway reels and throwaway shit, it's not cool, that doesn't look fun, or that you haven't put any thought into should not live on your permanent feed. You can put it in stories if you want. But just kind of putting something to make it be some hashtag gym vibes is not necessary, because you're not nurturing anything with that. You're then just wasting everybody's time and attention. That is a big problem to do. Because remember, in the years before in the influence, or heyday 2017 it and somewhere on there. Yeah. That stuff used to be. Where am I going with this John? The social media stuff that you used to be able to get away with didn't have to be about anything terribly in particular, right. This is what I used to be. This was entertaining. People used to follow businesses because businesses were interesting. Oh, that's a cool bit. business. I've never heard of this coffee company before. Right? Oh, I want to follow them because they have made interesting content. Now there is no coffee company, no matter how interesting or funny or comedic their content is, and I'm going to follow, right, there's very few apparel brands that I will follow at all, either short of mass and comics. Frankly, you know what I mean? There just isn't any, because I just am not. I'm not consuming social media to consume advertising, because generally the people's consumption, people's impression of social media now is it is very, it is very bloated with advertising. And it is very, very much saturated with that to the point where even the accounts that are making good fun content, are always trying to pimp something. And that's not not right or wrong. It just is the way that it is, which means it's exhausting. So people, I would guess that it is 1/10 as enticing to follow a business account. Right now, as it was five, six years ago. I am Sean 10th, is less likely to follow I mean, almost not at all. If it's a business, I'm like, yeah, no, it's not a person, I just don't care. If it's a product I'm interested in, I'll just look it up. And then go away, you know, I don't engage with brands on that level anymore. And so if we're trying to make content like that, which back in the day, that phone was to make content, make it consistent, make it entertaining, because people will go to your feed and enjoy watching the issue, entertain them. Now a brand's presence on my feed is annoying. Usually, it's not someone, it's not a person I'm interested in, they're not making any moves, meaning even the minimum effective dose that I'm describing Happy Fourth of July, all of those stuff now is like I don't need to fucking hear from 500 companies that had before. I don't care about that either. I'm telling you guys that this model is shrinking. I guess that's what I'm getting at before is the model of the business as being like a savvy social media brand is going away, it is just a necessary evil and do it for the purpose of getting engagement, giving the little bit of information that you need people to get, and then it better be about converting. Right. That's what it really should be about really converting because we went into this training. And one of the things we started off with was you're gonna map out your content, one of the first things was okay, well, what is our objective? Are we looking for more followers? Are we looking for more say? Are we looking for driving traffic clicks to our landing page? Are we looking for an increase in subscribers? Like what is the metric we are trying to move forward with this video. Most of you cannot tell me when you're making social media posts or putting something out there. Which one of those things maybe you are actually trying with that post specifically to improve upon, because what you just want to do is I was supposed to do everything is your Happy Memorial Day post. Tell me which metric that's supposed to move forward. By the way, go for it post Happy Memorial, but just understand that that's not social media work that's spinning your wheels, that is just checking a box that's putting gas in the car and just get that's not really really the thing that we're trying to do here.



John Fairbanks 18:07

Oh, hold on. The gas in the car is a really good example. Gas right now is really fucking expensive. Yeah. Right. So if you're going to put gas in your car, my wife right now, over the weekend? Do we really want to drive for hours to get to the thing for the kids? Or do we want to find a thing for the kids and away instead? Because of gas? And I think there've been a lot of things where, when gas wasn't expensive, we didn't even think about it. It was like, yeah, we'll fucking drive out four hours to go do a thing and then come back. But now because it's so expensive, it's making a stop. And think, before we just blindly go do this exact conversation I had with one of our clients, when he has a coach that has been executing social media for them. And it's how much are you paying for every one of these posts to get created? And it's like, oh, well, I just pay her that hourly wage to be able to handle the social media, like so is every one of these posts worth $20? The post that went out, did you get back $20 for that post being made? And I think if we step back and look at the metrics that our coasts that you just talked about, which is what is the purpose of the content we're putting out there, if it's watch time, view time, like that's not money. There's no money for



Tyler 19:44

the 10 metrics. If you've ever started a business when you didn't do this, I'll tell you sorry, maybe I missed this world. We started doing with NASA Netflix, we started we didn't know we're gonna do we're gonna run some ads. We didn't, we were kind of starting a podcast and had a few shirts out there. We didn't know we're going to do it right. So it's like, Should we run ads? Well, we Don't know we're trying to build a brand, we have no idea where any money or whatever. Do we try? What are we trying to get here? Let's run out. So we had a few articles, blog articles that were given to me, you could actually get some secondary traffic to so we just tried some stuff, we run these ads and the things that we thought were working, like, none of them may have meant sales, none of them met new followers, none of them meant anything and back. And of course, not a lot of this is changing and prioritizing what your targets are within that, but they were just giving us these fake not like reach, quote, engagement, you know, like views, none of those things matter. None of those things are actually real. It's like just counting humans in the world until you reach a number that impresses me. And then you're like, see, that many people saw? Well, none of them bought, none of them liked, none of them helped. So it's very important when John says it's costly, it's not even about it costing you money to have the posts made necessarily, because a lot of you guys out there are doing it yourself, or just have a very basic, kind of basic outline calendar type situation that you're running. What it is, though, what makes social media posts costly is it's your business. And if what you're doing is not actually moving someone towards some business, Ooh, I like this. What it is, is going to be irritating. This is the truth. I see. I don't I'm not trying to harp on anything, but I see any of these holidays, this is I share nothing much longer, I share an office with someone else that is a marketing firm. And you know, what their phone calls are all the time when they're trying to help. The virtual assistants that are doing the social media publishing for other clients are, they're just trying to figure out what stupid made up holiday it is this week. And to try to shoehorn some sort of post in there that doesn't even have to be about the business. And by the way, this is all they do. I've never heard of a content creation question that's not this. Well, tomorrow's National Pancake Day, maybe we could do a pancake day. Oh, well, it's Memorial Day weekend. So let's go on this thing. And that's it. That's all they're doing, which is the it is the it's the most boring form of like, virtue signaling effort, which is just like, what's the only thing we can talk about today, because no one want to make a real statement about anything and none of us want to make a real ask, it's just about being present. And you're not in the business. By the way, in the heat of the health business, health and fitness, you are not in the business of doing a ton of front of mind marketing. Front of mine is a strategy where you just need to be everywhere. If you are someone where people don't know that they need to use you until they need to call you then you need front of mind advertising. That is why plumbers contractors heating and air conditioning service people like you know, gas station, I guess stations like car, fucking repair shops and stuff like that, right. That's why there's all those old strategies like AAA ABC, because they used to be in the phonebook. That's basically a graduated version of front of mind where you need to be the first thing that they think of when they get a flat tire. I need to be the first brand someone thinks of when they go without heat, they wake up in the morning, their furnace is broken, I need to be the first brand they think of when they have a plumbing leak in their house that is important. You do not have that industry, you do not have you're not in that industry, there's not a need for you. You don't need to just be posting constant stuff, say hey, we do heating and air conditioning. We're Plumbers you can do Hey, we're plumbers posts. If you're a plumber, you can do Happy New Years from your plumbing contractor because they just need to know you exist. That's it. But you are wasting a lot of time and a lot of credibility if you are not one of those brands. And it's very important. You need to be the person who can get a person that thing and you want to be the person who's available to them to only the people who are ready to take action right now that so those are the people you're speaking to if you're doing all this other stuff, you're speaking you're spending all that effort getting all those eyes, annoying all those people who aren't even close to being in a position or doing business with you and aren't even considering it. So you're losing a lot of that credibility. That is what I call social equity. You can only torch out irritating people so many times on social media. So your strategy should be something along the lines of when you decide right away are we trying to grow followers on Instagram for your gym? Are you trying to grow followers? It doesn't matter. It doesn't, it just does. It'll never matter. It's not a big deal you want some followers I think it's very important to always let your gym members every member who walks in your gym every person who walks in your gym let them know your Instagram handle let's throw in an email like hey give us a follow you know we can we always like to lead to spotlight good people share our successes. It's a great way for people to high five each other. That's it's better use. Instagram followers are better used as a tool to engage your community kind of because nobody is not nobody but there's very few people who are following gyms that they don't go to who are about to do business with that gym? That's the other thing. Are you about to do business with that gym? No, it's just some brand, maybe from across the country who you liked about school or had some



John Fairbanks 25:07

fit people, or a friend of yours.



Tyler 25:10

But that's really it. And so I think, I think trying to get instagram followers trying to over like, grow that beyond again, you're not an influencer. So why are you trying to chase that metric? views don't really matter, either. And they could get something that got 20 or 30 views, but got the interest of one person enough to reach out and contact you. You're good? Sure.



John Fairbanks 25:35

How many times have you and I worked together on a particular brand? And either the social media platform completely changed the metric, and how they viewed views and whatever, or like they purged a bunch of bots. So there's, like, 3000 followers in a day. Yeah. Because of whatever it's like, the goalposts are constantly moved. So that's why if you're trying to play the game by keeping up on whatever the metric is, or whatever the platform says, is important right now, man, if it's not grounded in what works for your business, or what's best for your business. You just saved everybody, like, at least three hours a week to give them permission, that they no longer have to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day. Yeah, yeah.



Tyler 26:35

There's, there's so much of it and But are you willing to sail from Memorial Day differently? You got it? And that's why I always hate shooting on those things. Because of course, there's a greater purpose and a greater cause and all those other things or whatever. But like, same thing with holidays, right? Yeah, fine. Merry Christmas. If you're into Christmas go for are you not? I guess I don't really care. I'm not saying those things are bad. I'm just saying that they're not anything. They're not anything, that they're not anything at all for your business. So they're okay, do them. They're not they're not cost me a bunch of time. But that is the minimum type of stuff you can do. If you're just doing that you're not trying. If you're making stuff, that's throwaway stuff, and you're just trying to be like, hey, look, we're gyms got cool stuff. But I used to do that a lot. When I was with my gym I would make content because I enjoyed editing videos. And I was just trying to make cool highlight reel stuff, right? Did that convert? Not really? Did it make our clients like the kind of some we have our clients that we would enjoy? They would talk to each other? Oh, you made it on Instagram today. And I would make them slow motion stuff. Make it look cool. Was that worth my effort as the owner? No, no, it was not. So if you're not doing it, don't pay someone to do it on that level. Or if that's the strategy, that's not there, just you're just making highlight reel photos, which you're better off doing a weekly recap you at the end of each week, that's that once a week, or something along those lines,



John Fairbanks 27:54

I would push back and challenge the comment that you made, which is that it doesn't take a lot of time. I don't believe that. I think that I think you did not the video, not the video editing. You said it right before you talked about it. But you kind of said, if you want to make the Memorial Day post, if you want to make the Fourth of July or the Christmas, it doesn't take a lot of time. But I do sit back and I would challenge which is how much time are you spending on social media in the guise of doing something for the business? Because you don't I mean, like I get stuck in it. Yeah, we are going and we need to post something or I need to make sure that I'm following up with clients. And sure enough, man, I get caught in a fucking scroll from hell that is stepping back. And this was we haven't even gotten to like the creating content part of like what we got coached up on last week, because this portion was like, How much time do you actually have? Because we know there's a lot of people that are insanely busy being busy. But boy, if you step back, you and I one of our favorite things to do with our clients early on is a time audit. We want you to look at your time and honestly write down what you're doing every single day.



Tyler 29:15

I have never had a gym owner give me a time audit, not one who's working with us who gets to us that they're not embarrassed to hand over? Or that they're not lying when they hand it over because I'm telling you guys that all of you are listening. Be fucking honest with yourself. How much time are you spending on your phone? Fucking around scrolling all day? Just checking shit out you don't post any shit on your own knowing you're not doing any work for the business not doing anything just scrolling. I see a lot of you guys you're the first people to see the shit on my fucking videos on Instagram all the time. How much time are you wasting doing that? You're wasting it get out there and fucking do a thing. Implementing a thing to come up with a plan to make a system just this stuff is again why we're alright with migrating away a lot of your resources towards Google Maps Isn't it because trying to be more social media visible, isn't really that great of a strategy anymore. It's just not, by the way, my best, the best fitness business podcasts that I listened to. And I don't even know that I didn't find any of them on social media. No. Random through groups. I'm not finding it. I haven't found a new podcast that I listened to that I found on social media. That was even referred to me on social media. It's almost never so you guys need to understand where you are finding new things? Are you? Are you going to join a gym? Because you saw it on social media first before you like, it's crazy. So I just have to go back to the metrics. Okay, if you're going to make social media posts, now, let's let's go. It's clear a lot of the bullshit that matters, conversions matter, contact matters, leads matter. Now, you cannot always be making an ask because that sounds slimy. But you would be better off if you only made asks than if you never did. Sure, if you only said Hey, come on in, let's get started. We cost this much if you're or if you're this person at this program with this thing. Come on in, let's check. If all you're doing is a call to action type thing that is better than what I see a lot out there. Which is just like talking about other stuff that's not anything and never getting down to who you are? I identify who you are, I recognize that I recognize what you want to do. I understand you feel you should feel heard by me when I write this ad copy. Like I understand who you are and what you're trying to do. And I tell you what, I can give you confidence so we can get you there. Here's what it takes if that's the only thing that you did, and you just did that on repeat in different tones and different stuff. You will be far better off than having all your holiday posts and a bunch of bland boring fitness reels and a bunch of just weird. The worst thing is the caddy calls out Fitz flip through and through stuff, which is like, if you don't do this, then you just need to get off your ass. You know what I mean? It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, so condescending to stop throwing rocks, because that's for influencers. That's, that's what brand influencers and you're not one of those people. It's very, very, very important that you recognize that the only thing that should matter here is does someone in your area or who is capable of doing business with you? Now wants to do business with you? How will you know that? Okay, how will you know the first tip, easy thing geotag. If you're doing local business geotag everything in your town, always 100% use either the gym that you're in, or the town that you're in very, very little bit. If you live in a big city, it's actually a very useful thing that worked very well in Amsterdam, in a bigger city, because there will be stories that will pop up where it's just the Amsterdam story show after in Amsterdam, that'll probably they don't have any of that now here, but every, almost every town is probably likely once the content becomes rich enough to start, they'll start doing that for them. But either way, you can search for your town via location and just see all the recent posts. And that's very, very important. That is one way we're regionally because Instagram is still trying to get people to engage in content from people they don't follow, meaning if you have a relevant hobby interest or subject matter interests, they will put your stuff towards their hashtags, which are still kind of irrelevant to that stuff. But geotags are very important. If you're a local business, you will get just put in front of people who are local. And so geotag everything is one stretch, make sure because otherwise you can make some content, it's very funny and very engaging. You get a million views. a dream came true for a fitness gym. million views, except fucking 200 of them are are in your town. And 100 of them are already your members. 100 of them already fucking go to a different gym and don't like you. And you're fucked. Like, all that attention was for nothing. I'm glad it was entertaining. And I'm glad you spent the last three days checking your social media every three hours and deleting negative comments and whatever else happens when those things pop off, getting called stupid or getting told you're doing it wrong. All that was worth it for zero leaves? And a lot of attention that's not relevant to you. I don't think so.



John Fairbanks 34:01

Tyler, you're sharing from personal experience? Oh, yeah, this is not something you've had posts on different projects and platforms that you have been in charge of that have popped off that have gone insanely viral.



Tyler 34:19

Two and a half million views, a million views million and a half views to about 100,000 followers and not worth it. It doesn't convert, it needs to convert. By the way, if you have a product and you have a thing that drives people through and you and it's worth doing, putting out on that level with that consistency. Trust me that formula does work. But what you have is not accessible to 2 million people. So getting an audience of 2 million people for your gym or 2 million people seeing your thing that doesn't give you anything, it just really doesn't. So I just think it's really important that we stay within the realm of things that matter to us because don't chase Reach, reach where that's not life. From where, right, so that's the thing that really matters to you guys. So don't chase this attention, don't get stuck, trends are cool, you can do whatever just works and be entertaining for people that you want to entertain first. But just understand if you're dancing for people that are not interested in seeing you dance, like, and that's figuratively, of course, like, if you're making content for people that don't really have any interest in doing business with you, then what are you, if you're telling me you're too busy to work on social media, or to develop your business or to implement new systems, then stop making content that nobody gives a shit about. You limit that, so cut all your content creation down by a quarter by three quarters. It burns 75% of it, and then just makes stuff that matters, meaning come through with a call to action. For a program, very specific, say people of my town, we just really want to make sure that our town gets healthy out of how does one of our clients have put this the other day as he was just trying to get trying to get the whole town fit over the whole state fair, it was just it was kind of like a throwaway thing on when it comes to dogs trying to make the whole state fit. Like that's a great goal. To get a secondary follow up on the free thing. And for social media posts. That's, that's good engagement that works, you know, and so I think, I think the setting somebody like to say, Hey, guys, if you're this person, I think we've got a program that can help you if you want to just talk, come in, and let's have a chat. And let's see if we can get you started. It doesn't have to be threatening, it doesn't have to be hyper assertive, but just make some graduates some gradual calls to action, where you start by identifying who the person is, you can post a generic photo for that, or doesn't have to be a picture just to make text, you can use those throwaway templates that you guys would rip off from everybody else, everywhere anyways, change the color text. So you don't look exactly like everybody else. But that is the way to make sure we talked about triage matters, you have to prioritize your effort. That's why we do a time audit for a lot of gym owners and we realize that they pack and we just waste time. But here's the ones that if you're not successful, because you're wasting your time, a lot of it. Not everybody but you but it's because you are and that's the truth. If you're a gym owner, you're not successful, you are the one wasting the time. You're not out there grinding, you're doing shit that you shouldn't be doing that is a waste of your time. And then in the time you spend not doing that stuff. You're busy not solving that problem. So there you sit.



John Fairbanks 37:15

It's busy being busy. Yes,



Tyler 37:17

but yeah, you're just busy.



John Fairbanks 37:18

But it is you editing the video. You really liked editing videos. But if you also came out and being like, man, we're just we're not meeting we know we're not hitting our goals. Financially, we're struggling, it's whatever it's like been how much fucking time are you spending editing video right now? It's like, oh, well, like everyone knows you're hiding.



Tyler 37:42

Yeah, you're hiding. That's the trick. You said it right there. If you are not as successful in your gym as you want to be. And you're doing so much work. Most of what we're gonna work you need to be doing and you are hiding. In that work. You're hiding in unimportant work. That's it, you're hiding out. Now I want to touch on one more thing. So to give you guys a strategy, something to go forward with. Nothing to do with your copywriting won't do anything for you. But for social media stuff, isn't it to be an influencer? Don't chase likes, you don't gotta drop it. Like it's hard to do whatever the hell else that people are doing out there. Follow the platform trends and what you're gonna get free reach and free engagement things like this, but don't chase it with all your efforts. That's the case about maximizing the return on the efforts that you can put in. Right, this is not a high effort, high return fucking project. You can't 10x your workload on social media and 10x your return, not going to happen. You can't exit and even get probably 25 cents. So you just need to understand that that is not the place to just endlessly pile your time and resources, that is not the solution to your problem. If your problem is members, if you've already gone beyond the point, your offer makes sense. You have a profitable system that works. If you don't talk to us, we can help you get your offers and teach you just our sales process that was very simple, very easy. You don't have to do anything different. I don't have to uproot your whole business. Just make a system that people want to buy, give them the ability to choose and give people the ability to spend more money if they choose to. That's it that will create a tremendous upside but now you're in a position where lots of people are how do I get more members now, I just keep posting on social media. I keep telling people that all these other fitness trends are stupid and mine are better. Nobody keeps coming in, right? You're nobody's nobody's beating down my door to join my gym. And that's all the effort you're doing. And I'm going to ask everybody, there's a lot of people doing this. So what you need to do, reverse engineer you're yours. The thing we always kind of do, almost every business we do together or that we work with other people, is let's just pretend to set an actual goal. So if you have 100 members and your goal is a 30% increase in members, let's go 25% Because that's easier for me. Okay, sure. You want a 25% increase and just membership numbers which should theoretically create a 25% or greater increase if you use a better sales system, increase in revenue. Now, if you want that done In the next year, what are you going to do? Are you going to hope really hard? Are you going to spend money on the ASP side, that's a pretty solid strategy, in my opinion. But what you really need to do is average to new clients beyond your churn. So a net gain of two new clients per month. So if let's say you lose, that's that's two a month that will get you to 24 new ones on the year, right. So let's say you lose on average, one person a month, like 12 people a year just to regular life, a family moves away your kid graduates, let's say it's just 12. Let's say that's about 10%. Give or take, Yeah, seems probably higher. But let's just give it that right. Now. That's just three per month that you need to offset that total. So you can if you get three, three new per month, and you only lose one poop per month, on average, that is a pretty solid strategy. Right? That's it, you need three new people points that are less than one person per week, you need to close from your social media. That's new. That's it? So there you have a strategy. Now, how do I just get a person? How do we speak to a person? Can I message someone? If someone comments on it? Or does something? Can I just message them? Can I DM them and just try to chat with them a little bit? Can you do that? That is a strategy that's worth knowing, you can put that time in instead of creating content by engaging in people who comment or just making content that tries to get people to take action. So when someone comes in and says, You know what I am interested in, what's the situation? You close that person that week, you're done, you're ahead for the month, right?" And that is all you need to do. If you break it down like that, you're not trying to just sit there and be gradually more famous until all of a sudden 25 people beat down your door at the end of the month, at the end of the year. It's not how it works. So you can gradually chip away at this by just taking us one person at a time. But the focus is to get a person not to get likes not to get shared, I think get views views on reels is the thing that they they throw out right away, because they can just put with you, if you haven't posted a reel on your gym, do it, do it tomorrow, you'll get anywhere from one to 5000 views on your first one I guarantee because they will do it, they'll give you that number, you've never had anything out there, don't make sure that number is bigger than anything else you've seen before. And then that'll keep you making content in that style. That's how they're going to do it. They're just going to put it in front of people. So anyway, Chase, people try to get people so make the content you make trying to convert a human being. And that's all you need to do one a week, just try to get a chance to sell one person a week. That's it. And if you can do a good enough job, you'll convert three out of four of them and you're in there, you're then you're there. It's 25 new people plus 25 At the end of the year.



John Fairbanks 42:34

And as far as the actual content that you're putting out everything that we've talked about, there's one shortcut that we haven't said so far in this episode, and you and I talk quite a bit about it. And we'll probably go into it more in future episodes. But as testimonials, yes, a testimonial will be a really fast track. What do I write Tyler? What should I say? How do I say to be able to share what other people will bring other people into the gym? And the short answer is, don't say anything. Let them say it. Look, the people that are really successful that enjoy your community that came and bought that have succeeded. What do they say?



Tyler 43:13

Yep. Ask them to get them in their words. Get them to leave us around to look you in the face when they do have you with Well, we talked about testimonials a little bit on Google reviews. But cherry pick those



John Fairbanks 43:21

but cherry take those and turn them into content.



Tyler 43:25

Exactly. That's it, use the thing and then you can tell your story about this person. Hey, this was this. A hunter did some great stuff with some of these recently where he got orders to disperse. He's like, Hey, I came in wanting to gain some muscle. I did it. I love music. What does that do? For the person who is who that connects to when they read this, they see, oh, this is a guy just like me who wants to gain muscle. He went in there and he got the muscle. And it turns out the guys are cool guys. And they play cool music that you can never say things as a business that will put those points to rest as well as a third party testimonial will. And that's the most important thing because you can say I can help you gain weight. If you haven't trouble trying to gain muscle, I can help you put on some muscle and we're super cool dudes. No matter how often you say you're a super cool dude, the more often you say it, the less super cool you sound. And so by you, but by using that testimonial, Hunter was able to put that testimonial as the image. And then the thing was like, Hey, man, this guy is just like me. You know, I started training so I could build some muscle. So I got to learn this. And now he came to me and he got it on. Like this is this is the thing that I love to do the most because this is what I connect to was perfect. You've allowed to actually connect to your why without being weird about it. Because a lot of people just talk about all the other stuff. It's like well, let's get to the point where I do want a muscle, right? And so that is a bit but that's the perfect way to do it. Let them say it. You can fill in the gaps and then drop a product and a call to action right there. And that's very, very, very simple and just do that. Don't over saturate That but do that combined with another Ask combined with another as to twice a week, whatever be consistent and don't be don't be upset if it doesn't turn around for you immediately what will happen is after a couple of weeks people are gonna be like, Oh, this is just really been singing to me lately it just really has been and that's what you need you don't need everybody like your stuff more getting a million new people to like your stuff doesn't mean near as much as five people in your area going and he says really been speaking my language I kind of kind of interested in what they got going on that is worth a lot more money to you than a million blind, uninterested followers on social media for sure. So Chase the right rabbit, guys, you gotta chase the right one. Don't go too far down any of these rabbit holes and think that and be dogmatic about them. But just you gotta be things that make sense. So you're trying to get clients, you're trying to make money. You're trying to do a good job, you're trying to make the most of your time, we'll do all of it by wasting a bunch of time making shitty social media content that nobody cares and doesn't make you money and quit scrolling. Quit getting out, there's nothing there for you anymore. There's nothing that you're gonna see on social media right now that's worth emulating in my opinion that you can scroll through in 20 minutes a day. You know, you 're just there's nothing there for you to emulate. If you're, if you're digging, trying to imitate the stuff that you saw that you enjoy, you got into it with very different intentions than the intentions of a potential client that you're going to have. So remember, you're not them. They're not you. We cannot pretend that we're playing the same game as the people that were playing the same game trying to get you interested in their product. So know who you're talking to. And talk to him. That's it. So you can follow us. If you're a gym owner, or coach or personal trainer who's wants to make more money wants to get better at business wants to make sales easy, make them more profitable, and make more money get off that silly selling time for money roller coaster, treadmill situation that never ends and is never able to be scaled up and only ends in burnout, disappointment, sadness, shame and all the other buzzwords go to community that hacker gym.com And make sure you follow us at the gym owners podcast on social media. If you want to work with us directly we have some products we can get to start helping you right away so we can help you going through and we can fix your sales processes fix your offers, make sure your the things you're putting in front of your potential clients are able to maximize your sales opportunity and maximize your profitability while absolutely letting you keep your soul and doing the things the things you do best the way you love to do them. shoot us a message at Jim Morris podcast on Instagram or me at Tyler reference on Instagram John at



John Fairbanks 47:39

Jay banks, FL



Tyler 47:42

and I think that's got a spot covered. Thanks for listening everybody. We love you. Bye