Your Clients’ Lifetime Fitness Journey

people, fitness, gym, specialized, crossfit, clients, coach, weightlifting, generalized, training, work, offer, crossfit gym, build, specialize, strongman, lifetime fitness, facility, results

Tyler 00:01

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the gym owners Podcast. Today we're going to talk about your client's fitness journey lifetime fitness journey from when they were young to when maybe they drifted away from fitness and wellness and health maybe when they found their way back in and somewhere along there they found their way to you maybe they find their way away from you but the the clients lifetime fitness journey is very important to your business and we want to make sure that you know, very clearly where you and your business is positioned for them in that fitness journey. Because that will tell you very clearly what you should be doing for them next are what you can be speaking about in order to attract the right people as well. So this works everything this will cover everything will help you to get the right leads and attract the right people. Also for retention and making sure that you're not letting a lot of money walk out the door as well. So the average person's fitness journey and where do you fit in it? Guys? Before we get started, make sure you go to the gym owners revolution that's our Facebook group. The link in our descriptions is in the description below. Join it's a resource for gym owners we have conversations we have people share. That's where the live videos are as well for the podcast episodes. And this is a place we want to continue to build gym owners who are trying to make good money but doing it the right way. No slimy bullshit. That's the place to be. Follow the podcast at the gym owners podcast on Instagram and follow me on Instagram at Tyler effing stone that's Tyler E F F I N stone and John where can they find you?



John Fairbanks 01:27

You can find me on Instagram at Jay banks f L



Tyler 01:31

So today we're gonna map out the people. The average American was cool because usually on the Americans' fitness journey either you kind of were fit and kind of stayed fit you California folks, all you beautiful people that tend to just never get fat. And then the rest of us at some point in the 20s and 30s let it all slide. I crawled back. And I think that the nature of the fitness business is getting back into shape seems to be the nature of the fitness business.



John Fairbanks 01:58

I was a fat kid in Tyler, California Tyler. Place to Be a Fat Kid in California.



Tyler 02:06

That is very lonely for me. In fact, California is rough. It's not good. So being tall in China. Now what is this guy doing here? So it is interesting. And every gym, by the way, is going to be positioned a bit differently in where you fit in someone's fitness journey. So I want you to think of your gym. And think of where just Lifetime Fitness is, everything's a person, your clients who come in to you and end up joining where they all come from, like, are they getting back into shape? What is their age, and there may be a few different client types. But it's really, really important that you know that piece, not just where they work and what their interests are. But really like where do you fit into this, this thing, and hopefully you fit somewhere that involves getting them there. Their true goal with most people, we want to make sure that they're fit and healthy for life that should be part of it. Unless your gym is very specialized, right? This is always a piece if you're hyper specialized. If you are a extreme powerlifting gym, well, maybe you're not too worried about your pupils make it finding their way to long term health, they're coming to you to fucking clang and bang, and get fucking sick and thick. And then that's what you're here to do. And that's great, that's great. But with that level of specialization, you still can know where you're at. So if you are that extreme hardcore powerlifting gym, most likely your clients are people who have kind of gone from very general fitness to gradually specializing down into the things that they like and now they like lifting four sets of one to three reps tops, you know and skipping their accessories and not doing cardio and you know, bringing two duffel bags worth of equipment. That's your guy. And where do they go from there? Oh, orthopedic surgeon most likely. But so if you're a general fitness, right, so let's just talk that let's just go through kind of an average person. Let's see, let's just throw let's throw me I'm maybe not the most average but my point up until finding fitness is pretty normal. Did some sports in high school said fuck it with college wasn't interested. But I was generally active a lot when I was young, I played a lot of sports and did all the things just a regular active young kid, relatively healthy. By the time I got to college, I did what most Americans do, which is you detach yourself from the family unit and you go separate to the American College. Let's accumulate debt and party like a degenerate experience. That's the American dream, right? That's what we do. That's what we do after high school is we go to college and do that. Then after that. I just went into the workforce kind of you know, and just worked and worked and worked and had no complaints, no concern for my health whatsoever since sports.



John Fairbanks 04:48

I think it's really important because I know some of your more common nutritional choices during this particular time period of your life because I'm listening to you talk about it and other podcasts. But I think it's also very common for the American average american of what you're eating, which is going to be



Tyler 05:05

gas hot dogs, Natty Ice, hot dogs naturalized frickin gas station food, candy bars, Mountain Dew, it was just what I had health was not on the radar, just not. And then you get to the point where you just have all of these little things like fuck you look in the mirror, I don't like this, I don't feel good. You try to, you know, try to maybe pick up playing city league basketball, church league basketball, it works. But man, you suck, and you never quite turn the corner, playing men's league basketball really getting into shape, you just kind of do the thing back.



John Fairbanks 05:37

On my fucking back, every time I would go to play basketball. I'm like, God, damn, I'm killing me.



Tyler 05:44

So then what happened was I tried many different types of fitness because fitness and joining a gym was the solution to the problem. I knew I knew I needed to get into a gym and do something for fitness. So that's, that's where it started, right? That's where I began to seek a place where if you are a gym owner, you could have hooked someone like me just like your regular Midwest American. And that was the first few times whenever the YMCA was gonna pay for coaching to that much money, it was cheap. So what I did at the YMCA, I went in, I started with a very generalized form of fitness that I was going to seek, I had access to equipment and lots of it and no idea what to do. But I was just going to do some stuff, or what I normally would do, what I honestly did was I walked in a couple of times, and I would just grab some weights on one end of the dumbbells things and those people were there on the dumbbell and the free weights, those guys seem to know what they were doing. And I hadn't done any of that since high school. So then I would just go and try to run on the treadmill and I would run a half mile as fast as my 350 pound mashed potatoes would go, I would feel miserable, my feet would hurt and I would be tired and be a nine minute half mile, 10 minute half mile and a cloud of dust. And then I would get off the treadmill. I would get off the treadmill and I would not come back for six months. And then I would redo it again. And I would do it again. And I'd have friends that would know we want to do this stuff and my friend got into bike riding cycling. And I just passed on that. But that was another opportunity that came my way right to do some exercise. Passed on it until finally I made my way to the CrossFit affiliate even though it wasn't the build for it. A group fitness gym. kind of worked for me at the time. I didn't want to do it.



John Fairbanks 07:24

You gotta get some. I got to ask someone.



Tyler 07:27

Yep, I got asked. And I said no the first time and then a little bit while later I just caved because I still wasn't doing so make my way into that place. And I started doing it then the group. The idea of it being group fitness was a deterrent to me in the beginning, I did not care. I did not want to be working out with a bunch of fit dorks. It was not interesting to me. I don't like just giving a bunch of people access to me socially, either regularly. I think that sucks. It's just not my personality type. Because I don't want to be talking to a bunch of normies all the time. Right. And so it worked. And when you do get to know people, they're the group aspect of it. The community aspect keeps you there, regardless of whether it's an attractor, I don't believe it is an attractor to anybody. I don't think it's just me, I don't think it's like I want to join a family and then start working out. Those are two separate things that I think a lot of group fitness people conflate. But it was the thing that keeps you there and it keeps you going. And she keeps showing back up having fun, which keeps you getting results. Got lots of great results. Then what do I do? I realized that CrossFit was very generalized, it is a coaching version, but it is very generalized fitness, you're doing lots of different things, lots of different ways. I was six foot six at the time, I was 353 60 I had cut weight over the course of six, eight months, I was down to 300 pounds last 5060 pounds. And I was like I was feeling good. I was in good shape. But I was like skinny fat kinda not skinny fat, just kind of skinny, you know? And I wasn't that interested in doing more pull ups and more. You know, whatever. So I said I'm going to focus on the one thing that I liked the most about CrossFit. So what I did was I went from a general form of fitness to something more specialized, which was I'm gonna focus on weightlifting, Olympic weightlifting, right. I did that for six months hired a coach did the thing still trained out of the CrossFit gym but did less of the group fitness workouts and I will do I was that guy in a CrossFit gym doing weightlifting



John Fairbanks 09:18

Was the coach that you got for Olympic weightlifting affiliated with the CrossFit gym?



Tyler 09:23

Nope because they didn't offer okay didn't offer and they weren't even some privates at the time because he didn't have time missed opportunity do you can order that guy says you go right yeah make a note of this because we're going to touch back on this Where were you missing opportunities throughout people's journeys right? They did offer everyone should have once a while a little specialty seminar and I would get in on all of those. They were like hey, we're gonna do this for two weeks in a row on a Saturday if you guys want to come in so I did every one of those still so they got something out of me but paid for coaching did all that you know hired John North attitude nation baby fucking slamming bars and you know awesome yeah, and it fucking rectify shit. It's so bad that training volume was the dumbest shit I ever did. It was the dumbest. I love John. Because I was crazy. It was insane. I'm a tough guy, but my hands hurt so bad from just constantly doing Yeah, whatever. Anyway, we got done with all that stuff and I was like, Okay, nevermind I don't like to wait six months weightlifting five days a week. You're squatting like three, four days a week and you're just constantly doing, you know, powers and partial poles. It's fuck all. No thanks, dude. I was too Oh, maybe you're young, but a lot of weight. A lot. A lot of weightlifting training is meat grinder style shit, where it's like we just run everybody through in the few that survived can be good. And then from there, though, I did have a knack for being strong, I was good at those things. But again, I was going to need something special, I wasn't going to revert back to a more general form of fitness. So I specialized again, and I got into strongman and just getting big, you know, it's like size is the thing that is strong. So I basically just pivoted sideways for something equally specialized. And then from there, that's when we started the mass genomics brand. And we had built that mass and I was Jim and all that stuff. But I started competing in strongman. And that was what I stayed in my training at that point for another three straight years. Alright, three years of strongman, then, tired of strongman tired, I've gone down the specialization route as far as I wanted to go.



John Fairbanks 11:17

You took another step, though that I think could be something we touch on later, which is you went competition level strong. Yes. Yes. Not just strongman training, just generalized strongman training, which already is specializing, but then you also competed,



Tyler 11:30

yes. And competent, competing. That's another point too, as if I view competition as a form of specialization, because that specialization is what piques your interest, right? The reason we specialize is because it keeps us more interested. The reason we generalize is also because I'm less interested in this specialized thing I'm doing so let me walk it back, right. And so when I got into competing that was exactly and I competed for three years, four years or so. But again, not everybody who gets into training, like a strongman, really wants to compete, but it's an accessible sport. Everyone can and should compete. Because there are novice divisions. It's not like fighting. We're like, Hey, you can get good at fighting. But maybe you shouldn't get in a cage with somebody who's trying to hurt you, like a strongman, it's like, just go do it. See how you do, nobody's gonna fucking you're not going to have to use a coloring book for the rest of your life. Because you weren't as good as you thought, you know, you're going to be okay. And so, but then at that point, when I was done, I was done. I was trying to eat and food I had hired strongman coach, I had hired nutritionists, you know, to just try to build so then I had built back up to the point where I was about 360 pounds of very differently composed, same body weight as I was when I was fat, but a very differently composed 360. And that was it was the ultimate re composition. I'll tell you that. But then I was tired of it. I did, the training was wearing on me and I got hurt a lot. And so in my fitness, I was like, I just now I just want to look better. I had specialized opponents, I just wanted to look better, that's it. So healed it all back. And I just started doing kind of bodybuilding stuff, a little bit of cardio, but some bodybuilding stuff. That was it. And frankly, that's kind of where I'm at now, except for the introduction of MMA and fight training and stuff like that, which I suppose is a part of it. But it stayed in the bodybuilding stuff till I got the weight down. And that became now and at that whole time, I've been essentially a global gym guy. 24 hour place. For the most part, I still train in some power spots. But then from there, my training was so generalized, I needed something to do to keep it interesting again. So what do I do? I go from generalized to specialized again. So I assume back and let's do kickboxing. Let's work on jujitsu, and then let's build that back out into some MMA style training. And that gives me something to focus on when I am in the gym as well that if I'm lifting weights, it's for my specialized reason. And so that's the way it works for me. And I think the concepts of seeking generalization versus specialization is a thing that I think you do need to understand is in your client's nature, right? Where are they going? What are they seeking when they come to you first, and it may just be generalized results, and you're you are what you are to them. And that's, and I think that's totally okay. But know what you offer, and then know when people like someone's path may take them away from your gym, and that's okay, right? I have had clients who came to my CrossFit affiliate that I owned when I was in the process of opening a CrossFit affiliate. I had a lot of clients who were runners, and you know why they came to join a CrossFit gym. Because running wasn't working for them anymore. They were tired of just running and not delivering results, it was just a bit too specialized. It was just fucking one thing. And so they want to do more stuff and they want it to just be let's just make it be a little more inch. I need to shake it up. I spent too much time with these little joggers, runners blinders on, it's not getting me results. And it was very important for me to know that I wasn't to take these people away from running, I was there to supplement to allow them to still enjoy the running that they would do. They did not come to me for a lifetime. crossfitter right. And don't force people to do that stuff all the time because it's because by the way nobody very few people do one type of fitness for 10 years. Do you know? I mean, there are people that do it. And it exists. And very often in that case, it's it's they're not making a ton of progress years,



John Fairbanks 15:11

usually now, right? Because you're



Tyler 15:14

or you're just either you're kind of doing that fitness for 10 years, or if you're really doing it, you're fucking great, like literally great, because 10 years is what it takes to be great at something. But I'm not seeing a lot of that out there. And I don't want to build your business around those outliers.



John Fairbanks 15:29

Exactly. Because that would be less than one of 1% of the people that are out there. Yeah.



Tyler 15:34

So in your gym, this is the concept now I want you to understand so what are the opportunities for you let's so let's just go group fitness because that's what a lot of people have, right? There's a thing that group fitness gyms have functional fitness gyms, CrossFit affiliates that they do really well with. My favorite cup is my favorite concept of CrossFit. I think built into the CrossFit methodology is trying sports. And I think that allows for that natural human instinct to specialize and zoom back and generalize. And let's specialize a little bit until, because that concept crossed his concept of trying sports like regularly trying new sports plays into the human nature of lifelong fitness. And I think that's the most important aspect of it is that we come in and we do a lot of different things, and it can help you get fit, it can, but then you're gonna get fucking bored or maybe something is just gonna be cool. We're gonna try a bunch of stuff and one of them is going to connect you. For me it was overhead pressing, squatting and Olympic weightlifting, because those were the things I was good at. I hardly bench press in CrossFit. So I wanted to go somewhere where my strengths were better represented. And so I ended up not giving any business to CrossFit affiliates anymore, well, frankly, opening my own at that point, but now I was able to have to go away. However, if that place would have had a weightlifting club, a barbell. Now guess who says yes, who's still there, guess who's able to explore his needs, explore this other form of fitness, continue to stay interested while continuing to give them money and still allowing this place to be the centerpiece my the, the home base for your Lifetime Fitness, because lifelong fitness again, is the goal. So allow them to spend as much time with you. Now if they want to get into fucking water polo, well, maybe you don't have the ability to do that. But you know what you could, you could for sure offer them maybe some private coaching, they will be able to fill in their gaps because maybe they're going to go and do the same thing that I do right now with MMA training. I do MMA training. I hired a coach for MMA, jiu jitsu and kickboxing, but I still have to strength train and condition myself separately. So I go to another gym to fill the gaps for that. If my MMA gym had had a gym, had a facility where he was fully equipped and able to serve all those needs, that's where I would be. And that's the fact that's the truth. Yeah. So in your gym, it doesn't mean you need to become a 24 hour gym. But we've talked to Jim's Tyler writers, Jim talks about strength and conditioning in Woodbury, St. Paul, Minnesota powerlifting spot, they have some group spots, they have some group coaching, they have some strongman stuff, they were a CrossFit gym before, right. And they just built some of these other programs and these other programs just became more interesting. And now group fitness stuff is something they sometimes do. But it's really overall it's a barbell club, a strength club, and they've added 24 hour access, which is a way to fit people's people's journeys and people's fitness journeys. Now you can go and you can strength train because you are a high school student, and you are working on sport or you're a college offseasons college sports athlete, then if you want to as you get as you age up, maybe you just want to lift around do some global gym stuff go squat by yourself, you some machines, and you want to do it at 10 o'clock at night now they can offer that for you too. That allows it to rattle around in your ecosystem for longer.



John Fairbanks 18:53

The one of the stories I liked when we spoke to Tyler about his gym was that he also had a spin class for a while they bought a bunch of bucking spin bikes so it was like because because again, like the evolution of who's being very understanding and clear of who the people are, that are in his gym, what that population was like, and that it fit. Yeah, so it made sense but he wasn't married to it to the point where



Tyler 19:20

it didn't become a spin gym, which is why I'm always very I always teach we talked to top people in the gear Academy about this this week that your specialty program is a specialty program to be very very very careful about representing your specialty programs as the only thing that you do because now all of a sudden your brand up you can stuck as be that guy into the general population who's dipping their toes in or maybe considering coming towards your business. They don't know enough. So if they only see you talking about your spin classes a lot and you're not continued to to apply social media pressure, and conversational pressure about all the other things that you do well, now you like these hardcore wrong man guys have traded his place now you're not if he's talking about a spin class is too much they're fucking out yeah but you know spin classes knowing what's important to know because like say spin classes YMCAs or even Palatines Those are great entry levels like spaces for people to start in fitness right someone just gonna do some at home fitness. You know cycling at home all the peloton stuff off orange theory. They are very approachable for beginners. And they're also some are hyper specialized, some are very generalized, right Orangetheory I'd consider a fairly general form of fitness that someone who would want to specialize their way to specialize their way out of you know, if they find something more interesting. It's a weird or series a weird one, but then you have like the peloton stuff, very specialized. You're sitting on a bike in your house in the room doing the one thing. That's it, though, that will get people results until they get bored of it. Alright, and then what are they going to seek? And can you be somewhere for them? Can you offer something complementary to that that will attract them to you? And then where are they going to go from there because they're gonna go from that to something generalized, most likely, you're gonna spend too much time in this one space, and maybe they just want to supplement with a little bit of weight train, just like my runners. Runners do a lot of running and they decided that they need to do something else because they just weren't getting results. And for the peloton, people there's a lot of peloton that are going to be collecting dust by right now it's 2022. So a lot of those people say hey, what do you want to do next? And what do you want to do next? Is the question like that's in a lifetime fitness journey. What do you want to do next? What do you have to do? Nor are you people who are not slaved to the results either because I've seen people in gyms for years that don't get results. In gyms group fitness gyms that don't get results, paying personal trainers for years, and they don't get results. I've seen him around, I see him every day. Okay, and that sucks, too. But if that's just what they want to do, and they continue to be interested, fine, let them hopefully they can, they can turn around these other habits and be able to get results. But if you're in that position, introduce them to something else, if they become stagnant, let them find something else my like ultimate facility, if I had to come to like, my ultimate facility, it would be group fitness as kind of the basis because then I have community it would be group fitness, it would also be nearly reputation really cut right down in the middle. With personal training, I want to be known for being a high quality personal training studio as well. I think it is also extremely valuable to have a area that has a fair amount of your cable machines, regular machines, all the stuff that can be used outside of your class, that I would also have 24 hour access for now I can have kind of tiered membership options, easy upsells across the board. And then from there, it would be really nice to share space with an MMA jujitsu studio, that type of that type of spot. Because I think that market grows really well. I think the type of clients who end up in a combat sports setting all have needs for strength and conditioning one way or another. At the very least, it's an easy upsell to the other side of the space as well. And personal training you have people that will then get bored with CrossFit or bored with they're coming into your 24 hour space on their own and want to try something new, let's say your 24 hour people now can see the group click Group Fitness and know that that's fun. Right? Or they can see the personal training people know that they're getting great results, or they can see the people in the MMA space or in your martial arts studio that are like bad motherfuckers and that will be a thing that lets them have the natural inclination to try something new. Let that mind let that instinct that's in them, attract them to another part of your business.



John Fairbanks 23:45

Well, what you've just described is, is a decade proof



Tyler 23:50

facilities. Yep, that's a 10 year proof facility.



John Fairbanks 23:55

Yeah, there's another piece to this along the journey and I don't know if you are going in this direction but the question or the next thought that I have is we are going on this where do you sit? Where is your business, where is your brand, your community, where do you sit on that journey of the average person's fitness journey? And it's understanding where you sit whether you are generalized, are you specialized, are you hyper specialized, whatever that is, the needs or desires of those people will also be different. So having that clear understanding of you , the time of people's lives where they start thinking about how getting you talked about getting a nutrition coach you talked to do you like the idea of now your baby taking supplements like what age can people afford? Because that for me is also like how old you are also dictates quite a bit like when I was a hilariously broke college student, newly married I wasn't going to no fucking gym that cost $200 to go to go But now in my mid 30s, what I'm willing to spend on my health is radically different. Just my, my whole mindset shift is different. So if I, you know, if I'm thinking about, you know, if I was building that facility that you just described, I would want to have you know, I don't know fucking doctor lady that was around that would do like liquid IVs and



Tyler 25:28

nutrition on the other side of natural nutritional services. And to touch on your broken college student analogy, right. The reason I set aside these multiple tiers of things that I would that would be my basis of my services in this dream scenario, right? Exactly, is that the broke college student could very likely come in and start in my Globo gym facility, and he could get the 24 hour day, maybe it's a little more expensive than that has been the reputation solid, there's other options, maybe they get access to the weekend workouts for the group, they can get come in on Saturday and join one group one time, like you want to foster some of that stuff, right. But then as they grow up and have a family or get money, maybe those things are not in that order. But but when they grow up, have some more money or maybe want to commit further the one that the the temptation to see how the fun people are having that that can compel them to as someone ages up and has little more resources, they can move to one of the more expensive options or simply more interesting options. The other piece that I like to see, especially for gyms is if you do group fitness, man, like an old folks group, fucking rules, fucking rules do and by the way, that demand you need to find those connections do it because one as a coach, it's challenging to talk about especially for group fitness coaches, it's all about scaling. And you're gonna see if you have clients that are all 65 and older, the degrees of scaling that you'll see from people 65 and older, is more extreme than you will see from people in their 30s and 40s and 50s. Because it's not the difference, you will have people that literally can't bear such extreme limited ranges of motion that have such limited ability to move around. And some that do pretty well. And it's a great use for your coaches, you programming stays in such a narrow box volume is low, so you're not gonna have to over exert over exertions or risks. So it makes it simple to coach kind of, right. It's, it's, it's complicated to set up things for people that work for everybody in that space. But man, you're solving a really great need. And again, people make recommendations. This is the gym, I train, mom, grandma, or aunt, whoever comes here, this is how you get referrals because you fit again, and that lifetime fitness journey, that lifelong fitness journey. And ideally, those are for people that you've missed, by the way, this whole time. Because the ones, the ones that are in their 70s, who have been with you for 20 years, boy, they probably don't need that old folks group, they're gonna be just fine in your regular group. But that's a service again, that I think is a really, really great one to offer. And then it's important to also note, specialty programs within them that can fit these high specialization needs meaning you can then have a group segment that's very focused on bodybuilding or barbell club within that same thing as well, where now you have powerlifting. And, and so this comes from a single facility with just slightly more equipment needs than your regular. It's not going to be global gym level global gym equipment, but enough. And then a good open space for group fitness and enough space for personal training and some mats for your combat sports space. Like it's not like this extremely wide, enormous facility that you really need. But now think of all the needs you can cover. Now, I talked about this thing, which is introducing having a very diverse amount of offerings. And I think that's very complicated. And that is not where you should start, I promise. But what you can start is by adding one layer at a time. So where do you fit? What would you now as a gym owner like to do? Maybe make that decision based on some of the demands within your group? Where are people going or where are people expressing interest? When it comes to CrossFit people very often they specialize they'll either specialize by going to something else, just regular bodybuilding stuff, right? Or they'll get into some very cardio stuff. They'll become runners, cyclists, swimmers, triathlons, that type of stuff. They'll go strength focus, they'll go endurance focus, or they'll go into some sort of bodybuilding thing because the results they were hoping to get from CrossFit. They got them for a couple years now that stalled. They want to go towards physique, physique, physique, I want gains, I want leanness, I want all this stuff, those that aren't stuck doing functional fitness for functional fitness sake. Those are usually the three paths that they tend to take. So where can you fit in there? Maybe it's just a specialty program. Maybe it doesn't need to be a whole aspect of the gym. But that's how you start to be able to serve these needs and scratch that itch for people because you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna leave and they're gonna go do weightlifting. And then like most people, they're not going to do weightlifting for the next four years. Then what are they going to do?



John Fairbanks 29:59

I think it also speaks to the fact that we oftentimes will talk to gym owners and coaches about, like reactivation campaigns, yes, like the importance of going after previous members and just touching base and checking in with them or whatever it may be. We especially saw them on your list because of what you just talked about the importance of those ebbs and flows specialization generalization and understanding where you are in that cycle. You know, the odds of you being, you know, a highly specialized location for someone having gotten more specialized is probably less likely if you're playing the 8020 rule. So now how you then communicate to those people in that outreach can be drastically different. Yeah,



Tyler 30:39

yeah. And not only that, having those people that have left your gym, being able to do like a reactivation campaign, those are the perfect people to announce every new program that you've launched. Every new program, every new facet of your gym, every new offering. They need to hear it because maybe that checks the box. They were hoping you would check before they left.



John Fairbanks 30:58

Maybe that gym has personal training now that you originally



Tyler 31:01

Yeah, right. Don't even don't get me started there. I was. I was fine. There was a I mean, nobody listens. So there was a kid that saw a young kid Bless his heart. Well, you know, your exercise science, folks. And usually, there's nothing less interesting than talking to a kid who just comes fresh out of love, like his college Exercise Science degree. Like it's kinesiology, wherever coaching anything ever coached. Anybody, you know, and, but they're like, Yeah, I'm gonna go to this place. And then yeah, they're gonna just feed me clients and everything. I'm like, Oh, you're gonna give me that to do like, and also now you, I want clients who want to work with me. I don't know what I mean? I don't want somebody else. Oh, you want a personal trainer, I have a personal No fucking way, you know, so, but I'm a bit more particular. But that's a good way for it to burn out. Some poor exercise science graduate is going to come in and just start stuffing, whoever you can stuff in front of them and see I don't even have to find clients, we should learn how to find clients. If you wanna be a personal trainer, you should learn how to find people that want to work with you and who you want to work with. That's a, that's a skill, you need to sort out right away, because you're gonna be working with people you hate with goals that you hate teaching types of training that they don't like, because you don't know them, and they don't know you, and you've missed out on that whole process. getting fed leads, sucks, unless you are very skilled at that interview process and sales process and doing that yourself. But just getting fed clients puts on your schedule for you. Block all that man dodged that like a bullet.



John Fairbanks 32:26

And the best part is you make no money while doing it. So



Tyler 32:31

If they're just handing you clients, here's how much money you make. And here's when you get it's like no. Yeah, I'll decide. Yeah, but, but that's important to note, guys. So when you think about this, here's your kind of homework is to take a few of your client types, you have a few client types. And instead of thinking about them in the ways we've described in the past, which is still okay, it's still viable, there's no right way, there's no wrong way, there's just a different way of looking at it. For this exercise. I just want you to think about their fitness journey. What were they doing before? What have they done after maybe they haven't done anything for 10 years? That's okay, that's, that's a that's a type right now for 10 years new back into fitness. Because also you'll learn how I acquired this person, what type of messaging would attract more people like him, right? But then also use that skill, use those few avatars, if you will, is such shitty old school. I hate that Cloner Cloner avatar, but it's a real deal, right? Whatever this type of person is trying to replicate those things because not only will you learn how to attract them, by speaking to that type of person, again, on your social media, when you are in sales meetings, you'll know how to close them by speaking to them who they really are. And because everybody really is only like one of four people anyways. But you could also learn to retain their business for better and for longer by delivering them results doing the type of fitness they want to do right now. And get them the results they want to get right now. And then from there, you need to be like, Okay, well, how do I keep them interested? And that may mean you need to offer them something else, something different, whether it is just upsell to personal training, and we'll do whatever the fuck you want. Man, that's, that's a start. That's how you convert your board. And let's fix this. Let's fix this. Let's just fix this a couple days a week or you're bored. I got to do a powerlifting thing every Tuesday and Thursday night if you want to get in on that like Fuck yeah. Or you know, tell you what we got a partnership with this MMA gym across town, if you want it and start doing jujitsu, we can start focusing some of your training to that they'll give you a you know, a discount if you're one of our members if you want to get into that. Because now everything that they're doing fitness wise still comes through you and by the way, this isn't just about offering things to these people so that you can make more money. What is your goal in the long run? This is a piece we always make sure we the people back to when we work with people in the gear Academy. What your real goal is to create a fitter community. Well then you better be having to do a better job than just being a stop along the way. And that's important. If your goal is to try to make a fitter community in your town, you cannot just be a place that they stopped for two years and got some results and then they set a bucket and then they've drifted off and then they went off at it and you can't do it. You got to be better than that. So can you offer more? Can you keep them interested? Is there a different type of service and a different way you can frame it? Can you offer them to somebody else who you trust, but that is what you need to do. If you want to do better. You need to be better and you need to keep your people engaged for their lifelong fitness journey because that's your job if you actually give a shit. So if you do give a shit join the Facebook group join the gym owners revolution. The link is going to be in the description you can get in right there. Join the revolution. It's a resource for gym owners. Follow the podcast at the gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler effing stone on Instagram and John at Jay banks FL on guys. Thanks a lot for listening to everybody. I hope we took you along a very long journey and we hope you stay with us for life. Goodbye