Saturday, January 21, 2023
people, work, gym, lying, business, owners, problem, coach, clients, solve, paid, piece, day, week, john, busy, true, eat
Tyler 00:02
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this week's episode of the gym owners podcast. I'm your host Tyler stone over there is John. Hi, John. Hello, Tyler, guys. This week in the age of the great exposure of the liver King, we want to talk to you about the fact that everybody lies. Everybody lies in the fitness industry. Everybody lies, all gym owners lie, gym owners lie to us, your clients lie to you. How do you see through a lot of the bullshit? How do you help your clients see through a lot of the bullshit in a business that is not necessarily as science and help based as you would think? Everybody's lying about everything all the way across the board from how good your gym is to what your clients really want to what you think you are as a coach as a gym owner all of these things. Most of them probably aren't true. So we're to help you sift through the bullshit. Before we get started. Make sure you go to the gym owners revolution Facebook group that link is in our description. You can find that there. Also make sure you follow the show at the gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler reference. Don't miss Tyler eff ironstone and follow John how can they find you John?
John Fairbanks 01:09
On Instagram at Jay banks FL
Tyler 01:12
alright guys, first off, I opened it because it was just a funny clickbait but the liver King thing guys, if you were ever like, you know what, I think this guy might be just really onto something here. Yeah, he's on something. I'll tell you, that's for sure. But in all seriousness, I don't care about that at all. It never didn't bother me. I think DJ or CAMI had mentioned something the other day. It was like , if you're bothered by this, are you bothered by the fact that you already figured out pro wrestling was fake? And it's pretty true. Like you see there's a lot of people claiming whatever on the internet. Did you just know very right away like, you know, you're just No, that's not true. No guy looks like he is not just eating raw meat. That's silly. And what's funny is like two days before all of the emails surface from the sky. I was seeing somebody come on who's like an ex was like, Well, you know, it really is possible for him to look like this naturally. Because you know, he does eat more organ meat than probably 10 People who eat more origami and you know, he's rich. So he's got a lot of time. He trains for three hours. Am I okay? You're you're still wrong, you fucking idiots. And there's Yeah, I won't go too far to that. There's a piece where I always say like the first drug test everyone has to pass is the eye test. Yeah, that's the thing people don't get even if you're like getting into a sport, you go to drug tests and powerlifting, meet the first drug tests, you pass the eye test. And if you don't pass the eye test, you're gonna get selected, quite randomly. And it's really, really fine. But John and I have been talking about this for a while that, you know, this industry is really not based on truth, not only we tried to you want to be honest with your clients on this thing, but in the communications, your clients lie to you. And gym owners. Y'all lie to everybody. You lie to anyone, we have gym owners lie about their business more than almost any other business I've ever heard in my life. I've been in many businesses, and I'll hear gym owners, it'll just really skirt around the truth a lot about how things are going and what their prospects are or what you know, and none of it is. None of it is accurate. We work with gym owners all the time. But one of the things I think that's really important for you to know when you're talking, especially as a gym owner, is that we're busting your balls here. But as a gym owner, when you're talking to clients, they're lying to you too. And when you're coaching people, they're probably lying to you as well. And getting to the point where someone's willing to be really honest with you and honest with themselves. That's where you can kind of start to open some doors and really make changes John, you and I, there's gym owners, we can't help because they won't tell they won't fucking live in reality with what's going on. It's like, dude, nobody wants nobody's coming to you for this service. It's not what it is. Well, but I love it. Great. But that's not what they're coming to you for. Trust me. You're not perceived as this expert externally. What do people really seek you for? And then you can become the other thing but you're not this? No. You know, and if you're not an expert, can you just help people, people trying to basically pump up their ego is portraying I'm an expert on this thing. And I'm an expert on that. Nobody cares. I've never hired a coach because I thought they knew the most. It was really what can they help me do where I am? Do they understand where I am right now and where I want to move through to and and that's a piece that the the ego and unwilling to admit really where you are in the hierarchy of things can really screw you over and as gym owner or coach, you're working with clients and they come in and they're telling you no, I eat pretty good. It's like, yeah, it's just like the skinny guy who tells me they eat a lot. It's like, no, no, you don't. And so in all of these things, there's a piece where it's like we need to get on some sort of common ground. There needs to be some common denominators when you're working with people. And my biggest thing that I've learned as coaches it's like man and nutrition. Jesus Christ is Like if I don't I hate meticulously making people meticulously track their food, I don't like it, I don't think it's necessarily the healthiest way to do it. I think it's a required component in the beginning for people to kind of get calibrated and figure out, you know what, what I need to know what they're actually doing before, they can just kind of tell me that everything's okay. Because when most people want to come and talk to you about nutrition, health, and I want you to lose weight, what they really want you to do is tell them that everything that they're doing right now, is just going to all of a sudden start giving them different results. That's what they want. That's what everybody wants. And they say they want a plan, they say they want a complete plan that they can just turn themselves over to. And they'll do that until they don't want to do that anymore. And that's not really what they want. And so nutrition coaching is, I think, as a gym owner, as a coach, if you've ever worked in that space, you'll understand very quickly how much that applies to business coaching, business development, If your business isn't growing, the way you want it to grow. Can you really take an honest look at yourself, the things you're doing? The inputs you're putting into the system, the way you're handling your business? And the way you're where you're putting your time? And can you say, honestly and go, Oh, shucks, why am I not growing, because most gym owners, you all coach, you sit on as you take afternoon naps. The afternoon nap is at the gym. Because the gym owners think, you got to be up in the morning, you got to be there late. And so you are not working as most are not working as hard as they lead it to lead people to believe. And I'm here to call you out on that, because I used to do it too. Maybe I'm just maybe all these things I'm saying is just a projection, which is very likely. It's Gary Vee and I, which is like all the things I'm calling out. I just see it takes one that no one. But I just think I think it's really true. And with the nutrition coaching, you know, you're sitting there, someone's just lying to you. Because I've had clients that say, you know, yeah, I'm following, I'm following the calories and the protein thing that you gave me very meticulously, and I'm just not dropping any weight. And they're like, can I add a fourth workout a week with you know, how many calories is that gonna, like Come the fuck out, like fix the food thing, dude. And I just know they're not doing it. And there's nothing worse you know, this as a coach. Everybody knows this, as a coach, when you're telling someone to do something, and you just know they're not doing it. And then they want to blame you for the lack of results. That's frustrating. In your business, if you're not getting the results. And you can tell yourself and you can tell everyone around you that you're just really working hard, or working hard at the fucking ticket, you got to be doing the right stuff here.
John Fairbanks 07:33
And in the beginning, it's really hard where if you go right at someone, it becomes a he said she said he said scenario. And when I worked in military school, the big thing was all kids lie. So if you work off of that, given that standard, that every single person that interacted with us was lying to us, no matter what was said, it then was great. They're lying to you, you trust what they say. But you then verify that that's old, either. It's either Reagan or like a Gorbachev quote, which is like trust, but verify. Like got used all the time. But it's the idea of trust, but verify. And this is where you can really carefully go around having to go right at it and have you be the bad guy who was losing using the nutrition example. It's so easy to be like, You know what, I hear what you're saying. Like, you don't even have to argue with them. It's Oh, I'm doing all the things, I'm doing it perfectly. I don't know what to do. And it's gonna be like, You know what, great, let's document exactly what you're eating for the next day. Like, just like you said, once you do that, then they can't hide from it. Most of the time, now they have to really be in a whole nother world and be oblivious to it of where they would doctor up like what they're recording. Yeah, at that point
Tyler 08:57
that at that point, they really don't want the outcome that you have to truly not want to be a desirable outcome to them now when I've put in it, I know write it down, and they're lying about what to write it down. But still, that even happens. omission is that thing when it comes to counting food, counting calories kind of way. People are very gentle, very forgiving of their own math, and they kind of forget a lot of ice cream. We will write that down.
John Fairbanks 09:19
And there's an activity that we do with gym owners and I would recommend anyone do around this time of year as you're getting ready to go into January and start a new year and do all these things, which is that time audit is what's the number one thing that we hear from gym owners is that they don't have enough time.
Tyler 09:39
And I have almost never when we look into it, seeing any sort of actual valid limitation on their time. It is a poor prioritization. And not only that, when the time comes to start actually writing it down. Most I'm not saying all there's some great high performers who really got their shit in order but like, you know, listen if you're killing it, I We're probably not for you, right? You know, I'm saying if, if your business is pulling you up to $3 million a year out of your gym, and you've got systems operating, and you're an efficient person, and you can see the next move, and you're executing, like you don't need John and I to kind of help sift through a lot of that bullshit to get you to that point, that's not what we're here to work for. But if you're here, and you're at a point where you're not getting the outputs that you think you deserve from your gym, we start looking at your inputs. And most people will lie, the system projection dramatically about how much time they spent bucking around on their phone every day, at work, especially gym owners and coaches. It is we I've had to call people out on this because we're getting stuff from coaches who are like, you know, I work so much, and I can't do it, I don't have any time to do anything. And I'm like, You are the first person to see any Instagram story that I ever post. Exactly, ever, I mean, ever 24 hours a day ever, I and you're not scrolling on Instagram, if you don't manage your social media. So you're just wasting time, at the very least within a couple of minutes, every fucking day all day, like trust me. And so when people start lying on those pieces, because of the time audits people either take a month to get us one week worth of their time. And usually in that case, it's not even about us calling out the call. This is the observer's paradox, right, John, which is that once you start to observe them, the data becomes a little bit polluted. Because the moment somebody starts to track their time, everyone, like, just treats it like you're punching in for a timecard. I used to have to do this that I was doing here, and I just least accounted for what job I was on, and what project I was at. Or if I was in transit, like every hour would kind of need to be tracked. I couldn't just, if I'm gonna spend four hours in one place, I at least got to write that I was there for four hours, and I was working on it. You know, that's, it's you, it's reasonable to expect. Just like once you're self employed, people just throw that stuff to the wind, and they pay no attention to like, oh, well, actually, I didn't do shit today. You know, I coached it, I hung out and I put out temporary little fires that I could have just if I wasn't there, everything would have been fine. But the moment you start observing their time, people start to change the way that they work because they're embarrassed. Which, by the way, is okay for me. Because if I'm consulting with someone, what I want is for you to become more efficient, for you to waste less time and for you to realize that you're doing it's not for you to send me with your hat in your hand. This list is a shameful list of how you've been spending your time. So I can slap you on the wrist and tell you you've been, you know, a naughty boy. It's like, no, just Okay, now you see how much time you're leaking? Or how inefficient you're being? What can we do to fix it? And most people once they start observing, and they start tracking this knowing they're going to have to turn it into another person. All of a sudden, they change what they're doing. And that's all I want is the change towards more efficiency so I'm not here if I don't care. You don't have to. Some people could write their time on it and not send it to us. And they've gone to us and gone. Yeah. All right. You're right. I'll fix it. I'm like, okay,
John Fairbanks 12:57
and that's what we get. It's just what we get. Don't ever get the time audit, like truly delivered. Like we get it a couple days where it's usually
Tyler 13:03
it's usually a little disingenuous so I can usually see right through it. Okay, buddy. Yeah, all the time. So the timeout of stuff that we record, I recommend, usually just do it for yourself. Have you if you have a partner that's working with your business, do it for each other? Like, where can we find ways to make if you really give a shit? Or are you just a fucking fitness or who now wants to make fitness in your bit your your kind of like Job, and if you just want to have a job that you don't work for somebody else, great. But if you're trying to grow this thing, like I don't know what to tell you, other than, like, it should be important enough for you to change what you're doing on a day to day.
John Fairbanks 13:35
Well, there's a bigger problem here. So we've talked about this before, where it's, if you're lying, it's one thing. But the issue is, if you're like, No, I don't have time. And I, every member of my gym, stays for three years. So my retention is fine. And I close 90% of all of my sales, and I get 40 leads per month. And I've been doing marketing and I'm a techy person and in all these pieces, then what ends up happening is that we say Oh, well if we take that all at face value, and we don't look at it, we don't try and parse that apart and really zoom in and say like, Are you sure what you're saying is true? Because if it's true, then we can well and that means like the solution to whatever problems you have Are you know way more complicated and just nine times out of 10 it's a little bit like the dirty filter for you Yeah, this is
Tyler 14:35
this is a piece y'all you need to know we talk they talk about this this is John and I dealing with clients that we know who are lying to us and you as a coach deal with clients and members who are lying to you and wanting an outcome and I would get service calls in the summer's here if you're you know if your filters dirty on a on your on your air conditioning, you know what's gonna happen is the air is not going to flow. It's gonna freeze solid. It's gonna be hot in your fucking house. Okay, the solution to that really is just let the fan run. Don't change your filter, wait a little bit and then turn it back on. That's a very simple solution. The amount of people who would panic and call when it's hot, so she was really hot here. I need somebody there right away. I get there and I go, Oh, there's a brand new filter in this thing. It's like they just didn't know they just didn't wait long enough for whatever. And so there's a brand new filter in this thing, like, was the filter dirty when you change it? No, no. And one of the things by the way, then at that moment, 95% of the time, they're wrong. But now I have to do more work. Like I have to hook, I have to check a bunch of other stuff because I can't take if I'm taking you as if a human being is looking me in the eyes. We're both trying to solve the same problem. We're both trying to solve your problem for you and your family. Okay, and you're gonna look me in the eyes so that you don't have to shamefully say, yeah, I forgot to change my furnace filter, I found just forgotten Dirty, dirty. It's just Yeah, I was like, No, dude, like, I've worked in this business, I don't change my shit to cause me problems either. And I also know that's wrong. Okay, but like, that's the thing that people do all the time. But now I have to embark on this entire other problem solving endeavor that's gonna cost you more money. To take more time. I gotta go through and check all these other factors. Because I have, am I, which I don't, by the way, I'm not going to act on the assumption that you're telling me the truth. I kind of have to go through and just see how things are going. Because, because otherwise, I'm not there, even though you lied to me. And based on that information, I go through and fucking do everything I can. And it takes forever and we still settled on it. Oh, look, that's what the problem was. Now you're gonna think I'm lying to you? Right? That's the worst part. Well, I mean, I told you I've changed the filter. It's like well, okay, then it can't be this. And so it just hamstrings the problem solving process. And that's a piece that like people, you guys in your business, you got to understand there's nobody to impress about your business. You shouldn't know, you shouldn't talk. Who are you talking to a shorter someone who's actually trying to help you that you need to be giving these numbers this information to or you just said, it's that busy trap that entrepreneurs always fall into anyone who starts their own business. It's a blue collar mindset. It's really even a white collar mindset where people you know, they're just just so busy, I'm successful. I'm just busy. I'm busy. I'm busy. And that's like, that's rude. I don't know what to tell you. Like that, it does not seem like the most effective use of your time, then if you're having any trouble, you're just so swamped, and you can't solve any problems like what are you bragging about here? And you want me to high five, you want me to pity you? Like, what are you trying to do now? What do we need to do next? And, back to the time audit? Listen, none of you work as efficiently as you can. Most of you work as gym owners, I would say operate as I would describe Well, if I had to put a number. Most gym owners operate under 50% efficiency in their day, the way they perform. And by the way, that's okay, because I'm going to look at an office job. Those people operate around 15 to 20 1015 20% efficiency, literally in like pure hours worked in a day, they just don't everything else that the average is is way low. And I see gym owners that low as well, who are pretending to fill that other time or being in the gym. We talked about these two boards and one of our guys, and to get ready as he's about to open his facility. It's like okay, now once you get into the gym, you understand that being in your gym is just not it's not working. That's just because you're in your gym. That's not an efficient use of your time. Because oftentimes, just being in your gym, if you're coaching, that's one thing, if you're doing things you got to be done in the gym, that's another thing, but just kind of hanging out. And dealing with things as they pop up or come and go that is not working, that's just wasting your time that's waiting around for busy work to come that's sweeping the floors. You know, when somebody who's paid to sweep the floors should be sweeping the floors like that is not the best use of your time, you should be detached from that space because you can constantly be getting interrupted or you need an office with the door on a tour or something. So you're not being distracted by just the little stuff. Because once you're in your business, man, it's tough to zoom out.
John Fairbanks 19:10
It's not your fault for getting lost in that though, because you're at work. You're literally at work. And the problem is that nine to five business office space mindset is that it's I'm there I'm on the clock. And the thing is that we like don't forget, as an entrepreneur, you get to decide how much money you make per hour no one's just flat paying you and so that is definitely those pieces where it's maximize the time that you're there to be making the most amount of money then that is where that honest assessment of where you are. And that's the folks that we've had that have been the most successful are the ones that just lay it all out on the table. There's very seldom do we say dudes are bullshit meters. You Going off by hand, folks. That's good.
Tyler 20:03
Yeah, I mean that by the way, it's the only way. And I know this when I work with clients, especially for weight loss, when I work with weight loss clients as a personal trainer, people come in who want to blow smoke. Oh, yeah, you know what I started doing keto. And then bottled blah, blah, blah. And it's all this shit. And it's like, I know it's not true. Oh, yeah, I used to be really strong. It's like, none of these things are valid, I need to know where you're at right now I need to hear pain. I need to hear all the things that you know about your own shortcomings because there's no one to blame for this. I don't need to hear this laundry list of diagnoses that your doctor gave you that you're using to lean on or to blame for your problems. I don't, I don't need to hear any of the people that come in that are ready. Ready, put in the work. I know, I fucked up, I just I need to I need someone with me for this process polio, like those are the people that have the greatest success. And in your business, it's the same exact thing. You got to come and go fuck, you know what, and by the way, some of you you're in a position, you can't do more, you can't do more, even if you've spent more time doing some of the other things you are, you are just in a spot where maybe you don't know what the next move is. Or maybe you don't know how to execute some of these other things. So you stay sequestered away and busy with work. And that's more or less, more or less what it is anyways, you're kind of afraid to start leaning into this uncomfortable territory. But the people that come in and say just own it own your failures own where you're at right now say I need this to be better need to really want it, you'd be able to be willing to do whatever these next steps we lay out our Excuse me. And, those are the people that will have incredible success. But we've had, you know, we've had stuff where it's like, yeah, we're trying to get new members. And, you know, yeah, we used to have I put a ton of time into marketing to kind of scale back the marketing a little bit and I look back and it's like, scaled back and marketing. You've done nothing on social media for some of these words, almost two years, literally, like you've moved into a new location. And there's not even a post about your new location. I mean, this is not that you scaled back your marketing, you've never done it. And now you're just trying to tell me like listen, I know a thing or two about some things. And it's maddening to me, it's just like now I can't even help you in that regard. Right? Because I don't know much about copywriting. Why does your copy suck? Then why aren't you making more stuff? Why aren't you getting people attracted to you then because your copy is good? The most frustrating thing I have when we work with gym owners? I still say yep, I have discovered it's good. Okay, give me some stuff. Like just because the thing is getting done doesn't mean it's getting done well. And if there's a gap in say, the flow of you getting whether it's, you know, growth, interests on social media engagement, lead generation from social media, organic regenerations, paid lead generation, sales closing, you know, what I mean? Like internal sales, other revenue, other revenue, tears that you have, if that flow, if there's something in there that's not working, and I go, what about this? Oh, yeah, remember this good. It's like, well, fuck, now I gotta go chasing some problem is probably not the right one, or it's out of sequence. Because you just don't want to admit that this piece is maybe a deficiency that you have. And we want, very frustrated. And we
John Fairbanks 23:06
stay in my pocket. Like we stay in a very specific niche down pocket are the types of gym owners that we work with. And personal trainers that we work with, that really are starting to make that leap from that is something they want to be able to move to become more of this being a professional. Yeah. And they're ready to make that jump and make that leap and need a board of directors that are on their side. Because the fact is that for folks that want a scale of one to do big things like we have, there's people we know in the industry that are gonna do great, and they can do great things. And I'm gonna help you do lots of things. We know, copywriters that are incredibly expensive to work with, like, we know ads, people like you, there's so many pieces that we know, and we know them. And we know that part of the sequence so that we know Oh, this is where we fit. We purposely fit here. So when someone comes and says, Well, I want to do some work, or I want to do this, or I want to do that. And the truth is not there. The lie is just all that's told, it's like, well, then do we literally can't help you. Because we don't want you because it's from our perspective, you're actually here you are fitting right in our wheelhouse. And we think that we can do this, this and this with you in the next six months in the next 12 months. But if you're like Nah, no, I got it all figured out. It's like, well, then the only solution then is to go over to these folks over here, because we've got it all figured out.
Tyler 24:33
And we've talked about this with the sales process. Are you running a sales process? Do you have an app for your sales when someone comes in? How is that conversation going? Is that a thing that you have planned that you have built that you know what step one was step two, what's step three is what you put in front of them. What do you offer them? Are you just such a freeform, brilliant conversationalist that you can connect with any person that walks in the door and close them and make them feel comfortable. optimize the outcomes and give them the opportunity to spend the most money as possible so that everybody wins. They're invested, you're getting paid, there's a right fit for them that fits their wants. Can you do that every time consistently like, and that's just you? And then how do you impart that on the next person? And somebody else so that you as a gym owner can detach from that process and still get the same results from your sales from your sales team? Is that the thing you're working on? If it's not, then we say, Okay, well, you need to have a process. What does this look like to write this up? And I can always tell whether it's our process or whether someone else and we talked about this in our thing about giving people options and buying habits in the past about the offer stack, excuse me, gonna go snooze. Sorry about that. Well, we've talked about that in the past, and how I can always tell when you're lying to me. Because I can always tell if you're not offering people personal training, I can always tell if you're not offering people upsells into nutrition, I can always tell based on the outcomes, I can always tell, just like you can tell if someone comes in and says, Yeah, I've been on a diet, I've been working out really hard for the last three years, and I've just gained 40 pounds of fat. Well, I believe there's probably something wrong with your brilliant diets, or your training program, probably both or the fact that you're not adhering to either, probably has more to do with whatever those systems are, how deluded you are about it. And as a gym owner, how in the hell are we supposed to tune up? Is the money you're making from people coming in when you're just lying to us? But yeah, I really went through the whole thing. Bullshit. Because I know, I know these numbers, John, we went through the stats, how many people will pick your base, and it's like 20, maybe 30%. Tops will choose your main membership, if that's offered at the bottom of the stack. If you have at least three items above there. 70% of the people 70 to 80% will choose further up that ladder, meaning 80% of people 70 to 80% will spend more money with you. If you just give them the opportunity to not even sell, don't be pushy, don't be pushy, don't say no, this is the thing you need. That's not it. Hey, here's your choices. What do you think we also have the base membership here in the bottom two, if that's all you're interested in, take a look. What do you think, and you can just roll with that. And that will be like I said, two thirds, three quarters of your people will spend more money than then anyone you're closing right now. And that matters. But when a gym owner says, " Yeah, I mean, I'm trying, nobody's buying it. No, you're not trying, you're not doing it, you're just not doing it. You're not doing it. I know, I can see it. The numbers don't lie. The system doesn't lie. Like it's just it's very frustrating. So then what do you do in that case? Well, I'm going to not bother with this aspect of your situation anymore. Just like when a client is lying to you about what they're eating, and they start turning in, you know, they start omitting the fact that they're having ice cream or 16 beers a week. And their game, they just can't understand why they're not losing weight, and they're blaming your plan. Well, we've all been there too, by the way, and you just know, they're lying about what they're saying. Or they're omitting things that they're putting in when they are tracking their calories or tracking their intake. What can you do? Do you have to have that hard conversation? You have to look so to someone who's paying me money, I gotta look them in the eye as a man and I gotta say, You are fucking lying about this. Okay, you are the problem. And it's, that's a tough thing. As a professional, this is the difference. If it's someone, it's a friend, one of the things I don't have a problem with, as a professional, it's very difficult. Because if you go on the assumption that someone's lying to you, and you call them out on it, it's very difficult. Because in a professional relationship, all those things are quotable. You know what I mean? Every one of those things is what I gathered. So his nutrition plan wasn't working. And then I and then he just said it was my fault. But like, all that stuff starts getting twisted into something a little bit different. So you have to be careful when you are in a business calling somebody out for lying to you directly. And then how are you going to prove it? Can you prove it, it sucks. So it puts you in such a terrible spot as a coach you as a gym owner should know, then that about your business for the results to be the way you want them to be. You've got to exist and communicate about reality. 100% and less, it's about a cultural thing. And it's less it says you don't have to communicate like that fully with your employees and your and your in your membership base. If there's trouble with the business, if there's problems with the business, I'm okay with you delivering a unified front to your staff because you don't want them to quit because they think the ship is sinking. You don't want your members to think about jumping ship because they know, they see that there's problems with the business. So I'm okay with all of them. Things are great. Yep. I'm so busy, but things are good. Yep, yep, yep, everything's fine. That's fine. But when people are actually trying to help you solve the problems, right, and you're lying your fuck you're only fucking yourself over because guys like John and I will go okay, and we'll know your fucking line. And we'll push the issue a couple of times and the more and then from then on we just move on from that problem, which means that's an issue that you're choosing to leave on addressed in your business. And you do that too many times your business does not does not come across the other come out the other side.
John Fairbanks 29:58
Oh then and ultimately for So we just fired, we just fired. Like, it's, it's only like shaking. Yeah, it's kind of like the three strike rule. But I found that as we've worked with folks over the years and worked with people, it's not as long as you're working from the standard that everyone's lying. Right? You're never aghast. You're never shocked. It just is Oh, no, like, it's the standard here is that they're not telling the truth. So when they are telling the truth, that's actually a pleasant surprise. Yeah. So because you're always working from the stance of they're not telling the truth. What you do next is what's really important. And a lot of times, it's just preemptively anticipating the lie. So if you have because, because if the nutritional client that you described says they've done all the things that keep getting away, it's like, then honestly, you need to go to a doctor, because you probably have a tumor somewhere past your endocrine system, and you're going to
Tyler 30:52
perform, buddy, what's going on here, something is happening.
John Fairbanks 30:55
And so what like, and this is where a lot of times I like what I've seen when people are like, if you have somebody that comes in, they're an industry nutritional client, and you want to track like macros and things like that, those first couple of weeks to get themselves acclimated to where you oftentimes will see like a coach will want like, hey, send me photos of your meals for the first week writes me. And that's where now it's not like, now they're not being scolded, because you're a fucking liar. And two weeks in, I know you're lying. So now I need you to start sending me photos, you just do it right out the gate. And now that's part of the standard. And now you feel more confident that at least they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Like it's, it's another layer of accountability that gets built in. And that's oftentimes, right. It's what we do when it is the time for an audit that sends us your audit. For those first, that first week sends us every single day. I want to see what your day looks like.
Tyler 31:53
And the moment people start skirting that accountability, saving coach nutrition, people are missing some check-ins or you send some messages, hey, send me this. And they don't do it. It's them walking away from their chances of success. That's all it is. And you do need to communicate that in the beginning. Because this is the thing people do come to you in the beginning, with an honest concern. Usually, sometimes they're deluded about where they're at and why they're there. But it is an honest concern and an honest want, usually I want to lose the weight, and they just don't, what they don't want to do is admit that it's their fault. Okay, and you as a gym owner, you don't want to admit that it's fucking your fault that you're in the situation, that right now you're ill equipped for skills, you're managing your time very, very poorly, your ego is tied up into some shit, that's not allowing you to solve problems very accurately. And you're diluted in the way you're communicating with clients. And there's just a lot of fucking things that come down the pipe when you're a gym owner that like, it's, it's it doesn't, by the way, it doesn't stop anyone else, whether it is your fault or not, you may be doing a great job at this. But your business isn't performing the buck stops here, dude. So I don't know what to tell you.
John Fairbanks 33:00
It's the same trap that you've called out time and time again, that it's a client that pays for nutrition pays for personal training pays for whatever, that the dopamine hit that they get for having paid to solve the problem, oftentimes can be all that was needed. They just needed to have paid for it. We've run into this with folks that have worked with us that have paid us a lot of money, and then don't ever follow through, don't do anything. It's super confusing. Why would you have paid for it? It's like, oh, you paid therefore you think that that was
Tyler 33:41
your check box that that is the investment.
John Fairbanks 33:44
And the gym owners. It's the same thing, which is you've your gym, you've checked that box, I have opened the gym, I'm in my gym, I have all these things. So that box is being checked for you. And it's like, oh no, there's, there's more to this. That's actually when the game begins. And we're artificially kind of having that same thing. So being able to identify the traps that our clients will fall into. We can avoid the same traps we will fall into as gym owners and personal trainers in our own businesses.
Tyler 34:16
Well, one of the great things we have is one of my favorite projects we're working with right now is we forgot to hear Academy was launched in his gym. So his mood and his physical location. He's been coaching people one on one in small groups on the space but he's, he's in this he's now got his own facility. They open up to running clients there in the next week or two here once they get everything legally set up. And that project is great because there is no pre-existing bullshit. There is no pre-existing system that's tying up time. It is really what it is. It's a true zoomed out look at things that you're able to get right away. And for those of you listening, if you're thinking about becoming you know, either either getting into taking your personal training or anything that you're doing more seriously really turning it into a real profession, there's things we, you know, we can do to help you in the gear Academy, if you're looking to move into a physical location, really open a gym, whether it's group fitness, personal training studio, whatever that is. Man, that is the time to solve problems. It is not the time but it's very easy to get caught up in and we've talked about this before, when you get into opening a business is that all the problems you got to solve are these little superficial things that are in the way of you and having lights on and a sign and people being able to walk in? You know, that is the kind of problem solving that you do? Before you get to take your big first deep breath as a gym owner. Hmm, I've made it. So now you just made yourself a bed, now you got to sleep in it. And so that big shitty bed here. And so you need you just you know what I mean? Like this, this thing is not going to give you much comfort, until you start solving all these other problems that you have ignored because we start as a bootstrapped business. And that's the business I kind of prefer to work with a bootstrap business because that growth matters. It's a, but if that's the way you're doing it. That's how people start. That's how people get familiar with that busy trap. So people get familiar with things like, Yep, so I came in, and I put the floors down, and I did this, and I do this, and I wipe things off, and I'm getting ready for this. And I'm cleaning and I'm changing the lights, and I'm doing, you're doing all this stuff. And none of it is terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but it's work and it's work that needs to be done. And we find ourselves being distracted by that type of work. And that type of like just like mindless putting in a time box checking shit. And that's a bad habit to get into, then when you're not operating the business, you fall back on these petty little, I'm in the gym tasks, like you're just putting in time it's like a photo, you're not hourly. So start being efficient. And
John Fairbanks 36:55
Honestly, the biggest thing in that mindset, it's you don't know what you don't know. And that oftentimes where we're running into working with folks is that the issues that we have seen from having worked with so many people are typically the issues that you haven't even considered yet because you don't know that they're a problem. And the way just like said, being able to work with someone that's like Bootstrap and getting started where the ground floor allows us to be able to do now like, we just start, the foundation is built with these things. And now you don't have to kind of rebuild or build back into well,
Tyler 37:29
and in everything you do every day. If your business is operational, it's not sinking, every task that needs to get done is getting done. Truthfully, right now it is just the bare minimum, some of them are costing you money, time, members, opportunity, reputation, whatever, but they're all getting done. At some level of quality, however poor, however excellent, it's getting done. And in a business, what you need to do is constantly sit back and triage and go in which things do I need to level up right now which one and maybe I can't get taken from one to 10 like they get from one to five, very quickly. And this is to give you a perfect example, we were talking with our guy who's opening up. And this is a piece you've been open for a while you probably understand this concept. But when I opened my gym, I didn't get it because when I'm at my gym, I'm never going to be able to do any work. I'm hardly ever going to be able to work out at my own gym. Why? Because if I got a decent enough location, and people are interested in us, you know, if people are going to stop in, some of them aren't even interested in joining, they're gonna come in and go, This used to be a shoe store. And they'll just want to give you the old Midwest chat for a while. And that's wonderful, except, you know, I coach a bunch and I work at lunch. And I'm here. This is the only 90 minutes that I have set aside for me to work out and I'm in here by myself. And now I have to stop and I have to humor this person. Or even worse, if it's a sales opportunity. You don't let them walk out the door, you have to have that conversation. And it's tough. And I didn't realize how many opportunities I was going to miss out on or how many bad first impressions I was going to have. Because you never get the opportunity to make a better first impression. Right? Oh, second first impressions. So if you fuck that up if you're rude, or even worse, what if you're in there actually working? You're working with a client? Or you're coaching a group class? Right? Unless you got somebody man in your front desk all the time, like how are you? How do you handle that when people walk in the door? Do you sink away and hide? And just hope that they ignore it? You know, I've seen coaches do this all the time. They're just like, can't bring themselves to go and having a sales conversation can't bring themselves to detach from the group and just assertively say, Hey, I'm really busy, kind of get some content. They don't want to do any of this. Just kind of ignore the person till they walk away. That's like getting a walk down at a restaurant. That's bad. That is bad service. Okay. And I've seen that happen a bunch too. But there's little things that you can do to make sure you know that that's going to be a problem until you have the staffing right, having somebody there to manage that at all times. That's your level 10 solution to that right. You don't have the money, you don't have time, you don't have the right person. You don't have the interest, it's just Now's not the time. For that, can we get a level three, level four level five solution to that. And that problem may be as simple as, let me get a QR code on the door for when the doors closed. And that QR code needs to still. I still need to say, hey, if we're not here, scan this for more information, and contact us. And we'll get back to you as soon as possible, right. And then you should be able to contact anyone within an hour, always just with a quick response. We can automate that if you need to, as well. Absolutely. That's step one, you could also have that same QR code on the back of your business card that you leave up at your front desk. So that if you are coaching somebody in the middle of something, you can say, hey, this is what this is, this is what we developed when I was talking. If I was with another client, I didn't want to still be rude and say, Oh, hey, I'm busy, right? So what you do is the thing is you lay out your professionalism in this interaction, and I would come in and I would say, say, Hey, I'm working with a client right now, I don't want to be disrespectful to the time that they've paid for. But I can contact you, as soon as I'm done. Here's my business card here, just go to that QR code or shoot me an email, you can text me, whatever you want, I'll get back to you right away, we'll set up a time where I can give you my time, my full attention. Off you go shake hands, my name is Tyler, thanks for stopping in, and boom, you can still wrap them up, they're still impressed by you professionally, they're not turned off, they didn't feel like they walked in and got, you know, kind of just ignored or got shorted for time. They feel heard, they feel seen and that. But that is a simple thing. And for us, you know, if you're just about to open a gym, you maybe don't realize that you're going to be useless to a person who walks in the door most of the time, because you should hopefully be busy doing something that matters or not being in the building.
John Fairbanks 41:32
It's a simple solution. Because we've learned from my mistakes, we've learned from your mistakes. And we've also seen gym owners that have been gym owners for 678 years, that are making the exact same mistakes. So this allows us to be able to now work with our guy that's opening up his new spot. And this is not going to be a mistake that he makes from the very beginning. And that that is a simple solution that's learned from doing things the hard way. So you don't have to,
Tyler 42:01
Yeah, it's like our MMA gym, you know, then open for about a year and a half. We still haven't resolved that problem, the walk in problem and people not being able to get dealt with last week, right? Last week, QR codes got put on the doors. Last week, business cards got there. So again, I'm just a solopreneur working for myself. You know, you're coaching a group, you have an hour, you have all their attention, you can't stop and give someone 15 minutes. Even worse, as you know, sometimes it's difficult to manage if someone has an issue with payments or needs something sorted out if they come in during class, you got to tell them to kind of fuck off. Right? It's, it's the truth, even if they're a member. So you just got to understand that like, where are you going to be when people are coming for you? And how do you make sure that that doesn't cost you opportunities? How do you make sure that doesn't cost you the opportunity to make a good first impression? Because even if you can't deal with them right away, which is in a perfect world, yeah, you'd be able to, but that's we don't live in a perfect world. So how can we make sure that this works out? And those are the types of things like that level of just being honest about things. Now, this is a little problem that you can move forward with, right? And if you're having trouble attracting leads, we can address the 15 different factors involved in lead generation. And it can't be like I make social media. I'm awesome. Okay, then I guess we'll move on from that. And that's obviously that, I guess, yeah, so whatever, I guess that's it at level 10. I won't try to level up that area at all, even though I can look at it and say it sucks. You know, so I think it's important. So guys, as much as you want to outwardly put the things are going great that you're awesome, that everything is wonderful, you know, everything you got everything figured out, tell your clients that if you want to, you can tell your employees that if you want to, but do not be telling people that are here trying to help you that because it's it's gonna, it's just gonna slow the process, you're only hurting yourself and everyone knows you're lying. And it's important because you're going to look the same way as your client who comes in and wants to lose weight, and is lying about everything that they've been doing these last few years. Because it's just true. You know, you've been in those situations, you had those conversations. It's the worst. So that was my last cough for this episode, guys. Thanks a lot for listening. Make sure you join the Facebook group. That is the gym owners revolution Facebook group, we start rolling out we're gonna have a big upcoming challenge coming up, we're going to help you kind of be able to readdress like assess some things in your business on your own, you'll be able to walk through step by step we'll guide you through this whole process from everything from identifying your some of your best opportunities to make more money to building your offer stacks during learning how to sell and we're gonna roll through all this through this probably going to be free for you guys. If you're in the Facebook group. If you're not tough shit, you won't even hear about it. You're gonna get the opportunity. So get in the Facebook group link is in the description. Follow the show at the gym owners podcast on Instagram and follow me on Instagram at Tyler effing stone. That's Tyler eff ironstone and John at J banks f L. All right, guys. Thanks a lot for listening. And we'll see you next week. Later.