Struggling to Sell Big Ticket Personal Training? Here's Why.

gym, people, fees, business, sell, product, cheapest, clients, high value products, money, membership, owners, work, paying, week, sucks, explain, attract

Tyler 00:01
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of the gym owners podcast. This week, we're going to talk about the two things you're doing that are wrong, that are absolutely screwing up your ability to sell personal training, and your ability to sell anything that's really high value or expensive. So, John and I have seen a lot of this stuff lately as we start to work with some more and more gym owners in our gear academy group. And we want to make sure that we kind of share some of these lessons with you. So before we get started, get in the Facebook group, the gym owners revolution, link is in the description, if you want to get in the gear Academy, which is the monthly coaching business development product that we're working with gym owners directly every day constantly about the things they need to be doing this week, today, tomorrow to make their business better, helping them make the decisions help guiding them through some of these processes, giving them the resources that we have to make these next few steps and developing your business. very efficient, very effective, and all the things that they need to be to make sure that you can be successful, delivering your service to people, making your city or community a healthier place and doing it without being a scumbag and getting paid to do it. So all this stuff didn't link in our description. So let's get started though. John, I'm your host at Tyler Elphinstone. My co host over there is John at J banks FL Hi, John. Hi, Tyler. And follow the show at the gym owners podcast on Instagram. Let's get right to it. I don't have any ads, just our only answer ourselves. All right, so we've been seeing some stuff here. And we've been running through this as things we've noticed in gyms that I work with in person gyms that we work remotely with the gear Academy. We've been going through trying to help people with, like, just what their sales process is when somebody walks into your gym, what's motivating them to walk in the gym, what content are they seeing? Is social media physical? What is that client journey from when somebody piques their interest is piqued about joining a gym, the time they walk into your gym, the time they meet with somebody, and the time they get told what they can do and what they can buy. And then when they buy it, right? What does that process look like? And what I found you guys is a lot of you guys do some really fucking stupid shit about it. And I fucking hate it. I don't understand it. And I want to preface this whole part of this conversation that I know why some of these things exist in your business. And but for the most part, I think you don't. And I don't and I'm by the way, I'm just sitting here from the outside. And I'll be shitting on a few things, a few concepts that a lot of gyms do. But I do think you need to know that a lot of times the most common situation when we talk to gym owners about changing their products, their pricing, how they structure, you know, the explanation of their services. The one thing we have we work the hardest to get through to them as Jesus, just because you're doing it this way doesn't mean this is the way you need to continue to do it. And it's your business. It's your system. You 've I've watched remember that one of the gym owners in California, when we explained to them like, Oh, you don't have to do this this way. And it was this intro offer, it was kind of labor intensive, and they were giving a lot of time away to people. I was like this thing, people don't want to buy it. And when they do, like you're on the hook for a lot of time, like that kind of sucks. You can just get rid of it. And they went, Oh, shit. It's like a huge weight off the show. Yeah, and I want you guys before I dive in all this, you need to realize that anything that you're doing in your business that sucks for you, or that you think is wrong, or that or maybe that I'm telling you wrong, like don't, don't be married to a thing that is failing. And that just is not working for you. So just know like, just change it, just change it, give it a try. It doesn't matter business has always changed policies, McDonald's dollar menu and dollar anymore. Like I'm the only one that cries about it on his podcast every other week. But it's not that big of a deal. If you want to change your pricing, change your membership rates don't you know you don't have to fuck over everybody who's already paying. But if you want to double your rate tomorrow, anyone new that comes in and fine. Just do it, make that decision for you and for your business and go with it and then change it when you're wrong. So



John Fairbanks 3:57
I would say it's a lot easier to see it right or feel it and you may not know that your shits are broken. And so some key ways I know one is how you know something is wrong, is if you are consistently getting somebody that walks through the door, you give your big fucking spiel, whatever it is that you say on how you talk about your shit. And you get done. And you're like, damn, this is going really, really good. And you finish and you have this blank 1000 Yard Stare and someone's just and you're like, Oh no, like they didn't they didn't it was and then they're gone and you're like, God, where did i Where did I fuck up? You don't know what is going on? This is the episode for you. This is if you are experiencing that particular scenario. That's what we're diving into.



Tyler 4:45
I mean if you're if your spiel is very much about sports performance and high intensity fitness and all that stuff and you're looking at somebody who needs to lose 80 pounds and they don't connect to at all you're gonna get to put another podcast it's not around anymore the thought I was an island state. So that's what I refer to anyway. So let's get started here. The reason you're having a hard time getting this stuff done, right making sales, big ticket sales, converting people, if you think that very few people that are coming through your door are interested in personal training, whether you do group fitness, or 24 hour model, whatever that is, or just a personal training studio, there's something wrong purely from the expectation standpoint. And that is the first thing, the first thing that you guys are doing wrong is you're setting the wrong expectation. So everyone is coming in the door, is thinking you are about one thing, and then you're going to talk to them about maybe that thing, but then everything else you're trying to get them to do that you're trying to get them to spend more money for is not anything that they expected and very often might not be stuff that they ever knew that you did. Okay. And that is one of the first things we talk about is like you, if you're trying to talk about high value products in person to somebody, but all your marketing, and advertising, all the things you talk about are low value. Or even worse, if your core offer is a low value product, which is not, I say low value just relatively right, it doesn't mean that your access to your 24 hour gym is shitty. But it is a low value product. I would say the lowest value product and fitness is just access, right? I think we can all mostly agree with that. Yeah. So just know that if you're selling, if you're advertising is about a membership, if you're advertising very much about how do I put this, if your advertising is very much price focused, you're going to get price shoppers, and price shoppers wanting the cheapest thing now you're not going to sell someone, if you if you if you can do this great. There's a lot of traditional sales methods that can take somebody who comes in wanting to spend $1, or wanting to spend 40 bucks a month or 30 bucks a month and get them for two grand, that's fucking great for you, you want to fight that uphill battle forever and ever and ever. Even having a conversation with somebody about a $2,000 product or $1,000 product after they came in, knowing that they want the $40 product too and that's the only thing you talk about that feels bait and switches you to them. And you will get them standoffish about your whole thing. If someone comes and says I want to join your gym, I'm interested in a membership and you go perfect. We have our top option if you go that way, and you just go right into a top down process, like the way we prefer that you do. You're gonna there's this there's dissonance that happens that is not connected, we always talk about in the gear Academy, we want to connect one dots, two dots to each other, we can't connect one.to another to another. It moves. It's that you can't do it that way. So when you're advertising your marketing, in your ad campaigns, if you're what you're talking about on social media, it doesn't all have to be about your high ticket stuff. It doesn't all have to be about your high value services, but it should be somewhere in there. You do not want to try to sell high value products to people seeking low value products, you're just not going to have that concept we've approached from every angle we possibly can. But it just so happens that if McDonald's has a $40 ribeye on their menu, I'm not going there and I'm not buying it. Even if it's awesome. It's just not what I'm doing. You know, and and even worse, if they never advertised it, and I went there and the first thing I said is give me to McDonald's and they go, would you like to try our $40 ribeye? What the fuck no. What are you doing? It says that if McDonald's starts doing this, would you like to add lobster with that onto there? on their sides? Like people are like, how much is that? No, hell no, I'm just not what I'm here for.



John Fairbanks 8:37
That's why Long John Silver's is there.



Tyler 8:40
And so I think it's really, really more important than you need to say you need to just take care of trying to attract people who want something of high value. And to zoom back even further. If you're trying to sell high value products, and the only thing you're doing to sell those products is hoping that more people come in and want those things you're fucking up completely and you're just never going to move the needle forward on that. So you just need to know what you need to speak about so this is very easy. A lot of a lot of gyms out there say functional fitness gyms and 24 hour gyms. Don't spend any effort trying to speak to the value of their personal training. They don't have to spend any effort trying to speak to the results of their personal training. And a lot of them have personal training clients like even CrossFit gyms have lots of personal training clients. But all they talk about on their heads group fitness group fitness kipping pull, how



John Fairbanks 9:32
How many members do you have? Right like it's never like oh how many people your personal training is never a part of that conversation.



Tyler 9:39
How many members do you have because you want that it's the easiest number just yet? It's so that is the thing I think you need to start figuring out right away work on if you're not selling high value products struggling to sell high value products right now. Go out there and craft 1015 social media posts about your highest value products, your highest value services, right? You don't have to even be specific about the packages, but just like, Hey, did you know we offered nutrition coaching, we can do it for regular members. And for personal training, you just got to all these things, just mentioning that you are making a post hiring, saying, Hey, we're looking to hire more personal trainers, because our personal trainers are full, that's a great strategy to get leads for a personal trainer, right. It's also a great strategy to let other people know who is seeing your stuff that you do personal training, and the other people like it, and the people pay for it. And your personal trainers are busy.



John Fairbanks 10:32
It's completely changing, and you're completely changing the game on the expectations front. We're now the expectation. Now there's an understanding of oh, they do other shit here, I can do more things here. We've shared the story before, but you have the guy that's in you come across, and he's talking to you. And he's like, I have to leave the gym I'm at, because they don't provide personal training. And you kind of sit back you'd be like, and the way you tell the stories. And I know, I know the owners of this gym, they do it. And they do it. But this guy believes that he has to go find another spot, another place to train a totally different community and everything, just because he wants to spend more money, and he doesn't think it's possible. And it's 100%. The gym owners fault. Yeah.



Tyler 11:24
And the other thing is your ability to move people through your value proposition in the long run, you want people to rattle around through your products, right? Not everyone's gonna pay for personal training for their whole life, right? Some people may come in and do a membership, and move and do a personal training for a segment or do nutrition coaching for a segment. So they can, you know, hit the gas a little bit. You know, that's, that's the thing that people do, but they're not going to do it. If you don't ever talk about it, they're also not going to do it if you're only seeking the cheapest membership. And you're just only doing business with price seekers. And that's the thing that people don't get is I tried to explain this to a lot of gym owners is like you're by by by saying you're just selling this for a discount if you're making it about the price and that were cheaper or simply if your offer is convoluted, and we'll get into that later. You're going to be solely doing business with people who are fucking pain in your ass, we're going to pay you very little money and ask the realest shit ever. And we've dealt with this in every single business I've ever been a part of. John, tell me, tell me about the one with your own on the kind of larger scale digital product thing you were talking about the other day, the percentage of most awful clients.



John Fairbanks 12:36
When it comes to who you're dealing with on the digital side, or any client that you deal with, that pays you the least amount of money 100% of the time, takes up that 100% Those lowest paying clients are the biggest pain in the ass always, always a digital piece that I've spent a year selling and working in. And this tells you a major company, right worth billions of dollars. They take their existing sales people. And they identified that the long tail of all the clients that they have their entire portfolio, your top 5% of the clients that were existing, made up like 80% of the business, because they're big spenders, because they were massive, right there was the whoever spent the most they spent, like 100 plus times more than your smallest clients. And yet you had these American based salespeople that were in charge of everybody, there was no no difference between which clients you had. And it took these folks who realized it not very long to be like, Well, what we need to do is we need to grow call centers in three areas across the world, and sad people that are literally part like low minimum wage type people to come in, and they're going to take over everyone that only spends a certain amount of money or less. Right, right, like the most that they spend and the cut off. And then we don't allow our American base salespeople, we don't allow these people, they don't even touch them. You don't even think about them anymore. It was less money. The business saved money by literally hiring hundreds of people to now waste their time on small potatoes. And then they could have the rest of the sales staff be able to focus only on the top 5% of the company. And the company did better. Like beat every possible goal a year after they did that. So just shows it's you have to be able to have a way to be talking or servicing those highest paying people that you have



Tyler 15:00
Clients who choose your base option will always be your lowest value. Clients understand that they have, let's be honest, the least value to you and your business knows that. And that there is a like we just described a predisposition that people who are price seeking or just want low value products, if I want the product, that's the cheapest, I want only that I don't want it to be good, I am not choosing good, or having a good experience or having a higher likelihood of success, I am not choosing any of that in place of the cheapest I can get away with. And that may be budgets, it may be whatever, but that is still the reality of the situation. So the people that you're attracting with your low value offer, you're gonna have a you're gonna just you're you your salespeople, you're going to eat so many plates of shit, if you try to bring those in, and then work them up. And so let's get into the next piece. Okay, the next thing is true in the over is that process that you're doing that sales process? How is that going? How are your products arranged? And that is the thing that kind of brought this to light where John and I needed to talk about this, you guys because as I go through this client journey, right? If I find your system to be whatever, if I am interested in joining your gym, I got a little bit of weight to lose, I go through, I see your marketing, it says you got $30 memberships, or you have a $5 stuff today for $5 or some shit, you know, that's enticing to me, because I you know, only have $5 or whatever. And I need a gym membership. So that seems great. And so I show up, and I go through this and then what I was getting explained to me is just lots of stuff. Right? Okay, if it's complicated, if there's long contract lengths, for 24 hour gyms, this is the biggest one, I've seen this every single, every single 24 hour gym that I've worked with, does this and I hate this fact, like to my soul, stop charging people a card fee or a setup fee, or what have you here, purity, fear and initiation fee or, or whatever like, like, anytime you say the word fees, it sounds shitty. And it's and by the way, we're not tricking anybody anymore. Like you're just trying to cover your bases, and you're trying to cover your bases because you have a low value product. And then you don't want to get to make someone make, just make it be after they've bought everything. Say, Hey, and if you lose his key, it's 20 bucks to get it replaced. Just like that'd be the case. But you do not have to have $25. So come in Yeah, so only five bucks, Starbucks gonna be $25 for us to set up your key, then there's your activation fee, that's $20. And then there's this and then there's that. And then and then from there. From that moment, you're the fundamental thing that you're doing feels like a bait and switch. Because it said $5 is fucking fees that we all know are arbitrary. And by the way, you're only offering them because just because you started doing it, you don't want to undo it. Like it's kind of nice. It's a little extra boost. The math makes it just charge more for your base offer, please, if you need to get the $20 out of your thing. I'll tell you what you do. Okay, you can do this math. What is the average client and you should have this data hopefully? What is the average length that a new member comes in and stays with the gym just on average, once when you get a new close? What if it's only six months? What if, okay, well, we got to cover $20. So you know what? Your base membership rate for people starting tomorrow, there is no startup fees, there is no card fee. There's no security fee and no activation fee. Now instead of $44 a month it's 4725. And it doesn't fucking mean anything psychologically to anyone at all. Except it's easy to understand. And you're not the guy presenting them with fees, because being the guy dropping fees on a person just conversationally sucks. If it's $2 That sucks, I don't even know it's 40 bucks, but then it's $2 if that fee was $2 instead of 25 they still think it sucks. It doesn't matter that if you're going to charge that fee, make it 150 bucks that either you're paying or make it expensive. So it's actually worth the fucking loss of credibility that you that you experience when you do this. Because that moment if that sits anywhere in your shit, I gotta say those words to you to explain to you how that goes. Now what now I'm gonna talk to you about your goals. We'll talk to you. I mean where are we? We go from your goals to fees? Like nickel and dimming you and it's borderline misleading but I know that's not what you're doing. That's



John Fairbanks 19:39
because everybody doesn't like it. But what's crazy is as a consumer we all hate it. Yeah, well last time you ordered a pizza. You have a fucking delivery fee when you order any



Tyler 19:53
Tip. This tip



John Fairbanks 19:55
now this is the fuck you this is what this is. So many think that it's like, oh, I have a, it's everything. And if you step back and think about it from a consumer, you hate it as well. And you may not be realizing just like you said to others, as a gym owner, you may be doing this. And you realize that that's not what you're doing or you don't realize it. But if you step back, like, every single time that the price isn't fucking sales tax sucks, it's something sucks. It's not what I bought, I wanted a thing. It was $12. I have to explain to my kids, like kids are like, I want this thing. It's 999. So that means I have $10. So you got enough money? Like what do you mean, I don't have enough money? Well, because there's like this arbitrary fucking thing where they instead it's actually like 1005. And now you don't have enough money.



Tyler 20:42
Here's another tip for you out there, guys, parents, don't ever let your kids think the taxes are okay or normal. They should hate it at every moment. Because the moment you're like, it's just the way it is. That thing is death and taxes. Like the only thing I was uncertain about forever, is death and taxes. That is an absolute sign up to make you just bend over every time new taxes get rolled over and he's like. So just make sure to push back against that, make sure your kids are empowered to think that the government shouldn't be just taxing the shit out of you forever. And in the same thing, be like, You know what I would like to not jump in taxes, dumping fees on clients because of no reason. And you're not attached to this, this is the worst part is when I explain this to people, they go Oh, shit, because you're not attached to it, you don't, that money is nice to get up front, because maybe some of these memberships fall off quickly, but just bake it in bacon and bacon and bacon and you don't gotta raise prices on anyone else's through the door. And the weight. But the way the way this the reason this is the case, it's it's not even about anything other than it's complicated to explain and you lose, you're losing, you're losing when you're saying is what you're doing is you're you're giving up credibility you're giving you're cashing out a little bit here, anytime you got to explain this, this is the way it is, even after you've had, if you've had a very endearing conversation with somebody about their goals and about what they're trying to accomplish and about what's in the way, then you get to the thing, our top option has this right, let's say you're doing it our way, our top option is all these things that you described that were in the way of you getting your results, and we guarantee it 12 weeks upfront, or we have these other options that are monthly, each of them has a few less services than the other. Take a look, decide what you want. The point of that structure is that everything that they look at will mean they'll immediately go to their budget, what they're thinking of spending, right? And then they'll try to rectify that, between that and the products they want. Right? And if they can't read it, see it? Or have you explained to them in a moment, very simply and quickly what it is, it's too complicated if I gotta go, okay, but the bottom option, that's the membership, right, but then there's all these activation feet now you're, you're in a fucking trust hole, dude, and it sucks. And, and if you're you can be good and charming, and you can get your way around it you got the best way I've seen guys get around those things is they just they're almost dismissive about it, you, you assume that if you kind of give the person the benefit of the doubt that that money doesn't matter to them, you just kind of talk like this, like, yeah, and then we just have to start a feats and you just kind of move on and minimize it without trying to ignore it. That is the best way socially to get through it. But if you're trying to scale up your sales systems and have your coaches do some selling, or have a sales team, do your selling now. Unless they're aces, man, you're just you're setting them up, you know, you're you're sending them in with a dull fucking sword, and you're sending them into battle, or whatever, you know, your armor is missing and your shits broke. But good luck, you know, and then I'll be mad at you when you don't close higher ticket stuff. And so good.



John Fairbanks 23:38
They don't, you don't sell, you don't close, high ticket stuff. So whether you get mad, what ends up happening is that you end up getting it because you've already done all those things. You've tied all these dudes hands behind their back, and you've caused them to like to start way behind the starting line. When they're working with somebody, what ends up doing is that they'll close they'll just close the lowest fucking value thing that you have, and that you're going to think you got a bunch of fucking aces that are working for your business. Because man, they're just kicking all sorts of ass with crazy high closing rates. And that's the worst of all, is that you think you're kicking ass? And then you're like, Well, shit, we're still not making enough money. And our guys can't be doing any better. And you're so fundamentally off, you're fundamentally broken all the way back at the expectation step. That it's like, Dude, there's so much to unravel here. And the worst part is Tyler that if you continue to build systems on something that is this broken, that means you are building you are building a fucking tower on faulty foundation, for sure. You spent a bunch of money building up high and doing one day so all of a sudden everything starts to go. There's something that's wrong, and you don't know what it is and in order to fix it. Holy shit Get the amount of money that will take to fucking what you don't have to tear the whole thing down and build it back up again.



Tyler 25:06
Remember this statement guys? value should be easy to explain. Across the board, I should be able to tell you the truth. If someone says what is your membership? What does it cost for me to have a 24 hour gym? What does it cost for me to join your gym, or standalone membership is X amount of dollars per month. That's it. That's it. If you want to commit for a year, it's this, right you get that that's okay. But then you had a, you had card fees, and this fee and activation fees, those are just tools for you to waive when you like people who waive arbitrarily when you're running a promotion. But that's not the money's not real, just raise your price by $2 A month or whatever, who fucking cares, I just can't, you guys cannot don't pretend like you give a shit about that. And don't pretend like you enjoy telling people that stuff. It's not worth $25 to you. If I was a salesperson and I had to go in, if you have me selling for your gym, okay, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to tell people that it costs more, so I don't have to tell them that I will. I don't care, I'll just I'll completely because fuck you and fuck those fees. It's stupid. Because you're fucking everybody over and it sucks. So you gotta stop doing that value should be easy to explain. That's why we use our sales system where it's all about connecting. You make them say the things that they want to do in the timeframe, they want to do it in that you've kind of set already, what are you trying to accomplish in a few months, then you're gonna lay out very specifically, perfectly. A top option has the products that identify with the things that you said, you said Nutricia, and you said you suck at showing up to the gym? Well, personal training will get you there, right and you need commitment. That's what three, that's what 12 weeks up front will do for you. Its monthly options will get you there. And then all of it makes sense to them. Because they said it connects right to it. There's no weird fucking red tape or tack on shit to this. It can't be that way. Because it's complicated. It's just it's really, really, really complicated. There's a car dealership in town that I really kind of like, and they have kind of a network of other other car dealerships in the area. And they make everything super, super, super easy. And we bought vehicles for our business before going there. And it's like, Hey, we're looking for this and this. And he said, Well, let's see what we got. And they just send us the Viet send us pictures. What do you think of this one, we have this one at this location. I have this one here out of state, but it's coming in? What do you think? We don't really know. And it's what will get them both to you tomorrow. And they just bring them both on site. Someone just drives them to us. So we walk out of the office? I would kind of like this one, not that one. Perfect. It's okay. Yeah, it's dandy. I will take the other one back, we'll just send the paperwork. They just send us over some shit to sign. The bank handles the rest, whatever is done, but it's just, if I can buy anything with just this pen in my hand, just Yeah, we're good. Here's my ID. That's what it needs to be. It needs to be that simple. There shouldn't be anything else to explain. Just it can't be that way. So keep this stuff as simple as possible. Okay? Because again, the worst thing you're going to do is you're going to track someone with a low value product with an expectation of something that's $10 a month and whatever Wait, no act, it's no activation fee, no fees until 2023. That was gym I like. It was like no fees till 2023. But it's like those fees are arbitrary. They are and they're and so it's you go in and we're just not even talking about so already though. I'm Oh sweet. I get to save on what fees, one a fee. And then I get in. And now I want to be, now I'm going to be talking about a personal trainer, like you're trying to move me up, you already convinced me to move down, you convinced me that down was the direction we're going. And now there's momentum change. Because it's not about that, that what you've done by convincing somebody that they should come in because your new price is cheap, cheaper, and then it was cheaper than it will be in a little bit. What you've done is teach them like hey, low value, lower value, let's go lower value, and then you come in and start speaking to them about higher values. Like I'm not. I'm that's not what I'm here for



John Fairbanks 29:06
dude. Well, it's the same thing you talk about all the time about object fixation when you're in a fight. Yes. Right, instead of them, fixating on their goals, and themselves, what they want to achieve, and how you're going to help them do that. We're now just obsessed about how much money am I saving?



Tyler 29:28
And not paying? Yeah, when it's about a discount. What happens is is now there now it's like well, wait a minute, I thought we were thought we were fist fighting. Now you got a knife out. Shit. Now everything I'm doing is about this knife. It's absolutely about this knife and everything you're doing. Now we're wrestling over this knife. And that's the problem. And even if they're not saying anything about it, it just it costs you something. So let's talk about how to fix it. All right, and we've we've alluded to these things as we went. But let's talk how do you fix this right? First thing is on the expert lactations you need to start talking about it. Right? You just you need to talk about your high value products, your high value products should be attractive. Personal Training is great. It's a premium service, you get to work with somebody directly, one on one about you about your goals about the workout you're trying to get done today. How can you not sell that to somebody, you can't sell to people because you're trying to you're trying to attract low value people. So you're all you're singing is a low value song. Then you wonder why you get people with deep pockets aren't interested. The guy with some pockets is not going to the fucking the the junky the junk soul, junk sales used car lot, he's not going there. He's going to the Lexus dealership. Okay, and that's the fact. So can you sing a song that is enticing to somebody who actually wants something to be of high value? That's what you need to start doing. If you're not marketing? or doing any advertising or doing organic content? You need to do something, I don't know what, just cuz then then you're just hoping. So what are you doing to attract high value clients, start trying to attract high value clients, and you will sell high value products, stop trying to attract low value clients and sell them high value products, you'll just eat a plate of shit every time. And by the way, the real benefit of starting to attract high value clients is your life becomes a lot easier as a gym owner, you're not dealing with people who are fucking pissing on the floor, who come into your gym eating McDonald's, literally seen that twice this week, different people eating McDonald's in the gym, and then we're gonna or postwork it's, it's nuts to me, but whatever more power to you. But those people are spending two grand a month on personal training services and nutrition coaching and, and making things really easy on you, you know, so just you got to know that type of people that fucking leave weights. Do you think it's the wealthiest people in the world that leave their shopping cart in the middle of the road at the store? No, it's not, it's that some people who don't care about anything in their life don't care about value or leaving things better than they found them. And so you're choosing to do business with those people. By doing your bye, bye, they have a low value product, I'm okay with having a. Again, don't take this. Do not be insulted by this term low value, but it's lower value than personal training and high ticket stuff. So I think every gym should have a low value product. But that can't be the only thing you're trying to hook people to. And that's why you're having trouble. That's one of the main reasons, okay, so you need to fix that. Because your stuff needs to be when you start marketing your high value, anyone to come in high value people low value people, people just seeking results, think results, getting people results has high value. Now everybody will value those results differently. Some people may want weight loss and only can afford 40 or 50 or $60 a month and that's okay, this is the best you can do with your low value product at that point. Somebody who wants to lose the same amount of weight but has more money can put themselves in a situation to be more successful by choosing a high value product. So you need to sing about your high value product, you also need to sing about the benefits of that high value product to everybody in your marketing outwardly. Often, often, often, often, that doesn't need to cloud over the fact that you have great memberships and affordable rates, you have rates to fit every budget, we can get everybody results, but we have some premium products as well.



John Fairbanks 33:20
singing the song like you said, singing the song to people is what's really important. And just like you said, it's how you are then talking. If you feel like you're still hitting the wall and you're not, you're not saying the right god damn things. So you have to get reps, you have to get the reps in so that you know, how am I explaining this? Because if it feels complicated to you, or you feel like God, this is this is long, how I'm explaining this or or missus people are looking at you. And again, you get like the 1000 Islands stare, right? You get that forever stare, right? It's if you get that forever stare, it means you it's not their problem. And this is where you can become, you have to be. In order to be able to be a good entrepreneur, you have to have a feeling that your shit doesn't stink, that you really are good at what you do. And in fact, you're better at it. That's why fuck your old boss. That's why you're doing it instead. So you have to have that. But you have to also appreciate that your arrogance will also cause you to, as we say, eat a plate of shit on a regular basis. If you can't fucking step back and realize I'm fucking this up. This isn't because the person I'm talking to is an idiot. They don't understand what I'm explaining because I'm bad at explaining this. And this is where that constant exercise of simplifying what you're saying and getting better at how you talk about it. You have to talk about it more. The more you talk about it, the sharper you get, the quicker you get. And just like you said it should be one or two sentences, you should be able to explain anything that you do. And if you're not there yet, then you still are making it confusing. And if you never can get it there, it's because the shit you're trying to talk to them about is too fucking confusing, and you need to fix it.



Tyler 35:17
That concept is important because you need to be selling top down. Okay? Everybody needs to know about your highest value product, and you're never going to get someone wanting your $5 Bonus deal or whatever, come through the door, it's tough to then say, well, what are you looking to accomplish, I'm looking to accomplish a $5 gym membership dude, off that stuff you're gonna run into, like, I'm looking to get into your five bucks, but then you told me it was actually going to be 35. And now there's a fee and the card fee and some other shit. Like, I can't tell you what I'm looking to accomplish to get out this fucking conversation, that's what you're gonna get a lot. Okay. And so what you need to do though, is if you remove all that arbitrary nonsense you're putting in there, you can attract people to low value products. Again, like I said before, but when you get in the sales conversation now from that moment forward, right, if your offer that they got attracted to is directed about them and their results, and all this stuff, like I'd rather people come to you because you can help them than them come to you. Because they heard they can come to you for $5 or $10, or $40, or even $100, whatever it is, I don't want the money, the price to be the reason they came to me. So stop talking so much about your price and your advertising. If you do that, if you talk about results, and you know, the experience that they're gonna have and what they can do for themselves here, what you can do for them, they come here, we have lots of options for you. Something that will fit you to get to where you're like, by doing that you're hyper simplifying this process, actually. Because then you come in and talk to them about their goals to perfect, this is the top one, this is all the stuff you want or need. These other things, I've listed that tickler, what do you want to do, and this, they're here, if they were price shopping in the beginning and they want to price shop, they're going to look to the bottom, and then they're gonna buy the only thing they could have ever bought from you anyways, because that's what they can afford. That's probably the only thing you're ever going to offer them. And they're going to do it and be happier because you didn't dump a bunch of weird fees on their face. That's, that's a big one, it is just their trust with you should grow throughout the sales process not get diminished. And that's the thing I see very often is that they trust you less and less from the moment they walk in your door. And that's a big problem is the expectations don't fit, you need to sell top down. And this is a concept that we push constantly here, down, sell, down, sell down, sell down, sell, here's the best I can do for you. You said you want you said you want these things, this is what these things are? What do you want to do? Look at these, and they're gonna go right to their budget. But that down cell is the principle that we have. I need to always, if someone just says no to your top option, like you don't, you're not running through each one. So they're going to down sell themselves. So whatever they want, there's no reason to nudge them up. You just put them in a place to choose based on their buying habits, their budget, their wants and needs and their goals and their mood and their trust with you. But when you do that, that downscale concept is applied all the way to where when I get told somebody can't do so I only do personal training. When I coach people, I don't end nutrition and all that other stuff. But I'm not doing group classes and I'm not selling a product for myself that is a base membership or anything like that. So when I talk about that to people when I get told no, because they maybe they simply can't afford personal training, which is very possible. By the way, it's very likely that someone who wants the results I'm speaking of wants to lose some weight, and I tell them what it costs and they can't afford it. That happens a lot. Right? But then what do I do? So well, I totally understand that. I have two other options I can get you. Right, because then I know the budget, I know they simply can't afford anything that I said I can do, I can do like six months worth remotely. It's a workout bundle for intermediate beginners, and for some body building stuff, I can bundle that in with my nutrition coaching. So instead of spending, you know, fucking $2,000 for a week's or whatever, it's going to be like you can spend 500 bucks now, and you're good to go. Right? And you have a nutrition plan and I'll send this bundle of workouts that's gonna get you there. I can't really afford either the workouts and the nutrition plan. I can split in half, right? I can do one or the other. But now they've got they've like, oh, okay, okay. And instead of going trying to convince them why they should spend more, listen, if they've already told you know, there's still a reason trying to get to yes, I hate those sales taxes. I hate it. It's disingenuous, and it costs you trust trying to convince people sucks, so I can't afford it. You know, they're lying to you, then that's fine. Here's products that are less than everything on here, they can still get you because it's actually trying to help the person if they really can't afford it, these things will still help Off you go, you know, and that's it's great for almost everything that you do. Being able to down sell somebody out to someone is in your personal training, you can technically down sell them into a small group if you want but then that group is more profitable for you, right? I can't afford it. is paying you privately three days a week forever. It's like Perfect, let's go in a small group, you'll save half your money. But I got three other people in this group, you're actually making twice the money for those groups. So know that that downside principle is the key to the sales process thing. We've touched on this a little bit, but to fix it, it just needs to be smooth, man just needs to be smooth. What's it cost for me to do business with you? What are you looking for? That's a question you can ask, it's not more complicated, right? What are you looking for? I just want to join the gym, you just want to join the gym, we got personal training and stuff for you. I just want to join the gym. Okay, perfect. Membership is this you should be able to say in one sentence, so if you do have and I'm okay. If you have a longer commitment option, I'm okay with that right? 100 bucks a month. Or if you commit for a year, it's 90 bucks, whatever that is right that I'm okay with you. But you should be able to say that quickly. And that should not cost you any trust. Okay, I go to a fucking Airbnb and they charged me COVID Cleaning fees still, and they don't clean anything. That's insane to me. Hotels don't really do that. But they, what they do all hotels do now since the COVID stuff is they just don't give you towels or clean anymore. They still don't, we just we're just not going to service your room while you're here. And now it's because it's good for the environment or whatever. But like I feel underserved. Now every time I feel undeserved when I don't get new towels, I feel undeserved when someone else doesn't come clean the room. If I go to Airbnb, and they're like, Dude, I was in Europe, some of those Airbnbs get so far up their own ass, I had to sort the recycling, taking recycling is like living there. And when I used to live there, too, it was like, I had to take this type of recycling over to this corner, it's like a block away, right. And if you live there, it's fine. And then this type of recycling goes to this corner, and then the regular trash goes here. And I had to do that before I left and you have to wash the dishes. And then I'm still paying a cleaning fee that is higher because of COVID kind of fuck you. You know, it's and that's how they're gonna feel about you. And they may still do business with you, they may get them on that minimum, but that minimum cost you EVERYTHING that minimum costs you your upside, so don't give up your high ceiling upside, high ticket potential. Don't sell all that out for some fees. And don't sell all that out so that you can only advertise how cheap you are. Because that fucking sucks. Man, you're playing the wrong game. I do not want to be the cheapest business consultant for gym owners here. I want to be the best. I mean, I'd be in a place to be the most expensive right now. But I absolutely have no desire to be the most affordable person to work with. I don't care at all about being that's not that's not my jam. Do you know how much work that is? This is like we talked about your business, John, with the other business, you worked with his? Again, the people who spend the least amount of money are the ones who disrespect your property the most cause you the most headaches. Here's the other thing. Those are the ones that cost you your credibility towards attracting high ticket people. I'll give it a little thought experiment here. Okay. What if your gym was only $1 a month? These principles are, I would say, nearly universal. So let's turn the scale of price all the way down? What if it costs $1 a month to join your gym as a member to join your gym membership purely right? And you get a bunch of people? I bet you would really truly if it was $1 a month and there was no no and no headaches $1 a month for your first year. How good of a reputation is your gym going to have? By the end of that year? From the experience? What if somebody has extra money to spend and doesn't and is whatever it goes to your gym still because they like you right now. But you have now you have a bunch of $1 a month people in there. Is your high ticket the person who has the ability to buy high ticket stuff going to even stick around for that? No, because you're going to attract a bunch of people who are going to walk in, you know, smoking cigarettes in the parking lot coming in smelling like booze. We're in muddy boots on the gym floor. Like there's that type of stuff. We were in a spot the other day where someone was more like muddy shoes in the sauna dude, like, you know, who doesn't do that, people who spend 600 to $1,000 a month, they don't don't.



John Fairbanks 44:01
The gym that I trained at has a sign that's brand new that says don't wear your muddy shoes onto the floor. Is that crazy? Because all it is is a monthly membership. And just about anybody can afford it. So you just have to deal with those types of issues. So the other issue that you have to deal with is just to harp on, like the things that you know, or you're dealing with and you're not quite making the connection. If you have to, if you have to sell somebody and then when you break down what the pricing is like man, but I don't get paid until Friday. So I can only give you a little bit here. And then maybe I could get you to like it if you could charge me next Thursday at 6pm And then what I can do if that is what you're dealing with, you're charging too little.



Tyler 44:49
Yeah, this is the truth I get when I get this. By the way, that's the sole factor when I get a lead that comes from the gym, versus leads that I create external From my own brand and platform, right? My people know what it costs before we get too far into the conversation. My people don't like almost never asking me to split up the payments, it's all up front. Usually, they want to go monthly, it's whatever, but like they I can do it, I just don't necessarily offer it. But I bet I get asked that one out of every 10 times from leads that I create leads that I get from the gym from low value seekers. For my high value products, the first thing that they ask once they see the pricing and the arrangements is okay, can we split that up? Yeah, yeah, we can. Of course, I don't normally do it. But I will, you know, we can certainly do it this way, if you want. And so when you want to start, it's like, maybe and then you know, like when they have to delay the start three weeks, four weeks, because they don't have any money. It's like, why are you having this conversation about a personal trainer? Yep. Why are you even you know, and it's because like, we just think that everything costs $5 Because we're low value people, we came to a low value place. And that's it's really, really rough. I had one the other day that was, you know, a person wants to accomplish their thing. waived, which is their right to do like I didn't want to do any of the higher level service. I didn't want nutrition coaches, I just wanted to train. So one time a week, guys one time. At that point, I'm like, kind of a no. But I was doing somebody a favor. And aside, let's do this. But I'm gonna need like four weeks up front, like, you know what I mean, I'm not running payments one time, it's not worth my time to keep it on my calendar. That person then wanted, like five o'clock in the morning, said no. Like, no, I'm not gonna get a five o'clock in the morning for your one session that you're paying me that you probably won't get very far with. It doesn't put me in a chance to make you successful if that's what you're seeking. Because you're seeking the lowest amount of commitment that you possibly can commit to, and even worse than when I said, No, that's not going to work. And then it's what can we do with the next week, I say yes. And then when we can run the payment, the time they wanted me to run the payment was a week or two after our first session, because they won't have any money until then. And I said, that's not how that's going to work. So when you get the money for this thing, you can message me back and not, don't give anybody time, don't give anybody time on your calendar don't don't create a lot of space for the lowest value, people are going to create the most space in your business, they're going to take up a ton of luck and space, a ton of energy, and it sucks for you. It really, really, really sucks for you.



John Fairbanks 47:25
And what you're trying to sell them may not be what's best for them. And this is where you really can come from this. If you come into this and you think man, like these guys are fucking assholes not wanting to help the poor, right? And it's okay. Just step back for a second. And think about like, logically, if you have somebody that doesn't have enough fucking money, like $0 in their bank account, zero. And that's why they can't do your personal training service. They shouldn't be fucking buying your personal training service, but there may be they want to make a change, there probably is, as you laid out, tailor a down sell options, something that's not that most expensive thing where it's like, you know what, for where you're at, right now, we should probably start start here. This is something that is achievable. And you build on this, and this is something where it's like gives you time now, if that's the right thing to do,



Tyler 48:23
that's and that person would and that's the problem as it once they told me no, I don't want to do anything on the nutrition stuff. They only want what they know, what they want, and what they want. It's okay, but here's the truth, what's gonna help that person the most, if I gave you 12 week nutrition plan you're gonna pay for and then, you know, six months worth of remote workouts, if it'll fit your, you know, you can see you'll always have something to do in the gym. But again, they only are usually paying at that point, just show up one time a week because it means they'll show up and and again, they end once people usually forgo when they ask begging for weight loss, because it's important. And they forgo those nutrition services while they admit that they have problems with food. Know that they're very likely choosing to be unsuccessful, they're choosing to not make that part of the change. And you can do whatever you want with it. But like yeah, don't say again, this is a good example. I told you, I'm not working with that person. It's never gonna be worth it for me. And in the end, it probably wouldn't be worth it for that, even if no matter what I would charge or how little or how much it's just not worth it a person instead of spending $200 For one session a week with me or 300 It's almost 300 at that commitment because it's just too little not worth my time. But he's gonna who's gonna do that? Well, Christ just just make an actual commitment to yourself that if money is that tight, just make an actual commitment to yourself. You're better off spending that money to spend 300 bucks a month upgrading your food, stop buying the cheap, the cheap, low quality stuff and just and just go buy THAT 300 bucks and buy the highest quality meats instead of the cheapest meats that you buy. You can stop buying processed foods and find a way if eating healthy is expensive, which it's not. That's a lie. It really isn't. If eating healthy truly was expensive then it is more expensive than winning that battle with that money. Because that's what's gonna get the weight off. Yeah, me for 60 minutes a week is stupid.



John Fairbanks 50:08
But if all you're selling is one fucking thing, you don't get to do the right thing. You end up just being somebody that's trying to churn and burn motherfuckers. And now all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, well, I mean, this is, this is all we got,



Tyler 50:20
we better start tacking on fees than to make it worth it. Because these people keep pissing on the floor, and I gotta have the bathroom cleaned twice a day now. And that's the shit you start running into. So, guys, that's got to be wrapped up, got us wrapped up today, I hope we covered everything. Yeah, this is an important concept. This is the thing that weaves are universal across all businesses. It really really is. Expectations are key, your process should be simple, smooth and easy. If anyone is confused, when you're explaining to them what you can do for them, it's your fault. It's your fault. Either the expectation was wrong, or the process was too complicated. Always remember that. Explaining value should be very simple. should be simple. And everyone should understand as soon as they read. I should know why. It's awesome, right? Why is this car kick ass? Why is this car 100,000 hours? It goes really fucking fast, dude. It's not that a little fast, a lot of fast. Right? That's, that's, you know, but it's an oversimplification. But I do think it's true. And stop being cheap, and start being awesome. It's really important who doesn't give a shit about being the cheapest, I would really like you, maybe you can't be the best. Maybe you don't want to be, maybe if you're just kind of a Down Home Place, but be the best for the people you're trying to attract. And that's the difference. What is the best is defined very differently for different people. But you need to find a way how you can be the best for the people that you want to attract. And if you want to only attract low value people you don't get to complain that you're having a hard time selling big ticket stuff. Or that your gym is really tough to manage because your clients suck. You know, it's it's, it's tough. And if you're not selling personal training, it's usually those reasons so keep it simple, guys. Thanks a lot for listening. We will be back next week. Make sure you go to the link in the description to join the gym owners revolution Facebook group. We're going to be doing some special episodes here in the next couple of weeks for some of our martial arts studios, grappling gyms, striking gyms and stuff. So obviously they serve surveys out to all y'all real soon if you haven't got one. By the time you're hearing this, shoot me a message and I will send you one so we can kind of figure out what types of questions issues you guys are having because we now have, I would say at least a dozen gyms at somewhere between eight and 12 gym owners who own martial arts studios and combat sports gyms in our network. So let's get rockin 'and rollin'. Thanks a lot for listening. Everybody go to the go to gym owners revolution.com If you want to get into gear Academy, the gear Academy is the spot if you wanna start working with us right away, we can make your business better make you better as a CEO, help you with your decision making and execution help you with processes whatever else it needs to be. We don't sell systems, we don't sell CRMs, we don't sell all that stupid shit. We're just gonna help you help your business become more awesome and more profitable right now. So if you want to get started gym owners revolution.com Links in the description for that follow up at the gym owners podcasts on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler effing stone on Instagram Tyler eff ironstone and John at J banks f L. Thanks a lot for listening everybody. We'll see you next week.