How To Launch New Programs and Products In Your Gym

build, gym, sell, product, coaches, nutrition, people, launch, give, work, clients, owners, program, john, marketing, run, business, talking, existing, good

TTyler 00:01

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of the gym owners podcast. I'm your host Tyler stone over there's John Fairbanks How are you doing John?



John Fairbanks 00:06

Hello Tyler,



Tyler 00:08

guys, today we're going to talk about some launch strategies whether it's launching a particular product, a program , an add on a challenge, whatever it's going to be within your gym. We've touched on a lot of this stuff in the past, we want to get into some very specifics on the way that we think that you should go about developing deciding what a product should be, how you promote it, how you roll it out how you sell it, and then how you build on from there. So today launch strategies 101 Is your topic of the gym wars podcast before we get started, make sure you go the link in the description join the gym owners revolution Facebook group, all sorts of good stuff there we got a community gym owners that are kicking ass, if you want in on the consulting side of what John and I do you want us to work with you directly. You can go to John gym owners revolution.com Got it. revolution.com Nailed it, nailed it, run a few iterations, we have many URLs that all lead to the same thing. So gym owners revolution.com There you'll find a gear Academy, we also have some couple different levels of that but where we can help you with your business, develop from where you started, where you at now to where you want to get going, step by step, piece by piece, no slimy shit not us coming in telling you to strip everything down and do it our way. It's going to be your business done your way in a way that's going to work for your clients. And in return make you money while preserving your reputation. If you listen to the last episode, we shit on a lot of the other products out there that don't do that. So if you haven't heard that, well, you better go back. So follow the show at the Jim Morris podcast on Instagram, you can follow me at Tyler F and Sonos, Tyler EFI, and so on. And you can find John at



John Fairbanks 01:47

John Fairbanks, f L on Instagram.



Tyler 01:51

All right, before we get into product launches, launches in general, want to start with one thing here first, though, you don't always have to build a new thing. I want to lay that as the groundwork for this John, John and I put this further down in our notes. But I think you know, I want you guys to know that it's very often when we start working with gym owners is will go you know they have some room or they have something else that want to launch or, or just whether it is something simple like nutrition coaching or specialty group a club, high ticket item a challenge, whatever that may be. With that starts getting on your radar, the worst thing I can see is when a gym owner just starts seeing dollar signs. with it. It's like oh, this time sissy. And it's, it's never that simple. It's never that easy of a thing, sit in your gym and operate and sell every year, that becomes a factor that we really want to take into account here with this. And I think that it's really important because I see a lot of gym owners that Chase, build a new product, you do all this work to try to promote it, you try to sell it, maybe it's underwhelming, maybe it doesn't perform that well. Or maybe you're just having a hard time drumming up interest, whatever it is that makes it not successful. That's usually your fault. It's yours either and how it was conceived was conceived without demand. And we'll get into some of that stuff later. Or you simply put too much work into it in the beginning when there was not going to be anything out of it this first round, not much. And that's always the issue is you're gonna front load some labor. Anytime you build anything new, the work is going to happen in the beginning very much so and it's going to be unrewarding work financially. So you want to limit that as much as possible. And so we'll get into making sure you know how to do that, how to preserve your time or giving yourself a good chance of succeeding with this project. So



John Fairbanks 03:35

I think a big piece to that we've seen Tyler over the years is that you oftentimes will think either the idea is bad, or the idea was good. Like there's so many variables that come to doing something for the very first time. So you have to be able to sit with it and test it and live with it. And be able to kind of go through the process that we're going to talk about how you go about launching something because the launch is important because you got to get off the starting line because there's a lot of coaches and owners that we've talked to over the years that have tons of ideas that they never put one foot in front of the other to actually execute on it just stay good idea.



Tyler 04:12

We've seen two primary issues with this: people go too many ideas too fast, too many things, or ones that have too many ideas and don't do any of them. And that's usually the issue. Too much action, nothing ever really gets finished and too little action as you just sit for the first two, three years in a row you've got nothing new going on.



John Fairbanks 04:32

In my in my years of working in the marketing side specifically when it came to like building out websites or building out a system or a process to be able to take a customer through you know, a journey quote unquote, putting things in front of them like it's that those series of webpages, those series of things that get built out a phrase that got used a lot inside of my circles was like you're just one funnel away to getting a million dollars like you're One webpage build away. And typically what would happen is when people would get started, and they create a product, or they start playing this game, they make a bunch, like you said, they get super distracted, and they build a bunch of different things. They're just like, well, if I have 10 items that are all moving in the right direction, then I'll get to my goal number faster. And what ended up being true time and time again, and oftentimes mentors would be like, listen, instead of trying to do this 10 different ways, go back to what you have been starting with, like, what is the main one that's the most successful and sharpen it, like, keep going back to it and keep testing it and testing it and redoing it and seeing how you can continue to perfect it. Because that was typically all that was needed, it was like just a couple different versions, or a couple do overs of testing and retesting, the same thing that was gonna make the difference, that people have that shiny object syndrome so badly, that you just never stick with it. Because then it gets boring.



Tyler 06:02

And there's a lot of catch 20 twos in this conversation that we're gonna have where we say things like, fail fast, go build whatever we're gonna say, then move on to the next thing. But we're also gonna say, you do get to kind of sit with things and let them give them some time and don't give up on him immediately. So, don't worry if sometimes we're speaking out of one side of them. So all right, let's get in where we start? So let's just run through a hypothetical thing. And this is something we're running through with one of the gym owners' secure academy yesterday. The first thing one of the fundamental principles that John and I like to adhere to when it comes to launching any product, whether it's nutrition coaching, and all the stuff we described in the beginning, is an inside out strategy. And that inside out strategy means you're going to sell to the people you already have first. And you need to do that first because they already have your trust. First, it's very easy, but you're going to sell people within your gym, inside out. And we're gonna go even, we're gonna take that even further as far as how you actually craft the fulfillment of this and, and how you build layers and layers and layers and use that for promotion. But this concept of selling inside out is super important, because I see so many people trying to use a new program as an attractor as an external attractive product to people. And I think that's okay. I don't think it's the worst idea, I just think that if an idea kind of sucks, there's nothing worse than bringing in to say it's a specialty class or something like this. And you bring in new people from outside, and they're the only one you sell to people who sell or it's, or it's small, or it's, or maybe the fulfillment of the thing that is not quite that tight. And that's someone's first experience with you. And they don't have this other background of trust, or aren't coming to your gym for other reasons already. They can put your brand and your reputation in kind of a really tricky spot. If you're just trying new shit on new people.



John Fairbanks 07:45

It's tough, you would never do it, if you were a coach, right? If you're a personal trainer, you're a coach, right? If you're gonna roll out a new set of programming, or you're gonna test something out, like, we you never would just blindly be like, I wonder how bad this is just gonna fuck everybody up and have no concept of what you're about to put people through. So don't do that in your business either. Like there is a proper order of things. And typically, that's where it's going to start, right? It's like you, you want to be able to start testing within yourself or like, Hey, this is my idea, and I want to roll it out. And then a really safe bet of being like, all right, it's because it becomes an echo chamber, unless you're with people like us, right? Unless you're with someone that has got your back or you have a really good network of people that you can truly bounce ideas off of. And they can give you honest feedback, and not just be Yes, men that are just gonna be like, oh, yeah, no, man, that sounds great. Or because your mom likes your mom's the worst person to talk to you about any of your ideas? Yeah, she's like, Honey, that is the smartest thing I have ever heard,



Tyler 08:47

or this character inherently because of the risks. either yes or no, there is no filtering done with that process at all. And it's important, right?



John Fairbanks 08:57

You have to be able to filter it and you have to be able to trust the feedback that you're getting. So outside of the echo chamber, that is yourself, you then the next probably safest group is going to go to your coaches and start testing this idea. What do we think we are with this?



Tyler 09:11

Yeah, so let's just use the nutrition example if you're going to launch a new nutrition coaching product, because it's just easy. Now again, this can work for specialty programs, challenges, whatever, it's going to be a challenge or nutrition. I like all of these things because they're a fixed timeframe. First off, so that's kind of how I like to have this boxed in for the sake of this conversation. But if we're gonna go through a nutrition coaching product, what I'm gonna do is the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to change the way I eat based on whatever concept it is I'm selling, right? If I'm trying to sell all right, I'm going to eat carbs only at this time and I'm gonna eat this many calories and it's going to be for weight loss and then I'm going to train this way and this many times whatever the criteria is of actions. I am going to take those actions personally. And I think you can also probably recruit your coaches in this same step if you like if you have staff and but in a perfect World, yeah, you'd be doing it yourself, you'd be having some success before you waste anybody else's time. But if you're in a hurry, drop it on you and your staff at the same time. I'm cool with that. But you and your coaches go through this process. But you need to also start, it can't just be the execution of the what's the word of the thing, right? There also needs to be something on the fulfillment side, meaning, okay, if I know, I got to tell all these people how many calories to eat, how much protein to eat, and what these guidelines are, that now gives me an opportunity to make a first draft of what that communication is going to be. That also allows me beforehand to give a first draft of what the intro email and stuff like that, maybe, Hey, guys, we're excited to get started, here's what you can expect. And boom, boom, boom. So now you start to have your communication stuff being built as you go, but you're not doing it multiple times and wasting it, each one is a refined version, so that by the time this is in front of your customer, your clients, it's slick, it feels good, it's tuned up, it makes sense, it seems like a product, it's valuable to them so that their expectations of value aren't subverted as soon as you sell them this big ticket product, and they get one email with five paragraphs telling them what to eat, what not to eat. That's it. Now, this is what I fucking paid for. So you can start to tune that up as you go. You're gonna require for your coaches, specifically, anyone who's doing this in the beginning for free, they're gonna have to do the check-ins just as though they would if they were doing the actual product. And that's very important to know. So you can start to get that communication structure built and going, they'll start to do those check-ins, you'll get a feel for the gaps in there. And now your fulfillment side is starting to get tuned up. It's not a loose mess that you're doing on the fly. And especially one of the worst things I see that happens when people don't have it kind of laid out ahead of time. What happens is, then they kind of lose momentum. I've seen a lot of eight and 12 week programs that almost fizzle out where they barely have a defined end. And the end we get to we'll get to that part later on. But, but that is a very, very important piece of this part is it can, you can really make it feel like a decent premium product as you go through because you've taken this step. Now during the check ins, everyone's gonna need to take photos, even maybe more so than they're going to need, then you're going to have your average clients take, right because you need proof. And for your staff, you need to know like, Guys, we need to adhere to this type, because I need this to work. Let's get yourself these results, that ends up being very good social proof right off the bat starts with you then goes to your staff. If you have one on one personal training clients that are interested, you have some of those I'm okay with giving it to, they've been around for a while maybe they're looking for something, I don't mind letting somebody in on a beta program for free. It's kind of what I've done in the past a little bit. I also have some people that if I know that if I let them in on it for free, they won't do it, then I will charge them. And that's usually how I do it. Because I don't, I don't want my initial launch of this thing to suck because somebody didn't care and wasn't truly invested. So that's usually kind of that one I'm 5050 on depending on the person. But that's I'm totally okay with that, then we're going to run it through some one on one clients, and you're gonna get their feedback as a consumer. What was this like? How did this process go, all of this does not need to take terribly long. So let's say this is eight weeks of nutrition coaching or 12 weeks, or whatever it is, you don't get to run through the eight or 12 weeks before you move on to the next step. You can get a few weeks ahead and understand what that's like. And you can and you'll have that first few weeks tuned up. Next week, week four will be starting to be tuned up and next. So you can start running people behind you just staggering people's introduction to this product. So that every bit that gap from group one, group two, group three, doesn't need to be 12 weeks, but that every time that gap comes across again, that's the time in which it's getting tuned up, filled in, cleaned up better and better and better for it. Because eventually this is going to be unleashed on the masses.



John Fairbanks 13:55

You Yeah, and all you're going to be doing with your existing life, once you get out of that one on one phase, you're going to go ahead and launch it. Really what I like to do is you launch it first with your own internal people. Yes, like existing clients get the pit, you go through the whole nine. Now you have your marketing language, you have testimonials, you have the language that people have given you that feedback, because their words are always going to be infinitely more valuable to you than anything you could have thought up, even more valuable than somebody you're going to spend time with. You could pay a copywriter $5,000 For a single page of copywriting. And the very first thing they're going to do is I need to talk to your clients, because they're not going to come up with the fucking words.



Tyler 14:42

And I think this is how you're going to get your language right. This is when you talk about how you're going to sell this thing in the future and how you're gonna sell it to anybody. This process that you've just gone through now is how you sell it. Because when someone comes in says, Well what is this nutrition program? What is this extra nutrition pro Why should I buy this nature? Tell me what it is. And if you start saying, Oh, it's holistic ketogenic, they don't give a fuck, nobody cares. But what you say is, you know, it's a program we saw that we liked a lot. So I started testing it on myself, I tested it on all of my staff and ran through this program. We've had a good group of good beta testers that have gone through this. Now, these are the results that we've seen from this, it's we've had lots of success proven within our gym, me personally, to my coaches, and my clients with this, that is the only you need to see that they need to hear that they don't need to know what they need. They don't need to know what type of nonsense is going on with this thing. And that works for almost every product. By the way, as long as you have some results and testimonials to lean on at the end of that one sentence. That is the entirety of your sales pitch for this product. And it's very if you if you can't say that that's where you find people rambling on about what the fucking product is.



John Fairbanks 15:52

It's like, it's like somebody that lies, right? Yes, the person that's lying, usually talking too much. Yep. It's like, Oh, why are you over explaining this?



Tyler 16:02

Oh, yes, because of the oxalates. And the, you know, and most people are lacking is like, shut up, they don't care, they just don't care, they want to know that you think it works. They want to know that it's worked before. And they'd like to see or hear a little bit about it working. That's it. So that ends up crafting, haven't just gone through those steps that all of a sudden makes it pretty easy to sell. Because you're not talking like, it's not something you brought up out of the blue, that's just like written down somewhere. This is actually the process that you went through. So you can explain in a really quick, concise, authentic way. And it works really, really, really does work to sell that way. After that, right, after you've got everybody in, and you're able to start to market this internally to your existing members. That language that I just described to you that goes out in emails. That's it, if you have email access to everybody, you need to have a multifaceted launch strategy. First off, we were talking with a gym owner the other day, and he was saying, Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to promote this product internally, like there's one singular best method. And I'd say, well, that's not how any of this is going to work, right? Some people are going to be sold very quickly and easily via conversation in the gym. Hey, did you know we're doing this talk after class after session? Whatever that is, some may see a poster and come up and ask you for a poster in the gym, a poster above a urinal that might be enough to sell me. Others are going to need to see an email, and maybe another email and another email and another email that they never respond to. And by the fifth time they go, oh, yeah, I wanted to do this, they wanted to do it the whole time. But that's when they bought some it may be an email, and then a text message. That's a reminder. So you're gonna need to come up with like, you need to cover all your bases. Anytime you're trying to sell anything within your gym, you have to cover all your bases. And you need to understand that everybody needs to hear things, different ways in different amounts of time. And it's always more of those things that you wish they were, know that. So if you feel like you're talking about selling new products too much, and that every time someone just ignores you, you don't get a sale back on it. That's like a waste of your time. That's not true. It's just the name of the game



John Fairbanks 18:07

is the game of attention. If you really step back and not get so butthurt. So quickly, you realize how many things in your life are trying to get your attention on any given day. Like it, just everything is the name of the game is getting your attention for whatever their thing is. So we've become really, really good at ignoring and putting up blinders. If you live like where I lived in Florida for a number of years, there is a stretch of highway called 19. And down 19, no matter where you were on this stretch of road, it had, I don't know, hundreds of billboards. I'm talking like, every block is five billboards on the right, five billboards on the left face in both directions. So it just was a place where you just no longer saw anything above here in your periphery, like it just said anything above your head, you just didn't look at. And so what you really needed to do is pay attention to what did catch your eye, but it just was you, you just blocked it all out.



Tyler 19:13

Yeah. So as you get to start rolling this out internally, that's going to be how you're gonna start to make that noise. Now one of the nice things about is if you have some of your existing members that have gone through, say, some of your one on one PT people, or maybe you've run a small beta test through this, those people should be talking and looking different, looking better, feeling better, whatever telling people about it. If you do let anyone in, say a few people in a beta testing group, that's one of the criteria I'm gonna let you in on this free. The criteria is you have to do it, you have to check in the moment you stop. I think you're not doing it. We're pulling the plug completely. I'm not wasting any time with it. Then I need you to talk about. I need you to get there to get these results. It's important. That's the only reason I'm doing this for you for nothing.



John Fairbanks 19:50

There's a mistake that I'm hearing that I hear often. And this is going to be when we start to conflate or combine these two concepts, word of mouth is always going to be your most successful way of getting a client. Hands down period. A lot of you will probably run businesses that are running at 90% or more of the people in your gym are coming from referrals and word of mouth. But do not mistake that success to be something that can replace marketing and advertising. No, it's the worst thing I hear. It's an insane premise, because of the point you just made. Tyler, which is the idea where it's word of mouth will get somebody be like, oh, oh, yeah, but they fucking call you because they saw. Exactly.



Tyler 20:46

Yeah, yeah, it's all I've heard about you. That doesn't mean that lead is a word of mouth. I have not heard about you. And then I saw your shit over and over and over and over again. And what I heard about gave me some trust. That wasn't a conversion very rarely does. Oh, I heard this, Jim. And it's really nice and cool. Is that the final motivator, the final step? And that's what good copywriting good marketing usually has to do is make that one last nudge. And so yeah, it's my one of the most frustrating things I hear is like, oh, you know, we get most of our clients from word of mouth and like, Well, if that's good, then why are you so desperate for more money and more clients right now, like, it seems to me like that's covering what like, this is a drop in the bucket. And a bucket, this the only god damn drop in this bucket is the problem. And it gets really frustrated with his, because I hear people use that as a way to just abandon marketing expense, and a way to ignore having to put any real effort into what their communication and messaging is outwardly, whether it's social media, the Google business page, whatever, whatever their whatever marketing strategies they're doing poorly at. They say all well, we're just so good at word of mouth, it's like, Well, it sounds to me like you suck at almost all of it. Right? If you're only relying on word of mouth, and then nothing else, because if your word of mouth was so good, man, just your regular marketing would be so successful. Everybody in the world would be sitting around there with word of mouth, especially locally, because you guys are local businesses, right? If the word on the street was you guys are fucking awesome. And everyone gets great results. And it's great, great, great for the great value for the money. Okay? All it's gonna take is one good offer and people will convert. That's it people will be so close to converting it is so close to walking through your door and getting started so close to responding that your actual marketing then will kick so much ass when you actually do it. But it's not because very often those things aren't as good as you think they are. It's just the only thing that you're doing.



John Fairbanks 22:36

And if you're not at capacity, right, if you're not turning people away, you haven't raised your prices three separate times, and people just don't give a shit that keep common. It doesn't matter. And you're full to the brim, and you can't, and you're making more money than you need to and you're more than happy and you fucking just you've living like the top 1% of 1%. Then maybe we can have a discussion. Yeah, but you're not there. So until you're there, it's important that the rising tide is important. Like you have to be hitting all of these points from all these different directions. Because it's really dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. Yes, to where it's like because, okay, great, well, this is work. And all of a sudden, it's if it stops working, if you know all of a sudden, you don't get the leads, and all of a sudden, something funky does happen. You have no clue what to do next, because you've just over leveraged your entire business on this one way of acquiring new clients. So the number one reason why you don't do it is you cannot allow ads to be your only way of getting new clients. And even



Tyler 23:43

worse is they don't, especially if you're relying solely on word of mouth, which I'm about a word on the street should be awesome about you, if you're doing that's the thing that John and I rely on, or that we emphasize a time. So your reputation matters more than we do. I think we place higher value on that than almost anybody else in this industry that you're gonna order. So it's important to us, but if you're just going to rely on that, like I'm awesome, people tell other people that I'm awesome. And that's that, like, just know that then you're not actually learning any, any good copywriting skills, you're not actually going to start to develop any of these systems and tune any of them up in a way that when you do want to launch something, internally, whatever, like how does that go when it's from scratch? So when you're going to do something new, what do you do, where does that go? Oh, I don't even know how to send you an email, I suck at writing copy. I haven't spent a couple years trying and refining and trying with my coaches and all this process that we described. And then everything that you're going to do just go is like hinge on the fact that you used to be awesome, or whatever. And that's not going to sell a new product. That's the big issue. So if you're gonna roll something out with this, like everything we described, right, this thing is gonna allow you to scale the fulfillment. You don't have to build completely from scratch, hoping that it's going to be a success. The biggest thing that we find in all things is that if you build it, they will come is the dumbest Shit. And if I ever hear anybody apply that in business, I think they're a fucking moron. I'll tell you right now, if you build it, they will come as a psyop made to keep poor people poor. It's all it is, I'll just sink all of this into making my thing. And the problem is the thing that you make, if it is not built based on constant feedback that is aligned with consumer needs, consumer wants consumer interest, which is always changing, the product that you will have put everything into in the end is going to be misaligned with those things. Just like that idea. If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat your door down and beat a path to your door. That is also bullshit. There are better mousetraps and that other model, did you know that there are many, none of them are near as popular because they're more expensive by the time they get to market. They're not marketed well, and it's not what people just think of when you think of a fucking mousetrap. So in the end, if you're going to build the thing, it needs to be constantly in tune with that, which is why you hate to say it, but build as you go. That's it. Or you just know, really deep pockets and you can build an entire thing. And it can be a dud. And you can reskin it in alignment at a complete point, but most of you don't. And that's the reason we don't pitch that way. I've seen many businesses do that type of stuff. Or they just throw a whole bunch of money at a thing and it sits and loses zest for six months. And then it kind of gets rescanned and rebuilt. But you can't afford for you can't afford to launch losers.



John Fairbanks 26:25

No. Because you probably are running your business off duct tape and a prayer anyway.



Tyler 26:31

Yeah. So leaner than most.



John Fairbanks 26:35

And this is why we speak out of both sides of our mouths. Because when we say fail fast, it's in the process of learning testing, reiterating the next phase of it like that has to happen quick in the model that we gave you, that's how you can do it.



Tyler 26:53

And those are microscopic failures, that program is not scrapped. All these little microscopic failures start to continue to get you aligned with what's going to work best for the consumer, what's easy to fulfill, what makes actual goddamn sense, because your first idea, it's never completely in tune with them never is.



John Fairbanks 27:10

And this is how you leverage that trust and leverage. Just how you go about launching these things, you can protect it, so that you never lose your reputation in the meantime, and the other guys are going to put you in a position where it is they're going to have you go really fast really, really quickly in a particular direction. Because they know it works. They know it works and oh shit. They have like 1000s of people that they've worked with. And they know it works, because it's worked for them. And I saw the testimonial. So I know this is the way to do it. But what you don't understand is that if it's not built the right way, and you do not do this the right way. In that right sequence, you will burn reputation in order to get there. And will you get there sure, you'll get there. But the cost will be so much higher, and it will not be realized until later. Yeah. And so this is what allows you all these things. And this gets you to the point where it doesn't have to be perfect. Just because somebody has a swipe file just because somebody can give you all the emails just because they can give you all the words that you need to say all the marketing and everything done for you does not mean it's good. Yeah. Just



Tyler 28:27

then the worst thing is, it means that it was good for somebody. But who knows? The truth is he views your people. When was this by the way? You know what I'm saying? Like, you could have sold a lot of shakes, Shake Shake Weights 15 years ago now you'd be a goddamn fool. Okay, so just, yeah, it's, that's my biggest gripe is that is it skipping this process? I think you should have this process down pat. That's why I think it should be very easy. This is your launch thing for anything. And if you have PII, obviously, you're the gym, or you get to the point where you do have some staff that can help you with some of this stuff, or whether using VAs or consultants like us to help guide you step by step through figuring out what your perversion of this process would be and what these actual outcomes for each of these steps, what your emails are going to be what all this is, so that you can know you're making reasonable decisions along the way. Like, then you're going to be just fine. If this is the thing you're doing, but if you're just winging it, letting somebody else drop their own shit in your lap, and here's turning it out. That's not you. It's not your brand. It's not your people. It's your, it's not designed for you and you're going to. I've never seen it not catch up. And the new ones that we've worked with directly that have used those things. I've never seen it not catch up to somebody.



John Fairbanks 29:39

No, no, we know this. We know the steps because we've worked with a lot of gym owners that have done this the right way as we've worked with them to do it. But we have also made mistakes. Like we've, we've done this the wrong way personally. And I would love to contrast two examples of where we did this the wrong way, and then we did this the right way. Yeah. You kind of show it.



Tyler 30:04

Yeah. So one of the ones for me is like the first thing here. Crafting anything without a demand is tough. You can get the right now I'll tell you this, some of these ideas, I think there is demand universally, because it's required. If I've said this before, if you're not offering some sort of nutritional coaching or nutrition planning for your clients, and you are an American who lives in America, where people are, what is it 70% of the people are obese? Trust me, there's a demand for it. If you can't sell it, it's because you suck at selling it or you haven't done it and haven't proven it to be successful. But trust me, in my opinion, nutrition coaching, in some way needs to be a part of every single fitness center that exists that gives a shit I guess, about clients getting results, truthfully, that there is no way there's been no greater truth that I have learned in my years of fitness and you can't outwork a bad diet. Everything will work until it doesn't. And that's the thing that does not work for very long, I'll tell you that. So that having done this, the other will be the right way here, which is if we're going to launch a separate product nutrition, in my opinion, you need to figure out how to fulfill How to Sell it'll be the demand will be there, especially for new existing clients, new clients, whatever, you're gonna build a standalone product. I'll give an example of something I built, which is essentially a muscle building product. It was based on concepts that I knew worked, right, the call the concepts that I had been using, but I've never really assembled in one cohesive system, right. And so I was like, Well, I think if I take this layer that I know, and then this layer that I've been working on, and a little bit of this experimentation to tune it up. That's what I think it would look like. And I know it would be fun, but it would be very, very, very optimized for gaining size, unsustainably gaining size. Like literally, I have to warn people, like you can do this for six weeks, maybe 12. And then you must do something else for a while or your shit will just fall apart. Okay, but it works for gaming. So that was my prediction. I did it myself, my wife worked on it with me and just went through that program. We tested a lot of the concepts in isolation before that, right. And then we rolled it out to a few people that I was working with doing some remote coaching, because I wasn't coaching on site at that time. So roll it out, sit here, try this guy's stripe. But the criteria of getting it for free was they had to give me body scans, they had to give me tons of data, they had to check in with me the whole time. Well, in the end that was proven wildly successful. Now, because of that, a lot of our audience at that time was CrossFit folks, which if you know anything about CrossFit people is they're all small. I mean, I tried to cry, but I can count on one hand, how many people in the years with that organization that I found and came across, they weighed over 200 pounds. So it's all wanting to gain size. And every time we do a nutrition thing, it's not you so much you're not getting so. So when we went through this, I knew there was a demand for this, because they all talk about building muscle and none of them ever build any muscle, right? None of them build muscle. So we rolled it out, sold it, and it was wildly successful. So basically, as many are more than we can manage in one shot. That was easy peasy, super easy to do. Because I already had the data, we already had the demand, I had already done it, which meant I could easily define what it was. And it didn't have anything to do with what the concepts were that was in it. I was like, it's crazy, you're gonna get huge and it's the best way to gain muscle. It's fucking hard. I guess a lot of stuff that's like couldn't be put off to someone who's not interested. But I didn't need people who weren't interested, I already knew that they were and that makes it very easy to sell makes it very easy to build it, but the tone of the thing, all that build up to it, the product itself existed and still one PDF.



John Fairbanks 33:52

One thing that I really liked though, was you're talking about the build up, because you had those people you were testing, you were teasing it yes, on your Instagram, never teasing it as in like, Hey, I'm gonna have a new program that's coming out. Like it was never a hard sell. It just was some new shit that we're trying to work on. And then it was like it was just just sharing, essentially sharing the journey as this thing was going to be built. Because it wasn't built yet. Yeah, it didn't exist.



Tyler 34:23

To go to the flip side of this at one point A while later, we were told to launch a different one, which was oh, let's do a bench press program. And I was pretty hands up on the thing, right? It was just because I can bench press said, here's the thing about this, and I didn't. I didn't necessarily want to make it. Right. And we got to the point where it was like, you know, we had sold a handful of them but in no way it wasn't terribly successful and you don't want to know why. For the same reasons I didn't want to make it: CrossFit fools don't bench press dude, nor do they want to if they did, they'd just be bench pressing. They'd already be doing it and they'd be doing some other stuff. I just knew that that did not fit within the market, the problem was, because that one was rushed. We had to do it quickly. There wasn't really even anyone to beta test it other than me, which already got a big bench. So what's the fuck good does this do right? So then it gets built from scratch, branded from scratch, and then it doesn't sell that well. And you've built, you've wasted many, many, many hours and tuning out to try to crap by the way the product itself worked. The worst part is it had all of the makings from beginning to end built. And it's the worst way to do it. And John, we've learned that lesson for multiple things from selling online courses to gyms launching stuff. If you need to start with an actual demand, start with a few people who want it and do it with them. Because that's one of the best things that I've seen in a long time, which was like, do it and then sell it is great, do it, sell it as you go, like, like, just start doing, don't build it completely, just start doing the thing, sell it. But what's even better is sell it and then build it. It really is selling and building my very first like one on one nutrition in the current iteration that I have now. Somebody needed nutrition coaching. So I wrote them an email twice a week with what I wanted them to do. That was it. And I did that for 12 weeks. And then in the end of that, like I could have run somebody through the same product two weeks in, someone else could have been running through the same exact thing, here's your principles, here's what I want you to work on this week, and there would only need to be a few revisions made. And because of that, I did not have to build an entire nutrition consultation product from beginning to end. Five just did it. Yeah, not for free, I was paid to make it. And because I was paid to make it. I didn't take as much out of it, of course, because I was being a little more thorough. But for the time I put into it I put way more time into that one person than I normally would have. But it still wasn't that bad. And then in the end, all I gotta do when someone else signs up, trigger these emails to go out every Monday and Wednesday. That's it. And then it's completely hands off. And so that's that's, and that's the first version of this. And then every time someone comes through, I get a better idea. Someone's already paid to do it and I go, Okay, well, let me let me give them this. And then you keep adding layers, and I'll have a pretty comprehensive product that's pretty slick and easy. And it doesn't take me anything, it's one and done. I said I spent 20 minutes and I sent it off.



John Fairbanks 37:25

And a lot of the you can use this for you're going to have personal trainers, you're gonna have coaches that have areas of specialty, right areas that that they may care about, there's a really good way to go about building a program or concepts around something that they like to do, which is really important write it, the fact is you you want to have them want to do it. And there's a bad way to do it. So there's a good way and in a bad way, the bad way first is going to be I just love to run. Okay, well, I'm really excited. Tiffany that you love to run? Does anyone else in the gym want to run more? Is a running club something that's of any interest? That's an easy question to be able to get answered. You could probably do it in three different ways and have it figured out within the next two weeks. Yeah, do people want to run? And so the difference of we've watched people build running clubs, or build specialty programs or clubs or whatever, inside of a gym, where they're just, they've just like, well, the person really, really likes to do this, the coach and I need them to feel like you know, they're involved and that they have some opportunity, whatever. And what it ends up doing is it fucks that person over. Because then they Dennis is like well ends up all the problems that happen are attributed to the wrong things for why it failed.



Tyler 38:46

Yes. And that's the worst is if this comes from your staff having an idea, and they're not getting it from the members. Now the staff has this idea, you help them launch it, you do the branding, you market it and it doesn't work, is it you visit them. And it's really it's the whole system just wasn't aligned, and it wasn't gonna work no matter what. But if you skip those steps of establishing that, who actually wants to do this, not just who says they want to do it? Who says they will pay, then do you understand the ratio that falls off that exists there, which is the people that say they will commit to the people that actually do commit? That becomes very, very, very difficult. And it's and that's it. The perfect example, John, for this situation is if you have a coach who wants to do a running program, have them talk to their own clients, things, go on a few people who you want to do let's like, see if they'll just do it. Just running through you run a pilot group, just two or three of them. See, you know, you don't have to waste a bunch of extra time. Just tell them the things that you need them to do and see if they'll do it. And then we'll know what it is. They'll know what it is. Someone can verbalize what their experience is. And we can talk about the outcomes and then from there, there's already social momentum social proof going on then within your gym about it.



John Fairbanks 39:55

Because if you let your coach come up with a great idea. You know this because you've talked to them, I promise you if you allow them to do this, and you say, well tell me about the program, they're going to how are we going to, you can even say it just like this. How would we want to market the program, and I fucking promise you that they're going to spend the next 10 minutes talking to you about the programming of the program, the exercises, the splits, what we're doing week one, how we're going to do this, what movements we're going to do, because I can't tell you how many conversations I've had now with gym owners about this, but with personal trainers and coaches, because that's what they do. They don't know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to actually selling the program. So they just stay balls deep in what movements they're going to do. And you have to protect them from themselves, and ultimately protect your business,



Tyler 40:50

because they will make the most boring sales pitch ever, ever. Which is why, you know, there'll be very easy low hanging fruit, if you can say, I'm gonna do a running program, like to help you guys get better, you always have to coach them to that point even. But once they get a few, then you're just fine. But yeah, that's very, very tough. And also coaches will design a program around the programming, and that it's cute, and not around an outcome. And that's when it's one of my greatest causes of frustration when a coach becomes a gym owner, because that's how gym owners start to communicate all of their external marketing. And that's why I don't also like, not a big fan of having coaches manage your social media, as well, kind of for the same reasons. They just start talking about shit that nobody cares about. And most people just want to lose 20 pounds just to feel a little better. And you're in there talking about the fucking how to squat this way versus that way versus that way versus this way. And these people don't even know these types of people, especially people who aren't already in your gym. I'm going to guess the purpose of your marketing, the purpose of all of your stuff is to get new people to do business with you. And you're talking about shit that Jesus 5% of the people who already lift and have lifted for years and know all of these variations, even have any interest in the content that you're talking about. It's the most delusional shit I see. All over the place. So how



John Fairbanks 42:09

Low bar and high bar squatting and arguing about which is better is really important.



Tyler 42:14

Talk to me about starting to talk about Yeah. Yeah, you know those things as you as a coach, it's your job to know it's your job is to tell people what they need to do so that they can get what they want. We're trying to stuff your uninteresting interests in their heads, it becomes like listening to somebody who's special talking about trains for the 50th consecutive time. And you're like, Okay, I appreciate this. This is it, buddy. Very passionate. So yeah, so that's kind of where we're at. John on the worst, we want to get her I think we've got most of that covered on the launch strategy. In general, right. That's how you craft it. This is how you build it. That's how you launch, that's how you promote it, the next step guys, is then you can start to sell that internally. And this is or externally, I'm sorry. And this is where it can start to get folded into your offer stacks, because now this is a product that exists that theoretically, could it have a start time and end time for any the words like Hey, everybody, enrollment closes at this for a specialty Class Letter, for say, a weight loss challenge or a nutrition program or, say a club that's ongoing, no, that can exist as part of your sales process. Some of them can land in my nutrition product program for sure, can land on your offer stack absolutely should be integrated in there. So if you don't have one in there, I just gave you the full steps on how to build craft, launch, design, and promote and get some good reps selling nutrition coaching within your gym. And now you just slap that onto your office stack. So when someone comes in, they can choose All right, what do you want to do? This, this plus nutrition coaching, this plus nutrition coaching with a 12 week commitment and guaranteed results boom, problem solved. And that becomes your most rudimentary basic offer stack where finally you guys people might actually choose to spend more money with you.



John Fairbanks 44:09

If you combine this with what episode it was, make the most of the gym members you already have. So we released this couple of weeks ago, maybe last week from or a couple of weeks ago from this recording. This is how you start to launch. We talked a lot about how to be semi-private and how you start to launch these things within a particular theme or concept for your personal trainers like this partner is very well to that concept. Yeah.



Tyler 44:38

So start with you then start with your coaches. Then go into a few people inside your gym before you start shining this stuff all over the place. John described this as a cascading level of trust every bit of proof that you have that you've done this with. It makes it conversationally very easy for you to talk about. And it makes it I don't know. I just think it's ironclad. You're not too? Are you guys looking at anyone selling anything you can know very quickly that they haven't done it, they haven't, they don't know anything about it or that they simply don't care about it. Having spent a few weeks with a product and trying to implement this with people that are close to you, it makes it so easy to sell. And then you're not talking about what it is, you're talking about what you've done with it, and what that program has helped people accomplish. And that's great. If you try to launch anything without having done that stuff. First, you're just the guy talking about features that nobody cares about. So keep that in mind. So anything else, John, I'd say you just continue to cover the don't build yourself situation here don't build too much. We covered a lot of stuff about building. Don't build too much. I know we touched on this in the beginning. But that is one thing that we see is that shiny object syndrome is you're going to build a thing new, that you're going to want to do another thing. And if that doesn't work, you may lose interest halfway through the thing, because you don't have much of a boom, you pivot, you cannot constantly be building. So while we say, you know, you need to have something new, you need to fill out your stuff, you cannot always be creating new things, because it's just too time intensive. And people feel like they're getting hit up for shit too much. Because there should always be things within your gym that people are being offered, whether it's supplements, whether it's all your existing products, you should have some sort of a seasonal flow. You don't want to be throwing too many things at them too often, because that does cost you your reputation as well, if you're building too much, and none of them are good. So build something, stick with it, try to make it work. If you start with demand, you'll be more successful. And that's usually the issue is someone makes a thing out of the blue, and then it's a dud. And it's like, well, I'll make another thing out of the blue. How would you make something that somebody wants? Well, how do I do that? Ask them what they want.



John Fairbanks 46:46

And 90% of you. Yeah, and the fact is at least 90% of you don't need more things. Right? The issue has Tyler never ever so when we bring you into the gear Academy, the very first thing that we're going to do is we want to look at what are your services? And like, what's everything that you're selling? What are your products and services? And then how are we selling it? And then how can we make sure that we're maximizing this to be able to allow you to be able to make money, right? proper amounts of money. And we never, ever, ever are adding anything new. Because all of you that we've spoken to at this point, you have everything you need. It's just so scattered, and so disorganized. That is all that needs to be done is man, this, this needs to be brought in, it just needs to be sharpened, it needs to get more efficient. So efficiency is what matters. Everybody else is going to try and sell you more and more and you need to be doing this new thing. And then you need to get this app, and then you need to start infusing this and on why aren't you doing it, it's so many new things that every time you ever build or put anything new, the amount of variables that you now have to navigate increases the complexity that's in your world. And that's not the name. No, you didn't have the time, no one has the time.



Tyler 48:07

No one has the time either. You very likely don't have the time to do the things we describe for you today at all, even once through, which is why this is as streamlined and as low on time as possible. So that at least beginning to end, it's not this massive amount of work for some questionable outcomes, it can at least have the best chance to scrape out a win in the beginning, and then have a system that can be successful over the long haul. But the last thing you want to do is just sacrifice a shitload of time and go ah, and then your only option is to do it again with something new from scratch again. And that is a huge way to just lose your ass to feel like you're losing all the time. Those are rough phases for gym owners. This is a rough lesson for gym owners who learned the hard way. And we've



John Fairbanks 48:49

watched him owners that have become addicted to building. Yep, it just means I need more money because I always need more money. I need to build a new thing. I need to build a new program. We've watched even with virtual businesses, where it's all their business, all the money that they make is virtual. It's like, well, I need a new I need to sell a new program, we need a new template, we need a new whatever that we're going to sell. Because that's going to be the difference maker. It's like why don't we just step back and then refine and sharpen what we already have. And just kind of live in this space for a minute. Because we will make it because we already know it works. And that's where a lot of what you already do, you know works. So stop trying to add more shit and let's just make it sharper and sharper and more effective, every new opportunity that you get. And it limits the amount of brand and reputational damage along the way. Which is like you said at the beginning. It's really paramount to us. That's what we do. It's possible to



Tyler 49:47

make something that sucks. I want you to know that. Right? And this is one of the best things I learned kind of on the creative side of things whether it's design video, whether it's writing, whatever that is you do is it if six one months from now you don't look back at what you were doing six months ago and go, then you haven't made any real progress, your understanding has improved, your skill set has improved. So just know, like, I look back at the coaching and training I was doing three, four years ago. And like, ah, you know what I mean, but you do in the bathtub, what you have at any given moment. So just know that in a year, you'll go back and go, Oh, I will do I would have done this differently. And that's the whole point. But it's very possible to build something that sucks. Make sure you protect yourself throughout this by using this process. Because this gives you feedback throughout the whole way through so that you know what doesn't suck, it starts with someone who wants it, then it starts working. And then you make sure it works. And you get feedback on what people like and don't like on a small scale. And then poof, it works. And then you have a thing that can be successful. And then you're going to continue a year from now you'll look back and go, I know much better ways to market this. And then you apply those skills to this program. So it doesn't just become a thing that sits and stagnates and becomes just like those old swipe files that some other schmucks want to just dump on you, right. This now stays current and evolves with you as your business as your skill set as your marketing acumen. As your product design and your client base may shift as well. So yeah, this is not that hard. Stick with it though. Okay, because it is worth it. Just don't do too much. That's us talking on both sides. This entire episode. Do this. Don't do this. Oh, don't do it a lot. Don't Don't do it. Don't do it too often. Thanks for listening to guys who already follow the show gym owners podcast join the Facebook group at Jones revolution links in the description. You can follow me at Tyler F and Stoney find John J. Banks f L Get in the fucking gear Academy guys. Let's go we got a few new gym owners in here right now. Boy is to start kicking ass right now they're getting through that first phase of things where it's like, you can start rocking with him. So if you want to get in on some of that excitement, give your gym a really really nice path towards some serious upside in the next year. shoot us a message or go to gym owners revolution.com and get started right now in the gear Academy. We got options involve us helping you just guide checklist accountability, all of this stuff to begin with marketing Facebook as up to a complete nearly done for you kind of with you version in which we apply your branding or everything to and that's a bit of a bigger ticket than a lot of our that a lot of you guys who are worried about what you're going to do in this episode we're going to be able to swing, but we have products that can fit almost any budget for a gym owner who's trying to make something happen this year. So get in there. Thanks a lot for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week.