Friday, September 15, 2023
gym, people, coach, social media, business, clients, great, owners, reviews, john, testimonial, talk, supplements, google, sell, pay, money, week
Tyler 00:01
Alright, gym owners. This week, we're gonna talk about we kind of cover a lot of things you guys do well, often kind of a little bit, sometimes we get to come on here we have shitting on stuff and shitting on gyms out there that kind of do poor that we want to say we want to open this episode by saying that a lot of the gyms specifically the ones that we work with, the ones we're interested in working with are the ones that do a good job and actually give a shit. First and foremost, they care about serving their clients, they they are good coaches, they do build great communities, or at least if they're not a group or community focused gym that they do have an impact in their local community, when a nice facility that fits the expectation of their clients, like if you're a gym owner, and you do that, want to make sure that you pay attention to this episode because even gyms that do well can improve on a lot of these things that we're going to touch here that was just like kind of the lowest hanging fruit, the most consistent things that we see even good gyms suck at even people where they're fundamentally good at their craft are still almost like leaving a lot of opportunity, money, opportunity to impact their community. And just leaving a lot of that on the table. So we're gonna cover kind of the lowest hanging fruit of how to make a good gym better on this week's episode of the gym owners podcast and if your gym sucks, and it's a bad gym and you're broke and your clients HATE YOU, these things will help you as well. Okay, so if you're struggling, this will make a bad gym better too. So let's get started. Before we start, make sure you get in the Facebook group. gym owners revolution links the description if you want to work with John and I Hi John. Sorry to introduce you to Fairbanks all of our listeners out there. Tyler I'm the one who talks too much and and get in the Facebook group links in the description and you can make sure you follow the show at the Jim Morris podcast follow me at Tyler effing stone you can find John over there at
John Fairbanks 01:52
Jay Banks FL on Instagram.
Tyler 01:55
We also have gym owners revolution.com We have the gear Academy. We coach gyms that we work with directly year round, making good gyms better, making great gyms greater, making awesome gyms significantly awesomer. So this week, we're gonna get started. We do a lot of outreach to gym owners, one for market research, right? We go out there and we talk to a lot of gym owners directly. We message them directly. We have also gone through and we research it, run through their social media and do a lot of background. We also then send out surveys to get Data Fair, what's what gym owners need, what they need in each market. And sometimes we come across some conversations that are alarming. How far behind some gyms are, then sometimes we are really, really surprised within the, in the grand scheme of things, there's a lot of stuff we see when we kind of run through it like a quick audit, right? And that's what we're going to get into today. The first one John, you had we we reached we reached out to a spa the other day, amongst many, many others just saying hey, we've, we do a handful of different things. Here. We have a bunch of resources, like if you're interested in sending us something for free, because we have stuff on subject A subject B subject C Subject D and I guess if you're if you get if you're listening and you're interested, so I shoot you a message. You know, if you're interested in I mean, what are the what are the main I mean, because we have some content built and strategies built for this that we as we do some outreach we'll give one of these away to anybody who kind of asked what does that list John right now
John Fairbanks 03:23
We came from because we did like you said, we surveyed for three or four months, we just hit the pavement really hard and wanted to just survey just general gyms like, Hey, tell us what you're working on. Let it be totally anonymous, totally anonymous, we don't want it, we're not hitting you up. We're not mining shit we're not trying to sell anything, we're truly just like, we know what we see with the people we're helping now. But let's talk just generally. And so when we did that, we found that folks were either struggling with trying to get new programs launched, either they were struggling with social media, they needed help with whether it was referrals or testimonials, or we love Google reviews talking about a lot. Hiring was super, super popular. And then I saw a lot of times depending on how long a gym was in business for sometimes they got even more niche down where it was, I'm trying to remove myself or like supplements I want to bring in this new thing. So that was kind of that was the gamut. So that's what we decided to build where we're just like, alright, well, we already have a number of these things built out for the gyms that we've worked with directly. But there needs to be a place where we got all this information essentially for free because people were just kind enough to answer a DM and then fill out like a five question survey. It's an easy give back for us. We truly are trying to be able to help because eventually if you want to do business with us, then that's the tip and we would love to be able to work with you because everything gels and it's there. Otherwise, you're just not going Who the fuck is going to immediately do business with someone be just cold. Like that just isn't going to happen. So for us that's like then there is no attempt to do that. And that's what we're seeing is so shitty in the industry. Everyone's hip to that everyone's hidden to somebody trying to just sell you get you on a sales call and for us it just is like, how about we say like, fuck that don't do that. And what like we'll just try to actually help you first and if you dig it and it's helpful, then we want to continue to do business because you actually want to do business oppose being bullied and these motherfuckers that we ran into
Tyler 05:24
superheroes there was some uppity bitch gym owners out there in the world it's fucking nuts dude. And so anyway it was not you y'all listening Y'all good but yeah, we got a reply back from one that was just like, you need to do more research on the gyms you're reaching out to. We don't need your fucking help. It's all right. Okay, step one, like I guess I mean, I could publicly fucking dismantle your bullshit like on this platform with some screw going through all of your shit pretty thoroughly but I won't nor do I care to write but don't count my world up first off but the interesting thing is so we did we go through and this is Jim by the way social media looks pretty clean facility looks nice John I don't come in and go like your gym fucking blows Dude, we need to make it better. I mean, how it is whatever you're doing, do you we these are the areas for improvement. If you're sitting back on my shits poppin and like you're not thinking for a moment like triage what are the things that need to be better I should narrow down should be one angle maybe two that you're able you wanting to put forward at any point in your business it is madness to just be like no mother I don't care if you hire us or not but to come back at me like that it's nuts all you had to do is not respond to this is what I do when people pop in so listen and what I say is nothing fucking dumb ass rising so anyway what but but then we start going through the stuff right now You tempted me and for a gym that has all their shit together all of it to the point where I have no help. By the way John we offer just a handful of things right so hiring is it just getting your Google reviews up just a couple simple processes to to boost some of these things up social media strategies anyways, we go through for a gym that has their complete shit together have like less than 50 Fucking Google reviews in like a major market a major market, which in a absolutely tiny market. I've got gyms here that have double that Double that we have Joe's have more Google reviews than their operating current client base. We have gyms that run that because of their drop in and stuff like that we have gyms with over 100 Google and by the way, Google reviews aren't some fucking be all and end all. But like if you're ever in a spot worried about leads or worried about the initial impression people have in your business? It does definitely matter when that is the front that is the frontline when someone finds your bid. It really is. And so that but anyways, we're gonna like this fuck I do. Definitely not. And you definitely, if that's your tone, man, yeah, you can get that but get bad man. That sucks. That definitely sucks. But it's what it is, you cast a wide enough net, you're gonna catch some crabs, man. And that dude's got him. So he's got him. But we want to help you, not the people that suck because you don't so but that's the first one for us, right for a gym, even a gym that's doing good that coaches Well, whose clients get good results, who is maybe your profitable, whatever it is, if by the way, if you're profitable, and you're not like, hey, I need to figure out how to make this more efficient, how to be more productive for the time and how to help more people for the same amount of inputs on, you are limiting the impact that you're going to have on yourself financially and in your community. And the amount of lives you can help, that's what it is right there. So if you're not actively trying to improve these things, then you need to do some fucking research on your business and where it's going to be in five or 10 years if you just stay stagnant because a business that is not growing, not just in the flow of clients and impact and money in revenue and growth. If you're not growing, that's already a problem. But if you're also not building layers of processes and preparing for the next phase, and next week, if that's not constantly happening, a business that is not growing is dying, a business that just stays the same is dying. And that's a big, big, big problem.
John Fairbanks 09:14
And I'm going to say too, is a big piece of this everything that you just described, right? If you're listening to that, it can sound like layers and layers and more complexity, right? Things are becoming larger, more complex, more robust. And what I would challenge is that the actual work that gets done, the stuff that we do is simplified. The issue is I guarantee from the day that you opened your gym, to wherever you are now right, assuming you've been in business for longer than a year is you have been slowly adding ship just adding and adding and adding and adding and what ends up happening is that as you add more, you have introduced so many more variables and complex To the to your business into your day to day that it will eventually start to get away from you, or you will begin to have blind spots that you don't see. And what we do is we simplify that process, we simplify every aspect of the business. This is where it's like, when we say how many Google reviews that fuckwad had, right? It's, it's not about the reviews, like what we see in that number, it's like the tip of the iceberg that's above the water, the other 90% That's under the water, that number oftentimes can tell us a lot more about a business, because it's how simple are we breaking things down? And what are we handling through our systems? And through those processes? How simple are you allowing the business to operate? Because if you don't, otherwise, you just continue, like, you have online programs and courses and, and this and that, and this and all sudden, it's like so many things are misaligned, that you end up just doing a lot of work. And eventually something comes off the rails and you don't know how to be able to diagnose it.
Tyler 11:09
And if you're worried about getting new members, I don't know what to tell you, man. I'm popping on some drugs. Dude, there's fucking bad restaurants that have more than 55 star reviews. Dude, there's an amount that like if you're, if you by the way, if you're out there right now and you're at 50, no matter how many members you have, if you have less than 50. Members, you should have more than 50 Google reviews. If you've been open for long because of churn. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's insane. So then you look at how someone's going to find their search. So this is where we started Google reviews. Right? Easiest thing if you even have a lot of them, you should have more. If you have a lot of them and you do not have a systemized plan, with whatever deliverables QR codes built up in your thing it needs to hit you need to have it built into your email list. You need to have things on your wall and your fucking bathroom. Every person needs to be hit up for Google review. Everybody, often and not in a pressured way, they should just, if you're having a five star experience, man, we'd love to hear it, your staff should be talking about it. Otherwise, you should be going through your Google stuff. And if you only got 50 It should be pretty clear in your head when you're walking around your gym talking to clients and your coaches who haven't left you a five star review. It's easier to do that you should know everybody that has one because you have so few fools. Right? So at that point, ever, amen. Like the guys that I know if I need five star reviews, the guys that I coach on a regular basis, I'm just going to tell them like, what do you do? What do you do with dude, like, in a good fun, playful way like, Dude, I need this, get on there, go here. Take my phone, like, let's go, let me see your phone, let's do this. Right? Like you can be a real dude about it. But you gotta have more than that. That's crazy. It's insane to think that your shit is all together. And you can't even get 50 people to say that they pumped to say outwardly technically anonymously, that they enjoyed doing business with you. Yep. Sweet. That's crazy. And so Google reviews are a big one, you got to get it because then downstream from there, that's the starting point. If you can't ask for those and can't harvest a ton of those, then you're not really going to be that. You need to do that before you're doing a part that we need to plug in for, say, your social media, which we'll get to next. Yet, which is making sure that your social media speaks to client results and speaks from the clients perspective often doesn't have to exclusively speak from their perspective, but it needs to show results and explain the process from the clients perspective, not just use a gym or a time how smart you are, and apparently how brilliant you are business or whatever it is that you're so good at, that we couldn't see from looking through things, we should do more research. But to go through that, for your social media, you can't just jump to making a very testimonial focused social media strategy, which you weren't, by the way, I don't believe that one was necessarily wasn't missing a ton. It wasn't terrible, the social media is good and clean. But it's not a ton and ton and ton of testimonial focus, which is kind of what clients do need to hear. By the way, I don't give a shit what a restaurant says about their food that takes about that's about 10% 15% of my what's the word of the of the value that I give in the overall perception of that restaurant, the rest is going to come from the people fucking eaten it, dude. And so at that point, I need to so to say be abandoning or neglecting the Google review strategy. Assuming that you're jumping over and still covering the social media base, you're usually not or it's a misplaced priorities. So you start with Google Google reviews, you can use those words, right? To put testimonials on social media. And then from there, you can level up your social media by saying if if you want something more complex, maybe in six months, eight months, you hit up people for a testimonial or some feedback forum that's formed that's basically a testimonial and a feedback form kind of disguised together a blend it together. It doesn't just go to Google Well, then you're gonna use that one for quality control, with staffing your products and all that other stuff and to, to then start to piece together and identify good testimonials to use again, it's kind of a, it's we use it, we call it our like just testimonial play 2.0, which is an important piece to have in your business, then you integrate that into your system. Overall, when we go through an audit, Jim's globally, most social media is pretty bad, it doesn't need to be great. That's my thing. It doesn't need to be great. On the content side of things, I think people think when I have a good social media strategy that I am just a high level content creator that everything needs to be crisp and, and while I like that stuff, like that stuff's cool. I'm with it. What I see is just bad across the board. And oftentimes people that have good content, have a bad content strategy, they just make good highlights, there's good photos, right? And there are good videos. And it's not about anything that matters to anybody. And it's still just people working out, bro. You're just showing people working out and you're not you're not speaking to their experience where their wants, where their needs are short term, their long term, or even laying out what the experience is like from someone when for someone when they decide to come in with you, and what their process is like you should be able you should just simply be mapping that out externally via Khan, you should be telling that story through all of your other customers or whatever you can do like that needs to people need to understand what is going to happen to them when they join your gym. It's not that you just go and you get to be among this group of exercisers exercising or you get to just be in this space where exercise is happening. That's not what it is, man. Well, so when people are paying for
John Fairbanks 16:38
The story analogy is very good, right? Because you are telling a story, everything that you do, right, you're going to tell a story, or you're going to help a client either finish their story when they get stuck at a roadblock. And it's like do that's not where your story ends, we can take you here and that ends up becoming part of your sales process. So the story aspect of it is really important where you are the majority 98% of you after having reviewed so many social media accounts. 98% of you are telling a story about exercisers that exercise at your gym. You're telling that story beautifully. It's very clear that that's what people do at your spot.
Tyler 17:21
And how many compelling films, movies or TV shows John Have you seen where the real moving emotional connection throughout the whole thing the story arc is man wants to become exerciser becomes exerciser then exercises and then continues to be exerciser. That's a fucking shitty story that nobody but I see that story on all your mom on your social media is it's just exercises exercise and man. Here's the crazy truth.
John Fairbanks 17:48
You've done enough video. You've done enough projects for people where you've put together really really slick like little mini Docu type mentoring things
Tyler 17:58
mini documentaries I've done yeah, they've been 1000s of way short form, just highlight reel stuff, which is highlight reels is the best we're getting out of most of these people.
John Fairbanks 18:06
Right? But I would challenge those shots of people exercising in a gym. Go ahead is what B roll B roll that's exactly what it is
Tyler 18:20
That is such a bad thing that I do when I go to a gym by the way you guys do on that subject. I've done this before when we completely redesigned gyms website B roll smiling faces smiling face exercises. Stuff is great in one half to two second clips from one half to two seconds per piece bulk together. That's okay for some highlights stuff does exist on social media every once awhile, but that is straight fucking B roll. That's B roll footage you want to by the way if your website is great, right you can't tell a story in this little thing. So if you're going to have an icon that someone do anything, John I laid out entire website that was that was like you're just anxious and there's a six second highlight loop boop, boop, boop, boop boop of people just doing that because you can't tell a larger story in six seconds, but it's fucking B roll do which means that you got to do that stuff. It's filler. It's not the message. It's not your question. It's not telling a larger story. It's just filler, which is okay. Again, one of the main functions of your social media is to give people a lens into what happens when they go to the gym. What does it look like? Here's what it is. Here's the type that's okay. But that is not selling. It's just not. It absolutely is not. And so but but so your social media stuff, you listen, there's a lot of ways to go about it. Have a plan, be accountable to it. We go through all sorts of stuff when we work with gym owners on what their social media can be, what it should be in your time and resources man if you're DIY and I don't blame you if your social media is not awesome. So let's make sure the inputs that you're putting in the juice is worth the squeeze. Right? We don't want you to work 10 times as hard right now at it because it just may not be 10 times better.
John Fairbanks 19:54
No and it has become a challenge right from looking at it, is it quality? It is how while you're making it actually ends up becoming less important to what you're making. And this is where we want to drill in. And that's where we start to look where it's like, alright, you, you post all the time, hey, great, you're better than 60% of whoever's out there. But now if we really want to get good at it, it's what is being posted, what are the things you're focusing on. That's why the testimonial piece again, it's not just about the testimonials, right? There's so many other pieces where it's, if you're getting those testimonials, then that can be turned into another piece of content, that actually is the right what, and it takes me kind of maybe the next topic, which is where we see personal training, and how people are working with helping their personal trainers get business, if you don't have you know, I mean, if you're not highlighting your personal trainers, that you have personal training, it all kind of social media ends up regrettably being the tip of our digital sphere, or sphere, right at the tip of the spear online. But it's just going to hopefully be magnifying the conversations, and all of the things that you've set up in the gym, because that's actually where most of the goddamn conversations are happening on a daily basis are people that are physically in your spot.
Tyler 21:11
Because people don't really go that deep into social media, like when, if they don't know if they're not already doing business with you, what they're searching for, when they scroll through your Instagram or Facebook account is an initial impression. And they're going to simplify that impression. So if 90% of what they see is group fitness group fitness thing, or if you're a 24 hour gym, it's just kind of standard stuff, you know, either sales stuff or equipment or just exercising happening, right, or, in the case of a lot of have a lot of 24 hour spots, what they're gonna see is fucking nothing. But what they see the most of is what they think you do. That's it, it's true. So they're just gonna go, even if you say personal training, once every 40 posts, one, it may not get that far down your feet to it's such an afterthought. Or again, if What if all of your photos are of fit people fitness thing, and you don't have anybody. And you're wondering why you can't get new people. And there's an abundance of people needing to make big changes in your community with big weight to lose, and who already. And you're like, not showing any normal people as a part of the normal person fitness journey. And a normal person sees it and goes, I'm not one of them. I'm not there, that doesn't work for me, then they're out. They're out immediately based on just that, because they don't, they can't see themselves in that spot. Which means simply does your content feature the people that you're trying to target at all? Right? If I'm sorry, I've said this a million times. But if you're only posting pictures of people with like 6% body fat, who just have been training for 15 years, who by the way, don't look any better than they did 10 years ago, but they're hanging on good, and they work real hard. That doesn't appeal to the 80% of the population that has 20 or more pounds to lose. And I'm fine. If you niche down to the point where we're great, you got your target market and you're full, you're flush, great. I'm cool with that if that's if that's the vibe of your gym, man, I get it. Like if you're trying to grow and you wonder why you can't grow and you you truly care and want to help people in your community and your your coaches want to make improvements, not just sit around in a place and Jabberjaw with fucking fit people. Right? Like, then you need to you need to paint a picture for those people. And you're only gonna get first impression. So my first impression when you go through a lot of these gyms is what do they do? Post every four to six weeks, something mostly uninteresting. They don't ever say anything about their prices, or really what their products are or the what people can do. When the scope of the schedule is nice. Like there's just tons of information, you need to inform them quickly and thoroughly and often, and redo it over and over and over again. And I just see so many people that like the first impression is bad when they go through their social media doesn't say anything. It just is. And it's just it's such a lost opportunity. I don't think that it is. How do I word this? I don't think that it is costing you business that you would otherwise I don't think it's it's not running people away. There's not people seeing a lot of yours even when John identifies a bad or bad isn't even the word what's the word just poorly executed inefficient social media at any capacity if you post them once a month and it sucks. It's still inefficient, right? If you're posting 1020 times a week, and it's not producing it's still as inefficient. So when we go through this stuff like all I want to see is that that first impression I don't think it's making people go fuck these guys, right when they see your gym. I don't think they're doing that if none of you guys are that bad, right, you guys, but I do think that there's a lot of missed opportunities. So you're not driving people away. You're just not attracting people you're doing, you just do not need to be a beacon. There needs to be a spot where people go, man, I'm ready to do it. What are my options? Right? Put yourself in their fucking shoes. I'm ready. Let us get confused, I need to get back in the gym or I need to start doing something. What are my options? What am I going to do? What does that person think when they live in your area? What do they think? What are the places that popped up? What are the decisions that they need to make? And where do the first impressions come from if your business via Google only got 50 reviews, everyone else around you has 300 400 500 800 200 100, they all smoke you based on the initial impression that he's my father's boss Right? Or what if your accounts are barely updated, even worse, you don't have updated hours, you have your contact information, like all of that stuff can start to like, make somebody's options, the shines the light on other options, and kind of deems yours a little bit
John Fairbanks 25:45
wet, which ultimately leads to again, it is a symptom of a larger problem. So this is where it's not, it is usually not a surprise when we then hear that a gym has issues with hiring, or issues with retaining coaches, right? If you bleed coaches, or you just don't get people in, people that you get aren't very good, right? There is an element here where it's going to be like, well, how are you helping your coaches as a gym owner, how are you positioning your coaches to be able to make money so that they can feed themselves, even for part timers? Are you making it worse for them to show up, assuming that they're just not like the world's best just group coach, and they're so happy being a group coach, and they don't really need anything else, because it helps them not to put a gun in their mouth, because they hate their job that they have, that's 95, but it pays the bills, and you're not gonna be able to do that for them right now. Because they just do groups. And it's, that's great, that person's amazing. But the majority of other people, they want to actually make good money. So when it comes to personal training, or small group personal training, or semi private personal training it is, that's how you get your people paid. And it is just low hanging fruit of improving the ratio of people that then want to work with your people, and work with them as nothing will make your coaches happier than when they get personal training clients, we had a gym owner, the real money make real money, like it was we got a message the other day of one of the gyms that were working on, and one of the things that they got to improve is actually filling the time of their personal trainers, they got to, and we got a message where it was one of the personal trainers was like, I got two clients today, like you guys fucking rock like it just was like, and it's not anything that we didn't do anything. We didn't send out the messages. We didn't do the emails, we didn't do any of those pieces. But we helped them say, Hey, guys, this is how easy this is. This is what you do A, B, C and D, they then do it. And then it worked because it works. And it but if you never talk about it, then nothing will ever work.
Tyler 27:49
And then again, all of this stuff, we lean very heavily lately on the ecosystem principle, or creating an ecosystem of success. Listen, if you're just running group classes, and these coaches are part timers, and they only can put in a few hours, or a couple of days a week or something like this. It's sweetens their free time that they're spending in this gym so much better if they want if they want to be personal trainers, like that's it's fucking good pocket money, do it, it's good money, often more than they're going to make out of it just a group class, if they're coaching group classes, or if you're a gym that is, you know, more 24 hour centric, it just makes you get so much more money out of each client. If your 24 hour spa run and $50 to $100- $120, you know, 24 hour memberships with maybe some other perks, you're this kind of low value client, compared to somebody who's doing personal training three times a week. They just did. By definition, it's low value. Those are low value clients, your base memberships are low, you're not low value in the grand scheme of things, but low value relative to what is possible within your business. And if you want high, your height, all of a sudden, when a gym can start to sell lots of personal training, their personal trainers are now required to be good, we'll go further into some of that stuff. But we assume that you are right. And then all of a sudden your business shifts and you're dealing with people you like working with who like are choosing to be happy about this thing. And they're not just waiting to abandon their commitment so that they can complain about the fact that they didn't get results or whatever it happens in a lot of these other places where there's such a low barrier to entry. And just anybody can get in and they kind of tentatively expect to make no investment financially, which then softens their willingness to invest to support their own financial investment to invest things like effort in the kitchen discipline, effort in the gym commitment showing up frequently. Well, someone who pays you 150 to 300 bucks a week depending on what you charge for personal training like that person is in it to win it whether that money is disposable to them based on their income and financial situation. You should or whether that money is really important to them, I have clients who pay me an amount of money per month that I would never fucking never pay a coach in any capacity. Why? So I don't have that kind of money. I just, you know, I mean, like, there's my prayers would never allow me to spend multiple 1000s of dollars a month to code for somebody to coach me, I just know, my wife would fight my goddamn head off. Right, she's like, you're smart, just figure it out. But to somebody who has the resources and values their own time and wants to shorten their learning curve, because I know this, and this is the level of commitment I want for me, for my family. And that is important, because those people want this to be a good experience, they will get better results, they will try harder. But on one side of the coin, I have very, very wealthy people that pay a lot of money. I have people that make less money than me that pay that same amount of money to me, and it's like, okay, but what is its commitment to them, it is commitment, and they all are brought into this difference for the same amount of money. And it just means more to some, but I'm telling you in your business, the ones that we when we start working with a gym owner, maybe who's struggling a little bit financially, they just can't even believe what you can make with personal training. My people, this is like we Yeah, because you're only dealing with low value clients, and you've been delivering no offense, a low value product, because it's whatever it is, that's what that's what's attracting them. And you're not even in the mindset of delivering expensive, high value products, you don't think it works. And then once it starts working, your whole thing shifts and there's a big cascading effect by being able to market this way, being able to let people's buying habits, budget level of commitment, one on one personal training, this expensive and premium attracts an entirely different type of person to your GM. People, those are the people you kind of want to do business with. That's the thing, hormones, hormones, he says a lot, which is, you know, what is it don't be poor at solving poor people's problems doesn't pay very well. Right. So it's good to have some options out there for someone with a bigger budget to where you can deliver a real high value premium product, because that pays better. And that can allow you by the way to deliver a lower value. And actually a lower value product is more approachable. So you can still have opportunities out there for people with lower incomes. That's totally okay. But you still gotta eat, and yank and eat off of these poor people's plates, man and ain't going to work. So have a premium product. Most gyms out there, I just think I don't think everyone has to become a personal training studio. I don't think every gym out there needs to sell personal training. But the ones I know that want to sell personal training, still can't sell it, because they're just missing a lot of these front end pieces that we talked about.
John Fairbanks 32:42
And the truth will always be the people that pay more and pay more attention. And if you are in the business of having people actually be successful, everything that you've just laid out, it is how successful do you think people are going to be that pay that premium price relative to them? Right, whatever like it is, whatever that premium, whatever that goal is that they have, what do you think their client success ratio is going to be? And how driven Do you think your coaches will be to fulfill that service when they have been paid a premium, not only do you have the client success ratio, essentially being patted, because the client has said, Yeah, I'm serious, I want to do this, I have a very specific goal, and I'm willing to pay to get it. And then how successful and into it do you think your coaches will be, so you just raise the level of opportunity for the client's success to be so high, that now it truly starts to play a different game, and then you don't lose that coach, you don't lose your people. But if you're only allowing your people to make 40% of every dollar that they make, if they're walking away with 40 cents on the dollar, you are just keeping people right in their place. And there's a lot of folks that are out there, and a lot of Oregon consultants that are out there that want you to keep your coaches at $15 an hour. They want to keep your coaches no matter what service they do, and they want to because you're running a business, and you're going to try and you're going to drive up the overall value of the business because eventually somebody's going to want to buy it or you're going to want to sell it. That isn't our game. Our game is foundationally built on the rock that is client success. And everything we've just laid out just in this personal training example allows you to fulfill that to such a high degree that it truly starts to change the game because this is how you start to look at everything. Yeah.
Tyler 34:41
So downstream of that. We have hiring, staffing just are always struggling with the staffing thing and this is a part of it. Right? One getting people in. I told the Shamu story here, right? Yeah, so I'm not going to run that one again. It's also not mine. So I can't be sure if I will claim it twice this week. We'll start to think it's my story, but I can't think of it as sky props. This guy has a good one I use I use that conversationally all the fucking time. But the thing to extract from that story is, if you think an awesome coach is just sitting around not coaching, and has nothing to do this week, and is unemployed completely, but he's a great coach, and somehow that's not a fucking red flag, right? And it's just gonna walk in your door because you put an ad in the paper, or put an ad out? And indeed or whatever, like, Do you really think that that exists out in the world? The answer is fluc. No, listen, the best thing that could possibly happen to you would be somebody moving from a different town due to a spouse's job, and they land within a mile of your gym, and they have all these references, and their social media is chock full of them. And they're coaching and they've been an independent personal trainer, and they'd like to come in and work with you with your clients in your gym, and you guys can come great, but that that is so fucking rare, so fucking rare. And even in a major market, that's very rare, because then it's extremely competitive. Because if they don't understand the value and leverage they have at that point, a coming, by the way, with nothing but a skill set and a background and availability, if they don't understand the amount of leverage and power they have at that moment. That's such a red flag that they might just be really stupid. So what I'm telling you with this is those coaches, you need to assume that they don't exist. So if you're trying to hire a coach, just no, stop trying to hire yourself. Stop trying to hire someone who has all the skills that you have completely agrees with everything in your training methodology, and has all the certifications that they need right now. Or whatever certifications you think they need. Even worse, okay, because they don't, you don't need them, they come in most likely, you can just come in and coach, whatever version of coaching that they do. The very least it's an insurance requirement that they have a level one if they're teaching CrossFit classes, or were maybe a NASM, or one of the other arbitrary box checking certifications, if they are doing personal training, I think we can carry their own fucking insurance until they do or pay to help them get their certification. Y'all don't understand how much money gets put into training employees and getting serious employee certified to be a fucking help plumbers helper. You know what I mean? Like, it says, it's just there's a thing that gym owners get to where it's like, every little step in developing talent is some impossible barrier. And it's fucking really frustrating. Because we just expect people to already be great. You guys are going to learn the lesson in the fitness industry that all of the other trades have learned, right in the fitness industry. And it really is, I think being a coach is a trade not unlike being a carpenter or being an electrician, and being an HVAC guy or a plumber, you gotta get the time you're gonna suck right away, you don't even know what's what, which can be useful, you can get some stuff done, you need some guidance, we can narrow up the scope with which you're working with people that the amount of risk that we're exposing our client base to, due to your newness, right. And then at that point, we then from there, we start to work with you and develop you and grow as quickly as possible. But it's on the system that you're in, and the staff that surround you, and the employees, the staff development program that you've built. And by that I mean, it sounds like something formal, but it's not, it should be eventually. But can you develop staff into somebody that's useful, it can help your clients and represent your brand? Well, without having to fast track them to 10 years of knowledge in no time and then judge them and be mad because they can't coach at that level right away, if they don't have that level of understanding, narrow the shit up. If you can't do that you don't have anything, you won't have anything no matter who you get, because you're never going to hire someone with 10 1215 years, these other building trades, these other trades. It's over. I have, I haven't been in which I've been out of business for almost 11 years now I've been out, I promised you I would come back and be so high paid. Right now I could work at any spot. And they could name your price. And I could name my terms. I could set up a non-traditional arrangement where Yeah, I don't care what you really mean, I want to work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. And I want to be off by 3pm And I kind of don't care and I need to be paid $35 An hour plus this, this, this, this, this and this, take the vehicle home and then none of that. Right that all can be demanded. Why? Because I have the skill set. And nobody else does. Nobody's walking in your door with 1215 years of experience. It was like yeah, we got some free time. Because everyone's clamoring to pay that person.
John Fairbanks 39:39
The issue is with the with the trades, having worked with a lot of dudes that are still blue collar guys and our owners of those organizations or those companies is that they often say well the folks that are coming in that don't have the experience but they do have all the accreditations are sometimes some of the worst motherfuckers to deal with because they already feel like they've arrived They already think that they should make a certain amount of money. And they already know
Tyler 40:05
my entire last pitch.
John Fairbanks 40:08
But there's a difference. You have 12 to 15 years of experience. That's the justice. Exactly. This is what's tough for a lot of those kids that are going through their physiology and kinesiology degree, they get hot out of college, they come in wanting to be a trainer. And then it's like, great pitch, you get paid $18 an hour, because you have no experience. You don't know how we do it here. And it's not just unique to gyms, it also is super similar in all those trades, because it's like, great, I know, you think you should be making six figures, but you won't. Because I now have to unteach everything that you think you know, because your book is smart, your school smart, your classroom smart. And we know all of you know what this looks like on the coaching side, where it's like, it's the idea of like, no, no, we need to get in and actually put our hands on and work and interact with real humans and be a decent human. But all of those pieces get built in and just like you said, so then when it comes to hiring, I want to give a nugget, a golden nugget for all of you to take in the hiring process. If you are someone that finds yourself where you are saying there's no one available, no one wants to work. I cannot describe what bullshit that is. It's you're not looking and you're using that as an excuse because of you and whoever else you network with all things that same song. It's because you all are being fucking lazy. And you're actually not looking. You're just saying oh, well, everyone says no one wants to work. Because when I drive downtown Wendy's and cook out and McDonald's and every other fucking bank, they all say now hiring and no one can find employees get fucked. If you spend 80 to $200 one time on indeed or a similar job, you will be so fucking inundated with resumes that you will drown, you will automatically try and turn it off as fast as you can. Because you have too many.
Tyler 42:13
How many do we get? We have to Jim with Synthesia. What's the population say within a two mile radius of that spot we did up north? That guy was inundated with him as well. What are we talking about? 40,000 people total? Right, Major? Sure How 30 Small Towns? Right? Bigger? Mantova small town? Right? And I mean, like I was like 100 100 Some people willing to travel. So because it's semi part time, like you're not needing to uproot someone's entire. So there's a lot of screening that comes into question. But then at some point it is like you're gonna pick your horses. And then we're gonna start working with them. That'd be good. Yeah,
John Fairbanks 42:54
Let me help you with how you screen them. Because that is what the immediate next problem is. Oh, awesome, John. Now I have 100 or I have 85 Fuckin resumes to go through. And now this is what me and my GM are going to be doing for the next two weeks? No, you're not. You're going to look. And you are going to parse through your warm hot list that needs to be called right now. And you're going to have your other list when those everyone doesn't work out in that list, you are going to see who was a college athlete who whatever was a college athlete in your big stack of fucking overwhelming resumes that you've now gotten. Whoever's a college athlete is who you call first period Hartstein. Because we all know if you're listening, and you are a college athlete, you know what it takes to fucking do that gig? And the reality is, that is consistent and will forever be consistent. So that needs to be a different factor that allows these people to rise to the top. And those are who you reach out to. Yeah, because you can roll the dice on someone that was a yoga instructor or whatever. And then we were talking to a gym owner the other day that they had, they were doing a mentoring deal in the high school and a kid goes if I'm going to fill out a resume to work at your spot. Should I include my Dairy Queen experience? That is a real question from probably a 17 or 18 year old. But if they're 21 years old, they don't go to college. They're probably also going to include their fucking fast food experience on the goddamn resume. And guess what everyone? That's not fucking relevant to your goddamn employment opportunity for them. So this is where it's cut through that bullshit and immediately just go after those college athletes because now there are so many intangibles that that's like a you want an athlete
Tyler 44:57
to be that also means they've trained for four plus yours probably was in good shape before then it probably means they don't look like shit yet. It means they've kept something going. There's a lot of the intangibles that are the big thing, work ethic showing up. By the way, there's a diversity that comes from the physical effort that happens in college sports, regardless of what your sport is, you are lifting weights, you are at some point working at some sort of speed. And you will have done it with another variation for a long time to where you can't train like that, even if you're coached for four years, probably 678. If you were doing it in high school, high school, right? You can't even train for four to eight years and not know that I've learned anything about how to just do those things. So maybe they don't know all the programs you like. But that's not what it is. Can they talk to people? Are they comfortable in the weight room? Do they look the part? Can they make sure someone's not getting hurt? And can you just help someone today who doesn't know shit, because again, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know more than the person you're coaching. And enough to make sure you see a little bit further down the road. So you don't lead them into any traps. So let's keep moving here on this one, hiring, staffing, just fell can start to I don't know what to tell you. Just go give it a try. put out an ad, see what happens. put someone in the place. You don't have to pay him a full time salary, right? This should cost you this should cost you nothing. Because you should be able to bring them in and sell them, you should be able to sell them immediately and you can kind of coach with them. And you're not paying for any really any hours that are not productive. They're gonna essentially be on a commission based only working on scheduled hours. That's pretty easy pre scheduled pre sold out. So we're gonna move on from that. The next one we're going to do kind of covers a few things. But I think this is John, this is the thing I see most common out of all gyms, more than inefficient social media, ineffective social media more than bad. Not enough Google reviews. More than being bad at coach sets selling personal training. You're not using your email list. Most of you, for sure. I don't know if it is enough. And if you're just using it for a monthly newsletter, great, but there needs to be more frequency. I'm gonna go on this right now. Let me just show you real quick. Look, I'm gonna make sure there's nothing, nothing questionable. And you're good luck and just get a look. But look, look at all the emails I am not answering at all right, just get used to that, right if I go through, and it's not a person that I know, or thing that I am already briefed on that I need to see. I'm gonna fucking open it. I'm just not. So it's okay, guys, you the amount of gym owners because I don't want to be sitting so I didn't want to just be blowing them up. I don't want to blow up people's spot, am I gonna send you a bunch of emails and I'm gonna spam a bunch of it's like, listen, everybody's sending a bunch of emails out. You don't need to send your people stuff four or five days a week. But they need information. And downstream from that is how you have all your internal sales opportunities, which is where you can start to then make more you want to launch a new program, you better have people opening your emails, but other people used to seeing your stuff in their inbox, right? Knowing that sometimes there's something valuable there or that you can send an email and then remind people when they come in, Hey, guys, make sure to check your email, say we got this thing about this thing, kind of a double layer of informing them about it. And that's, I think, I think it's the most underused thing. Listen is crafting a master email sequence. that's day one on someone's thing day three than the request. Does that take some time? Yeah, yeah. But then just start just using it manually on the fly. And then you can create a thing manually, you can know where you want it to fit into the master sequence, and then you go back in and program it in. So hey, now when someone signs up, they get this email the one I only had to write once about this product or whatever, at week one or week two or day 100 class 100 or whatever that is, but that is a huge opportunity that you guys leaving off the table which we'll just touch on to downstream of that. So many gyms start selling supplements and they either go way too pushy with it. Kind of the way the god awful sales pitches that come down from some of these other gym consultants do that just force their supplement brand down, you're down their businesses throats and then say sell it this way. Here's your fucking slide. It's rough. But you need to still provide effort in selling your stuff if you're going to sell it ethically, even if you're not going to do a bunch of shitty shady supplements, like just really the shit that I don't like we're just subs, this fat burners, this all the types of things that I don't particularly believe in, you still need to be asking because you can't just put putting them on your shelves and talking about it once or twice will work a little bit until it doesn't. And then they're just on the shelf. And all the revenue that you're going to make from it is the amount of people that will just be buying their own supplements somewhere or online. It's going to continue to go up and that's money that they probably prefer to spend with you. But you look like you're not interested in it. They're just collecting dust back there and you ignore them on their way through. You're spending no effort on supplement sales all that takes emails consistently. Something about it, just something doesn't need to be offered, just something. Hey, here's a reminder. And then some conversations, and maybe some visual aids up within the gym.
John Fairbanks 50:16
Having email be ramped into just being a normal process for your members becomes so important. And let's just take away any type of sales just for safety in general information. Right? I cannot tell you it's how often do you have where if you're not utilizing this where it's like the gyms can be closed, we have weather we have whatever, we have something going on gyms closed, and people go, Hey, man, I didn't know the gym was gonna be closed, like I showed up and the doors were locked. Yeah, it's
Tyler 50:43
just posting on Instagram, that your gym clothes. That's all people do. It's half your body, your people ain't on Facebook, Are they checking it? Well, and it's
John Fairbanks 50:52
very relevant to the age of your population. Right? So the reality is, if you're dealing with people that are over the age of 40, or 45, they're not just And Facebook's not built to make sure you can get information quickly. So email or text messaging, let's say that Tyler if I'm really wanting to lump those two together, yep. And that usually takes a text
Tyler 51:15
lab rambly underutilized because it's on a whole others. But it's
John Fairbanks 51:21
like those two pieces of immediate information right into the hands in the pockets of the people that want to hear from you. That is your number one and then probably just like you said, the most undervalued and underused aspect. And again, it doesn't have to be for sales, and it can't just all of a sudden start getting used for sales only. That is where the mistake happens. That is where the perception of your people begin like and they're super pushy, all of a sudden, or how can we only ever like you only ever hear from him about selling this or buying this where you want it to be. You need to have general information that's going to go out. My one word of caution is as you start to ramp this up, you hear this you are you want to grab the bull by the horns you want to go after it and you want to start just sending out General Info one topic per email one, do not drown your people out with a fucking blog post that hits every gamut of whatever you were thinking about for this week. Because whatever is sitting that probably is important it's why you included it. But if it is below the fold right below that one scroll of whatever was on that screen initially. They're not going to read it and if they open it and it is just a whole block of text people like right back out this is too much so keep it simple. Keep it focused. Yep,
Tyler 52:47
guys we got to school today. Let's rock and roll you guys out there take care of some of these low hanging fruit we have quite okay we forgot to we're gonna wrap this up with this other bit right we talked about the things that we are offering that we can send you out for free a little kind of step by step guide if you want one of them shoot us a message the probably the gym owners podcast one we want this one to come down the official pipe so at the gym owners podcast Instagram shoot us a message and we'll kind of run it through the four or five ABCD for F oh shit John's been very productive
John Fairbanks 53:19
your energy yeah he did
Tyler 53:21
things so we'll give you the list of some of these things were like you know what is the lowest hanging fruit was a one thing you maybe would like some like some step by step things you can share this thing up no matter how great or brilliant your businesses no matter that we apparently need to do more research on and if US offering you this stuff for free. We only pick one because we can't give out five of them to everybody because we do end up selling some of these but we'll offer you one of these for free for being a G for listening to the podcast. They have our offer that to offends you to the point where you need to slide back in our DMS and talk shit just fight me and do your fucking do your fucking research before you commit to that place. So that's all I have to say about that. Get on board or get flogged. There we guys go to follow me at Tyler and Stone on Instagram. Follow John at JBS XFL. Thanks for listening, everybody. We love you. We'll see you next week.