The Gym Owners Blog/Podcast/Gym Owners Revolution: The Manifesto

Gym Owners Revolution: The Manifesto

Friday, November 10, 2023

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EPISODE KEYWORDS

gym, work, coach, business, talked, clients, offer, class, people, training, owners, fitness, john, group, money, email list, type, building

OUTLINE

  • Gym ownership and business strategies. (0:00)
  • Aligning fitness business systems with a mission to help clients succeed. (3:44)
  • Gym ownership and coaching with a focus on personalization. (7:53)
  • Fitness training and nutrition coaching. (13:33)
  • Fitness coaching, certifications, and delivering results. (19:03)
  • Fitness business strategy and client lifetime value. (26:25)
  • Fitness business growth strategies. (32:11)
  • Email marketing for fitness businesses. (37:34)
  • Email marketing strategies for gyms. (42:21)
  • Supplements and fitness coaching. (46:35)
  • Fitness business pricing and marketing strategies. (50:59)
  • Marketing and sales strategies for a fitness business. (56:11)
  • Gym operations and client satisfaction. (1:00:28)
  • Gym ownership and marketing strategies. (1:05:55)

TRANSCRIPT

Tyler 00:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the gym owners podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Stone over there, John Fairbanks. How are you doing, John?



John Fairbanks 00:04

I'm doing outstanding Tyler.



Tyler 00:07

This week we're gonna talk about, we're gonna almost run through the entire, we describe the entire gym owners revolution, call this Operations Guide, if you will, this is the thing where we've seen a lot of people try to implement a lot of the stuff that we talked about from offers tax and marketing strategies, communication strategies, etc. And doing it with an only fucking cursory or glossed over understanding of what we're talking about makes your shit pretty cringy it also falls on its face quite a bit. Now, that doesn't mean you got that the only way any of this works is that you pay us to get into the gear Academy, or in some of our gear kickstart programs where we take deep dives into these things. That's not the only way. But what you have to do guys, is actually fucking pay attention to the things that we're saying please. Okay, and you cannot implement like one part of like a five part thing in a vacuum and then wonder why the whole thing doesn't quite work. Or, or only dip your toes in the implementation like this does there's some there is a matter with some of this stuff is Do you only kind of care about your clients? Or do you really care? And are you trying to do this? Or are you really trying to do this and that is very different. And we see from afar we see from people's clients, when they talk about their gyms, we see the way when we talk to gym owners specifically about how they're trying to do things and why they tried this and it didn't work. I know exactly why. Because you're only you're only implementing the parts of this that maybe like work for you, or that you've only thought about and the ones that maybe hurt a little bit in your feelers you kind of just ignore. Okay, so we're going to cover because we haven't done this, we've talked a lot of this stuff and you know, kind of isolated one subject at a time. And we're gonna go over kind of like what it really means to participate in a gym owners revolution. Okay, what that really means what your business should look like top to bottom. Ideally, right now, there's lots of different ways to skin a cat. But I think that ideally, this is the gym, John and I if, when we start rolling out more, if we're into physical locations, franchise models, things like that, these are the criteria, if we were to invest a lot of our money into a fitness businesses won't be able to this will be multiple fitness businesses, these are the baseline criteria that we would be that would be required for us to even consider purchasing, taking over or doing licensing. So before we get started, we do have the gym owners revolution.com. So the gym owners revolution Facebook group, get in there links in the description for all those things for the show at the gym owners podcast and Instagram. You can follow me at Tyler Elphinstone. And John,



John Fairbanks 02:32

you can follow me on Instagram at Jay banks, f L.



Tyler 02:35

And we also have if you get into the Facebook group there, we've got some weekly workshops that you guys can get in where you can we are covering different days from social media audits to marketing strategies to offer stack conversations to some simple q&a is we do some kind of some rotating ones and, and these are, these are free, but you got to book the time. As you do, you gotta go, you gotta go in and reserve the time slot. So the way to find that out is get into the gym owners revolution Facebook group.



John Fairbanks 03:02

And it's not shitty, right? We're not gonna install a hard sale, right? It's not like it's a thing where we pretend that it's free, but we're gonna bully you and then put you into a high pressure sales situation, it is going to be really genuinely looking at what is it you're trying to solve? How can we help you provide some really high quality value to you for those 3045 minutes, and then be able to have you go out and execute on those things? And we do we have, it's all the topics under the sun that things though obviously we do inside the longer form either our kickstart stuff or things that we do over the length of a year. But it's all right there. Ready for you in the workshop?



Tyler 03:37

Yeah. All right, let's get to it. So, John, John and I are to lay out what we want out of the gym. Okay, now not every gym has to conform 100% to all of these things, but pretty damn close, specifically, maybe on some of the programs and services. Maybe you don't have to have all of them in place at the moment. But you definitely need to start leaning towards these for the reasons that we will get into so first things first, the centerpiece of your business, the most important thing that your business does should be what guys deliver results for your clients. Remember that it starts with that that's not give your clients access to your facility that's not have somebody who doesn't give a fuck about your client stand in front of them for an hour. Okay, that's not what this is. Your systems bottom to top your ethos your absolute mission in your business should be that every person who walks in your door should have the highest likelihood of accomplishing their goals. And that means your product services sales process your staff, everything needs to be aligned with that. That's step one. Is that everyone who comes into your door needs to have the highest likelihood of success. The other layer of that is your mission needs to be larger than just who currently is walking in your door which means once you have that going your mission needs to be to spread that success and get more people through these doors, not simply because it's more profitable to you, but because that's your fucking mission. That's what you are here to do. And if it's not guys, and I talk to gym owners who pretend to give a fuck about people all the time, and it sucks, and they suck, and it's pretty transparent.



John Fairbanks 05:18

Yeah, he does. It's a mindset thing, right? Like this is that idea where it is? Just why are you doing what you're doing? And it is very easy to understand or sniff out where it's, oh, this is a gym owner who doesn't really care. Like they have so much money, they don't care whether this is successful or not



Tyler 05:38

just enough to where it's just like, it's just like a lot of bother myself. But you know why? Because it is tough. It is tough, like caring about people, because oftentimes in this industry, then people clients, they're in their own way, behavior modification is not easy. Sometimes it's a slow, slow, painful process, and you're the one or not you, ideally, not you as the owner, but your coaches are kind of in the middle of it. And it's not easy. It's very easy to be kind of apathetic about them, you know, they'll get with it again, and there is some of that. But if your systems are actually aligned with this mission, it makes it easier. That's the thing that I find that a lot of people do is you care all you want, but you care all you want, and all you're selling is group classes, you can care your ass off, and I'm going to fucking work if someone needs to fix the way that they eat, or they need to actually be held accountable to it. And they need to have some hard conversations or maybe they need to be spending some time with a coach one on one, like that stuff matters.



John Fairbanks 06:35

Yeah, and I do like you calling it like a mission. Right? If this idea of what it's like, it's something that is driving you to continue to stay open and do more like it should be, that is there is a calling, right, a calling that is pulling you forward to do something more in your community. Like there are pieces where for us fundamentally, it is this idea where it is. It sounds like hyperbole, but I truly believe it's like it's making generational change, for sure. Like it's this idea where we hold the ability within the fitness industry to be able to not just change the lives of the people that are right there in there at that moment. But now it's their kids and their kids and their friends. And then it's like this spider web, where this is why you and I have said in just a few episodes that our goal is to be able to change the lives of a million people through what we do with gym owners. Because we're



Tyler 07:35

people going through these systems that we're going to lay out today, that's what's important to us. If that is the case, that is the best chance, the highest percentage of this million people are going to be successful for the long term. And that's a million people with families, that's a million people with coworkers and colleagues and employees that shit matters, okay? So if your mission is less than that, and it's just simply in your commute, great, perfect, because we need you. They need you, the people need you, but they need you to actually like you can't just care like in your fucking cute little heart, your precious little heart, you can't really care. Like if your business sucks. And you can't actually serve these people or can't actually help them because you're either too stubborn, or you're not actually going to make any changes within your business, or you're afraid to implement what the oh geez, what if nobody buys it? We don't have anybody yet. But your system should fucking work. Your systems need to be geared to getting people from A to Z. And if it's not, you're already dead in the water. You just don't know it yet. And you may be fine. You will exist but you're not going to turn the corner. And if you want John and I to participate in anything that you're doing the answer is a fucking hard. No. And by the way, there's nothing that I sniff out more more effectively than a gym owner and a coach who does not care. Yeah, who should just be doing something else, but they suck at everything else that they do and they're just a fitness or I fucking can smell that I can I can, I can practically hear it when I when they type. Okay, I can read your words without looking in the face and kind of know, okay, I can see it. I've met way too many coaches and I've met way too many gym owners who are choosing things to be distracted by burying themselves in education and information and, you know, high level dorky shit, that doesn't really have any practical relevance to what their clients are trying to do. Okay, you're worried about yourself and you're worried about stroking your brain and your ego and that sucks. Okay, so now what does it take for your clients to actually be successful? What do you need to do? Okay, you're a coach who actually cares, but maybe just don't know what to do? Right? When I opened my gym, John, we started with just group classes, because that's what it was. And we went to some personal training. Can you have a CrossFit gym? Right? Just a CrossFit affiliate? Yeah, exactly. And so but in doing so, like that really box to sin a lot, right. But that was the tool that we had at the beginning. That was what we knew, right? And so for those of you that are in this situation, it doesn't mean there's nothing I hate more than a gym that just wants to turn their shit upside down overnight to Okay, so you don't have to flip everything over but you have to go like okay, this is the tool I'm using the one tool. Well again, when All you have is a fucking hammer, everything looks like a nail. Okay, when all you're selling is group fitness, there is nothing that sucks more than CrossFit affiliates and group fitness classes that go to start to have like, we're going to do offseason stuff for kids or you're going to do like anything with any level of real specificity. And you're just stuffing children into a group class, or you're stuffing adults into a specialty group class. It's not really, that doesn't really do it. Like, that's not what the thing is. Okay, so you should know, like, Okay, if I want to start helping kids at this age with these specific goals, or I want to help them, it's not just creating another group class, because you know, you know, the success rate, and the level of like, individualized coaching that you can deliver that is poor, just is it's everyone doing moving. Okay, and if you're talking about food, how are you doing that with them? So, when we talk about this stuff, you can implement any number of things in any number of different ways, but you need to have more tools at your disposal, it doesn't mean building more things. Okay, that doesn't mean occupying another time slot that's not profitable. This is the opposite of that. But when a person rooted in that original goal, clients succeed when a person walks into your gym, there's going to be multiple pathways that they can choose. And this is going to start with their ideal type of training for right now, we'll expand on a little bit of this later, because that's a little more detail. But like, what they want right now what they think they want, right? And maybe if they haven't had a conversation with you, maybe you can convince them with what might be better for them. But if someone doesn't want group fitness guys, I have my personal training clients. Pay the most money, dude, like it's the most profitable for sure. For the hour, none of them would consider at any price, group fitness, none. Not one. Now, like, we have coaches that do semi private stuff as well. But they would never, not a single one of those groups would migrate into an open public class setting either not a one. So how are you going to do business with those people? How are you going to help those people just because of their psyche, the way they are socially, maybe just the way they are in their community, who they are, who they like to be around, who they don't like to be around? Maybe it's who you already have in your shit, you are leaving a lot of people out of your mix, if you do not actually offer just fundamentally like how do you want to be coached because you're offering your coach product and everything except for 24/7 access, which is also on this list, right? The types of training that I have that I think every gym should have, for sure. Now, if you're a functional fitness gym, we can be flexible, it's 24/7 stuff, sometimes it's complex, complicated to implement. But if I'm going to do this, I want to attract lots of different people and give them different ways for their different personality types. 24/7 specialty programs challenges, group coaching, I still like okay, I still like having a group class, I still like having a group program, semi private stuff, custom semi privates as well. And then one on one personal training. Those are the things that I think set as the foundation of the type of training that you need to have in order to let someone come in and they're gonna go. Which one of these options aligns best with the path you want to choose forward? And it's pretty easy when you list those in which order it is for most expensive, the cheapest to, like, you know which one's the most expensive fundament, you're not like, well, I can only afford 24/7. But okay, what is what is one on one personal training three times a week like there's no people aren't going to a $50 a month membership seeker is not going to be asking you about one on one personal training if their budget doesn't allow



John Fairbanks 13:33

it. Now, don't make the mistake, right? You said, Well, my people, that I'm personal training, they would never like never ever want to be in a group situation. Don't make the mistake of hearing you say that and be like, Well, okay, but I'm in a group place like I'm at a 24 hour place. I don't want my people to be there because it's a 24 hour spot. My people are here because it's a group spot. This is where the people you currently have but this is it right? This is a confirmation bias. And so I need you to make sure that everyone that's listening, right you're you're checking that at the door is yes, there is a population of people that wants to be there because it's a 24 hour spot. I'm not going to be involved with group shit. I'm not that person right? I'm going to be somewhere else. I'm not You're not going to attract me. But the reality is is I Guaran fucking tee that the population of people you have right now that you think are only there for 24 hours, or they're only there for group. There is mathematically it this is why I can guarantee it. There are people there that would pay you more money or have specific goals that would want to be able to do more if you offered it, but you don't offer it. You don't talk about it enough. You don't do one of the three things that we see are the biggest problems with every single gym and gym owner we talked to that is not achieving to the level that they want to be because you're not offering these things, you're not doing them correctly. So just try and check any of that bias before we continue.



Tyler 15:07

And so those are those are the different training pathways forward and included in that we talked about specialty programs, you want to have cardio class, you wanna have a cycling class, you want to have kettlebell classes, you want to have cardio kickboxing, you can do whatever you want to do within that framework have diverse offerings. I always say the specialty program stuff, I put furthest down on that list, just because that's a nice little attractor, but now it's a thing you got to manage regularly, that is kind of stand separately right. Now the next piece is not just the type of training that it takes, it is a diverse offering of training that it takes to have someone connect with give someone a high chance of connecting to a type of exercise that's going to work for them now, that may evolve as they go on. Second one, people with any sort of body composition goals, health goals in general, build muscle, lose fat, gain weight, lose weight, get ready for sport, look good in the dress for the summertime, that is going to require a change in the way they eat. Now, if you aren't going to do nutrition coaching, fine, I find I highly recommend that whatever every person that comes into your door, though, is given an opportunity to Hey, invest in a meal plan. Okay, whether it's new custom nutrition, coaching, whether it's simply like here's a challenge, here's some guidelines, but they should be allowed to invest in it first, because if it's given for free very often, there's just no skin in the game, okay. And that's going to give them a very hot because guys, you know, I know I've said this before, but like, I'm at a point now I don't work with people who I'm not directly working with them on what they eat, that don't it's a waste of my fucking time to wasted their money. Because and people will do this people will refuse to do nutrition coaching, and there's an option to throw money at, at at a personal trainer, because they would most people in their psychology, often they would rather work harder and spend more money than actually fix that little thing that makes them want to behave like a fat person all the time that makes them want to eat that makes them want to go eat ice cream out of the refrigerator at night, or simply continue to be ignorant to the way that they're currently eating. And they don't want to believe that it's not working for them, the amount of people I have heard telling me that they're pretty sure they like 1500 calories a day. And I make them track it and never get back to me. It is to distract for like a week, never, by the way that nobody has ever done this. This is my favorite thing to do when someone comes out of the blue to ask me about nutrition. Coaches say, track your food for seven days and send it to me. And then and then I'll send you my pricing one because I'm not trying to work with everybody. And two, I'm not gonna waste my fucking time, giving you a meal plan and building it for you. Even if you pay me for you to not do fuck all with it. So personally with the way I'm currently set up, that's what I do. And you know, who comes to you knows how many times if people come back with it, not not one. Even people I'm having a hard time losing weight if you're not, okay, so you need to get in on that right away. Okay, because if you will, there's if you allow people to kind of stay diluted or stay ignorant about the way that they eat, they're absolutely going to continue down that path, they're just gonna be working harder, and you're gonna work harder in the gym, you're gonna break down more muscle tissue, and you're going to crash, you know, what you're going to do, when you should be eating less, you're going to crave food even more, because you've added exercise into the mix. But exercise doesn't burn as many calories as people think. So very often people start exercising and they start working out, and they have a hard time still hitting a caloric deficit, because they're fighting an uphill battle against new intense cravings, and the exercise is satisfying. But your body's gonna go, you gotta give me some fuel for this, and I don't want to be depleted when I've never been depleted recently. That's why I keep gaining weight. It's a lot on them psychologically, and they need guidance through this process, they just need to, and if you don't offer it, all these pitfalls I just described for you, I mean, more than half of your clients are gonna fall into that the needle needs to be moving positively in a positive direction for them. As often as they're with you as often as you can make sure that they are like that's you cannot have people come in your gym, spend a year and not get results can't, you can't if if you



John Fairbanks 19:02

if you want to make more money, right, as a coach, as a gym owner, as a personal trainer, with every single person that you are working with. I respect the fact that you have your Certified Personal Training, right credentials, and whatever credentials you go and get afterwards, your L one, your L two, all these things, those do not translate back to dollars in your pocket. Once you hit a certain threshold, it will allow you to unlock right. I'm a personal trainer. So therefore I'm able to now do xy and z. I can charge XY and Z. But don't make the mistake of thinking the reason why I never went to go get my doctorate is because when I got my master's in education, to go get my doctorate in education meant that if working in education, I would have to work for 120 years in order to just pay off the doctorate. Yeah, it was not that the doctorate would have been for me. It just would have been for me. I would have had no bearing on my ability to make more money. That is what your continuing education credits are up to a certain point. But if you want to actually have ROI, like what's in it for you, what's the return on your investment of time, because a lot of times what I'll hear, I don't have enough time, and if I'm gonna do something, I need to make money. It's two ways that you can do it. You either one, fix your offers, and how you are stacking those offers, and we're able to help you with that or fucking go through any of the episodes where we've given you the exact steps to do it, or to go get confident enough to sell nutrition. The most valuable thing about the title, we've seen this before, where it's like a transformation specialist certificate, I'm not telling you need to go get that.



Tyler 20:49

I don't even know what that means. But I know what it did if I think they had that like NASM NASM has it? Yeah. If you had a transformation specialty certificate at all, here's the best part. You can say right now you're at transfer. If you get a few transfers it just says you're a transformation specialist, say it's your specialty. Say this is my specialty. Because it is right. That's what I thought, I go strength training, or I go fat loss, muscle building transformation. Those are my specialties when I lose my stuff. And that matters to people, it's people looking at like, oh, like when I look at now I need to make that change. Now what happens with all this, John, is, you mentioned the certifications. And I also think that coaches, gym owners, they pursue too much of this by the way of expertise, or that I really don't want to worry about movement quality. So I'm able to coach people well or get people out of pain, I want to help people with mental health, because very often people are depressed and anxious when they come to us and or whatever, right, just in general, they're anxious about the gym, they're overweight, they don't feel good, they have low self esteem. And all those things are great. But oftentimes, oftentimes the amount of the pursuit that a lot of coaches do and chasing that it's just a disruptive distraction, it's to do that. So you can worry about that stuff. Instead of actually delivering people results. I implore you guys, if you care about your clients getting out of pain, you care about their mental health, help them lose the 20 pounds that they need to lose. All of a sudden, the back feels a little better, because the day to day wear and tear is not that bad. All of a sudden, you know what, they feel a little fucking better about themselves. Mental health is better, they perform better at their job, they're better in the bedroom, their spouse likes them more, all of a sudden somebody has mental health shares right up, when you stop making all your shit about very specifically, let's train for your mental health is dumb. Okay, so actually get them what they're there to get. And you'd be surprised all of a sudden how people's mental health feels better. And they're out of pain because they're not overweight anymore. And they actually have a sense of accomplishment now. So I think it's important, lose weight, get healthy. And you'd be surprised you're pursuing these things as though it's the primary goal. Those are secondary problems, oftentimes, that are caused by lots of other causes. And so when you come in and fix the thing as they've identified it, by the way, in the beginning, most people aren't knocking on your door saying, I'm, I'm depressed. Will you coach me about it? Mister man with ABS? Hell, no, dude, fuck off, like they're coming into your man with ABS, I want abs, I feel like that'll make me happy. And in the process, they just might be or they won't, but they'll have ABS and you did your fucking job. That's important. And in that though, coaching nutrition offering that to people is the way to actually get that done. I can make more people lose 20 pounds if I only coach them on nutrition than I could if I only coach them in the gym. That is a fact that is a higher likelihood. So if you're not doing it, I told you this before you are fucking up. The other side of that as well. Accountability community is why I always go to any gym that I'm associated with. I need to have some sort of either group class or specialty club or something or at least have events tied in because you do want to develop some sort of social integration within your gym with your members. So people come, they stay, they enjoy, they continue to show up to your gym. And it keeps them there for the long haul. That ties us into our next thing, right? Obviously you let them choose everything that we presented you we told you now those are things that just need to be there and you're going to let them choose that step one, present that in a way that is not fucking convoluted. This is the one thing we have Tim's we talked to we talked about offers to action choices all the time and then I see the stuff that you guys roll out and it's fucking off at the gyms we work with directly because they actually are getting it from the horse's mouth but you guys you just hear a few things to this and you start running with it. Dude, your shit if I if it can be explained to me in one image with like the three or four, like I should know right away what I'm getting. What it is, and not specifically the X's and O's are the ins and outs and what exactly is going to happen but I should know the value of tier 123 or 412 or three. I should know that right away should be obvious. Some of you guys get some wordy, convoluted shit, and it sucks it needs to be easy. It needs to be a small, medium sized man, it just needs to be, don't be the guy that's got a venti option. Fucking, it's insane. Okay, we're just we're just gonna go platinum, gold, silver, or whatever it is, or gold, silver bronze or, or ABC, but you got you this is this is the thing that now your sales process will start to suck if this is convoluted how you present it to people. Or if you're putting that outwardly on social media marketing ads and stuff like that. It's just too disorienting, and it sucks. And that type of thing. We talked about this before, John, how you communicate the things you try to sell, can make or break you for sure now. But once you've had that done, it's laid out well, they can see it, they can make their own choices. And it's easy for them to choose that person. Now every person who sits down with your sales process like that has the highest chance of success they could ever have. Right? down their own choices, they're going to dictate it, it's now there's some ownership on them, of course, but they've had the best way to align their budgets, their needs, with your expert parties, through your expertise, and a conflict and a conversation about their goals. All that stuff gets lined up and reconciled into one single decision that they make, and they go, let's go forward with this. Now you're doing actual real business with real people getting real results. And that's the thing that will set you apart from everyone else in the fitness industry.



John Fairbanks 26:25

And it really does solve that that one thing of just doing all that work ahead of time, solves one of the biggest issues that I hear from even gyms that either are brand new, or gyms that have been around for 10 plus years, which is a lot of times you guys can get sucked into the day to day, or you have different entry points for people to come into your world to where you can't guarantee that every person that has now stepped foot into your gym that is new, or has been there a while. Are they aware of all the shit that you're now doing? It's one of those earliest things as we were talking to gyms and coaches and personal trainers. As a gym owner, do your people know all the shit that you have available? Does your own staff, do your own members, like just doing these little things, which ends up being quite a large, major cornerstone of the business, you now can Guaran fucking tee that every single person that comes through your door is going to have the opportunity to be exposed to all the things that will make them successful. Because you've done all this pre work, the pre work is what allows now your sales process and that lifelong journey, that fitness journey that everyone's going to be a part of. This now allows them to see how they fit in your gym on that full timeline, as opposed to being like, Oh, well they only do this here. They just do cycling here. They just do boxing here. I need something else. I need to go somewhere else. Yeah, and



Tyler 27:48

I think there's a space if you know if you really are into something hyper specialized, wonderful. If you're a boxer and you're a boxing coach, you're gonna coach boxing, wonderful. If you want to open an F 45, or you want to open an orange theory or whatever else is around like this, and that's fine. They can do that one thing and that's okay. I just don't really give a fuck, that's its truth, right? Like I wouldn't I would never. It just doesn't that that's not that's not what I'm in it for. Right? So. So for you, if it's not appealing for you to open just a cycling club cycling gym then. And yeah, these are the things if you actually want to have an impact in your community on health. This is kind of the framework that I would use that I would recommend. Now, we talked about John, you mentioned the lifetime fitness journey, the clients lifetime journey through fitness, which is maybe it's coming off the couch and coming into your gym and picks and picking the first thing they could pick, maybe it's 24 hour 24/7 access, maybe it's group classes, maybe they don't do anything with nutrition right away, they stick with it, they like working out, they like the people, maybe they're struggling to get results to ask some more questions, they get some nutrition coaching to get some results, that gets confident. But they get to move around now, because they are now constantly aware of the stuff we'll get into later about the other pathways, they can take the other services you offer that's always in front of them. And they're in a place that has some sort of sense of community where there's other people advocating for those things, or their coaches, other members, et cetera. So I think planning for someone's lifetime, not every individual but knowing your business needs to be positioned to take up a certain amount of space in someone's lifetime fitness journey. Now, if your gyms are constructed as we talked to, as we talked about here, and all of a sudden this person goes, you know, I really, really just want to get into running. And then they just go in there. They become a runner, they run four days a week and they know how to eat well. Well, they're out your door. But you've kind of won already, right? You got some good money, they're very happy. They did their thing. They've got results, they got confidence and they found another method of fitness and they left with you on probably reasonably good terms. That is not a person who is fitter that has an impact in your community that you've had that matters. But sometimes people come in and they go they're too shy and they become just they kind of hide in the 20 For seven models, and that's okay, but then they get a little confidence like I want to do group or they start to fail a little bit, I need personal training, I need accountability I need, if you your business cannot allow for a few of those moves forward, backwards, laterally, whatever, you're missing out on a major chunk of a client's lifetime fitness journey. And what happens is, that person comes in and they only buy your 24/7 access, or they only do your group, and they try it as difficult or not, but they get results or don't or something happens and they just fall off. And that's it. Okay, if they don't have the ability, nobody does any one thing forever. It's so rare. I've talked about this before. And so if you're gonna come in and do CrossFit, and then that's how you kind of learned that you like squatting and such like that, that's how you learn Olympic lifting, you may move on and become an Olympic weightlifter. Or maybe usually what happens is people just get tired of all the sizzle going on in CrossFit workouts and they go on to become a weightlifter, I don't want to do that I don't want to have that much burn in my life. But if your gym also has a place for someone to come lift and train on a platform, you should still get work for them. Right, you can still do that, you can still sell remote programming, if you want to do things like then you start to implement some of these smaller products that are easier to plug in as time goes on. But you have to be able to have a little bit of wiggle room. A lot of business consultants are gonna want you to stay in one lane, be one thing and I don't want you to be everything to everybody. But you cannot just stay like you can't and have a real impact on everybody's health in your community. You can't have a low chance of success for people over the long haul. I believe that you know I'm saying go in and just have to get on your own in your living room on your own machine and do it regularly left to your own devices. Freedom, there are people that work for them. There are absolutely people that work for them. But not nearly as high as someone who is paying for personal training has accountability and is getting a nutrition coach and a plan that they're being, you know, getting checked in with everyday or every other day or every week. Okay, it's if two of those if 100 people and through just a cycling gym and 100 people ran through this system that we're talking about here. We win in regards to results, pounds lost for sure.



John Fairbanks 32:11

And it's it's all part it comes back down to your mission, like you talked about earlier, Tyler. So what your mission is as a gym, it also comes down to you having taken just again, a little bit of pre work a little bit of time, who are the people in your gym? You want to understand, right? If young dudes that are single 20 Somethings come in any kind of bodybuilding? Gym vibe, right? It would be smart to have somebody that's on staff that will like what is the path of expected growth for these dudes? Do you have a way for them to power lift or strong man or physique train? or do any of those things? It's like, well, logically, these are the steps that we see our dudes doing. Or logically we see like it's again, it's you can have, if you have silver fox type people, right that are 55. And older, they're going to come in, they're coming in because it's free. It's free. But they're elderly, they probably haven't been working out a whole lot. So they're finally getting back on the wagon for the 77th time and they're going to come in, they're going to be at the gym, but guess what their cardiologist is going to tell them they need to lose a few pounds. And now it's going to be a little bit more specific. So do you have nutrition? Are you speaking to them now? Because logically, you know, they're going to talk to a doctor, they're going to do these things that's going to take them down a very expected path and a almost guaranteed journey that these types of people come in. And then it almost feels like magic, that you just have the answers to all the questions that they might have. And you continue to put it out there. So then they go well, Hey, Justin, do you guys have the ability for me to figure out what I want to eat? Or, you know, my doctor says I can talk to the nutritionist. Yeah. Then I'll take



Tyler 33:57

them but we'll get you there. Yeah. Now. Now that all this stuff is in place now. Right? You know exactly the best pathway for someone to choose their own way within your business when they start, you're now able to occupy more space for them as they navigate through their journey. By the way, the longer time they spend on a fitness journey, usually the better results they get if someone is doing things whether they're trying and failing, or trying one thing and trying a different thing. For long enough time effort over the course of five years is kind of undeniable. It's the time when people spend not trying and not doing anything. Okay, that's where they really really fail. Now, you've covered now occupying more space and time in that lifetime journey making sure that they don't just run into your business and go shit it didn't work I'm gonna go out and done back to the couch. But now you're in a situation where your reputation should be in place right with these products are set up this way. You're profitable with what you have going on. Everything is aligned. But now you need to make the most out of the resources you have And that is a matter of getting in front of more people more often. Right? That really is it. So, John, I always recommend start with what you have. Because otherwise you got to spend to get kind of outside that a little bit, start with what you've got. And that really means stop leaving opportunities on the table. And this is the thing we see the most when we check out a business's social media, but also like just in what's going on, once we get our converse, a behind the scenes conversation with gym owners about what's really happening is, okay, there's a ton of missed opportunities. And if everything else is in place now implementing these things now becomes the each of them is exponentially more valuable now that you have these other systems in place. Because beforehand, man, it's, it's pretty tough offering lots of these things out of the blue, just blowing them up, when when you're selling more people into a system $100 member $50 memberships only like, one, that's too much, that's too much work, it's too much effort. It's too much marketing stuff for such low impact stuff. Exactly. And so when it comes to opportunities, the biggest one that I still see, there's too they go hand in hand, not accumulating an email list for stuff, whatever your backend system is, that's the value it's got, Okay, gotta have that every lead that you've ever got needs to be entered in somewhere. Every sales conversation you've ever had, yes or no, needs that kind of contact information to exist somewhere, ideally, centrally in your system where people are contacting you, right? Through your ideally your account management software, or through your website, whatever. But that all needs to be there. Okay? Because then you need to actually use that email list need to solicit them current members, of course, also, former members, also former leads, you guys, someone tells you no today because they can't afford it, or they don't want it or they want to think and sometimes the answer is really about the fact that they're just not ready to commit, they're just, they're not ready to really make a change whatever that is six months from now, if they still don't have it are still not making progress. They're compelled to act again. Okay, so that you everybody who gets told no, by somebody, like just like, abandons it forever, and it sucks to like, like, use that as an opportunity to reach back out to everyone who said not now everyone politely declined, or everyone who, by the way, went somewhere that was cheaper. Let them because if that other place is not equipped, by the way, to give clients a high likelihood of success, give them choices and take up more space in their lifetime fitness journey. Those people will be in there, they'll either get results or not. But they'll be right the fuck back out. During the market again,



John Fairbanks 37:34

Do you know the average length of time that somebody spends at a gym, any type of membership, the average amount of time, when you look at it as the industry as a whole, the average time is 90 days. So somebody on average is with somebody for about three months, 12 weeks, 90 days, however you want to call it, right? That's how long you therefore. So guess what, if you have a systematic way of reaching out to people, every quarter, every 90 days, whether they were told, you know, or whatever, just to check in with them, the odds are if they chose to go somewhere else, they're no longer they're not going there anymore. I mean, just just mathematically speaking. And another big, really, really important piece about the emails is that it's if you think that you own that, that's yours, those are leads that allow you to the only thing more valuable is a phone number. Because the reason why is if you think that then you're going to recapture people's attention through Facebook or through Instagram or through social media, you are now at risk you're dependent upon such a strong third party to help get your get what your mission what you want to do out into the world to where it's almost no



Tyler 38:48

specificity unless you're paying for it. And by the way, the specificity of someone who already came in and talked to you. Yes, already in the market for fitness, and went somewhere else who's probably still that statistically speaking, probably still probably back in the market again. You have them right there. That's not. That's not just yelling into the void of social media hoping to compel one other person who may be like Instagram, like nobody's seeing shit that doesn't follow you. So Facebook, maybe but we talk confirmation bias survivorship bias. You're only dealing with people who fucking are on Facebook regularly. That's not every that's not it's not the coolest subset of people anymore. It's just not. Okay. That's like that's an important thing. I think that people miss right? We're talking about Johnny ever answers surveys on YouTube videos when they pop up. I will never even if it's a question that's reasonable, that I can easily answer yes, I will wait the whole thing out or I will click Skip survey. Right? I am never doing it. If someone calls my phone and I don't know the number, I'm not answering it. If by some miracle I answer it, they're asking me a poll question. I'm hanging up the fucking phone. So don't think that Facebook and Instagram are like where you got to be to get all the people to peace. And you must do them. We talked about this, you got to be there so that you pass the smell test when people check can be posted once a month or every two months, or, or whatever. And you should let people know about those things easily to see the different types of things that you offer. But it is not nearly as impactful as if you're, if you've been operating for a couple years, few years, you should have a lot of you should have a lot of people should have a fairly decent email list that you should still be working, pumping it regularly, putting offers out there informing them of stuff, this isn't just a newsletter, you should be hey, here's this offer we're trying to do, or here's what we're trying to focus on this month, or did you know we have this internally and externally,



John Fairbanks 40:40

and it's getting these emails, through all the things that you're doing. So that is like it's being able to then collect and capture that data? We talked to some gym owners that are brand new, that are like it's all you know, it's that I'm gonna have an AMS or a CMS, I don't have any back end systems. And it's okay, the very first thing you're gonna do is when you're doing those free classes in the park, because you're brand new, it's get a fucking waiver that someone gives you their email address and their phone number.



Tyler 41:13

And what is it on that waiver is like, obviously, its liability and such. But it also checks here that I have permission to email you a special offer, like this is how you can get an opt in, it's on the up and up. You don't have to be, you know, outside the rules about it. But that's the way you got to do it. You just have to do this for the longevity of your business. This is as important as the other things we talked about. You just have to start accumulating names. What's the point? By the way? All the money people spend on ads and marketing guys, what's the point of it? What is the outcome to accumulate names so that we can contact them and try to sell them? I just rent people that fucking clam up about geologies I can't afford Facebook ads. Great. Then you need to get the goddamn email address of everyone you come into contact with everyone that comes in for you to free community workouts, whatever it is that you're have your park workouts, whatever special events, you can have partnerships raffles give whatever, I don't care, but you should be building that because by the way, your gym when you sell it. If you're the owner, and you don't have much else, most don't. Okay, your gym is worth whatever the value is of its used equipment. Yeah, which is fucking buckle really is okay. And your contracts, if you don't probably have any, or if you do, they're not really worth much with you out of the business, and your email list. A very robust email list all of a sudden is valuable because they can go off for plus outreach equals X amount of dollars back. And it becomes mathematically easier, easy to figure out what that's really worth, especially with the systems you have in place. So you have to do it guys. Normal businesses that are doing well in lots of other places use it. So when if you're hearing this Golden Cat, Jesus is fucking obvious. Listen, I know, I know. But so many gyms are failing to do this. And it's a bait. It's a basic thing, and you're just not doing it.



John Fairbanks 43:12

Now, for those of you that are saying, This is so fucking obvious, what I would challenge you is how you are interacting with your former people. How you are handling people that are on your email lists. Is it so automated that it's up its own asshole? Oh my god, yeah, because I would challenge you. Fucking is. And that's where there is an element of this, where it's like, whatever you built back in 2018 Fucking smells and looks like it's from 2018 There are some very strategic things that you can do to reengage those people. And to have a different level of discourse that will make you money, like by the weekend.



Tyler 43:57

You gotta be but like, all things in your business should be tuning them up. If you have a nutrition coaching product, whatever it is, right, I would assume that you're gonna go six months in three months, and you're gonna tune up how you deliver it a little bit, make some changes here, make some changes there, tidy up your first email someone gets maybe automate this part like it should always be improving. People do this, set it and forget it with their email automations. Like, set it and forget it. But you should have some system where you're checking in on it once a year, once a quarter, you're going to one of your projects as the business owner where you're hired out if you swim in in it, but is to I need to reskin this set of emails that goes out at this time start going through a master's. Let's rescind this offer. This reactivation offer lets me copy whatever it is, but now it's better. It's going to work better, it's going to perform better. Now you may get an extra one or 2% of the people that will respond to this. Well, if your email is big enough, that can mean 1000s of dollars in your pocket. Yep. From that one email. So now another one thing with running intern Sales and external, right externals, your general email out of people that aren't members also internals, your, your existing members, you need to run this outreach because you have different services, okay? Each service is going to connect to a different person, right? I told you about my personal training clients, if I had some of those people on my list of my leads, and I was just saying, come join the gym, come join the gym, it's not gonna work. But if everyone once in a while one of the things they get says, Hey, a special personal training offer, you know what's gonna go with a leg up and like a personal trainer, I like the idea of personal training, I don't want to just join a gym, or I don't want to just join the group classes. So now that works for those people. That is enticing to them, it gets them to open it, it gets them to reach out. So you need to run the whole gamut of your service offerings regularly through your email list out to all your people. So you need to connect those people to your products.



John Fairbanks 45:51

There's a reason why T Mobile, right? There's a reason why T Mobile and AT and T are constantly going back and forth right now battling that the new special is for existing and new customers. Yeah, right. There's a lot of attention that you can start to put towards new customers, and a lot of assumptions that you're making about your existing always remember, it's infinitely easier to keep existing people than it is to go out and get someone new. So this is where a lot of those elements of leaving an opportunity on the table is that if you're not taking all those services, or anything that's new or anything that's unique and a new way of looking at something, you're doing your spot, you're not taking it internally first. It's like you're choosing to spend more money to try and make money.



Tyler 46:39

And this is where we run into things where we'll have places where we have gyms that say I'm having a hard time. I can't sell personal training. I know nobody wants personal training. I just do group fitness or a 24/7 spot. Nobody really wants a personal trainer. Well yeah, cuz you're only mostly talking about 24/7 You're only known about it 24/7 are only known about groups. Okay, and you're just not putting it out there enough. Okay, if you're struggling to sell supplements and supplements the thing you're trying to visit you're trying to think you're trying to integrate into your business. I guarantee if you're struggling to sell it, it's not about being more forceful or being more bait and switch your being slimy or it's just being more consistent. Just be consistent. Here's what we have. Here's what it does. If you're this, this works for you. If you have trouble with this, this is what you should look into. Okay, you don't have to be, you don't have to be pushy conversationally. You don't have to make it all about supplements all the time. If it's simply being automatically communicated regularly, with systems in your gym via your email list. Also via your coaches giving reminders via the occasional special offer sale. But each of those things is a reason for someone to inquire about supplements because it remembers your people are buying supplements. Your most fit people and your most out of shape people are buying supplements because it is whether it's a shortcut, whether it's investment, whether it's buying psychology, whatever it is, they're going to do it and they're not buying it from you You're fucking up because I guarantee you they trust you more than they trust GNC



John Fairbanks 48:05

and because it's a product you can buy every one false trap to this right I spent a lot of time with like high school athletes. And they want to get bigger Tyler so do you know what they're gonna go by?



Tyler 48:17

I got one guess. already taken a mass gainer as



John Fairbanks 48:22

data 3000



Tyler 48:23

It's like the fucking South Park episode with Cartman just you guys don't question I get from people who are kind of new lifters all the time who I don't necessarily coach there should be I've never hurts. I'm gonna wish I'm taking a mass gainer. Well, I mean, I think mass gainers just code for like calories like I mean dude, that's not a solution I'd like you to figure out how to eat in a way that's going to work so you just don't



John Fairbanks 48:46

but we're not going to wait like it's not we're not lifting more right we're not doing like there's there's so many fundamental pieces because we all would do it



Tyler 48:55

if you tried to murder sleeping more and eating more No, no mass gainer because it says mascot out there and say no, no, you don't need that that's a waste of your money but a nutrition plan, some protein powder, getting some creatine, get the rest of your shit, right? I think that now somebody has a sustainable path. It's built on trust in fucking reality. And you're preventing people from being delusional gym goers who are prey to the predatory nature of supplement companies and online fitness products. That's your job. Okay, that's, that's, that's why it's important for you to talk about these things to sell them to your clients to offer the right things to them so that they don't go the other way. Guys, do you know why you offer fitness in your gym? Why do you offer exercise? Because it's fucking better for you health wise than not doing it. Okay, it's better than the couch. So it's very important for you to offer supplements and stuff because it's better than the stuff they're gonna go out and just get sold to buy some dip sheet at GNC doesn't lift



John Fairbanks 50:01

because they but also like, it's fundamental to what you're calling outside, like the idea of, you're a coach, why do you even own a gym? There's so much stuff on YouTube. Why does anyone go to a gym? Yeah, like you could get your own equipment, you could just do all the shit at your own house, and you don't even have to leave, you can save gas, you can save money on the membership, like you don't need to, nobody needs to do any of those things. You don't need to get a coach, you don't need to have a gym, you don't have to do any of those things. You can just do it all from home. I have trees in the backyard that have branches that break off every winter. I can save them, and I can just lift them in my backyard. So why do people bother to even go to your spot?



Tyler 50:38

It's almost like expertise matters a little bit. You know, it's almost like somebody else, somebody being to guide you in that process matters. It's almost like the environment that you train in matters. It's almost like having more options at your disposal matters. And it's like having those options chosen for you a little bit to remove all that. No, it's like that. It's almost like that's important and valuable. That's what you're here to do. Okay. Now, another piece we talked about is obviously personal training group 24/7 stuff to connect with different people with different training desires. The next one is price points, people have different budgets, okay? Meaning it is important if you listen, if you want to just charge $500 an hour for personal training, and yeah, go for it to get full or whatever. But like, that is a high impact for you and high impact for those clients. But you still only have so many hours in the day. So for me, our John and I's business model market, or market, our mission is to have a broader impact, which does mean you know what people who can't afford $500 An hour or $100 an hour or $50 an hour for personal training, they still deserve a chance. And they still deserve a chance that doesn't have them just stuck searching the internet for whatever fucking fat is coming across tick tock and whatever somebody's just things that someone's making up and telling them how to eat and what to eat. Or here's this workout to burn your little belly fats, like that stuff all sucks. But those people deserve a chance to. So what are your entry level products for someone with a lower bid? By the way, it doesn't mean a race to the bottom. If your basic gym membership is 150 bucks a month? Yep, there you go that that's your lowest one. But 150 bucks a month is a lot. What if your nutrition coaching that you I hope already have built in? What if that's 250 or 300 bucks, and it's once like I do for a 12 week plan, right 16 week plan, here's the plan go forth. Well, for 12 weeks worth of progress that maybe isn't focused on the gym, because maybe they can't have 12 weeks in the gym was gonna cost you a fortune or 50 bucks. Right? So this is gonna cost you 300 bucks, and it's probably gonna give you a higher likelihood of success than if you just came in and did the exercise and didn't change the way you ate. It is still giving someone a chance on the way out the door while they choose the down sell is important here. Everybody should see the value in your highest level options. Everybody knows the fucking the value of a beautiful, nice brand new shiny luxury car. Everyone. Everyone's while you got it. You see like a Bentley driving around, you're like that is fucking nice dude. Like everybody knows it rules, most of us would never consider paying for it. And that's okay. But everybody knows the rules. But what do we all want, we still want a car that we like, Okay, so we're still gonna find a vehicle that we like that checks the boxes we need that fits our budget. And it's very important for you to do that. Because now outwardly, we talked about being able to attract people because of their different desired methods of training because of their different training goals because of the social setting. But now, there's also another factor is their financial situation. A lot of people are bound by their financial situation, their decisions are bound up by their financial bound up or opened up by their financial situation. And can you do you have an option, that's the most affordable option, you should have your most expensive option. And once your most affordable option, and they all should work. Now, there's going to be less accountability and maybe there's going to be less expertise going into one, maybe less actual labor, maybe one of them is plug and play. Here you go. It's all yours, your hands off. And maybe that's the difference in value. But that still gives them a chance and it gives them the choice to make it you're not forcing somebody to buy a $300 Nutrition product, you're giving them the choice between whether or not we can start in the gym. But if you can't really afford that maybe you can afford this. But either way, you're giving them a chance each step of the way. To open your business to be able to impact more people, your systems robust, it will be profitable to open your business to impact more people is going to require you to be able to market to different price points. If I'm only selling Bentley's I'm not going to get a lot of people showing up for my Chevy Cruze. So I gotta let people know that we 're going to show pictures of your nice cars and you're going to show pictures of your affordable stuff and you're gonna show different things you do different things. Let everybody know what you can do for them and what it costs. I don't like it when gyms are not transparent about pricing either. I'm over That ship I've like I've said a little bit of changing my opinion, I'm flat out over it lead with your price. And I know you have different choices. But if you're on a specialty offer or you're offering 24/7 say this is what it costs you This is nobody buys uninformed anymore. And people want all the information before they take a single step forward. So the more information you can give them, before they make a call to do the thing, they're already aligned with what they want before they meet you. That's important. It's important that all these things, all these options, all this stuff, get it gives you ideas. Now for context, you don't have to put it all in one thing all the time. But advertising, PT, advertising, 24/7 advertising, nutrition, coaching, posting about what I'm saying right now, that's the stuff you got to do, you absolutely have to do, or else you're going to appeal to such a narrow market. And then your impact in your community is going to be small, your reputation may be great if everyone spent 500 bucks an hour, and they love you, and you're only going to get more rich people. Yes, for sure. But I still think it's important that your community get fitter. If you give a fuck. And if you don't give a fuck John, where can you go? Anywhere, but here. That's all I'm saying.



John Fairbanks 56:11

And it will feel like you're saying the same things over and over and over again. You will feel like you just keep saying the same thing. And then finally someone sees it, quote, sees it for the first time. That's because that's how fucking brains work. People will start to see things as soon as they start to think about that thing. You've all experienced it if you want, man, I want this. I'm interested in this type of car, especially when you're getting ready to buy a car.



Tyler 56:46

Buy a pearl white GMC Acadia, fucked me. There's 30,000 people in this town. And there's 700 of this car, John, but you didn't



John Fairbanks 56:55

recognize it? Until that's what you want it to be, then you're like, oh, shit, these cars everywhere. I didn't realize all these people were driving this car. But you saw those cars every day anyway, yes. But it's once your brain says I'm interested in this, I want this. Now you start to recognize it. And so this is the power of making sure that you're having these conversations frequently, often, and putting it out to the point where you think like you're talking about it too much. Because people are fucking busy. You don't see what you're not looking for. But as soon as you do, it's like, Oh, shit. I didn't know you guys did that. That's awesome. I'm interested in that. It's like, Dude, what are you talking about? We've been talking about this for the last three fucking years. What do you mean, you didn't know? Because they weren't looking. But now they're looking. And you've capitalized on that. And what's awesome about this is that the more you do this, the more reps you get, the better you guys are becoming at this, the better you get, the better you get at talking about it. So you have to kind of keep putting in the reps. Because it doesn't just happen by accident, that you now have all of these things available. You are really sharp at being able to talk about it to maximize when someone sees it. Now,



Tyler 58:09

It's important to differentiate if we talk about price points right with this that that's not the same as a contract length as an option. Or we talked about that last week when it was like an objection that I want to get a long time and offer six month options. Like that, however , you need to construct somebody's pathway into your business if you need to contract out, okay, I guess I don't really care. But like, that is not enticing to somebody getting being able to choose between six months, 12 months or 24 months, that is not a thing that's going to compel them to move forward. That's now just a situation that you box them in once you have them in this conversation. So that's fine. But don't think that anyone cares to know that until it's literally time to buy, that is not about their client journey. That's not about them. It's not about anything. But like you trying to secure long term money, which is fine, every business needs its mortgage going to let me just go on to say there's just none of this working yet. We need some guarantees that we're gonna get paid over the long haul, I get whatever. But that's not really the model that John and I are using here. This is not, that's not what we use. So very much you need to understand that. If that's how you have your sub structured, I just need you to understand that nobody cares about that at all. And that every time you start having that conversation, you are now compelling them to stay in a situation that they might not even be aware of and that's the issue. I haven't started this. I want to start this, but you're saying I'd have to commit for 12 months. Doc man I committed to showing up to talk to you today. I committed to texting you back today. That's that's as far as I've got right now. And when it comes to fitness that is too much pulling. And that's the thing. We're every gym we know that does 12 and 24 more contracts. If you're doing that and you have all of these other things that are set up for people to become successful to get the highest likelihood of success. All right. I'm with you. But the one Most of the ones out there that don't, they don't have everything set up for a high likelihood of success. Those people come in, they get cut, they commit for a year to two years, and they do what everyone else does. John 90 days in and out, no results, no nothing. They're never coming back to your gym, because they owe you money, they'll default on it, you'll turn them into collections, or you won't, it is what it is. But they'll tell everybody, next time someone is asking about a job, oh, don't go there, that may be the worst case scenario, they keep paying you for two years. And that costs you all of that and your reputation to everyone that they ever talked to.



John Fairbanks 1:00:28

And when you do that, you're making everything that you do at your gym about your price. Yes, and you've now fucked yourself royally. Because you now are making yourself very comparable to all the other places, if you want to compete on price get fucked, you're losing the Planet Fitness 100 Fucking percent of the time, because that's their model, their entire fucking structure is to be able to function at 7% capacity, and just have you pay forever. So you're not going to beat that. So this is where I stop making it about that. We've talked about



Tyler 1:01:08

that. And you can't afford to support a $10 month rate either. That's one thing, right? But you don't have to bring people in for even more money off of that, that sucks. Either, they'll be even more unhappy about it. People piss away 999 a month for Planet Fitness, whatever. But if here's this 50 6080 100 150 200 Get out of here, you're gonna have people really, really mad that they didn't get what they came to get with you whether it's your fault or not, this system is not in place to give them a low chance of succeeding, though. So you're now just in a position where you're pissing people off, left and right, you all on borrowed time. So enough of those people are gonna talk for a long enough period of time, and everyone's gonna listen. And now you become the last place on the list that they want to go.



John Fairbanks 1:01:48

Yeah, so don't make it about your price. And we talked about this for years, it's and endless gym memberships, this idea of this, the endless piece. And if you only have this type of a membership, the only thing that somebody can do with this type of a membership is cancel it. So you're just setting yourself up with so much failure. And it's just by flipping it to where it's just just making it about them. It's now about them. And now the price is going to be aligned with whatever they want to do and, and everything we've been talking about. Now, everything, again, magically comes in alignment. But it's not about the price. And when you do the fuckin 24 month contracts, it's only about the price. And that's



Tyler 1:02:29

a couple more things to get here. Before we go, we'll kind of cruise a little quick here with this. But making the most of your square footage is important. I think that means that whatever space you have in your gym, you cannot be running if you're running group classes, and you have three people in your group classes. And they're like, the money needs to make sense. Now for that, like, I'm sorry, you need to sell more. You shut that class down and spend that time not doing personal training or building a semi private block. There's, you have to make the most of your space. If you have group classes going on and you have a 24 hour spot perfectly nice if you had a little space where it kind of worked right? Can you run semi private coaching, small custom group and personal training at the same time as within your 24 hour global gym model or concurrently with a group class? Can those two things cohabitate? They need to, they really need you to want personal training and semi private classes going on while your group classes are going on. And if you have 24 hour options you also want your regular just to access only people seeing your coaching. The best thing for me for getting new leads is just someone else seeing me coach because the people I coach get results and the people I coach have a goddamn good time. I'm fucking pretty big and jacked and it looks like we're having a good time and I know what I'm talking about. So if I'm there in a full gym of people coaching I get asked constantly about what I have available and constantly answer you as much but I'll put you on the list.



John Fairbanks 1:03:49

If we're talking about leaving opportunities on the table, if you have your coaches and you have them personal trainers and coaches available to coach doing a coach product while group stuff is happening while the general population is doing their thing make sure their people can see that they're an actual coach. Yeah, like leaving an opportunity to make them look like a professional have them look like a fucking professional because now that does set up more opportunities otherwise it just looks like a big gym bro is helping their other gym bro do jimbros shit they don't realize oh this is a representative of the company that can do this for me as well.



Tyler 1:04:24

And now this is a kind of a take it or leave it thing for you guys. But for John and I this is another centerpiece we want professionals. coaches need to behave professionally, they need to look professionally. It needs to be fit. They need to be trained at that gym. Yeah, they need to be seen working out, they need to be working hard. They need to look nice and presentable. They need to wear uniforms, let them know that they work here and they need to fucking smile and they need to not be banging all their clients. Okay, this is these are like basic stuff that I shouldn't have to say but like it's crazy that if I do I've said this before, like if I had to find like a gas station, and I had to keep warning my cashier to stop trying to fuck all the customers who come in, like, that'd be crazy, right that that Chase, I gotta tell you again, you know, but how many gyms you guys saw out there where their coaches are just, it's just there. It's just their dating pool, they're just mowing their way through it's a fucking problem and it will ruin your reputation because then what does repeat what is your Jim's reputation get out in your community that's rough on families. And it's a bit thirsty. It's not, you're now not really like a nice, healthy, decent centerpiece in your community for health. And now you're just kind of like, you're like a you're like a scandal spot. It's what happens to gyms a lot of times is that type of stuff starts going around and you start coach starts banging the client coach starts banging someone who's married trainer starts banging up is is a fucking problem. So cut that shit out. There's pot, you can absolutely just be like, Guys, please don't. Please don't, maybe I can't make you but I'm gonna tell you like, you better you're gonna be professional when you're on this floor. And the correspondence you have with your clients will be done professionally. Okay, that's the way it's got to be. Last one, Jim times and availability, whether it's classes, whether it's how you're taking a personal training, whether you are 24 hours or not. We see tons of missed opportunities with this because sometimes you guys just do what you do, because you do and it worked for you in the beginning when you got up, you know. And this all depends on where you are and who your people are. There's no formula for this, this global, most of the gyms who worked in Europe would not have a single class before 8: 30 or 9am. CrossFit gyms. It's 8: 30 or nine they'd have, they'd have class, but they'd go until the last class would be at 9: 30 at night till 10: 30. It's crazy. Here 5am classes happen. A lot. Five 530-536-3056. But we've seen a lot of gyms that do stuff where they have like, one morning class one day or like a morning and night only. It's like, Well, we talked about who can get in? Well, now you're only dealing with people who have to work essentially from eight to five, right? What about the entrepreneur or the professional or the stay at home mom who can train at 8: 30 and have to drop the kids off at school? Who can train at noon? Like, that's an entire market that you're missing out on completely by just being like, well, I am busy during the day. Oh great. You kind of are paying your business a lot of fucking money. So figuring out how to accommodate more clients, it's in their schedule is just as important as their budget. Like their availability is just as important as their budget and their desired method of training. Yeah, it really is. So I've seen gyms where they bless their hearts, one of the gyms we worked with before they had any children. They've just had this setup, right? And when was the first morning class, John liked 745 730? Yeah. And it's just been that way and struggling to get, you know, that class over a hump where it's profitable to the point where I think they were going to shut it down, or they shut it down. And so doing less of it two days a week, it's like, Oh, you don't have it, you don't have a real job. And you're new to parenthood. So you wouldn't I mean, who the 730 doesn't work for people who have kids or who don't necessarily like it's it's in this middle range, where that pretty much sucks across the board. So you need to think it's not just your advertising or marketing. Sometimes it might literally be the placement of your product, where is it in someone's day? Where's it in their budget? Where does it fit their lifetime client journey, all those things matter? So fucking pay attention to them, please. Or we've had gyms John, they're struggling to get more adult training, right, this kind of like a kid's Performance Center type stuff. Yep. And then they didn't open till nine o'clock in the morning, or 8: 30. In the morning, most days, like eight to seven, are like Jesus, the two busiest hours that we have in the gym are like in the morning. Know that. Five 530 to 730 probably is the busiest hour in the 24 hour gym that I'm at. Okay. And then of course, the 6pm and beyond 5:30pm and beyond for about two hours as well. That's the highest level of congestion that you get for adults. Now add the fact that your reputation is already a kid. So what's happening from four to six to seven is all children. So most adults aren't going to appeal to those who go there. I want to train amongst a bunch of children. Now you're so so you have to start to expand not expanding your hours beyond what your means can do but know that you need to start to look at that those are factors that should be weighed in when you make every decision or when a class is what a class is what products you're going to offer is who is this for? What do they want to spend, what do they want? What do they need and when are they going to come in? And where are they at in their lifetime journey?



John Fairbanks 1:09:47

And these are all these foundational principles that everything else can be built off of. Yeah, everything whether you your marketing strategies whether you want to up the ante and start using faceBook ads, any type of conventional or like standards are some of our favorite marketing strategies of doing like real marketing and not fake business type shit, any of that stuff now you can build off of it, you can do actual community outreach, you can start building partners that are in your community that have the same mission and goals that you do to make your community a better place. And you can actually fulfill because you have all of that shit, really like just dialed in razor sharp, every step along a client's journey, and along getting them the success that they want. It's all there and people will want to partner with you. They'll want to be able to do business with you because you can actually fulfill what you're doing, and you can actually put together things that people want. Yeah. And then make them successful.



Tyler 1:10:50

It is dudes. That's it. That's all we got for today. Thanks for listening, go to gym owners revolution.com join the gym owners revolution Facebook group that link is in our description for the show at the gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler Elphinstone this Tyler eff ironstone and John, you can follow me on Instagram at Jay banks f l should be taking notes in this episode is probably the one you should be taking the most notes on. I think if you're paying attention, Good afternoon guys. We'll see you later.









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