SCAM ALERT: Get 150 Members in 30 Days & Other Nonsense

gym, john, people, selling, client, owners, ads, buy, run, tyler, facebook, sale, days, money, business, strategy, marketing, person

Tyler 00:02

Welcome back to the gym owners podcast. I'm your host Tyler stone with us John Fairbanks How are you doing John? I'm doing wonderful Tyler guys I've been in the fucking Facebook and Instagram algorithm for texts bad I don't know how you gym owners deal with this we do enough research we end up out on enough pages so like I think you see some stuff and you end up in a Yeah Why do I describe this you you'd like get swept away by the tide of absolute just dumb ass predatory marketing stuff that's directed at gym owners and it's pretty fucking crazy out there if this is what you guys are dealing with on a regular basis props to you for not like lashing out like so I've been getting these constant stuff John and I now it's like a running bid which I suppose is engagement on the content which is why I see more of it. But it's been a running, bitten off screenshotting like the scammy gentleness lamest, most unrealistic claims that are made right up in the front when they're advertising when he's consulting. I mean what you call his consulting for whatever these gym business ads basically add form I have no fucking clue what their lead forms. But like, this is pretty crazy. So now I see so many of them in so many claims. We saw one of them John, was it like 150 to 200 new members within like six weeks or something like this, guys, if that works, they're gonna you should do that. I mean, even the good with the bad like who can't like you guys should definitely do that. But it's just such bullets. You know what I mean? It's this: all these like 50 members in 30 days or 75 members with our new AI strategy stuff, all that stuff is the exact same marketing strategy to you that they use for like, bigger dick pills on porn websites, it's the same thing. You're like, there's no way this pill will give me an extra four inches. But they say it. So I'm just I mean, like people are buying that stuff, I guess. Right? And I guess gym owners are pulling the trigger on this stuff? I guess I don't know. Right.



John Fairbanks 02:18

But any notion that it's gonna rescue your who's



Tyler 02:20

buying extends on the internet either, I have no fucking but somebody is. And so, man it's been. And now by the way, I don't know if you guys know this, if you screenshot a photo, like on your phone, like within an app, all of these apps now have that external permission. So it used to be on Facebook, or Instagram, or Reddit or whatever, where if I just screenshotted the fucking app didn't know that I screenshotted that content, right? It's just my screen to my right to screenshot my phone. That's all changed over the last probably year. And the last six months has sped up even more to where if you screenshot something like on Reddit, like a meme or something like something like that, it'll pop up underneath it, and it'll say, hey, looks like you're trying to share this, maybe it'd be better if you shared it as a post or share it like it knows. So what I'm saying is that it acts as another form of engagement that the algorithm is factoring it, you understand that so it used to be just like, right? Like was a vote to like was a vote where you you, you engage in this content, this we're factoring this and then comments were high value, then it became sending something to somebody now that's like this entirely new category of engagement that the algorithm is factoring and sending a reel to a guy in a DM it knows what content you're sending to people and who those people are. So the algorithm continues to grow and grow and grow and grow and its dataset. And now it's gotten to saves now that you can save post save reels, same thing. So it's gotten to that point now where that's an entirely different vote. It's not an external vote about I like this, I'm showing the person who made it, I like it, I save shit that I don't even click the heart button on. Should I save? I don't even like to be honest with you. And that's but that's another function. Now that the algorithm starts to factor into this all. And now screenshotting is another one which is really an interesting development, anything you screenshot on Facebook or whatever, it knows it just like you click like or click Save. It is not like, this motherfucker might not be trying to say anything or do anything engage with us on this. But he really is about this content one way or



John Fairbanks 04:34

how about what we ran into earlier this week where it was my wife sent me a screenshot of something she saw on her feed. I then sent that to you just the screenshot on a separate app like a third party communication app and just said like, isn't this some shit? And then you see the real post on your algorithm. So it's not even like I didn't share the link with you. I just shared a screenshot that my wife had seen that she took, and a separate app. And then within the algorithm, it showed you the real posts, like three hours



Tyler 05:14

to it, and it's like I'm not. I don't live near that. It's just basically like, I won't go into the details, but it was just really trying to make me want to, not fat shame. But you raged, enraged by this situation. And it's put in front of me, and it's like, there's no purpose. Demographically. I don't like that sport. I don't like it all. I don't like any of it. And it's not anywhere near me. It's none of my business altogether. And it's like, Tyler, do you want to freak the fuck out about this? And it was, it's crazy. Like, it's less a local article from somewhere so far away from me. And it is, it's just like, alright, this is stirring the pot, let's put it in front of people. But guys, these, I guess that's the algorithm side of this, that we're just bitching about as that continues to develop. But I want you guys to know that. We're seeing what you're seeing out there, I assume. And it's fucking crazy. And I understand what you guys are like what gym owners are. The guard is up whenever anyone's offering business help or even wants to talk to them about their business. Because if this is the shit you're dealing with regularly, that's crazy. I mean, there are claims that are being made that not only are probably not possible, but they would be detrimental to your business. There's just no way that you can get 150 new members and the next 150- 200 new members in the next 30 days or whatever, and have that not absolutely break your head completely. Like you shouldn't even want that. I can't imagine. And so, but this stuff that's hitting you guys is now we get it. I've always understood that this game was kind of a shady game, but when we did, we did a lot of outreach. And we message gym owners like hey, we got this show, you know, we're just and we're doing it like genuinely right? Okay, right, this show, we get it. And you'll seem like you just flat out ignored a lot. And I get that cold marketing is that's the nature of it. But it is really interesting trying to break through that because you as a fitness professional should know as much as your guard is up about this all these fucking marketing scams that are getting put in front of you. Your clients guard is up already, because this type of scammy behavior was already targeted at the consumer first,



John Fairbanks 07:29

right right.



Tyler 07:30

Fitness Industry. These marketing backed fitness industry folks have already been pretty predatory. They've already made crazy lavish claims about their lies. They've already allowed your Herbalife 's of the world and all this other shit to come through. And now there's fail safes in places like you can't eat. There's a reason I can't run ads on Facebook like my online training program. I just can't do it. There's nowhere to send them to. Because you cannot post about weight loss and run an ad bind it it's not a fucking option. You can't use those words. You can't, it's just not really an option that you can do. And if you guys have ever tried running ads like there's some interesting or games you got to play that's why right now when people are marketing for gyms or fitness, what are the challenges? That's what smart is with customers because it's a challenge that you're doing and they don't mention transformation transformations that we're selling a transit they're not they cannot and by the way that'll catch up to them as well. Okay, so we have already by allowing that stuff to happen through our businesses. We have already like pissed in the pool and now we're swimming in it and now there's a lot of



John Fairbanks 08:40

stupid there's a lot less water yeah.



Tyler 08:44

Just a pool the pitch right now. And it's pretty nuts Dude, this is but these are not like let's get into the nitty gritty because there's some other tactics here that we think we've seen that have been around for a long time and this is not just what's old, it's new. It's the fundamental nature of a lot of these ads are just some basic old school shit. So we're gonna get into this right not just the ads but some of these tactics. Before we get started, make sure you follow the show on Instagram at the gym owners podcast. You can follow John at Jay makes NFL you can follow me at Tyler Elphinstone, Tyler eff I installed go to gym owners revolution.com If you want to get into gear Academy, have us help you with your gym, your business, make sure your clients are successful. And you make real money doing it. Get in the gym owners revolution Facebook group that link is in the show notes on your app that you're listening to the show on. Let's get started. So old,



John Fairbanks 09:35

old school Tyler was just running like all the marketing bullshit of getting more members and getting more leads was will help you run your ads. And I think that that's still that still is probably the most common and most dominant thing that we see which is just running ads. You pay us for every lead acquired is $100 for every person that walks through the door. Do you close them? Like that still, I think that style is just its lead generation to the most fundamental degree within paid social media advertising. I think that's it, right? Like, that's where it starts. And the issue is, and we've hit the nail on this ad multiple times, which is just, it's when you start having people that you have to pay to run ads, and their only job is to put people in front of you and get you leads. It ends up becoming where it's just now you're paying so many people, all of these middlemen that you're gonna go broke, and you're gonna get 3000 leads, and they're just dogshit. Leads. Right? So that and that, but the real nefarious shit outside of that has been when people start to say the phrase like, no paid ads, like we're not going to do this. That's when you and I intended to really start to go out.



Tyler 10:55

And now because there are no paid ads. Why is that? John? Why is that such a good hook? Because the paid ads shit is working a lot less than a fucking was before. This isn't Click Funnels era fucking 2012 1314 1516 stuff here. Right? This is now we're in the modern times where lots of people go, Facebook is pretty. I think I don't want it to be on there anymore. So now you're only getting when you're running Facebook ads, where you get it, the type of people that are on Facebook. So it becomes lower and lower quality and has less and less reach in regards to the percentage of people that are within driving distance of your business. That's like I think that's, that's the biggest thing is it's just less coverage now. It's like It's like radio, right? I'm paying for the radio, and they're, they're telling me certain lots of people are listening. But guess what? Nobody I fucking know listens to the goddamn radio, I don't know a single person that's in my circle circle on a regular basis who gets in their car and turns on the radio, let alone doing it in any sort of other capacity. So when you start running ads, they'll tell you, it's not about conversions. It's a normal look at its impressions. Right? It's an old school fucking game of just changing the goalposts here's No, I want sales I need Well, you know, we're trying to get your brand out there and get your brand out there is we have X amount of people listen, based on what, and Facebook does this with their ads, and they always have, we've warned you guys about this forevers Don't let anyone else tell you what metric is important to you. The biggest thing, do not let any of these marketers run any of these ads, tell you that reach is important or impressions are important. It's like in the end, if what you're trying to do is get leads, I didn't even that fundamentally can be short sighted, you want sales. Now. If you want sales, and you're gonna get, you're gonna get some leads that aren't gonna convert, that's fine. But if you say I only want to prioritize leads, you're just going to get a pile of leads that don't really convert to sales. So be realistic about what your outcome you're trying to get is. And do not let anybody tell you we did good 10,000 People saw this, well, it didn't fucking bring a woman into my business, it didn't make me $1. So fuck you, is usually the approach that we use when it comes to that stuff. So Facebook is becoming less and less effective. The ads these properties propositions that are being made to you as gym owners, via Facebook Ads work so poorly right now that for the most part, gym owners have are at their wit's end about it, which is now the new hook. The new hook for you guys is no ads, like straight up. No Facebook ads, no Facebook, none of this stuff, no paid ads is the hook. And what are they doing? To get you bunches of leads from far away to help you? Like what is this? What is this brilliant strategy? John, you know more about it than I do?



John Fairbanks 13:53

What we started to identify is a combination of this best thing and I think we can describe it as is that it starts to feel like we're we're starting to see some similarities where instead of it's organic, right? So organic marketing is now where most pokes are gonna go. And they're gonna go in that direction, because the ads, right, have the connotation that it does. So then it's about like, will genuinely create connection. And you will start to see and again, this isn't new. This is something that is old. So we're saying these old strategies are actually coming from? Well, what you need to do is, if you need to be able to create a Facebook group, maybe it will create a community of people. And you need to be able to foster those people to be able to connect with you on hit Get everybody outside or be able to target it towards moms who are targeted towards whatever your demographic is. And you just want to be able to start getting people in and in and in into this group and into this community so that eventually So now you control that. And then you're able to then start to slide your shit in just in a real non threatening way. But hey, we have this offer, we have this opportunity. And now what you end up becoming like these professional group managers. And what's crazy is that you and I have started to see this across multiple industries, but specifically on Facebook, where it is. It's almost as though people are commenting and saying that, Oh, yeah, I know, these people, I'm a part of this, or I've done this before. They're, they're not real. It's almost like back in the day when you'd have snake oil salesmen show up. And they'd show up to a town, and they have a blind guy. All right. So now they're healed. And it's like, or, Oh, they're the best ones. Not to dive too deep in the wrong direction. But Jim Jones, right, becomes a famous preacher and is with people and does a male amazing healings, and is able to heal people and do amazing things. Because there are people that are in the congregation that are plants. And then everyone starts to feel and everyone starts to go in that direction. We all know what that looks like, whether you're selling a miracle elixir, and someone says, Well, I used this and all my hair grew back, or I did this and I had this happen. It's



Tyler 16:20

that that snake oil thing, John, or the old fucking magician or comedian who's got a plant in the crowd he's got to do that has existed for as long as sales and Entertainment has existed. And this is the concept that lies at the root of this social proof. All it is, people are buying this, people are trying it, people like it. People like me are doing these things, right? That's what this means like, Oh, I am this. So you'll see, John, I see this on products like expensive products, cheap products. Let's say I'm seeing physical products. Okay, you'll see this stuff where it's a product that like, frankly, it's maybe way overpriced, or my first impression is nobody's buying literally. It's like nobody would buy this. Nobody would pay for this. And what all of the comments in there are literally like, just what you described. I don't mind if I am a stay at home housewife or I'm a stay at home mom with two kids. And I'm so happy to see this. I just ordered mine. So it goes from I just ordered mine. Oh, this looks like it would work great for me. I just got mine super fast shipping. Right? Oh my god, it just unpacked, it's amazing. Or and then I've had mine for a certain amount of time and it rules. And this stuff. They're peppered all over the place. But this is just saturated fake comments. This is almost



John Fairbanks 17:48

it feels like bots, right? It almost



Tyler 17:51

might not even be it might be someone just making an ask. Right? Right. Like you, I need you to do all this. It could literally be friends, moms, like it could be whatever. But if I have those 10 comments on there, this thing really will perform pretty well. So you can have everyone in your life go in and do that I guess. And by the way, take the good things out of this strategy, and use it. Okay. But what is that other than a testimonial? Right? What is that other than a good review? So that really so you can these are other ways that you can leverage you're good, you're good relations, but if someone has actually worked with your gym or work with you directly, you make a post with like, hey, even if I don't ask a ton, but like, I know I gotta go early. Would you go in there and just share in the comments like what your experience was of somebody you know, and trust we have that's not disingenuous, it's not pushy. Ask the right person, not the wrong person. Like that's, I'm not opposed to that. But most of this isn't that. And we talked to some of these people that have I mean, frankly, this has been in the gym consulting space for a very long time, which is start a Facebook group like you just said start a Facebook group, right in your community. This happens for lots of other businesses. I think you look at mattress stores and shit like that. The anyways, the franchise ones, some of them their built in strategy is start a pro business like just high five and other businesses positive business experience page and just had all the businesses around at everybody, you know, get every like just pump this page up, pump up everybody else's business and then yours is just floated in there. But then you are also there as a social authority on what good business is in your town here. It's very interesting. So I think that's exactly what all of those are. Frankly, that's what all of this is now we're not doing paid ads. Okay, so what are you going to do is the service that these people are going to offer is to have a bunch of people with fake accounts come in and comment on my stuff and pump up my shit to give me engagement in Facebook group that I have to create or to simply get me into tons of other now I'm the guy and lots of Facebook groups and Facebook community He's trying to hustle, but not really right away, you got to be in them for a while, you know, then you got to ask some questions kind of give a little value. every once in a while, maybe you don't set yourself, you let someone in there go in and rave about you and your business, and then you just confirm it. I don't hate that stuff. If it's on the up and up. That's the problem. Right? In reality, being engaged in your community. This is the second part. That's always the fundamental principle with this job, right? First off, social proof matters. That's what we talked about before the snake oil salesman plants in a crowd. Right. Okay. The next thing about this is it's essentially just being a person in your community being recognized, being likable, being out there and being known for what you do. This is all just the fucking Facebook version of that. Be a goddamn professional and do what you do and do it publicly and do it well, and do it. You know, don't be ashamed of it, don't hide it and hide from it. And that is, that's not foreign. That's not some fucking brand new, brilliant strategy, either. This is just this, disingenuous kind of lame internet version of like, what when we had Austin on talking about like, No, I go in, and I volunteer and I coach high school football. It's the same thing. You know, what's the difference? That person is delivering real value and having a real impact on real kids lives, and you motherfuckers are gonna get by just getting in a goddamn Facebook group and thinking, this is my involvement. That sucks. That sucks. And I'm not, again, I'm not opposed to those strategies, as long as you know what you're doing and be fucking real about it. Just it's, but that is the, that's the tool that they're using.



John Fairbanks 21:43

The strat and if the strategy if as you are hearing it, as you get pitched to it, let's say you do need help, right? If you need help, and great, you're getting inundated with people that want to be able to help you like God bless there are everywhere. If you start to smell that the majority of the tactics and the strategies that they're going to give you these tips and tricks and shortcuts to do this, and you know, the old school stuff is like swipe files, who who wants this email, and this email is guaranteed to get you 60 leads or whatever those things are, you get too many of those tips and tricks that do not involve anything that happens in real life. To be a red flag, right? That has to be the red flag. For the sole reason that the tips and the tricks that you're being presented are, at best five years old, more than likely a decade old. And the reason why that's relevant is that scammers, folks that are the pig butchering, that's going on all of these, um, the cash app, the Cash App scam, once they somebody hijacks your account, and they tag 70 People that are your friends, and then they're posting photos that you've made all this money on Cash App, and they need to text this like, the problem is because those strategies do work. You now have bots and nefarious, like the African prince that has all this money that they want to give you. Right? That's so 25 years ago. And so now it's so much more dangerous. It's so much more dangerous. And that's why it won't work. It won't work because now everyone is getting scammed. Text messages, DMS, everything, that it's, you're going to fall into that whoosh.



Tyler 23:30

It was so easy to scam people back then. But in the area of early email, when people just assumed that people that were communicating with you were probably telling you the truth or they weren't. It's just it's like, Okay, I am choosing to believe this person. So when I was a kid, how old was I? Maybe like 10 years old. My grandparents, I think I might have been a little older, maybe 12 had a like one of those very early car cell phones, right? Yeah, like the bag phone and the thing, right? And so I was like, I'm going to try and call my parents because they'd never you know, they didn't have caller ID back then. So calling from the back was just waiting in this car. And I called my parents and I pretended like I was someone from some sweepstakes. Yeah, and I pretended like they had won a cruise for two. And I went through the end legitimately my own parents flat out were fucking like, it was at the point where I was like, stupid. You don't mean, like I was, so I had to break the thing completely. But like, they flat out for it. Not John, not a couple of minutes. It's like a 10 minute thing that I really drugged out. And they were really excited about it. fucking morons. What are we doing here? But this is what this is. Everybody who could get got got got by something early on. And the ones who let their guard down got even worse. And sometimes you just Get like there's advertising and marketing is fundamentally manipulation. It is what it is. And frankly, every social interaction that's a connection, I'm trying to connect with a person, talk with them, you're trying to deliver them a point and help them to think or feel a certain way. And so like, but understand that fundamentally it's manipulative. I'm trying to get you to do the thing. If you like this thing I'm trying to get you to buy it if you don't know this thing, I'm trying to make sure you know this thing so that you like it so that you buy it right. Because every purchase is emotional, every purchase and so everybody who could God God, God, God, and the Internet continues to evolve and Facebook and their ads stuff now, like Who of you guys out there are responding to a Facebook ad, and like buying a thing from a Facebook ad? Very rarely, like the brand has to kind of maybe have already been in your peripherals like you have to engage in the content bunches of times. I cannot imagine buying when you mount Johnny, remember those shirts where it's like people named Tyler who were born in 1984, the coolest guy, you know what I mean? He's just like four things. And then they just run these prints and order T-shirts, like the dumbest font, like a new font for every word. And they would have marked those to everybody on Facebook named Tyler, what a brilliant targeting. And just there's a fair percentage of Tyler's that are fucking morons that must have bought that shirt. It's crazy, or wives of people named Tyler. And that's, but everybody who could get got got got. And now people's guard is up now, like I was before I did it. I believe the thing before now they believe nothing. They really truly, truly believe nothing in these plants. Now. I do think that whether it's bots, or whether it's people giving a kind of fake engagement review, by the way, review, pumping has been a thing in Amazon for a long time. Oh, yeah. I got one of those. I thought I didn't tell the story out here today. I got a fucking like an apple pick up potato peeler just showed up in my mail from Amazon said it was to me. And what happened is my address, I didn't order it is not ordered on my Amazon account at all. But my address somehow leaked somewhere, not just mine, because it's me amidst a whole big batch of addresses that somebody bought somewhere. So this Amazon seller who was trying to get a bunch of reviews called review his review pumping, it was called, yeah, what they do is they send out, they go into other people, they create a bunch of Amazon accounts and they buy these products, you have to have verified reviews, verify that you bought it. And it means it has to be sold and tracked and delivered. So nothing shows up on my door like in China or something. This is like during COVID to sound like it was back when people were getting weird packages of seeds. And I was like This is fucking cyber attack. But I get this thing I'm like, I didn't order it. It's not on my Amazon account. But it all looks on the up and up. And I don't understand why and I started looking into it. So they send all those out. People that buy them, they have to send them to the people. So they basically just write that off as their marketing costs. But in return, they'll have 205 star reviews on this product, which if you're looking to buy one app, potato peeler versus another, and this person just opened their store and has one review, it's going to be tough to compete with the other even if it is on price, it's just going to be tough for them to make any sales in their webstore. So that is a strategy that's been around for a lot of years. And it's gotten pretty intense lately. But this is what they're doing when they're going into these comments and things like that. And they're just really really really engaging and pumping out we could all be totally fake could be totally bots. So my favorite is new conspiracy theories, that dead internet theory, there's a couple of videos on YouTube if you want to check them out. It's kind of fun. But the theory is that the internet's not as big and vast and full of information as people think. If you go to Google, you search like, I don't know, search anything. And it's going to show you like we have 3 billion results. And John, you're gonna see five things in the first five pages, like you're not going to see hardly anything. And people have gone all the way through the end. It's not even close to that many results like that number is just completely made up. And there's not that many articles like the blogosphere is gone. It's dried up like that's that doesn't really exist a lot of that contents not there anymore, because hosting those websites now takes you know, takes money and there's not a lot of value in them. So the internet's just not the theory is it's not as vast and engaged as people think. You and the people in your circle probably consume a lot of the same shit. This is why you get sent memes that you've already seen before for people all the time reels from the same 10 people and you've seen four of them, you know all the time. So I think There is some truth to that, right? Facebook is not as big and powerful as people think it is. I believe to be true, it doesn't have the reach, it's not that impactful to your business every year it becomes, it represents every year, Facebook represents a smaller and smaller sector of your market. That's the truth. Same with Instagram. So it's not like you have to abandon those tools or those platforms. But you need to understand that you can't be in a fake community on Facebook that you made to like market your shit to create a bunch of fake engagement, or run ads, you can but know that that pie that you know that game that you're playing in that pool you're waiting in, gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller and shallower and shallower. So you can't just do fake community stuff, you probably need to also do some real community stuff, you probably need to take the concepts that drive these strategies and make them successful, and apply them in real life. Give that a fucking shot.



John Fairbanks 30:59

What and where were these great ideas coming from Tyler, like when you think about, like, these amazing marketing ideas that you could use that involve all of this, like ninja level behind the scenes, but it's there from marketers? Yeah, they're not from people that are fulfilling, right, fulfilling an in person product. And so that is where you're exactly right with the idea where like, Facebook will as you continue to be a business, it'll continue to matter, less and less. Because yeah, because you're not a digital product, you guys supply a service and in person service. And the more people you have come in contact with, the more real humans you've interacted with, you've been successful with. And then the most valuable version of your marketing are people walking and talking about your fucking business in the streets. It's for me to try the new Mexican place in town, I'm going to check the Google reviews, I'm gonna get a feel for what their menu is, I'm gonna get a feel for what people's favorite shit is there. I now know once I go that I like that place. So I don't need to check their Google reviews again. No.



Tyler 32:04

And what's also interesting, too, is that it's on the same subject. Right? There's a new place in town, haven't you? Right? You haven't been there yet? Maybe you haven't even looked at Google reviews yet? A guy you know who's a friend of yours? Who knows your taste goes, John. Fucking awesome.



John Fairbanks 32:21

Right?



Tyler 32:22

Awesome. You gotta go. That's all you would need to hear, ever. Right? So that's what these Facebook hustles are doing. They're trying to do that with someone who's like you. I like this product and bought this product, and it is great. And so it's fake. And people are gonna see through that. And I think the rise of social media specifically, as well as just generally digital products, digital product wasn't really a fucking thing, you know, 30 years ago. But the rise of this digital space created a lot of marketers, John, a lot of marketers who don't deal with human beings at all. And now guess what, they're pivoting to the real fucking brick and mortar space, and they suck at it. So they make these big, vast claims because it's the best they can do to get you in, and they're going to try to sell you in a phone call. And they're going to do all this shit. But a bunch of marketers got too big for their britches, and the bottom dropped out. And it's just less valuable. Now they're trying to go at you. And they're gonna use the same marketing tools and skills that made them successful in the digital space. And they're just gonna fail on your behalf with your money. That's the biggest issue I see is a lot of them fucking suck, and they just don't get it. Remember, I think the analogy I gave is the one I really would prefer for you guys to think of a new restaurant in town, your friend comes up and tells you it's dope. That's all you need to hear. Now, on the fulfillment side, I think this is also interesting. Because again, these people are marketing, not knowing what your clients are, nor do they ever have to look them in the face. They don't know what quality leads are coming in. They don't know what your business is about what it should be about. Right, which is the success of your success. And even if we're getting bunches of leads, and we want to make this about money, right, we're gonna eat. There's a concept within the businesses that we work with, like, the money will come you need to give everybody a very high likelihood of success, which means let them choose their path forward, do they want regular gym access, 24 hour access, nutrition, coaching, accountability, measurables, personal training small groups, whatever products you offer, they should be assembled in a way that gives somebody a choice to spend the most money on a premium product or the least on just an affordable base level product. When the relationship starts, where do you want to go? That concept? Where do you want to go and what do you want to accomplish? What vehicle do you think will get you there? Here's what we offer. Let's go. That becomes now a system that is geared for success. But you cannot just be pushing and selling the most expensive Have thing because we see it on the fulfillment side of these businesses, it still needs to be on them being successful. John, if I get 200 clients in the next 30 days, I don't know how I'm gonna give all of them a good chance of success.



John Fairbanks 35:14

Because they think it would be literally impossible.



Tyler 35:17

Yeah, it's just a problem. And I see we've seen gym owners over the years, John, we've, we've even built some very premium products and we get excited when someone buys a premium product. It's good, it's a good sign that the system works. But the most expensive, most premium product is not necessarily the product you want to be selling the most of. Because it's gonna be for everybody because and it's not just about the dollar amount. That's the problem if John we've we've we've helped him on our syllabus, it was the biggest like a $35,000 fitness package for one person. Yep.



John Fairbanks 35:48

One is



Tyler 35:49

good, but it's a year long. It's a year's commitment. And man, that's, that's a lot.



John Fairbanks 35:53

There's a lot we say. We also say it paid up front



Tyler 35:57

paid by the Yeah.



John Fairbanks 36:01

No contract, like we go hard at contracts for a reason is this is not a thing where they got a better deal because it's a monthly payment. It's like no, paid up front, someone throws money down. And this is the most dangerous, right? It's like one of the most dangerous things for you guys to learn from up and coming personal trainers, gym owners. If you have something that's expensive, if you don't, are not careful with what those guardrails are, you are going to have such a problem in about eight weeks.



Tyler 36:33

Eight weeks is about where it gets out to eight if you're lucky. Now, that's the issue. That product can't just sound good. It's got to be good. And the people involved in it got to be really fucking good. Because it was like I think it was like 35 Wasn't like 30 It was only 33 grand a month something like this. So it was like a kind of breakdown but this was a situation where you had to be very hands on very thorough, you have to know this is a long ongoing relationship like this isn't that they would go great. Now you're in it to win it. No, there's a person that is reaching out to this person. There's people that are coaching them throughout the week, there are other services that were baked into this from massage or whatever, there are systems and structures. This all needs to be easy. This is the fucking Cadillac version, this is a lot. And it should be worth it. And if you drop the ball, or the worst thing is you go yes, big sale. Luck. Yeah, dude, that's in essence, this is the problem because there's a concept within fitness that I think is very important. You only eat when you're selling, fulfilling you're always doing so you can't just fulfill and then run out and realize Oh, shit, I forgot to sell I spent all the money I earned before and then shit this client is done or moves away. And now, Buck, I have to start marketing to try to sell now. That sucks. It's even worse, getting a bunch of money up front, blowing it all. And then being very concerned about fulfilling it. In particular, what does this mean to ask for the money back? Like, what does this go? What if he doesn't like it? What if we have a meltdown? Or we don't get along with each other? What's the word? Every 1x or 2x. Every time the price doubles, right of a product, your fucking risk really doubles as a business owner. If you aren't successful with this, if it doesn't go, well. Someone's spending 5060 or 100 bucks a month with you. And they have a bad experience or it doesn't worry like yeah, who cares if it doesn't go well, and they want like, who cares? Someone spends $35,000 with you and a year and three months and they don't like the coach and they feel like you failed to deliberate you've got a problem. Got a big problem. And this is why when we see gym owners get stoked about that price about the big sale. We always have to help them. Okay, now we need to rein this back. Now this is a big opportunity because you now need to deliver on this and it can't be scrapped together. It's got a fucking rule. If you want to be able to sell this again, it's got to be awesome. And we see I had a recent situation where this isn't me or anyone that I've directly associated with but somebody new personal trainer got a fucking big sale like $5,000 deal or something like this. And the owner and the trainer were so excited about one they charged more per hour than they had ever charged before which is great value for your stuff. And they put a big ticket offer in front of somebody and that person took it except I never heard neither the gym owner nor the coach who are both so excited about the dollar amount. I've never seen anybody buy that much. John this program, it's like five days a week for like fuck six months or some shit. And it's like you're never going to coach somebody five days a week for that amount of time. Like you don't know this person. And what frustrates me even worse is not that that relationship isn't viable. It's that when these people were bragging about this situation, nobody said anything about who this client was. To me, like what they're trying to do, like what they're going to help them to do, it was nothing. They talked about this, like the client didn't fucking exist. And guess what, John, like a few weeks into this arrangement, and this client is postponed or not been able to make, like fuckin, I think like more than half of the sessions. So if this does go through all the way through, it's going to take a fucking year. Well, before you're, you're always juggling your schedule with this stuff, that's a problem, but our policies are in place for that. And even worse, I think there's already rumblings that this person is going to ask for their fucking money back. All that money is already spent by both parties. So this is a fucking problem. And this is what happens when you get very fired up about a sale. And you don't give a fuck about the client. Like not I can tell you this every single time me and my wife specifically both when we take on a new client, especially when the commits big time, John, you've heard me on our calls, fired up about the people I get within my program, right? Yeah, fired up. Like, that's my thing. It's not that I just made a sale. It's this guy's like 300 pounds, but he's honored like it right. It's that these are the conversations, I have the terms I would say, he's ready, I was actually there for my concert, or I'll say my concerns, My concerns are I don't know if they're quite really there yet. Like I got it, we gotta get him over because he's, but it is truly an assessment of this client's pathway forward to being successful. I can be pumped about a four or $5,000 sale, but I better be very pumped about what that is going to do for that person. And when you're not, it's very fucking obvious. And those relationships dry up very quickly. And that's the biggest, this is a big problem within coaching is like we made the big sale, and then you just fucking under deliver and it will wilt away. Like if someone spends five grand with you, like upfront, did you should change that fucking person's life. And you that should be your, your real thing, you should really, really, really be equipped to do it too. And that person who is invested at that level should be really fired up, really fired up about it, and everyone about it should be. And when your system is not based on client success, it's based on just extracting money. That's what happens now: you extracted too much money, you don't have the ability to fulfill but not in a way that's going to be impactful with this person or good. And guess what's going to happen? Problems, lots and lots of problems.



John Fairbanks 42:19

It's a fine line, right? Everything you just described, it's the dollar amount is not the problem. The problem is how it was offered, how that offer got structured, was not optimized for the person to have success. And we can say that you can be, we can be that black and white about it. Because there are certain pieces that we've put in place. If you're gonna build huge monster offers for someone to be able to buy and have the potential to buy. The dollar amount cannot be what's most important. Now I'm all for packing as much value and as much shit into a thing to make it as expensive as possible. I love the idea of a premium offer being over $10,000 that someone can see with their eyes see what actually is entailed in that diamond plus platinum level two, they can see what does a $10,000 offer look right? Right. But here's some fundamentals that are missed. You cannot with good conscience say that you are optimizing someone to have success and have that offer be greater than 12 weeks. And the reason why I feel so confident about saying that is there's fundamental psychology. Humans do not. They cannot maintain whatever their focus is much further beyond 100. You don't need 12 weeks, those numbers start to become increasingly important that have nothing to do with fitness and have nothing to do with what their goals are. It has to do with the ability to stay locked in. And just



Tyler 43:50

I know one of the things about this arrangement that was the most glaring in my eyes. John is five days a week. Now that's really a bit of a problem but if someone needs that, accountability comes in. Okay, but just know that you're you're going to be paying for me to hang out with you always stretch and get on the bike or treadmill a little bit on some of the sessions just what is going to be where I go, What are we gonna do Crusher five days week, but the worst part is John, this client lives 40 minutes away. So you're telling me we took all this money upfront, and it's gonna be five days a week, not some practical fucking approachable dose. That makes sense. That's going to work because we coach humans and humans have lives and we care about these humans and integrating fitness, wellness and health into their lives. No, we took as much money as we possibly could. Because many sessions a week are possible even if they said, John, I get people who talk to me about shattering twice a day. We know you fucking stupid. That's what I say. Should I train everyday? No. Are you fucking stupid? No, you shouldn't. And if someone comes and says they want to pay me five days a week, I don't want to see you five days a week for one. And two, by time you cancel on a few of those because you just it just doesn't work straight up Monday through Friday, you fucking crazy. Add that to that commute. And this person was never, ever, ever going to do this. The problem is as soon as I hear it, I'm trying to be nice, but I'm like, this is never going to happen. And literally by the end of the first week, there's like a more than 50% session cancel rate on the six. What the fuck are you doing? What are you?



John Fairbanks 45:33

I want to know, right? I want to know, anyone that says somebody needs to be personal training with a personal trainer five days a week, I want to know why. Explain this, why.



Tyler 45:45

There's also a new trainer who doesn't know, no doubt, is educated but has not coached any people. And this is exactly how this sends out to somebody who doesn't understand that you're coaching a person. And that person has to detach from their work and their family in their lives and come to do this thing with you. And because of that so frequently isn't Sayed?



John Fairbanks 46:01

Tyler, if I come to you and say, I think I want to train two days a week. I want to train twice a day. I want to pull two days on possibly triples.



Tyler 46:12

How many days? Yes,



John Fairbanks 46:13

let's, let's let's Yeah, let's say it's three, three to four days a week, the real question that you're going to ask me is John, what the fuck are you doing? Like, why do you feel this way? Because if I tell you it will actually, I'm getting ready because I'm going to do a bodybuilding competition or whatever it is like, oh, okay, well, now we've completely changed how we view this. But if all you see are the dollar signs, which is awesome, I get this much money for three days a week, and I get this much money for five bands. That's 10 sessions a week, oh, my god, like, this is a motion.



Tyler 46:47

Exactly. And that person should have either this view or this other theoretical person. What happens when someone comes to me and says they want to train five days a week at all, they want to pay me to be there. So I don't want to see you if I literally, I don't want to see you five days a week, the stupid thing one liter I'll tell you to face. That's stupid. I don't want to see you five days a week. If you want to exercise five days a week. That's great. Yep, two of those days, I want you to walk one of those days, jog or bike for another 20 to 40 minutes. That's it. Don't fucking pay me. I don't want to come and stand next to you while you walk on the goddamn treadmill. I don't want to wander around and ignore you and just chat with other people in the gym while hanging out there to make sure you're there either. Okay. So if you want me to tell you that I'll coach you three days a week. And those other two days, you're going to go do the thing I tell you to do while I and I matter of fact, I won't even charge it from you telling you what conditioning or cardio you should do. Right. That's how I'm going to build that because that's a system now that works for that person. And that way, if they're going to fall off or something, they'll fall off on his cardio sessions, I could make an imperfect, skip that. And we'll see on this. Like, that's how this has to work. But this is what happens when people who are outside of the industry marketers, salespeople I've seen that I've seen now there's some new stuff coming in where there's services offering like, we'll just handle your sales all together will close your leads for you, right, John, we almost contemplated doing that for gym owners at one point he sure did. But it's like I need to know the coaches and you know what they're like, and you know, what they want to do, I need to know this person. And this is the lead, I need to know who they are, what they're trying to accomplish and who to pair them with or what is right or wrong, whether they are crazy with his gym and are the right fit. And you just cannot do that if you're just taking money for people, I'll take whatever amount of money they can give, with no thought going into it, we build our office X John for the success of the client. And in that process, from the top option to the bottom option, somewhere in there something that fits their idea of value, and how that aligns with their goals and the services that they think they need to help them reach their goals. And they're going to pick and that will also be optimized for making us good money in the process. But I cannot just make the most money while giving my people the lowest chance of success. Just the lowest. It's better than nothing kind of, but not really. Because what's going to happen is when those deals dry up, they don't like us, they don't like the gym, it was a bad experience. Either had to basically rake to get them to take the money back out here. Or even worse, they just bail and have a bad taste and they certainly are coming back to your gym and they certainly are coming back to you as a coach. So did you really help them that if this deal dries up halfway through this person will never set foot in this gym again. Now did you help them in the long run? No, no. So it's for these people to learn this lesson the hard way and these are new coaches and these are people that are new to a new way of kind of like they're trying to make your business give a fuck. You know about people truly, you know, not just like taking the money and letting people that don't come in come in and just keep keep closing keep closing keep closing I'm fine if we're closing $50 deals if you don't just close $50 deals, and we want to let tons and tons of people in 90% of our people not set foot in our gym and your 24 hour gym that model is fine. I get it, that's fine. But then don't complain because you can't sell big tickets. And then when you sell big tickets, don't complain because it doesn't fucking work out because it's your it's not your your you can't run up put a big ticket price on a system that is offering low value



John Fairbanks 50:17

that we talked about, like this type of thing. Hearing you talk about this makes me think, the most effective dose, right, the most effective dose becomes very important. So let's say we sell drugs, and we're gonna sell drugs to somebody, somebody comes to me with that, well, if we need more money, this is another option, right? So it's, this is how you sell drugs and keep people hooked for the longest amount of time. So you can make the most amount of money, this will be a good real, alright, so the first thing you do is you can't somebody comes to you and says, I need this, you cannot sell them shit to take as much as that they think that they want or that they think that they're going to take, if you give them too much, they die and you lose a customer. So if you're going to allow someone to be a personal trainer, or client of yours, and you're going to give them a dose of five days a week, it's you who will kill that person, you'll kill the relationship. And just like you said, it will shrivel up and they'll die and they'll be gone. But if you give them the most effective dose, you can get them for three days a week, two days a week, whatever it is, and you can get them not just for that initial 12 weeks, or for our example, you've now you've beaten them to death, they can't make it they're not showing up, and now they're gone. And now you're going to go through the nightmare of having to try and get the money back and all this other shit. And you didn't even get past the six week mark, if you do this, right. You can have a client for a long fucking time,



Tyler 51:41

we get hooked, and they'll be successful. That's exactly how it's built to be successful. Once people start canceling on me bunches of times, I know it's just No, like you, I'll give you I'll give somebody being sick. But you'll get like a week, anytime outside of that, if it's inconvenience, or it's not working out with your life, are you having a hard time making it or whatever, like, I know at that moment, you don't like your it's a conversation where I go, you need to fix this situation like yours, whatever you're telling me I'm not buying like this is a when people are incapable of talking about the reality of what this next phase is for them. When someone buys a product like that, or buys a big ticket product, you better very thoroughly explain to them what you expect out of them. And just fundamentally assumes like you're gonna train five days a week with me. I call a lot of luck, do you think you're sad if you're gonna train five days a week, you understand you need to leave your house at this time to be here at this time in the morning, right? You know, that's crazy, right? How far away do you live? Holy shit, I don't think you're going to, I don't believe that you're going to do that. I would like to find something that's more convenient than you. Because the biggest thing about fitness, nutrition, all of it is integration into their lives. Correct. And you cannot just take money from somebody and hope that that is the only factor at play in convincing them to integrate this fully into their life. The system itself needs to be able to be integrated, and people don't do that. So they either take the money and fucking run, or they just make no good sales, frankly. And you have a system that just doesn't help people succeed. And then that's where gyms get real stale, real stale under just a commoditized service. Sucks to



John Fairbanks 53:25

be the number one reason why somebody chooses the gym. It's cool, how close it is to where I work, how close it is to where I live. How successful are people when it comes to nutrition? How close are Oreos in my house? Are the Oreos in the house if they are my nutrition plan? They're not if anyone



Tyler 53:44

tells you that rice is a better eating experience than Oreos are fucking idiot Oreos fucking rule. So like we do, we just have to integrate, we can't always have everything that we want to have. And I'd love to have all my clients pay me for 10 sessions a week and I'll only fulfill three and who gives a shit and they'll just pay me money forever and who fucking cares? But that's not the game I'm gonna play. By the way, There's other strategies you could use to buffer this situation. Let's go through this. I do believe in having personal training sessions, because we see it now a lot with some personal trainers where having run continuously is having you need to have a buffer. And when they lose these sessions, it's tough to have that conversation. And you do need to be reasonable about what your deadline is. But let's just say I'm selling a 12 week set three times a week. That's 36 sessions right? Someone is entitled to go on vacation. I believe they're fine and I there's nothing I hate more than when somebody comes in says hey, I'd love to start but like in like in like a month I gotta go out of town for work for like five or six days, so we'll just not do fuck all until after that. Yeah, I'll wait till I get back. Yeah, it's like okay, well, and I just assumed that that's not really the reason and I let it die. The hard hormones, the sales people of the world are like, Well, I mean, I think you should, well, you're just gonna get fat for another week, while you're trying to fucking die of diabetes before then. But I just, I let that conversation be what it is. But if someone says, like, Hey, we're going to do 12 weeks, three times a week, I would build it in, I would probably give somebody a two, maybe three week grace period, maybe maybe at the law that the last three. And I think that that's a conversation that needs to be had in the beginning not trapped in contract language, either. It needs to be and do what you will, with cancellations, I usually give people one or two cancellations that are short notice, usually one for sure. Like they woke up, they're sick, right? Kid thing for whatever flat tire should I'll always give them one and I won't charge him for it. It's whatever. Anything beyond this is up to you, and kind of how you have to treat the person, the person's good. And it's whatever, but I have some clients that their ship kind of gets dragged on a little bit. And it's a good time slot. And they cancel on and I'm not always punishing them for it financially. And it turns into a situation where a lot of five week, five, six week arrangements are taking 810 weeks to get done. Well now I'm just making less money. You know what I'm saying? That becomes a bit of an issue. So on a 12 week deal, say you have until 15 weeks to finish this, or 14 weeks to get through this or else it's all over. Okay. And also like I'm not required to reschedule you, either. That's the biggest one too, because like Megan said, her schedule is full. So if someone cancels in the morning, it's like, oh, can I just get it in the afternoon later on in the day? No. And that doesn't mean that you get this session, either. It's just, it can always be that way. Like you may lose it just because I'm not willing to put you at a time slot that is good for you after you've already canceled. I'm not willing to reschedule into something that's convenient for you. That's inconvenient for me, just because it's open doesn't mean it's yours. You had one and you fucked it up. So but those types of things conversations do need to be had, because that's also what also ensures the success of the client? Right? I'm gonna charge if we're going to do it five days a week. Now if you do not fulfill and by X amount of time you lose all of this money. So if you want to fuck off and cancel half, like I'm telling you, this is the warning for thinking you want to train five days a week as I think you won't, I think the commutes too tough. I think that I think we're gonna do a lot of ineffective training. Frankly, we're just going to be kind of moving. You know, I think that that's probably not the best use of our time and your money. But if you want to do that, just so you know. You start canceling the stuff you do and lose this money by then. So we can take it or leave it I guess. By the way, wouldn't you rather just have it be like two fifths longer? Well, yeah, don't be like 40% longer and then just go three times a week, I'd be okay with that arrangement set at 12 weeks, we go. Perfect. Let's go 15 weeks, right or 16 weeks. Yeah, Catholics. But that is like, that's more that is an option than a mature coach. And maybe that's just the issue that a mature experienced personal trainer would do. I'm not doing five days a week for 12 weeks or whatever, let's do five days. Let's do three days a week for 16. Let's just do this because this will actually work this other shit. You're just really heaving and flailing, you're making a big emotional decision. And I'm not going to capitalize on you making a crazy emotional decision by just taking your money for something that's not going to work out for either, because it's disingenuous, it's bad business. It's unethical as a coach. Now, I truly believe this coach had no fucking idea what they were getting into, because there's just naivety is fucking as intense as stupidity with some people. And it's just as damaging. So they can often be determined to be misconstrued as the same. And so I think the person just didn't know, just had no phone clue. But when I'm getting high, we're coming out of like, high fives from the coach and the owner about this big sale and I'm listening to them talk about everything but the client and I were like, Okay, guys, we're gonna see. I hope for the best but you don't. That's the problem. You guys don't. And that's what's frustrating. So I feel bad for the person. Yeah, I feel bad for that person. Because it wasn't, it was never about them. It was about their wallet from the various others.



John Fairbanks 59:19

There's another psychological element that we haven't touched on yet, which is you hit on it earlier. And it's a really good phrase. So I want to repeat it again. The idea that it's fulfilling is what you always do, but selling is how you eat. Right, that phrase, the psychological component is is that once you make a sale, you now have to fulfill and when you are feeling right, yeah, like



Tyler 59:47

sale happens. I'm paid buddy. The rest knows like,



John Fairbanks 59:52

right? And it's like God dammit. So now I gotta build fulfillment and anyone that has closed deals that are for 812 weeks long, whatever and you get paid upfront. It's you got to understand like, it's your now psychologically, it's not. It's not right, right, literally, it's not right, you've been paid. But now you're working for free. But there's another psychological component that's dangerous, which is when you're busy, you don't feel like you're busy. So in your brain, you're no longer selling, because now you're busy fulfilling. And we have seen this mistake happen so many times, with either gym owners that are selling their time, or personal trainers or coaches that then they make a sale, they get some clients, and then they stop selling completely, because they're busy fulfilling. And the problem is, when that relationship ends, especially if you're doing personal training, you're just not going to get somebody to, to one up, can't afford to pay for one on one personal training forever. So eventually, that will stop. And if you don't start selling, or you aren't actively selling, until you lose that slot, your foot, because of the ramp up time it takes to get a new client. So you have to avoid it and this is one of the biggest issues for gym owners. You have a business to run, if you are only interested in coaching and fulfilling that coaching. You're not a fucking gym, Owner, gym owners have so much other shit to worry about. And that's the issue we see with most of their businesses, which is you just like to coach and you didn't want to have a boss and you wanted to be the man. And so you wanted to coach for a living. And now you own a gym. And now you're neglecting all of the business side. And the issue is that you are losing your throat. Because now your schedule is full. And now you're no longer working on all the things that need to be worked on.



Tyler 1:01:43

I also think I'm missing that concept, right? It's like the sellings how fulfilling you are is what you always got to do. Right? When you're busy. You feel like you can't keep selling because you're afraid of failing, right? That's the whole thing that is what makes gym owners susceptible to these fucking 100 members and whatever amount of time stuff because you waited too long. You didn't build you didn't you didn't constantly by the way when you're full here's the short term strategy for this by the way when you're full, still mark it like you're open. And then the call to action is to get on your waiting list. Exactly. That's the biggest thing because this is how you can have some of the stuff queued up so that instead of going to a dead stop and you go Oh shit, I lost client P client see these other relationships are done. I haven't been making the push to sell and been bringing in new people. I haven't been acquiring new leads. Then they go fuck and then you're gonna fall susceptible to some of these scammy bullshit that soon. Our new AI strategy is gonna get you 75 members this month. Kay, well, when you're flailing around and desperate and trying to latch on to something as the Titanic is going down you're gonna grab on to whatever you can fuck it that says it'll give me what I need, you know, before rose kicks off the fucking door. Right? But I think that failing to drive to sell when they are busy is the thing that gets a lot of these gyms in this. This cycle needs to be constantly building momentum. Or else it just gets to a dead stop. And man does it take a long time to fucking wind that up and a lot of effort for you get one back in and it takes. I've seen it, I've done it personally and my wife has done it. We've had coaches that we work with directly and gyms that go full, we're full. I couldn't even imagine taking anybody on end. They don't mark it. It's the biggest thing. I see the word good. We sit back and I see gym owners that aren't gym owners and trainers that aren't actively making content and actively trying to sell. And all of a sudden they do these massive pushes, right? I do it too. If you ever see me really pumping my dudes rock program out there. It's like, oh shit, I kind of forgot about that. I was like shit, I need to be pumping. I should be pumping it constantly. Because every single time I'm turning it on, I am getting leads and people inquiring, they may not all be selling but that's not how it goes. You're not gonna convert everybody, but you should constantly have this flow of people in so that's all we got today. Guys, thanks for listening. It's been a good hour. Go to the gym owners revolution.com get in the gym owners revolution Facebook group links in the show notes for the show at gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler F and stone Taylor eff installed and John.



John Fairbanks 1:04:15

You can follow me on Instagram at J banks f L. Thanks for



Tyler 1:04:19

listening to everybody. We will see you next week.