Don’t Let MARKETERS Run PROGRAMS In Your GYM

gym, coach, owners, work, challenge, business, run, talking, leads, clients, good, people, fitness, members, program, problem, person, week

Tyler 00:01

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



John Fairbanks 00:07

I am wonderful. Good.



Tyler 00:09

That's really good to hear. Guys. Welcome to the show. Real quick stuff make sure you follow the show on Instagram at Jim Morris podcast at the gym owners podcast. Follow me at Tyler Elphinstone. John at Jay banks, NFL, go to gym owners revolution.com If you want to see what it takes to work with us directly on your gym in your gym, making your business kick ass for yourself, your clients and your bank account. Link in description for our show or in the show notes will take you to the Facebook Facebook group for the gym owners revolution. Everything else? Yeah, just tune into the show. He'll be fine. So, guys, the show for gym owners here we're trying to cover some pretty interesting trends that have been popping up. Regarding the stuff that's been pitched to you guys, as gym owners, there's been a ton of pretty crazy stuff thrown your guys's way over the course of the last. I think five six years, the fitness business consulting space has gotten really weird. And maybe we're just two people contributing to the weirdness. I don't know. But it is like fucking pretty nuts. And we stay in a lot of the same circles and we manage social media for a lot of gyms. So God dammit do we see if you guys are in the same algorithm I am in regards to what they're throwing at you gym owners right now I'm trying to get you to bite on it. It's pretty nuts. Before we get into that. I want to tell you guys a story from yesterday. So yesterday I was coaching the martial arts gym there and a guy came walking in the middle of class to teach jiu jitsu. A middle class guy came walking in. And this guy does not look like he's there. For combat sports, I would say that he's probably in his very late 50s, frail, weird out of shape, whatever I try not to judge when people come in the door. It's a good lesson for gym owners to have coaches and salespeople. Sometimes people just walk in, and I don't like to just immediately go. Yeah, you ain't here for this. Because stuff that can be for anybody may not be for everybody. But it can be for anybody this guy comes walking in and but he didn't belong there. I just know it was. So I asked him I said, Hey, I just saw right away, Hey, are you looking to get signed up? Just



John Fairbanks 02:21

right out the gate, because I don't



Tyler 02:22

because we lose because we're kind of on a busy street. So you'll get people who will just wander in and want to see what's going on, which is fine. But then I need to know that. So I tell him to just sit down and watch and I'll do the stuff and I'll be with him because I was in the middle of some stuff. And so I just thought about it. Yeah, you're looking to get signed up or get started? And usually the answer is yes. And then it goes into a conversation right? Or no, maybe just looking I want to see whatever that is saves me some bullshit when I'm the only one there. Right? And so I just threw this ethic hoping he'd go no, I was just seeing what was in here and then leaving but instead he goes yeah, kind of and I like fucking What the fuck? So I have six people here. You know what I mean? I was like, okay, so I got up and walked over to them real quick. You can tell that there's something wrong with this guy. And he's all fidgety hands are in his pockets very shifty. And they kept asking me what belt I have. I have what belt I have. So while I'm sitting here and no EBA like hey, no belts here. It's just been me and whoever and that's not really relevant to the stitch. Are you asking me if I'm qualified to be coaching? The question is that I have no clue and I knew I didn't want to deal with him and then I knew for sure he wasn't going to be doing anything. So I wrote down the owner of this Jim's phone number. I said hey, give him a call or hit up his website because I asked if I just got your phone. I'll pull up our deal right now. And you can sign up on the website. I'll walk you through it right. I just got it right to shit or get off course once a guy doesn't have his phone and this does not overcome sales objections, I want him to leave without signing up. I wanted him to leave fast. I didn't care, I was just trying to be watched the whole time. And so he reaches in his pocket and he pulls out a handful of about six shotgun shells for five fucking I can't play like nine millimeter rounds. I think a couple rounds are bigger like 40 or 45. And then like an old rusted cross thing and just sets it down to me and he goes, I need to give this to you. I need you to have these as What do you mean? Like I said, So I rode right away. And then he said the words he says well because I thought you were responsible adult and you should have these instead of me so then I go oh, this guy is about on some fucking rampage shit or whatever. I don't know what's going on here. But this was a cry for help. And I don't want any, I don't even want to help. I don't want to help you But I can't as soon as he hands me all the stuff in it when he says those things. I take about a half a step back and I start to frame up my hands in case he goes first pockets or anything like this. And the dude goes, and then I say, Okay, well, I'm Tyler reaching out to shake his hand because then his hands are busy. Right? Right. So I reached out. I'm Tyler. So what's your name? he hesitates. What's up? Patrick? Patrick, What's your last name? And then he goes, just Patrick. And I go, you gotta leave now Patrick that the moment you're not giving me any of this. You give me bullets? Seems a bit threatening. You need to fucking leave. You get the bullet so you gotta go. We'll take care of these but you got to just escort him out there and call the cops. The cops come and the nice thing about this part of the country is that like for the most part, you're mentally ill people that are out and about pretty harmless. You know what I mean? Like, in this case, here, the cops are like, we've ran into this guy before. Of course, you know what I mean? He's around. He's like, he really is harmless. He just said that. He thought that you guys were like peaceful people because you train martial arts. And since he has these and doesn't want to have them he thought you were? I don't know. Maybe he thought we had some sort of fucking crazy discipline that were really meant to be trusted with this great power. Your fucking bullets.



John Fairbanks 06:16

But it was like a munitions drop off location that you aren't aware of?



Tyler 06:20

Yeah, we're basic we're what do you call it amnesty free so just drop off your guns and drugs? It was not good. I like to call the cops I'm like, I don't know, man. Just go get him to check him. My only concern would be one of the guys goes down and dusts himself. You know, like, like, this is a wellness check on him. But also, don't let him wander to a school or to anywhere where there's a crowd. People like to go check on this guy.



John Fairbanks 06:48

He goes, I only need one bullet. And I have to have you to have the rest of these. I don't even



Tyler 06:55

put them all enough fucking garbage. I don't know anywhere. But that's just a daily day in life , just a regular ol 'morning. And then I gotta call you know, the guy that owns a spider like you, because I think he's been in before doing some kind of weird stuff like a year ago, some similar where if it was just there were two people there and him it would have just been one on one. The guy was probably going to have to physically take them outside. Not because it was risky, necessarily in hindsight, but because we don't know if it's risky. And all the red flags are popping up. So if you got funny stories about that, I always love the stories of who was at I think it was a CrossFit LA. Ronnie Teasdale is an old CrossFit gym that was like Skid Row in Los Angeles. Oh, yeah. There's all those stories of just like vagrants coming in. And we don't have that around our winter to refer to purchasing the outside life pretty intensely. So yeah, if you got any funny stories about that, I would love to hear some of those because we don't get a lot of that around here. And boy, that was the most exciting. I can do the morning jujitsu class I've ever had. Like, I thought I would grab him because he kept fiddling if He hands the bullets, he keeps reaching his pockets getting claimants like I'm gonna have to hold him to the ground until the police get here. And everyone in class is going to have to see whether my shits are legit.



John Fairbanks 08:23

How hard has Tyler been working?



Tyler 08:28

Can he physically detain somebody who's 150 pounds lighter than him with no training, you better be able to. And



John Fairbanks 08:36

the best part is to if you're thinking about being a gym owner, just know that these will be the these, these will be some of the things that you will get to deal with right



Tyler 08:44

to get a call from me at 10 o'clock in the morning while you're by the way, well that Jim was at his other job because that's the nature of owning a lot of his work and his other job getting blown up about. Yeah, the crazies are bringing guns and ammo into your fucking. Yeah. But anyway, speaking of red flags, there is a lot of new stuff that's getting thrown out there to gym owners, and it has been really interesting to see. I don't know if the algorithm is evolving. I'd like to think that I'm like the center of the universe. And this is like the trends that are getting out there. But these fitness business consultants have been riding very hard the X amount of members and X amount of days game, that's always been the pitch that they're giving to gym owners, right? That's been pretty, pretty saturated. I guess it's probably I'm trying to always put these things into terms for you with your clients. That would be like Jim advertising. Lose 30 pounds in 30 days, maybe.



John Fairbanks 09:42

Right?



Tyler 09:43

Was that a similar level of short sighted maybe but like the goals you really would want, right? As far as a hook goes like that would work, in my opinion, if I could guarantee that to whoever by 30 pounds in 30 days that would be are we With these people people would inquire right but that's not how any of those things actually go. Like first off second a lot of the times what they're doing to get you those leads or those signups is doing challenges or the thing for a long time. And that's Jim just playing old Facebook games and doing essentially unbranded running ads to unbranded challengers for your gym and just hacking in and letting you sort it out. But God dammit now the thing has shifted to like larger crazier claims, because 30 members in 30 days, isn't that cool compared to 50 members in 30 days. And it turns into like the sad half baked with guys except the seven minute abs. It's one minute faster than eight minute abs. And this is what these things are niches I saw, I saw 150 members in 100 days. This is all this, this is the new gym owner bath. And it's gym owner consultant math, which is like vague gas numbers that aren't that relevant and will not be how it goes down. They're doing the same thing. You're doing the same thing you consider that when your clients are like you have how many members times how much money is your membership? Jesus, you must be No, no other components to this business at all right? And so, but these things continue to change, and continue to evolve. Now there's people saying, John, we're not running this scammy challenge scammy six weeks as we're running a new six week challenge. We're like, what were the fuck? It's the same week? Or yeah, if you are talking to somebody that Dave said, some of these people come out and they go, oh, yeah, we don't run those scammy six week challenges, we run the tweed run 12 week challenges instead. And the problem is, I don't want to shit on challenges because I view a challenge as a challenge to me, it's just a program. It's just a program, I sell a five week training program. That's the diet in this app. But it's a process. It's a thing that I have built that we do that I sell as a personal trainer, both in person and remote. And so I'm not opposed to a challenge, I am opposed to that being the access point to my business, the only one. The other thing about this is when they say we don't do six week challenges, because those are scammy. And shitty, we're gonna take the high road and say we do 12 week challenges. Well, I probably know what they're getting at with that, right is that like, well, you can't really get a ton of results in six weeks, you need to be consistent for 12 weeks, and yada, yada, yada, right? But you're still selling challenges in the component that you're selling to this gym owner, right that the gym owner is going to have to execute on. It's all the same thing as if it was a five or six week challenge. It's just a slightly bigger ticket. But what are they really giving you as a gym or canned product or whatever and branding, and then they're gonna run ads to it, get some coffee and like that, but that is all this really is. And it's a huge gym owners out there should be very concerned. When this stuff is done for you. A done for you play for you and your fitness businesses. You got to be pretty. Your guard needs to be up when it seems like they're going to plug this thing into your business and it will produce x amount of leads. It's Oh yeah, that's just, it's when I get a client who comes in as a fitness client who wants to lose 30 pounds. And they want me to just do it for them. They don't want to change the way that they eat, they don't really want to work out that much. Well, then like getting these results is not a thing that you're gonna get that has it I mean, you have to tell him like this cannot be done for you. Not in a way that's going to be impactful for the long term. And for you as a gym or you start coming into this stuff's like, Oh, we're just gonna, these people just gonna run ads and we're gonna get good leads, not bad leads, we're get good members, not bad Members, we're gonna get people signed up. And they're going to run through a program that really works and it's going to help them and make them endear themselves to our business, not some third party, fucking trainer eyes program that's been ran automated completely.



John Fairbanks 14:07

This is why those things exist. Like it's them? There's a lot of data, right? There's a lot of data that they're working off of, for why those things sound appealing to you as a gym owner. And they work because for you as a gym owner, what they're proposing is that you're going to do the odds are you're not running a program that's balls to the walls that's running to try and anticipate, you know, hundreds of leads that are coming in every single week. And then the proposal is like drinking through a fire hydrant. Like that's what the proposal is. And if you're in a spot where do you need more members? Is that why you've reached out to him? Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, that's why you got hooked into their algorithm to begin with. So then it's like anymore, I technically need more money. But that translates to me right now that I need more members and I need more people in my gym. And so all they say is we'll automate this because you don't have enough time, you don't have enough time to do all these things. So we'll just make it automatic. And the problem is, is that if you are a gym that has a certain stereotype or stigma or community that you've built, that you're tight knit, you quickly realize how misaligned all their swipe files, all their tricks, all their gimmicks are, and now, that's your business. So before, you didn't have time to go hunt, and do all these pieces, and build this out yourself. So now you've just paid top dollar for them to give you a canned product. And now what you get to be is the person to chase down leads, or someone to be able to figure out if this person even speaks the same language that you do if the person's dead or not. That's now on your lead sheet. Like it's all of these things you have to now deal with. And it doesn't mean as we talked with Austin, at San Jose, when we talked to him, he even talked about the whole idea where it's like, even the leads that he got, when he did run this for his spot. It was none of that, like it's the percentage of people that kicked over to actually stay with him in the gym, outside of that initial challenge was so so low, because the people were not ready to want to be able to work with him in the capacity of what his gym actually did. Well, I can't tell you how many times we talk, it's so consistent that when I sat down, I talked to a gym owner about their experience working in these systems. They wanted a system, they wanted a process that was proven, that has been successful. Right? So their hearts are in the right place. Did they get that? Yes. The problem is systems. So misaligned, right? That it just was like now they're, well, do you need more leads? Well, no, I have, I have 600 people on a lead sheet that I have to now spend the next year to be able to go through, and I don't even know if they're good or not.



Tyler 17:02

There's a concept that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Right. And I think that's really true. And what a lot of these challenges do are especially on the consulting side, where they're just acquiring leads for you, or jamming membership inquiries, your way is that you're farming out the access point to your business. Meaning that what that product is, what the ads that people are seeing before they find your business, the business, essentially, the moment that somebody is choosing to turn that corner to make a change in their lives, or at least just do this new thing, right, depending on how in depth your system is, someone's gonna go up and join your gym, sign up, hire you as a personal trainer, or do one of your programs, it would be really nice if that whole, that process accurately represented you and your business and what you do, and helped your clients actually, because if it feels to burn, if it feels scammy, if it feels cold and inhumane, if it feels like it's just being executed on an app, that could be done by literally anyone anywhere. Now when these people go to sign up for your gym, and they don't ever get to experience what you're doing, they don't get to really experience your gym, this whole thing is filtered by the same bullshit that everybody else has been doing. So if you want to be different, the best way to be different is to just do the things that you do. Now, that doesn't mean you can't run a challenge, or come up with an access point that is a five week six week thing that works really well and gives you something to talk about with a start and finish. But it kind of should be okay to use somebody else's framework if you want. Like how would you execute this challenge? What are the bones, the communications, whatever this is going to be? I'm not opposed to challenges at all. We've had the I've had to say this many times because it sounds like I'm really shit on their stuff. Although I'm not opposed to the idea of a fitness challenge to get people in your business as long as it's there to represent your business. And some of these things are totally detached. It's, it's just like sending somebody somewhere else. And it doesn't really. I would love to see the reason if these things can deliver you 30 to 50 members, new members in 30 days. The reason that it can do that is because it fucking sucks because it has to because the system fucking sucks as a whole and none of these people are staying if you need 30 new members in a month is one thing. If you need 30 new members every month, your gym fucking sucks. Your Business sucks. People aren't staying with you; your product sucks. There's a lot of other problems there. If you need new 30 new members every month, you're failing at a lot of other things and stuffing more water down on the front end of that is not going to stop



John Fairbanks 19:48

and you realize they know that. So any consultant that's going to sell you 30 members and 30 days, 50 members and 50 days whatever it is, they know that that is not sustainable, because it doesn't make sense. Unless your attrition is sitting at like 30%, they cannot stay employed by you, probably much longer than 90 days. So assume that they are going to get their pound of flesh out of you like it's, there's a reason why it's going to cost you so much money, because they have to make it worth it. So in order for them to get you that many people and for it to be a one trick pony, one, they're going to have to run a fuck ton of money behind ads, because they need a constant flow of gym owners to be able to prey upon that system, their acquisition,



Tyler 20:37

their client acquisition strategy is pretty heavy, there's a reason you guys are seeing a million of the same ads, they're throwing a lot of money to get at you. And



John Fairbanks 20:45

once they get you, they've got you and now they're going to get top dollar. And of course, Tyler, after that, whether it's six week challenges that you're selling, or 12, wheat challenges that you're selling, now that you are selling it, because now you've just gotten hooked for X amount of 1000s of dollars to then do this one particular thing. What, how are you going to pay for it? So as the gym owner, what's the very next thing they want to see you do in order to be able to cover that nut? That they're not? How are they going to make it worth it? Well, they're going to cannibalize 20% of your population in our favorite red flag, paid in full,



Tyler 21:23

paid in full as wild. So by the way, it's viable, fundamentally, it's paid in full play is viable for you as a gym owner to inquire about a certain amount, a certain percentage of people that are already going to be at your gym. Right? It's not I don't mind gym owners offering a paid in full option to a select few people with the same principles that they roll out with each other with these painful places. The problem is, if a consultant comes in asking you to run paid in full play, what he's really saying is, now you need to borrow money from yourself, from your, from your future, to pay us now to continue this. And it's gonna seem really interesting, because the cash flow will pop right away. And this is the biggest impact we see when gyms get on board, they start running some stuff, they get a little bit of cash going and they run paid in full. And all of a sudden, they're like, I got an extra $70,000. Yet, this month, and it's like Damn. Now consultants can take half of that. And then the rest, you're gonna have to run it paying their ads to run as you're. What they're really doing is asking you, why don't you go borrow money, and just pay us. And it will keep it going until like it's not, but this, they gotta be paid right up front right away, also, like on this scale, because you're not going to be there in two years, you just won't be. So let's like they need to get it all. And they need you to essentially sell out the rest of your year, in order for it to make sense. So they get they're not and now you're on your own, whether you execute it or not, whether it works for you or not, whether this flow of leads that you are getting is sustainable. But now you're dependent on it, because you need the new influx of traffic because you've liquidated about 25% of your yearly revenue, to now pay to keep this flood of traffic going. And so these people end up eating a lot of shit. And the problem is I've had this done, we worked with gym owners, we would help them execute these things, when we worked for the gym owner that was just needing us to help execute these other plays that someone else was sending. And we go through this and we've all been in those rooms and on those calls, and you get excited like, fuck yeah, 90 plus 90 grand since we turn this fine, very nice. It gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of cash flow. And then you start to see what goes on afterwards. And then it's like that money is going to their ads and people their Rec and it's way overpriced. For some reason, it's you'd think that that huge influx of traffic that you'd get all these inquiries, all these leads. That wouldn't drop off as soon as you pass that initial turn, but it does. Once you turn that initial corner, your market gets a little saturated, the increase, you've scraped all the easiest low hanging fruit, you've got them all, and now it's bad leads. It's really, really, really expensive cost per click cost per acquisition cost per lead. All these things, these metrics start to suck, and your gym continues to churn and burn. And there you are, you're left with a gym where your brand has been devalued. You've brought a ton of clients through your system, a system that is not yours. It's kind of shitty, sucks ineffective, doesn't really deliver results, certainly doesn't endear them to your business or your brand at all. So people keep falling off. And now you're stuck on that team and you need it, you need those leads, you need those leads. And you're gonna keep overpaying and you're gonna continue to overpay until it all breaks but guess who gets their money, everyone but you, the gym owner,



John Fairbanks 25:04

and fundamentally like for the gym owners that we want to work with, you don't believe you believe in this statement, right? Teach a man to fish versus give a man a fish. So it fundamentally you should in your core, the idea is that you don't want to just give, give your clients the fish, you want to teach them how to be able to do it for themselves, so that they can have autonomy, and they can move forward and take care of their lives and do all these important things. So you believe that fundamentally, if you're good, in my opinion, if you're a good coach and a good human, that's what you believe. But you allow wolves to come into your business, who do not believe in that fundamental principle of what it means to be a good person. And they have set up their business to be the epitome of giving fish never going to teach you how. So that you stay dependent, is their drug. Peddlers are like the idea where it's, they get you hooked. And now you are dependent upon your dealer to be able to keep your business going. And that's why we talk about all the time with the idea of you got to keep your soul intact. And this, this perceived desperation that you have or desire to want to be successful, allows you to lower those barriers to drop those guards and to allow wolves to come in. And surprise surprise that your business begins to not look anything like what you anticipated. It was supposed to look like or feel like you thought you got into the business because you wanted to help people. You wanted to coach, you didn't want to have a boss, you wanted to do all these things. And now you're in the business of what to her following up on leads perfecting your ability to trick somebody into A into shit. Don't want delivering



Tyler 26:57

PowerPoint presentations as your sales thing. Like in person in your gym. Like that sucks. It just sucks. And it's not a you go to buy a car and a guy's gonna sit down and deliver a PowerPoint presentation to you fuck that guy. No way like, what are we looking at? What are we signing? What are we doing? What Okay, perfect. Let's do this. Let's talk like people here. And by the way, it's faster. This other stuff is like, it's so inefficient, and it's obnoxious. And my biggest gripe about it, though, is that it's not yours. Like, yeah, you hardly farm out the good gyms, especially ones that do like group classes and stuff like this and want to do personal training. They're so unreasonably guarded about hiring new staff and letting new coaches loose because it's like, Oh, they got to coach the way I want them to coach or they're not ready to. It's like, all that is dumb. But whatever, you're gonna have to get over it and somehow let people do the work that they need to do to get good. But gym owners are so guarded about putting talent out in front of their members. That, but instead, they'll completely have the entire product. That's the access point for somebody's first time entering your business. All the correspondence be done, completely scripted by somebody else built for somebody else's business. And they think you can just plug and play it and it's going to work and it's going to attract the right people and it's gonna deliver. And that's the point I don't understand. You're so worried about your brand. You won't just anybody coach your kids or coach your classes or coach your program because it's special. It's special, a gym launch comes and does just some dumb, lame predatory shit. That is so saturated now that every consultant is just mimicking it. That like on the consumer end every fitness person has seen and smelled all of these out from any different gyms they've run into this weird challenge semi big ticket bullshit. And it's all bait and switch and strange and odd. It's free if you don't it's that's the it's the biggest like, what's the word I'm looking for a hypocrisy a little bit that I see are these gym owners are just gonna let somebody come in and control everything when somebody approaches your business which is not that should be the moment where you should be at being a human and being a person and caring about your product. That's when that is the time to be a human not to give that off to somebody else. That doesn't mean you the gym owner needs to be the one doing the stuff but someone comes in and wants to sign up and they shouldn't be given choices right they should be given options. What if someone isn't into a challenge but wants personal training? What if they want gym access? Like none of this is even in these plays that are being built is what the actual pathway in and through and around your business is; it's all just plug and play dumb shit. And that's the thing that's the strangest to me is the gym owners want the members so in return they're just going to close their eyes and let people just pile them up at their door. Think: Seeing whatever they want to think about what the program is, we're getting whatever type of experience some consultant wants to make sure that their clients have. It's unbelievably short sighted.



John Fairbanks 30:11

And we're so careful with anything, because you know that because you all are coaches first. It's anything that's been, you do not respect, the clear conflict of anything that's done for you and your business. Where, because I see this all the time, where it is like, does anybody want my cut and paste scripts to fill in the blank, right, whatever that happens to be. And the idea is like, well, I just want this done for me. So I don't have to think about it. And that I can just happen, and I can make money while I sleep. Because that's the goal. But if you reverse it to what you all know, from a coaching perspective, if you had somebody come to you and said I wanted to lose 30 pounds, 10 pounds, I want to get stronger, I want to do whatever fills in the blank. What if it? Why don't you provide a done for you solution? Yeah, we just do it for him? Is the equivalent what you're doing on the business side? So why does that not work? Why does that not work for somebody that wants it done for them the way you want it done for you and your business? People have to like you have to do the fucking work. Yeah, like if it's going to work, you have to actually be ready to do a fucking thing.



Tyler 31:22

So what is the pathway though, John? So first frigiliana needs more members, right? They do, they need more money, they need more members, whatever it is, like, obviously, I don't think neglecting new client acquisition is a strategy that I would recommend either. I just don't think I guess our kind of take on this issue is there are many ways to get new members. And I think you should find some that you want to be moving forward with, and continue to tinker with others as you go. But everything needs to be in alignment with your brand. Meaning, if you want to run a challenge, what if your first instinct when you hear about a six week challenge is to clam up? Oh, that's gross, scammy shit. Perfect. Perfect. Now, what would you do to make a six week program? That's a process of really what would be what would craft the most ideal six weeks for someone to come into your gym? What do they do? Is their nutrition helping? They're like, what does somebody's first six weeks look like if it's ideal for their transformation? Right? Maybe it's as simple as, they start with certain amounts of classes, and then they get a personal training session here, you want to make sure maybe they get some wins there. Because if I'm optimized just for what getting their money in, or even worse, optimized for flawless, perfect technical training. Well, these people are going to spend six weeks and not see any results either. So one of the things you need to balance what they need wins early on to stay on. So I don't mind even pushing somebody on nutrition a bit hard in the first two or three weeks, and then we kind of shift to something they need to learn. So my five week program is truly a learning process. That's what I do. I say what exactly the winds and process that I want somebody to go through, when they're going to start to get them from wherever they are, to this certain five weeks down the road endpoint. And that is truly 100% ethically aligned with how I feel as a coach, and it is wildly successful for you as a gym owner. That's what I want you to take when you think challenge not fuck that stupid skip. Okay, I need you to know why. And what's a way that that could be done better? Because at some point, you may want to run a program, why wouldn't shoe it's attractive people like it. So do it better than everybody else, and it will be better than everybody else.



John Fairbanks 33:41

Because it's yours. It's yours. The reason why your program is so successful is because you have built it based on what you have. It's the equivalent for me where somebody is just like from using a football analogy. It's like if I run a certain offense, or I run a certain defense ideologically, it's like dinner No, no, I do this. This is what I do. You know, the biggest problem with being a coach saying this is all that I do. It neglects the players. Yes, it is, in contrast, completely ignores who are the actual horses that you have. Because if you don't have the dudes to run, offense A versus offense B, you can't be an offense guy because now you're shoving a round peg into a square hole. You can't or reverse right? Whatever it is, you cannot do it. And it's the equivalent for you in your business. You have to build with what you've got. If you are a gym and you have successfully been open. If you are a good coach and you are successful with people. You have enough. You already have everything that you need. And I like what you proposed. Because it's a thought exercise. Yeah.



Tyler 34:58

Yeah better just be Being a fucking hater, because like I said, there's a reason John and I will sit here and pitch about these challenges. Jim Long said that all the clones that I saw Jim watch, but didn't want to launch, are a type now, it was called clone launch. Okay, so you have all these clone launch gyms that are out there. But that's the reality is I go this stuff sucks, I think it's kinda. And then I think that we need to think pretty hard about how this could be done better, because they're not wrong, they're not completely wrong, but it's producing revenue for people somewhere it is getting people interested. So there are, there are components of this that move the needle, that work. They're just writing all the wrong parts, you know what I mean? And it's and it's too soulless. So I just think that you guys, these thought exercises are important, because out of those thought exercises usually become good programs. Let's talk about how we took that one step further. Because we've done this recently with my program, the one that I do. Now, there's a thought exercise I went through, which is like, you know, I'm getting guys who are interested, this program is made for guys who are relatively new to training or dudes just trying to get into shape. I'm not, if you've been doing CrossFit for five fucking years, and you're fit and eating right? Like you don't, if you're paying for a coach online, like, good for you, but I'm not that guy, I don't care, I don't care about you or your problems, right? That's not the impact I'm trying to have in the world is to get fit people fitter, or make fitness, dorks, more fit dorky, more fit dorks, it just doesn't really matter. To me, getting into the minutiae of how this limb works. And this limb works really just not that impactful to a person and their fitness. It's just not, it's not that valuable to you as a coach. So I'm gonna go through this process for my program. It was for gyms, or for clients who are new. I just got a bunch of weights as I need to get started, get them from zero. And we've had really, really, really good success, selling its end with the results that they get, right that the outcome is what it's all dialed in, that's keep dialing it in to make sure that we don't, where the drop off points are. Make sure that guys are held accountable that we get them all the way across that finish line and they're equipped. My biggest metric that I use is how much weight do people continue to lose after the program is over? The four week metric is the one that's most important to me, not what they do within the program, because that's going to happen if they do it. But if it does it really has a lasting impact that matters to me now, in selling that program, offering that program I kept, I get guys that are interested and I can feel it's that I don't have time to work out three or four days a week. I don't have time or even worse. I'm not a gym guy. And I don't think I'm just going to become one overnight. Well, and I tell my people that I just want to do workout stuff, what do I tell them all the time, you gotta fix food is everything, you're not gonna lose weight, don't just work out hard. And it 's not going to work either. So I thought about these guys that are struggling. So what if I just extend this thing out here where it's talking about this, it's borderline a done for you hook, right? So it's going to sound almost scammy except I've built it ethically, and it works really well. So now we have the thing that sounds so enticing, like, Hey, you want to lose some weight in the next five weeks. We have an evolving diet program. We're going to start at week one, and we're going to eat this way. And then week two, you're going to eat this way. And you're going to learn the ways that you should feel throughout the day, it's five weeks, you do not need to work out this is not for guys that are going to work out. If you've got weight to lose, we're addressing the foodstuff first, it's the most important issue. John never made an organic post that got so many DMS immediately. So this is the issue for you as a fitness professional. As a gym owner, I think that it's important, you know, if you want to have an impact in your community, momentum starts where momentum starts. Some people will get momentum by just going to the gym and showing up and working hard and that makes them feel better. And because of that, then they will start taking care of themselves and eating better. That's okay to have that be your sequence. It's even better if you do them both at once. But you know what also is really, really good and kind of negates the need for a lot of hard work in the gym. And people just fix the way that they do. So this is two separate pathways that you can get to attract people to a product that is really thought about the way that I do business. Right? So someone comes in on this nutrition thing only. Hey, you're right. I just want to try it. Here's a couple 100 bucks. Let me try this for five weeks. They're checking in with me. They all want to be accountable. They're doing the stuff they're eating, right, they have a system to follow, they will be getting results. In the end, you know how many of those guys who lose 2030 pounds, lots of them, especially the big boys. I got some big boys. That's the nice thing. I got my territory . We got both 300. It's perfect for me because the weight loss numbers read awesome. You know, lose 50 pounds, all the rules, right? But I'm gonna get these guys to come in, they're going to get the results. They're going to lose weight, they're going to feel better and they're going to feel lighter, they're going to have more energy and for them to keep the ball rolling. It's a natural movement for them to move into Summit. Exercise, whatever that is, or they're gonna buy the program that I offer that has the workouts in it, or they're going to hire me as a personal trainer, or they're just going to join the gym. So all of those things start to line up now when these products that aren't on their own terrible ideas, when they're yours, and they embody your coaching philosophy with your clients in mind, and deliver a real client experience a journey from A to Z, like, that's the thing we got to figure out. So for you guys out there, like, you don't have to retool everything that you do. But you have to start thinking about what works with these types of things. What principles can I extract from this concept? That sentence, in my opinion, in coaching and in business in learning is the most important thing is what principles? Can you extract from this concept, because then you can implement it. But if you're worried about somebody's checklist and plan, and done for you stuff, you're never extracting any of the useful principles that you needed out of it. So you never learn anything, and you're never better. This is why you have to become the change that you want. That's it, your business has to change your models, you cannot just plug somebody in and say, take over my business Hormoz Yeah, like your nose strips for some fucking reason that nobody seems to explain why that's, it's just like, whatever. I don't hate the guy. By the way, It's just that he's marketing himself very, very well. And I think for some reason, it's not about fitness businesses anymore, though, is it? So I just think you guys need to take ownership of every step of this. That's, I guess that's like the whole thing about all of this from the consultants to what your products are, take ownership, it is yours, you're not gonna let some idiot off the street. Because he did. Okay, on Instagram, just come in and start coaching all your new people that every new person that comes in your business is meeting this person first, like getting coached by them first corresponding with them exclusively, that's an insane amount of responsibility. And you're gonna bring in someone you don't know and let them do that. Someone who might be a fucking total charlatan to who's kind of in the business of doing this type of stuff. That's super risky. To me.



John Fairbanks 42:08

What's really dangerous is that's what you're marketing as well. Yes. So the one thing that I really liked what you're talking about where it's like, you're, as you are naturally going through these processes, and you're building these things out, that are perfectly aligned with who you are, because you're doing them, as you share, as you mark it, it becomes about that thing. And this is the next problem that when I see a gym owner come to us, and they want to talk about getting started with us in the gear Academy, what we do, the very first thing we do is we look up the gym on Google, we're gonna then through their Google listing, we'll see how many reviews they have. And then we're gonna go to their website, poke around, see what their website looks like. And then from there, we go to their social media. And we're gonna see what their marketing and how they're marketing, what they are marketing. And what's crazy. And so we have this natural checklist that we're gonna go through, because we need to make sure that they're going to be good, you are going to be a good fit to work with us. But what's interesting is when we start to look at the content that's being marketed, this is where things get really, really weird. And we will call out, and we do call out a lot of people that are talking about the wrong things. And you're actually not talking to the people that you actually want to help. So in your heart of hearts, you want people to be successful, you want to grow your community, you want more people, you want more clients, but then we see tons of really dorky science stupid shit, that's so high level, that the only way we've ever talked about it is if you're a coach, because you're really passionate about where the humerus lies in relation to an overhead squat, and all this other bullshit. That means nothing to 99% of the people that live in your town. It ends up looking a lot like the majority of your marketing is you are trying to just impress the other coaches, or other people that are in the same accreditation as you that follow the same Jesus mentors as you. And now that's where for us it's like, Yo, like, if you want to help people, we should probably start talking about what you actually do for these people. Yeah.



Tyler 44:30

Yeah, it's, that's, we've been down this road before and we've been down this a lot, but I'll I mean, I'll reiterate it, man, the smarter you are as a coach, nobody gives a fuck. I don't say the name of a muscle. I don't say any of this stuff. I just like you said, all you really need to know is the knee bones connected to the thigh bone and the thigh bones connected to the hip bone or whatever else. The fucking song goes like, listen, you're gonna be just fine. And knowing all these inner workings with this exercise is because there's shit out there where there's like this exercise 20%, better late activation with this angle. And while all of that stuff is probably relevant, if you as a coach who is coaching the end consumer, like coaching actual clients, like a real coach, not a poser coach, not a coach that's out here just talking about being smart, okay, an actual coach that coaches people, you're gonna know that that's not all that fucking relevant to that person at all, and that they don't care. And you're gonna end up picking exercises that are pain free, but also fun, that they like doing more than purely optimized. And like this idea that you're going to pair it out there, just this other stuff. But that's what's even worse. Piece coaches are going to hear this information. It's hard information. It's good information. It's about training, and they say it out to the world. People hear this, Jim, we're smart. In our gym here, we know things about the shoulder. We know things about the back, we know all this stuff. And it's like nobody, nobody is looking for that. People have back pain, wish it didn't have back pain. But I promise you, they're not looking for they're not googling the gym to fix my back. They'll go to fucking, they'll live on WebMD before you're in the top 20 list of people that they're considering. Now you can help people who have back pain by letting them train and letting them get in shape and letting them have success and lose weight and feel better. And you can train them in ways that don't make it worse. And eventually things can get better. But if you're thinking that your access point is come to us, because we're intelligent, come to us because your shoulder gives a fuck, nobody's coming. I'm not going to anybody for my shoulder. Want to say that because I want to get jacked, I'm gonna go to the gym because I want to get in shape. I want to coach so that they can hold me accountable and teach me cool stuff. And I can learn things to get me results. I don't want to coach who's going to come in and just fucking like, live in the world of my problems. Talk to me about the insides of my joints, taught as I nobody cares, nobody gives a shit give me through and we have fun. We have fun this hour. If I have fun working out three hours a week. If I really do three hours a week I really enjoy it. Guess what I'm gonna do next week, same thing, guess it, um, do the next week, those same things. So training can be fun and not ineffective and not detrimental. It needs to be fun enough to get people to commit to it for a decade. Maybe not with you. But you need the light of fire that continues to burn. And coming in and doing this silly like diagnosing shit is a huge problem. I think it's another big issue. We like assessments as a tool. I think a movement assessment is great if someone wants to do it. We've had gyms where we've had them do movement assessments. And overall, we did overall assessments for everyone who came in. But that was an assessment based on their goals. Okay, so if someone comes in and wants to become a weightlifter, perfect, we're going to address this shoulder issue in this position, these are your limitations, here's our plan for getting your results in the next 12 weeks. If you're a weight loss person, we're going to address nutrition. So you have a hard time with mobility here or there, whatever this is, right. That's it's a mapping out of the next planned action. That's really what an assessment is. But we see a lot of essentially movement screenings where it's really just a way for me to diagnose someone with a problem. So I get that hook in their lip. And then from there, I got them, because now they need me because I know that problem. And we're here to work on your problem. And that problem is not going to show itself on the scale, those that those successes won't show up on the scale, they won't show up in the mirror, none of your friends or family are going to know that you even work out, you are going to look the same as you always have. And that sucks, that's not letting people join a gym. So do not be redirecting people's goals into stupid dorky shit just because you're smart. Okay, it doesn't matter, you should be expected to be able to do this stuff. People should know that you know how the shoulder works. I couldn't care less as long as you can get me a good workout and my shoulder doesn't hurt because of you. I don't need to be repaired. And most people do not want just some dipshit pretentious coach who talks like they know it all on the internet who doesn't work with people. The coaches that are coaching coaches do not have successful gyms. They are not working with clients over the long term at all. And when they do their silly little fake PR moments, that's all they really are. It's completely manufactured right? You see what's his ass, the squat University guy, right? And I'm sure he knows lots of things. He's great, but he's small. He's weak. So it's uninteresting to me. Just uninteresting taking squat advice from a 140 pound man who squats 185 can't pretend to care. But he's like all the coaches. He's a physio and he was like, No, those are all photo ops. You brought in a big guy and you did a cute little assessment. But coaches get really dorky about that because now they say, "Oh, this guy's smart. He's has expertise. I should be doing that. When I get somebody in I should do stupid before and after pictures about how they hold There's stuff over here like, nobody cares. Nobody's ever walked into a gym, I want to make sure that my overhead position is better. Like, that's why you're gonna join a gym, that's why we're gonna start working out. That's fucking nuts. Like, that's not how this works. So we start putting this level of like, I don't even know what to call it, your silly little expertise. But people don't want you for that expertise. I want to lose 20 pounds, have you helped anybody lose 20 pounds? No, but I'll talk to you about your emotions and your muscles as well that's fucking stupid and lame, and imaginary. So fuck off, I don't understand how coaches can get duped by that dumb as shit. While continuing to have this high road stance on other scams or challenges in the industry or anything like this. It's a lack of thinking for yourself, you become a parent. And it's a huge problem that I see across the board, you're parroting you're letting somebody else come through and just spout off here's our six week challenge. Here's our access point to our business. It's no different than you know, just parroting somebody else's fitness or technical ideology methodology onto your social media since dumb, it's not, it's, it's your brand, not theirs, get their shit off your shit, be it about you and be it about your clients. It's very frustrating to watch. Because you watch coaches and gyms just cut their own throats.



John Fairbanks 51:25

And we can't have a good conscience. recommend that you build a business model or a business around the idea that you hope that you can get an Olympic athlete or professional athlete to come in and diagnose them. Because 99.9% of the time, you're not doing that. So if you're gonna own a business, you got to do something where you actually are helping actual people get things that they want. And make no mistake, this is not the desire to have a coach, whether you are a business, or you are just a personal trainer or coach, and you want to get better. This is not shitting on coaches having coaches. No, you have to be really, really diligent and understand what is it that your coach, your mentor? What are they talking about? Because whatever they're talking about, right, it's the lame thing, right? Whatever you think is what you say. And then whatever you say is what you do. So understand where it's if your mentor is not thinking about how they can help you help more people, and then talking about it, or how you can do that. And then literally doing that, and they're doing all this other shit over here, that scratches that weird Deep Throat knowledge thing you got going on. It can still be interesting. But make no mistake, it doesn't help the business over here. So you have one, you have these two. They're conflicting ideologies and conflicting goals. Something can be interesting. That also isn't going to help me in my business



Tyler 53:00

learning. Why are you learning about breathing, learning about breath work? Those are important things to learn. And those are fun little concepts to dive into a nice little rabbit hole. But if you want to become a breathing business, fucking take your wares elsewhere because nobody gives a fuck. Okay? It can be a component and a thing you talk about in teaching that when you're working with people, it's good for you to know, right? I know how people breathe. I know how it works. I know what I'd like to see when someone's hair. I know when things are a little bit off. Okay, other than that, do I need to start just spouting all that shit into their ears? No. Do I need to fucking make that my outward branding? I know about breathing?



John Fairbanks 53:38

No. Seminar. Tyler, can you do a breath shine? Jesus



Tyler 53:42

Christ. Yeah, it's all this shit. It's just it's it. By the way, all of those things are non fitness. Now. Now you're just doing silly stuff. And then you wonder why you're not getting a bunch of good transformations. And you're wondering why your gym doesn't have a reputation for being the place where people want to go. Because people get results. They're like, No, because you go there and you just distract people. You just distract people so that they choose to do something else other than accomplish their goals. You make it about you. And that's the biggest fucking problem with a lot of this stuff. It's when coaches and gym owners start to get all hoity toity about their dogma and that their fitness methodology outwardly now becomes part of their, their branding their I'm smart, this is tech, they're just performing that like the little samurai performing seppuku, right? They're just like, Okay, I'm a super genius now and I'm going to take out my sword and because I'm going to martyr myself to the fitness industry because all of you guys are so wrong and so many people need to coach fucking better. I don't even understand that position. Are you saying that the people you're competing against in your area or city coaches, by the way if you want to do that, go right. I don't. That's what I'm saying. Like if you're gonna but if you're just saying like there's so many shitty fitness coaches in the world and we're bad Uh, okay. But like that doesn't mean anything to somebody, you're appealing to people far away from you. And you're trying to get attaboys from other coaches in other gyms that are never going to do any business with you. But if the gym across town has some shitty coaches and all their people get hurt, and maybe be petty, then I don't give a shit. I'd rather you do that, then you just spout off smoke. Sure, I'd be like, everyone who goes over there gets hurt. That's why so many of them come back here. We've had 10 of them in the last year. Well, that kind of actually is a pretty nice little statement, maybe a little bit of muckraking. But it's pretty fucking interesting. I'd rather you do that. Then constantly talk about how smart you are, and how you know, I know how the body works, let me teach you, but the inner workings of the breath. Well, Jesus Christ, this doesn't seem like a very useful leader, or a useful lead strategy to go from just Instagram, to me wanting to go lose weight and workout with your get strong workout. None of those, they don't ever connect any of those dots. And it sucks that it's lame. And all you're doing is just ripping your guts out there in front of everybody. But



John Fairbanks 56:00

you realize what a helpful or productive thought exercise just this, the petty example that you give to the buddy example that you give right is that it's go ride at the gym across town, or the physio across town is bad is bad business, right? It's bad business. They're fucking people up and you want to go right, Adam? Well, okay, let's think about it like it. But here's where your attention lies. So instead of lying, like you said, having a public sacrifice of yourself to the gods. Instead, you take that same amount of time, that same amount of energy, and you go, how can I fuck with that other business? And if you don't go right at it, right, because it's a little bit like burning the boats.



Tyler 56:42

We're just riffing here. But but if



John Fairbanks 56:44

you don't do that, but now that's where the thought exercise comes in. Where it's like, well, I know this population, they're going into getting fucked up by these people. How can I stop that from happening? One, it won't be burning, the shutdown on social media like that immediately now closed the doors. So how do you start to circumvent that? Well, how are people getting there? How are they getting tricked? Where are those leads coming from? Where they get fucked up? And now I have to fix them? It's like, within? What partnerships can I form? Who can I be talking to? How can I get in front of this target population that's now getting duped by these motherfuckers? And how do I start to be able to help them before they get themselves hurt. And before they get tricked, now you have a much more interesting addition of tasks to go do.



Tyler 57:31

And I think there's an interesting take on this thought exercise as well as that people have a long term lifetime fitness journey. And your business is going to be positioned somewhere in that of Mr. Market, somewhere in there, people move from above you, down to you, around you, underneath you, whatever it is, whether it's price, methodology, location, whatever this is. And I think it's really important that you understand that even though this other gym sucks, right, and members leave there because they don't like it, or they don't get results or they get hurt and then they end up coming to you just know that that may just be because they're cheaper. And that people will always go there first. And that maybe that's where you're at is your the place where people go, after they've tried all the cheap little $20 Bullshit, and they haven't had any accountability and they want to recommit. And because of your price point, you will always be the one that they follow. You know, you can go buy something like 50 cent scissors at Walmart, it's going to suck and you can buy some $20 scissors at Walmart and it's going to be better. The amount of times I've tried to get by with the cheap shit. Sometimes eventually you learn and there's in life, there's lots of those things where people are gonna buy the cheap shit. And they're gonna go Dammit, this is one of those things I couldn't get by I couldn't cheap out on it didn't work. And I think your gym is gonna exist somewhere in that spectrum somewhere along that continuum. And, and that's also okay, too. It's okay, if you're the spot where people get hurt, the fact that they choose to go to you afterwards is a good sign. It is a good sign. So maybe we don't we don't want to cut off a bunch of low value morons looking to spend 20 bucks and then jam them into our business that maybe isn't the pathway. But at least now you're thinking about clients, local people, and the things that they will do and their actual journey instead of yourself and why you're so fucking smart as a coach. That's the long and short of it. You need to reframe your thinking; it's not about you being better than everybody else. It's about who can I help? Because this job is a service that is what you're doing here. So who can you help? I know fuckin smart you are never says never heard a goddamn mechanic tell me about how much he knows never never their advertising it's never did you know that we can fix cars are like nobody pitches it because it's a fucking given. So no matter how dumb you say it, other people are not gonna believe you. They're gonna believe every mechanic is relatively qualified. They're gonna assume that every gym they go to can do fitness stuff. Right? That's just a If they're inquiring, I think they're assuming that things are probably at least normal ish, I have a hard time believing that spouting off like that is doing any good in your area. Certainly not in your area, it's just getting you high fives from coaches from far away who are never going to get any business. And then even worse, your coach, as a coach, your coach, your mentor, whatever this is, they are very excited to see you parroting their nonsense all over your fucking social media. They're stoked about it. Because you're just parenting their ship, your marketing will be marketing for them, so they can get you when coaches are impressed by how much you know, as a coach. They're gonna go Wow, where did you learn all that stuff? Because my ego needs stroking more than my clients need help. And they tell you, Oh, you got to go to this go to this, this little coaching group or this little one isn't? And they get in there and they just nerd out on everything except helping people.



John Fairbanks 1:00:55

And as long as you're helping people, you can be a big fucking dork. Like, totally literally are. We've come from this area. We've literally lived it. We've lived super dorky conversations for fucksakes Tyler, you did like hundreds of episodes of dorky shit talking about Super dork and ours



Tyler 1:01:14

are the most in depth stuff you could possibly imagine into those things. And in the end, it's like, what you see how little, a lot of these coaches care about the actual people. And how little on the ground none of them are embracing or promoting or even talking about the successes that their clients are having never was about them was never about helping anybody. And that's and that's where some of these things that's where you get these you're like, Oh, I see these coaches using education as a distraction to hide from the fact that they're not actually helping clients lose weight or get in shape. They'd rather be smart than good. And that's a problem. So be both you fucking idiots. Let's get going here. So thanks for listening to everybody. So nice ranty little episodes from random along I like it so follow the show at the gym owners revolution on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler F and Stone and John.



John Fairbanks 1:02:04

You follow me on Instagram at Jay banks FL



Tyler 1:02:07

go to are similar to podcasts on Instagram. go to gym owners revolution.com in the Facebook group links in the show notes you want to work with us directly shoot us a message at the dudes at hacker gym.com Thank you everybody. We will see you next week.