Tuesday, July 16, 2024
gym, people, talk, business, person, fitness, review, owner, leads, coaches, money, facebook, social media, reach, platform, marketing, important, run
TTyler 00:01
Welcome to the gym owners podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, this week we're going to talk about marketing rules and guidelines, different opportunities, different things we've seen that are working. And I think there's a changing landscape and a lot of it especially for fitness marketing that's been going on lately, and I think it's a very positive trend. I think this, these new changes, I think, make it a lot easier for gym owners to reach people, for coaches to reach people. And I think it very much makes it easier for people who are out there trying to make a real difference. To get into contact with the people that are trying to do business with them. So let's get right into it. John, follow us on all this stuff following the show at the gym owners podcast and Instagram, John is Jay bakes NFL on Instagram, I am Tyler F and stone on Instagram, we do have the gym owners revolution Facebook Group link is in the description. If you want to work with us directly go to gym owners revolution.com. Let's get right into it. John, first off, one of the biggest rules that I think is important for marketing fitness very specifically, is Facebook is not the only thing. And Facebook is the easiest thing to put money in and to get reach to cover your area, I do believe that it still is the easiest thing. But it represents such a small subset of people in your community that it doesn't give you access to everybody. And it's not that appealing to everybody. So know that things that work on Facebook only work for the type of people that are on Facebook. So you're missing out on an entire wealth of people that don't give a shit about what goes on on Facebook, that don't spend all their days on their phones, or at the very least are using other platforms. And I believe that trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future as Facebook continues to be less and less valuable for younger and younger generations. Facebook's for fucking old people. Now, you know, I was one of the people who got on like right away. When did I mean remember when it started but like, I feel like it was very very, very early. I feel like it was like 2006 or seven maybe when I got on does that seem right or eight
John Fairbanks 02:01
would have been the early 2000s When you still had to be able to get your edu email address from college.
Tyler 02:07
I got on right after that when you were once it was once a transition from just college to like regular. So during that time, oh wait. So at that time, we were young people and it was a platform that was like, you know, for young people we all treated Facebook like posts and people's walls. Back then it was very much like how we treat messenger now the whole world was your inside group chat base. So if you want to feel like an asshole go back to the first couple years of Facebook and see the things you posted on your friends walls and stuff like that. Like what's up, dickhead. Going to be in town this weekend? What are you doing? It's like that should have been a message that should have been a text message. You just put that on a billboard in front of everybody. And it's just
John Fairbanks 02:51
and it's a good rule because it is a reminder you've given for years, which is to go through your memories and anything that's over a decade ago, just delete it. Yeah. Like 15 plus years back and even usually be like, Oh my god, this is horrible.
Tyler 03:05
I have to delete it. I did that for like a year. Every morning I would go up and I would check my Facebook memories once they started creating that feature. Right and just delete delete, delete anything that wasn't like a picture of the kids are gone. Absolutely. It was crazy. She was treated like an update. Like we're gonna stop at the store on my way home today.
John Fairbanks 03:25
Because all we knew was like Twitter to like it was like it's such a weird crossbreed of the two. Yeah.
Tyler 03:30
So anyway, the landscape of social media continues to change and continues to evolve. And that opens up opportunities for other platforms for you to market on. But the problem is, it also fragments the audience. Because it's not like the people that currently aren't using Facebook are all engaging socially on something that's maybe easy for you to market to. Like Snapchat is probably where most of this younger generation sits right now in place of Facebook. Just don't haven't. I have yet to see any meaningful fitness, any meaningful outcomes marketing fitness, via Snapchat, I'd love to hear it if you guys have had it. It's a platform that I haven't used in fucking eight years or whatever, either because I just feel like I've aged out of it, but that I believe Snapchat has that audience captured, unfortunately, and I just don't know how useful it is for us Tik Tok. Same thing as well, tic TOCs are too fast too. I just don't know how impactful those things can be. For brick and mortar business.
John Fairbanks 04:32
Yeah, for your locals, that's always like that's our North Canada. That's the North Star for us where it's like, it's you. We all have the same amount of time in the day. So if you're going to try and market and you're trying to advertise your business, what's your best bang for your buck? And the reality is definitely for us how much we do look at it. It's how much local impact you can make on Tik Tok. It just isn't built. It's so built for influencer
Tyler 04:56
level. ROA reach right I think
John Fairbanks 05:00
There's one other topic on this before we move anywhere else is like, there's also understanding how your marketing or advertising, how long did we spend, I mean, total we spent in this world for so many years, where you, you stop worrying so much about what you're marketing and advertising. And you're more worried about how you're marketing and advertising specific to the platform you're doing it on. Now, this is a high level of tourism that comes to these platforms that hopefully none of you have dove into. And if you had let let this be like a thing to start to kind of pull your ass back, because it doesn't fucking matter. Like, if you start to nerd out about how Facebook reacts better compared to x compared to tick tock how you're saying it, what you should say, have to better benefit you because the platform rewards you for it. It's a never ending game. And you ended up starting to nerd out and worry about shit, that just doesn't fucking matter for what 95% of your actual clients that you're going to get doesn't care whether they saw that post at 3pm, or at 8am. I had just it's, it's such a level of a moving target that just makes it impossible. And it's almost built to make you worry about it. The only people that are trying to get you to worry about that shit are the people that are going to sell you that they know more than you and therefore you have the money to do it for you.
Tyler 06:29
I think that it's important to know all sorts of people that are trying to take money from you to market these things or to do this stuff for you. That's by the way, it's totally fine to hire somebody to run Facebook ads for you, if you don't want to do it like delegating is fantastic. The problem is, is everybody other than you as the consumer now, this as the person aiming to run ads is trying to market, everyone who's doing work on your behalf. And also the platform, they all are going to tell you that the things that they are doing are working and that they're valuable. And that is just not entirely true. Because the only metric that should matter to you is are you getting leads in and starting going from their leads? But are they bad leads? Are they good leads? What Are we closing in the end you're trying to sell. So if it doesn't convert to sales, don't let anybody tell you that reach fucking matters. It's just not that important. And this is a metric that they start throwing out. And that's fine for a digital product, it's fine if you're trying to launch something that's totally scalable. But if you just are dealing with people with a 15 mile radius, probably realistically, five or 10 mile radius from where you're at. You don't what's the point in thinking that you have a reach of 50,000 people on this fucking post 100,000 people on this post, all you've done is chase that metric, and it gets you nothing. So it's really important to know that certain metrics matter and certain ones don't. And the people that are taking money from you, they're dependent on you making you believe that this was a successful endeavor. So just don't let them prop up metrics and try to get high fives for things that don't matter. Your reach does not matter, engagement on its own really doesn't matter that much. Have they followed your page, maybe that matters, right? Getting people into your network following your page that matters. But other than that, there's this this is one of the biggest scams I ever see is when they're like clicks, or fucking views and the shit and it's, it truly doesn't matter at all. What matters is what converts do people take the next step is I don't want to pay to expose my gym to a million people. Because there's not a million people that are capable of doing business with us. So
John Fairbanks 08:40
if we're debunking Facebook's artificial Ivory Tower, top of the mountain, so we're kind of pulling that apart. What is then if we're going to start to build a hierarchy of importance when it comes to marketing and advertising. What do you think is the most important spot if you're a gym owner, to actually have your time live? If you're gonna put time into actually marketing and advertise? What do you think is numero grata?
Tyler 09:05
What do you think, John?
John Fairbanks 09:06
I think it's, I think, I think it's actually doing shit in person. Yeah, I think there is a and whole overused phrase of like pendulum swinging, right, but this idea where our grandparents knew how to do business, like the old the Main Street store, and the guys that were running now, it's hard to its, I'm gonna do double speak, right? Because they're fucking out of business now because Walmart destroyed everything that they were, but back in the day, right, those guys knew how to be able to do business. They knew how to be able to build a reputation locally in a community, being a staple being a place that people could trust and have repeat business. And it happened by looking people in the fucking eye and given a handshake, like there was there was that level of a I don't know that for me, it's always that level of service. Do you have any more paint? Like an actual paint store? Do you have them where you're at? So
Tyler 10:08
Do we still have a couple? Yeah.
John Fairbanks 10:10
Have you been in them? No, of course not. So my wife and I went to a paint store, like two weeks ago. And I'm like, why am I on the phone with her? I'm not you know, I'm away from the house. And she's like, I'm going to the paint. I'm like, why are you gonna spend, you're gonna spend more money if you're going in there. She's like, it's close enough to my parents house, they need to help. I just need to get there and get back so I can help do like, Alright, fine. And she's like, but stays on the phone with me. Because when I walk in here, I'm gonna get it'd be like fucking vultures are going to rain down. And sure shit. I mean, the second I heard the ding, ding ding she walked into this. Boom, 17 questions are just hitting her. And what it is, is the highest level of fucking service. I mean, I needed a paintbrush, and there were 15 Questions about the paint brush. And it was like, the level of paint, what are you painting, you're painting a deck, that's a mistake, I wouldn't do that, like tons of just years of knowledge and professional opinion, that are just being rained down, like almost a white glove treatment, because they're gonna see 15 People all fucking day. But the reality is, is all of that expertise makes it feel like you're about to get taken care of to a level where do we really just want to go into WalMart, see no one, buy something, maybe that's going to work for genome,
Tyler 11:29
lean on whatever expertise we think we have.
John Fairbanks 11:33
Then be pissed off because I've had to do 16 coats of whatever the fuck at home and it doesn't work and chips in a week. Like, that's what we've all become accustomed to, which is no help and it being shitty. And that's where I'm saying. So when it comes to in person shit and actually doing things with humans and interacting with them, there's such a level of service that you can provide and that's where the word of mouth comes from. All of you that are listening. How often are we told Tyler that it's, I'm a gym owner, I just need to get somebody through my door if they walk through the door I can close them. And whenever you get to actually speak to somebody about your business, they want to do business with you when they do they tell their friends and it's that word of mouth spreads well yeah, because it's fucking human interaction and people that desire to go to a gym, your gym that provides it of course you're good at it.
Tyler 12:27
So one of the things I think that needs to be done to add here's here's a little bridge I'm going to connect this Facebook social media stuff to the in person local networking component here is the gym needs to be the gym, the gym needs to be very present on social media it just needs to be if you're not making effort there. You better have all the money in members that you possibly fucking could want. If you're just going to let that fall off I'm not saying by the way there's probably plenty of opportunities for Jim to have zero social media if you're just doing an awesome job and you're fine but I fucking can't imagine having one and not putting some sort of effort into that platform because what are you going to do if things dry up you need to have some opportunities queued up nearer with newer to your grasp than just turning things on from scratch so I think the gym needs to be very present on social media that's fucking obvious. I don't think you need to hustle the hardest i But I do think you need to be talking about your services very, very consistently, consistently. Now, if you're the owner, your coaches otherwise I think it is very important that their own personal social media platforms, it doesn't have to be all about your gym doesn't have to all be about if I'm if you your trainers, they don't have to just become a fitness personal trainer page necessarily. We've seen some advice that you know, like some strategies that lead you to believe that maybe that's what it has to be. Right and John, we kind of did something similar, which is you want to offload everybody who's not in your circle are not going to be able to do business with you from your butt. Like, let's just meet in the middle somewhere. The personalities within your gym in order for in person networking to work well. Your social media needs to already have covered the first impression so that people know who the fuck this guy is. Where he does what he's about, like, what is he professionally, because otherwise you're going to be a goth. You're just going to be a guy at a place that they don't know anything about. When you're talking about being in person. It devalues your in person presence if they got no fucking clue who you are already. So you have some legwork done by the social media of stuff by having me personally on my page. There's a ton of stuff about fitness. There's also family stuff going around or whatever. But like there's a ton of stuff about fitness, coaching, working out nutrition, the products I sell, I am doing business on my personal page, so that when I am a person out there in space in the real world, rubbing shoulders with people, they know what I do for a business which means that is that is a thing that comes up in conversation. It's easier for me How to segue into like, Oh, fucking guy.
John Fairbanks 15:03
That's right. And I would say, too, I think it's really important. You said the family stuff. And I want to hit on that just like it's don't underestimate the level of trust that you can build with someone. Certainly from a man's perspective, like I have a family. A single male, versus a man with a family and a job. Those two people are trusted and treated differently in society. Yeah. And so there is an element where it just like you're saying, where it's like your your online presence and what you've put out there, it enhances what you can then generate in person, because then you know, everyone else like, as soon as fucking parents and moms do this shit, like every school year, soon as the teachers get announced, they go hunting for the teachers on social. Yeah, they want to go find it. It's like, well, this is this new English teacher. Oh, okay. Well, we're gonna learn about her. And then my wife has just a bunch of big juicy photos of this new teacher. And she's like, What the fuck? John's? Like,
Tyler 16:03
I'll handle conferences how I'll do all
John Fairbanks 16:08
I know, she looks stupid. I'll go talk to her.
Tyler 16:09
Yeah, that's crazy. Put, but it can undermine you. Or
John Fairbanks 16:20
Exactly. Because the undermining where it's like somebody needs you like, hey, they're not too bad. And then go on there. And it's a bunch of like, super weird, like, all right, all left's crazy shit. And you're like, oh, this person's insane. And I don't need to know anything more about them. Yeah, yeah, you have to have that level, you have to have that level of, of where you're threading the needle. And that is where I think the more nuanced piece of what you're talking about, which is, if you're going to be on social, you have to make sure what are you mixing where you want people to be able to see it's my family, man, I like music, I worked out, I do fitness, I do consulting, it's like, Ah, perfect. I kind of know what these pillars are and who this person is, quote, unquote.
Tyler 17:00
Yeah. So it is important that your business and your personal social media stuff, make sure that it still points people to the direction of what you do. Because in person professionally, when you're out in the world, people need to know what that is. Otherwise, you just don't have much value. If you're just it helps to look jacked, you know what I'm saying? If I had none of these other things, and I went around in the world, and it was at least big and strong and carried a lot of muscle, I would at least get asked some questions. But the difference between having done 1000s of pieces of content about fitness over the years and not means that tons of people are willing to talk to me about the things I do, the things I sell, because that is what is going on on those platforms. So that's important. Don't neglect your personal pages, do not have your if your coaches want to be successful, want to be career people, it's important that they start to build that stuff on their own platforms as well. You don't gotta be pushy, snotty, overbearing. It's just people got to know what you do. I don't write. We've talked about this before, there's a ton of coaches and gym owners out there that are like afraid to fucking put anything on their social media about coaching people, it's fuck or their gym, it's I don't understand it. So you're swimming in money, I guess you don't have to worry about it. But when I see a gym owner that like, doesn't do any posts on social media, but maybe like once a month on the business page, if you're lucky, and basically nothing on their personal page regarding their business, then your FUCK YOUR FUCKING going to be super charming and very verbose when you go places in public because nobody's just gonna be beaten down the door to talk to some guy they don't fucking know about the things that they don't know he does. It's very difficult to get that
John Fairbanks 18:39
in. Yeah. And it's interesting too, because it's contrasted by it. I get it if you don't want to play the game, and you're kind of anti the whole social media thing, or whatever. The problem is, that opinions are now in this day and age, they're going to be formed, they're going to be formed about you, depending on your presence, or lack thereof. And I want to liken it to do you include Google, Google, my business, do you include Google when you were talking about social media? Probably
Tyler 19:09
should at this point, I used to maybe consider it like, almost like a website, SEO type stuff. But now the way it is kind of set up, I do view it as I mean, I classify it as the same type of same type of basis you got to cover on Google like that you have to do on Facebook, I think. And
John Fairbanks 19:30
so I kind of view them a little bit like that, where for Google, if there's a business that either you've learned about or whatever, and you go to go find them on Google and you see no reviews, one review an incomplete business profile, is the equivalent of then meeting that coach meeting that person in real life and then you go to find them on social and there's no presence at all. You're like, Who is this? Like, I don't even know this is now it's kind of that weird thing where okay, I get you not wanting to play the game, but now you're gonna have people form opinions just to say As you form opinions about a business was like it's how long have they been open? How do they only have one person who has ever seen their shit? Like they don't have anything. There's no phone number, like, what are we talking about?
Tyler 20:09
And I think testimonials are also a thing. I think Google reviews, we've talked about this, this is the starting point, for getting good testimonials in your business. There's also a function of a good five star Google review. So let's say getting them from your people, you need to be asking you to give them opportunities, whether it's QR code, or conversationally, you want to have them do it right then and there in front of you, ideally, but it's okay, you need to be thorough in blanketing how you're soliciting for these things you need to be asking, because that is one very valuable piece. It's a valuable asset that you can get from somebody who's done business with you, aside from the money, their word, publicly saying that you did an awesome job and like, that's fantastic. Why do you guys see car dealerships post every chance they get when they sell a car, they try to post a picture of the person or the family, by the car, in front of the car in front of a dealership, every dealership car dealership, in their marketing strategy includes that, if at all possible, unless the people add like, absolutely just refuse to do that. That's what the business wants to do. And the reason is, it's a person with a smiling face, who is essentially that photograph is evidence that they chose to do business with them, and that they're happy with the vehicle that they got, that is another layer, but it solves the same function. So just know that it's important for you, it's valuable. These are principles that can be extracted from any other industry that's out there. But I think starting with a good Google review, it's the word I don't even know how to describe acquisition, just a good process, getting people to leave your reviews, because you need to develop a lot of them, the more you get, the better off it is. But it truly, truly is valuable. And if you don't have a bunch of people are going to make, like John said, they're gonna, they're gonna think you suck, they're gonna think you're nobody, they're gonna wonder who the fuck this guy is. If you have a ton, that's a life, you can get a lifetime's worth of like, positive fuckhead, what's the word? You can get a lifetime's worth of pot reputation points, right? I have five times as many Google reviews as the next guy. And you can simply get that by prioritizing getting them. And
John Fairbanks 22:22
this always comes back to kind of that overall eye test because it's never very rarely will people just just move off of someone's word. What they're gonna say is, hey, that guy's All right. Okay, he's all right. And then it's, they might check you out. And be like, okay, cool. He is all right. I can see social media. Maybe I'll check out the business. Oh, look, the reviews. They do seem to be alright. So now you have this, you've now had this great narrative that's been built. Because every time somebody goes to look, the only reason someone's looking is to see if you're a fucking psycho. Or if the person that said, He's alright, is a fucking liar. Because I've definitely had that where someone says, Hey, that coach, he's, he's really great, right? He's a great guy to deal with. And then I go deal with them. He's a fucking asshole, and he steals my money. And then I go back to the guy and be like, What the fuck man? You said to this dude it was all right. He's like, and then this this, this happens, like, Yeah, I've heard that a couple of times. I'm like, What the fuck? You mean? You've heard that a couple times.
Tyler 23:23
A lot of consumers are fucking idiots, too, it's important to understand that too, is, especially in fitness. I've had people like, say great things about coaches who, like I know are like, late to their shit all the time, who don't know shit who hurt people whose clients get no results by watch coach, and I'm just like, Holy fuck, who was letting this person coach in their facility for money? That's fucking crazy. And yet, you'll see everyone's want? Oh, yeah, he's great. No, he's not great. You just know he does that for a living. And that's about all they'll set, because they just know a handful of people that are trainers. Now I want to talk about another function of the Google reviews that I think we haven't maybe touched on in the past. Externally, it's valuable to the people reading these reviews, it's good, it's good. It's very good social proof, builds trust automatically. You don't have to say it, they set it for you. But what it also does is gives people who have done business with you an opportunity to articulate in words, what the positive experience really was. And that is an exercise in retention. That is an exercise in making them the way you think about things in hindsight. The words you use having to go through the thought exercise have really written down what you liked about the experience that now imprints that in your memory as well as the person writing the review. And so I think it's very good for retention in the long run. I think it makes people really start to appreciate actually how good you weren't thanks because some of this stuff can be almost subtle. If you're delivering a high quality experience. It can. There's so many little details that it takes to put in a premium experience especially in fitness like effort and compassion and consistency and all these things. And I think that at some point, people just get a wash in it all, and they're just happy. I really liked it, I lost weight, it was good, it was fun. And when they really start to sit down and bang it all out on the keyboard, that's fucking cool. Like, that serves you so well in their eyes as well to give these people an opportunity to frame it in their own minds. Because they're going to carry that with them forever, as well.
John Fairbanks 25:27
And you never know exactly what they're going to say. Like, you probably think, you know, what got people excited, or what they're most proud about. But the reality is, sometimes you get surprised, be like, Oh, this really mattered. Like this was something, this was something that really stuck out. And I wouldn't have immediately assumed that this was that important. And yet, like, they took the time. And now it's nice, because with Google reviews, now they pull out key words. Yeah, now we look at it, you have a big list of keywords. And it's like coaching. And now there's a 35, next to personal training, traditional training, and now every review that talks about personal training, now I see that specific thing. Yeah,
Tyler 26:13
it also helps you to think, for the person leaving the review, it also makes them because they have to articulate it in words in a way that's going to kind of live forever, at least on that platform. They're a little thoughtful about it. But then when they're going out and being asked in public, in the future about you and your services, they already have it kind of framed already in that way. They've already used those words. And here's a good example of this. The MMA gym I train in, jiu jitsu MMA stuff, let's Google review a while back, because they've been asked, we're trying to accumulate a bunch of them. So go in and, and I decided what to leave for the review was, you know, I'm 40 years old. And if this current version of myself, were to fight the 25, or 30 year old version for myself in a fight, I'd fucking destroy my 25 year old self right now. You know what I mean? And that's fucking awesome. So thanks. But now when people ask me about it, about the gym, like, that's just what I tell him. Right? Yeah. But I was in good shape when I was younger, but like, right now, I could fuck up every single previous iteration of myself in a fight and style rules, all of a sudden, now people go. Like, that's what you want, like, like, everybody likes to think that the past version of themselves is some better version. And that's not really the case. And once you can kind of frame that, in my head, it makes me very equipped. out in space, when people are asking me about the benefits of training or this type of training. That's, I just tell them that. So I never would have thought that I never would have articulated that in that way, unless I was gonna sit down and make that review. And that's, and that's really valuable as the words that people are putting there eventually become the things that they use when they're out speaking to other people about your business. So, let them or etch that stuff into stone, because they'll get to them and they'll be a little more careful about it. I still see this. John, let's talk about how I still believe the lack of Google reviews is probably one of the single most missed opportunities that I see in fitness in gyms. The hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members that have 2530 Fucking reviews, or less. Oh, yeah. And
John Fairbanks 28:22
The biggest reason is that that's just the start, like that Google review. It is. I want you to think of like 20 dominoes in a row. Getting that Google review, just like you described, getting that testimony that you just left, that testimony that you left is going to knock down so many future dominoes because of the fact that you got the review. So you got a five star. So it's another five star review. So immediately, somebody doesn't have to click in, they're going to see okay, great that MMA gym has X amount of five stars. But then if somebody does click, and then they can see those words, and I as the owner didn't have to write those words. But now those words exist. And if I get enough of those words, all of those words are what your content can become. And you can start to build content around. Because people that are already happy paying customers are telling you exactly why they're happy. And essentially, why they are they do not have buyer's remorse. They are happy they buy and they continue to buy. You talked about retention. So it's another dominoes knocked down. Because now we've reinforced, why are you happy that you're here, you continue to stay here, because that stays in the front of your mind. But now if I'm going to create content, and I want to be able to reach more people like my happiest five star customers, now that I'm going to create how I'm going to talk about it, I don't think about it anymore. It's been done. It's been done for me. And if I'm going to create maybe some other things. If you're a gym owner and like to listen, you literally want to be like it's. I'm 36 and I'm strong . It is the best version of myself that I've ever been in my life. It's if you have other guys that want to be able to achieve that, then that's what they want to do. That's what the other people will be like, Yeah, that's what I want to do. And that's what you're creating, maybe those are programs that you create. That's how you talk about it. And just because you got that single review, that one thing happened. And it makes your life so much easier as a gym owner, on so many other fronts, specifically what we're talking about, which is marketing, marketing, and advertising, who you're marketing advertising for, where these people live look like it's, there's so many things that happen next.
Tyler 30:35
So showing up in person, two, I think is important. That's the other thing being present out in the world, we talk about your social media needs to kind of bridge that gap. But you also need to be out there. If you're a gym owner, and you're like autistic hermit who sits in his cave, and just, you know, Cuddles up on your couch with your dogs and your kids, any moment that you're not coaching, that's, that's fine, somebody in your fucking business then needs to take that job and be running with it. Because you now are just not serving function at all. So somebody needs to be out in space, or whether it is one of your coaches, one of your young coaches, your business needs to be present in the world. And if not just you, you just need to get out there. But you need to be publicly about what you do, John, so many of my weight loss clients, nutrition clients, my remote, most of my remote programs, by the way, are sold locally. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, I would say probably 90% of my remote coaching programs are within 30 miles of where I live. The
John Fairbanks 31:39
The reason why that's so interesting is because you're not just a normal local person, you've had a large international reach and touch on people. So you even have a more different setup than the majority of you that are listening and even compared to myself, yet you still have that local poll.
Tyler 31:54
Yep. And so that, but it's, it's not just that, but what it is, is as I start to think through this, like, where's my last handful of sales come from? Truly, where did they talk to me about it, where did they go? Well, one of them was a friend of somebody who was already basically a referral, and can't quite afford personal training. I just met him in the gym because he was a friend of somebody says me being present at our gym just at the spot that I trained people that the next one, I've had two sales that have come from just being around the jiu jitsu, gym, Jared, who know what I do, who are trying to accomplish something they asked me for service they do. A lot of them have just come from people in town who saw me message me the next day or they chatted with me. They messaged me the next day and they're interested in social functions. They are big ones. You get people that come in from God knows what and you just have a chat about what you're doing. And that covers it. But, man, I mean it like it's so many of them come from just me being out at things and not always like a here's my booth, my fitness booth at this fucking tradeshow. It's not all that by the way, it can be that I recommend more gyms try that. Because I do think if you, you pair something like that with a decent offer, and you want to be out there and be talking to people, I think that rules I think go for it. But it doesn't all have to be so on the nose, just be a person in your community. You know, not everything needs to be a hoity toity event. Some of them can be right. So me and my sales have basically originated those conversations that originated from me just being out in the space talking to people.
John Fairbanks 33:30
And you kind of can get to choose the event, right? Because based on the event that you choose to attend is the caliber or type of person that you then have the opportunity to then interact with, like I don't we don't do black, we still got little kids. So there's not a whole lot of black tie hoity toity events that we do. But there was one that came up and I had the exact same experience that you're talking about where it's like we don't go out and about a whole lot. We're busy with sports and traveling and doing all this other stuff. That's been mostly family centric. But sure shit, I'm out. And I run into some guy that's apparently been following podcasts and things that I've been doing. And he's like, Oh, I knew I knew all about me. And this is a thing that, as a gym owner, you may experience this as well. Because if people do follow you enough or know about you, they may know way more about you than you initially were comfortable with. Because you've never met them before but they know you. It's definitely how we experienced this on the podcasting side. Because a lot of you have listened to us for hundreds of hours. But it'd be the first time this was my experience with this guy. And it just immediately was hey, I really liked what you do. I want you to personally train my son. It was for three total hours of work. Ended up netting over $1,000 for
Tyler 34:48
let's reframe that phrase work, John. That was three hours of binge drinking gin and tonics, I'm assuming Yeah,
John Fairbanks 34:58
it's gone through and drinks are paid for. So my wife had to drive home and then I got to get a coffee like it was like, yeah. So come on, who doesn't want to sign up for three hours of just drinking until you need a DD? And then you get to close some sales? Yeah, I would happily do that.
Tyler 35:18
Yeah. And so I think that that's you got to be out there guys. And it doesn't there's a million options, but none of these are about your gym to like talking in person. It's not about your gym, like, what do you do socially? Are you handcuffed to your business completely? Well, it may be it would serve you on a lot of fucking levels. If you join a goddamn bowling league on Thursday nights or something, you know what I mean? Just get out there, I don't fucking know what that needs to be. Join a cycling club, go to another do a different type of fitness. For Christ's sake, maybe get out of your four walls and go do something else every once in a while. Whether it's active, whether it's social, whether it's fitness related or not. If nobody knows you, and nobody sees you, sorry, people buy especially from fitness they buy from people. It's hard to buy from a business unless that business is established just like this huge pillar of trust is this cornerstone in your community. Once that's happened, people can want to buy from a business. They hear great things about a business. But for the longest time, for the most part, they're still only buying from you, from the people that are giving them the service. That trust is still in a person, usually. And I think that is the thing that people often miss when we build our brand. We do all this stuff. It's like well, I mean, I think it's just important that you try to get out there and try just fucking try because it's you that they're buying from it's you that they want to connect with to, you know what I mean? For the most part, by the way, there are plenty, there's plenty of places out there. And there's plenty of places for people who want to just join a gym and go do work on their own. That's totally fine. And your gym can still be a place for that as well. But what is attracting them? But just what, in general, what is attracting somebody to your fucking location? What is it? And I think that there's so many factors there that I think you really can't go wrong by trying to do things and just get yourself out of the gym. If you spend too much time in the gym. It's the same thing as spending too much time in the education space or learning or online coaching. Like you get to be a fucking weirdo that can't actually figure out how to talk to normal people. I mean, this some of these fitness people fucking talk. It's crazy. There's a jiu jitsu guy that talks about this as well. He's like, what's the worst part? Somebody asked her. How was he asked one of the reporters, or one of the reporters asked him sorry. What's the worst part about you know, promoting these these jujitsu events, and the guy goes, you met these fucking guys. They're fucking weirdos. They're all fucking weirdos. It's like the strangest kind of highly specialized autism. And it's fucking weird. These guys are weird. And that's the fucking worst part about this gig. And I've met a lot of fitness people over the years fitness enthusiasts, whether they're athletes, coaches, business owners, or whatever. Some of you guys are fucking weird dude. Like an insurer, embrace it or whatever. But it would serve you really, really well to get out there and just do something interesting and be funny and have fun and do some normal shit. Because you need to get out the fucking gym. It's going to poison your brain staying in that vortex for too long. I think it would serve a lot of people very well to get out and socialize and have to be a person instead of being a fitness person all the time.
John Fairbanks 38:34
Well, and you're not a fish in a pond, right? There's the phrasing of like Google Big Fish, small pond, small fish, fish, big pond, you know, fucking fish, you have goddamn legs, go to the next pond. And so many of us are just living in this one little pond shitting and pissing in that single pond. And just like you said, It poisons itself. We'll get up, walk your happy ass to another pond and be there because our reach isn't as big as you think. You end up being happy about being like the master of your kingdom. You're the king, you are the head honcho of your shit. But how much it would benefit you just to step out and go to something different for this fact alone. And I don't know for those of you that are listening if you experienced this, but it's if you are a business owner, you love what you do. You're passionate. You are actively seeking to make other people's lives better, including your own and your families, the people that are your clients, but just your community at large that makes you 1% of society. Most people hate what they fucking do. They literally grind it out to where they can buy a 30 pack of Busch light at the fucking gas station, and they're going to drink it all fucking weekend and they're gonna be pissed off when they have to go to work again on Monday. Like that is their existence a lot of people which makes them do amazingly unex ordinary regular people Gen pop the general society are uninspired and extraordinary. Just awful to deal with. Because they're just uninspired. There's nothing inspiring happening, they hate their shit. And you're not that, which means you have a natural gravitational pull that brings people to you. That's why, you know, if somebody will walk through your doors, you can sell them because they feel that passion, it's oozing out of every pore of you. And they want some of that, because their lives fucking suck in everything else that they do. And they want to be around somebody that's magnetic, that gets them excited and wants them to be better, because even their fucking doctor isn't even interested enough to want to make them better. And so guess what? Go be magnetic fucking somewhere else. Because that's not like magic Tyler, that you and I go to some other random spot and we generate leads. Because yeah, guess what, you're fucking interesting. Go be interesting. And people want to work with you, even in these new areas.
Tyler 41:08
If you're not interested, too. That's okay. Like, it's okay. But I don't know what to say. What, what, what? Then you need to be out there and you need to still be present. Right? That's, I just think that it's important. If you're not involved in your community, how can you possibly expect your community to get behind you? Like truly not just your gym community? But how can you expect them to participate in your business if you don't participate in anything else that goes on around you? Do people see you at local events, local concerts, do they? Do you go to weddings around where you are not attending? Check it, send it back to the kind of person. I'm one of those guys. But there's plenty of reasons, plenty of opportunities for you to network like this now. I think we've covered a lot of that stuff pretty thoroughly. I do want to jump back to the new function of Facebook that is working really, really well. I will go into depth. Facebook has made boosting posts so much better than it used to be. We used to joke we literally used to joke that like when we'd ask somebody, well, if you run Have you done any ad campaigns or anything like that, and every gym owner or business owner who says now we've boosted some posts, I'd fucking want to pull their eyes out of their head because like, Oh, that's not trying. It's literally you just got ripped off because Facebook's and put $5 behind this, okay. And that's that is thoughtless, a little bit doing that in that format. But they've made it so much better. That feature is so much better. Now. It's so much more impactful and so much more affordable. Truly, in my opinion. For brick and mortar local businesses, I think that is the loophole that I think if you're trying to boost posts also on like a bucking global brand, or a national brand, I think you're an idiot, I think you really need to start doing more split testing, I think you really need multiple offers multiple content, yada, yada, yada. And I still think that stuff has value for brick and mortar gym owners as well. But I think the boosted posts function, we've seen so much success from people that are spending 2030 4050 6080 bucks, and just getting tons and tons and tons of leads back. Because we're only really prioritizing people near our area, there's actually not a lot of, there's not a lot of stuff to weed out. If we're being honest. Like when you're trying to pick an audience for just 510 1520 miles from your area. Like that's kind of it. That's all you really need to do, because you're just gonna saturate everybody pretty quickly. Now, let's talk about what to do and how to do this, right? Your content does matter. Your offer matters, I think you should be direct, I think it should go directly to harvesting a lead, I think we're going to boost the post, I think people need to be coming back to fill out a form that all roads need to connect to contacting you. They all need to lead to that. So but we've had our I won't say name, we've had one of our gear Academy coaches who has been with us for a long time or gym owners. He's done this on two separate occasions for two separate promotions. And he's just crushed it. The most recent one was kind of a general offer. This wasn't a high ticket offer. But this was like, Hey, we have this thing going on in the summer summer training, it's a youth thing and just fired it off. He put 80 bucks behind it. And he got 27 leads right 15 of them 15 or 1815 I think have booked appointments and have already come in to do their kind of intro session stuff to the point where there's so many now he's just gonna start charging for those to weed to weed out some of the lower interest stuff. And of those 15 have already been purchased. So you're looking at like realistically like 40 to one return on his 20 to one for sure. 20 To 40 to one depending on what the pay packages they end up going with. But this is not misleading. This isn't come and join our six week fat burner fucking blah blah blah blah blah stuff. It's not Yeah, it's not it's free but it costs you $500 The fucking the gym launch bullshit, right? It's not a bunch of pretend stuff this is just here's what we do coming in signed up and talking it's worked really really really really well. Um He's done it before also for specific programs for big ticket stuff and crushed it I think like 2030 bucks behind it had like 10 people in the door now these camps are full. So I think it's worth playing with because the risk is low. We used to talk about how tough it's tough to get into running, like fully spooling up running Facebook ads for a gym is that you need content, you do need a plan, you need somebody to write a copy. And I think most people get into running ads and they run too little content. That's the problem, I don't think they put a bunch of stuff behind one piece of content and hope that it works. And if it doesn't, it is what it is. And if you're going to do that on a large scale with a big ad spend, I do think it's important that you have different content that's going out constantly, that you're going to put money behind. But for this, the stakes are pretty low, fucking put 50 bucks behind something, just go try it, it's worth it to most gyms guys, most gyms are not spending money to acquire new leads, that's fine, as long as you have enough new leads, and you have enough members, and you're happy with the amount of money you're currently making, and there's no chance that you're ever going to lose any members. But until then figuring out how to acquire new new members is like probably the fucking most important thing you should do, aside from fulfilling. So I see so many gyms that are trying, they're trying anything. And if you want to throw some money at it, you just start playing the real game. And that's what I do like about this is you can start to do just marketing math, you can reduce it down to its baser thing, I spent exon ads, I got so many leads. And you don't have to spend $15,000- $10,000 over the course of a few months, paying somebody to manage and run your ads and shit for you. And then while you're just confused about the process the whole time, what's the hang up with this, you do have to do it yourself kind of till you figure it out. But you, you just have to as a gym owner, this is something you're gonna have to do until you can find, you know, I recommend at least that you tinker with this yourself, throw a little bit of money in it, just see what happens.
John Fairbanks 47:23
And you have to have something that you are trying. I think what you nailed it on is that so many of you remember what it was once like, remember that you had talked to somebody at one point that was trying to sell it to you. And then they overcomplicated the shit out of it. Or it was depending on the time that you looked at it, it was fucking complicated. There were a lot of fucking steps. And it was the boosting thing was a fucking joke. It was practically them just stealing your money. But now it is really simple. It is easy to do. It is one of those things where if you have an event, you have an activity, you have anything, you're able to throw it out and be able to have those conversations. It really is the value that we're starting to see consistently for brick and mortar locations across multiple industries, where you are seeing just a high return on being able to just throw something out there and not live in the world. Just like you said, Tyler doesn't have to be $5,000. It's one of those things where it's to test it for and test stuff that you think may have failed once before. Because this would be the next thing to look at is like, did you have something that you tried, and just got no traction at all. There's so many of these things that are out there where it's, it's always, you're always battling, capturing people's attention. And you may think that it just was a failure. Oh, it failed. People weren't interested, I tried to do a promo to get people to come in or do a referral thing, and nobody was really interested. Now, you may just have never had anyone actually fucking see it. So you can throw literally $10 Like you said, these radiuses that you're talking about. It's five miles, it's 10 miles from your area.
Tyler 49:06
And what that spend gives you is the most valuable thing in marketing, in my opinion, which is it gives you access to the audience that is actually able to do business with you, which is why I don't. I'm gonna use the term that I hit on earlier, right? It gives you the reach, it gives you the audience size. Now I don't want blind reach. I don't want I don't want to reach a number. I want to reach people within 10 miles of where we're at right now. Y'all SAT should get as many as I can get that fit that bill. Perfect, then I'll troubleshoot that versus that regarding the quality of those leads. But the most important thing is every brand that ever works, guys, every every single brand, like national brands, global brands that are successful. The reason when they launch a product is that it works and sells well. It's not because they have to spend a shitload of money marketing it necessarily. Instead, they already have the audience right. Build the audience if captured, audience capture is the most important thing. So in your case, I don't believe that it's important for a gym, and a business to have a shitload of followers. Because I think it's weird following businesses. If there's no content that gives you direct value, I think I think that's something people do less and less and less and less and less. Like, if you're following like, you follow in fucking Nike, what the hell, it's weird. You know, I mean, so I don't think you can expect bunches of people unless you want to become a full time content creator, which now a lot of that effort is going towards basically engaging people who aren't able to give you money because they're not near your location. So what paying to boost some of these posts can give you now and give you a shortcut to that reach. And that's what's nice is it gives you reach, but the focus reaches the geographically focused reach. That's super important. So now you can shortcut your way to that. You can make one or two good pieces of content around this thing you're doing just by the right to be thrown in front of all these people's faces, people who aren't currently following you, or about to be following you probably still aren't going to follow you after this. Plenty of people join gyms and don't follow their fucking social media. Not every gym needs to be a cult. And so I think that that is the most valuable thing is it? It just shortcuts that whole process. You don't have to become a full time content creator, you don't get to become an influencer. It allows you to pull yourself up out of all of those traps that I think a lot of fitness professionals fall into . Well, I guess I sure hope I can become some CrossFit influencers. So I can start selling online programs with the 10 million other people that are selling online programs. And the only reason that those professional athletes are able to make a shitload of money selling online programs or tutorials, or instructionals, is because they're already famous, and they got 2 million people watching their shit. You can't do that. You can buy that though. And you can buy it now for pretty fucking cheap, because it's geographically close to you. So that's the shortcut there, but you do. I think it's important that you take them to an offer. I don't think that you need to do it for just necessarily like, I don't think you need to be too scammy, I just think you need to try it. Because the stakes are so low, the barrier to entry is so low that it's just easy to be trying, if you're not willing to try some shit or if you're not willing to spend 50 bucks a week to try to run some stuff and put it behind some content to truly burn it. Let's pretend like it doesn't return your ability. If you spend 200 bucks a week or 200 bucks a month, for like eight weeks, I think that you're going to do just a great 50 bucks a week, a week's 400 bucks, right? Catholic school math, I got it. But like in that time, you should hopefully have been able to put out a few pieces of different content, lots of people in your area should have seen it. Lots of people should have seen the next one and the next one. So they've been reminded multiple times. By the end of that, I think you should have figured something out. I think you should have some people knocking on your door, you should have some people in your inbox. And I think in the end you that is an investment not only in those leads, but it is an investment in you leveling up your skills at playing this fucking game. Because if you're sitting at the start line, and you're not really like pulling the trigger, and you're just wondering why people aren't coming to your gym, and you're only doing organic social media or nothing. This is a way to maximize the outcomes, because you don't have a million followers that are in your area. But you can buy every eye that's in your area for a reasonable price.
John Fairbanks 53:33
Let's extend an offer. Okay? If you're one of the first three fucking people, you made it this far, you're 50 minutes into the episode. You're one of the first three people, what do you get? was the thing that you got that you could throw 50 bucks a week at for the next eight weeks? And be able to if you're unsure of what it is reach out to us. Yeah, yeah, Miss on Instagram at the gym spod cast and say Hey, can I sit with you guys for 30 minutes? I have an idea of what I would want to throw some money at and we don't have you literally just pissed this away. Because you're fucking sending them to your goddamn website or some other stupid fucking thing. It's because I don't want you to burn it because there is a reason why the folks that are in our gear Academy when they're ready to start playing this and test these things out. They do have massive returns. And it's because we're fucking geniuses, we're just not fucking idiots. And so that's where it's let's get you squared away because I don't want you to just blindly do this shit. So if you're one of the first three folks reach out say hey, and let's talk you through it and get you squared away and then have you go and go crush it and then we'll go from there.
Tyler 54:43
Yeah, let's do it. Alright guys, you know where to find us gym the gym owners podcast on Instagram, John is Jay banks FL Tyler effing stone has Tyler EFI and stone joined the gym owners revolution Facebook Group link is in the show notes. Go to gym owners revolution.com If you want to work with us directly thanks everybody we'll see you next week