Coaches: Here’s 10 Tough Pills To Swallow

gym, people, coach, personal trainers, product, client, nutrition, fitness, results, sell, started, money, talk, years, tyler, give, month, build

TTyler 00:00

Tyler, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's episode of the gym owners podcast. I'm your host, Tyler stone over there's John Fairbanks. Hi, John.



John 00:06

Hello, Tyler.



Tyler 00:07

Coming back from the sickest I've ever been in my life. We're recording this episode, guys, I got a new weight loss. Weight loss tip for you. You guys need to get whatever I have. It's crazy. Not fun.



John 00:19

What was it? 40 pounds, 40 pounds in 96 hours.



Tyler 00:23

It was pretty nuts. All you gotta do is shit, puke, be unable to eat or drink anything while you sweat and have migraines. Want to die. I think Friday evening would have been the last time I ate something at that time, and I weighed three two pounds, sick as a dog. By Tuesday, I was 277 pounds. Hell, yeah. I was just dry, miserable, barely conscious approval. So we're back. I'm here. I'm feeling better. I'm not feeling 100% but I am feeling better. So this week, we are going to get in if you're following us on Instagram or Facebook, or you're in the gym owners revolution Facebook group, we have a recent post that went out that's got a lot of traction. We've got a lot of feedback from coaches in the DMS and business owners about this, which is 10 tough coaching pills to swallow. And we're going to run through this list with you today, talk about some of our personal experiences and things that would kind of lead us to making sure that these things are on the list for this job, coaching, owning gyms, coaching people, trying to do the business side of this. It's not always the most rewarding job. It's not always the most intuitive job. And sometimes we've got to get ourselves out of the way and understand that like, Hey, this is just the way that it is. So before we get started, make sure you follow the show at the gym owners podcast on Instagram. Follow me at Tyler F and stone on Instagram and John and



John 01:41

you can follow me at Jay banks. FL, want to work with



Tyler 01:46

us directly. Go to gym owners revolution.com you want to get into the gym owners revolution Facebook group. The link is in the show notes. Let's go. So first one, number one, and this is the one that I I've kind of been really driving this one pretty hard, especially



John 02:00

This was Tyler's voice. What I was, we were putting this together. I'm like, Alright, this is definitely Tyler's voice



Tyler 02:05

for sure, yeah. Which is, if your clients are not getting results, you need to look in the mirror. That's a big one. And I live on both sides of this fence, and I need you guys to understand this, that this is the reality is a lot of these are, some do or die shit this, because it's true. But this doesn't also mean that every single client that you're going to get to is going to be getting all these great results. But if your clients aren't getting results, you gotta do it. It's up to you. I see lots of gyms, lots of coaches that they just coach. I guess exercise, I don't know. They just, they just coach. Some time. They're not coaching anybody towards anything. And if they are, I fail to see from outside, and I fail to hear from the customers, them getting anybody anywhere or getting them to the thing. Because I would feel like, John, if, if, if I paid you to take me to Disneyland this week, and we went to Disneyland, you would be like, hey, take these guys to Disneyland. I don't think these people are fucking getting anywhere. And I think what we see as a population as a whole, nationally, here in the United States, is people aren't getting very far fitness wise. And yet the fitness industry continues to pop off. Make a lot more money. We got lots of new clever ideas and billion dollar fucking conglomerates running shit around here, and yet still we sit so it goes down, in my opinion, to at the business level, and right underneath it is the coaching level. And I think they do go hand in hand. This one is very near and dear to my heart, because as a coach, this is what I hunt for when I'm crafting programs or my coaching philosophy is what gets people there. A perfect example, John, my dudes rock nutrition program, the nutrition only I've had guys ask me when they get ready to start, or thinking about starting. They say, Well, does this come with, like, recipes and stuff like that? Fix it. And my first thought is, don't be a fucking Don't be such a I got my sensor button, so don't, but don't be such a wuss about this dude, like you. I can tell you to eat meat and stuff, and you can assemble them in certain ways and cook meals that just have the stuff in them, whatever. Dude, I'm not here to hold your fucking hand. That's my first thing. It's like, man up right. As time goes on, what I realize is, as I'm going through this program, I have a very high success rate for my clients in losing 15 pounds plus in five weeks, a very high success rate. But my job is not to just let those that fall behind fall behind. My job is to make sure this program has a better chance at making people successful. And fortunately, one of my most successful guys did it, but had a very easy time coming up with the things he could do that fit the diet. He's just a really good cook. He's been a chef for 30 years, and he's just a great cook. So he did it. Did awesome. I ran into him the other day and I said, Hey, like, Would you be able to help me, and I'm not going to pay you any money for this. Said, Will you? Will you have recipes that I'm guessing, that you set aside or put into a different folder, and stuff like that, that fit this program? I said, Can I have all of them so that I can just send them out to guys? Like, here's some ideas that you can work with. He goes, Oh, yeah, absolutely. And he absolutely did totally type a guy because, because he loves it, he loves it, right? And so for me now, for that wasn't what I wanted the program to be, it was a list of recipes, because this is a program for dudes, right? And I just thought that that seemed like some girl stuff, and I was going to let it, let it be. And he said, No. He said it'd be perfect. He has them all. And we got talking about it, and I said, you know, my job is to make sure that everyone who comes into this has the best chance of success, and that doesn't always mean that it's for everybody who only thinks the way that I think. And so now we're starting to fill that gap in this program, and that's exactly it. I could have said I got 90% of my guys crushing this thing. I don't care about the other 10, because oftentimes it's them not coming committed. But it is my program, and it is my job to make sure these people have a chance. And I think that you got whether you're coaching classes, whether you're coaching for strength programming, whether you're coaching just one on one, personal training, people need to be getting the outcomes that they came here to get, and it's your job to make sure you give them a very high likelihood of getting there. And



John 06:07

it gets back to something we've talked about forever, which is establishing expectations ahead of time. What is the point of the thing that you're doing with people? And I would say 100% Tyler that the reality is, how many of you, if you're honest, you step back, how many of you are just adult babysitting? Are you an adult babysitter? Are people coming for a time so they can have something to do for an hour, so their spouse or their children or their friends don't have to spend time with them, and they can have something fun to do for an hour that keeps them busy? Okay? But if that's not what you think you're supposed to be doing, then what is it that you're supposed to be doing? Supposed to be doing? What is the expectations that you set ahead of time of, why is someone coming to me and you've and you and I both naturally have fallen in the pocket of, what is the expectations of everything that we do and it lines up with who we want to help, which is the expectation is you're going to get stronger and you're going to lose weight. Like, that's it, period. So if you're going to do those two things, and for me, I do so much stuff with high school athletes, where, for me, it's then it's also there's a mental toughness, like, for me, it's like, you're going to get tougher mentally, and we're going to do it through physical fitness. Well, great. I can now very clearly say, Are my guys getting the results? And if they're not, then now, now it can only be my fault. Now this. Can we play devil's advocate? How many of us have had clients that just are not doing anything we fucking told them to do? Yeah,



Tyler 07:39

Well, we do that takes us right into the next number two here, which is, not every client is your ideal client, and that's, that's, that's the real deal. And I think there are two, two things that you need to do to address this. One, you need to be specific in your marketing and the outcomes that you're taking people towards and who you are taking towards those outcomes. I think that being specific is important. Being specific in your marketing, messaging, advertising, that's also a matter of the second part, which is setting expectations. Once people are with you, you do need to set expectations for how they can be successful. Because in regards to the very first step, if they're not getting results, look in the mirror. Well, did I tell them in the very beginning what I was going to do, what I needed from them, what this was going to take from them? Did I make that very clear? I go back on my programs and have to not rewrite, but every time somebody falls through the cracks, or asks me some stupid question for the fifth time in a row, or my guys that tend to not have that tend to be in their own way. A lot, they asked me the same question, I'll get the same shit within the first week. Can I replace this with this, with this, with this, or this with this? And I always tell them, I said, I'm sure, as a part of a long term diet strategy, that's totally fine, or they'll ask, Can I snack in between these things, if it's a healthy snack? And I said again, as a part of a long term diet plan, yes, absolutely you could snack, but I need you to fucking just follow a plan. You haven't even made it a week. I was just sticking to one thing that's gonna fucking be just fine and so but what I go back then is, in my week one stuff, and my introduction documents that I send out to them, I have to explain that a little more clear, literally, like you need to do this shit for Don't be just sitting here, deviating and trying to replace it. We'll get to that point at the end, where we integrate fully into the life you want to live the rest of your life. But I need you to just do something different than what you're always doing right now. And that is very important so I go back and I communicate that in the beginning more firmly, more directly. Sometimes I have to just lay that in a message directly to them, in my personal communications, like looking forward to getting you started. Here's a few things, but I have to continue to shore up these processes, or else more people fall through and there are people who you need to do that with every step, meaning who they are, what their. Expectations of the program is, I think everything needs to be laid out that way. And you need to systematically look at that, not just like, oh, this person walks in. They have no idea what we really do here. They have no idea what they're getting into. You can't sell to everybody. You just can't



John 10:17

and there's a lot of focus, if you play this game long enough where you eventually will get pulled into the ads game. You'll have people that recommend all you need to be running ads. You need to be doing this. You need to be doing this. Once you start running ads, you will continue to get colder and colder. Clients and leads that come in, they're not going to be perfectly aligned. It doesn't matter how good it is, it's just there's only, and we talk about this all the time, there's only a certain type of person that is going to be on Facebook. There's only a certain type of person that's going to respond to a Facebook ad. Okay, so like understanding those people that we're targeting, it's therefore those people who are going to be coming from a different spot than my best friend works out here. They said, I should come. They came as a buddy and joined somebody. Like it's they're going to be more aligned with what you want to do. And if there's any client, and this goes for your coaches as well. If you're a gym owner and you're working with a client, or you have coaches that are under you, if you think you want to fire them, you should have fired them six months ago, yep, like just period, hard stop. They need to be fired, because you're going to cause people that are not aligned, they're just not lined up with what you're supposed to be or what you're trying to achieve. And if they are troublemakers, right? It's 1% of your population is going to eat up 99% of your time and 100% of the time you need to fucking cut bait and get rid of them. Yeah, they're not all of a sudden gonna get better. They're not all of a sudden gonna start listening, then just be like, then fucking take off. It will make you happier as an owner. It'll make you happier as a personal trainer, and ultimately, it'll make that person happier, and now they're not getting miserable expectations.



Tyler 12:05

Setting expectations for that conversation, it's too thick, so ultimatum, and it's also a threat, but, but setting expectations early on, it means like, do this? Behave this way, be like this, or else we won't continue this relationship, people that are too wishy washy and fail to set expectation expectations, and fail to have those hard conversations, they just let these weird situations run on and cause them a lot of trouble throughout the entire relationship, these people end up being a cancer in the gym. X John, results are not just about exercise, and we've touched on this one a bunch. It can be, if it's weight loss, it's nutrition, right? Just always it. If it's performance and gaining strength, it's also nutrition. If it's people showing up, adhering to the gym, adhering to a program, it can be about relationships. It can be about fun. This can be a matter of, is this system Id like, optimized for the purest, most scientific outcomes, the best plan of all things. Are you coaching a human in front of you who needs to enjoy what's coming, needs to enjoy showing up, and needs to have fun? That's very, very, very important. I think that one of the questions we always ask is, what are you and what are you trying to optimize for? Right? And there's a man, John, if I need you to lose some way I can tell you to eat almost nothing, and it'll work. Or those, or get sick. Yeah,



John 13:24

you get really fucking sick. No, my



Tyler 13:29

Yeah. So that one, we touched on that one a lot, because we have tons and tons of episodes on that. So the next one is important. Passion will not keep the lights on. Passion is important. I think you want your clients. You want the people seeing your marketing. You want those people to be inspired by you. You want them to connect to the fact that you're passionate about this job, about this project, about working with these people, that on its own. I think a lot of coaches feel passionate about it, and then they rest on their laurels and just hope that it's going to get people rolling in it. It's just not all. That's not the only thing that matters,



John 14:08

no, and, and it's the problem is, is that there's pieces where you're going to passionately be poor and, or passionately do this until you close? Yep. And a lot of times too, we used to talk about this all the time early on, which is, like the martyr syndrome, you have to avoid this martyr syndrome that can happen, which is, like, no money doesn't matter. All that. All that matters is helping people get better and move better and feel better. And it's like, I understand that, but in order for you to be able to help more people, you have to be open, yeah. And the fact of the matter is, if you want to do better and be and do better by your people and be able to take care of your family, you have to make money. And there's an amazing psychological thing that happens, which is, if you charge more money. And this is not a pitch for you just to raise all your prices willy nilly, or just do it, because two Talking Heads tell you to do it. But if you raise money, if you raise your prices, people that will buy that will just be better clients. Yeah, it's a universal truth. So this is where, again, it's you can be passionate, but be passionate about people that want to help themselves, because the reality is, is that it just it will cause people to only you will run into more situations, and this will lead us into the next thing, but you'll run into situations where you care more than the people do well,



Tyler 15:37

This connection, the last one that we talked about too, is getting results. There's a lot of components that go into the clients to get the clients getting results right, but a lot of that is commitment, committing to it, having discipline. And one of the ways that people commit to a program, to a process is financially it is important. So to roll into the next one, we'll be at number five, yeah, free attracts the wrong kind of people, and I was going to add to this one. So does cheap, and there's just only so much we can fit on an infographic here, but, but free does attract the wrong type of people. I mean, offer, offer a free week in your gym and see how well that goes, especially if you're doing like it's just going to jam things up. I believe that cheap is just the closest thing to free. So if we're talking on a sliding scale, it's just closer to free, most expensive. Let's be honest, it might attract the right kind of people, depending on what you're doing, what you're trying to deal with, but whatever it is, is people do want to invest in themselves, and they do want to make a commitment and spending money on a thing, a new thing, a different thing. It is a form of commitment. And boy, what a great way for you to be on the receiving end of some fucking decent earnings and some good, committed clients. By having some products, you don't have to simply charge more, but have some products that are of a higher value. And it doesn't mean charging more on its own in a vacuum. It doesn't mean just quadrupling your gym membership. It does mean you need to offer something that people will identify as being worth more. And for those people that are looking for a $40 membership, they're just not going to think that this $200 or $600 or $800 product is for them. They're never going to identify the value in that, and that's okay. You can offer stuff for those people that are of a lower price, but if everything that you do is cheap, you're going to be doing a lot. You have to do a lot of business that is low value. And I don't think that that's disrespectful or, like, hyperbolic the way I'm saying this. Like, if you are affordable, like, super cheap. You have to do a ton of work, you have to make the same amount of money, you have to do a lot of things, and you have to deal with a lot of people. And that's I just don't think that a passionate, connected business with a high likelihood of success, some hands on, good quality service. I don't think that that can be scaled up while the price still remains cheap. Well,



John 18:02

and it gets back to this idea of, what type of gym are you? What type of coach Are you? What type of personal trainer Are you? Where it is if you're just an access place, then you're just you cannot honestly look yourself in the mirror and say, go back to our very first point, which is, are clients getting results, or are you just a building that houses equipment and you allow people to rent time to use the equipment? That's all it is. It's a $40 a month rental so that I can come in and use the shit that's inside your place. Because it's a lot cheaper for me to pay you $40 a month forever than to go and try and buy my own equipment and house it in my garage. And so that's where it is. It's you have to be able to look, it's like do, do, do results matter. Do I want people to do better? Am I about making people healthier, people stronger, for them to be able to do better themselves? And if that's true, for you to be successful at doing that, you have to get enough money to make sure that the service you're providing is high enough quality. And that's kind of where it really comes down to, where it's like, if you get paid more money, you can do better things. There's and the principal is across the board, where it's like, it's I've worked with, like, military schools before, right? And when the military schools and military school is a military school, parents don't give a fuck if there's hot water or not. You know why? Because they're going to send their little shit who they don't fucking like or care about anymore, and they're just a goddamn nuisance. And it's like, I'm going to pay someone $30,000 a year to get you the fuck out of my house, and now you're their problem for the next four years you're gonna live there. Get fucked But mom, it's cold, like it's cold water, and it's not nice, and there's shit on the walls. It's like it's fucking military school. Shut the fuck up,



Tyler 19:49

right? It's a cold place.



19:51

That's it, right? But as soon as the military school says, Hey, I don't think we want to be as military anymore, and we want to appeal more to private school families. You can't have shit on the walls now. Yeah, you now are trying to reach a different demographic, which means now you don't get to get away with shit. You better have hot water. It better look plain. It better be nice. You better have enough staff. Same rules apply here for you,



Tyler 20:14

and on the inverse, like looking anecdotally, anecdotally at the market that I'm in right now was all our, all our basic access gyms all charged the same amount of money. I know this is a smaller town, so I know of the, let's say the people and families with the certain last names that have all of the most money, right? Let's just be real, if I were to list the 70 families, right, the 70 people with the most money in this town who go to gyms? Did you know John that I think without a single exception, every single one of them and their kids falls into either private, personal training, very expensive, it's the only thing that they do or go to the most expensive gyms that you can get, regardless of what they are, whether it's across the gym, whether it's but it is, they are all spending the most money, they're none of I mean, I don't ever see any of these people at the cheap joints, never, absolutely not without exception.



John 21:12

And this is why we build going through episodes where we talk about how we promote sales. How do we promote how you sell your services, your packages, how you communicate with people that are coming to buy something from you. This is why we give them choice, because a a Tesla truck having fucking fanciest buying the new iPhone every time it comes out, the fanciest shit buyers, they're just always going to fall into that. It's a psychological piece. And you can't always guarantee that somebody drives a beater then pays top dollar and buys the most expensive groceries, the most expensive shit. You don't know how people decide to spend their money, but you have to give people the opportunity to fall into their normal psychological buying habits. And yeah, and big surprise that you're and it's just because that's what they do.



Tyler 22:04

They all drive the most expensive cars too, right? You know what I mean? This is so if you're only offering a single product, and it's cheap, like, Well, you seem to be really missing out on a lot of opportunities here. Because if this person just ends up in your world, they will buy the most expensive thing, because that's what they do. They buy things that have value. They want to have good experiences. Because money is not that important to them, having good money exists so that they can have a good experience. So you're just, you're and you're only going to offer them the fucking bottom of the barrel. That sucks. So for those of you, at least, if you're trying to craft your business model as a whole, in my opinion, that's a centerpiece factor. So let's jump to the next one here. Oh,



John 22:40

Can I talk about one thing? Yeah, good. Did you see Equinox started your $40,000 per year program, yeah, $40,000 per year. Now that may sound crazy to you, but we were helping a CrossFit gym so many years ago.



Tyler 22:55

Was it 30 or 35



John 22:56

it was 30 it was, I think it was definitely between 30 and 35,000 was that membership that we had crafted for that gym, and they successfully sold. Yeah, it was,



Tyler 23:07

it was a custom kind of offering for somebody. It was just a one off situation that we liked. Let's try to put this together. We just put it on the list. Let's just build from the top down and dude goes, yeah. It was just a person that always bought the nicest, most expensive thing, and we just expected it to be a price anchor, like, oh, but yeah, to just take in 30 some $1,000 off a singular product was nuts. Now, Equinox is, I saw a bunch of other stuff on there, some of their holdings and bankruptcies and such, but I think that's how business at that scale works. All those businesses seem to make money and then go bankrupt and be fine. So I don't know what to read about that but, but



John 23:43

still, their attitude, right is $40,000 put your put your dick on the table, kind of a situation where it is the pitch, right is a membership that will help you live longer, with phrases like longevity and wellness and medicine, biotech, nutrition merging, like it's



Tyler 24:03

just a bunch of advanced metrics and then a few it's kind of funny. I listen, I let them figure it out, and then we can reverse engineer it into maybe a $10,000 version that's a little more viable. But the next one is, your personal life affects your business. This is it. Can we go a lot of directions with this, but I do believe this is a burnout component, because I think there's a lot of things that go into coaches, gym owners, that get burned out. Your personal life, whether it is your relationships with your family, a lot of stuff, they pivot around you feeling fulfilled as a whole. You being happy, you being financially secure. And a lot of these things start to come guys, if, if you're happy with your work and you're attracting the right clients, right your clients are getting results. You feel fulfilled, you are passionate about it, but you're making a lot of money. You're actually making a lot of money. You're maybe not. You're not overworking yourself. Now all of a sudden, this job is fulfilling, and you don't have to drag a bunch of bullshit into there. When I see gym owners and coaches that are starting to burn out, it's because this is, like, the least important thing to them, honestly, yeah, it's just the thing that they're doing. The passion has burned out because it was all it was holding the fucking thing together at some point, and it's tough to stay passionate when you're broke and your wife's on your ass, and then your kid can't get your kids the things they need to get and and everything is hard, and it's all because of this little things not not producing for you. If everything is working for you, it's a lot easier to keep a personal life in check. That's not 100% true, but like as a whole, you need to either keep these things very separate, or you do have to take care of yourself, which means don't work too much. Don't overwork. Sometimes you need to delegate. You cannot take everything on yourself. I think that this is a very, very, very important thing for your business to be around for. It's as important as your reputation, in my opinion.



John 26:02

Yeah, and it is one of those things where, again, your personal life, it's like having your house in order. And it is one of those things where you can't just neglect everything, because it does bleed through. This is that age-old concept where it's like, if you're successful in the classroom, you can be successful on the field, and vice versa. It's like just positive shit stacks on top of each other. You just because. And is it possible to be a total piece of shit and still be successful in other areas? Yeah, absolutely. But what happens eventually, Tyler, the wheels, absolute 100 fucking percent, the wheels will come off so you cannot. And how many gym owners do we know who do not have gyms that we would deem as being successful, gyms financially, that stop working out, that stop taking care of themselves. And for us, it's always a sign of, oh, you're silently quitting. You're quietly quitting. You're hoping for the next pandemic. You're hoping for the excuse to close your doors



Tyler 27:03

correct next one. Nobody that pays you cares how smart you are. That's real important. You get all fired up about your latest seminar that you did, or this new online course that you did, or some new dorky coaching philosophy or strategy that that you're just enamored by. This happens. You know, you what I get into this. I'll see a new exercise that I think is cool, and I'll try it, and I'll have a few clients try it, and then I'll, like, really, just jam it down everybody's throat for a little bit, just because it seems kind of fun. That's fine if it's one exercise, but when it's your entire coaching philosophy, it's very, very, very tricky. And on the other side of this, people don't really hire you based on your like, truly, like, your level of expertise. They hire you because they connect to who you are and the likelihood of you getting them towards their goals. That's the first thing. Now, education and not being a dumb like that is part of it, in my opinion, for a lot of people. But if I'm being totally honest, there is a lot of people who are smarter than me, who I lost all sorts of respect for, around 2020, like people who were way, way, way smarter than me, who felt the need to tell me and told people, everybody on the internet, all the time, how dumb we were. And it's like, all right, you got fucking 10 years of doctrine like, good, good for you, buddy. And yet you're wrong. And yet they were wrong. So in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. I lost a ton of respect for a bunch of smart people because of Their idea of how we as a system, as a society, as individuals, need to act. I was like, Well, that seems like a bit of an overreach. You can kind of off on this a little bit, and then, wow, you're just uneducated guys. We all got a lot of that stuff thrown your way. If you were like, I don't believe that we should fire people if they don't get vaccinated. That seems crazy, right? And there's literally smart people doctors. We're telling people four years ago that that's fucking wrong. We're just stupid. And when you're a coach and you're doing the I know it all I know because I'm the coach stuff, or if you're a lot of your marketing is about here's why, in this system, it's super intense dork stuff. Nobody gives a shit. Nobody cares. The fucking curtains have been pulled. Fucking education system is just not really what it as. The higher education system is not really what we all thought it was. I think that now we are at a point where people are dealing with individuals. Now, I'm going to a gym. It's about that gym. It's about that coach. It's about my experience. We are working on this together. I don't need to go to a gym and say we are just from the wonderful high clouds of science, the lightning of science will strike down upon you, and you will be doing the most perfect things that will get you fit. Nobody cares, and nobody wants



John 29:43

that. And the fact is, this is understood again, going back to psychology, is why you want people to talk about themselves, right? If you're working with someone, you want to ask them, right? What do you want to achieve? Why are you here? What's important to you? Right? If you do those things, you now allow the person to talk about themselves. The issue of social media is that it allows you to talk about yourself as a coach and if you but if you're a coach and a personal trainer or a gym owner and you're trying to sell something, you have to stop making it about you, and it's very tempting to make it about you, to be the sage on a stage right the most. How many of you had a teacher or a coach in your athletic careers and in school that was a total cunt? How many of you, I guarantee you, you can count more that were absolute sons of bitches that you wouldn't even piss on if they were on fucking fire, then you can count great ones. And the reason is, is they're in a a spot of authority, and they have power over you, and people that are weak fucking people, then take advantage of that, and they make it about them, and they make it about how smart they are, and now they get to bestow that wisdom upon you, and all of those things have nothing to do about the person receiving that information, because if you really cared about the person you were talking to, it would always go back to them. It's about



Tyler 31:12

you guys. Ever go to, like, a Midwest restaurant, just an average small cafe, that type of stuff, and get a server, a waitress or waiter who's like, a bit too performative, if you can tell they're running bits. Yeah, I don't want your fucking material. I wanted to have an okay experience. This is about me and us getting this food in our experience, not you coming in trying to like, make us all like we're supposed to all go, man, this person is great. I love any server that's trying to make you really love them and think that they're great, sucks. It's miserable and you do not want them. And I think there's a lot of coaches that get like that. It's a little too performative. Get people to let them have a good experience, but it's about them, not you. Next one. Selling is part of the job.



John 32:00

Every person in your gym, right? Every person, and this is the piece that we keep driving home. There's not a sales person in your business, and it cannot be unless you're a solopreneur and you're the only coach, the only person in your business is all that you do and you're the only person. Then guess what? You gotta be selling. You cannot be the only person that's actually trying to make money in your business. Yeah, and you can't be adverse to it, because that's the worst part, and that's the most common that we see Tyler, is that people are just like, well, it's like, it's selling. Is a four letter word. It's yucky. It's icky. I don't want to be a sales person. It's like, oh, this goes back to like, Oh, you are a martyr and you actually don't want



Tyler 32:43

to eat. Yeah, well, and it's, you know, I think there's two sides of this coin, but, excuse me, but I think I see a lot of people just don't like having to be on one side of it, there's people that talk too much about how smart they are. The other side of it, sees a lot of people that don't want to have to talk about themselves or how they are. Just don't understand that selling is about the person in front of you, not you. I do think the sales in regards to fitness are different, and I'll die on that hill. You know what? I mean, we don't have to be over here, like jamming down people's throats, like, really having the slickest to come over with people's like, aversions to buying or they're, what's the, you know, like, if the people are resistant to anything, we gotta have the perfect thing. Go out and why don't you just get me your what are they? What is the hermos you want? Well, just give me your bank and routing number. Just open



John 33:33

up. Don't you have an app? You don't have your wallet or get your phone right? Go to your banking app and tell me your routing number. Oh, you



Tyler 33:38

gotta go talk to your husband. What does he make? All your decisions, you know, was he to wipe your ass for you? Like, these, are these, like, this type of, like, really pushy sales shit. It doesn't work. But I think that that's why a lot of coaches and gym owners, that's their impression of selling. And it's just not the case if you get a little bit ahead of this, and this is the thing that we talk about a ton, which is people have a hard time selling because they're not fucking selling anything. They're not trying to sell anything, actually. What are you doing? What are you trying to sell? If you're selling just a gym membership, let's be honest. What is that? It's one thing. Well, that's not a choice. John, if I open a Toyota dealership, I have SUVs, I got trucks, I got cars, I got this, I got that, I got lots of stuff. If I open the Toyota Corolla store, it's going to be very fucking difficult for me to sell. I only have red Toyota Corollas. Now, some people it's going to connect to, but some people are going to go in and go like, maybe I'd like a little more, a little less. I need a little room. And this is the only thing you've gotten. And you're never going to drag a person who does not want a red Toyota Corolla. You're never going to close them in your Toyota Corolla store, not the red one. So I think that a lot of people, if you're only selling your gym memberships, one product, one option, one peer, it has too narrow of a scope. You don't have to fully generalize and be everything to everybody. But people want choices, and if they go into your spot. Now they're just trying to jam all of the preconceived notions that they have, all the things that they predicted about this experience, all their expectations about what it is or could be for them. And they walk into your gym and they see it, and they see the price, and they have to compress all of that into that situation and decide if it's worth it. And if you give them a little bit of choices. Some of them will appeal more to them than the others. Now they have a little bit of momentum. They've already made a decision. I don't want this option, but I do like this one more that fundamentally being built into your sales process is going to make this stuff flow so much more smoothly. But if you're just standing there holding a sign, here is my one thing, it's going to be pretty hard to sell that,



John 35:39

yeah, because more than likely, what you're going to do is you're not going to hold that sign, you're going to put that sign on a stick, and you're going to go inside and try not to and you're going to avoid any type of sales conversation. You want one thing to sell, because then you don't have to sell it. Somebody doesn't want it, then it's on them, and it's not your fault, because



Tyler 35:55

you're not going to sit there. If you're the guy that owns, decide to open the red Toyota Corolla store. He's not going to sit here and go the 100th time this person's going to come in and I'm not going to want to reason. I want a blue one, or he's going to need more fucking more more room in the trunk. Just don't want to do this. And that's what I think a lot of gym owners get to at this point and say, but they don't understand that more options is the answer. A better process is the answer that allows the expectations and marketing that you get to do beforehand to be more productive. People come in with some a little more primed to buy, and these the conversations that you have get that gets them moving, versus trying to just force them into one box that sucks



John 36:35

and moving is the deal. It's action oriented. Selling is a verb, right? The idea that it's like you are doing something you are now working in that action oriented piece is it's a dynamic experience, where you are now working with someone, giving them the ability to buy, because, and this is a super shitty like, it's, I remember what I heard it the first time. I was like, oh god, that's like, it's from a marketing perspective, but it's like selling is like the most noble profession,



John 37:06

Oh, Christ



John 37:09

and then hear them out, right? Hear the concept out. The idea is that you are helping people get something that they want. You're the great facilitator. You are connecting people to like, they have a need, and you are giving them the opportunity to be able to fulfill that need. Now there's so much opportunity for evil, right, or like, getting people addicted to shit because you're going to sell it, but at the same time it is, like this idea where it is, you are doing something. You are doing something for your fellow person. And if you really come back and zoom out from how we look at how a gym owner, personal trainer, coaches, how you should function in your communities, which means generate generational, long, lasting change that will change communities, potentially for generations and for the future. This is for me, it's the definition of what it means to leave the world a better place than where you found it. And you, in order to be able to do this successfully, you have to be able to sell your shit, and you should be so passionate about it. Going back to your passion where it is, you have to tell someone about it. You have to, you want to talk to everybody about it. Because why wouldn't you want them to have what you are so passionate about them having? And that mere that, that sheer mindset of that change, where it's like, I'm I don't want to avoid people, it's I feel so strongly that these people are going to achieve, that you are going to achieve all these things. It's possible, and I can help you get there. Why wouldn't you want to get in someone's face? Talk about it. It's like Penn and Teller, right? Penn is the ardent, militant atheist, and he talks about all the time where, as he's gotten older, he appreciates the fact that Bible thumping people come up to him and they want his soul to be saved. Yeah, because he goes, because that means it's that important to them, he goes. I believe it's bullshit. He goes, but the fact that they believe that they want to help me, because they believe that so strongly, he's like, I can connect with that. And that's how passionate you should be about it. Now, I don't know you need to be like Mormons and go door to door and ask people to your gym, but does work, but I'll tell



Tyler 39:24

you do this, and there's a line where people do have to be interested. There has to be some interest on the other party, a little bit when in regards to sales. But you're absolutely right. Fitness is important to you. Helping people get fit, helping the people in your community get fit is important to you. You better be singing that song. And so you start to play the pied piper role a little bit more like a lot of gyms, I do think, kind of just hide out and hope that their sign or their location will carry most of the legwork for them. It's just we'll get into that whenever we get to the last one as well. Next one. No one hires and not a shape trainer. That's a big one. You gotta keep it tight. Keep it tight. Guys. You can't completely fall apart. You do not have to be leaned on with AB veins and everything like that all the time. But, my God, if you don't look the part, I don't know. I just don't know what to say. You don't, it doesn't have to be perfect for you all the time. Again, your personal life is a part of this. It affects your business, and if you don't have your house in order, it's going to be very tough for somebody to hire somebody who they don't want to look at all like. It's not like me if I'm a big, huge, tall guy who's really female clients probably don't want to look like me, but I don't look like shit. Okay? And that's a lot, at least somewhere you need to look like you do fitness and are fit, they don't have to, you know, choose your specific type of fitness. If you're a strong man, it doesn't mean that you can only force people through that, but you cannot be sloppy. I see coaches that literally look like they don't work out everywhere, and it's embarrassing,



John 40:58

and it is a thing too. Is that fine line? Like you said, it's like, either your client wants to have you be their trainer, because you are embodying something that they wish that they could have, or that they're striving for. There's also understanding, there's an element too, where it's like, because for sure, Tyler, this is going to be you all the way. Well, who's your trainer? The huge dude over there. Like, Oh, sweet. Like, it's like, yeah, I may not look like him. I may not have any desire to look like him, but I'm proud to say that that big fucking dude over there, that's my guy, and he looks like



Tyler 41:31

He knows his way around the gym. And for a lot of people, sometimes we treat it like one of the roles we have as a gym, as a coach, is to be somebody's liaison with fitness. You're, you're, you're a concierge to the gym. You're the person between them and all the bullshit on the internet telling them what to eat and how to live and what they should do in the gym, person doesn't know they're going to go to you, because instead of them wandering around aimlessly feeling like they're not welcome, not knowing what to do, they're getting a tour every fucking week, few tours a week, getting walked around by the fittest motherfucker in the room at the time, or the most jacked in this dude in the room like that now makes them feel welcome, and it makes them feel like the things that they're doing in those moments are productive. And that checks a couple pretty serious boxes for people that are very new to fitness, and it's and I think people don't understand the comfort that people seek when they hire somebody, and it's one likelihood of success is one of them, but also, like you can make somebody feel comfortable in the gym by being with them and helping them the whole time, and like looking the part, nobody else in that gym is going to think that you don't belong there, because ain't nobody going to come up to me when I'm working with a client and fucking make fun of them or anything like that, you're, you're as safe as you could possibly be. If I'm, if I'm taking you around the gym, I'm



John 42:48

going to stay in the psych, psychological side of things, because I've been there all episode. There's another big part where it is, yes, people that are going to come to you want to work with you in your gym. Let's say you're not a CrossFit gym. Seems like CrossFit is going to attract people that were, for the most part, athletes at some point. And I understand that there's, there's nuance there, but the majority of your people that are going to come and work out in these gyms, the majority of Americans don't have a gym membership period, like our stuff, they don't. They've not worked out in a gym. But then you take it another step further, which is, then okay, if the majority of people don't have gym memberships, but then now they're interested, whatever you've done, whatever part of life that they're in, they're ready to step forward, try and take care of themselves. A lot of people aren't going to have been former athletes. They will have been other types of humans. How have regular people been treated by good looking, healthy Jack people. Most of their lives, they're going to have been treated like shit, dude, like it's like jocks have the reputation of being fucking assholes to the band and theater and dork kids for a goddamn reason, because that's the truth. So there is an element now that you have people that start like, if you are not an asshole, that you need to be jacked so you can continue to be able to show people that it's like, Listen, you can be a good human being and be fucking ripped and take care of yourself. And you don't just get to have a pass, which is, well, I'm a dork, or I like Dungeons and Dragons, or I like fucking Pokemon cards, therefore I can be a slop, a fat sloppy fuck that has terrible psoriasis. Yeah, it's like, Nah, like you don't have to do like you can be fucking Hugh Jackman and be able to win a goddamn Tony Award sing and dance and still be Wolverine and do steroids, and you can do all those things and be that awesome, nuanced of a human being.



Tyler 44:37

Yeah, I think this is an opportunity we always talk about setting expectations over delivering on your own. The expectations are tremendous opportunities, choosing where you over deliver and where you can exceed the expectations of somebody who comes in is about to do business with you, or when they start, is a great opportunity. And one of them is being fit, but also. Being nice, yeah, and it really is. So if you are fit, you really need to make sure that you are exceptionally welcoming. If you're big and Jack, this is my job to be as nice as a conversationalist, to speak well and be compassionate and not to be a hard ass all the time. For people that don't need that at that moment, that need confidence and they need somebody that they can trust to take them through. Take them through there. People really, really, really need that. And that is a lot of my job, like that's a lot of it. And it's very, very important to me that when people see me in the gym, even when I'm not coaching people, I have to make sure that I'm nice to everybody, that, because if someone goes in and I'm lifting, and if I don't have much, not wearing a lot, and I'm lifting, and it can be intimidating, and whatever, I cannot be the guy that's dropping away, not in the gym where I coach people. I can't, I can't do that. I cannot be intimidating, even though it's a not related to my I'm not trying to sell this person my behavior while I'm within those walls needs to be nice to everybody, and that's sometimes it's tough to do because some people are dicks, but like, I have to be when someone walks in, I can't just stay in my AirPods, jamming out and doing my thing. Someone walks by and says, Hey, how are you doing? Needs to be a smile, a hello. They need to feel acknowledged. And if people feel acknowledged by you and you're friendly regularly, that now warms them up. If you are just doing your own thing looking the way you look. They will put their own preconceived notions. They'll project all of that onto you. And you're fighting an uphill battle already, so you might as well get that out of the way right away. It's very important. So be fit, but you also gotta be nice, because your fitness is intimidating as well. Oh yeah, they don't want they don't want the other they don't want nice and fat, because nice they got. They got to know lots of people that are nice and fat who can help them stay fat. You know what I mean? They could just not go to the gym and be around plenty of people who are nice and fat. So last one, word of mouth is not a marketing strategy. I'm about to die on this hill because I John, how many gyms have we talked to that primarily their marketing strategy is word of mouth. They say it's worth it, they say it's word of mouth. And what that really means is we just don't market. We don't even ask for referrals. We don't have a they have no system for getting new people, not even a system. They don't even have, like they're not even trying stuff. It's word of mouth. We get all of our people through word of mouth. Okay, so you just don't do anything that's really what you're saying. And that is one of our top number one red flags as far as we talk about fixing the low hanging fruit in a business. If you tell us that, we go, okay, perfect. So we're going to start, you have to start trying, right? We're going to start using your emails. We're going to start at least building a social media plan that's around your products. What do you have to offer? Okay, let's reverse engineer this. Here's a marketing strategy, at least for the organic stuff. Here we're going to do some referrals. Let's do some narrow deals here. But you do have to, you have to try and word of mouth people who say, yeah, they are lazy gym owners and lazy coaches who don't want to try to sell, who are putting no effort into it. They tell us, like it's a source of pride that, nope, all of our marketing comes from word of mouth. Yeah, we



John 48:13

don't actually spend any money on marketing. We don't have to. Yeah, okay, are you making enough? Are you



Tyler 48:18

making? Are you making so much money that you don't that you're fine then, like that you really don't even care. Like, you couldn't if there was a way for you to make twice as much money and not be unethical. Like, you just wouldn't do it right now because you're so flush. And it's all of them fucking would. All of them are at a point in every gym who's saying this is hard up, that's the problem. They're all hard up because they're going like, how do I get more people? People don't want to admit that they're failing, that they're lazy or they don't understand marketing. And it can be one of those things. It can be all of those things. They don't want to admit that. But in turn, that's not a cause for you to be proud like they just don't want to admit that it's a bad thing. Do not let people convince you, do not convince yourself that the fact that you don't actually know how to turn on new members, like, you just don't know how to get new members if you needed to, that that's a good thing for you as a business owner, that's fucking delusional. That is the same thing as a person going, like, yeah, I don't really know. I don't even really do anything, and I just lose weight. It's like, okay, but you're overweight. What are we doing here? This is pulling levers to be able to get you leads, to be able to get you new business and to be able to earn you more money. Knowing what levers to pull and having them in place is really, really, really basic stuff, not, not the specifics. I just talking the fucking idea that you need to be able to push a button and hope that people come in instead. These people are not even pushing buttons. There's not any. It's a, it's a true barrier, head in the sand moment. This is a, this is the business equivalent of an overweight person who's not looking in the mirror and won't get on the scale for years. It's like, okay, well, I hope you just, I guess you must just be happy. With how everything is cool, I'll listen to this podcast. Then, if everything's going so well,



John 50:07

because we're dashingly handsome,



Tyler 50:13

like male pattern boldness and man, yeah,



50:15

we're the poster children. Really driving home that one point that you mentioned Tyler is that it's this idea where you have to know why. If you don't know why something is happening in your gym, like you don't know why you're getting new sales, you don't know why you're losing people, that is more of a problem than losing the people. Like losing the people is bad, yes, obviously, but not understanding why people are leaving. Could it is you are missing the whole fucking point? Is it something you can solve? It's something you can't solve. And if you're getting people, why did a local place close? Did you go to a networking event? And this is the mistake that I think I feel when someone hears the word marketing strategy, they only think of digital marketing. They only think about Facebook. They only think ads, maybe keywords for Google that you've tried one time and that fucking got fully so it's because it's so fucking expensive and you saw no return on it, or you ran ads once and you put a whole bunch of money behind it wasn't successful. So fuck that. Like it's we, man, a long time ago, we dedicated an entire episode all to traditional marketing, non digital marketing. And the fact is, is that it's, I totally respect the idea that, you know, your grandpa that had his local store, didn't do any type of advertising. He did business with a firm handshake for, you know, eye to eye with people, and was successful. It's you're not fucking him, and if you and nor are you having sex with them, you're not that guy, right? You're not that person. Because there's so many tricks of the trade that the previous generations did naturally within their communities that you have no fucking idea why they were successful. And I think that there should be a renaissance and a resurgence that goes back to that in person level networking and marketing. And I talk, we talk about it all the time, of this idea of hyper localization, working locally, in your in your community, whether it is, I'm going to go, is there so many goddamn things we've talked about, whether it's it's coaching and in networking groups and doing these things that are in person, that is a marketing strategy. You just, like you said, Tyler, you cannot sit back and just hope someone walks through the door and be like, Well, how many leads do you get on average per month? I don't know. Like we get, you know, less than five a month, or whatever it is, right? What are you guys doing right now? Well, not nothing, it's like, so you just keep hoping that people just happen to be coming by, happen to want to be witnessing, and they happen to come across your spot. And good



Tyler 53:01

Word of mouth is important, of course. Let's make that very clear, right? I think I look back to when Megan has started doing personal training, her first, second, third clients, right? Every single person that she operates with, like coaches with regularly, right now can probably 90% of them can be traced back to those three and if not directly, via some sort of connection to a connection, to a connection. But that's not the only thing that's happened right now. What it is is people will come in and go, Oh, I saw this person, and they look so much better, right? Or I saw your post about this person, word of mouth is a thing that moves its word of mouth is not just a referral or something like that that runs on its own. It's a thing that I think will enhance your existing marketing content strategy. If we're talking staying in just the content space right now, is that that's a way for you to amplify the word of mouth, because word of mouth doesn't tell people where to fucking go, doesn't tell people when to buy or that there's urgency. Word of mouth doesn't actually have any of the other components that a good sales or marketing strategy has that is going to convert word of mouth to just people talking about you, and that's great. That's it's these whisperings, these little rumblings about it kind of underpins your reputation. I think that's wonderful. But where do they go? How do they get a hold of you? Does that exist when people are talking about your coach, that's great. What do they say? And if you want to get a hold of them, shoot them a DM, or text them at this number on this date and make sure you do it before. Like there is no urgency, there's no nothing. It's just another thing that people say. So word of mouth is good. It's just not complete enough. And if you're doing these other things, what you will do is your your actual word of mouth, if it's good, will carry so much water for you if you allow these other strategies to be in place, because now your word of mouth is there while they're seeing great content about the results, and they're primed up, and then, boom, there's an offer, offer that they can take action on. And. Great it goes like people will then convert right away. They see a great transformation photo, or they see a really good product offer with a limited time to act. Boom, people pull the trigger,



John 55:11

and you give them the opportunity. Yes,



Tyler 55:15

there's no opportunity in a conversation that someone else is having about you



55:19

correct. You just hope that you've done all the right things, and then someone pushes them, and then they're so inspired and feels so ready that they come and pry it out of your your goddamn vice grip where you're not wanting to share another great like principal or example, I was talking to one of the local booster clubs that raises money for the local high school. And he goes, the most successful car dealership in the area. So it's got, like, what, five or six car dealerships, and like, 50 mile radius. And he's like, he was talking to this individual, the owner of the car dealership. He goes, you know, guys know that you're the only high school that comes and asks us for money. He goes, that's why we always give you money. Every year. They bought new golf bags. The whole golf team last year. Like, they're always ready to shell out cash. He goes, but everybody, everybody thinks, may think one thing or another, he goes. We would literally give money to every single school he goes to. But you're the only ones that come and ask. And the guy's like, I have no problem asking. So I will go every year, and I will ask, and then they will give us money. And this is like you realize that there are people that want to give you money. They are looking for the opportunity. They may even know about you. I mean, I lived this exact experience. It is. I had a dad who wanted me to work with this kid. He knew I existed, listened to the podcast that I do know of me, wants to work with me, never reached out. Because why? Well, I'm not friendly on Facebook. I haven't met him before, like it's



Tyler 56:50

which is some stuff we may get into later. Run a business coach.



John 56:54

So that was a gap that was missing, but I happened to then be at a local networking event. He then goes, I've been trying like, I've been wanting to get a hold of you. I need you to train my kid. Where's your number like? And it was just because I was the right and it was the right place, right time, but I've done all the things ahead of time that then got me established so he knew, but I was missing that piece. I was missing that opportunity, and that's where the word of mouth will only get you so far. They have to be you have to give an opportunity to do business with you, and a lot of times it just has to happen through doing something else. You can't just sit and wait because it will take too long.



Tyler 57:33

Alright, guys, well, I hope that covers a lot. There's a lot for you. I hope that we weren't done just talking shit the whole time. There's a lot of good lessons. Don't take any of this personally, if you kind of settle into one, settle into one of these things, it's okay. These are tough to swallow, because I think a lot of people settle into these things, not thinking that they're maybe misaligned with the way things should be. I think that for those of you out there, if you're one of these things, it is off track. Just put a little bit of effort, one at a time to point things in the right direction. If you have questions about what can be done, what specific actionables can be done, get in the gear Academy link is going to, or you can go to gym owners revolution com, or you can shoot us a message directly on Instagram.



John 58:11

Yeah, but it's not our fucking job to make you feel good. Like this is one of those things where, like, if you're going to talk to like, it's, please understand if you're listening to anything, we have to say. We're going to tell you what our belief is, our truth, and we're going to hold your ass to the fight like it's some of these things that make you feel like you may not be in the in shape Trainer Club, and that feeling hits a little home. You feel a little offended by that good it's literally our fucking job is to keep the bar high enough to keep you reaching for getting better and fun.



Tyler 58:40

Now you know how your clients feel, right? Because you need to hold them accountable, because their results matter. See, all of these things kind of work the same. This is what I like about this all. It's a fractal nature to these things. Us to you, you to them. We all want you to be successful. Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants to be happy. We're here for you. So shoot us a message at the gym owners podcast. On Instagram. You can follow me at Tyler effin. So in this Tyler eff iron stone and John and you can follow me on Instagram at J banks. FL, alright. Thanks for listening. Guys. Gear Academy is in the show notes. Show Notes. The Facebook group is in the show notes as well. Thank you. We'll see you next week.








​