Busting Through the Bermuda Triangle of Marketing: How to Build a Multi-Dollar Business

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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James. And today we're going all the way to Los Angeles, California to talk with George Liu. George, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Look, you're on the show and I'm delighted because you're running a company called Gym Pillars. And you have a few things you're going to tell us about. One is how you help your gym clients to get out of the Bermuda Triangle of marketing. You're going to tell us how you've built a business by offering a service and a money-back guarantee, which is amazing. And you yourself have built a multi-million dollar business, but you're helping gyms to monetize their memberships into $20,000, $30,000 a month extra. So George, we've got a lot to cover. Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, more than happy to provide value wherever.

Yeah, well, look, let's lift some weights and do some reps. Sorry, I couldn't forgive myself with the analogy there. A bad pun, I know. George, so tell us a little bit about Gym Pillars and about how you've managed to get the brand of Gym Pillars noticed. Let's start there and start with your story.

Yeah, that's a good question. So how we first got started, um, similar to any other entrepreneurs, well, I didn't know I was an entrepreneur and I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship. And as far as resources, at the end of the day, we have just 2 types of resources. We have time and attention and energy, right? And we have money. So at the beginning, I had neither. So what it took to get this off the ground, it was actually a lot of hustle to go from zero to one. The path that we took For me, the earlier days, I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I was just doing anything and everything I can to just build traction. And what I realized, I just needed to talk to people because ultimately businesses, especially service-based businesses, it's built by people for people. So for me, I took the fastest approach, which is cold calling, a skill that I realized I needed to learn earlier on. However, I just didn't know how to do it effectively. So for me, like how I landed my very first client that wasn't within my internal network, it was just through sheer cold calling. It was identifying which gyms I would want to work with. With having a call with them, searching up YouTube videos on how to cold call, and then just fumbling and tumbling my way through it. And I still remember each dial that I made, my hands would be sweating profusely. I wouldn't know what to say, I didn't know where to go with the conversation. However, with enough reps, you get better with each rep that you do. And in the earlier times, you just gotta do anything and everything to really just get started, right? Fundamentally, what I realized and what I learned over time is that I started developing a much more systematic approach. For me, one of the things that I had always been big on is just investing in myself to learn from other people, because I think we as human beings, we have the ability to learn from other people's mistakes versus just going through our own. Very early on, I invested $25 grand in terms of my personal coaching or different masterminds that I've been a part of. And from there, I was able to just learn different systems and how people that have succeeded are just modeling what successful people have done, how they think and how they do. So once I jumped into those programs, one of the things I started digging deeper into is just the value of having a system and the value of actually having a wider touchpoint. Earlier on, there are really 6 ways to get in front of people when you break it down. First of all, direct outreach, where you're just directly reaching out to people, whether it's calling, emailing, texting, right? It's like just speaking with them or Instagram DM, Facebook DM practically, right? So that's cold outreach. So that's one. You have earned media, which is in terms of investing time and attention, whether in the form of blog post or whether in a show or whether in a podcast or whether in Facebook and Instagram posts or Anything related to you putting time in to ideally get in front of more people that you want to get in front of and be able to turn what we call traffic and turn those people into conversations. So that's earned media. You also have affiliate, which is you reaching out to other people that serve people that are similar to you. And so let's say if you were Jim, then going down the street and talking to a physical therapist, right, or someone who is able to serve rehabilitation centers, right? So being able to form a partnership with them. In a way that's win-win for both parties. So affiliate marketing, you have referrals, which is another very common way. Once you get started, you can ask your clients, like, do you happen to know anyone? You know, like, you just went through this process, you really enjoyed it. By the way, here's a benefit for you if you were to refer to another person and there's benefit for them. Then there's also paid media, right? So instead of earned media, paid media, instead of investing your time and attention to get in front of traffic, you'd be investing money to platforms to be able to get in front of people and eyeballs and traffic. So owned media are the databases you build up over time once you have been in business and which you own in terms of an asset, whether it's an email list or text or phone numbers, however you use whichever medium you prefer to communicate with them. So those are the 6 ways. However, owned media typically comes from you doing the thing for the 5 to get started, right? So for us, these are things that I didn't know in terms of framework earlier on. I was just trying everything and anything that I could possibly try to gain traction. So In the earlier days, I was just calling gym owners, and that was extremely helpful because I was able to directly receive market feedback from the people that I wanted to help. And how we even established our processes down the line in our model was just by having these conversations and by learning what their experiences were, right? Because very early on, if I didn't talk to gym owners, I would have no idea what they want, what they care about, what they have been through. So the more conversations I had, although painful and awful at times because I was Awful at it, and I had no value to give really. Earlier on, it was extremely helpful in terms of just understanding what where the market is because the market is just a pool of people that you're choosing to serve, right? So the more you engage with the market, the more you understand their habits and who they are and what they care about and what they have been through, the better you're able to serve them. So the more dialogue that I had, I almost treat it as like interview. So to understand how do they feel about marketing companies, bulk of them has had really negative experiences. So for me, from day one, in terms of how that affected my model and processes down the line, was I never want to be one of those marketing companies because the way I feel about that is that's just not right. You know, because if I'm charging for a service and they're getting absolutely nothing, that's kind of like blood money. I wouldn't want to touch that. Right. So how I got my start earlier on, which is from that place of wanting to help people, was, hey, like, listen, don't even worry about it. Don't pay me anything. Let me just help you get results. Then you can pay us. That's it. That's because I was awful at sales. That was able to help me get my foot through the door for them to hear something that they've always wanted to hear. That's like, I just wish there was a marketing company that was willing to put their money where their mouths are. So when you hear that consistently enough, I'm like, I have nothing to lose. Let me do this. I want to learn and I want to help you get results.

And George, that comes across now because on your website you've got a proposition. I think you help gym owners to add $20,000 to $30,000 a month or their money back.

$30,000 over 90 days. Yes.

Okay, $30,000 over 90 days. But I love that you're so specific on your website about what it is you're offering. For those that can't see it, we will put a link to jimpillars.com on the show notes. But just explain your website because I was struck by its simplicity and its sort of call to action.

This applies for any marketing at all and any sales at all. The fundamental principle that fuels it is like a triangle. You have traffic, which is ideally the people that are coming to you that you would want to serve. So traffic is always there, right? So like whether it's coming from word of mouth and the work that you have done, whether it's coming from the posts that you have been pushing out or the podcasts that you've been a part of or the blogs or articles or paid media or the advertisements you're running or the reach-outs that you're doing, there's always traffic of people like checking like, who is this? Probably oftentimes with the layer of skepticism, rightfully so, because they don't know you, they don't like you, and they don't trust you yet. So the next piece— and that's what we call in marketing called top of the funnel, right? So ideally, how do you get more people on top of the funnel? The next piece is conversion. So how do you move people down the funnel? So how do you have people build more trust and learn more about you, who you are, how you're able to help them, what you're able to help them with, why they should believe in you? So that affects conversion. Then there are other frameworks Something tough, flywheel. However, funnels are helpful to visualize. The more you move people down the funnel from traffic down to conversions, the more conversions you get. In other words, the more new customers you're able to hook up alongside with you. And naturally, traffic conversions economics is also important because the numbers have to make sense. If you are operating as a business, make sure that however you're providing value, that it costs you less than how much value you're able to provide. So if you're able to make X amount, hopefully it costs you less than X amount. This applies for marketing sales as well, regardless of whichever channels you're on. This is also like a cautionary tale, if you will, where oftentimes organic channels earlier on are more helpful because what you're doing is you're trading time for money. So when it comes to economics of it, it doesn't cost you any money when you don't have any, but it costs you time and attention and also skill set. However good you get at that is how much traffic you're able to generate. In business, when you have more cash flow, where you're able to invest it into paid traffic, then at that point you're able to trade money for more money. And that's when leverage takes place, right? It's like a form of beyond just time because we all have limited time and attention in a day. So the principles behind like how simple it is in terms of what we do is I've just invested a lot over the past 4 years, probably over $150 grand to $200 grand for me personally, just in terms of coaching. And I've also seen a lot of ads and trenches and Played around with a lot of things. So at one point you're able to see different trends that work well. So the simplicity behind our funnel, it's called the 5-minute VSL. They're able to consume the 5-minute VSL. There's a higher likelihood of them consuming a 5-minute thing versus like a 30-minute thing.

Yes. Right.

I mean, people don't wanna sit down and say, uh, right? So if they consume it, that's great. But if they don't, you'd want to have another way of engaging with them. So the 5-minute VSL, we don't bank on that.

Sorry, what does VSL stand for, George?

A video sales letter.

Okay. Right.

Yeah. So 5-minute video sales letter in which you're just engaging with the prospect. You're just explaining, hey, here's what we're doing. Here's why, here's how we can make it work. Here's proof. And here's if you wanna take action. And all those best practices and the nuances, the, the more you learn about it, that affects your ability to convert traffic into conversions. So your ability to know what to do and your skillset stacked around these pieces will affect the economics of how well you're able to turn traffic into conversions and make money as a result versus lose money. So for us, it's just a 5-minute video sales letter of a very strong offer with guarantee that reverses risk for the right client and also explains why we're able to do what we do with social proof, which means like, hey, look, we've done this before, here's why. And with a curiosity hook in which it kind of leaves the person wondering, well, how do they do that? But if they do consume a 5-minute VSL, the likelihood of them Booking a chat, a call, like a 15-minute intro call with zero pressure is pretty high. So we do have a lot of people that goes through the funnel and just books a call on their own. But even if they don't, what we want to avoid as entrepreneurs is a leaky bucket for any and all businesses. So what happens if someone visits a website that we want them to visit and they don't do the thing that we want them to do? Well, are you just gonna be like, ah, boohoo, right? Ideally, if you care about the conversions of people turning into customers, you would have correspondingly a way to engage with them outside of the digital medium. So what I mean by that specifically, it's like text them. You wanna engage them not just online, but also offline to convert them offline, to drive them down the funnel, to build trust. When you text them, when you call them, and when you email them, that's when it comes into play. So those are things that all move people downwards towards the funnel because ultimately we run a— if you run a service-based business at all, it's always about the people. So that's when lead nurturing. So top of the funnel, you have a brand awareness, people that have seen your things, right? But for me, to make it practical and relevant, what I consider top of the funnel is lead generation. How many leads do you have of people that opted in to say, hey, how does this work? Where's this? So the bigger you get the top of the funnel, the more will flow downwards depending on how good you are at converting people and building trust.

Now I noticed though, George, you've got a 6-minute VSL, as you call it, and then you've got a body of the offer, and then you've got a nice testimonial from people, which you say social proof, but that's it. There's no Twitter, there's no LinkedIn, there's no Instagram, there's no Facebook, no TikTok. Why have you not got, if you like, all these other channels popping up and connect with me here, connect with me there? What's the thinking behind that simplicity?

Good question. Website designers probably wouldn't like me. Well, if we want to think of the point of like a website or like a page, right? It's important to identify the goal, the objective. So for us, the 5-minute VSL, as well as the social proof, the goal is to get them to build enough trust to take action. So anything that would deter and take away from that, I would just want to remove as distractions. So if the goal is to build enough trust for them to take action, what would build trust? Social proof is one of the best ways to build trust because we as human beings, we want to make sure like, hey, like, I'm not taking on risk for something that's never been done before, right? So social proof is incredibly important in any kind of marketing. So that's the first piece. The next piece is to get them to take action. So how do we get them to take action? Well, if they were clicking on it, all of a sudden they were engaging with a person, that would drive the conversions up, right? What's the level below that? Well, it's like if there was a person that was selling for you in terms of speaking with conviction, articulating things, and being a human, that would probably drive the chances up. So hence the 5-minute VSL, right? With all the marketing tactics, if you will, just sprinkled into it to drive the conversion up for that to be able to take action. So anything that's not that, we just like cut out.

Yeah, I think that's wonderful, the simplicity. A real case of less is more. George, we're going to run out of time, but I do want to talk about how you've managed to get that within your team, because you're plainly passionate and articulate, and you've got a background where you learned about your body and fitness to overcome some insecurities when you were younger, and that sort of driven your values. What about for the team as you grow the business beyond George? How are you getting the team to share those values and share that energy and passion when they're doing the work for you?

That's a great question. So transparently, that is the biggest area of opportunity for me to actually dive deeper into and learn more about, right? However, as it stands, my belief currently is that if you are the person that is exuding and forming the values and you hire your team based around the values, what's most Awareness, self-awareness with who you are and what is it that you value. That's the fundamental piece because everything distills from what you believe in and just carries down. So for me, the work around doing that is like making sure I get extremely clear on my own values and then putting it down on a piece of paper and then hiring based on my intuitive feel in terms of does this person share the similar values as I do. So that's one of the first round interviews that we go through. So having a very formal recruiting hiring process is critical. If you're able to have a first round in which you're able to sift through culture fit, and the second round, it's more so technical expertise to see if they have the chops in comparison with other candidates, that'll set you up for success in terms of filtering out the candidates that are not qualified. And ultimately having a third round in which you bring other people involved, if there's gonna be working with another person, that's gonna be helpful as well. So making sure our team works in alignment, we actually just the past month or two, and this is something we implemented early on, what we have identified as the 80/20 rule. Which is also called objectives and key results. So Google implemented that in their business, I can't remember when. However, that was a best practice that was taught to me by our mentors. So forming the objectives and key results, you at the top identify over the course of next quarter, this is where we want to go. So let's say like, if it's a number, if it's revenue, if it's a number of clients, if it's growth, whatever that goal is, you put it out there. Ideally, it's measurable, right? It's like measurable, attainable, like SMART goal. So same framework. Identify it, then what needs to happen for that to happen? Right? So there, it bridges out into different key results that need to happen. And how I think of business is that it's fundamentally 2 sides. So there's how do we get new customers and how do we service existing customers? So then whatever this goal is, how does that correlate to acquisition, which is our front end of the business? And how does that correlate with the back end of the business? So from there, it splinters in, which ideally in a perfect world, Everyone has one of the key results. In the words of Gina Wickman, that's called rocks in the book Traction. So ideally, everyone has their own set of rocks that they're moving towards. So we implemented a version of that that's more so the acquisition side is easier, backend is a little bit harder. So within the past 3 months, that's what we really started nailing down to make sure that the frontend and the backend both simultaneously are nailed down and that each person are very clear on their roles and responsibilities. And naturally, we've gone through a lot of learning challenges and struggles as well, a lot of Painful mistakes.

Yeah, George, as we all do as we grow our business. But that idea of being the fount and the guardian of the values and getting them inculcated within the team, but hiring on the basis of those values and communicating those so clearly to all your team— no wonder that's why you're really rocking it with your clients. George Liu, thank you so much for joining me and sharing. I know you've got a great deal of wisdom for an entrepreneur that's only been out of the gate for the last sort of 4 or 5 years, you've accomplished a great deal and plainly got a great future ahead of you. And thank you so much for sharing what you've learned so far, and it's been a great workout. Thank you so much.

Appreciate that, Jim. Thanks for having me once again.

It'd be my pleasure. So we've been listening to George Liu over there at Gym Pillars in Los Angeles, and of course I'll include George's details in the show notes. And until we meet again, we wish you the very best and do encourage you to keep on communicating. If you've enjoyed this, do please share this with a fellow entrepreneur. If you've got time, review it on your player, whatever that is, because it all really helps to get the show rated by the major channels. And until we meet again, this is me, Jim James, signing off as the fellow unnoticed entrepreneur.

Thanks for having me, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. And yeah, happy to share whatever value that could be helpful. Bye. Thanks for listening.

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