E16: Jason Mottlee: The 3 Secrets To Selling In The Fitness Industry

What's going on everyone? Matt here for another episode. I've got an amazing guest on with me today actually a good friend of mine. So show today is with the, the man himself, Jason Motley, AKA Big Dog. So I've worked with Jason in the past with both a little bit of marketing but more so on sales for when I had my, my gym. But thank you so much for joining us today, Jason.

Pleasure man. Happy to be here. I had to, I had to poke you to get me on though.

Yes, I know. Always happy to, you know, get people on that are keen. It's always good to see people that are actually keen to jump on. Which is, which is awesome. So far we've got some pretty, pretty epic feedback on the podcast. So no doubt you're going to over deliver as, as always. But just for people who don't know who you are, do you want to give us a bit of a rundown of what you've done in the industry? I know I said I worked with you with sales and marketing but you've obviously you're still in the industry now but what's been the journey for you in the fitness industry?

Yeah man. So like yeah, condensing time wise like for the people listening, you know. I was actually in the elite sports arena prior to fitness. I spent many years as the head trainer for AFL Queensland, worked with Brisbane Lions, finally transitioned into personal training. So just did a big box gym at the time it was go health clubs before they got acquired by you know, Good Life, did the rebranding, worked as a PT there, worked as a fitness director there, grew my team there. Right. So dropped out of fitness directing, grew my team of personal trainers and then Covid hit so decided to open a gym during COVID That was awesome. Still got the gym today. I have worked for sales and marketing companies, more gym members here in Australia where I would help PTS gym owners on sales systems, operations. I've done high ticket sales, worked with companies like Sales Sniper and seventh level. So you know, arguably two very top tier companies and you know right now I pretty much do a lot of freelancing work with both gym owners online. No personal trainers at the moment but that's fine. But implementing their, their sales system structures, some leadership stuff, organizational things as well. And then obviously I still run it, run, run our own gym as well which we've got our in person and our online program, you know and at the height of it we did have three, four locations as you know but just like yourself, you know, things happen and it's what it is. So I've opened and closed gyms, acquired gyms, lost gyms. So been through it all and as you said, still here, still in it, still in the thick of it.

Awesome. And yeah, we've obviously had a similar journey to a degree. Obviously just recently closed down mine as well. But I'm keen to hear from your perspective if we can dive into the sales part first, specifically for personal trainers. And I think the exact statistics but common theme for personal trainers that I have worked with in the past, still work with and people that I talk to is they struggle to have like a, I suppose a high conversion rate for personal training services. So in your experience, do you have what. What's your take on sales with more so face to face personal trainers that at the moment, like, what are some things that you see in the industry or have seen previously?

Yeah, absolutely. It is a tough one, you know, and if you're in personal training at the moment, you're probably saying, yep, I do struggle with my conversion rate. If you're looking at getting into pt, you know, it's something that you do need to just be aware of that it is very much a business. You and me both know, it's very much sales and marketing. The first thing that I'd actually say, and I'll get grilled by a lot of the top sales guys out there, which is fine, but I'll give context, is the first thing that I typically find is that most personal trainers just don't have the sheer volume of appointments. So, like, I would watch pts only do like one consult per month because they're waiting for the gym to kind of feed them the leads. You know, like, if you work at a good life, you know, we used to have like an accelerator pack, you know, three PT sessions. What did your guys, what do your guys get from the gym? Do they have like a startup thing?

Yeah. So depending on the gym, like, I'm working with a few people like at Fitness Cartel that do PT packs where they pay the gym.

Yep.

Does the work for free and the gym gets the money, which is. But they're called PT pack jets and like snap finish. They don't have any, like packs itself, but they, they say, hey, look, you get like an introduction session with a pt.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Varies between clubs, but there's like PT packs where it's paid, but the gym gets the payment.

Yeah, of course that's fine. And I'm fine with that. Like the end of the day, like, what I always used to say was, you Know the gym's job is not to look after you. They. They kind of. Some are better than others, right? Depending on the sales manager and the fitness director at the time. But if you go in with the idea of saying, okay, cool, like I used to treat it as whatever leads I would get from new signups, that's just a. That's just a free candy. That's a bonus, right? So if you're just sitting and waiting, you just don't have enough volume coming through. So the first thing I would actually try to say to people is, I need to get you in front of more people because that will give you more sales without any skill set improvement. The second thing then is, this is how I used to do it, which was against the gyms. When anyone sold a three pack, you meant to go through these three sessions. My first session was a sales consult, just like I would do now on the phone, right. And I would go way deeper than what the gym salesperson did when they signed them up. And I would essentially try to sell them then and there with the idea that their first two sessions are already paid for in comp. Right? So I'd actually sign them up for two sessions per week. But for the first two weeks, they're only paying for the one, if that makes sense. Right. Which that's for. You get that. And then after that it's ongoing. If we don't sell them there, that's fine. The next two sessions I try to sell through the session, right? Which, you know, it doesn't need to be done. You and I both know this. But I would try to sell them then and there. And there are some skill set things, I think, what a lot of personal trainers do. Everyone's different. But a lot of people in PT typically try to. What I used to see was they do very diagnostic selling, like. Right, Diagnostic selling as in, you know, how much do you weigh now? How much do you want to weigh? You know, those type of things. And then sadly, a lot of PTs sell the PT service, right? They don't sell the solutions to the problem that the client is experiencing. So just take a step back and actually find out what are their problems that they're associated with. So, like, weight isn't a problem, right? It's the problem by being overweight. What does that actually do to them? It makes them unhappy, they struggle at work, they have no sex drive, bad relationship, whatever it might be. So instead of trying to tell them, like, what you do, like, I have heard this as pts. This is how I train this is what I would do. Nobody cares, right? Listen to them and focus more on not selling the service, but selling, like the solutions. What's the outcome that the person's looking for? And you know, there's a lot more to that, but that's the scope. That's kind of the problems that I see. You know, if I can get you sitting down in front of more people, I'm gonna make you more sales straight away. Right? And I know you go hard with your guys on that. When you started, like it's appointments, that's why you grew so many were able to grow so fast. Same as me. You know, when I bought my trainers on, they weren't great at sales, but we just got them in front of a lot of people. That builds confidence. They practice their skill set and then away we go. So that, that's what PTs and gyms need to do. They just need to look at it and go. If you're only sitting down with 5 people per month, you need to 10x that, right? Like until you're full, right? You, like, you don't stop until you've got enough clients. Like, that's the goal.

100%. It was a great point that you brought up there about the volume. Because I remember when I first started, I used to book 20 consultations a week. So if you could, like, yeah, yes, I had a little bit of a sales background, but even if you didn't have a sales background and you had a week, more than likely you're going to get a fair few clients anyway.

So you still got to sell them.

It's a great point to, to bring up, but I will just quickly put in there. So for the people who don't know, I'm currently doing a done for you service where I pretty much do exactly what you just said. So, like a three pack, a lot of pts will do, like, yeah, as you said, they'll be like, oh, what injuries do you have? What medication do you take? Blah, blah, blah, all that boring stuff that's kind of irrelevant. And then I'll, I'll run you through a very tailored workout to suit you. And then the next two sessions we'll do that as well. And then at the third session, they'll try and be like, oh, well, to continue, it's, you know, $60 a week or whatever. And like, okay, well, I'm good. You've already taught me everything.

So, yeah, you've already told me what to do. I'll just keep repeating it.

Yeah, I'll just tell me and Then I'll be sweet and I'll save myself $60 a week. But yeah, I do the same thing as you. So any single time I meet with someone, it's always like the whole point of it is to understand where they're at, identify the problem, and then provide the solution. And then they're in that emotional state of mind anyway, and they're kind of ready to make a purchasing decision.

It huge, man. Like, I don't. Like you don't want to put you. This is the hard thing is you got to get out of the coaching hat when you're sitting down with someone, right? Because you're right. Particularly if these are sort of beginners to the gym. If you show them a workout, like two workouts, they will literally just, in their head be like, I can just repeat those workouts every single day. And then in six months, when I get bored, then I'll worry about it. Chances are they won't be there in six months because they won't be getting results and they'll leave. Right? So I don't want to show them anything. I don't want to give them absolutely anything until they pay me. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that because you're just then giving away your free coaching advice. You're not getting anything because the gym's taken the pack. Right. But yeah, even if you don't get them on the first sale, after that second session, you. You get. You get 80% of them then and there, right? That's when it's like, cool. I show them a few little things, really basic, right? That's it. And then go, you know, Cool. Like, how did that feel from there? Yeah, I really liked it. I really enjoyed it. Cool. Can you feel like this is. Can you see this as something that could hardly help you out? Yeah, it really is. Okay, but why? Oh, because I don't know what I'm doing. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, cool, man. We're like, let's just get you started. Like, really simple, really casual. And they're like, yeah, let's go.

So it works 100%. I'm curious to know from your perspective, because I made a change in, in my business, which completely changed the game for me. So when I was doing all the consults myself, I used to do. So this is assuming, like, I didn't really do many of the, like, the three pack things when I was building it. Just one session that they got, like, for free at the start. I used to do like the, like 15, 20 minutes, like, like a Questionnaire to kind of understand where they're at. And then like a 15, 20 minute. I used to call it a technique session. Just to see where they're at. Not so much like a PT session. You don't want to fatigue them or, you know, try and destroy them in a way. And then I would close. So we go for like an hour. But then what. What happened was when I hired a salesperson, I'm not sure if you remember Shay. Yes, he's listening. He wasn't a pt, so he couldn't do the technique part of the session. So we get rid of that and it's been like the best thing ever. Like, I, I do, I do them over the phone now from home. Any sales or any person that wants to, you know, do pt, it's just over the phone. Sometimes I do them on Zoom, but a lot of the time it's like half an hour tops over the phone. Done and dusted.

No.

No physical stuff at all. Do you feel like that's kind of the way to go? What do you think specifically, even for face to face trainers, do you think they should do some type of physical activity if there's only one session that they're doing with someone?

I agree, man. I'm actually, like I said, I very rarely used to do that. It was just a consult, like that was it, Right. Like, even if it was the 3pt pack I used to take my guys, we were really lucky enough to have a back room, like a spare room or, you know, sometimes the physio room. The physio wasn't there and said we could use his room. But like, I used to bring them into the back room. It was nice and quiet. I actually a lot of the Good life guys at the time, you know, and I'll say this is. They always wanted you to sell on the gym floor, right? Because they're like, oh, still on the gym floor. Like, if you take someone in a back room, like, it's just so like, salesy. And I'm like, no. When someone's on the gym floor, there's loud music. Because you know what it's like working in those clubs, right? The music's way too loud, There's a million distractions, there's people going around. It's way overwhelming. So if you're a PT watching this, like, try to sell in them in a nice comfortable, quiet space where they can have their full attention. Trust me, don't listen to those guys, right? And in terms of you don't need to show them anything. I had done that stuff where I would do like a technique session. I try not to do PT stuff. Right. So it might be like a couple little movements here. I notice this, you know, you've got low back pain. Okay, let's have a look at that. Give them something. But then I just completely stopped it. It was a consultant. Once I started running Facebook ads, was the only PT running Facebook ads at the gym. You know, I love my Facebook ads. I'd sell them over the phone and bring them into the gym. And now we were signing people up for a program. We also had to get them into the Good life gym. So if I was able to do that over the phone. Right. It's doable. So even if you work at a big box gym, if you ever get to a point where it's much more efficient to do it over the phone. 30 minutes, man. Absolutely. If anything, what's working in these days is, you know, one of my, one of my good mates, marketing agent J.D. richardson, those guys sell basically like a 28 day starter program. If you're a PT, sell a three pack over the phone, but you get the money or something, right. If it, you don't have to sell them straight into a 24 week. If you, if you're not a great salesperson because it might be xy but you can sell them over the phone to those people that are inquiring. You do a lot of organic stuff and referral stuff. I know you do that. If you're doing Facebook ads, just get on the phone and call them. So you absolutely don't need to do that. It's 30 minutes. Let's have a chat about you and your struggles and where you want to go and let me see if I can help you out.

Yeah, love it. Just on that as well. I know when I worked with you guys when or at mgm.

You had.

Like a front end offer and then the back end offer. So is that what you're referring to having like a, like a 28 day startup or like a PT pack for example, as like the front end offer to get the ball rolling and then they go on the regular membership after that? Is that kind of what you mean?

Yeah, good question. So like I, I kind of flip it a bit with salespeople where I say what most markets do say have a front end offer, which would be like for most pts it'd be like a three pack. Right. That's probably what you need to do if you're in a big box gym, if you're in a studio Thing you got that you could probably sell like a 28 day thing. If you don't have a mass confidence in sales, sell that. Right. But once I trained people, you probably remember once we train people up, that would actually be a drop sale. It would be sell your normal six month transformation or whatever because you want to sell the result. Like what's going to help them get the result? Three sessions isn't, 28 days isn't. So I used to believe. Still try to sell your the best option for them, which is going to be a six or 12 months. But a lot of people don't have the confidence or the sales skills to, you know, do that. Particularly if it's PT prices. If you're selling, I don't know, it's a couple of grand, you might be like, man, I, I don't think I could do that over the phone. If I haven't met someone yet, that's no worries. Sell them the front end offer, right. And get them in. But the front end offer we only used as like a drop sell for people that were skeptical of, well, I haven't seen it, I haven't seen you, I don't know what it is. Blah, blah, cool, that's fine. Well look, let's do this, let's get you in, let's do the three pack or the 28 days and away you go. So yeah, if you've got confidence, sell your top end, use the front end as a drop sell for people who have got a fear objection. If you're not confident at all, just sell the three pack and then enroll them afterwards. Because the thing you probably know with pt2, and this is where you can get away, is if someone does genuinely have a really good experience with you, you're a great person to work with and you communicate and you get along, you don't necessarily need to have the best sales skills to get them signed up for pt. Right. Like you don't. It is a massive bonus. But if you're a good pt, you give a shit about your clients, you do the right thing, you're probably going to convert a fair amount of those off like a three pack, right?

Yeah, 100% agree. That's interesting. But I wanted to. We're briefly talking before we started this about kind of what you would do if you had to start again as a pt. I think you said you were going to run this model in your gym as well.

Yeah.

Common theme on this podcast is leverage. So I'm super keen to. So if you were to go into A or just, just run us through what, what the new model is that you're running and if it's applicable to like face to face trainers, you know.

Absolutely, it's a hundred percent applicable. Right. So when you talk about leverage with pt, you're going to run into a ceiling at some point. Right. We both know we either go, well I keep going until I, you know, doing 60, 70 sessions per week. We've been there, we know what it's like. I don't know about you, but it's definitely not something sustainable that I believe long term we need to charge more. Right now the world is really unsettled. Cost of living, all these things, they're real. It doesn't mean we can't sell. I sell in high ticket space but it's not going to get better anytime soon. So you can then start to do the semi private model that you know, Alex Hormozi was famous for. What I would do and I have seen this before, I'm not the person who invented this. I actually did get the idea from someone that was like a can't remember who massive ex MGM client was only with us for a very short period of time and I have seen a handful of people do it. The model is simple. Rather than doing one on one personal training, what you're essentially going to do is kind of like floor based personal training gym, big gyms used to have these floor pts back in the day when pts first started. And the idea was that they would run people through these kind of like starter sessions just to get a feel. They get a bit of a wage and away they go. Instead what you're essentially going to do is take the price of one PT session. So let's just say that it's 70 bucks per week. You charge 70 bucks per week. But what you're going to do is you're going to have set hours on the floor between you know, 5am and 10am, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and maybe do afternoons as well. During that time those clients can come, they will have their own customized program that's specific to them. Okay, so just like they would if they're pt, but they're going to have the ability to get guidance, feedback, spotting techniques, little changes here and there from you four days per week. You use your Wednesday or your Saturdays for your admins, your check ins every four weeks, et cetera, like that. But you're going to be able to literally provide four times the amount of value essentially than one PT session for the same price. So everybody in the Gym is going to be charging single PT prices. Right. And that, that's fine. There'll be the top guys that are doing the bodybuilding stuff, the you know, body transformation, killing it, don't worry about them. And then there'll be the other guys charging 45 minute sessions, whatever it might be one on ones. So you're going to capitalize from everyone that's probably over the age of 35. The people that really need you, they don't need you to be there to hold your hand throughout the 45 minute session. Right. Really? What, they all count reps, Right? We've joked before pts, we're just glorified rep counters, right? Well, we're not. But the point being that you can see your trainer four times per week. I can come over to you, I can give you little tips and feedback. What you'll find is same people train at 5 o' clock every day and I used to do this. A lot of my guys when they didn't train with me with pt, they would come at the same time on their non PT days and they would help each other out. So you'll get little groups forming each other. Hey, I'll spot you, you spot me. We've both got bench press in our program today. Let's do that. That is mass leverage and that's what we're going to do in the gym. We're essentially going to give everybody a customized individualized program. Most of them being over 40 already do because they've got injuries, but they'll be able to come throughout the times that they normally come. The PT will always be here and away they go. So it's a great way for personal trainers to really maximize that leverage. You can then have not unlimited clients. They'll be at a point. Right. But realistically speaking, you could probably have four times the amount of clients for about a quarter of the work.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting because like I talk about different ways face to face trainers can leverage. So like think about the options. Obviously you can obviously go online of course, which you know, completely different, kettle efficient. Arguably harder than building them face to face. It is go down the route like similar to what I've done. I think you hired, you hired trainers as well, didn't you, when you were at GoodLife?

Yeah, we hired exactly. So you can scale trainers. Absolutely.

Otherwise obviously that's a good option as well because I've, I've kind of run a semi private model before, especially in my gym where I only I had a maximum of four People a very set time slot. So I had it 6am and 5pm three times a week.

Yep.

And then I would just, I would just say, look, these are the time you can pay a cheaper price. Instead of paying 70 for one on one, they might just pay 55 for a semi private, for example, for them in 45 minute session, that's 200 bucks for 45.

Absolutely. Yep.

That's another way of doing it as well. But I like that.

So semi private. Yeah. Well, Alex or Mosey made that famous. Right. And that works. This just takes it to, I guess, another, another scale, another leverage model. And I think it allows a little bit more flexibility so people don't have to come at that specific time. Although you and me both know people who typically train at 5am they'll train at 5am every day. Right. But it just allows a little bit more flexibility in the model. Again, it won't be for everybody. I'll tell you right now, if you're not good because you could end up with 15 people on the floor, you need to spread your time evenly and still provide value. You can't just have people there take money and don't do anything. Some personal trainers, if you're a talker and you get bogged down with a client, semi private, one on one is probably the way to go because you're going to end up making more consistent money if you go to the floor model that I talked about and you're not good at managing people. So I come from the AFL background where I would have guys in a strength group that were on rehab. So I'm used to, I could, I could coach 20 people at one time and give them enough attention. If you can't do that, you're probably going to have such a high turnover that it's going to frustrate you. So there's pros and cons to every model. You got to know what's going to work for you.

Completely agree. I always say to my clients, what's a positive over here is an equal negative over here. You've got to find what you know well, for one, you've got to find what you enjoy doing as well. If you enjoy one on one, then do whatever.

But if you, and you can scale it.

Yeah.

You know, you got to do what, what works. And, and, and you and me both know, and that's what I say is I'll, I'll give it a lot of advice on this podcast. You've got to be smart enough to take. That's not going to work for me, that's going to work for me. That might work for someone else. You know, there is no perfect answer in anything in. In what you do, but you got to just be adaptable and go, all right, yeah, I understand that this would work for me, or actually it's going to do more damage. Yeah, I might make more money if it works, but you're probably going to end up having a higher turnover because you just can't manage the amount of people in the session. So, you know, pros and cons.

Yeah, Love it. Awesome. Let's. Objections.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Common objections. So like, obviously there's, you know, a variety of different objections. Common ones being, you know, obviously money, partner, time to a degree.

Do you.

Do you have a. I can't remember the framework you used to teach, but do you have. Do you have a framework for handling objections that you could share with us?

Yeah. So I'll try my best to give it. This is hard because 80 of the time, this is what I learned heavily when I was very lucky to work with guys like Matt Ryder, Anthony Pizarro, Tony Haddad, Marco guys when I was at Cyprus and level and they were. They were helping us when I was at MGM. Is 80% of most objections is going to pop up because you haven't done the work before, you kind of get there. And this is hard because everyone wants to know what to say with objection handles. The short of it is the objection handling is very much just a script. Like, it is a framework. I go through the steps. The problem is if I. They're not going to land the way I want them to land, right. If I haven't done the groundwork. So just. I'll just give you an example of what I mean. If they come to a money objection and you haven't gone through what in my script is called Nutrition and Lifestyle, where we try to find out are they spending money on things that are taking them further away from their goals. Right. So we find out they're spending a little bit on takeaways, maybe some excess alcohol. Maybe, you know, they're getting their hair nails done. Maybe they're getting massage. Is like what getting all this extra stuff done. At that point, I'm all I want to be able to say, like, well, you know, are you willing to cut back a little bit on those things so that it could help you get towards your goals? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm kind of pre. Handling a little bit. Right. In a sense. And that's what you hear. Pre handling objections. Pre Framing and those things is you've got to deal with some of those things, partner objections. You got to find out do they have a partner, is their partner on side, those type of things. Then when you get to objection, handling it is very much just a script. Right? So like the short process and I'll try to give you the, I'll give you the short framework. Can't go into everything. The short framework is first step, always acknowledge that you heard the objection. Right. I learned that from Grant Cardone. First step was acknowledge. So you always say, hey, I can totally appreciate that money might be a problem based off what you're saying. Okay. So you always let them know you hear them. The second step that we often can do with that is if it's. I want to think about, I want to speak to my partner. And I learned this when I was at Sales Sniper. This is very much a seventh level technique. It is not mine, but what Jeremy Miner would, would teach if you ever watched him and everything I learned from there is you then basically go, that's not a problem. I can appreciate you need to speak to your partner. Whatever is like they you'd book an appointment and a follow up appointment. So you actually don't start by treating the objection. Most people right. As soon as you hear objection, you go defensive. So the point with that is we're going to book an appointment completely. The prospect just basically, okay, we're booking, I'm going to get off this call. Once you've confirmed the booking, right. If it's a follow up, then you start to handle the objection. Okay, so that's number two. So number one, always acknowledge like let them know, hey, I could totally appreciate money might be, you know, a bit tight for you based on what you said. Hey, that's smart. I can totally appreciate that you want to speak to your partner about that. Makes total sense. It's a big decision. Get a booking on the calendar. What's your time frame in getting back to me? Just so that I can see if I'm going to be available for you. Right. Again, that's not my line, guys. I want to make that very clear. That's a seventh level Jeremy line. Okay, but get them booked on the calendar. Once they're booked, third step then is you ask the question. Okay, well I mean money aside, just so I know, like if you did have the money or if this was free, would you do it? If your partner was here today with you and they wanted to say and they said yes, would you do it? Would you go Ahead, right? So that, that's fairly common. Think about it's different. But those two things is, then I asked them because they've already got a booking on the calendar, so they're a little bit sort of diffused. Okay. Guards down. And then I can ask them that from there. Then it's a matter of, well, yeah, most people are going to say they would do it, right? Then you've got to ask them the magic question, which is just why most people don't ask why enough. When anyone gives you an answer, just ask them why. Get them to justify why they need to do your program, why they need to invest in your program, whatever it might be, right. And then from there just become a bit of a problem solver, right? Like, so if it's money, okay, well, all right, so money wise, like, I mean, have we got ways to find the funds so that you can get, you know, the help that you need to lose the 20 kilos so that you can actually feel more confident about yourself? Well, you know, like, you know, what about like a payment plan? Yeah, we could do a payment plan, right? Most PTs are already going to give you the weekly price, right. Or whatever. But, you know, try to help them through that, work through options. Okay. And then see what you can do with it. And that, that's the first step. And it's a little bit more. Obviously there's specific examples and whatever else, but number one, don't freak out when you hear the objection, because the objection is not a no. Just acknowledge you heard it. Number two, basically get a booking on the calendar for the follow up. Completely diffuses them. Then number three, just ask the question of if it's money, if it's partners, whatever, you know, if they were here and they spotted, what would you do it? Right? And then away you go. I'll give you the one thing with partner, because I do like to go pretty hard on partner, because that's the most common objection. So once they say, okay, if your partner was here, would you do it? Yes, I would completely flip the script. Instead you can say, all right, but like, what if you go to your partner and your partner doesn't want you to get the help and support that you need to be able to lose the 20 kilos, like, what are you going to do then? So I kind of almost make the partner out to be the bad guy, right? But what happens is most will go, oh, well, no. I mean, no, I'd still do it. Or they'd be on board with it, right? So I get them on that side of that. Right. Because nobody needs to actually ask their partner permission. Right. Like, they just don't do that. Right. So, yeah, Objection handling is literally a script. I have a script for each objection handling. But again, if you don't have the ammunition to come back to, you know, well, hey, look, can I make a suggestion? You're spending $50 a week on UberEats. If you haven't found out that information, then you've got no ammunition to be able to go in and do that. You can't. You can't slap someone, as we used to call it in the sales world. Can't slap someone. You can't do any reframes. You can't do mindset reframes or anything like that, or perspective changes because they're just going to be like, it's you versus me. So, yeah, man. Objection handling is tough to talk about because 80% of the time I go and listen to a sales call and I'll be like, I. I know why you got this objection straight away.

Yeah, it's a. Interesting point because I might have learned this from you guys. I'm not sure. Well, from you doing the stuff with us for the gym. But you mentioned, like, talking about their lifestyle choices. We do that. Probably do it in a bit more detail, but yeah, we're trying to identify excess money that they're spending that they could possibly cut back on to, you know, mitigate the price of personal training.

Exactly. You got to do it. Nutrition and lifestyle. You got to do that in that section. You know, money is going to be a problem, so you want to get that there. It's not about finding all the money. Right. And I don't have to necessarily. Like, some people will bring it up like, oh, okay, so, like, you know, wow. You know, and depending on the tonality of the call and how it's going, but I mean, you might go, wow, like, so you're spending about 80 bucks per week on takeaway. So that's about right. Yeah, it's about right. Okay, cool. You could be a bit cheeky and you can just say, cool. Okay, well, the good news is at least we know you can afford the help and then you just move on. Right. So you can be a bit cheeky with it or you can leave it. And then the idea when you. Objection. Handle is you still want them to come up with a solution before you just tell them. So most pts in that situation would just go, well, you're spending 80 bucks per week on, On. On. On takeaway. Like, why not just do that. What's going to happen then is the person's just going to lean back out and be like, screw you. Right? I want to try to get them on the same side as the table, right? The same side of the table as me. So I got to pick them through. Then at the end, if they haven't figured that out, then I can go, do you mind if I make a suggestion? And then you could bring up the nutrition and lifestyle stuff. So give them every opportunity to come out of it. If you just start smacking them from the word go, like, they will just walk away from you, right? They will leave. You're not the good guy anymore. Okay, as much as pts, and I think this is what pts do really well, I used to be bad at this. I can speak on this is they jump all the steps. They know it's bs. We know it, right? We're like, come on, man, you spend 100 bucks on PD, on, on shit, we know you can do it. But you've got to break down that logic and their safety barrier and their perspective sometimes to get them to the point when they're like, yeah, Jason, right? That's the best thing you can hear. Yeah, you're right. Like, let's do it. Like, it's just an excuse. I can cut back on it, you know, and that's how it is. So there's a lot of, lot of, a lot of little steps in there. But yeah, man, like the nutrition and lifestyle one is great. Finding out the partner stuff is really important for partner and, you know, probably. Probably the next one that I often just think about is, you know, if you get the time. Objection. Like a logistical thing. It's a bit bse, but that's another one that will pop up when you ask people about, like, what do they do for work and stuff like that. And, and in that situation, you've got to kind of pre. Handle that a little bit and be like, okay, cool. Well, I mean, you know, would you. Would you be able to train after work? Like, okay, well, are you telling me that you don't have any time to train? Would it be reasonable if we were able to just do like three 20 minute sessions per week? Oh, yeah, I can, I can commit to that. Right. So there's little things like that that you can say throughout that you need to just kind of squash that logic because they're always trying to pass responsibility right throughout the whole process. And if you allow that, when you try to slap someone at the end, it's not going to work. So, yeah, it's a bit more technical, but, you know, just. It's all scripting based. It's. It's just a process.

Yeah, it's difficult one with the objection handling because there's so many. You can do it as well. And everyone's a little bit different with how they approach it and what they feel comfortable, you know, pushing back on people with, as you said.

Oh, yeah, yeah, you gotta. I used to have this thing at Sales Sniper when they'd say, if you haven't had someone complain about you yet, you're not pushing hard enough on someone. Right. So, like, it's kind of like a bit of a badge of honor, right, to be like, oh, yeah, this person. Especially in fitness. Because you're telling you there's a point where in fitness, we, as coaches, we know we need. That person needs help, particularly the ones that are really like. You're like, hey, you are severely overweight. You got all that type of stuff. The problem is sometimes, like, we just, like I said, we don't do the groundwork to get on the same side as them. So when we get shitty a little bit, which we all do, and we say, mate, like, you're gonna die. You need this. It's just combative. And you just never go. And then you walk away. And how many times you heard a PT say, like, I don't know why they didn't do it. Like, they need it. It's like, yeah, but they. They saw you as the enemy because they were still basically believing that it's everybody else's fault. Their perspective is good. And so, you know, yeah, it's. It's tough, but 80% of the time, if I fix somebody's script upstream, they will literally improve without having to handle objections immediately. And then over time, objection. Handling is. Is a process, and it's. Again, it's a skill set. And it just takes time.

Yeah, just on that, because obviously you need to be. You need to get better at sales over time with. With obviously any business, but obviously you don't get clients. You don't have any income, obviously. So how. Is there. Is there a good way to. Or how long would you suggest rehearsing or practicing a script to be, you know, somewhat decent or. Or for example, like, I do this with a couple of my clients. I get them to record their consults, and I review it for them. Is it a recommendation from you to optimize performance?

Yeah, absolutely. Reviewing your calls was the number one thing I learned from Matt Rider, so credit to him. He was like, you need to record every call because it holds you accountable. Because then anyone, particularly if I was working for Sales Sniper or anyone can say I want to listen to that call. So you instantly are a lot more accountable when you know someone's listening to your call. The number one thing then that people don't do, I think, and you know, I don't know if you do this at the moment, is when I review calls, I actually make sure that the person listens to the call whilst I'm reviewing it. Because there's a, there's two ways, right, within which we learn, which is me just telling you the answer and what you should do. But I need them to actually be able to understand, I get it and be self aware when that happens. The best thing when you can see that transformation is when a rep can already pick up and say, oh, I'm not doing this or this happened or damn, I didn't do that. So they should assess themselves. And if you do this, I say a three month time frame. It sounds like a long time, but what I mean by that is I've taken guys from extremely like, you know, low show rates within the first month to double that and then from there you can easily put up. But within a three month time frame I think is a very reasonable timeframe. You have to listen to your own calls, so record them, get feedback from someone who can close. This is important. I'm not a big fan of role playing because two bad reps role playing together is terrible. So make sure you actually role playing with someone that has authority in sales, yourself, me, those type of people that would give you feedback, not just another rep in your gym. Because there has to be a process with role play. It's not just a oh, he's my best friend or another PT and it's a waste of time. And then from there, like actually actively, then go back, listen to the call, listen to the feedback that they got, if it's from you and go, I understand what you're saying. And then if they implement that over the first 30 days, normally if we do quick reviews, and I know you yourself, we, you just give a couple of easy tips, man. And you've posted enough of your guys, I've met my guys that they all of a sudden make another sale, right? And then it's just tweaking little things because again, a script is a script, but there's still an element where people will do things slightly different. And I think reps have to do things slightly different to fit their Personality a little bit as well, because otherwise it comes off the wrong way. I've seen guys who try to actually be really honest and direct with people and they just sound super arrogant and rude, right? I've seen guys sell with humor. I've sold with humor, right? Um, there's different techniques that people use. The point of it is, is if it's not working, then you need to change something, right? Once it is, I'm like, that's cool. Like, if you're selling at 40% for online fitness high ticket these days, which is pretty standard, I'm not going to change anything. I'm going to be like, let's just kind of like, you're good, right? Like, we can make small improvements for sure. But if you're closing at 20%, you're like, yeah, but I really like selling this way. It don't matter. I'll be like, it ain't working, it ain't working. Right? And I've had that. And that's why I say that I've had a rep say, yeah, I find that I feel a lot more comfortable when I do it this way. And I'm like, yeah, but you haven't closed anybody, so it don't matter, right? And it's like there's a point at which you have to say you're gonna have to change and it might be uncomfortable. And either you're gonna stick with it or you're not. So, yeah, you. That's the number one thing. Listening to calls yourself and getting feedback. Game changer. You know, you could practice your script then, you know, just by reading it yourself, going over with it, record your own voice. You can practice with your partner. The idea being or with a friend. The idea there is. I just want people to get really good at the script, that you don't have to stare at the script when you're selling, but it's there as a framework, it's a guide. I, I have my script up whenever I sell, but I also could read my script to you right on the fly. But it's there as a guideline, so, yeah, that's what people need to do, man.

Yeah. Awesome. Love it. So what's the, what's the plan for you going forward then? Obviously, you've got your, your gym now. You have. You just launched the online version or have you had that for a while now?

Let's put it this way, we've had it on and off. It's one of those things where some members then we, they. We did online because they moved or whatever. But we didn't, we didn't sell it, we didn't promo it, we didn't market it, we didn't push it. So now we absolutely are. So with the gym, the goal for us is, yeah, we are starting to market it, sell it. You know, you would have seen I started my, a new profile again because I really only post sales stuff and I go through stages where I'll post up wins on the week, you know, from sales stuff. And then I kind of could be. Yeah, there's been time where I haven't posted anything for two months. So I don't really sell my business coaching stuff. But with the fitness stuff, got a separate profile now. We want to push that. I really want to grow that to something big. And then with the gym, we want to keep that still that sort of small, private community, personalized training. A lot of our guys are starting to go towards sort of the powerlifting style, so masters powerlifting. So that's kind of what we want to do with the fitness and gym space. And then for myself, more so. So I'm essentially like, you know, an outbound manager for, you know, like a multi million dollar, you know, online fitness business that takes up a huge chunk of time. Like I was telling you before the show, you know, it's stressful, it's tough at times. So that's what I do. And then I kind of still like I said, I still do little bits of consulting like that with gyms, online people here and there, but I only have, you know, a handful of clients any one time because, you know, I get very heavily involved, I go hard on it, you know, and I really want to, I spend a lot of energy and then my goal would be like, okay, after three or four months, you know, for most of these guys, they can then go off and you've got the systems, you've got the processes, go have fun and then just kind of like maybe like a check in every now and again. Right. Just to optimize a few little things that, that's kind of how I see the, the, the sales side of things going is that more freelancing sort of operational manager type stuff. They do all the hiring and firing. I'm not selling for you, I'm not hiring people, I'm not doing any of that. Right. But yeah, just help them do those little bits and pieces and then send them on their way ideally. So that's probably our journey for the next, you know, 12 months.

Nice man. Very exciting as always beforehand. Love, love seeing the journey on the socials. So do you want to follow the journey and perhaps for the gym or even for the sales stuff, where would they find you?

Yeah, so you know, Facebook. I do. Like, if you want to follow basically the fitness stuff, so. And again, I've got no problems with pts, you know, follow the stuff and see what I'm posting. I'm not a massive marketer, but like, you know, you can use the content and you can kind of like get ideas and stuff. So that'll be on, you know. Basically if you search Jason Motley on Facebook, you'll find two profiles, you know, one's business related ones, the fitness related stuff. So if you're after the sales things and whatnot. I don't post a lot of sales training stuff compared to you. You know that. I kind of just go, hey, it's almost like, look how good I am. Look what his team did. But I post wins to showcase what people want. If you've then got questions off of that, like, DM me, like you and me, we talk, you know, on and off. Like we could go two months without chalking, like, don't be afraid. I think for pts to like send people a message, the worst they can say is, sorry, you got to pay me for my time. Chances are if you DM me a message, I'll send you a voice message back with a tip. Like, it's just what I do. So, yeah, find my two profiles on that. I am on Instagram as Jason Big Dog or something like that and whatever else. But yeah, I don't, I don't post a lot of training content per se, like for sales or what for business. But if you ask, slide into my DMs and ask, chances are I'll respond, Happy days, mate.

That was awesome. Thank you again for all the value and have an awesome day.

My pleasure, man. Thank you for having me on.