Ep 298: How Personal Trainers can make more money by working less by Matt Dart

You are now listening to the Fitness Education Online podcast. The podcast where fitness professionals go to grow their fitness business. If you're in the fitness industry, you'll find tips and strategies from proven business experts. Now, let's start the show. All right.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fitness Education Online Podcast. I'm your host, Jono, and I am super excited because we have an absolute rock star on the line this week. And I know I say that every week about every guest, but this person actually is. I was having a little bit of a chat to him off air. Some of the things he's done in the fitness industry he started during COVID I believe he might, might get into that, but he started, give or take, during COVID Within a few months, he became a fully booked pt. Within a few months after that, or we'll probably get into the story. But within two years he's gone from zero to making $14,000 a week and being fully leveraged. So not him running the sessions. He had something like six different locations, 12 different trains. So super excited to get into that story. So without further ado, let me introduce the one and only Mr. Matt Dart. Matt, how are you, mate?

Good, mate, how are you? Thanks so much for the introduction.

No, I'm super excited to get into this. Just before we get into, I guess, your story and your tips, let's give listeners a little bit of context and at the present, who are you? What do you do, where are you based?

Awesome. So I'm based in North Briston, so currently I still do some PT sessions myself. Now I've got to a point where now I own my own gym that I was able to, you know, pay in cash, which is awesome. So no debt on that facility, which is awesome. And then now because of the success I've had as a face to face trainer, which I'm sure we'll get into in a second, I now do some business coaching for face to face trainers as well to help them get the same results that I, that I've got and even go beyond what I achieved as well. Awesome.

Well, let's dive into it. Let's maybe go. We can probably do this either way. Matt, what I'd love is to get some tips for the listeners. So if they are rental based trainers, how can we get them to making, firstly filling their books and then, you know, ideally getting leverage as well. Would you prefer if we kind of just go straight tips or if we kind of share your story, how you did it and we can dive in from there? What's how would you like to approach?

I'll. I'll give the listeners some context, I suppose on what's possible. Yeah. So I'll go through my results first and then I can give you literally exactly what I did. Let's do it. To get those results, which is awesome. So as you said in the intro, so I started during COVID which is that probably a bit risky, but that's okay.

As a face to face trainer.

As a face to face trainer, I started during COVID so I used to be a travel agent, so that's why I pivoted.

You know how to pick him during COVID right?

Yeah. So obviously we all know what happened to that industry during that time. So I suppose I kind of had no choice but to find another option to, you know, to make it work. So, yeah, basically. So based in Brisbane. So after the lockdowns finished, which were.

Like two weeks or something, right?

Yeah, I was going to say weren't really that bad, to be honest. So as soon as I like I finished the lockdown, I went into Anytime Fitness Club. So just a commercial facility. And you know, I was working with a business coach at the time as well to help me, you know, get fully booked as soon as possible. So I was fully booked, which is in my books, about 40 sessions per week, which is about 2,200 per week. Are you half hour? Yes, absolutely. I always find like a quick tip for the listeners as well. A lot of pts do 45 minutes or an hour if you can get the same result for the client in 30 minutes. And people, in my experience, people don't care about how long the session is. They care about how much they're paying and if they're getting the results. Yeah. So if you're, if you're good enough to get the results in 30 minute sessions, which you should be able to. It's more so what they do outside of your PT sessions than what you do in the PT sessions.

There's some people that prefer it shorter. I'm a like as a client, give me half hour any day, even the same. I might even pay more for the half hour.

I mean, who wants to do an hour PT session?

Yeah.

On the floor dying.

Especially if you're an introvert like me, you know, you only get three coins throughout the day. I got to wait, I've got to do my workout and I've got to waste a coin on the PT. Give me half an hour.

Oh man, 100. So yeah, I always recommend 30 minutes. You can still charge a premium Price as well, because you're still getting them the same result. But then you can have like a. You can leverage the time a lot more as well that way. Which we'll get into in a second. Yeah.

So wait, hold on. This bit. So you started any time you got to 40 sessions a week within how long did you say?

10 days.

10 days, yeah.

Boom.

And hold on, let me. You had a business coach before you started?

Yeah, so I. I had a business coach probably for about a month or two before I started in a location to set up a lot of the systems.

That's great. So wait, let me. This is amazing because I've never heard this before. So you. So hold on. Did you have any job in the fitness industry now?

First. First time, zero experience as a trainer? Yeah, I literally. To be.

You were a business coach before you started working?

Yeah, I hired a business coach while still studying.

That's amazing. How'd you. What gave you that idea or how'd you go about that?

Yeah, I mean, I've like, I've done a lot of stuff around businesses and stuff like that. Like I used to do drop shipping on Amazon, fba, so white label product. So I had my own product that I was selling on Amazon and I had a coach for that as well. And I soon realized that, you know, to get results fast, you need to find someone that has done it themselves and then literally just copy what they've done. So I found someone that had really good results that they had themselves. They had three locations, I had five or six trainers and then I just wanted to replicate that.

Can you give him a shout out or no?

Yeah, his name's Simon Finch. Oh, yeah. So he, he does some. He does some business coaching still. So I learned a lot of stuff from him. But I've also worked with like Herman Ray and stuff like that on human behavior, mindset sales, that type of stuff as well. So, yeah, I was looking for him to probably. Or working with him. Sorry. For two or three months before I started. Like, if there wasn't any lockdowns or restrictions, I probably would have started earlier. But, you know, I had to go with the flow, I guess. But yeah, after 10 days I was at about 40 sessions per week. And the goal is always to leverage my time and you know, I had some pretty, pretty decent goals. I wanted to get past what he had done. Yeah. Previously. That's great. So, yeah, so I said I'll get into how I did that in a second. But hired. Hired two trainers to work underneath me as subcontractors So I basically paid their rent. I did all the sales and marketing, and then they just did the delivery of the sessions. You're.

You were hands off then as well?

I was. So I was currently doing 40 sessions a week. Yeah. Then as soon as I hired my first trainer, I offloaded 20 of those sessions. Yeah. To the new trainer. So they started on 20 sessions. I was doing 20 sessions. I kept my 20 sessions. Yeah. And built up the first trainer to 40 sessions. Yeah. A week. Yeah. And then I hired another trainer. About 10 sessions. Okay. Then the other trainer had 10 and then the first trainer had 40. And I built the second trainer up to 40 sessions as well. So after three months, we were doing 100 sessions per week in one location, which is at my price point was about six and a half K per week.

Yeah.

Wow. And then fast forward probably 18 months to two years after that. I had five of those locations like Anytime Fitness, Jets, Snap Fitness, combination of those clubs. Plus I had my gym that I bought with the profits from the other locations, and I had 12 trainers working for me. I had a full time manager, and I was literally just helping the full time manager with sales and marketing. And then we built it up to 250pt sessions per week. Wow. And that was about 14k per week in income.

Boom. All right, this is juicy. Let's get into it. How did you do it?

So I'll, I'll get to the stage where I do. I'll tell you guys how to get fully booked first. That's the most important part. Yeah. Then how you can actually leverage your time. So in terms of getting fully booked, the, the most important part is obviously lead generation. And you can, it's super, super easy, especially in a, in a commercial facility, to get leads because there's, you know, 6, 7, 800 people, up to 2,000 people that are already using a gym that more than likely needs some help. You should be out of, you know, 20% of people are usually open to doing PT. So it's just about getting those people in front of you. Now the easiest way to get people to raise their hand and say, look, could be interested in my opinion, is to do some type of giveaway. So when I did mine, mine was just a giveaway to win four weeks of free personal training. Gotcha. Yeah. Valued at about, you know, 300, $400. That's good value. And literally all I did is I walked around the gym and I said, hey, guys, I'm so sorry to interrupt your session. I just thought I'd let you know about a huge giveaway that we've got in the club. You can win 400 worth of free personal training. I just need your name and number to enter the competition and then I'll let you get on with your workout. So super easy get people entered into the competition and then you leave the competition sheet at the front of the club so when people go in and when they leave they can enter the competition as well. So you run that for about three or four weeks. You should get around about 100 people entering that competition and I'll do the stuff for you. Now this is what you should expect from this competition. So you obviously pick a winner and then what you do, you basically do like a runner up prize draw as well. And you give away probably about 30 to 40 prizes. Yeah, there's one winner. So out of the 100 leads there's not many people answer their phone these days. So you're probably only going to be able to get a hold of probably half of them if that about 40 or 50 people. So let's just say easy numbers of 50 people out of the 50 people. So remember, so there's a specific script that you'd say. So you'd say something like, hey Jono, it's Matt from Anytime Fitness. The reason for the quick call is I believe you recently entered our competition to win the four weeks free pt, is that right? I'll say yes. Cool. I'm calling for some good news. Have you ever won anything like this before?

Never.

They'll probably say no obviously and then they'll get excited, obviously, like, oh my God, I might have won something. And you say, look, I'll get the bad news out of the way. You didn't win the overall prize. However, due to the overwhelming response, we decided to give away an additional, you know, 30 runner up prizes and you were one of the winners, so congratulations. And then you basically say, cool, what you've won is I call them a free health assessment, which is basically a consultation. You want a free health assessment plus a strategy session to get you back on track with your health and fitness. So I'll book you in for that one. Do you prefer morning or afternoon? Book them in and then you should be able to get anywhere from 30 to 40 people. Say yes to that.

That's great. And just to confirm you're, are you giving everyone that price? Like say the 99 people that didn't win, are you essentially just going through calling? And the 30% that do pick up are essentially the 30% that get the runners up.

Correct.

Yeah, Great. Gotcha.

Exactly. So essentially, like, because obviously not everyone's gonna answer anyway, so the people that'll answer will probably be like 30 people that'll answer.

Yeah, exactly.

Based on your sales skills, which, you know, some people are good, some people aren't so good, you should be converting around 50% in my opinion. Oh, wow. Okay. Face to face. If you're lower than that, I can give you some tips on how to increase that in a second as well. So you should be able to get. Based on the 30 or 40 people that book in, half of them should join your program, which would be about 15 to 20 people. Yep. On average, based on the clients that I work with, people do between one to two sessions per week. About one. One and a half. Yep. So if you get 20 new clients, for example. Yep. That's 30 sessions per week. Just on that. Based on your price point, depending on what you charge, that's just under $2,000 per week. Yeah.

That's great.

So you go from zero to $2,000 per week in like four weeks.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah. It's not difficult when you think about it. Like, it's only. It's one strategy. It's just a giveaway. Like you can give away anything you want. You could do like a seminar where you give away. You do like a 45 minute seminar if you want, like fat loss, for example, too.

I like the personal training one because I feel there's an advantage if you're giving away what the person wants. You know what I mean? It's kind of like they're only going to enter their details if they're somewhat interested in personal training. Like if I had zero interest in having a personal trainer and you say, hey, Jono, put your details in, you get a free personal training session, brother. I don't want it.

Right.

So that's why I love that strategy.

Yeah, no, it works an absolute treat.

Did you come up with that or was that. Did Simon give you some tips on that?

There's. There's a couple things that are slightly different, but the baseline is from Simon. Yeah. So I'll give him the credit. Like, this is. This works really, really well. At the same time, you can. Any type of giveaway is an easy way to, you know, meet more people because you've got something that you can actually like, win. Yeah. Easy conversation. It's not like, oh, you know, hey, guys. Yeah. What's your workout been like?

Yeah.

Yeah. Have you thought about doing pt? Go Away.

That's genius. That's literally one of the best strategies I have ever heard.

Oh, there you go. So, yeah, Simon came up with the. The baseline strategy. I've tweaked it a little bit to get some slightly better results. Yeah. But, you know, I've only been in PC for three and a half, four years, and the strategy I've used in every single location I've had. Yeah.

You only really need that. Right. Because it's like you get that to call it 30 people and then you do a good job. Some people see you on the floor, you got some friends and family, you get referrals. That should almost keep you busy forever. Right.

I mean, if you. If you told most pts they could earn $2,000 per week after four weeks, they'd be. They'd be pretty happy.

Yeah.

Most, you know, struggle to pay the rent.

Yeah, that's genius. All right, cool. So I love that there. That's essentially the marketing and the sales as well. Let's maybe spend a minute on. On sales. We obviously, big topic, right. You can't give. You can't really teach it here in a podcast, but maybe like some resource. Because I'm guessing with that strategy, or maybe we speak about the marketing as well. Do you kind of give tips on how to do that strategy? Because I'm guessing there's also differences on how you present yourself, what you say, how you say it, or is it just as simple as, you know, hey, go up and speak to someone. What would you say there?

Yeah, in terms of, like, the marketing part, and we'll dive into a bit of sales. Because I love the sales stuff and, yeah, human behavior, that type of stuff. So we can dive into that in a second. But in terms of the marketing side of things, the one thing you don't want to do is you don't just want to go up to someone and say, did you want to enter a competition to win this? Because it's a yes or no answer. Yeah. So what you want to do is you want to have complete control of the conversation, which is kind of what I did before when I was saying, hey, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I just thought I'd let you know about a huge giveaway in the club.

I even like that line. I like that. Hey, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Even though you're not really sorry, right?

Yeah.

But it's like. But it just frames it as such more a friendly way, doesn't it?

Yeah. 100. And like, they, like, they don't Want to be interrupted. Like, most people just want to do their workout. So it's like. I'm so sorry to interrupt. I know you're busy. I know you're in a session. I just thought I'd let you know about a huge giveaway in the club. It's giving away. 4 weeks of free pt is valued at over 400. I'll quickly just grab your number to enter you in the competition because it's free. There's nothing to lose. Mm. So the only option they've got is to say, oh, look, I'm not interested. Which is fine, but most people are just like, oh, yeah, sweet nothing. Always. Here's my number.

Yeah.

And nice to meet you as well. My name is Matt. What's your name? Oh, cool. What are you training today? Good. A little bit of rapport as well. Yeah. Once you kind of break that barrier, then you can start to build some rapport and say, you know, what type of stuff you train in and that type of stuff. So you don't want to. I call that, like a closed question. That's a yes or no answer. So you want to avoid a closed question. Or marketing, you want to ask open questions so they give you an actual response.

Love it.

That's the first thing. And in terms. In terms of, like, sales, a lot of people, a lot of pts. I see. Because everyone wants to help people, right? A lot of pts want to help people and they just. I find them. They just give the client everything they could possibly need to get the results, and then there's no reason for the client to even sign up to that paying program because they've given everything in the first consult or whatever. Yeah. I always find that the whole purpose of the consult, or the health assessment, whatever you want to call it, is just to dive into why the client hasn't got the results that they want to get, what's been holding them back, and then you don't want to tell them the solution. In the. The consultation, you want to prove by client testimonials that you've got the results for other people before, and then it's just a matter of matching up the right package for their budget. So what I mean by that is the health assessment. So I call it a health assessment. 15 minutes. All you should be talking about is what their goals are, why they want to achieve it, and when they want to achieve it by. You want to make sure you get to the why, because that is ultimately where they feel the emotion. And people only buy when they're. When they have an emotion attached to it. People don't usually buy off logic, they buy up emotion. And then when they get the result, they logically accept it. Yes, essentially. So you want to get people in an emotional state in that first, you know, consultation. You want to get them talking about what the results, what results they want, why they want it and then why they haven't got it yet, or what's been holding them back from getting those results. And then the last probably five minutes of that health assessment, you're going through what they think they need help with. So they're basically telling you that they need help with motivation, they need help with nutrition, they need help with gym knowledge, they need help getting confidence back in the gym. So they're basically telling you, almost begging you for help, essentially. And then what you do is you basically go through what I call a tangible product, which is basically, you have three client testimonials on results that are similar to what the client wants. So if you're focusing on fat loss or weight loss, you'd have some client testimonials on some fat loss that you've got for other people.

This is what this is on your phone, this is printed out, this is.

Email, ideally on an iPad, ideally to be a bit more professional. But you can show it on your laptop, for example, just pull your screen.

Around and is this just a before and after or is it like a video or a photo, a blurb, a Google review? What are we actually showing?

Yeah, so ideally before and after is always good. So they can see the physical difference. And then I usually put a little blurb of like a review of what they've. What they've said. Gotcha. I can't recommend that enough. You know, he changed my life. Yeah. A review could be. I've gone from struggling to lose weight to losing 10 kilos in three months, for example. Gotcha. To set up the visual plus the written, because they'll see the visual and then they'll also look at the text. So you're actually showing this to the client so they can physically see the difference. Yeah. And then you only present two options. So you have two highest options. Because people, it's much easier for someone just to pick, pick between one or two things. Yeah, you just say, look, I've got. If you do 30 minute sessions, it's 50 a session. If you do 45 minutes, it's 75. If you our sessions, it's 100 session, two sessions or three sessions. Which one do you want?

Let me think about and get Back to you and then never get back.

Yeah, let me, let me just think about that and come back to you in a month once I've thought about all this.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.

So I always present this two options. They're usually three sessions a week or two sessions a week. That's great. Is that what I usually start with? Yep. And then I always suggest 30 minute sessions and then I see this, hey, look, which one would you want to go with? Are you more leaning towards the three sessions or the three sessions? Completely up to you. Love it.

And if they say one, do you offer that?

Yes, absolutely. So it's a, it's a verbal to verbal drop cell. Yeah. So the reason why you start with a three and the two, because it makes the one seem super cheap. 100. So it's all about you, psychology and mindset. So like, for example, if you're charging three sessions for, you know, 60 or 70 per session, that's, you know, it's almost 200 bucks a week. Like, you know, I can't afford that much. That's cool, no worries. There's other options. So how about we do something like, if we do something similar to what we've talked about in the package, but we just do the one session a week to keep you accountable, that turns out to be 65 per week. Is that a bit more manageable for you? If you think about, oh, 200 bucks a week versus 65, but I'm getting a similar product. Yeah, let's do that. Love it.

I love that because. Have you read the book Psychology of Sales, Brian Tracy?

No, actually.

Okay, so he speaks about that. So when I started in the fitness industry, I was running a boot camp. We had two packages. A 50 buck a week unlimited session, a 40 buck a week, three sessions. And I couldn't sell this 50 buck a week one for whatever the life you just couldn't sell it. Could only sell the 40 buck one.

You know.

Now I read this book, this Brian Tracy book, and he tells his story. When he started in sales, he was working as like a salesman in a suit place, you know, selling men's suits. And there was this one salesman that was just better than everyone else. And Brian Tracy's like, right, I just need to find out what this salesperson is doing and essentially copy that. So he spoke to the heads, the top salesperson. The salesperson's like, look, it's quite easy what I do, I just show the person the most expensive suit first and he goes, one or two things is going to happen. Either they buy that most expensive suit, no dramas, and I've made the sale. Happy days. Or they say, no, it's too expensive. And I show them a cheaper one and. And that cheaper one looks even cheaper because I just showed them the most expensive one. So it's win, win. They either go in and just buy the most expensive one or, you know, they're more likely to buy that least expensive one. And I'm not losing a sale either way by showing them the more expensive one first.

So I.

And then I. And then that very next day, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna try that.

Yeah.

I was on the phone with someone like, oh, how much is it? I'm like, oh, it's 50 bucks a week. Get unlimited sessions. They're like, great, sign me up.

And done. That's so true. Like, it's so interesting. Yeah. How people think. And as I'm super curious about human behavior and psychology and how people make decisions and why people do certain things. Super interesting. Forever. Forever learning.

Give us some, some tips there, Matt, because obviously podcasts, we're halfway through it anyway. Like, obviously an answer can be, go and speak to Matt, you know, and he'll teach you how to sell and do this exact process here. But could you maybe give us some, some tips and resources, some books people could listen to or podcast to read or a better question, maybe, how did you learn sales?

Yeah. So I actually. Well, for one, you got to put in the reps. So you've got to do a lot of role playing, for example, to get the best. So when I first started doing sales, I was, I was 18. And you know those really annoying people in the shopping incentives that sell stuff to charity?

Yeah. Try and look away from them. Avoid eye contact.

Yeah. There's like head down or make a fake phone call. Yep. You know, I was, I was one of those people, so I learned pretty quickly, like it was a commission only role as well. So you didn't get paid unless you sold stuff. Yeah. So I learned a lot.

Just a question. Are you one of those people that enjoys pain? Is that why you, you went for that job or.

Well, it's one way to get out of your comfort zone, that's for sure.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you learn pretty quickly when you know you didn't get paid if you. Yeah. Didn't sell anything. So in terms of books, because I've got one right here, I'm halfway through this one from Subi. Yeah. He's an absolute genius. When it comes to sales. Y. If you haven't got his book, his book is actually free. You just got to pay for the shipping, which is like $2, I think. I definitely recommend his book, but I always find that my most. The biggest tip I could ever give regarding improving your sales skills is repetition. Yeah. So I used to spend, like, especially when I was like, 18, the expectation was you need to get into the office at 7, you need to roll play for an hour, hour and a half every single morning. And then you wouldn't have to start pitching to potential clients until 9, 9, 30. But you've done two hours of role play. Yeah. Every morning. Yeah. Before you go out into the field. So, like with all my clients, I'll do role playing with every single one of them, handle objections. You know how to get people in an emotional state.

Yeah.

Which it. Getting people in an emotional state just comes down to asking open questions, which is the difference between. Open question is getting people to give you a specific answer. For example, why do you want to get this result? When do you want to achieve this result? A close question is, are you happy with the progress you're at currently? The yes or no question. So it's difficult to go somewhere where someone's just like, yes, no, no, yes, no. So there's no. There's no trust. There's no rapport. So that would be actually a good tip in terms of sales is ask a lot more open questions because the. The prospect or the member talking a lot more, which means it gives you more insights onto what they're experiencing and then subconsciously building more rapport as well, because you're asking great questions. That's great.

Awesome. All right, well, let's move on from here. That's great. I feel there's two types of people as well, Matt. There's types of people that maybe don't want to leverage. They're just like, hey, you know, I don't want to manage anyone. Don't want to run a big business. I just want to fill my books and have, you know, 40 sessions a week and make a couple thousand dollars a week in 20 hours, whatever it is, you know, great, happy days. But for those of. For those that do want to grow their business and do want to leverage. Tell us a little bit about that stage there. It sounds like you had the plan anyway. Your plan was always, hey, I want to form up, fill my books, and then bring someone else on. Let us know how did that work at the start? Any tips? If someone listening wants to do the same yeah, 100%.

So obviously the first part is obviously getting fully booked and then it's just a matter of offsetting your time to be able to focus on other things that you enjoy. So for me, it was always about, I wanted to have a bit more time that I could do, you know, whatever I wanted during the day. And that might look different for other people. For me, I wanted to spend more time learning other things. I wanted to create like online businesses and stuff like that. But other people, they just might want to spend some more time with their family, which is good, which is what I want now, now that I've got a little, little daughter. So how it essentially works is the first thing you want to do is be able to leverage your existing sessions so you can spend more time. So you don't want to do 40 sessions a week yourself and then have to do sales and marketing for everyone else in your team because then you're going to be working, you know, 40, 50, 60 hours a week. We want to leverage your existing sessions that you've already got onto other people. So then you're, you're basically just replacing the time that you're doing PT sessions with thousand marketing to therefore give it to another trainer to then just increase your income. But your work stays the same, like.

Your output, you're still working four hours a day. It's just that instead of running four sessions, you're running two sessions and doing sales and marketing for two hours.

Exactly. Right. So how it would work is so you're at 40 sessions a week. The first thing you've got to do is obviously hire a trainer because even.

That can be tricky.

Right. I was gonna say big question. Yeah, I'll. I'll give you a couple of tips in terms of hiring people. So in terms of hiring people, and this is the type of person you want to hire if you're wanting to get people to keep clients for a long period of time. So in terms of personality, you want like a. If you don't like a personality profile, you want like a yellow personality, which is. They're bubbly, they like talking to people, they're. They're quite outgoing and they can get along with most people. They're not very business focused, which is fine. They're not doing any of the business side anyway. So they just, they literally just want to do sessions. They don't care about business, they just want to help people and train people. Yeah. That's the type of person that you're looking for. Yeah. And you also want to make sure. You hire someone based on values, not so much skill level. So I like for example, I had, I hired a trainer that had 25, 30 years experience as a PC. But I've also hired people that are brand new into the industry as well. And hands down I would hire someone that's brand new to the industry and someone that's been in the industry 25 years. The reason why they, the person's been in the industry 25 years has got habits, attitudes that they've. And beliefs that they've had for 25 years on how things should work. Quote, should work but might not necessarily work in the model that you've got. Yeah. Which means it causes headaches, toxicity and it's just, it's just not a great time for retention plan. So I always recommend hiring people based on value. So attitude if they're willing to learn or student mentality if they're willing to learn. Because you're going to have to teach them all the skills on all the skills you'd have to teach them the systems that you use to get clients results. But most importantly you want someone that wants to grow with you as a company. So that's the couple things that you want to look out for. So attitude, student mentality. And don't just hire based on skills because you can always teach skills. Yeah. But you can't teach attitude. Yeah.

One hundred and even, even values in general. I find I'll share an example that kind of highlights that, that I, that that was told to me that works quite well. I think time's a big one. Right. I'm a big time kind of guy. If you're 12 minutes late, that affects me.

Right.

I want to be early for everything there. Now that's not the right way. That's just my way. If I'm building a team, it's important that everyone thinks like that there.

Right.

There's other people that time isn't a big thing. Five minutes late, no dramas, you know, more relaxed. That's fine as well. Right. You can hire people like that but if you have one on one and one on the other, it creates all sorts of conflicts there. That's why I think values is super important there. So awesome. That's great. We'd actually find these people though.

Matt. Yeah, good question, Good question. A couple of different avenues. So when I first started when I didn't really want to spend any money, I used to just find people on Facebook and Instagram. Yep. You'll find a lot of PTs actually have multiple income streams.

Yeah.

They'll work for a couple different gyms or they'll have like a part time job while they're trying to build a PC business. Yep. So. And a lot of people don't actually like doing sales and marketing.

Yeah.

Well, so they just, they got into the industry to train people. They don't like having to try and find clients. So it's actually a really good model for a lot of.

It's great.

Good pts.

Yeah, it's great.

Just want to train people and just want to help people. Yeah. Which people you're looking for. So Facebook and Instagram is, is another one. Facebook groups. There's plenty of Facebook groups that have, I think specifically there's like Queensland personal trainers. There's always people advertising for roles in there. But also obviously Seek. You'll have to pay for an ad for Seek, which is about $300 these days. Yep. And there's another, there's another one that I previously used. Right. Can't quite remember it off the top of my head but like even like because I'm at the stage with a couple of my clients at the moment that they're full and we're looking for trainers. The best place to start is look in your local, local gyms on Instagram and Facebook and see if they're posting about their pts. And you can easily find pts in the local.

Find if one. If they want.

Until you look, look at the other gyms in the area on Facebook, Instagram and see if they're posting about their pts on their Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. And then they'll usually post, sorry, tag them. And then it's just a matter of sending. Yes, yes, it's obviously. Yep. You literally just say, hey, hey Jono, it's Matt here from Any Sign Fitness. We're looking to expand. We've, we've got a bit of a waitlist on clients at the moment. I'm just wondering if you're looking to make some extra income.

Yeah, that's great. You got every trick in the book.

That's great. Awesome.

That's why. Yeah, you're right though this. Because the scripts are so important because the strategy is one thing. It's kind of like the way you do it is another. And I feel like throughout this conversation like the strategy was genius. The first one you said. But what's just as genius is the, the word to word. Hey, sorry guys. Don't, don't mean to bother you. You know, just quickly, you know, like I feel. And even this, you know, the way you, you, you Said that DM there. That's completely different to just, hey, you.

Want to work with me?

You know, or whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah. I find just. Just on that as well. I find when you're sending like a cold message, I think being super broad is a good way to be. Because, like, if you're. You're saying, like, if you. If you. Imagine if I sent you a DM and say, hey, John, I've got this amazing opportunity to. To come work at our anytime fitness facility. The pay is 40 an hour. You won't have to do any sales and marketing. I'm looking for someone with these times and can do this and this and this. They might get a bit overwhelmed.

Yeah, it's like the sale call from before. It's the same kind of thing.

Yeah. Just blurting out all this information. But if you say, hey, look, I just came across your profile on, you know, jets, and I saw you're a PC, and I was just wondering, as we've got a bit of a wait list for clients at the moment, we're currently full, are you looking to make some extra income to. And do some PC sessions and keep it super casual? And the start conversation is all about having conversations. And you just want to generate a conversation to start with so then you can build some rapport and build some trust. You just block everything out at the start. There's. There's no conversation. I'll probably just leave you on red or they won't even open the message.

Okay, what about payment? What does that payment split kind of look like? How much are you charging the client? How much does the. The trainer get roughly? Doesn't be exact, but you can give us some kind of indication.

I'll give you a bit of a rough idea. So when I. So my pricing. So I started. My pricing when I first started was 55 for 30 minutes. Now it's a bit higher because of limited time and availability. It's now 79. But on average, I'd say most trainers charge between 55 and 70. Gotcha. I'm gonna say we'll say 60. Yeah, yeah. So 60. So you're charging $60 for 30 minutes. So your hourly rate is 120. Gotcha. So I paid my trainers and I've still got trainers now. So they. They're on $40 an hour as a subcontractor. Yep. Maybe you think about it, you're making 120 and it's costing you 40.

Yeah.

So you're profiting $80 an hour. Y. You know, once they're sign up and stuff. You're not doing anything at all, really. You're just basically checking in with the client, making sure they're okay. Yeah. But that's essentially you. It's a fair bit of profit for doing nothing. Like it. Like if you, you're making $80 per hour and if you've got, if you've got someone doing 40 sessions, so that's 20 hours a week. You're making an extra $1600 per week.

Yeah.

Of income without getting out of bed. Yeah. But doing nothing. Yeah, yeah, that's great. But you know, imagine if you had that over five, six, seven trainers. Six trainers make an extra 1600 a week for you.

And is the strategy the same? So is it like. Let's use that example there. Let's say with this. So use your initial strategy. Great. You fill your books. You then handed over 20 clients to one trainer. Do they stay on the way? 20 sessions you handed over. I think it was 20 sessions.

Yeah, yeah.

Is the goal to, to get them to 40 sessions as well?

Yeah, I mean, depending on the trainer. Like some trainers only want 20 sessions. Yeah, true. But I mean, most people are pretty happy at 40 sessions. So even at $40 an hour. 40 an hour? Yeah. Part time. Like I've had trainers work for me that done 80 sessions in a week. Yeah. Which is crazy. Like he was young, he was keen. So 40 sessions. 20. 20 hours at 40. Now that's still 800 a week. Yeah. Hours work. Yeah.

That's great.

Just train people. What about. For a lot of people.

So let me get, let me get my head around this system. So let's say, let me just do it hypothetically. Right. Let's say there's a trainer, they fill their books, they get to 40 sessions, they bring another trainer on board. Let's even say they give that trainer all 40 sessions there because they want to be off the tool.

So.

Great. They give that trainer 40 there. They now want to bring another trainer on board. Can you bring a trainer on board with zero sessions available? Or do you always have to build yourself up first or what do you. How does that kind of work?

Great question. You can absolutely start from zero, which is what I have. The only. So I, I stopped doing PT sessions after like three months. Yeah. In my business, because I didn't want to have that. I didn't want to have those times taken up to not be able to do sales of marketing for the rest of the team. Because when you have a team, they're relying on you for Income. Yeah. It's a lot more pressure. So for me personally, like when I opened the second location, third, fourth, fifth, they all started from zero. Gotcha. It's only when I first started that I was doing sessions and I had, I had the ability to then leverage straight over to the, to the other trainer. Yep. So most of the time, like if you want to go into multiple locations, you have to start from zero. And that's where that giveaway strategy is perfect because they can get 30, 40 sessions a week after a month, which is probably nothing they've ever experienced before.

But do you bring them on straight away or do you, do you do the, the, you do the giveaway yourself and then once you've got those leads, you bring that person on, you still do the sales, but they. Is that how that kind of works?

Yeah. So there's a bit of an overlap. So there'd probably be about two weeks of overlap where they'll be in training, like learning systems, for example. So the strategy will usually take about three weeks to get the required leads and then one to two weeks to, to get everyone booked in for their consultation. So you could probably, you, you, you basically you'd start the strategy and then you'd look to hire someone and then they'd have about one week of maybe shadowing other trainers, shadowing yourself, just to learn how we do things. Because not a lot, not a lot of people do 30 minute sessions as well. So they might need to adapt and learn how to actually take control of the session, to do 30 minute sessions rather than 45. And then basically once they've completed the training, then you can start to get them taking some sessions and you might shadow them, for example, make sure they're okay to take on these new clients that are about to come on board. Because you're still generating leads at this stage.

Yeah.

All you're doing at the moment is training them. Generating leads. Yeah. So you're probably not gonna have too many people signing up at this stage. There's, don't get me wrong, there's other strategies as well that we do that you can get, you know, 10, 10 consults every single week. Yeah. But if we're just focusing on the one strategy, which you can literally just focus on the one strategy to get the desired result, then there's a week of training slash onboarding. They might, depending on how many people you've got signing up, you might have another week of them running sessions and you shadowing them to ensure there's a smooth process for when new Clients come on board and then those next two weeks after that is just about getting new clients on the books. Gotcha. Awesome.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So use that strategy that gives a bunch of clients there. You're still doing the sales, Right. You're doing the, the calls and you're doing the consult as well. But you're just saying, hey, your sessions will be with Amanda or Travis or whoever it may be.

Yeah. Here's some more value for you. This is how you have the transition to onboarding. So because people are buying into the system, they're not buying into you as an individual, buying into the system that you're using to get them the results. Yeah. So you could say, hey, Jono, I'm glad we're doing the, the two sessions a week. So we've got a team of trainers here. So there's going to be a team effort to get you the results. So we've got a, we've got, we got Jasmine, that's going to be your face to face trainer. I'm going to be working with you behind the scenes to make sure you're getting the results possible. So you can contact both of us for any assistance that you need. So instead of having just one trainer, you get two trainers, so you get double the value.

That's amazing.

Boom. And literally every single person is completely fine with that. Yeah.

Oh, it sounds better.

Yeah.

I'm in the industry. He said that to me. I'm like, this is great. I'm getting to steal. Do I have to pay the other one as well or is it the one price?

You buy one, get one free?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Awesome. All right, cool, man. No, that sounds great. And that's. Yeah, look, to be honest, I think that strategy is amazing. I've got a couple questions I like to finish up with all the time. So can you give us an indicator, so your initial business coaching with Simon, can you give us an indication of how much that costs? You have to say exactly, but there's a follow up question to it. You can give us maybe a ballpark if you're comfortable.

Yeah, that's for sure. I can tell you exactly how much it cost if you want. Okay. About 25k. Gotcha.

How much would you have, looking back now with everything you know, would you have paid 50k for it?

Yeah, I mean, I got well and truly above return on investment. So anytime I think about an investment, as long as I get a return on it, then it's irrelevant. So if I told you I Could guarantee you'd make $2 million and you pay me a million. Would you do it?

I'd do 1.9 million.

So it's, it's irrelevant. Like for my business now, I always make sure I've got like a guarantee of results. Yeah. To make sure that they get a return on investment. Yeah. But yeah, 100%. I like, I was with him for probably about two years. Yeah. So it was with multiple amounts of that that I ended up paying him eventually. But that was the, that was the initial investment required. But you know, I've done a lot of work with like Cohen Ray and stuff and his investments are about 55, 55,000 for 12 months. And yeah, I always got a return on investment. So it's irrelevant how much it's cost me because it's given me the skills and the minds that, you know, 10x that, that investment easily. Love it. Awesome.

Maybe let me ask that question. All right. Kerwin Ray. So you paid what, 55k?

Yeah.

For a year?

Yeah.

Would you have paid 100? I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep going 200.

200? I'd probably pay. I'd probably pay upwards of 150. One hundred and fifty. Okay, gotcha. I reckon I probably got, I probably got probably. Yeah, I probably got about 200k worth of value out of the 55. I say because it wasn't, it wasn't specifically fitness specific, it was more human psychology mindset and just getting around other people that were super, super successful in other industries and learning a lot of them. But yeah, every, any mentor that I've had, I've always got a return on investment, so I've had no issues. Even the new mentor I've got now, that's. It's about 40,000. But I know I'm going to get a return on investment because he's got good results from other people and I know once I pay I'm going to take the required action to get desired result. When you pay more, you pay more attention. Love it.

You give that mentor a shout out who you, You've.

Dimitri. Dimitri Ross.

Oh, yes, I've seen him on Facebook. Dimitri friends on Facebook.

Yeah, he's not spit specific. He kind of helps all small business owners. Yeah. But his is more around getting super clear on your client avatar who you want to help and how to structure your offer in the best way possible and like make your offer so irresistible that people literally feel stupid saying no to it. So in the process of working on my offer to make it, give that.

A plug, because you told me off air. Can you give that a plug on air?

Yeah, I'll give you a good plug. So my current offer that I'm working on is if people want to work with me, I guarantee that you, you'll make. After 42 days, you'll be making 2,700 per week recurring income.

That's great. Is there. And when you say you guarantee what if, what if it doesn't happen? Is there a money back?

Is there a work money back?

Money back.

That's great. All, all responsibilities on me, I guess, to get you that result. So as long as obviously they're put in the work, they've got to do the things that I tell them to do. Yeah, but yeah, so from. Ideally for startup PTs or struggling PTs that are anywhere from 0 to $500 per week and we get them up to 10, it'll be 10,800 per month in, in 42 days. So the PT giveaway strategy is one thing that we go through, but there's three or four other marketing strategies that we'll do as well to get you that result. And then, and then from there, once you're full, then we work about work on simplifying your systems, making sure the systems are all good, therefore scale, whether it's online or whether it's face to face still and hiring other people, other trainers to, to leverage your time. Love it.

Someone's interested, where do they go to hear more or can we do we follow you on social in the meantime with where someone goes? Just whether they want the offer or whether they just want to hang out and learn from you?

Yeah, I'm, I'm mainly on Facebook and Instagram. I'm not on, I'm not on any other platforms much, so mainly Facebook, Instagram. Just my name. So Matt Dart for Facebook, I think it's on my Instagram handle is Matt G. Dart. But if you just type in Matt Dart, it'll. It'll come up. So that's, that's where you find me. So if you've got some value, hit me up and let me know in the dms. It's always good to get some feedback on, on these conversations. So. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, Matt, that's pretty much everything I wanted to get through today. Is there anything I should have asked you but forgot to or anything you want to finish us off with?

No, I think we covered a hell of a lot. Like we went through, you know, literally the whole marketing process to get to, you know, get fully booked in, you know, in 42 days or in 30 days if you, if you're really super, super keen. And then yeah, I suppose the last thing I want to finish on is there is endless opportunities for face to face pt. You don't have to go online where everyone and his dog is. So there's still plenty of opportunity for face to face pts. Get fully booked, leverage your time whether it's face to face or online. But yeah, it's an absolute game changer if you have the right people in your corner to show you what to do to get you the desired result that you want.

Awesome.

Love it.

All right, Matt, thanks for your time.

No worries mate. Thank you for listening. If you liked this show, share it with your friends, subscribe on itunes and leave us a five star review. For show notes and free training on how to grow your fitness business, visit www.fitnesseducationonline.com.

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