Matt Dart argues the first 2-3 seconds of a video is everything for personal trainers. A strong hook determines whether people watch, engage, and buy. Many good PT videos fail because their hooks are vague, so spend most of your time crafting them with specificity and polarizing language.
Questions this episode answers
Episode 105
January 26, 2026
The first 2–3 seconds of a video (maximum 5 seconds)
Spend six days on the hook and one day on the rest of the content
"Hook Builder" (message the host with the word 'the hook' to request it)
Chapters
The hook is the main reason as to why your content gets the amount of views and gets the amount of engagement that it gets. It's probably the hook that needs the biggest amount of attention. Because if you can't get the hook right, the rest of it doesn't matter. If people only really watching 3 seconds of your 30 second reel, the rest of the content is irrelevant. So if you want to stand out on social media, you need to make sure you get your hook right to earn the attention. And the attention is what gets the business foreign. What's going on guys? Matt here from the pt, Profit, Leverage and Lifestyle show. I'm actually in a podcast studio for the first time. I actually hide out this amazing room to do the next couple of episodes. So I'm going to be testing out a new format as well. I've got a couple of questions that I'm going to ask myself in a second to keep me on track. This is episode 105, so make sure if you're not subscribing to YouTube channel, make sure you hit subscribe and give us some love in the comments as always. So this episode today, it's going to be called Hooks don't sell. They earn attention and attention is the business. So we're going to talk mainly around social media today and I actually did a training on this for my clients about a week or two ago called the Hook Builder because the hook is the main reason as to why your content gets the amount of views and gets the amount of engagement that it gets. If you're not finding you're getting much engagement or interaction or views on your content, it's mainly because your hook is not good enough. It's actually not sparking any curiosity. It's not getting any attention at all. So we're gonna go through a little bit of detail about the hooks and my opinions on this as well. So we're actually gonna be changing up a little bit of the format for the podcast. Podcast gonna be more about my opinion on certain things and then we're gonna do a separate video each week on YouTube. Gonna be more tactical, more skillset wise. So I'm pumped to get into it. So let's get into the first question in terms of what is an actual hook to start with. So the hook is actually the, the first two to three seconds of a reel or a video or if it's like a carousel or an image, the first. Or if it's, if it's a carousel, the first page is the hook. So how do you grab People's attention, How do you make sure they're serious? Or how do you, how do you get them interested? To consume more is what the hook is. So if you're finding that people are watching just the first three to five seconds of your video, it's probably the hook that needs the biggest amount of attention. And a quote that I heard my, my mentor say actually recently is, is, well, it's not really a quote, it's more like his philosophy. But if you had, if you had seven days to make one piece of content, how long would you spend on the hook? So I want you to think about for a second, how long would you spend on the hook if you had seven days to make one piece of content? Now some of you might say five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, one hour, maybe, maybe one day. Me personally, before I started to go pro on social media, it was like 30 minutes max. If we look at it like a percentage, like 10 to 20% of the time that I spent was on the hook. And you know what my mentor said? He said if he had seven days, he would spend six days on the hook and one day on the rest of the content. Because if you can't get the hook right, the rest of it doesn't matter. If people only really watching 3 seconds of your 30 second reel, the rest of the content is irrelevant. Okay? So if you want to stand out on social media, you need to make sure you get your hook right to earn the attention. And the attention is what gets the business. Okay, let's get into the next question. So why do you believe attention is the most valuable currency for personal trainers in 2026? So as I was saying just before, if you can't get attention, there's no possible way that you're going to attract people into your DMs to be commenting if you don't get any attention. So the first part of the process is you need to make sure that your hook is good enough to spark the curiosity to get them to pay attention to watch the whole video. Because the hook is not going to give them any education. The middle part of the reel or the carousel is going to give them all the information or the education that you're trying to get across to them. But if the hook is dead, or if the hook is not sparking any interest, then the rest of the content is pointless. So if you're watching this and you're struggling to grow your audience, then maybe it's time to have a conversation with me about how you can grow on Your social media. So what's the biggest reason good content still fails despite being educational and accurate? So everyone here, I think, is quite good on their education. Everyone, like, you're, you're already a really good pt and that's not the problem here. The problem here is you don't know how to get attention so they actually understand the value that you can provide in your content. Remember, the hook is not trying to sell your services. It's not trying to sell your PT sessions or your online coaching. The hook is there to sell the actual video. If I give a live example of a lot of personal trainers will post, like their workouts, for example, or what their, what they're eating, you might say something like, hey, this is what I eat in a day as like your hook. But that's not sparking any interest. That's not sparking any curiosity for me. So, like, I'm not going to watch that whole video. Whereas if you say, here's the three foods that I have or each day, or here's the three ingredients that I have in every single meal to make sure that I hit my protein goal to be able to lose body fat. So, yeah, it's a lot more specific. It sparks my curiosity. But more importantly, it's, it's speaking to my ideal client as well. Okay, so good content still fails because the hook is not grabbing any attention. In summary, next question. Where do most PTs lose the viewer? The first line, the first sentence, or the first concept and the reason why. So let's talk about reels for a second. It's the first line, you lose the viewer in the first line. So if you're talking about a reel or any type of video, the hook is the first two to three seconds, a maximum five seconds. If you go to your insights. If you're on Instagram, for example, if you go to insights on your latest reel and you scroll all the way down, it'll say average watch time. If your average watch time is between three to five seconds, it means the hook is not good. If it's three seconds, it's definitely the hook. If it's five seconds, it's what you say after the initial hook that is getting people to stop watching and just scrolling to the next thing. What is my take on controversy and polarization in hooks? Is it necessary or optional and why? So if you want to get more attention, you don't necessarily have to be polarizing, but that is how you get more attention is to be a little bit polarizing or controversial. All those people that are Controversial. Like Andrew Tate, for example, who know him, he's very controversial, but he gets a lot of attention because he's controversial. Anything that's like against the norm is going to be getting more attention. So, for example, as a PT, let's say, you know, most PTs say they need to do like 10,000 steps per day, or you need to track their food or track your client's food to help them with their nutrition. If you want to be polarizing, you might say something completely against that being like, stop doing 10, 10,000 steps per day. You need to do this instead. That could be a really good hook for you right there. So stop doing this. Do this instead. Okay, let's go through the next one. What's one rule you follow when riding hooks that you think most pts ignore? So the number one rule is you need to spend more time on your hook. Most pts spend 10% at best writing their hook or there's no hook at all. And by the way, there's actually five different types of hooks that we might go through in a later episode, like text hook, audio hook, visual hook, that type of stuff. We're just talking about the basic stuff right now. But you need to spend time on the hook. You better make sure it's targeted towards your ideal client. You need to be a little bit polarizing to get the hook across the line because as I said before, you it's not a requirement, but you are going to get more attention. At the end of the day, if you get more attention, you're going to get more views, more engagement, and then more opportunities to have more conversations with your ideal client and then close more deals, therefore make more money as well. So if you're on the fence over your online coaching, specifically, you need to make sure that your hooks are on point. If you're doing a face to face, you don't necessarily need to do too much in terms of social media content, but it will help you long term with your business. So if you want to, or if you want the training that I did for my clients a couple of weeks ago called the Hook Builder, just send me a message and say the hook and I'll send you through that training. But until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Bye bye.
