Ep36: The World's Largest Fitness Education Online Platform + How To Increase Your Retention

What's going on, everyone? Matt here from the PT Profit, Leverage and Lifestyle show. I've got an absolute superstar with me today, Jono. So I was actually on Jono's podcast a little while ago and he actually. You don't actually know this, Johnny, but you inspired me to make my own podcast.

Boom.

How good is that? I didn't actually tell you that. So, yeah, we are, we're about 35 episodes in now, so I've been pretty consistent over the last six months. But Johnny, you've actually got one of the biggest, you know, online fitness educational platforms in the world. So do you want to give us a bit of a, A summary of, I suppose, how that, how you got into that space?

Yeah, for sure. Firstly, man, off the bat, thank you for having me. I guess having me as a guest on your show means I get to speak about my favorite topic in the world myself, so thank you. So give a bit of backstory. So my back, usual deal, I, I went to uni, studied exercise science, exercise physiologist, finished that, wanted to work in the fitness industry. So I got a job in the gym. And long story short, it sucked. Right? It was, there was some good things about it, but it was essentially like a Cert 3 role, you know, So I was there full time, was on a salary of maybe $40,000 a year, working 40 hours a week, you know, was cleaning the treadmills and stocking the, the Coke machines and doing the bathroom checks and putting the weights away. So, you know, important stuff along there. I was obviously helping people with technique and doing some onboarding and pre screening and whatnot as well. So did learn a lot, but a lot of stuff that needs to be done but isn't the most fun and wasn't the most financially rewarding as well. So I was on, was looking for other opportunities, went on seek and there was an opportunity there to run a boot camp where most of the boot camp instructors made. I think it was, I think the numbers were they make $75,000 a year working like five hours a week or something like that. And I was like, don't know if I believe it, but I'm going to give it a crack. Because if it's anything, if it's even a fraction of that, it's better than what I'm on at the moment. Even if it's not 75,000, even if it's 35,000, it's still what I'm making over here. But I'm working five hours and not 40 or maybe it is 75,000. But I need to work 40 hours. Great, I'll do it. It's still better than what I'm doing at the moment. Right. So took that opportunity and got it. You know, I still, still, to this day, I'm not too sure how I got it because I'd never run a bootcamp before. I think I lied on my resume or, you know, exaggerated my resume or whatever, but, you know, got the job. That was good. And it was actually true. Right. Most of their instructors did make over $75,000 a year working, you know, five hours a day or whatever it was. But I was not one of those instructors. Right. And it got to the end of the year and we had to have like a meeting in the Gold coast. There was 75 different kind of boot camp locations, and all of us had to go. And also there was a ranking system, so we all had a dashboard, and you were ranked on how good you were, essentially based on how many of your clients came back. So let's say, for example, I had 20 clients in my boot camp, and all 20, few of them came back for another 12 weeks. My retention rate was 100%. Let's say I had 20 clients and none of them came back. It would be zero. So it was quite, quite a fair way to rank yourself, right. On how good you were compared to the other 75 instructors. But take a guess, Matt. Where do you think I was ranked after that first year? One being the best, 75 being the worst.

I'd say given you haven't got any type of experience, you would have been pretty, pretty low, I would imagine.

Yeah. Yeah. Take a guess. What number 75 won't offend me. Yeah, banger. 75. All right. And I knew 74. 74 was not a good trainer. Right. It's not like these were all guns. And I just happened to be the, you know, the lowest. There wasn't like the Olympics. And you came 75 in the Olympics, which is still pretty good. Yeah, I was not a good trainer. And I had to have a meeting at the end of the year at this conference with the, the owners of the, the kind of boot camp franchise. And they're like, jono, you know, you're coming 75th out of 75. What's going on? And I was like, oh, it's not my fault, you know, it's. It's a competition, you know, where I am in Sydney. There's all these 24 hour gyms, there's all these personal trainers, boot camps. Like it's not much competition, you know, and I was like, also like the sales and the marketing, you know, you guys are meant to be doing the sales and the marketing for us. And you know, the, the leads that you're getting are just rubbish. You know, none of them, none of them are signing up. And also the weather, like, I live here in Sydney, you know, it's not the Gold coast where it's good weather, you know, every, every day or whatever. I'm here in Sydney and it rains, you know, it's hard for people to come to boot camp. And the head of the, the franchise, two of them, a couple. I'll never forget this because it's probably the most pivotable moment in my life. They were essentially right. Jono, we got some good news and we got some bad news. The bad news is, as a boot camp instructor, you suck. You're coming 75th out of 75, right? But the good news is you can actually do something about it. Because if you look at the reasons you mentioned to us, why coming 75th, they're all something you can do something about because you just sitting there blaming everybody else but yourself. Maybe it's not the competition's fault that you suck. Maybe it's your fault you haven't done enough to be better than the competition. What upskilling have you done? What courses or CC courses have you done? What conferences have you been to? And I was like, ah, I go to FileX every two years to get my CCS. No, like, Johnny, that's like the bare minimum just to stay in the industry. Like, of course if you do the bare minimum, you're going to be down the bottom. And they're like, also like sales and marketing. Is it the fact that our marketing sucks or our leads are bad, or is it the fact that your sales skills aren't that good? What sales books have you read? What business coaches have you hired? What sales training have you done? And I was like, oh, got to do that too. And they're like, and also, if our marketing is so bad, why don't you go and do some of your own marketing? And I was like, oh, yeah, it's probably a good point too. And they were like, and the weather, John, you're blaming the weather. You can go out and hire like a school hall or a community hall for like 20 bucks. You can solve your biggest problem for 20 bucks, but instead of trying to solve it, you're sitting here blaming everybody but yourself. They go, johnny, your position safe. But what we want you to do for the next 12 months is stop blaming everybody else, right? Take. What we want you to do is essentially take 100% responsibility for your business, for your life and for your clients. If some client doesn't come back, don't think of who else to blame. Think what could you have done better, right? And there were a few things there. So I did that and I'll get to a couple of things I did, you know, throughout that, that period, but then 12 months later, actually we'll get to that now. So, yeah, within that next 12 month period, what I did is I, I upskilled heaps. I was, all right, first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go and do a CEC course on how to run a boot camp. Went on Google, found a course, did it and it was great. You know, the course was, I don't know, 500 bucks something. But as a result, directly from what I learned in that course, I was able to pick up another two or three clients which were essentially paying me about 500 bucks. So, like, I did this course, I got like a three times roi and then I went and did another one and the same thing. I was like, this is great, I'm just going to keep doing more of these courses because I'm getting an ROI on them. And then I went, not just courses, also read some books, hired some business coaches, went on YouTube, even in the gym, you know, found the, the, the personal trainers and the instructors that were the busiest. I was like, right, how can I emulate these, These people are obviously very good at what they do. How can I emulate it and bring it into, into my own business? So did a whole heap of upskilling, but also did a whole heap of accountability and responsibility type of stuff and I took it to the next level. I'll give you this specific example. So when I was 75th, there was a member that, that didn't come back to my boot camp for the next kind of 12 weeks because she had netball season. She's like, jono, I love your boot camp, it's great. But I also love netball and trainings on the same day. So, you know, I can't make it. And previously I would have been like, ah, what can I do? You know, she's got netball. Nothing I can do, right? But then I kind of flipped the switch, sorry, my airpod came out so sweet. Then I flicked the switch and I was like, okay, you know, it wasn't, I'm not going to blame netball, right? I'm going to take Responsibility. It wasn't. She didn't come back Knock as a netball. The reason she didn't come back was because I didn't make my boot camp better than her experience at netball. If I had made my boot camp better than that experience, I would have. She would have said, hey, sorry, netball people love you. But this boot camp source, right? But I took it to the next level and I still remember this. There was this one lady. How so? She was coming to my boot camp in Sydney and she was like, hey, you know, Jono, I'm not going to be able to sign up the next 12 weeks. I've got a promotion and I need to move to Brisbane for that promotion. So, you know, I'm not going to be in the. I'm going to be in Sydney. I can't do boot camp. And previously I would have been like, ah, what can you do? She got a promotion, she's been to state, yada, yada, yada. But I was like, no, no, no, no, I'm taking responsibility for this. I'm going to make this boot camp so good that this lady is going to turn down that job opportunity in Brisbane, going to stay in Sydney, because you can get jobs, promotions anywhere. A boot camp like mine, it's once in a lifetime. That was my mission. I did everything in my, my power to do that and, you know, came to the boot camp. What do you think, Matt? Did you stay on or did you go to Brisbane?

Stayed on, mate.

No, I wish. I wasn't that long. I wish. But here's the thing, every single other member did. And at that Stage I had 100 clients, right? So 99 of them came back. The only one that didn't was her. But I feel like just by pitching at that standard, you know, just by going in with that mindset that I'm going to make this, this boot camp or this business, this personal training so good that someone is going to turn down a job opportunity to stay there. Whether they do or not is kind of irrelevant. It just means that I'm doing everything in my power to give an amazing service. If that person comes back or they don't, doesn't really matter because everyone else is getting an amazing experience by pitching it at that level there. So anyways, went through that and, you know, 12 months later went to the same conference. Now, take a guess what I was ranked, Mac one out of 75.

I'd say top five for sure.

Top five. Number one.

Right?

So, yeah, yep. So went from 20 clients to 100 coins. My retention went from I think 50 to 100% and was able to open up. Then the next year, similar kind of thing, opened up a second location, same kind of thing there, right. So was pretty good at that. And then throughout that, like other trainers started to ask me. They're like, jona, how are you doing this? Like, we knew you last year and you were rubbish. You know, you were like, who was boot camp instructor in the, in the world? And now you've got all these clients, your attention's great, all these locations, How'd you do it? And I try and give them little tips here and there. I'd be like, oh, yeah, just do this course and that course and read this book and go to this instructor and listen to this podcast and watch these YouTube videos. But it was just too much and too random. And traveled to this conference in New Zealand and this one in America. It was just too random and no one would do it. So I was like, you know what? I feel like I can put together a course that covers everything that I know and nothing that you don't. Because what would happen with me? There's a couple things. When I was doing all this upskilling, the first couple courses I did were very specific to bootcamp, but after that, they weren't that specific to boot camp. I'd have to kind of learn a skill and then reverse engineer it into bootcamp. Like I would go and do a course on how to use kettlebells. But majority of the things they would teach is in a one on one setting, you know, Right. You're at a gym, you know, you got this one client. Here's how you do Turkish get ups and windmills and cleans and you can't do that boot camp, you know, or like, hey, you've got, you know, 10, 10 people and he's 10 kettlebells go and do. You can't do that boot camp. You know, you probably got 20 people in five or six. So I had to kind of reverse engineer. Same with sales. I would go and do a course on sales. So much of it was geared, hey, you're working in a gym, you know, a member comes up, hey, he's, hey, do your initial consult, show them around the gym. You do whatever. The system was, wasn't super specific to boot camp. It would still work. I'd go there and take the principles there and reverse engineer into boot camp. But there was nothing specifically. So it's like, I feel I can put together something that's just for boot camp so that people don't need to do all these different things and. And reverse engineer. And also the other side of things there. It was just like, the more. Yeah, she was. Maybe that was just like, I feel I can put together this course that's better than anything else out there, or at very least, difference different, right? So I was like, cool, you know, let me put together this course. This is going back 20, I think 2014, right. So online wasn't really a thing. And I was, all right, how do I get to get out of this course? All right, I need to find a venue, I need to market it, I need to do all that. And I was like, I'm already working like six days a week. You know, the only day I have office, Sunday. I don't really want to run a CC course on my one day off. And you know, what happens if I do it and no one comes? You know, I've done all that marketing and paid for the venue, whatever, and no one comes. Or worse, what happens if I do it and one person comes? Then I actually have to run the session. No one comes. I can just go home, you know, Right. Wasted money, but no time. But one person comes and we lose money and time. So I was like, all right, let me look into this. This. Yeah, I put it to the side. I was like, it's not worth it. And then, oh, no, sorry. And I thought, oh, maybe I can do it online. So I went on Google and, yeah, search some stuff and, you know, someone was like, yeah, we can create a website for you when it's, you know, $20,000. You can host it on there. And I was like, ah, you know, not really something I want to do at this stage. You know, too much work, too much money, too much effort. Put it to the side. And then I was scrolling through Facebook once again. 2014, right? So different world, but just to kind of share the story of the message. And then a kind of ad popped up and it was like, hey, you know, check out this ebook. I'll buy this ebook. I was like, the hell's an ebook? So, you know, anyway, I did it and I bought it and I'll. I was going through an ebook. Was good. I can't remember what it was, but I was going through it and I was like, hold on, this is just this ebook thing. This is just a Microsoft. This is just a PDF document, right? And I was like, I thought to have an ebook yet to be an author or a publisher or something like that. And I was like, hold on, I'm a technological dunce I'm a pt, right? But I know how to open Microsoft Word and press save as PDF. So I was like, you know what, I think I can put together this course. Let me put it together as an ebook, right? So I'm teed up with my partner as well at the time, Travis, my business partner. You know, we created this, this awesome ebook. It was like 90 pages of everything you need to run a successful boot camp, right? Great content. But there's a problem with was Microsoft Word document, right? And it looked like it. And I was like, all right, even if I press Save as PDF, it still looks like a Microsoft Word document. So I was like, I've got to make it look prettier. You know, took the night off work and fiddled around to try and make it look better and made it look worse. Because if you're not good with Microsoft Word, you know, in depth stuff, the picture goes behind it, the page breaks everywhere, it changes font size. I was like, man, what am I going to do? So went to my old friend Google and tried to search and stumbled across this website, Fiverr. Do you know the website Fiverr, man?

Hey, I use Fiverr all the time.

I know, I'd never heard of it. Right, great. Yeah. And I went on there and I was like, what the heck? And it's changed a bit now, but back in those days, you could get anything you want done for five quid. It's like a five British pounds. It's in, in the uk they say a Fiverr, that means five quid or five British pounds, right? Know what's going on here? And I was like, no way can I get all this stuff done for the five quid, right? And then there was this one specifically. There were obviously, you know, we'll make your ebook pretty. We'll do this, we'll do that. But there was this one guy and he's like, I'll slap myself in the face for five quid. I was like, what is can't be real. I was like, what an idiot. What loser would go on here and slap himself on the face for five bucks, right? But I bought it because I just wanted to check it out, right? So I bought it, I paid five quid, and within like five minutes, this guy had sent me a video of himself slapping himself in the face. And I was like, wow, I'll give him credit. I gave him a tip, you know, I gave him five stars. I was like, at least he's committed. But then I got thinking and I was like, hold on, this Guy that sent me this video, he didn't like introduced himself or anything. He didn't say, hey, Jono, he just sucked for you. There was no date on it with a newspaper or whatever. And I was like, let me go, because he sent me an unlisted YouTube video. How he sent it to me, right? And then I went back to that video and it had like 100,000 views, right? So what this guy did is he slapped himself in the face once, put it on YouTube as unlisted and then put it on fiverr. And all these people, idiots like me, would pay him five quid and he would send him that same video. This guy made half a million British pounds by slapping himself in the face. And I thought he was an idiot. I literally thought, what idiot would slap himself in the face, right? So he did that. But again, and also with this guy, like, he wasn't Mr. Charisma, you know, this guy had, you know, was like, you know, like, wasn't charismatic, no sense of humor, could barely speak English, wasn't that good looking. Like, I'm like, if this guy can make half a million pounds by slapping himself in the face once, what the hell is my excuse, right? That, that kind of motivated me to the power of online. You know, do the work once and then never have to keep selling that same thing and never have to do it again. But it also showed me the power of like unlisted YouTube videos. I was like, hold on, this Microsoft Word document that I've got, why don't I just get my phone and also take videos and then just, you know, put the links to those, put those unlisted YouTube video links in that ebook. And now all of a sudden it's not just a, any a Microsoft Word document. There's also video content there as well, right? I also found someone to edit it for five quid or whatever it was. So then after that, you know, had this like, not only was it good content, but it looked better because paid someone to make it look better for five quid and it was also video content as well. So, you know, had that, you know, put that together there and got it registered with, with ccs, with OS Active or Fitness Australia at the time, didn't have a clue how to sell it. But because it was on the os, Active website would get a few inquiries. And I remember this first inquiry, they rang me up, they're like, hey, I want to do this course. How do I buy it? And in my head I'm like, that's a good question. I Have no idea to sell this thing. You can pay me for this thing. So I use my old, my old line. I've been using this for years, ever since like, hey, I'm just about to step into a meeting. Let me give you a buzz in back in 20 minutes. And that gave me enough time to kind of Google it. And I was like, all right, cool. You know, PayPal is probably the easiest to get a PayPal link. Yada, yada, yada. And by the way, for everyone listening, I wouldn't do this today, right? Like, if you want to create an online course today, there's way better ways to do it. But I just want to kind of highlight how, I guess how easy it is in today's world and how like, affordable it is to put some of these, these things together. So anyways, long story short, did that made a few, few sales from the course was. Was always a bit. The first few sales. I was very scared, scared of the. Because there was a feedback form at the end of it. And I'll never forget the, the first feedback form. I was so scared for two reasons. Number one, I was like, hold on. Like, quite a bit of imposter syndrome. It's like, ah, yeah, look, I've got it. I'm the best boot camp instructor in my kind of circle. You know, the first person in Sydney and kind of east coast. But the first person that bought the course was from Perth. I was like, man, are they going to be like, this is rubbish. I know all this, you know, this is easy stuff, yada, yada, yada. There was that. But I was also like, are these people going to be like, I just paid this guy 300 bucks for a Microsoft Word document. Give me a refund. You know, I got that first feedback for it. It was great. It was like, oh, this is so good. Really good ideas. I could do it online in my own time, my own pace, yada, yada, yada. And the first kind of, you know, four or five feedback forms or like that. And then from there I was just off to the races. I was like, I'm onto something. You know, like, this is. The course is good. People love it. It's so scalable. I've done the work, I don't need to. Every sale I make, I don't need to do any more work. You know, I just need to deliver on this one thing and make sure they get it. And then that went very well. Then created another course, another course, another course, you know, within a year or two, quit my boot camp because the online side of things was just, you know, generating in more revenue and less work than the boot camp. And yeah, fast forward now we've got something like 50 different CEC courses. We're across like four different countries. Australia, New Zealand, UK, USA, Canada, a little bit in India as well. Yeah, that's, that's basically if I to put it down to like a couple kind of things there, it would be like those same principles have started early on just from like responsibility and accountability and continuing education, like everything to this. I've kind of yada yada. It wasn't just I snapped my fingers, here's 50 courses. Right. But you know, it was like just those two things. How can I take responsibility, accountability and what don't I know? How, like what course can I do or who can I pay to essentially learn how to do this thing so I can get better at it 100%.

That's quite, quite the journey that you've been on there, which is awesome to see. I didn't know that story. So thanks for, thanks for sharing. One thing I want to touch on as well, you, you spoke obviously quite a lot on retention there, which is obviously a massive thing. So most of my audience is, you know, one on one. There's obviously some online trainers in there as well. But a lot of the, a lot of the trainers are one on one. So I talk to trainers about this quite regularly. Because you, like most people don't want to have to do sales and marketing forever. Yeah, people, they'd rather just obviously train the same people for a longer period of time.

Yeah.

But I don't think many people actually, you know, sit back and say, hey, look, how do I actually, you know, create a better experience for the, for the member? Do you think that was one of the biggest things for you?

The biggest thing for me, because it's like. And I think it's even more highlighted in boot camp because I feel one on one PT, you know, what do you got? 20 clients, you know, maybe. So it's kind of like, yeah, it's a smaller number, but in boot camp, let's say I've got 100 clients, right? The difference between a 50%, you know, retention rate and is half and 100% is massive. It's 50 people, you know, so like, even if, like because the numbers sound, it's, I guess it's double your income either way. But just numbers wise, let's say you've got 20 PT clients and half of them leave and you got 10, it's only 10 people. You lost, Right. Like bootcamp, it's such a massive thing. And that's. Yeah, it's kind of like, it's the old leaky bucket thing, you know, it's like, right, if I've got 50 clients, I want all 50 of them to come back, and then I want to get another 10, 20 new. Right. Now I got 70 now I want all 70 to come back, and now I get another 10, 20 new. Like, it's just so much easier to grow that way. So, yeah, it's massive. That was like my. My biggest initially. And I think, yeah, I think initially that's such an important thing is like, right, how can I get my retention really on point now. I've got this thing on point now. I can scale it through the roof. Yeah.

And I think as well, like, it's one thing to, like, I've upskilled a lot with business wise, but I was thinking earlier, I haven't really upskilled too much in terms of my training abilities. Too much. So do you want to give us a bit of an insight into what type of things we can do through your education platform?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So we do everything in our platform, 50 different courses, and it kind of depends what you want a niche in. So what we've done at Fitness Education Online, the initial courses were myself and Travis, me and my business partner, and they were mainly around, like, boot camp, functional training, that kind of stuff there. And we built a bit of a community, actually, at the largest Facebook group in the world for personal trainers. If you're not in there, join Fitness Education Online community. And then we'd start to get other requests, you know, hey, can you guys put together a nutrition course? I don't know that good at nutrition. I know how to run a boot camp. You know, I'm no nutritionist or dietitian or. Hey, can you put together a course on how to train pregnant postnatal women? Not my specialty, you know, but because of our network, we were able to essentially source different people that were experts in that field there. So pretty much any. Any course you want, we have it. Whether it's boot camp, whether it's functional training, whether it's training pregnant postnatal women, menopausal women, older adults, K programming, special populations, you know, special needs clients, like, whatever your kind of niche is, we'll have a course there that's designed by pretty much the best person in the world in that. That specific thing. So. But. And the message I'd say for the. The listeners there is probably pick a lane, you know, pick something that, that you kind of want to specialize in and go deep in that. Yeah, that'd be my tip.

Yeah, I agree. Because like, I got caught up just trying to help everyone at the start. Like it's, it's a bit unmotivating sometimes when you, you're not really, you know, it's not really connected to your purpose or anything or what you actually want. Sometimes it gets a bit not, not boring. But like, sometimes it's, it's harder to, to go. To do what you've got to do. Whereas if you're super passionate about a specific topic, then I feel you. That's where you get the extra level of service comes out as well.

I'll give, I'll piggyback on that for a couple things. Right. And let's even start the sales side of things. So the, the first gym I work at, like there were about five different personal trainers there. About four of them had a specialty and one didn't. And those specialties. Like, one was kind of the bodybuilding guy, one was like the boxing guy, one was like the, the pre and postnatal or, you know, female specialty trainer. And the other one was kind of like a, like an, like a mar. Like a cardio, you know, the triathlons, that kind of thing. So it was kind of like. And then the fifth one was like a generalist and that fifth person was always the, the quietest because there was kind of no reason for someone to see him. So anyone that wanted to put on muscle goes to that person. Anyone that wanted to do boxing goes to that person. Anyone that, you know, was a. Basically like, was interested in female specific training would go to that person. Anyone that had want to run a marathon or they'll go to that and like there's just no reason for you to see that person there. So there's, there's that there. There's also like the, the Razor's edge theory, right? This is. I don't know how it worked now, but this, I heard this back in Usain Bolt's days and it was good, right? So let's say, you know, last Olympics or whatever it was, Usain Bolt, you know, was, was killing it. It's like he was the fastest man in the world, you know, multimillionaire, probably going to be a billionaire maybe by the time the. Is done with. With life. Household name, right? You know, it's a Bolt, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know the guy that came second the last Olympics? No one even Knows the, the guy's name and he was like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction smaller than Usain Bolt. And like the smallest possible margin. He's worse than Usain Bolt. Yet you got us same Bolt. You got that guy coming second, right? But it's highlighted even more still. Like that guy coming second. It's probably a hero in his own country, you know, probably the fastest guy in America. A bunch of sponsors there or whatever. The guy coming third, the guy like it, it goes down either way. It's like generalists just. You stuck, you paid that much, right? But the more specialized you can get, the more you can, the more, the more value you have. And it's like that old theory where 1% of people control, you know, most of the stuff is that there. But going back to the passion side of things, that's an even bigger thing because I feel you can only get so good at something if you're. If you're not passionate about it. If you're passionate about it, sky's the root, right? You're not passionate about it. There's only so high you can get. And I'd see this alarming boot camp because I think bootcamp is especially in those days, it was by far the best kind of money making opportunity. Leverage money making opportunity. My same, my system, I had 100 clients. I was charging 50 bucks a week. I was running one session a day, 5k a week. Running one session a day. Pretty good opportunity, right? So a lot of people would try and do it, but if they weren't passionate about like boot camps or about group training or outdoor, they'd suck at it. You know, there are a lot of people that like because you could tell because just they wouldn't like, if you're a bodybuilder and you love bodybuilding and you love heavy weights, one on one in the gym, like, and you try and run a boot camp because you think it's good money, it's not going to work because you don't believe in it. You know, you don't do that training, but you're going to try and convince everyone else that that training is the best to do, you know, and then even more specific, even in that boot camp kind of setting, not only was I passionate about boot camp, but I was passionate about my style of bootcamp, which is more about community. It's more about, we play a lot of games, we have fun, we get to know each other. And some people love that, some people hate that, some people don't want to go here and meet other people. I just want to go here and train and go home. You know, I want to play these silly games and high five people. I'm here to train hard. You know, it's similar thing to start with. I try and be like, balance it, but then I'm like, no, screw that. Like, this is what I like doing. I want to do. I want to wake up every day and do something that I love doing. And I feel if I do that, I'm going to attract other people that like that, and then it's just going to compound. It's just a community of people that like this stuff, and if you don't like it, great. No dramas go down the road. There's another boot camp that is 100% serious, and I think it's the better way to do it. Like, you don't have to, like, say you were running a boot camp. You don't need it to be like me. Fun games, community, whatever. You can make it serious. Go he. Go hard. Don't talk, don't make friends. It's great. I'm going to attract a certain demographic. They're going to attract a certain demographic. Both people are happy, as opposed to both of us trying to do everything and neither of us being happy.

Yeah, completely agree. And then also gives you an opportunity for referrals as well, because that type of person also hangs around those type of people as well. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's probably another reason why you grew so quickly, I'd imagine. Bang on.

Yeah, 100%. And there's that, there's the referrals, but there's also just like the meeting your tribe kind of thing. You know, it's like once you get. I think you're a bit younger than me, Matt, you know, but once you get to my kind of age, you don't really make new friends. And it's hard to. You know, it's hard to make new friends. But if you can get in an environment and this. This isn't even just a boot camp. This is similar in gyms as well. Right. Like, in the gym, if you can kind of make that. If you can build that community in there where people meet other people that are like them, it's like an extra retention step. I'll go to the. Like, my whole philosophy with Bootcamp was that it came down to essentially three things. Retention, maybe four. The fourth is results. But that was the lowest. It was essentially, number one, how their relationship was with me. Number two, how their relationship was with the group number three, how much fun or how much they enjoyed the sessions. And then number four, results. But you make results out of it. If I had a good relationship with them or if they had a good relationship with me, they had a good relationship with everyone else in the group and they were enjoying the sessions. Even if they didn't get results, they would still keep coming back because it was just fun for them. It was just like, hey, instead of, you know, going to the pub or doing some boring stuff that I really like, I'm going to go to boot camp and do something that I like with a group of people that I like. And if we go back, obviously with pt, it's not as much like that, but there's still elements of it. It's like if you can have a really good relationship with that client, if they come to the gym and they kind of, you know, know a few other people there or, or you know, feel good in that community, then great, they'll be more likely to come. And if they enjoy the sessions as well, you know, so it's like, yeah, I think those three things are massive.

Yeah, I think as well, like I try and tell a lot of my clients as well, you want to try and build some type of community aspect. Even if it's a lot of one on one personal training, like community events, like I always say, like every quarter get together.

Yeah.

Whole community, spend some time together. Because that's also like you can't always just like people aren't going to always be on track with their results. They're going to go up and down a lot of the time. You know, that could be the, the breaking point for someone like, oh, well, I'm not getting the results but you know, I really enjoy the training. And then, you know. Yeah, I don't, I don't want to not see Sally anymore because I see her. Yeah. Around the gym and stuff as well. So it all kind of.

Oh yeah. Well, tell you a couple things. So 100. I know it's a bit different with boot camp as well, but I do it every month. I do something at boot camp, you know, because. And that was essentially our Saturday. Like every quarter there'd be like a party or whatever, but like every month they'd just be something, you know, hey guys, instead of, instead of going to the park this Saturday for the bootcamp, we're going to go and do a beach session. You know, hey guys, instead of going to the, the park for this Saturday, we're going to go and do stand up Paddleboarding, you know, hey guys, look, as a bit of fun, we're going to go and do an amazing race down in the city of, you know, like once a month there'd be something and some, some people would like and some wouldn't, but just something there to get people network because I think that's massive with community as well. Seeing someone outside of that one space. Same as anything, you know, you'd have your school friends, whatever, you'd see them at school, it's okay. But you're really friends if you see them outside of school, you know, I think it's yeah, similar there.

Completely agree. Let's talk about future of fitness education online. So where do you, where do you see yourself going? And I know in the future you're going to keep making more, more courses. I know you kind of said you kind of COVID everything at the moment but like what's, what's coming next?

Yeah, probably not a massive amount of new courses, just hand selected ones that are very specific and very good and probably things even less around C because we also run a cert 3 and 4 in fitness now as well. Probably more certifications. So, so less CEC education, more like, hey, let's get a cert for in nutrition, let's get a cert for in Pilates, let's get Tai chi instructor course, let's get a yoga instructor course. More those things that'll give that person an extra qualification as opposed to, to just the CEC plainly because we've pretty much got everything covered. There's only so many courses you can have and if anything it would be improving those current courses or keeping them updated. So there's that there. But the growth is more probably twofold. The growth is. Yeah, sorry, the growth is more growing that sort three and four in fitness because we're less established in that space. In the CC space but then also internationally. Like yeah, we're big here in Australia, but there's America, there's uk, there's up and coming places like India and Asia. So it would be more, more that side of things. Yeah, yeah.

Obviously the US would be obviously a pretty huge market to get into. Of course.

Yeah, yeah, well it's, it's like now it's probably about even our revenue just CEC courses in Australia, usa. But in USA it's like we like the amount of work I had to do in USA compared to Australia is nothing just because it's just there's so many people there, you know, it's like. I know it is 10, 15 probably 20, 20 times the population. So it's like if I just do the same amount of work I did here, over there, I'm gonna get 20 times the revenue. I don't, because there's only so many hours in the day, you know, but if I do, I'm doing a twentieth of the work I'd say that I did in Australia and I'm bringing the same revenue in over there.

That's awesome. So, like, people are wanting to jump on and do a few courses with you guys. How do they. How do they go about that? Where's the best place to find you?

Yep, best place is just a website. Fitnesseducationonline.com if you're a Facebook person, jump on our Facebook group. It's the largest in the world for fitness professionals, fitness education, online community. Probably a lot of younger people listening to this as well. We are also on Instagram as well. Not that great on it, but we are there and that's a way that you can stay updated on what we do there too. Just fitness education online.

Awesome. Are you, Are you more of a old school, like on Facebook?

Yeah, Facebook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone like my experience, anyone over 35, you know, like, we would just. We don't know what it's like not to be on Facebook the amount of times we check out Facebook. And yeah, I get annoyed when I, When I do business with younger people because it means I actually have to get out my phone and open up Instagram and go to the DM. Like, I check my Instagram once every two days, so. Yeah, yeah. But Facebook every five minutes.

Yeah. Are you on. I haven't joined TikTok yet. Are you on TikTok?

Nah, I like, I'm not on TikTok yet. Yeah, I jumped on it just to see the trend. Did it like created in a personal account just to kind of see the content and it was okay. But I feel Instagram's a better. I feel Instagram's a more robust platform and I feel like all the content that's on Tick Tock also goes on Instagram anyway.

Yeah.

So I feel like as a user, I'm not missing anything on Tick Tock. And as a business. Yeah, I haven't really. I've dabbled a bit with the business, but it's. Yeah. Similar kind of thing. I feel that people on Tick Tock are so much younger and I feel there's more business on. On Instagram. So. Yeah. And it's just like I feel this and also my age, I'm just so established, Facebook and Instagram that it's just not worth the effort. Tick Tock. But I would try, I would like.

Yeah.

If I had. If there's any content creators listening. You know, when you just want to create content, like, I'm sure there's an opportunity there. I think specifically Cert three and four, you know, I think if I could get some really good content there, targeting 18, 19 year olds, I think that could be a really good market for cert three and four and fitness. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, I haven't, I haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet. I feel very similar opinion to you. I'm very, I've always been on Facebook. I was, I was a late bloomer to go onto Instagram. Like I still use Instagram, but definitely heavy focus on on Facebook, But I haven't even bothered to, to look at Tick Tock because I have the same opinion. I think everything that gets posted on Instagram will also get posted on Tick Tock. So, yeah, content is pretty much the same. I think people are just, they're, you know, they're trying to go viral or whatever because there's a, you know, better opportunity on.

Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, I think it might be easier depending, you know, from what I've read and seen anyway, I feel it could be a little bit easier to get more eyeballs on Tick Tock, but I feel there's less business off it. Last time I checked anyway, like Instagram, there's a lot of business opportunity. You can have links in more places, there's more automation, you know, there's. I feel last time I checked on Tick Tock, it wasn't as businessy. It was harder to. You could only DM certain people. Links were very hard to put on. So I was like, this is a lot of work.

Yeah, that was an awesome conversation, mate. Thanks again for jumping on and I'll post your links in the description.

Beautiful. Awesome. All right, let me know where this goes live, brother.