POV: $40M CEO Explains Key Lessons To 2X Your Sales Fast
Matt Ryder, a CEO who built a $40M business, shares sales strategies that doubled revenue. He covers high-ticket sales techniques, content marketing, and lessons from his journey in the fitness industry.
Success is different. And I think that everyone thinks that more views is better.
I know plenty of people out there that have hundreds of thousands of views that are making nothing. But then I know a lot of people that you've never heard of 5,000 followers that are making bank.
Yeah, I don't need that kind of content. Like, I need four people to see my stuff. But those four people are going to pay me three or four hundred grand.
If you can sell fitness, you can sell anything.
Yes.
You're asking someone to give up things that they enjoy, to be in physical pain, to pay money and to spend time. I just like, I sat back and I like watched the gym for like a week. I just sort of took notes. And what I noticed is like the busiest time of any gym anywhere in the world is Monday night. And every trainer is full on Monday night. So what I did is I like went out Monday night from 5 to 8pm I just prospected and everyone was like, I had 40 sessions in 30 days.
Hook.
Right. It's part of the sales hook of like now you don't need a post, you don't need to do content.
Definitely.
You don't need to do this, you don't need to that. They just come to you.
It's easy.
You don't need a big following. I mean, you don't need a big following, but you don't need to do this. You don't need this.
Get a couple of people to be in your DMs on Instagram and.
Yeah, but like, how important is content? How important is brand? How important is providing value to your audience?
Yeah, it's incredible.
It's just like, I know, like with seventh level, like, I don't think there's anyone who does more content than you guys. No, you are content, mate. I'd even argue that. Not even Gary Vee, like, the amount of content you guys do for seventh level, it's just. And value content too. Not just crap, not just garbage. Like valuable, tangible, actionable stuff.
Yeah.
That you can use immediately in your business. But it shows on the back end.
Yeah.
To be honest, like, we could, we have a lot more, you know, because, like, we do so much coaching.
Yes.
There's 10 coaching calls a day.
Yeah.
If all we did was just have every. Send Everybody a Sony ZV1 and go upload after every single one, we would have a good quality thing that we could edit.
Yeah.
Right.
And like one of the things we do want. One of the things that I want to do is I want to create like A how to page.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's like how to handle objections, how to present your offer, how to do. Right, that. And they're just pages with just content.
Yeah.
Going out there.
Right.
But you know, you can do so many things at a time.
Yeah.
I did want to do, like, an animated style as well.
Yeah.
Just to try that. But yeah, but yeah, like, content's incredibly important because, like, have you heard the stat? You know what it takes to have a top 1% podcast?
No.
21 episodes.
21.
That's it.
Wow.
There's no viewer numbers required. If you have 21 or 22 episodes, you are a top 1% podcaster in the whole world. Because, like, it's a delayed gratification strategy.
People want to be on the top chart. Six episodes in.
Who cares? Yeah.
Which is fine. Like my podcast, you know, and also the differences are, like, you have to understand the difference between, like, what's required from content. So Jeremy's content, there's an element of reality that's required, and so it's engineered to be very palatable for a large group of people. Because we're speaking to all sales reps.
Right.
In the same way that, like, you know, like, if you were like, v shred, you need to speak to everyone.
Right.
But if you're like a personal trainer or an online personal trainer, you need to speak to your clientele. So for me, like, I don't need that kind of content. Like, I need four people to see my stuff, but those four people are going to pay me three or four hundred grand.
It's a. You're working on different numbers.
Yeah. The success is different. And I think that everyone thinks that more views is better.
But I think, like, with your profile and what you do is sort of indicative of where people that are, like, watching this and consuming this need to go. Like, don't get focused on the metrics. Don't get focused on the big follow accounts because they don't necessarily reflect in the scale of the business can get to. I mean, you don't need a hundred. I mean, I know plenty of people out there that have hundreds of thousands of views that are making nothing. But then I know a lot of people that you've never heard of that are 10, 25,000 followers that are making bank that are doing really well.
Yeah. You can have a highly monetizable following. Absolutely. And I think you got to speak to the. If you speak to those people really passionately and, like, you're very consistent with your messaging, you're not Afraid to, like, talk about the things that other people don't talk about. The thing that kicked my profile off where there's a metric in sales that only, like, the sort of high ticket community use got offers made.
Yeah.
Right.
And so it's like, I close 70% of the offers that I make, but anyone who gave an objection, they would say, you have a bad mindset. We don't want you as a client.
Yeah. So off the. Yeah.
Talking about.
Yeah.
Because I've been in sales and fitness for 10 years, I was like, that's not a thing.
Yeah.
And when I came in, like, I was immediately successful in high ticket because I had 10 years of fitness sales, which is way harder.
Yeah.
It's the best prep you can have.
Right.
And so I was like, this is bullshit. This is stupid. This is a stupid metric. You're just pretending you do. All of you suck.
Yeah.
And I can prove it to you.
Yeah.
And I was like, let's have a bit of a comp. And I went into, like, a sales comp because Taylor Welch Frano salescon.
I remember following that online.
I crossed everywhere.
Yeah.
I absolutely annihilated. I won. There's like, it was an award, right. Every. Every week. And I won every award every week to the point where they called me for the last one and said, we can't give it to you.
Yeah.
Because it's just been you every time. I was like, yeah, man. If you want to give our participation trophies. Yeah, I don't care.
Encouragement awards.
Yeah. It's your business, probably. You get to what you want. They offered me a job actually, at the time, but I had to work Nashville hours. And I was like, yeah. I actually went to Taylor's house a little while ago. I did a podcast with him. He's cool. He's a cool guy.
Yeah, I saw that one, actually.
Yeah.
The FTC issues and stuff. Fascinating, man.
Yeah.
It's crazy, that whole sort of side of the sales world.
Yeah.
The stuff that, you know, I've only sort of become aware of it through talking to you.
It's pretty interesting how it went down and it was all pretty interesting. But. But, yeah, so. All right, cool.
Well, let's talk about, like, how you got into fitness.
Yeah. So. Well, as you know, when you leave special operations, you only have two options.
Fitness cop.
Yeah, that's it.
You know, so you're allowed, or you have to sign the paperwork and everything. So when I got out, became personal trainer, and then from there, like, I just worked in fitness first. But, like, I learned it was funny. Like, you sort of scope around and you're like, I see these guys over here that are really good at being a pt, but they're all kind of broke. And then I see those guys who kind of suck, but they're really full.
Yeah.
And I was like, there's gotta, there's something to that.
This is where your experience is really quite unique.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so I kind of went like. And so I did a few core. I did a bunch of courses, like, to get better at pt because, like, I want to get better at pt. But then I was like, man, this doesn't make any sense to me. And so what I did is I was like, I'm going to. I just like, I sat back and I like watched the gym for like a week. Like, I didn't really do that much but like, watch the gym. I just sort of took notes and I was like, hmm. And what I noticed is like the busiest time of any gym anywhere in the world is Monday night. It's the busiest time. And every trainer is full on Monday night. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just never book sessions for Monday night. I was like, that simple. I'll be the only one prospecting. Like, so what I did is I like went out and like did prospecting. And then Monday night, from 5 to 8pm, I just prospected. So it was three hours of prospecting, the busiest time in the gym where I had no competition and everyone was like, this guy's fucking. I don't. I had 40 sessions in 30 days.
Right.
And I was like, oh, sweet.
Yeah.
And then all I did was prospect in the times that I needed sessions because I was like, why would I prospect at Monday night now that I'm full at nights?
Yeah.
So then I just started prospecting it, like 10 to 12, which. The gym is pretty empty then. But those people, one, they have money.
Yeah. Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
Because like they're, they're there for.
They're there and work hours.
Yeah.
Yeah. So it's like they're either the business owner.
Yeah.
Like very high up. Or they're a stay at home mom. And in Sydney, if you're a stay at home mom, like, you're probably doing pretty well as a family. And so that's how I filled myself up. And so. And then I just stayed full the time. And then I was like, okay, this is pretty cool. I was probably doing 60 sessions a week. 6045 minute sessions. I was making like four or five grand a week.
Yeah.
Way More than I was doing shooting.
Right.
Shooting guns.
Yeah. And then I was like, oh, you know, I'll. And I. And I. And I developed a relationship with one of the guys at the gym to where like what we would do is we would do each other's sessions for. For free when we had holiday. And so it was like I would do like 80 sessions one week and then I would go on holiday and he would do like 80 sessions.
So.
But we didn't have to stop getting paid, which is the biggest rig morale. So I didn't pay him, he didn't pay me. We had a handshake, we just trade. And then so did that. And then from there we're like, hey, let's start a gym. And I was like, yeah, sweet. But we were working in the city, but the gym was in the east. So we didn't really get a transfer of many clients. We got some, but not many.
Yeah.
Because gyms are like, especially. It's very, like, it's very geographical. Very location.
Yeah.
Like, you're not going out of your way to go to a gym. No, like, my gym is like in between my house and my work. And that is where you put a gym.
Yeah.
Someone told me once put a gym next to the best suburbs on the way to and from places of work.
Yeah.
I was like, yeah, that's the way to do it. And if you can get parking, even better.
Yeah.
So where we had the gym, I think was pretty good. Bonny Junction. It's a good. Because that's where the, like the transportation center is. So very convenient to and from work.
Right.
Because you can get in the city, all that kind of stuff. So that was a good spot. The other thing is there are 53 other gyms in the suburb. Right. So.
Yeah, yeah.
But to be honest, that's not actually a bad thing. That can be quite good as long as you do it right. If I did it again and I had the money that I have now, I would open a gym dirt cheap, ruin everyone, and then jack up the prices. Exactly. That's what I would. Yeah, that's what I would do now. But so we kind of did that and we were like, man, we were eight weeks into like 12 weeks rent free with like seven clients.
Yeah, scary.
Fucking scary. And then I saw a kind of an advertising of like how to get how to do Facebook ads. So I went to the seminar, ended up doing that, and then from there just started doing Facebook advertising. And so I was like, okay, cool. And like, I just got obsessed with the, that component I did like The John Benson 3X VSL course. Phenomenal copywriting course. So I learned copywriting because my ads were going like. And I was like, okay, I've got. Okay, I got to figure this out. So I learned copywriting that made a huge difference.
Yeah.
Like a monster difference. And then learned how to use like some of the different tools a bit better so I could make better sites. And like. And then you start realizing like, how much like. And then you start seeing the patterns of the data.
Yeah.
And so, like, I sort of started looking at the data and I was like, oh, okay. Like this is back when you get 10% click through rates. 12% click through rates.
Right.
And so I was like, oh, okay, if I have this headline and this picture, I get this. I was like, okay, so that's the cpc, that's the click through rate.
Yeah.
And then I was like, the copy, they go to there. So the, the landing page views like the click through. Sorry. Like the, you know, is gonna be. It's gonna be from that. And then I was like, okay, cool. Like, how do I manipulate the page?
It's almost like clickfunnels before clickfunnels.
Yeah.
It's like, how do I now manipulate the page to get the stuff that I want out of that?
Yeah.
And so like, I ended up with like, you know, I was getting 80 cent leads.
Yeah.
Right.
Really, really consistently. That sort of jacked up, I would say over the years to probably like seven or eight dollars for like a phone number. You know, it was like five bucks for a phone number. But like, you speed to lead is quick and you just get them in.
Yeah.
Then what started to happen is like, I was like the marketer of the business. And then like my business partner was like the sales.
Right.
Because I just wasn't. I didn't think I was good at sales. He had the natural thing. And then so. But it sort of came about, like, I sort of had to get the sales part down. And so. And then I ended up. We ended up doing a partnership with some other people. But then I ended up getting thrown into a position where like, I was the sales guy full time and opening gyms.
Yeah.
And so, so now I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to like, first of all, I've got to like, do the council, negotiate the rates, get the leases, like, do the fit out. Like orchestrate the fit out, all the equipment, get everything in and then open it and train the stuff. And I was like, this is great for 80 grand.
A year.
But anyway, right. So did that. And then, like, what we would get is we'd get 500 leads for the opening of a gym with a KPI of 200 sales.
Yeah.
Like, 40% lead to close was the KPI. And I was like, huh? But, like, I didn't know any better, so we did it.
Yeah. Well, if you. Yeah, like, that's pretty. That's.
That's pretty impressive.
I didn't know that was stupid.
Yeah.
I was like, this is just what we do.
Yeah.
So, like. But I was like, oh, man. Like. But I hate the word I. Like, I can't. And so I was like, oh, how do we do this? Like, how do we solve this problem? So, like, I just sat down, I was like, we solve this problem. And they would give me, like, the, like, the trainers to fucking train up for sales. And they were so garbage that I was like, you just go on holiday and see me in three weeks.
Yeah.
Like, you know, do all this kind of stuff. So I kind of orchestrated a bit of a plan. And I'd done a couple of sales, like, rough sales courses. I sort of started to orchestrate a bit of a way of doing it. And so, like, became really obsessed with, like, I've sort of. I know that I know where they come in from, the marketing. And now I've got to figure out the sales side.
Yeah.
And just sort of became obsessed with the numbers because, like, it's actually like, the numbers, you actually have, like, far more control over things in sales than what you do in marketing.
Yeah, for sure.
It's more similar to shooting.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like, you. And so if you know the numbers, you can make really, really small changes and you can have phenomenally different results. And so I just sort of started going really, really deep into the matrix on the sales analytics and just kind of like changing everything that I was doing. And then, like, by the end of it, like, I was comfortably doing 220 sales a month from 500 leads. Like, I had a full system how to do it. I knew how to do it. And then from there, kind of had a falling out with those guys, left, came back, and then sort of started sales sniper. And, like, you know, I didn't have any money, kind of walked away from everything. And then I was just like, hey, why don't I just. I just. I literally, like, called every gym owner that I knew from every mastermind I've ever been in from, like, being in gyms for sort of six or seven years.
Yeah.
And I was like, hey, do you want to be your sales guy? Because by that time, they knew I was pretty good at sales for fitness. And they were like, yeah. And so I was like, sweet. And then so I had, like, five gyms that I was doing sales for, and that kind of just expanded and grew. And then, you know, sort of went on from there. And then.
Yeah.
Do all the stuff. But, like, the. And then I ended up running the sales for a couple of online fitness businesses and doing their sales for a bit. And that was really fun because I knew Howie Boydle really well.
Yeah.
And I helped him develop the sales model. Sports model project.
Yeah.
Like, that was my idea.
Yeah.
They did it.
Yeah.
But I was like, you should do this. They're like, yeah, sweet. Because I'd done it with Rachel guy.
Yeah.
Out of the gyms, which is a great model.
Yeah.
Because we were able to charge double for the same product.
Yeah.
And that was really interesting. And so, like, they still run those programs to this day.
Yeah. Still see ads.
Yeah. So they still have, like, a men's and, like, the gym that one of the gyms I used to own in Bondi, they still have, like, the men's and women's, like, high performance training set part. Which is 150 bucks a week.
Yeah.
Which for group training in a gym, it's expensive.
Yeah.
Right.
Because we were usually charging 65 or 75. And then I approached Rachel and I was like, hey, do you want to do this thing? I was like, I'll give you. I can't remember what the percentage of revenue was or whatever, but I was like, you are the face of the ads. You write the program, do the PDFs, and then come in once a month and, like, high five everyone. Yeah, that's it. And we were able to charge 150 bucks a week, do a 16 week program, get almost everyone to pay in full.
Yeah. It's great.
Right?
So it was like 1600 bucks, whatever it was. And I put, like, more money in the coffers of the gym than I'd ever seen in my life. Like, I think at that stage, we were doing 65,000amonth.
Yeah.
In a small group training gym, which is not.
Which unheard of.
It's not.
Yeah.
It's not pretty good.
Yeah.
And so. And then we sort of built it up to where it was doing that really consistently. And. But it was through those kind of specialty programs where it was like a really defined thing. They knew what to do. And then from there, the goal was just to upsell them into sort of more on gun training in the background. But it's a weird journey. It's. It was a fun journey.
Yeah.
And I think, like, fitness is like an incredibly good learning experience and playground because, like, it's. It's such a. Like there's so much complexities because you're dealing with like the.
Remember you saying something one time, if you can sell fitness, you can sell anything.
Yes.
Fitness.
Fitness is. You're asking someone to give up things that they enjoy, to be in physical pain, to pay money and to spend time.
Yeah.
And there's zero, like, roi, except for, like, the potential to maybe look or.
Feel better, if you follow, which requires those four pain points.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then. And then from there, like, you know, you can undo six months of hard work in a week's holiday.
Absolutely.
You can fully undo it, like. Yeah. Back to square one.
Yeah.
So, like, it's a very difficult thing. And also one of the things that you really deal with is fear of failure and fear of success. And so you have to. There's a lot of navigating.
Yeah.
And so, like, very emotional space. Like, super. Yeah, very emotional.
Yeah.
I mean, compared to what you're selling now, like, you're selling super high end stuff.
Yeah.
You and your team.
Yeah.
It's like, I would imagine it's way more emotive, way more emotional driven.
It really, really is. And like, especially you sort of juxtapose that against, like a B2B sale, which is just borderline a conversation about the facilitation of. Can we do this?
Yeah.
You know what? Some of, some of the sales that I've done recently is like, you know, they'll go, okay, you know, ask a budget question. And like, they'll go, oh, the budget's this. And I go, listen, like, you know, I'm gonna present you something more expensive than that, because I'm gonna present you what's gonna work. And whether or not you can afford it or not is not my problem.
Yeah. It is what it is.
Right.
It just is what it is. Yeah.
I just have to present what's gonna work. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. They're like, oh. So this guy told me his, you know, his budget was 40, then he bumped it to 250 and I pitched him a million.
Yeah.
And then we sort of knocked a few things down because I overdid it on purpose. And then we ended up with like 350.
Yeah.
You know, but it was like, oh, yeah, yeah. Sweet, man.
Yeah.
Just like send the contract, have lawyers look over and there wasn't the money.
Yeah.
Totally unemotional. Just like this is a value proposition.
Transactional. Like.
Yeah.
And people say that B2B sales are harder and more complex. They're infinitely more simple.
Yeah.
But like when you're talking about fitness, like, you know, and especially when you talk about like high ticket fitness and then you start niching down, especially in the female space.
Yeah.
Like there are a lot of complexities there that are not difficult to overcome. But it's like people don't know the sort of tips and tricks that you have.
That's one thing that I've sort of followed closely is like how you would conduct yourself on a sales call for like a high price point. High ticket program is very, very unique. Like you sort of like along the way, along the journey, you're sort of like ticking off things without them even realizing that when it comes to the end, if they do have issues, you've sort of already addressed those.
Yeah, you've got it. Like the thing with fitness is like, there's not a ton of follow up sale. Okay, so it's not.
I'll get back to you. Yeah, sounds good, but I'll get back to you.
Yeah. You know, and like, I learned that because, like I wasn't very good at the sales for a long time when I was in the gym and I would see a guy who was, you know, 100 pounds or 60 kilos overweight, he'd go, yeah, man, like, I need to do this. And like, you know, I just got to go figure out timings. It's like, mate, like, there's a reason you're that fat. And the reason is you make terrible decisions around this. It's under priority. You don't want to do it, but you need to do it.
Yeah.
So here we are.
Yeah.
You know, like, and then I would see that person, you know, six months later, even fatter.
Yeah.
You know, and like they're more likely to die of everything. Even a terrorist attack. Bigger target.
Yeah.
You know, like, can't run.
Right.
Zombie apocalypse.
Exactly. It was slower, you know, so. Yeah, so like that, that was what sort of drove me because I was like, I was sick of it.
Yeah.
I was like, mate, this is ridiculous. And having been like a fat kid myself and being told my entire life that like, oh, it's just your genetics. And I remember I had this like realization. My wife was like, no, it's not. And she's. I was like, what do you mean? And she goes, name me one fat person in your entire extended family besides the people in your immediate family. It's like, well, shit, why are you.
Coming at me with this?
Yeah, I'm out of here. And that was a real, like, eye opening moment for me. And I was like, oh, shit. Like, that's 100% correct. Like, that is so obvious. But that was so deeply ingrained in me.
Yeah.
That, like, that would always be like, oh, well, I can't lose weight because of my genetics.
Yeah.
And so, like, why try? And so, like, you've got to overcome that. And, you know, if you're, if you're fed because you're loved, or you're fed because you're not loved, or you eat because you're sad, and you're sad because you eat.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, like, that's, that's the complexity of fitness sales. And so to be able to do that and uncover that in 30 minutes, that's a skill. Kind of what you need to be able to do.
That's a skill.
You have to be able to do that. And, you know, we'll cover all that, though. It's a step by step formula.
Yeah, absolutely.
