Episode 167: Find Profit in a Competitive Industry with Ryan Ketchum and Nick Barry

Yeah. Someone said, like, God will never put a test in front of you that you can't handle.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Seems like a total bullshit, though, because some of the tests are so hard.

But you're still here.

But you're still here.

Well, yeah, especially when you're going through financial hardship. It's so hard to keep your head above water.

Oh, my God.

And I'm definitely speaking from experience with that as going through that right now, but hearing stories like Teresa's, it really does keep you going.

It does. Like there is the other side. But I think until we learn how to get to the other side, it will keep on presenting itself over and over and over and over again until you finally crack that nut, so to speak. We got two nuts coming on in a little bit, you know, two crazy guys. But first we got to announce our show, like the additional. The real introduction. So I'll let. I'll let you do that. I'll let you do that.

You're listening to the Profit first podcast.

That's absolutely right. And you're listening to episode 167. Oh, really pushing the button.

Welcome. Yeah, there you go. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I'm Christina, your co host.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz. Actually, next week I want to do Bizarro World, where we introduce ourselves as a different person. So I'm Mike Michalowicz, the host of the show and also the author of Profit first, along with some other books, brand new ones coming out in August. I can't announce the title yet, but we're so close to announcing it. Joining the studio by the co host to the co host of co host Kelsey Ayers.

Hey, everybody.

How are you doing?

I'm doing great.

Good.

Thank you.

I love your energy. And you are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is the show where we explore all elements of profitability. Before the show started, we were talking about the challenges of starting up when you have nothing and presumably the world against you. Major responsibilities, abusive relationship, nowhere to live, living on food stamps. Oh. Even from that circumstance, you can build a very profitable, successful business and serve other people. That's the type of stuff we talk about today. Well, if you're in the fitness industry, you know, you go to the retro fitness place, don't you?

Yes, and I wear retro clothes when I go.

Yeah. I'd say I wasn't just making that up. Do you dress, like, in 70s outfits.

And stuff, wig and all?

Yeah, retro fitness. I noticed that everyone that goes there dresses in, like, clothes from the seventies.

The wonder years.

Yeah. Awkwardly short shorts. You know, those guinea T shirts that.

Have, like, the high two tops, High.

Two kind of shoes with the stripes around the two tops. I. I didn't know you dressed that way. I assumed you did.

Actually. It's a prerequisite of going to that gym.

Yes. Retrofitness. Well, there's so many gyms out there.

Yeah.

How can they survive? How can they make it? Well, these two gentlemen coming on just a little bit. Ryan and Nick say you can absolutely do it. You've got to follow the formula. And that brings me to my little icebreaker question. Do we have to do other stuff first? Well, that's my teaser. So, yeah, do the other stuff first, then we'll do that.

So just a reminder that you can find us on stitching, Google play, tune in radio, itunes, and of course, profit first podcast dot com. That one's my favorite.

Yes. Okay, so here's the icebreaker. You know, when you work out, there's that one song that gets you going, but there's that one song that gets you going that you're also embarrassed. If other people knew that was a song that gets you going. I want to know from you, what's that embarrassing pump up song? Christina, you're up first.

Of course I'm up first. All right, well, I'm a Disney fan.

Oh, this already is embarrassing.

So I'm the same.

I'm the Hercules one.

Yes.

You see?

Yes. I literally.

No, that's the craziest thing.

No. So I do. I started my workouts, and I start on the elliptical, and I like getting the slow climb. As he's starting to sing it. I will find my way. And I just keep doing it, and I'm like, yes. And then I'm like, ready for the rest of the work.

Is that the name of the song? I'll find my way.

I can go the distance. Oh, Michael Bolton.

I can go the distance.

From Hercules.

Go the distance.

That's the funniest.

That's so funny.

So. Oh, here it is. So it'll probably play a commercial first. Oh, maybe not. Maybe not. I'm already playing here in the beginning. Is this it?

Yeah, this is it.

This is it.

Let's listen for a minute.

I might sing.

That's great.

When's the singing star.

It's got to build emotionally first, Michael. It starts off slow.

What is this? Is this the karaoke version of chorus singing it?

This is definitely. This is a coral version.

Oh, the coral version. All right, so that was a waste There. Okay, so let me try one more.

He talks about not fitting in.

Now it's commercial.

Oh, Lord.

Exactly.

He didn't find his way.

Yeah. So let me tell you. In the meantime, I will tell you my song. It's Style by Taylor Swift.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. Because you're girls. Yeah, yeah.

No, I don't like Taylor Swift. That's interesting.

Really? I love that song. The guitar, it does such a cool, funky sound, and I absolutely love it, but it's kind of embarrassing. Here's your song.

Well, that's a mic.

There we go.

Just real quick. I would say I have to fall asleep in the gym if I was.

It pumps up. Yeah.

Is this the stretching part? Like you're stretching on the floor in your 70s outfit.

A far off place Great warm welcome so low for me Keep going. When they see my face. Oh.

There you go. Good job. There you go. Okay, beautiful. So.

And then it gets bigger and faster.

Okay, okay. Now I like it. Now I approve.

Yeah.

I don't know if I can work out to that. Like.

Like, that's why you guys. I don't know.

It depends on the exercise you're doing. Right?

Yeah.

Like, if you're trying to, like, do squats or something and listen to that.

You know that I need, like, metal for.

Yeah, but if you're just running or jogging. Yeah, okay, Okay, I buy that.

Anywho.

Anywho. We have a shout out line. You know that? A hotline.

We do a shout line.

A shoutline.

What's the number, Mike?

844-876-7221. Call us and you can sing that song. I'll go my way or whatever. I'll go away I'll go away I'll go away I will go away I will Never bother you again 887-67221. Call that line. Tell us that you've become permanently profitable. If you're starting out, profit first, we want to hear it. We want to hear what you're doing to become permanently profitable.

And I actually have a shout out. This goes out to Chris Fagerstrom of any key PC, and he said that his business is seven years old and profitability has been a roller coaster ride. His wife and him are paying cash for an adoption right now. And he said starting in January, they had to. They've been in the black every month. So it used to be in good months, like $18,000 for them. They had around $1,000 in profit, if they were lucky. And they said this year they've had three months of over $20,000, which has never been done before. And their profit has been between 1 and 2000. So last month they dropped back down in sales to scraping past 15k, but they moved to $4700 in profit. And he's finally seeing the light on how he can pay for the rest of his adoption for his kid. So. That's awesome. Chris.

Congratulations, brother. You rock. You know, Scott and Elise, Greece Gris were here or Grease. Maybe it's Greece. You know who they are?

Yeah.

Do you know how old they are, roughly the two of them?

No.

Like 22.

Yeah, like 22. Very successful.

Yeah.

I fell in love with them and I literally asked them to adopt me as their son. I'm twice their age.

I bet you they would.

I think they would. And does that ever happen where parents adopt an older child than them? No, it doesn't, Michael. You feel so stupid.

It does when you're emotionally younger.

You're not dependent on anybody.

So I really want them to adopt me. I asked them multiple times. They're like, I don't think that's.

No, no.

And then they've never called me again.

I wonder why.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Our corporate partner to make the show a reality. Christina.

Yeah. Tell me about right networks.

Oh, my gosh. I love right networks and I love the new copy they gave me. Here's what it says. Being on the cloud means you and your team can work together from anywhere at any time, giving you maximum flexibility. Never again will you have to drive to the office on a Saturday when you realize you forgot to submit the numbers to yourself because you're your own boss or you forgot to do something for a client. Now you just pop open your laptop or smartphone, take care of it from home and get back to the life you're living. It's an always on world, my friends, especially for small business. And write networks makes it happen. Here's the deal. This is now off copy.

Yes.

Yeah.

There are certain software packages that you have that don't run on the Internet still. And this is what. What year are we in? 2017.

That's right.

Like people can tell. People can teleport nowadays, all these things, but people still have these applications that are really.

People can teleport. You sure?

No, I'm not sure. But purportedly they're studying that and the technology almost exists.

Purportedly.

Wait, is it reportedly reportedly.

No. This one I challenge you on.

Are you sure?

Now you've got. The account is 2kelsey0. Mike, like Google, I say purportedly is a word and you say it's not. Right. You think it's reported?

No, it's definitely a word.

Oh, Purportedly means that people announce it to be true. Reportedly means that it's documented more. So I say it's purportedly is the appropriate use of the word.

I think teleporters may exist purportedly a synonym to allegedly.

So I was right.

Yeah.

Okay. Do I get a point for that?

Yes.

Okay, so two.

Well, sorry, Two to one.

Two to one. Two to one. Right Networks allows you to take those applications that you can only use at the office, put it on the Internet and listen. Or access from anywhere. Or listen to if you want to, but access from anywhere. It's that simple. All you have to do is go to writenetworks.com now you may be saying, how do I spell right, Mike? Is it W, R I G, H, T, like the Wright brothers? No, it's not. It's right as opposed to left R I G H T networks dot com.

Right as opposed to wrong.

That's even better. Don't go to wrongnetworks.com. no, that's the wrong place to go. How dare you go to right Networks. Or you can call them on their phone number, 888-417-4448, extension 1. Tell them that you heard about them on the Profit first podcast just because we want you to.

Because they won't know who Mike is.

No, they won't. Exactly. They won't know who I am. But maybe, maybe you get something for that. All right, let's get to the business at hand. You guys ready? Okay. Nick Barry has spent his entire. Nick, I heard you click on. Oh, it's my turn to talk. Or is Mike gonna keep going? Mike's gonna keep going. Nick Barry has spent his entire professional career as an entrepreneur in the fitness industry. His experience has given him the opportunity to become a business coach and consultant and co owner of multiple businesses. As the CEO of Fitness Revolution, Nick continues to bring this innovation to to the fitness industry. Well, Nick's here today with Ryan Ketchum and Ryan is a fitness business and marketing expert. Ryan is responsible for building Fitness Revolution's audience and educating them on how to grow their business. He is a sought after speaker and writer for many industry leading organizations such as PfP magazine. I know another great company that goes by that acronym and the National Strength and Conditioning Association. And both these gentlemen, there are photos with them with the Pope. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.

Welcome.

Thank you for having Us. Thank you.

We're excited.

So how do you get a picture with the Pope?

Well, long story. You take a trip to Italy first, and then you hire a private guide to tour you through the Vatican. And you get this private guide to bribe the Pope's guards to give you passes to his audience. And you get her to tell you exactly where to sit. So that if you want to take a selfie with the Pope, you can get one as he's driving by.

Nice.

And so when the Pope is driving by, does he stop and take a picture, or is he kind of in the distance and you're there?

He will stop and take a picture. He did not do that for us because we were not holding the baby at the time. It was pretty much only to stop and take a baby.

You need a baby.

You should have got one of those COMECA ones. It just looks like a baby.

The one that cries on you.

Would that be horrible? I bet you people have done that. So you guys are in the most competitive industry, purportedly in the world. I mean, there's fitness gyms opening up, CrossFit all the time. There must be four in this town. Five in this town alone. There's one in our own building right at the bottom. There's that fitness studio.

And then one next door.

One next door. There's the retro fitness down the road, there's another one up the hill. How can you compete in such a competitive industry, gentlemen?

Well, it can definitely be a challenge, especially when you talk about differentiation. But that's really what it comes down to. At first. The people in the fitness industry get into this to help people. They love what they're doing, and there's no real career path for them. So the obvious career choice, if they don't want to work at, say, a membership gym, lifetime Fitness, Equinox, something like that, is to open their own business. So they get into that, and then they find out that there's all this other stuff that comes with running a business. So if you really want to stand out, there's really a few things you need to have one, you have to have a really great strategy. The strategy is what's going to drive everything that you do make all your decisions, then you've got to be able to differentiate yourself. You've got to have a really great marketing strategy to go along with your business strategy. Then it's all about extending and spreading that message. One of the biggest things that you can do as a fitness professional, and this is really any business, right, because it's. It's all competitive. It's not like going into business for yourself is an easy route, no matter how you take it. It's about having that message and being really clear in who you are, who you serve, being really, really focused on that and being able to implement that strategy. Because everybody thinks they're the best at what they do at this. Nobody gets into this or into a business if they don't think they have something that can really impact people. So at the end of the day, it's about how do you communicate that message to the market, how do you stand out? How do you find the right people and fit for you? I think you might have wrote a book about that called the Pumpkin Plan. So it aligns very, very well with that.

So, okay, so let's talk about that differentiation. It still sounds very difficult to do, but maybe I'm wrong here. I mean, a gym is a gym is a gym after all. Right, and if that's not true, how do you differentiate? Give me some strategies.

Yeah, absolutely. So when you talk about a membership gym, a gym is a gym is a gym, right? They're renting access to equ. And so that's a gym. I'm going to pay $29, $39 a month for maybe it's 24 hour access. I get in and go in. The trend you're seeing now and all the businesses that were popping up that you're talking about, they're delivering a service. Their job is to help the client get a result faster, to make it easier on them to remove the obstacles. People don't want to think about how to achieve the result. And a lot of people have tried to lose weight or achieve whatever fitness goals that they have before and they failed for some reason. A fitness business that wants to differentiate themselves needs to be able to identify who their ideal client is. And we drill down into very, very specific profiles. And it's okay to have more than one profile, but you're going to have a primary prospect that you're going to go after and you're going to create a marketing message around that. You're going to tell them you're exactly what you're going to do for them, the benefits that you provide for them, how you're going to help them overcome their obstacles, and you speak to them in a language that they understand. So oftentimes in fitness, people want to sound smart and they want to prove how much they know about physiology or exercise science or any of that stuff. The person doesn't care. Let's take A weight loss person, for example, if somebody wants to lose £20, they don't care how you do it. They just want to know that you can help them lose £20 and then do that in a way that kind of fits their lifestyle. So you've got to nail down that ideal client and understand their desires, their pain points, their challenges. When you can do that, you can set your business up with the branding, with your name, with how you deliver your service, with the marketing message where you market and differentiate yourself. So much is tied into this overall branding and marketing that you have. But you've got to clearly state why you're different and why your prospect should choose you over someone else.

Hey, Nick, how do you pick an ideal client?

We start with our strengths. A lot of self awareness and self assessment and trying to determine, like, what are we best suited to do and then who does that create the most value for? You know, there's more that goes into the recipe itself, but I mean, on the surface, it's as simple as that.

Okay, so you pick your own strengths, but how do you do that? You. How do you determine what your strengths are, maybe is the better question, and how it translates into attracting clients.

Okay, so for a lot of fitness professionals, it begins with they already have some experience. So most of the time when we are working with someone, they've already been on this journey for a little while. Probably 80% of our clients are. They've tried to do it on their own. Just like their clients have with their fitness goals, our clients have with their business goals. They've been banging their head against the wall trying to get it right on their own for a while. So there are already some characteristics that they've demonstrated over time.

Okay, so you look for those characteristics they've demonstrated and then, Ryan, what are we doing now where we write down this profile really bad ourselves and then look for people that are similar to that, or is there a different kind of technique?

So the recipe that I would start with, if you already have clients, let's say you're not a startup, you already have some clients, you just want to expand your marketing. What I would start with is I would take a look at who are the people that I really enjoy working with. Who can I help the most? And Nick alluded to it, who can I add the most value to? Because really, at the end of the day, if somebody's paying you for services or product, it's a value exchange. So who can I add the most value to? I need to be able to deliver their Result over deliver on the promises that I'm going to make and really help them out. So you start, and you start to whittle it down to this one person. You should be able to close your eyes and visualize this. So we start with, you know, what are their biggest pain points? What's the goal they're going to try to achieve? And we keep drilling down until we know that it's, you know, It's Mary, who's 46 years old, has three kids, works a 40, 45 hour a week job. Their household income is $200,000 a year. And these are the hobbies and these are the activities. And we drill down into this so that we really just want to know what are they looking for, what are the challenges and what are the benefits that they need to hear so that we can persuade them and motivate them and attract them to us. You start to drill down into the things that they want. You deliver a service and you deliver it a certain way. But at the end of the day, you need to be able to understand what that means to the client. And that's what you're trying to break down in this profile.

I remember hearing the story of Curves, a wildly successful gym. And I think, if I remember this story correctly, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, is they removed mirrors from the facility. All equipment was wall facing. And the idea was their ideal customer were women who didn't like to be in a room where there was guys, you know, grunting. And we're talking about a few episodes. That's me getting ready to lift. They don't want, you know, these guys and other women to flexing and posing. They just wanted to improve their overall health and didn't want that intimidation. And so Curves, as I understand, set an environment specifically for women without the mirrors and grew explosively. Is that the kind of stuff you're talking about, Ryan and Nick? That we need to really cater our gym specifically to one demographic? The Mary that you used in that example?

Yeah, I think that's a great representation of the marketing having an impact on everything that you do in your business in terms of the culture and, and that you create this profile so that you understand what that person wants. When you look at your marketing, we look at the things that I can control. How am I going to go out and get the response to the marketing? Where can I find Mary Curves? When somebody came in, that appealed to them, but where did they find this Mary? Where is she hanging out? Where can I put my message in front of her, then what's that message need to say? So that when she runs across it, a light bulb goes off and it's immediate and she's like, hey, I gotta check this place out. I gotta learn more about this. That's what the real power of understanding who your ideal client is and really crafting up your marketing message so that it resonates in everything that you do. You know, it's in your follow up, in your brand, in the setup of your gym, you know, kind of in your culture. It's ingrained in that.

Well, if you want to find Mary, she's at the Mercedes dealer with her 200 people. Oh my goodness, she's rich. Nick, I know you've seen gyms that aren't profitable and I know you've seen gyms that are profitable. Where are the unprofitable gyms leaking cash?

Where are they not leaking cash? They're not any different.

Well played. Mary likes you.

They're not any different than any other small business who's leaking cash. They're making the same mistakes. So they don't know how to look at the reports that they're used to getting. Whether it's a P and L or whatever other statement they're getting, they don't know how to look at that and make enough sense of it. They're probably trying to bury their head in the sand. We see that a lot. They'd rather just not look at it. And so then it's, you know, you make some short sighted choices on what you're going to spend money on and then you lose track of it over time and then you, you got to get back focused on sales because you realize you lost money last month and then it's, you know, then those expenses are out of sight, out of mind. You know, it's, it's just things that you're, you're already really familiar with from other, other small businesses just not understanding cash flow.

Yeah, I totally buy that. Ryan, you have this concept of a high performing business owner in the fitness industry. What is a high performing business owner? How do you define that?

So a high performing business, if we can start there, something that it's a business that the business owner enjoys, it creates some sort of financial freedom for them that they're proud of and that's respected. It can be just about any level of business. They don't have to be doing a million dollars a year. They could be doing six figures, 250,000. Well, the high performing business owner, they understand the steps that need to get there. So it's like they're always aspiring to move towards the next level. And so the high performing business owner is going to have traits about them where they understand the need for culture in their business, they understand the need for systems, they understand the need for communication and organization. And it's kind of these pillars and principles that go into this. And so we focus on those when we're developing a high performing business owner. Do they know how to control those? Do they have the skills and competencies that they need to run a great business? Because being a great trainer is one thing, running a great business is a completely different thing. And that goes for any business owner that's running a small business. You probably got started because you're good at the craft or you're passionate about the craft you have to transition into, how do I become the business owner here? How do I become the entrepreneur?

And is that really possible? I mean, you're right. I think a lot of business owners go into it because they know how to, they know how to train people, whatever. But running a business, of course is totally different. Based upon you gave aspects of culture, systemizations, organization, do, can most people make that leap or is it, is it, is that a really difficult leap? And if it's difficult, how, how do you improve the chances of going from a doer to an owner?

So you ask a series of questions.

I asked them about marriage.

The first one is, is it possible?

Yes. Can everybody do it? No. And is it challenging?

Yes.

It's a mentality. I think that the biggest problem that we run into is a lot of the people that got into it for their love of the technical aspect, it didn't realize what the business own and management aspect was going to entail. So a lot of them, once they do have that epiphany, it's not for everybody. But for those who do have the epiphany and they're wired to stick to it, then yeah, it's absolutely possible to make that leap. And it's just going from looking at it like a job to looking at it like a business.

You know, you guys shared another concept of the core marketing funnel and that's a direct path to profitability. You were talking about off air. I want to know the details. What is the core marketing funnel? And then how can our listeners use this concept to increase their profitability even if they're not a gym owner themselves?

Great question. So the core marketing funnel, when people think of marketing funnels, typically they'll think online, right? That's a sales funnel online. Or if they're a salesperson, they know their sales pipeline and their sales funnel. So what I try to do is develop this concept of the core marketing funnel so that you could get a 30,000 foot view of what the path from a prospect or lead to a customer is. And we call it a core offer customer. So that someone that's in the economic driver, whatever that service or product is, how you get there. So there are three stages at the beginner level and there's a fourth stage at the advanced level. So we'll talk about the three stages. First you have your lead channels or lead acquisition. Then you have your front end offer, and then you have your core offer. So if the listeners can visualize this as a triangle turned on its side, then from left to right, it goes wider on the left and narrows down to the point on the right. We're trying to funnel our prospects and customers through that. In your core marketing funnel and the lead channels or the lead acquisition section, you need to have three channels going at all times. You need to have an internal channel. So that's your referrals. How do I get my clients to perpetuate themselves within the business? You have to have a referral program or system in place. You need to have an online channel. So you've got to have a presence, whether it's running Facebook ads or blogging or YouTube or email marketing or whatever online channel you want to go to. And then you need to have an offline channel as well. So networking, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, direct mail, radio, any of that could be an option. So there's a plethora of options. It's your job to figure out what are my strengths and then break it down into how can I deploy this into the market, how am I going to acquire my customers? Then you move to the front end offer. So we move left to right. It's a little bit narrower. We're trying to filter out those leads that we've acquired to get to. We want to get the first transaction with them. And that sounds probably a little harsh. There's not much emotion behind that. But really what we're trying to do is give them the experience. We want to prove to them that we're worth spending more money with or we're worth spending more time with. We call it a front end offer. And it's a low barrier to entry offer into your business. So it's kind of like a taste test. So at a gym, you think a trial or a transformation contest would be A good example of that.

Do you usually charge for that, by the way?

I recommend that you do. There are strategies depending on the business, whether you charge or don't charge for that. There are some gyms that offer a free trial. Typically with that you're going to get, if you have something free, you're going to get more volume, but you're going to get lower quality front end offer customers. If you charge for it, you're going to filter that out and you're going to basically identify the buyers in the market. So I like to charge for that because I think it qualifies the buyer early on. And it's not that the leads that don't buy aren't worth anything, they just aren't ready yet. You haven't proven any the value yet, but it doesn't mean you won't. So you set that up and this front end offer should be some sort of, it should complement your primary offering. So if it's a training membership or training services that you're selling, we're going to strip down that training and say, okay, well you're going to get two days a week for two weeks of personal training and it might be at a discounted rate to get somebody to experience it. But it's just a taste test. Let's see if this is a good fit. Let me show you how valuable this can be. And then when that works, you move them to your core offer, which is this is the thing you're best at delivering. This is what you know, if you get a client into that, you can absolutely, Without a doubt, 100% every time delivery on the promise. And that's your core offer. That's the end of that funnel. Now if we get to more advanced, there are ways to do profit maximizers where we add on supplementary or ancillary services that are going to accelerate their progress, help them do it easier. This would be nutrition coaching, something like that in our world. And so you can extend your funnel out that way. But when you get a look at it like that, it gives you this big 30,000 foot view of okay, there's a purpose for everything that I do. All my marketing activities have a purpose. It's to get somebody to my front end offer. And in my front end offer my purpose is to wow them and deliver so much service and such a high level of service that they move to my core offer. So it really gives purpose behind it. And especially if it's not a, if you're not marketing minded and that's not stuff you Love. It allows you to draw the connection between, like your strategy and then the tactical level things you have to do every day to make your marketing work.

Now you had this term, the triple A marketing method. Was that the start of the funnel or is that something different?

That was the start of the funnel. So AAA is assets, Assets, arsenal and action plan. And so, you know, the reason that we developed this was fitness professionals, fitness business owners really just despise marketing. They'd be in the gym all day training clients or working out themselves if they could, and they just do not want to market. And so I had to figure out a way, how do you get somebody to do something they don't want to do? Well, you either have to show them an immediate result, so get them the result that they want, or you have to make it easy for them. And so how can I make marketing easy for them? So we started with, all right, well let's start with their assets. What strengths, resources, skills do they have that we can leverage? And so we go through an exercise, we drill into that, we extract those, and then we try to take those assets and turn them into an arsenal. Which is your arsenal is just the array of things that you're going to put out into the market. It's the three channels. What am I going to use to attract clients to it? And then we plug those in. So for example, if I have an asset, I like to write, well, you could do books, you could write blog posts, you could write for local media, or if you like to speak, you could do public speaking. So we would put that in and say, okay, well let's use those to our advantage and let's create that arsenal. But then we have to take it one step further because so much of marketing is very conceptual. Go out and network. Okay, well how do I do that if I'm not a natural networker? Well, you have to do certain things every day, week and month. And so we break that down into an action plan for them. So I'll stick with the example of networking. If you're going to network as you're marketing, then you're going to have to do a certain number of reach outs to your current network every day. So let's say you're going to reach out to five people a day. And with that, the goal is going to be to set up one, one on one meeting with someone in your network every single week. And then monthly you're going to need to attend one networking event. Whether it's a formal networking event, a group you belong to or attending a client's event that they invited you to so you can network. And then your goals and outcomes from that are, you know, if I'm networking with someone, I have three outcomes. I want them to join my program, I want them to refer me to someone, or I want them to connect me to somebody else in the community. I. We just really drill down into where your strengths and then what are you going to do every day, week and month to get new leads, to expand your marketing and get the results that you want, which is more clients to help and then a bigger business as well.

I think one big business challenge that I see in every industry and I suspect is really big in the fitness industry is retention. You get the customers in. But I go to the gym, I see people there for a month, and I just know, okay, they got the new sweatpants, not wearing the stuff from the 70s like Kelsey does. And I'm like, they're not going to be here for long, right? They're gone. What's the key to improving retention? I think every business can learn from this.

That's like the million dollar question.

This is called the million dollar show now. So you got to give us the answer.

So at the end of the day, it's about an experience and then delivering on the result. And so there's a. There's probably a lot of pieces to a formula that you could put together for Perfect Retention Model 1. I think you need to understand as a business owner, what's the average lifetime expectancy of a client in a certain fitness model that I'm running as a business, let's say a transformation business. Once I help someone lose the weight and accomplish that transformation, maybe their life cycle as a customer is over. But in most gyms, they want their clients to stay long term. It's a lifestyle thing, so we'll go that route. And I think it's a little bit about culture, so they have to feel like they belong. If you can create a community within your gym where the members know each other and they help each other and the client gets to know the trainers and they feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves, they're more likely to stay because that pain of disconnect, of leaving is worse than any pain of, hey, finances are tight this month. Maybe the $200 a month I'm paying for my group training workouts or whatever it is is not worth it right now. So that's one piece, that community, and then the other is just the consistent helping them reach the Next goal, you have to always be helping them set milestones, reach those milestones, set the new milestone so that they're always chasing something so that they feel like they need you, so that you're adding value to them. I think those are the two pieces that are most important in fitness, but that, you know, that's really easy to take and apply to any small business.

Well, that's the idea. I mean.

Oh, no, no, you go ahead. You first. No, because I was going to shift the subject.

Oh, okay. But I find that you're right. The lessons you're teaching us isn't just the fitness industry. It's anyone who's looking to retain clients, gain clients. I mean, this is golden stuff. That's all I was going to say. What do you got?

Well, no, I was just thinking, what about. For really any membership organization, but specifically gyms, what about the people who, you know, you get locked into a contract, whether it's for a year or whatever, and you may stop going, but there are people who pay for years and don't go. Is it worth it as the owner to just let these people keep paying, or is it better to make that decision to say, hey, you know what? You're not utilizing this to where you should. We're probably not a good fit for you.

That's a good one. That's a good one.

Yeah, that is a good one. So there are now, there's this movement of the people who are delivering the service of fitness ultimately are dependent on that service delivering the results for the people who started out paying for it. So it's imperative. And our clients, and pretty much everybody in the fitness industry that I'm aware of is realizing this. You can't just let the sleeping bear lie. You have to focus on reactivation or keeping them interested, keeping them engaged. This is not the box club world of 10 or 15 years ago, where it was actually better for you if you opened a big box club 15 years ago and you put half a million dollars of equipment in it. The more people came and used your equipment, the harder they were on your equipment. It wore out, you had to replace it. So they were okay with you working out for two months at the beginning of each year and then taking 10 off. But when you're in the business of delivering the service and therefore the results that they expected, that the customer expected to get, you can't afford to let that customer die off or let their interest wane. You've got to invest time, energy, money. Part of your marketing budget needs to go into retention ideas and engagement ideas to prevent that drop off.

Yeah, I love it. That points to the power of a capitalist environment is that ultimately it self corrects.

Yeah.

And you're right before you get a member. And they never show up. Oh, my God, this is perfect. But then the day comes where another gym is keeping people and they start talking about the gym they're getting results at. That business collapses and it corrects. So, Nick and Ryan, there's so much more I want to ask you. We are at a time, though, where can people learn more about you and how to grow their fitness business?

The best place to find us is frnation.com and that's our site. Tons of free resources there. And they can kind of figure their way to us from that point.

All right, FR Nation. That's freakinrightnationbaby.com. this actually stands for fitness revolution, but we will have it in our show notes, plus your Facebook links. Nick and Ryan, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much, guys.

Thanks, guys.

Our pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you all.

So there we go.

There we go.

Yeah. That's how I get people off the show now. Whip them out.

Whip them in a shit.

Yeah, exactly. Get out of here. We got stuff to do. So here's. Here's the stuff we gotta do now. Yeah, I got a page full of scrolled notes. You know what I should do? I should start piling this all up in this room just to see how many notes I have. I got stacks of it in my office.

Or I think you should frame them.

And then put them on the wall so you can actually reference them.

That's better. I should do something with them like that. So we're gonna summarize what we just learned on each episode. On each episode. On this episode. We do it on every episode. And then we're gonna do some other stuff. But I do want to thank our corporate partners first. Punch me, Christina.

Boom.

Nice. Okay, so who do we want to thank for today's wonderful episode?

Fun box.

Oh, my God, I love that cash flow accelerator. Do you ever have you have it in your jewelry business? People pay invoices, you invoice them. They don't always pay it right away.

Right, right.

And sometimes it's for a legitimate reason. They're not trying to. They whatever. They're struggling financially, whatever. You know, Fundbox releases those funds to you in the spot, in the moment, so you don't get compromised by it and the customer doesn't. It's like a bridge loan. Effectively.

Yeah.

When Your customer payment comes in, you return it to fund box, plus their service fee. They're in business to make money too, but very fair, very reasonable as a way to get money right away. Fundbox.com who else?

We got Nextiva.

Oh, my God. Probably one of my favorite companies. So I was considering, should I get nextiva now or should I do in the future? So I called. There's customer support. I have a recording of it. I said, should I get my nextiva phone now? Do it. Just do it. Very supportive people. And I'm like, but I don't know if I should get 10 phones. I was thinking about 15. Should I get 15 phones?

Do it.

Just do it.

And then I'm like, I don't know if I can pay the bill right now. When should I pay the bill? Do it.

Do it.

The customer support is amazing. Very effective. It's fully automated too.

Fully.

Now, Nextiva is an amazing phone system. Nextiva.com, voiceOverip, it's our phone system of choice. We've been using them for years. We got one now for Billy Ann. We can announce that she's a fully on board. Billy Ann Grigg, who is an extraordinary profit first professional, has become an employee of our company. She has an XIVA phone at her remote office and her clone office here at our headquarters.

Clone office?

Yeah. That doesn't sound right. Her office at home is nice. Her clone here is like this cardboard box next to Ron, I think. Didn't someone get the interns got kicked out?

They did. They got kicked out.

Are they even on this floor? Where they. Where are they now?

They're on the roof.

Isn't that awesome? We kicked out our interns. I don't even know where they are. And they're. They're such good employees.

I know.

They are good.

Ron and I are sitting down. We're like, we actually have amazing interns. We were in here doing GMAP yesterday. Izzy, one of our interns, comes running in and she's like, here's the updated sheets. I've called the customers or the guests. They're all set. Amazing.

Yeah, they're doing high end style. They're great.

And we don't pay them much.

Yeah, we do pay.

We do pay, but we do pay him now.

It's funny because I went to the post office and she was like, oh, the young fella came in yesterday.

Oh, isn't he great?

He's just the sweetest. And she was like, yeah. And I was. I was talking to him and saying, I Hope that they're paying you well over there. And he was like, they didn't pay me.

I don't get paid.

She was like, now I get paid.

Oh, did he disclose that? He was not getting paid at first.

And she was like, I feel like.

I opened up at post office. They're real nipple twisters. I mean, they real. They come in purple narples. They always zing us. Well, I'm going to start zinging the post office back.

No.

Nice. We need them.

Exactly.

Okay, I won't Instagram.

So. Receipt Bank.

Oh, my God, our interns with Receipt bank are unbelievable. You know what we used to do is we would just say, Brian and I and you guys, we walk in with boxes full of receipts and dump it on their head and say, fix this, intern. I need this in the system. We'd be yelling at them. They'd be crying, no more. No more. Now we use receipt bank. When I get a receipt, I just scan it with my phone.

You guys know the truth now.

Now I go to interns, I just start yelling. I'm like, I can't find my receipts. Where are they? And they just start crying. I'm like, they're on my phone.

I'm just gonna paint this, like, abusive picture.

Well, I'm just pissed at the post office. The whole situation has me upset. And you know, there's one company that I absolutely love. It's called Profit First Professionals. There's another company that's pretty good. It's called Wright Networks. Right Networks is a. Kelsey's just like, don't do that, Mike.

They're paying, they're listening.

Like, gee, yeah, why don't we sponsor your show? Because Right Networks is awesome. That's why I sponsored this show. They're givers. And you know what they give you? They give you flexibility. You know that app you're using? We use a thing called Audacity here. It's a recording system. You know, it's a desktop app. It's amazing. Sometimes I have to do edits, and I'm like, oh, my God. I have to drive back to the office to do these darn edits to get the files and stuff. It's frustrating, a pain. I'm like, oh, maybe I can install it there, then do a transfer and download, blah, blah, blah. Then I have a duplicate, but I have to know which one's a good copy, which one's a bad copy. I'm like, oh, my God. Explodes. But if I use Right Networks, they put it all in the cloud. I could do my Audacity work on the cloud. I could be anywhere. I'm going to Australia for two weeks.

You are?

I could be doing this stuff on the airplane through the Audacity network. If I get WI fi on the airplane.

You could.

That's what Right Networks does. Takes any app you have that you have on your desktop. It puts on the web and makes you web enabled on the spot. Go to Write Networks. That's R I G H T. Yeah, that's right, not wrong. Write writenetworks.com or you can call them if you're that old School at 888-417-4448, extension 1. Say that Kelsey sent you and they'll say, kelsey Boucher. I meant to say Mike. Oh, Mike, Yes. He's the guy who beats up the interns, right? Yes. What'd you learn today? Someone, for God's sake, fill the dead air.

So retention is the big, the biggie for me. I think that, you know, you have your mission, you know what you want to do, you know what you want to offer. I think it, if you play your cards right, you get people in the door. But I think it's so important to treat the customers and the members that you have in such a right way to keep their interest on board.

Love it. Love it. You want to go, Kelsh?

I blast you for being in my head again. Yeah, pretty much the same thing.

I love Disney songs too. Losers. Nerds.

All right, nerd.

So my big takeaway was. Yeah. The key to retention is delivering that experience. And part of being that high performing business owner is creating that culture. And I think if you're gonna differentiate, that's the key to it. And if you're going to retain over the long time, that's the key.

Yeah. Don't be the company that keeps stealing money from wallets. Be the company that has integrity.

It makes total sense, though. Like now I'm thinking about Planet Fitness and how they only charge $10. And all along I was like, that's crazy. How do they charge so little? But I feel like that's their model.

Yeah, yeah.

Don't let people show. And that's going to come back and haunt them. Yeah, it's going to come back. If that's truly their intention. I'm not saying it. These guys were chock full of input. I got graphics drawings. I love the funnel model. The big ones to me were retention. I don't know if it was Ryan or Nick who said it. The pain to leave needs to be bigger than the Pain to stay.

Yes.

Meaning you're getting so much benefit that when you leave, you're losing out. Like, that was like. Oh, yes. The other one I loved. And I've never heard anyone say this. This is what, episode? 167 episodes. Oh, my God. Did we do that many?

Yeah.

167 episodes.

Yeah.

If you're a binge listener of this show, you are screwed.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for listening to every episode. In fact, listener, if you've listened to every episode, we want to send you a gift. So email christinaropetfirstprofessionals.com and we'll scrounge together something and then we'll ask you what was episode. What was episode one that really inspired people? The one that with the pit stains. No one wears it, you know, what was episode 132? 10 minutes in. What were we talking about? We're going to test you. You have to prove you've listened to every episode. But my. No one's ever said this. I said, how do you know a business that's not profitable? And I think it was Nick. He said, it's when people ignore the money, they hide from it. He goes, when they bury their head in the sand, when they don't know what their numbers are, I can guarantee they're not profitable.

Yeah, that's it.

That was pretty powerful light bulb. Okay, we gotta rock and roll. Oh, I came in loud.

Yeah.

Weird.

Yeah.

So tell us what you thought. Go on to itunes, Stitcher, Google Play Tune radio, wherever you're listening to us. Whoa. And of course, first profit, first podcast.com and proffersprofessionals.com.

Yeah. Please share, rate and review. We want your friends to find out about. We want to see your comments. We'll respond to it. There's been one comment center for about six weeks now in my asana that I need to respond to. Yeah, I'm getting there. Yeah, but it's there. At least I can capture it. And I'm responding to it. Tell us what you think. We'll get to you. We'll share. And one more thing, my friends. Yeah, Go to Prop First Professionals. That was. That's what Christina said. We got this amazing website that gives you access to certified professionals in the Profit first methodology. It's more than just a book. It's more than just a movement. There are 173 or so ISH certified active profit first professionals out there specialized in different niches. In fact, John Briggs, Shannon Simmons are two of our mastery level experts in the fitness industry. They make fitness businesses more profitable. We'll introduce you right to them. You can Google them and reach them. To reach them yourself or go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on the find button, give us some details on your business, and we'll match you up with the perfect person to drive profitably in your business. All right, do it now. Nothing else. I'm done.

Okay, thanks.

Bye, guys.

See you later. It.