How To Position Yourself For Predictive Profits - Industry Change Ep 13 with Steve Brossman

Way back, even in '83, without knowing what I was doing, I'm still following exactly the same formula 30-odd years later. And I've coined a phrase, and everybody out there should write it down, tattoo it on the back of their eyelids, I don't care how they remember it. Yep. Your perceived position predicts your profits. It's how people out there see you will determine what you can charge.

Welcome to Industry Change. I am Richard Turtungi, and today we're talking all about positioning. We're taking all about taking your rates up, and I've got no other than Steve Brosman. Welcome!

Hey Richard, great to be here. I'm excited.

Thank you. And now I've known Steve for for a number of years, and I first engaged with Steve in the early 2000s when I had a when I had a A private fitness studio. And I know you've been in the game for many years in the health and fitness space. You owned your first gym at '83?

1983, we opened up.

1983, when I was about 2.

Yeah, I was only 5.

And from then, you've literally bounced from every, I guess, innovation piece and been able to reposition yourself as a leading authority in every stage. And I know you started from a professional athlete, you were a sprinter, then you moved into health clubs, Then you moved into producing your own TV shows. You're in video when it really came out. And now, now you're repositioning and you've got a heap of books, bestsellers on Amazon as well, which we'll go through too. Actually, this is your latest one.

That's the latest one, the Authority Client Attraction System. So very proud of that one.

And, uh, so it seems to me that you have a knack of being able to position, and this is what you teach a lot of your kind of tribe and that. So yeah, welcome. And I just want to Thank you. Find out a little bit more how you do that. That's what I'm really interested about.

Way back even in '83, without knowing what I was doing, I'm still following exactly the same formula 30-odd years later. And I've coined a phrase and everybody out there should write it down, tattoo it on the back of their eyelids. I don't care how they remember. Your perceived position predicts your profits. It's how people out there see you will determine what you can charge. And that basically is the theme of what we're talking about today.

And so you did that early on. Instead of just saying, oh, I need to get some clients, you've always had your positioning the way that you wanted the people to see you.

Yeah, as an athlete, I always liked to win. So generally I wouldn't enter the race or the competition that was crowded by everybody else. And that was the big thing that we opened up in 1983. 2 years after I opened, there was 5 gyms in 5 miles. It was a small country town, 50,000 population. It was basically diversify or die. So we set up kids programs. We set up one of the first weight loss programs in the health clubs. That was so successful, we licensed that across 2 countries. So it was all about being different and not competing the same as everybody else. And I see it rife in the fitness industry way back then. Yeah. We didn't have a mirror in the place. We were looking at the deconditioned. There were so many of them out there. So we didn't compete with the body beautifuls and the, and the bodybuilders. We were looking after the people who really wanted to come there for fitness and their lifestyle. So we were the only ones doing that.

I hear the word only ones doing that, and I like that because what we're saying here is that you have to find your part in what you're doing. And, you know, okay, you're saying there's 5 clubs back then. Now, now, like, the competition's everywhere. And it was actually funny because we talked before this and we work with a lot of fitness professionals and we work with people that have been in the game for a while, you know, that have started and they've been a personal trainer in the early days. And then all of a sudden, all the RTOs and everybody started being personal trainers and they go, well, where do I fit in? So I kinda wanna ask you that question, like how do you then say, okay, I've had some experience in the past, how do you bring that into today's world? world when there is all these people coming through? I mean, is it a mindset thing? Is it a process thing? What's that, what's that look like for somebody who is struggling with that?

Yeah. If somebody has been in the game for some time, they've got some sort of specialty or there might be a way of doing things differently or they've got something in their background, you know, whether they might've been an athlete or a performer or something. There is always something different about them that they could position as being different. Now you don't have to have spots to look different in a herd of zebras. But you just have to have that one thing that is different. And we were talking earlier about people writing books and people think that they're not an authority on something. Yeah. But you look at Amazon and all the bookstores, there's hundreds, if not thousands of books on real estate. There's thousands of books on weight loss. There is. There's thousands of books on every particular topic, but they've all got their own little slant. So if you're a personal trainer, look at— here's a tip. that we teach our people. Look at some of the major results you've got some of your best clients and look at how you've done it. And there's always something that's different that you can hang your hat on and not just call yourself a personal trainer.

Great little advice there. I just want to repeat that. So you're saying look past your 3 clients, what did they get, and then what specifically, what specifically did they get, and then market that specific part. And that, that's kind of like encompasses who you are.

Yeah, I'll take 2 steps here. Market the outcomes that they're going to get, not the inputs that they have to do. Or as I put it, and they might want to write this one down, is sell the aspiration, not the perspiration. And that was the thing that we started the weight loss program on. We were getting our butt kicked. We were only charging like hundreds of dollars for our gym memberships. Yeah. And the weight loss people that were starting up in '84 were selling for thousands of dollars. They were selling dreams and hope. And we were selling hard work and sweat. So it slapped me around. It's like, well, turn that around. I created Shed and Shape Budget Weight Loss and doubled my gym fees because it was half the weight loss fees. But we were selling it in the language of them. We were selling the weight loss and the dreams. Yep. And people that could not afford a gym membership for half that price found the money to afford a weight loss program. So sell the aspiration. People will pay more for that. than the actual work that they have to do.

Yeah, so it's really interesting what we're talking about here because, I mean, we are working with people and business owners and entrepreneurs and people in the fitness industry. We have a lot of clients in that, and the key is that they're, they're very good at what they do and they're very passionate about what they do. And I remember when I started our directory Meet Your Personal Trainer, it was all about filming yourself and putting yourself in your area on camera so people would actually know what you did. Because they're all great at what they do. And so you're saying spend way more time on that perception piece.

Yeah, look, when you get into marketing, we both love marketing. It's— and we were talking earlier about the brown box syndrome.

Yes, explain the brown box syndrome in a sec.

And people get bigger returns on repositioning themselves and repackaging themselves than just spending more money on marketing. Because if you're marketing yourself the same as everybody else, you're going to throw more and more money and more and more time at marketing yourself for the same as everybody else. But if you just spend that time on repositioning yourself, being different, having different outcomes and different programs. I'll give you a quick example. Yeah. One of my clients not that long ago was 3 clubs down in Victoria. We just started working. He said, Steve, we're going to reduce our personal training fees. We can't compete. I said, well, how are you selling it? He said, well, one session is this and 10 is that. And I said, there's your problem. And he said, what do you mean? I said, increase your fees 15%. And he just fell off.

Yep.

He said, what? We can't sell it now. We're going to put together a rapid fast start weight loss program, add a couple of little things, a food diary or whatever, and sell the fast start program. So a week later we had the coaching call. He said, Steve, you won't believe what happened. I said, I think I will. And he said, we have sold more in the last 6 days at a higher price than what we've done previously in the last 6 weeks.

Wow.

So again, that repackaging and repositioning what they were doing made a massive difference. And that's a big lesson for all the people out there. If you're selling yourself as a personal trainer and you're just selling— and a golden rule, if you are selling time for money and you're selling dollars per session or dollars per hour, you're pointing a big red arrow at the fee saying, please compare me on price, 'cause that's all they can do.

Naturally, right?

Yeah.

So that's interesting you say that, 'cause I wanna talk about that actually. It's one of my questions I have here, and I know I very easily use the questions, but one of the questions was, I wanted to find out, you're talking about the concept of defining your, you know, by industry. A lot of people are saying, I'm a personal trainer. Now what you're talking about here is redefining the position. So you're not a personal trainer, but you're something else that you've marketed yourself, those results that you gave those clients. So talk about that a little bit more.

Yeah, look, I worked with somebody, this is a real classic example, somebody that really works with people on the whole of their life. They put themselves as a wellness coach or a whatever coach. As soon as you put that in there, you're the same as all the other wellness coaches.

Oh, people have a perception, good, bad, whatever, what a wellness coach is.

Yeah, yeah. So what they did is they worked with the people to really change everything in their life and give them— and I'd get away from makeovers because that's still well used. But on TV, in a different industry, the word renovation is very hot and people understand what a renovation is. So they became a lifestyle renovation specialist.

Wow. Sounds different.

Totally different.

Sounds different.

And sold out.

Sounds different.

Because they were packaged and communicated differently. So they went from— and we'll bring it up now— the brown box, blue box. See, most trainers are out there, nobody knows how good they are until they unwrap the box. They could be the best in the world, but if they're packaged in a brown box, they're sitting on the shelf with all these other brown boxes and people will probably choose the wrong box. It's not until they get to know them that they think, oh, you're good. But quite often they don't get to know them. Going from a wellness coach or a personal trainer to a lifestyle renovation specialist or something like that, you become a bright blue box and think, that's attractive. I want to look at that.

Steve, I like that. I really like that, but I want to kind of delve into our audience, and I reckon in their heads they're saying, well, hang on, how can I do that? How can I be that? How can I write a book? How can I call myself that person? Like, what, what, what gives me the right to call myself that person? How do you get over that? Because you've done it successfully many times over, right? How do you go through that process? Because I don't think it's a normal process to go through, especially If you just love training somebody.

Okay. Here's, here's the quote that has changed my life and many of the people I work with. You don't have to be the best in the world. You just have to be the best in their world.

Ooh, very good.

So all you have to do is if you've helped somebody, if you've helped a group of people, then you have the right to share that to other people that you can help more of as well. And that's the big thing out there is you don't have to say, well, yeah, I'm not the best in the world at this. Sure. Well, so what? You don't have to be. If you have knowledge and expertise that you could share and help people, you're a selfish so-and-so if you don't share it. You have the right duty and obligation to get it out there and help more people. Therefore, the book is just a vehicle. It doesn't define you if you use the book properly to get out there and help more people. And I know personal trainers generally are not in it to become millionaires.

Yeah.

They're in it because they— their passion of helping people. Now we just help and you just help people by providing the tools to get out there and help more people. A book is a great communication and positioning tool.

You've written 4 books, is that correct?

I've written 2 of my own. I've co-authored, I think, another 3 or 4, can't recall.

Yep.

2 with my wife and a couple of collaboration books. Actually, I think I'm probably up to 7 now. Pam's just hit 13 on her own. But anyway— Wow.

So it's competition clear.

Yeah. Well, she's helped 135 people become Amazon bestselling authors. That was one of the things you said, how can you produce these books so quickly? I do what I'm told and I follow Pam's formula.

Great.

It's just to get it out. The other thing with these people Is they don't have to write War and Peace and they don't have to dump all their brain there. They just have to write the information out there that is specific to helping the target market.

I kind of like that concept because I do believe that, I think everybody, you know, when you think about that, you know, the people around you, you have to be their world. They're the best in that world. It does break a lot of barriers down because I do believe obviously in this social media world we compare a lot of ourselves and everything, but it's Really keeping that focus.

Yeah.

While we talk about social media, right, you know, you've started in '83 in your health club for 10 years, no social media, right?

No, no, it wasn't my style.

I remember when I met you in 2000, there was a club called Personal Best, and I don't think it was even an email address or website back then. But tell me about now, and you do a lot of stuff in Facebook and things like that, so tell me how, you know, is social media a plus or a minus now if you were to position yourself correctly in the right way, you've got your book, you've got your positioning. Is social media a vehicle to expand or do you think it's a negative? I just want to have your view on social.

You've, you've got to use the communication tools where the people are.

Okay.

And, and way back in 2009, using all the stuff that we did with in and out of TV for 20-odd years, I was as happy as when the internet collided and videos could be used on the internet. And we, we did courses back in 2009 on Videos were crucial back then.

Yeah, for sure.

Now we're also resurrecting and we're going back out with a lot more emphasis on videos because the big fight between YouTube and Facebook for getting your live videos out there, that when you have 2 of the biggest platforms fighting for you to use videos, you take advantage of it. And with some of the changes, the recent changes now, Look, when we were coaching videos and video marketing back in '09, we had the cameras. We had all this stuff. We had all the big tools and everybody was scared of it, the expense. Well, everybody's got a camera that takes videos better than all the equipment that we used to have. So there's no excuse.

There isn't.

And when you're doing live streams, you still need to be professional. It's still a reflection of who you are as a business person. But you don't have to be perfect. And I say, I've got one more for you. Personality and passion produces profits, not perfection.

I like that. There's a lot of perfectionists around.

Yeah, and so if you get your personality and passion through the lens, people are buying you as a trainer or somebody in the fitness industry. I want to be with that person. They're just infectious. I just want what they have. And that's what you need to get across.

I think that's a good point. I was actually talking about this point around yesterday, you know, We had a book because I had a reminder that I was published 10 years ago. Got our book out.

I saw

that. And, and I was just thinking, I was saying, Joe, you know, 10 years ago we paid $10,000 for a PR agent to put us on every single news station, radio stations, all that kind of stuff, right? We were everywhere, but it cost us $10,000, right? But now the information and the stuff, we just pick up our phone and we can connect to people. We can do lives, we can do videos. And I like the point you're saying, you still have to be professional. You still don't have any points. Because obviously the, the business people, the ones that actually understand, will move to the top. And the ones that are just doing live, just, hey, this is my breakfast cereal, it's still not going to go anywhere, right?

That's correct. Yeah, excellent. Okay, you, you— the medium will change forever. And going back to the stuff that I was doing back in, you know, '83, etc., all the way through the same system— standing out, positioning, packaging— when you get that right, the mediums Mediums can change every day, but as long as you know how to position and package and promote, it makes no difference how often they change. It's still the same thing. You still need to stand out and be different than anybody else.

I like that a lot. And in regards to the process of moving to, to the next thing, possibly, let's say the internet, um, let's say we move somewhere else, or I know voice is coming up soon, possibly. Is it important, how do you know when those trends are gonna come and how do you then position yourself as an expert there? So for example, personal trainer comes and says, oh, there was some crazy fitness trend, I was expert in that, now I'm expert in this. You know, how do you then cross-pollinate and say, I'm moving to here now?

Both Pam and my philosophy is you need to master something first before you call yourself an expert.

I like that.

And that's the big thing. Even though I'm very current now by implementing everything that I've done previously in every— all I've done is mastered the mediums. But I'm an expert in the positioning, packaging, and in the promotion of that side of it. The mediums change. I'll just take this and use that medium and take it and use that medium. So I'm not an expert in the actual mediums.

Yeah.

I'm an expert in adapting to whatever medium is going to be the way through there. So I'm not going to call myself ever an expert in Facebook or Facebook marketing. However, when I'm taking the Authority Sales Attraction Blueprint into there or the Blueprint Conversion System, that's what I'm an expert in. But I use the other mediums to communicate that. So I can adapt very quickly because I'm not really changing too much of who I am and what I do. Mm. I just change how I communicate it to whatever is current.

I think that's great. And I think, you know, especially the people watching this and especially our audience, everybody wants to, you know, grow and scale, but it always comes back whenever we start our programs, always comes back to what do you do? Who's your audience? What are you selling? And what about, and what makes you different, Lee, pretty much?

Yeah. One of the big things that I learned, and I really do put this into my coaching, that people will gravitate towards you when they know what you stand for. So they've got to know who you are. and what you stand for. But the big thing is they'll run towards you when they know what you stand against.

Right.

So when you, you might be in the fitness industry and you could stand against people. You may say, oh, I'm against high-fat diets. Or I'm against this. When people really know who you are and what you stand for, then they'll say, yeah, that is my person. So when you've got the whatevers to stand up and do it, then they will appreciate, yeah, I stand for this and I stand against that. And that's, that's a big thing. So it's— there's no sense being vanilla out there. If you're vanilla, you might as well be invisible.

I really like that because what we're saying is, you know, really clearly defining your customer base, your avatar, what you can actually do, and then ensuring that your messaging is not vanilla and, and, and having a say. And I think that's the best conversations out there at the moment, right?

Well, my first book was Stand Up, Stand Out, or Stand Aside, and I passionately wanted to call it Be Different or Bugger Off. But Pam, the Amazon guru, said, no, you shouldn't do that. And I thought, damn it. But that is, that's what I feel about it. You've got to be different or just get out of the game.

I think I like that a lot. And I think that's something that a lot of businesses can resonate with. It doesn't matter what type of marketing you're doing, what type of business you have, it literally comes down to the positioning piece. And, you know, quite frankly, it sounds like it's going to be saving a lot of money on the front end, a lot of headaches as well. I read a few chapters of your book, The Authority Client Attraction System. And it just makes sense when somebody knows, likes, and trusts you first. Um, they— there's not really a conversation about price. It disappears.

Yeah. See, one of the biggest things that, you know, we talk about social media. Well, you know, if you had been a prospect or a client, you'd have maybe have been referred to me or watched some videos on social media. If you had contacted me, I'd have sent some chapters of my book over. I would then send a copy of my blueprint. You would have got a video email from me.

Yep.

So by the time we get to talk, you have made a decision in your mind, this guy is absolutely fantastic, I can't wait to talk and do business with him, or he's an idiot. Either way, you've made that decision, and my conversation with you is so much different. So, you know, when you're talking about positioning yourself and having what I call the collateral out there, whether you use the Facebook and do these posts, if they get to know you, then they'll think, yeah, that is the person that I really want to put my life in, you know, to get my personal training done.

Yep.

Then it's a different conversation than, hey, listen, I've just got you off the Yellow Pages. Who are you and what do you do?

100%. You don't want to be— you want to be talking to people that know how professional you are and actually what you can service. And listen, we all know that the best way, the most converting way to get your clients are referrals. Yes. And so it still hasn't changed. It never does change. But it's about how do you get more of those that are people knocking on your door knowing what you do and how you do it?

Yeah, I'd also talk about the triple clarity. And you ask anybody, you ask 90% of the people in the fitness industry, they'll just say, well, I'm a trainer. And that doesn't give me any clarity around who you are, what you do, and who you best work with and who you best serve. So the minute that you are clear on who you are, what you do, and who you best serve, Life changes for you. The minute your prospects and clients are clear on who you are, what you do, and who you best serve, it's a big bonus. But then the minute that your referral partners or strategic partners or people out there know who you are and what you do, then that's when you actually multiply your leverage.

Very, I think, clear steps. Give me a takeaway, right? Like, so the first thing, let's say a trainer's not ready really to write a book. They don't have any time, they don't— they're not in that world. What can they do in a micro step to actually be that authority? Like you're saying, like someone is inquiring to train with them, what can they give? Like what can they give out, something so they can lift their game

up? Most businesses, most trainers would have a process that they would go through. And I talk about creating your own business blueprint, or that's Dale's thing, or it's actually your Client Conversion Blueprint.

Yep.

And the big thing there is if you could actually map out in a visual graphic, because we absorb about 85% of our input visually and verbal is linear. So if we had a conversation and you started talking for 2 minutes, by the time you got to the end of those 2 minutes, I've already forgotten the first minute.

Sure.

Whereas if you had your system blueprint, whatever you want to call it, and it's laid out in front that if we take this step, this is how we're going to achieve your goals. We're going to go through this process here, we're going to go through this, this, and then you're actually writing down all the different changes and articulate all the payoffs and the benefits they're going to get. They're looking at that visually. 99.9% of the fitness industry don't have that visual.

No.

You create that system. The people that have gone out there and created the systems, a lot of them are online, they're selling a bucketload because they're selling a system to get results. System. So the minute you have a system to get somebody's results and sell the system, not yourself, then life will change. So my encouragement for you guys is to sit down and work out what it is that you do step by step. How can you put it in a graphic format? And call it a name that's very outcome-based. Because when you have that title written there, I'm looking at you, I'm looking at the blueprint, I'm looking at you, I'm looking at the blueprint. Subconsciously, I'm looking at that outcome all the time.

So an outcome name, so something that's going to represent what they want to achieve.

Yeah. So I've got the Client Acceleration Blueprint. I've got the Blueprint Conversion System. They're all things that people want. Great. Yeah. I want to accelerate my authority. And I keep looking at that. I keep looking at that. It's like, that's what I want. So there's a— it's a fairly simple formula to build something that's graphic that, yes, this is the step-by-step process we're going to take you through. And most of them have it.

I do believe everybody has it. It's just sitting down and actually doing it.

Yeah, it's tricky, but then you just map it out and then be able to work out how you can take somebody through it and lead them through and say, look, does this system make sense? Does this program make sense? Does this whatever it is make sense? that we get started on this to achieve your goals. And then when you have that, never again do you have to say, buy me, I'm good.

Sure.

Because it's, I'm buying that.

Buying the process, buying the outcome first. I love it, I love it. There's some really valuable information there in regards to like some key takeaways here. So I think it's like a very hands-on action, you know, action interview, which I like. So it's some really action interviews. You mentioned you work with your wife a lot, Pam. I see you guys online a lot. I work with my wife. Tell me, tell me what the tricks are. Like, how do you, how do you stay successful and work together at the same time? Because there is a lot of business owners that are working with their partners. How do you do it? What's, what's your tricks?

Her office is on the, the first floor, on the third floor, second floor, and I'm 2 floors down.

All right, 2 floors down.

I'm not, I'm not on the— not just one floor down. Yeah, just be 2 floors down. So we— and I don't feel like running upstairs. I have to say, she actually contacts me on Skype. We both have our own areas of expertise and we respect those. Yep. She's been focusing very heavily on her books and on her female community, where I'm focusing on the business side of things, the blueprints. We are now getting together, back together again to do the videos. So we've got our Video Profits coming up. So I'm going to be doing a lot of the speaker, the presenter training, and the business side of things. where she's going to be showing people how to do the live streams and market on Facebook and things like that, which is her forte. So we each respect our own expertise, but we also have our own separate businesses as well.

Excellent.

And we get together to do those fun things.

Sounds like a plan. Take some tips aboard. This has been super valuable. Now I know you've got a whole lot of resources out there. What's the fastest way to You know, you're a Facebook, Instagrammer. Where can people like communicate or get your book or what's the best place for them?

Look, 2 things are easy. I'm always on and off Facebook on a daily. If they want to tune in on a Monday, they get Momentum Monday, a livestream, Finish Hard Friday. Find me on Facebook. It's just Steve Brosman. Or I make it even easier, stevebrosman.com. And they can go and see all the stuff we've got.

Sounds good. I'll put some links there. Thanks so much for your time.

Mate, it's been a blast.

Appreciate it.

Went too fast.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's Industry Change. If you want to watch this, go to YouTube and subscribe. Otherwise, you can listen on your favorite podcast station. Thanks for tuning in. To listen to this on iTunes, simply go to iTunes, search Industry Change, and you can find the episodes here. You can also search the episodes for YouTube if that's a preferred platform for you. Otherwise, you can go to my website, richardtoutounji.com, or you can also see it on commarketing.com.au. Thanks so much. I will see you next time on Industry Change.