Episode 5: How To Get More Online Coaching Clients

Mike: [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to episode five of the How To Become A Personal Trainer podcast. We’re your hosts, Mike Vacanti.

Jordan: [00:00:10] My name is Jordan Syatt and today we have a really good discussion. It went longer than expected, but the, uh, the initial discussion is a tangent.

Mike: [00:00:20] It’s a great tangent.

Jordan: [00:00:21] It was a good discussion. And, uh, the meat of this episode, though, is about how to get more online coaching clients, but, important to clarify, not in the “guru” mentality of trying to do more ads and convert more leads. It’s really about how to build a business that helps a lot of people even– and especially if you don’t have a huge Instagram following.

Mike: [00:00:44] Yeah. I think you guys are really going to enjoy this episode.

Jordan: [00:00:46] And we also, by the way, announce the winner of the next free month in the Fitness Business Mentorship. So, make sure you listen for that ’cause we announced that in the episode and in the meantime, enjoy it and we’ll talk to you soon.

Mike: [00:01:06] Hello Jordan.

Jordan: [00:01:07] Hello Michael.

Mike: [00:01:07] How are you?

Jordan: [00:01:08] I’m well man. Just got off the plane from LA back to New York.

Mike: [00:01:12] How was that?

Jordan: [00:01:14] It was a really good flight. It was actually a really good flight. I, uh, it was only like four and a half hours did– I, I was going to say, did zero work, but I did some Instagram stuff, some social media, and then I watched Crimes of Grindelwald the rest of the way, which is a fantastic movie.

Mike: [00:01:30] Was it good?

Jordan: [00:01:31] I really enjoyed it. I really liked it a lot. I like the ones where they go before the whole story started, so it was a good movie. How’s your day?

Mike: [00:01:39] Nice, man. Uh, my day was good. I coached Gary this morning and got a work out in myself. And then–

Jordan: [00:01:46] How’s Gary?

Mike: [00:01:47] Learned how to play Chinese checkers from you. Uh, Gary’s good. Gary’s good. We’re, we’re back in the flow post-vacation and everything 2020. So, he’s getting consistent workouts, nutrition’s been reasonably okay and he’s looking to dial that in in the next month or two. So, that’s our focus. Yeah, man. I’m excited for this though.

Jordan: [00:02:11] Honestly, the response has been so good.

Mike: [00:02:16] Like, blown us both away.

Jordan: [00:02:17] It’s super motivating to want to do more because the response has been so positive and optimistic and really excited and, uh, seeing the written reviews of how people are like– the written reviews have been, and thank you if you left one. It’s been an incredible.

Especially, there’s been a lot of talk about how there’s a lot of people in the industry trying to sell a “mastermind” program, but most of it’s based around just leads and sales and dollars and not as much of it about being a better coach and about actually helping people.

And it seems like this is something that people have been really wanting and needing, but there has been a white space, like nobody’s taken it up yet. No one’s discussed it.

Mike: [00:02:58] Which is crazy to me because what we’re talking about actually works. Like it’s what you and I have done and seen others successfully do for the last six, seven, eight, nine years.

Jordan: [00:03:10] And it’s what most coaches wanna do. Most coaches want to coach and help people. Most coaches don’t get into the fitness industry. To be billionaires.

Mike: [00:03:20] Yeah. Or to like to become experts at–

Jordan: [00:03:23] …sales copy and like, marketing funnels.

Mike: [00:03:26] Lead magnets.

Jordan: [00:03:27] Yeah. They do it cause they– usually, most people get in the industry because fitness changed their life in some way, whether it was making them more confident, helping them get healthier. Like, of course, like me as well.

Mike: [00:03:40] I literally quit accounting to join the fitness industry because I liked it for myself that much.

Jordan: [00:03:45] Yeah, and I think most people– most coaches, one of the things they love about this job is that it’s not a desk job.

They’re not in a cubicle. They’re not just on a computer all day. They’re actually interacting with real people. And when you go into the marketing world and sales world, a lot of that is at a desk sitting down at a computer. And there’s nothing wrong with that inherently, but the best way to build your coaching business is to be a better coach.

And so, we’re super glad that people have realized that’s what this podcast is about. It’s not about how to convert at a higher rate and make more money off of your “leads.” And nothing is wrong with making money, but it’s about how to do it in a way that feels good to you. And which is usually just coming from helping people get better results.

Mike: [00:04:29] And in this episode, we are going to talk about a specific way and maybe a couple specific ways to get more online coaching clients, uh, as you can see in the title. But before we get into that, first we have a couple of other things we want to talk about. Tell me about Brazilian jujitsu, Jordan.

Jordan: [00:04:49] Man, there’s a lot I could talk about with this. So, so the reason Mike brings that up is ’cause one thing that we’ve been talking about a lot has been the importance of an aim. And the importance of, of– and I think this is actually something a lot of coaches inherently know, right? Which is their clients, like, they need to have a why or a what. They need to have a reason for doing something.

Mike: [00:05:13] Anything. Coaches, people, any human, something to move toward.

Jordan: [00:05:19] I think a lot of coaches with their clients, they’ll instill this and say, “you need to really figure out what your why is and what your what is.” But oftentimes with themselves they don’t take that same advice with their business. So, for jujitsu for me–

Mike: [00:05:32] Yeah, business or life.

Jordan: [00:05:33] Yeah, 100%. For me, I’ve been lacking that for the last three years. For–

Mike: [00:05:41] You mean with your personal fitness?

Jordan: [00:05:42] With my own health, my own fitness, my own– even, I think my business has improved since I’ve started doing jujitsu because before and when I– so when I was powerlifting my one goal, my one aim was 4x bodyweight deadlift, and I think since then I’ve lacked something. I’ve lacked– I mean, when I was wrestling, it was all about wrestling, when I was doing powerlifting it was all about powerlifting. Once I started with Gary, and actually, even when I moved to Israel before Gary, really my one aim then was actually to learn Hebrew.

That’s like, that was my every day, like, I had to have study time and I would go out and speak to people and try and like learn just fro– I would have one phrase that I would say over and over and over again. I would always say, “uh, how do I get to the bus station?” I learned that one phrase in Hebrew, and then I would listen to people’s responses and I’d started to learn directions.

I started to learn, “all right, so this is left, this is right, this is straight. This is what traffic light is.” I remember like I kept hearing the word for traffic, light in Hebrew, which is “ramzor” and I like, “what is that? What is that? What is that?” And I realized– and it was through repetition of asking that same question over and over again, I started to learn how to give direction than what those words meant.

When I started with Gary, my aim was gone because so much of myself was focused on Gary and so much on the travel, on making sure I was making– giving him what he needed, being the best employee for him. And I don’t have kids, I want them one day, but I can start to imagine what it might be like for a new parent, mother, father, who was just giving all of themselves to their child.

And they’re feeling almost lost in their own either fitness and health or business because I didn’t have that for the last three or so years. And my sleep suffered, not because I didn’t have the time to sleep, but because my priorities were so far elsewhere that I didn’t have a schedule to make sure that I slept

Mike: [00:07:36] Well, you also we’re lacking a lot of control over your own schedule.

Jordan: [00:07:40] 100%

Mike: [00:07:40] When you have to be in this country one day and this country and other day,

Jordan: [00:07:44] Which makes it way harder, but I also think that– if I’m going to be very honest, it’s also an excuse. Like, I could have done better. Without question. There is a lot I didn’t have control over, but I could have done better if I actually had an aim, if I had a schedule, if I tried to make something of it. And starting with jujitsu recently, it literally changed everything.

Because of jujitsu, because I want to be really good at it and get better at it and study it and make sure that I’m well rested for it, make sure that I’m strong for it, make sure that it’s healthy for it, makes sure– like so much of what I do now is geared towards making sure I’m in the best mindset in order to perform well and learn well.

And that has also improved my business. I’ve been more efficient with what I’m doing with content creation, with posting, with interacting with people. I’ve been sleeping at least six hours a night, if not more. Haven’t done an all-nighter and months at this point, which is huge.

Mike: [00:08:41] That’s amazing.

Jordan: [00:08:41] Spoke about that recently on YouTube, and I was like explaining my goals for 2020. I told– like, I literally spent– I didn’t, I didn’t go a week without doing at least one all-nighter for three years. So, like now that’s huge that I’m– for over several months now, I haven’t done one and it’s solely because I finally now have an aim to shoot for.

Mike: [00:09:00] You have something to wake up for that’s meaningful, that takes a lot of physical and mental effort, that’s consistent. I know you’ve been trained three to five days a week.

Jordan: [00:09:11] Yeah. And it’s actually really interesting because for some people in certain situations, there’s the more gradual approach where, like, you might do one a week and then maybe two a week or– and for other people it’s just, they go on a dime, cold Turkey. They just fix everything; they change everything in their life.

For me with jujitsu, it was a very gradual approach. I started going to see Mark, my coach Mark Cerrone one time a week and eventually it went to two times a week. Then I took about a month and a half off when I was doing the Big Mac Challenge, ’cause I was just like– couldn’t and I was swamped with work and I was doing a lot of all-nighters and just like doing that whole challenge and getting the video together. After the Big Mac Challenge, I started going back to two times a week until eventually, for the amount of time that I was going, I wasn’t progressing as much as I would like, and I, on a dime from there, made a switch to start going at least three times a week. And then from there it steamrolled to four times a week, and now it’s more like at least four to five times a week now. Which is like, it’s a gradual approach if you look over that, over the course of six months or so.

But it’s been completely and utterly life changing, to say the least, in terms of how much healthier I am, happier I am, how much more focused on– how much more I can accomplish in everything when I have that one goal, it’s just, it’s huge.

Mike: [00:10:33] That’s amazing. I’m happy for you.

Jordan: [00:10:34] Thank you, man. Thank you.

Mike: [00:10:36] Yeah, and obviously we’ve talked about this many times off the podcast, but I’m excited to talk about it here.

Jordan: [00:10:41] I just think– and I want to hear your thoughts on this. I just think it’s, it’s– and it’s obviously easier said than done. I just went three years without it. It’s so important to find something that you’re so invested in achieving and having that one aim or goal in life. It doesn’t have to be only one, but having sort of like one overarching thing that is really like the pinnacle of what you want to accomplish, that sort of drives you to– rather than focusing on individual habits, having one driving force that will cause you to find a reason to make those habits in the first place, it that makes sense–

Mike: [00:11:19] Causes you to act a certain way and those actions bleed into every other area of your life.

Jordan: [00:11:24] Rather than just getting sleep because you think you need more sleep, which is sort of what I would tell myself for the longest time, like, “I need to get more sleep because it’s the right thing to do.”

But that wasn’t enough until I started really focusing on jujitsu, and I would notice my performance would suffer if I didn’t get enough sleep. So then, now sleep became a better habit and feeling myself well became a better habit. So, it’s like, not necessarily only focusing on the habits you want to change or replace, but focusing on what we actually want to achieve and then what actions we need to take in order to achieve that actual goal.

Mike: [00:11:55] Yup. Good for you, bro.

Jordan: [00:11:58] Thanks, man. What about you?

Mike: [00:12:00] When I think about having an aim, I will say that for the last few years, I think I’ve been quite aimless for the first time in my life. And we can go all the way back, and I’ll make it quick, but I remember in middle school getting cut from my hockey program– not the team, but the entire program and having to play at our cross-town rivals.

And I remember working as– that was when I started lifting weights, when I started working out in eighth grade. I remember the aim being to get good enough to make my team the next year, to play for Jefferson the next year. And from there, my next aim– and I did make the team the next year. Um, after that, my aim was make the high school team.

From there, my aim was go to the state tournament and these are boxes that, you know, a lot of the same actions that we take in our lives now are things that I learned through that process. After going to the state tournament, it was getting into a certain college. After getting into that college, it was getting good grades.

You know, there’s many steps in there. Get into the business school, graduate with a certain GPA so you can get a certain good enough job. I got that job at a Big Four accounting firm, immediately realized I hated it, and then my new aim shifted to, “I need to save up enough money so that I can quit this job.”

And so, I spent $350 a month on rent, living in a three-bedroom apartment with four guys. Um, I did everything I could to save money. I’d wake up three hours before I had to go to work to play poker online, to make money on the side. All of my aim was saving up so that I had the flexibility to quit the accounting job and do something else, which I thought was fitness-related, but I wasn’t exactly sure. It was something else.

Once I quit the accounting job, my aim was, “I want to be like the online fitness people I see. I want a website like JC Dean’s website,” and so it was, “how do I make a website?” It was reading everything on Lyle and Alan and Martin and all these guys’ websites to absorb as much information as I could, to educate myself to get a job coaching people in the gym to get that experience, and on the side to start writing on my own.

My aim was to be the best coach that I could. That’s what led to the internship, that’s what led to moving out to New York. It was all toward the aim of having an impact on other people in fitness because of what it did for me in my life and in my youth.

And in getting the job with Gary in 2014 was more of that: helping this person is going to, 1) helped me reach more people through him, 2) is going to secure a salary, because I was still shaky-ish with money. So that would lead to me feeling more comfortable and it would allow me to feel secure in the platform I have to be able to continue to create content, making YouTube videos, writing on the website, doing these things to reach more people and help as many people as I could.

Post-Gary, you know, there were aims in there, we could say. So training my dad and getting him from not working out and unhealthy to fitness as a habit for him now and he’s in much better shape, uh, training Jaime and Matt Staples on, on the, the Ultimate Sweat Weight Loss Bet, where Jaime lost 117 pounds in a year, and Matt had to bulk up and they met in the middle from 306 down to 188 and Matt went from 133 up to 188 to win that bet. Like that was a one-year aim.

Um, and recently. Something that– I mean, the mentorship was another aim for the last year, which in a sense was proving to myself that I could help people become better coaches and grow their business in the process the same way that I knew how to help people lose fat, get stronger, build muscle, feel better. At this point, and based on a lot of discussions you and I have had, so this isn’t new to you, but, longer term, I know that I want to have a family. I know that I want to be a really good father. I know that I want people in my life, whether it’s my parents as they get older, my sisters, friends of mine, anyone, I want them to be able to rely on me. And so that aim is being, uh, like having an extremely strong character.

It is being financially secure and comfortable. Um, it’s improving in various areas of my life to be the best man that I can for the other people in my life, for my future wife, for my future kids, for all of those people. Because that’s something that, uh, is very important to me and very meaningful. And so coupled with that goal, that aim, the way that is most fulfilling for me to climb there is to have a mission that helps people and in this conversation, in this specific instance, helps people reach more people and help them with their fitness goals as well as continue to help my coaching clients.

But not having that aim, not having that, “I want to work towards being a good dad, having a family, like raising good kids,” not having that almost reduce– well, not almost, it reduces the motivation for working towards doing this podcast, making content, being more consistent on YouTube, emailing my email– like doing the things that are going to lead to that.

Jordan: [00:18:15] And you felt like over the last few years that wasn’t there?

Mike: [00:18:19] Yeah, that wasn’t there. And, you know, maybe within the last 6 to 12 months it’s been really building–

Jordan: [00:18:26] Yeah, ’cause we’ve spoken about that a lot.

Mike: [00:18:27] Correct. Um, so, but I would say for definitely a solid 18 months in there, it wasn’t there. And I don’t know if we want to go down that road of like, there have been times in my life where I was quite confident that I didn’t want kids, that I didn’t want a family, that I thought society– that I thought people in society were fooled and that monogamy wasn’t the way that humans were programmed.

And I had a lot of, you know, I wouldn’t call them crazy ideas, because I had reasons for them, but they were unconventional. And starting to go down those roads led me, or at least gave me insight, to a place that I didn’t want to go.

Jordan: [00:19:14] Yeah. Huge.

Mike: [00:19:15] And looking toward others who were pursuing different values, who I admired and had a lot of respect for, like just in my gut–

Jordan: [00:19:26] And loyalty, as well.

Mike: [00:19:27] Absolutely. Knew that that was right. Helped me shift my values, created a change in values, made me reduce certain values and elevate other values as to who I want to be. And with that came a change in the aim.

Jordan: [00:19:47] You know, it’s really interesting. And like, in the spirit of being more open and honest and talking about ourselves, like I’m– I would love to go down that rabbit hole.

Mike: [00:19:57] Let’s do it.

Jordan: [00:19:57] I mean, it’s like, why not? Um. And it’s– I think it’s important to clarify before I even say any of this: it’s okay if you disagree, it’s my– this is just my opinion and my experience. Because you and I spoke about this a lot and like I went down that road as well and I still, like, question it and think about it in terms of, is monogamy the right way to do it, is like, should I get married? Should I have kids? Maybe I just want to be on my own, do my own thing. The one thing that I’ve noticed is– and this is for me personally, that when I feel like– when I go down those more unconventional paths, maybe that– that are probably picking up steam nowadays in terms of like polygamy or non-marriage or whatever it is.

The more I go down those routes, the less motivated I feel to do what I’m doing it. So, in other words, like the less motivated I feel to focus on what I’m really passionate about in terms of helping people with fitness and helping people grow their business and helping people develop a better relationship with food because I end up focusing more on essentially these impulsive pleasures, right?

Which are much more abundant when you start going down that route of either polygamy or, or a non-marriage or whatever it is, because now there are so many more options. And I think there’s a strong argument for that stuff. I think there’s a very strong argument for it and a strong case, and I think it comes down to individual preference.

But for me personally, in terms of finding the aim and what I want to focus on, I know it seems to me that I’m a much more optimistic and better person when I’m more focused on finding that one person and raising a family. And that allows me to be way more focused on the stuff that makes me feel and do better, which is putting out more content, helping more people.

Because now it’s, it’s just– that’s my focus. I’m more focused on that because the options elsewhere are massively diminished.

Mike: [00:22:12] Would you say that the fact that a monogamous relationship isn’t necessarily easy is– or has been in the past a motivator for not choosing that route? Or not so much?

Jordan: [00:22:32] Rephrase the question. I’m not sure I understand.

Mike: [00:22:35] So– I’m not sure I understand either, because now my brain just went to a completely different place.

Um, would you say that when you– when you were pursuing impulsive pleasures that you had less time available?

Jordan: [00:22:55] Without question. Less time and it’s almost like decision fatigue. Right?

With just everything in life, when you have more options, it’s very difficult to choose one and with more options come more problems in terms of there’s either more arguments or more concerns or more issues or whatever it is, and that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing, but when you limit your options– and this is everything in life, not just polygamy and monogamy, but when you limit your options, when– sort of like, you could talk about this for food, when you go to a buffet, you’re statistically more likely to eat significantly more calories because you have way more options, right? It’s like, but when you go to a buffet, if you make the choice to have, “okay, well I can only have three of these foods,” now all of a sudden, you’re statistically more likely to eat way fewer calories.

Same thing with a relationship or if you’re like, “all right, well, I’m, I want to be more polygamous,” which is fine if you do. Then that means that you’re always on the lookout for what else is there–

Mike: [00:23:56] And I’m even gonna rephrase slightly because when you say polygamy, my mind goes to like Aubrey Marcus for whatever reason–

Jordan: [00:24:03] yeah, me too.

Mike: [00:24:03] Who I love. For me personally, I don’t have, like, any experience with that. What I’ve experience with is something that I actually have got questions, a decent amount of my DMs, which is: casual dating or like, or like, uh, what are your thoughts on, yeah, I guess like the casual dating market–

Jordan: [00:24:23] Just being single and like–

Mike: [00:24:24] Being single, dating around, and whether it’s dating– just having many short-term relationships in sequence.

Um, going on three, four, six, seven dates with one girl and moving on. Uh, that’s what I can speak on, like experientially and one problem that historically hurt me and led to that same level of de-motivation around fitness, business, anything more meaningful to me was the consistent underlying feeling of, “could I do better?”

And, and it feels gross saying it, and I’m slightly ashamed of it, but it’s just the truth. When you’re in this short-term abundance mindset in that arena, especially if, you know, if, if you’re a reasonably confident male with some experience, which is what we can speak from, you can always be thinking there’s someone else, like maybe there’s someone slightly better. Maybe there’s someone who doesn’t have this bad habit. Maybe there’s someone who I would get along with a little better. And when you’re in this noncommittal area, the fatigue associated with continually, like, looking for the next best. Is, is exhausting.

Jordan: [00:25:46] Yeah.

Mike: [00:25:46] And is insatiable, too.

Jordan: [00:25:49] That. That’s exactly it. It’s absolutely insatiable.

And also, it goes back to, at least for me, so much of what– if we really look at the behavior of it and why, it’s essentially to feed an ego or like to, uh, to be validated in some way,

Mike: [00:26:11] I think, I think that’s a massive percentage of the, of the motivation.

Jordan: [00:26:15] And the interesting part is even once all is said and done that validation is absolutely insatiable and you never feel better about it once it’s all done.

Mike: [00:26:26] And the other person is a means to an end.

Jordan: [00:26:28] Exactly.

Mike: [00:26:29] They are feeding your validation.

Jordan: [00:26:31] And you don’t feel good about it at all.

Mike: [00:26:33] Correct.

Jordan: [00:26:34] And then that almost leads to wanting to do more to see like, well, maybe another one will–

Mike: [00:26:39] Will fill it.

Jordan: [00:26:40] And it just never does. And so meanwhile, going back to where I’m more focused lately, and it’s just been a huge, like mental and emotional shift has been by essentially eliminating that option I can now spend more time focused on what I know will bring me more fulfillment, which is helping more people, putting out more content, and that comes from this essential– essentially reducing my options. Right? And really focusing on giving the best of who I am to one person. And then fro– it’s so interesting. It’s like– and I don’t, I don’t claim to have all the answers, and this is just for me right now in this moment of life, it could change, but I definitely feel like I can be a better person and do more good in the world and for myself and my family when I reduce my options elsewhere. And then I can really just have that one focus from one goal or one aim to drive all of my actions and the habits. And it’s really, it’s really as, as simple as that. Not as easy as that. I mean, it’s a huge discussion, like philosophers can discuss all day. But for me, that’s just been like– if I’m thinking about how can I be the best coach, best boyfriend, best son, best husband, best whatever, that’s really what it comes down to is making that decision for me and that– I think that’s helped a lot in terms of, in terms of number one– like jujitsu was the aim earlier, but I mean, if we want to break down other aims and other goals, like, I think jujitsu was something that, and is something that has really– I’ve been very inspired by and motivated by in order to improve my health. But if we look at a higher level, I mean, we might even look at how, one of the reasons I love jujitsu is because now I feel more confident to protect myself and my family. And like, so now we can even go higher. Well, what’s really the aim, which is like to be–

Mike: [00:28:36] Jujitsu’s like a pillar.

Jordan: [00:28:37] Absolutely. And it’s something where I feel it’s really important to have the ability to defend yourself and to be able to defend your family and to just– for self-defense, not to be offensive or to try and hurt other people, but for the purpose of being able to protect yourself and to protect others. And so that’s definitely one of the main reasons that I like doing it, is because the confidence that I feel in my ability to keep others safe is– that’s addicting in and of itself: being able to feel more confident in your ability to protect others. And I feel like that’s also what one of the reasons I love social media so much is because, if you really think about what we do on social media: it’s not to start fires, it’s not to be offensive or rude or tear anyone else down, it’s to sort of put out fires, which is in some ways protecting people and keeping them safe from these awful diets, these bad, like, cleanses, these bad starvation, whatever it is. It’s like it’s another way of helping keep people safe and defending them, and it’s like, it’s another way to reach towards that higher goal.

Mike: [00:29:35] That’s a cool outlook. I’d never thought of it like that before. Anything else on this?

Jordan: [00:29:41] That didn’t go the way I expected it to go.

Mike: [00:29:44] That’s what I absolutely love and I’m so excited for more of that is having like a couple things that we know we want to talk about and then letting the conversation go wherever it goes.

Jordan: [00:29:54] Yeah. Yeah. And to just be fully candid, I’m just like waiting for the, for the reviews being like, “who are these guys talking about putting down polygamy or whatever it is.” It’s just like, and if that happens, respect, like 100% you do not have to agree with what we say, but it’s sorta like we spoke about the last time — we, Mike and I have these discussions all the time and not necessarily about what’s better or worse, more about what we’re learning and thinking about. And we thought it’d be really cool to include you in that and just be more honest about what we’re thinking about and discussing on a day to day basis.

Mike: [00:30:29] Yeah. And, and when people ask for reasons behind my motivations, I want to be able to be honest. And it’s also fun to document the changes. In perspective over time.

Jordan: [00:30:45] Yeah, ’cause if you’d asked me a couple of years ago if I was going to get married, I would have been like, “probably not.” Like, “probably not like, there’s no way I could do that.” And now it’s like a very real, top of mind thing for many, many reasons.

Mike: [00:31:00] That’s cool, man.

Jordan: [00:31:02] Yeah, man.

Mike: [00:31:04] Should we talk about how to get more online coaching clients?

Jordan: [00:31:07] There are so many ways that we can do this and I think we should– maybe we’ll say this in the intro, but when we say this: how to get more on the coaching clients, I think– and if you’ve listened to the podcast before, you’re going to know it’s not going to be a discussion on how to do targeted ads or like how to write the best sales copy in order to do that.

This is going to be more about how to get more clients in a way that is really focused on, number one, being a better coach and also helping more people.

Mike: [00:31:39] Yeah. If you want to sit on a beach and sip a margarita and have an algorithm that just gets you clients, then…

Jordan: [00:31:46] This isn’t the podcast.

Mike: [00:31:47] I’m glad you listened to the monogamy part, but you don’t need the rest of this.

Jordan: [00:31:53] Uh, so what do you think? What should we start with?

Mike: [00:31:55] I love using the lens of Gary’s book, The Thank You Economy, which, basically the thesis of that book is there is a massive hole in the market where businesses– which includes us like sole-proprietor, LLC, personal trainer businesses, not doing the micro follow-up, not replying to every single comment, not replying to every DM, not helping people for free, not replying to their emails, partly out of laziness, a good percentage out of entitlement.

I remember a coach once when, in 2015, when I was going hard on Snapchat, and I would consistently say, “if you have any questions about anything, let me know. I’m here for you and I’ll answer.” And I literally spent two to three hours a day answering people’s questions in video format for free for no expectations, mostly fitness-related questions, and I would have a lot of back and forth with these people.

And this coach asked me like, why don’t you charge for that? And I was like, “what do you mean?” She’s like, “when people ask me questions, I get so annoyed.” Like–

Jordan: [00:33:12] Oh my God,

Mike: [00:33:13] Like, this is my job, she said. She said, “this is my job. Like you can sign up with me and I’ll answer your questions, but otherwise, like, they actually expect me to answer.”

Jordan: [00:33:24] The audacity. The audacity!

Mike: [00:33:28] And that just shows what a lot of the competition is thinking like. Um, yeah. And so The Thank You Economy basically: helping people for free and doing the little things, the little unexpected things and actually engaging with the people who are kind enough and willing enough and interested enough to consume your content and to leave a comment or to reach out to you and be interested in your opinion on something. To actually try your very best to help them for free with no expectations of what you’ll get in return. That is, in the long run, going to build an enormous base to a successful coaching business.

Jordan: [00:34:18] You know, it’s so funny because so many of the “gurus” talk about how you should never devalue yourself by giving things away for free. And I just like to look at other industries in which, number one things that are repeated very often and just look at human behavior, and could you imagine going into a food court and you see someone holding a tray with free samples and you walk up to them and then you like go to, “Oh, I’d like one. And they’re like, all right, it’s a dollar for a sample” You’d immediately– “all right, screw off. Like I’ll go to the next person who’s giving away free samples.”

And it’s like the idea that giving something away for free is a bad idea is so dumb and arrogant and pretentious and ignorant that it’s baffling to me that people would say that in any way, shape or form. And usually the people saying it are the people who are trying to teach other people how to run a business when they don’t have any other form of business.

So, it’s like a lot of coaches who are teaching coaches how to run a coaching business, but that person has never run a coaching business. They’re just saying, “Hey, like I see a lot of coaches who struggle to make money, so I’m just going to try and help them make more money,” but they’ve actually never run a coaching business.

Mike: [00:35:33] Because you think anyone who’s actually run a coaching business and helped a significant amount of people could not have done so with that mentality.

Jordan: [00:35:43] Not sustainably at all. And I mean, it doesn’t take a lot to look at so many business models to realize that giving something away for free, especially at the beginning, is the best way to help people build trust. I mean, what do people do at gyms before online coaching with was a thing. You get your first session with a trainer for free.

They still do this. You go to a gym, “hey, get your first, like, 60-minute consult for free.” Nutritionist: “hey, you get your first consult with us for free.” It’s like since when did that not work? It’s so mind boggling to me that people are like– not only is it– does it work internally to get more clients, but it feels better.

I don’t know any coach who is happily saying, “Oh, like, just pay me” or like, “why aren’t you paying me for my time?” It’s always with a, a tone of arrogance and anger. Always. They’re never being like, “Oh yeah, yeah. I’m so glad that I always charge people.” It’s– they’re always like, “why do people think they’re entitled to my knowledge?”

It’s like, where did you get your knowledge? You probably got a lot of it for free online. From someone taking their time to make an article an Instagram post, YouTube video, whatever. I mean that’s what we’re doing with this podcast. That’s what most people listening are probably doing with their Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or whatever.

And if you’re not yet, do it. But content that you’re giving away for free is one example. And I couldn’t imagine someone DMing me, asking me a question after they found my content for free, and then me being like, “listen, if you really want to talk, then you have to pay me for this.” Are you out of your mind? It’s crazy.

Mike: [00:37:29] The cool thing is it kind of weeds out people who aren’t fit to be coaches because it seems like a prerequisite, especially when you’re first getting started or in your first year or two, three to have such a massive amount of interest and passion that you’re eager to help anyone who comes to you for help.

For the reasons we just discussed, but also because by having those interactions, you’re going to get smarter. You’re going to get asked questions that you don’t know the answer to, that maybe you need to go find the answer to, maybe you need to talk to someone smarter than you that you know who has the answer.

Maybe you need to have back and forth and get more information about this individual’s specific circumstances. And guess what? 27 months down the road, you’re going to have a client who has that same situation, and if you didn’t put the time and effort in upfront, you’ll have to do it later anyway. But through that interaction, you’re going to learn a great deal, you’re going to feel better about doing it, um, and it leads to people in your community who trust you and are loyal to you and look up to you and that, call it a base, I guess in my mind that’s the way I view building over time, but by really doing right by those individuals is going to lead to the best long-term situation for both you and them.

Jordan: [00:39:01] That was perfectly said. And I sort of just look at, just common sense. I’ve never heard anybody say, “Oh, they’re such a great person. They charge for everything.” “Oh, that person is great. You can’t get anything for free.” That’s just never been said, but the opposite holds– “oh my God. They’re amazing. They never asked for anything they’re always super generous with their time. They’ve given me so much.”

Like, for me one of the ways that I think is a really important way to build your business is– obviously basing on your knowledge and your expertise is fantastic, but also building a business based on people just wanting to support you. I think it’s a really important understanding of what builds a great business, not just because you’re so smart or because your methods are so effective. Because if you’re being really honest with yourself as a coach, your methods are not revolutionary. You learned them from somebody else, like we all have. You learned it from an online blog, you learned it from your certification, you learned it from an internship. Whatever it is, your methods are not revolutionary, you’re just reaching your own network of people. And if you really are going to be honest with them– and I say this all the time at the inner circle, it’s not the workouts that are revolutionary, which I do think are great, but they’re not revolutionary.

They’re very standard strength training programs. The nutrition is not revolutionary. It’s very effective if you do it, but it’s not like– I didn’t come up with it myself. I didn’t make it up in my basement, like, just working in the lab.

Mike: [00:40:27] You didn’t invent the calorie deficit, Jordan?

Jordan: [00:40:30] It’s, it’s just– building a business based off of people who want to support you because you’ve gone out of your way to help them, not only is it much more sustainable, it’s also, it feels so good as opposed to building a business off of people paying you because of your time. It just, it just feels way better,

Mike: [00:40:57] At least for us. And, and that’s another one where if it feels completely wrong in your gut to ever do anything good for anyone for free, then, you know, maybe– I try not to judge, and so I’m always open to the possibility that I, or we are wrong, but I’m pretty confident on this one that we’re not.

Jordan: [00:41:24] Yeah. So now I guess we should probably talk about some actual practical ways that people can get more online coaching clients. Like, and this is something that we really want you to pay attention to in terms of when you’re making your own content, something that we call an IPA, an “immediately practical action.” This is something that– and I actually, I spoke about it in depth in the Instagram Growth Guide that we have in the mentorship for all the, uh, people in the Fitness Business Mentorship.

In every piece of content, you should have one thing– at least one thing that whoever’s reading or watching or listening to your content can immediately take away to improve and get better that day. And so that’s sort of where I’m going right now with this, is what can you take from this podcast immediately– not just principle-based, which is what we just discussed, which is more of a principle of being okay giving things away for free and having conversations with people.

But now, like, what can you actually do? So, this is where– we could talk about this for days and weeks and months, we could have a thousand episodes just on this alone. I think one of the ways that I’ve found to work very well for me– and actually I just posted about this on my Instagram the other day.

Every so often, and by that I mean several times a day– I used to spend hours a day doing this, but several times a day when I see someone follows me, I’ll click on them and I’ll message them and I’ll say,” Hey, just want to say thank you so much for following me. I really appreciate it.”

Usually the response to that is, “is this a bot?” Or like usually to the effect of, “is this really you?”

When I reply and say, “yeah, of course it’s actually me. Like I don’t know of any algorithm or system you can use that does this on Instagram to automatically do it.” They freak out. They freak out when I take the time to say, “thank you for following me. I really appreciate it.” So many of those people have become Inner Circle members who literally just started by saying, “thanks for following me,” and then responding and be like, “yes, it’s actually me.”

And this is something that I’ve done forever, but when I had more time, I would take a video of myself and I’d send them a video and I’d be like, “Hey, just so you followed me,” and I’d say their name so they knew it wasn’t a record– like a recording to send everybody, “Hey, just so you followed me. Want to say thank you. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.” I looked at their profile if it was public and I saw they had kettlebells in there, I’d say, “saw you were doing some kettlebell swings. Those look really great.” Whatever it is, just take the time to welcome them to show that you appreciate them being there. People freak out.

Mike: [00:44:01] Yeah, no one does that.

Jordan: [00:44:03] Nobody does that. And it doesn’t matter– you might say like, “Oh, well it’s easy for you to say because like of your audience size.” I did this when I had 5,000 and 4,000 and 3,000 and I did this, like, I did this to grow my audience from the very beginning. And I still have people who will message me and be like, “I remember when you did that when like I first followed you and you had like 10,000 or when you had 12,000” whatever it is.

The newer your business is and the more time you have, the more time you should spend doing stuff like this. In terms of– let’s say you like– let’s say you get one new follower a week, which if you’re actually being consistent, that’s not gonna happen, but let’s just say. And let’s say you only have, I don’t know, 700 followers. Go to every single follower that you have and send them a video. That’ll take a long time for– like 700 a lot of people are like, “Oh my God, only 700 followers?”

Mike: [00:44:55] 700 is decent. If you only have 77 followers, reach out to every single one of them.

Jordan: [00:44:59] Imagine. If you had, if– especially if you’re just starting out, if you had 77 one-on-one online coaching clients. Like, that’s easily into the six-figure business.

Mike: [00:45:09] You’re saying that’s how you should treat your 77 followers.

Jordan: [00:45:12] Exactly. And I think a lot of people look at a follower count and they’re like, “Oh, it’s just nothing compared to this person who has a million or 2 million,” whatever it is.

It’s like, you forget that every single one of those followers is an actual individual. It’s a real live person with feelings and goals and, and I think one of the most common feelings, especially with social media now, and people who use it for comparisons in a negative way, they feel alone, they feel underappreciated, they feel like a number, they feel like no one is paying attention to them. And to get a message from someone who doesn’t even know them– or maybe you do know them. Maybe you went to middle school with them, maybe you were on a, on a team with them in high school, maybe you went to college with them, maybe they’re a friend of a friend– to just get a video from you saying, “Hey, just so you’re following me, I hope you’re really well. If it can ever help with anything, I’m more than happy to, for free. Just let me know.” People all of a sudden feel really appreciated and that feeling– and if you want a really good book to read, read the Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. It is basically a scientific explanation of how we feel about either certain people or certain, um, certain experiences.

How they can just– it’s not every single interaction, it’s very few and far between individual moments that shape our perception of people. And if you do that, that will be a major positive moment that someone will have in thinking about you. And maybe they don’t become a client right away or in the first week or in the first month or year, but may three years down the road, they’re like, “Hey, like, you know, I need to get my health in check. I’ve always followed you; can you help?”

And that’s really where I think the number one place for people to start, which is sort of, as Gary would say, is scaling the unscalable. The more time you have, the more opportunities you have to reach out individually and speak with people on an individual basis, and that can just start by sending a video, sending a voice memo, sending a message.

I would say the best way is a video because face to face clear, but if you’re nervous on camera, maybe you just want to do a voice memo, that’s totally fine. If you don’t want to do a voice memo, maybe your voice is shaky or you don’t know what to say. Take the time to write out a message. There’s no excuse not to do this, and I think it’s probably the single best way to create more depth within your current community.

Mike: [00:47:27] Exactly. And that’s what people with 1.2 million followers who you and I have, in the past incorrectly compared myself to, is they cannot create that kind of depth with each person who follows them. And you can. And that’s the advantage that you listening have.

Um, that book is super interesting. Jordan recommended it to me. I read it. The thesis is that people remember, and correct me if I’m wrong, people remember the peak and the low moments more than they remember the average moments of the trip.

Jordan: [00:48:03] Yep. And so basically– I’ll use one of the main examples they use.

Let’s say you’re going to Disney World, right? You’re, you’re going to Disney World, you are with your husband or your wife, you have two young kids with you. You go on the plane and, uh, one of your kids throws up. Like, that’s a big moment, right? It’s like you might not really fully remember the cab ride to the airport, you might not really fully remember the conversation you had standing, waiting in line, but your kid throws up on the seat, you immediately think about that.

Now, let’s say the person behind you is an asshole and they’re like, “Oh, control your kid.” Now you’re really going to have a very negative moment. But what if the person behind you is like, “Hey, don’t worry about it. Let me help clean it up,” or whatever it is. Immediately this negative experience turns into a positive one. Or maybe the staff comes over like, “Oh my God, no worries. Let me hold the kid.” Whatever it is that actually, “let’s like comp the ticket” or whatever it is, “let’s comp is for you. Like, we know it’s really a struggle for you.”

Immediately you’re going to have an incredible thought that was once a negative moment now flipped into a positive one. And it’s, it’s these simple, minor switches and how someone responds or reacts to something. Maybe then you land in Disney World, you get the cab over to the hotel, whatever. You go into the hotel and they meet you champagne and then they give the kids apple juice, whatever it is.

And the kids are so excited about these, maybe these plastic cups that are in the shape of Minnie Mouse or Mickey Mouse, and that’s another moment. And they’re like, “Hey, we upgraded you to a suite.” “Oh my God. They upgraded us to a suite.” It’s like, you love that and you’ll think about all this stuff. Then you go out and you go to dinner, you have a terrible experience, there’s hair in your food, and then you call the manager over and the manager, uh, the manager says like, “listen, that’s not our fault.”

Now you have a huge negative moment, right? So now, like you have several positive moments, a negative moment, you’re waiting in line at Splash Mountain and, uh, and like, there’s a two hour wait, but some park manager comes over and is like, “Hey, let me, let me get you at the front of the line.” Boom. Now it’s like, it’s a huge moment. Now you don’t have to wait with your two kids in the blazing heat.

Long story, short, it’s not every single moment that has to be incredible. It’s specific moments. A few moments that really shape your outlook on an experience. And maybe you go back and when you are telling your family and friends about the trip, “Oh my God, we were waiting in line and the manager came over, brought us right up to the front.”

That’s what you talk about. It’s not that every single step in the park is magical and amazing, it’s like you’re hot, you’re sweaty, like your backpack is sticking to your back, your kids are crying, but you remember that one moment where the park manager, he came over and took you up and sped up the two hour wait.

It’s like, every single moment or interaction doesn’t have to be incredible, but you do have to do a very good job of creating– at deliberately creating specific moments that take people so far above and beyond the norm, that that’s what they remember. And that’s one example of sending someone, a video of yourself saying, “thank you for–”

Mike: [00:50:54] Or a practical takeaway as a fitness coach: when someone DMs you a question, and maybe it’s a question that they’ve sent 17 online trainers, and they send it to you and you see it come through and you immediately reply, “hey, what’s your phone number? I’d love to jump on the phone. I have 15 free minutes right now, and I can answer that in depth for you.”

And they say, “Oh my gosh. Like, seriously?” And you say, “yeah.” And they send their number or however you want to get in touch. And you call them and you say, “I have 15 free minutes right now. Like, I’m all yours. What questions do you have for me?” And that’s something I’ve done a handful of times. And the reaction from the person on the other end of the phone, it’s– they have never experienced anything like that. You’re creating a moment for them that they’re going to remember as a massive high. You’re helping them with a specific problem that they have. You’re doing it with no expectation of anything in return. You feel good about it as a result of doing it. And ideally, in a perfect world, you know the answer or can help them resolve the issue that they’re having and they can take that information, apply it, and be better because of it.

Jordan: [00:52:07] I have a good story about this. I literally just got back from Los Angeles because I ran a contest in my Inner Circle with Susan Niebergall to pick one random Inner Circle member to win a prize where Susan and I would fly out to wherever this person lived and take them out to dinner. And it’s so happened to that the guy we picked, Jeremy, an unbelievably sweet, nice guy, lived in LA. So, I got Susan and Rico tickets and we all flew to LA and took him out dinner. And we vlogged the whole experience so the Inner Circle can all see it together.

This isn’t something that I’m recommending you do, especially if you don’t have the funds to do it. It’s an example of, you might look and say, “well, you don’t need to do that stuff anymore.” It’s like, I know I don’t need to do it, but his life is– number one, he will always remember that moment. Always. He’s already posted about it in the Inner Circle. He’s told everyone on social media, like, he will always remember that moment and because we documented it and Rico got it on camera now the whole Inner Circle can take part in that moment. But what’s really interesting about this, is also, there’s a backstory to this. The only reason that I’ve done stuff like this now and in the past is because I remember when I followed Mike– Mike doesn’t know I’m about to say this. When I followed Mike, I think it was before I started with Gary. He did it one time. Do you remember doing this?

Mike: [00:53:28] Yes.

Jordan: [00:53:29] When you flew to somebody in Florida, I believe it was?

Mike: [00:53:31] Yes.

Jordan: [00:53:32] Mike flew to Florida to take– I think it was a client or somebody out to lunch?

Mike: [00:53:37] No, it was just a guy from Snapchat.

Jordan: [00:53:38] Just a random guy from Snapchat that you were like, “I’m going to do this giveaway.”

Mike: [00:53:41] Yeah.

Jordan: [00:53:42] And you flew to Florida and you took him out to lunch, and I remember seeing that and remember being like, “what an amazing idea.”

I remember watching you document the whole thing. And that’s why– and then I did that in, I believe it was 2016 when I started with Gary. And I’ve done it three or four– two or three times now.

But the only reason I’ve done it is because I first saw Mike do it and I saw– I noticed how invested I was in watching him do that. And–

Mike: [00:54:13] Yeah, it makes good content.

Jordan: [00:54:14] It makes great content. And it shows people that you’re not a pretentious asshole, that you’re not, like– that you’re trying to squeeze every dollar, every dime, every penny out of every single person, and that sometimes you’re just going to do things because it’s a nice, fun thing to do for somebody else.

And it’s– for me, it’s very interesting to relay this message because it was great to do it with Jeremy and with Susan and Rico. But the only reason I did it is because of the moment that I had from watching Mike do it. Which just goes to show all moments sort of stack up on each other and the more you can focus on creating these moments for other people, the more, number one, they’ll want to create more moments for other people, which is just this stacking effect of people doing good to do good, to do good, to help others. And also, it’s just going to help you a lot in terms of reaching, creating better relationships with more people.

Mike: [00:55:07] Yeah, absolutely. That’s cool. I didn’t know that.

I remember– to give another example that is a little more time and cost effective, if maybe you can’t travel to someone. Or, for whatever reason, another thing that you can do: back on Christmas day in 2014, I believe. I was coaching Gary. I, at the time, I was supposed to coach him every day, and so I was nervous to take time off.

And so, I went with him and his family on their winter holiday and saw my family at a different time. So, on Christmas day I coached him and then I had the rest of the day by myself. And I emailed my email list, which I think was maybe 5,000 people at the time. Um, which is a significant amount, but I emailed my email list and said, “Merry Christmas. As a gift I’d like to calculate your macronutrients for you, and if we have any back and forth, if you have any questions on those, I’m more than happy to help. But I have the whole day and you know, just let me know. Have a great day and hope you’re spending time with friends and family, bye.”

And I was expecting 20 or 30 people to take me up on it and thinking, “few hours, this’ll be good.” And it just felt like a good giving thing to do on Christmas day. And I ended up doing the macros for 800 people. It ended up taking me at least a week. It was after the New Year; I still hadn’t finished everyone. Um, and there were so many names, so many blasts from the past. Like I remember a guy I went to high school with who was a couple of years older than me, who was the star of the basketball team, and I didn’t even know he knew I existed. And he’s like, “I’m trying to get back into shape.” And he reached out and all kinds of people, um, were so thankful and so grateful and I genuinely didn’t have any expectation, but within the next month I believe six or seven of those people actually became paying clients. And so, it just goes to show that doing the right thing and helping people for free and putting in– because I spent between 6 and 10 hours a day then, for the next week, emailing with people. But putting in that upfront work really does pay off in one way or another.

Jordan: [00:57:35] And if you really think about it, let’s say you get seven new clients from that, that’s a couple thousand dollars a month.

Mike: [00:57:41] Correct.

Jordan: [00:57:41] It’s like, I think it’s important to say that you can’t– I wouldn’t recommend doing it with that intent on the back end because then whether or not you view it as a positive or negative is going to be solely dependent on the number of dollars going into your account.

Whereas if your view of whether or not it was successful is based off of making someone happier and doing the right– doing a good thing for someone–

Mike: [00:58:08] Helping them get better.

Jordan: [00:58:10] You automatically win. You automatically win. I think it’s– if your client came to you. You wouldn’t say the only way to make progress is to hit a new personal record in the gym every time they go, in terms of lifting more weight. You’d find different ways for them to hit a personal record. Whether it’s, maybe they did more reps with the same weight, maybe they were less fatigued, maybe they improve form. There are so many ways to improve. If you’re only looking at one way of improving as your marker of success, they’re way more likely to get demotivated and discouraged.

Which is why I think a lot of people struggle with business and really burn out because they’re only looking at that dollar value. And it’s sorta the same mistake that our clients make when they’re only looking at the scale going down. If their muscle– if they’re increasing their muscle, if they’re getting stronger and the scale isn’t moving, whatever it is. You’re not going to say clearly, you’re not making progress. You’re going to find other ways for them to feel more positive and optimistic about the progress they’re making.

Same thing with dollars in the bank. If you’re only focusing on that dollar amount going up, you will inherit– you will definitively, without question, get demotivated and discouraged, and you’re probably not going to feel that good about what you’re doing.

But when you look for ways of, “well, how am I positively impacting people?” “Are they messaging me saying, thank you. Are they commenting? This was great. Are there just more overall people watching my content?” Whatever it is, these small little bits of improvement, all of a sudden you can start to see, “wow, like I’m making an impact,” and the bigger your impact, the better you’re going to do business-wise as well.

Mike: [00:59:44] Yup. That’s 100% correct. And I would even say that one way to guarantee that you feel good about it is choose to give something that you genuinely want to give and that you genuinely think will help someone. If you don’t believe in tracking macros or if you have massive social anxiety and as a result, don’t want to fly to meet someone to take them out to lunch. Choose a way that you can give to someone that you think will help them because you’re going to feel better about it and your happiness and satisfaction is going to be less contingent upon what the result is.

Jordan: [01:00:25] Yeah, and I think– so Mike used the example of mailing his list of 5,000, which you might hear that and be like, “well, I don’t have any of that. I don’t even have an email list.” We’re not saying this in terms of you have to use the exact method, it’s more about the principle. So, if you have an Instagram, make a post, “Hey, I want to do your nutrition for free.” “I want to give you a free four-week training program,” whatever it is. If you have a Facebook or an Instagram, or maybe you– let’s say you have none of that, which is very– I wouldn’t imagine that you don’t, but let’s say you have none.

Guarantee you’ve emailed with people before– email contacts, colleagues, family members, whatever. Collect all these emails.

Mike: [01:01:02] If you have a Facebook.

Jordan: [01:01:04] Facebook, exactly.

Mike: [01:01:04] Not even a business, but–

Jordan: [01:01:06] Your personal page.

Mike: [01:01:07] Yes. And you have 511 friends, Facebook friends

Jordan: [01:01:12] Make a post.

Mike: [01:01:13] Or hit them each up one-on-one, which we love, which is completely unscalable and unreasonable, and no one else is going to be doing it, which is why it’s going to work and you’re gonna show through.

Hit up each of those individuals, don’t copy paste, but say, “Hey, their name,” and ask them whatever. “Hey, I know we haven’t talked in a year and a half, but I saw you got engaged and I just wanted to say congratulations and I hope all is well with you. And I’ll never forget the time that you held my hair back when I threw up,” whatever and, and, and do that–

and it’s going to take you a lot of time and effort to do that, but then when they click on your profile, they see like, “Oh, Jenny became a personal trainer. Like, cool, I kind of want to lose some weight,” or, and then maybe, maybe she sees your website linked on your Facebook, but that genuine, one-on-one– or doesn’t have to be one-on-one, posting on Facebook, you know, there’s different ways– like Jordan said, don’t, you don’t need to copy the method, but the intent behind it, um, it’s going to lead to good things happening.

Jordan: [01:02:23] What Mike just outlined was so well said, and it just almost came out without any hesitation in regard to what the other options are. So I want to clarify why he said, “ask them how they’re doing, don’t even mention that you’re trying to give them away something for free,” because imagine if you got someone in your DM that you haven’t spoken to in a while all of a sudden being like, “Hey, like I have this new thing. I’d love to give you something for free.” Almost immediately–

Mike: [01:02:49] My stomach turns.

Jordan: [01:02:50] It feels odd. When you just say, “Hey, saw you got engaged.” “Hey, like just haven’t, I’ve thought about your recently, I just wanted to say, Hey, hope all is well.” “Oh my God. So good to hear from you. All is good with me. Just got a new dog.” She has a picture or whatever, “blah, blah. How are you?” “Oh my God, your dog is so cute. Uh, all is good with me. I’ve been coaching for about six months now, having a ton of fun with it.” “What do you mean you’re coaching? What are you coaching?” “I’m a personal trainer, like, specializing in fat loss, but, uh, just got my certification or I’m working on my certification and, uh, and that’s it. And my mom lives in Denver now.”

Whatever it is. It’s like, “Oh my God, I’ve been thinking about doing personal training, dah, dah, dah. Like, do you have any advice for how I can get a coach?” It’s like, “you know what? How about this? How about we just hop on the phone? Like, let’s just like, let’s catch up.” Then you get on the phone and, keeping in mind, this whole interaction might take a week, back and forth, back and forth. It could happen within 15 minutes, but then you get on the phone and you talk and you catch up and it’s like, you know what? At the end of the day, like during the conversation, like “I do online coaching, how about I just give you a program for free for a month and you see how you like it and we’ll go from there.”

And this isn’t made up, like, I’ve done this. I’ve literally done this. And when I first started out, I did it with roommates that I lived with when I was in college, did it with roommates when I was working at Westside Barbell. Uh, did it like all– like when I moved back to Boston, when I was in Israel.

Literally– actually my Hebrew teacher, when I was in Israel, when I was really focused on learning Hebrew, I coached him for free. And then other people in the class, he would refer to me for my online coaching. Literally, I remember like it was like, “Hey man, how about–” ’cause he wanted to learn more about strength training and so I took him to the gym two times a week.

I would, like, give him a program and do it all for free, it was an extra hour and a half a day, two times a week. But then a number of people from my Hebrew class, because of him, would then work with me online. And this just all comes back to the– to Gary’s Thank You Economy and the thesis of giving stuff away for free.

If there’s one message to take away from it, a principle, which is just not being arrogant and pretentious enough to think that you should be charging for every single piece of information that you realistically learned from someone else. Like, yes, your time is valuable and yes, your knowledge is valuable, but what good is it if it’s not helping anybody?

It’s like, what’s really valuable is the good you can do for somebody else. And over time, you can build your business and sell more by first showing people that you’re more than happy to help them no matter what.

Mike: [01:05:20] Yup. And this doesn’t– like, this isn’t a strategy– if you want to do this for a year and then move on to selling CBD, this isn’t, like, if you’re trying to make a quick 500K  and then get out so you can have passive income.

If you– if that’s the intent, it’s not going to work. And not only that, this is literally laying the bricks for being able to help more and more people year over year over year. And maybe in the future if you want to pivot or do something different, cool. But what we’re outlining, we know works for building a successful business that can support you and your loved ones and can lead to you deriving meaning from that work and helping your clients in the process.

Jordan: [01:06:15] That’s a great way to put it. I think one of the really important thing is to clarify is a lot of “masterminds” and “gurus” when they’re selling you their programs, they’ll promise you building a massive audience of hundreds of thousands, millions of people, and going viral and all this stuff, because that’s essentially the six pack of the business world, right?

It’s like, in fitness they sell six packs and flat tummies, and you get mad at your clients for falling for that nonsense. But if you’re falling for the millions of followers and the virality and the fame and all this stuff, you’re falling for the same nonsense, because we would be lying to you if we said we could get you to have– to be Insta-famous.

Like, we can help you grow your Instagram and your social media, we can never promise anybody that they’re going to be Insta-famous, but what we can promise you is that, even if you have 400 followers, you can have an unbelievably successful business.

Mike: [01:07:13] I was just going to say some of the people in the mentorship who saw 200% growth in their clients this year have a thousand, a couple thousand Instagram– it’s not like they had to become famous to have their online business in a position where it is now their full time job.

Jordan: [01:07:32] Literally just got a text from Ryan in the Mentorship who went from about 5,000 annually in 2018 to over 13,000 in 2019, which, just more than doubled, and it’s not from a massive audience. It’s just from more of doing “scaling the unscalable.”

Mike: [01:07:52] I see Haley–

Jordan: [01:07:54] Oh, she’s crushing it.

Mike: [01:07:55] Pumping out emails to her list and it’s not– I don’t know exactly how many are on Haley’s email list, but these aren’t, these aren’t uncommon individual– these aren’t people who got blue check marks, these aren’t people who went viral and get recognized on the street.

These are people like any of us or any of you listening who have consistently made content aimed to help people and as a result, doing that month over month and year over year, have built real businesses.

Jordan: [01:08:28] I think when we talk about fitness, we talk a lot about the importance of sustainability and doing something that you can manage forever.

You can always take the time to send someone– send someone a message, to send, “thank you for following me,” to– you can always do that. Forever. It’s a, it’s a sustainable thing when you’re working with a couple of times a day. It’s not realistic– in the same way, it’s not realistic for everybody to step on a physique stage in like board shorts or a thong or whatever it is. Like, not everyone’s going to get stage lean, not everyone wants to get stage lean. It’s not realistic for us to say, “yeah, you’re gonna get a million followers.” It– we would be lying if we said that. And anyone who tells you that they can absolutely, definitively make you go viral, like they’re lying to you.

It’s not that you can’t, it’s that they can’t promise that. There’s so many factors that go into it. But what we can promise you is that you do not need to go viral, you do not need a massive, massive audience in order to make a tremendously huge impact and build a successful business. I think it’s a really important point to understand.

It’s very easy to look at people who have a million or a hundred thousand or whatever it is and say, “Oh man, they just must have such a successful business.” It’s not the case, number one. I know many people– I know people who have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers who are very much struggling, and Mike and I literally were just speaking with someone the other day who has fewer than 3000 followers on Instagram and they’re legitimately– their company is making over $40 million a year.

Mike: [01:10:09] That’s an– I mean, I can’t even comprehend that number. Don’t even know if I want to.

Jordan: [01:10:12] Which is like…literally can’t comprehend it.

Mike: [01:10:15] But it shows you both extremes.

Jordan: [01:10:18] Which is just– it’s so, what’s so great about our industry is that– Mike and I always laugh about this. People always ask like, “aren’t you worried about the competition? It’s getting so saturated.” It’s like absolutely not, because most people– it’s sort of like asking, “well, aren’t you worried about everyone walking around with a six pack?” I was like, “no, ’cause most people are not going to put in the work to get a six pack.”

Just, they’re not. Myself included. Like I just, I have no desire to put in that amount of work in order to get that lean. Most people and most coaches are not willing to do these things consistently, these small things on a cons– it’s the equivalent of drinking your water every day, getting enough sleep every day, going to the gym three to four times a week, as these small things that add up over time that really allow you to be– to live a– you don’t need to have a six pack in order to be healthy. You don’t need to have a six pack in order to live a long, healthy life, you don’t need to have a six pack in order to be very strong. It’s not the extreme that grants you all of this– the idea of this amazing physique, or this amazing health, or even amazing confidence. It really comes from doing the small things consistently, on a regular basis.

And that comes from what we’ve been talking about: giving things away for free, reaching out to people, and I want to sort of say, ’cause I feel like some people might be like, this, this isn’t– I was looking for ads, like more like ideas on ads or I was looking for more ideas on like certain sales copy or looking ideas on how to run a certain automated funnel. All that stuff is great.

Mike: [01:11:55] You need this before that.

Jordan: [01:11:57] That’s exactly right. It’s like, in the same way you can’t learn– you can’t deadlift 500 pounds if you don’t know how to hip hinge. This is the hip hinge. This is like– and  from the hip hinge, you learn how to kettlebell swing, you learn how to RDL, you learn how to single leg RDL, you learn how to do glute bridges and hip thrusts. Like with the hip hinge you can do everything. If you only start by learning these sales funnels and these tactics in the sales copy and all this stuff, you are missing your foundation.

Mike: [01:12:26] Yeah. You’re walking into the gym on day one asking for chains and bands and saying that you know, you need some kind of unbelievably complex programming.

Jordan: [01:12:38] The cool thing about this style of building a business, aside from it just feeling really good and it being very sustainable, is you’re only limited by how many people you meet.  That’s it. You’re not limited by your ability to write great sales copy; you’re not limited by your– how much money you have in order to run more Facebook ads.

You’re only limited by how willing you are to meet new people and reach out. Whether that means you reach out to friends on Facebook, reach out to people on Instagram. Here’s another option. We’re going to go a bit more practical. One of my all-time favorite ways to build your business to get more coaching clients is to go on Facebook and join fitness groups.

Right? So, let’s say you’re really into kettlebells. There are hundreds, if not thousands of kettlebell groups on Facebook. You just go in, you go into the group section, you search kettlebell, and you go into one of the public groups, or maybe there are private ones that you just joined that are free. You go in and you don’t go in and say, “I’m a coach. I’m looking for kettlebell clients.” It’s like you go in and you be a kind, generous person.

Mike: [01:13:45] Introduce yourself, say hello.

Jordan: [01:13:48] You don’t– and you don’t, you don’t even have to say you’re a coach at all. In fact, I would recommend you don’t.

Go in, if someone posts a video of their swings, tell them. “Oh wow, this is great. Love of video. Awesome job. Uh, one thing that might’ve– that helped me a lot, ’cause I was making a big mistake, was like I was, I don’t know, I was, I was bending my arms when I was doing the swing and you really want to keep your arms straight. And so, I don’t know if that’s something you want to try, but maybe give it a shot.” And that’s it and get– that’s it, that’s all. You don’t have to like link to your Instagram or say I’m a coach or I am certified in this. Don’t be an asshole. Just be helpful and nice, be a kind person, and then what are they going to do? They click on your page, they see you’re a personal trainer, they see that you’re doing Turkish getups with the 24 kilogram, like, “Oh my God, that’s super impressive.”

Mike: [01:14:30] And to drill down on something that people might have missed that you just said: encouraging the individual who’s posting the form video or writing the post, whatever it is, because people need it. A lot of people– I know we’ve said it before, but people don’t get enough encouragement in their lives and it’s something they’re starved for and something that you giving them, especially when they’re doing a good thing, is going to reinforce that behavior and it’s going to help them regardless of if they click on your profile or not, regardless of if they end up following you or not, it’s going to help them

Jordan: [01:15:06] 100% yeah.

Mike: [01:15:07] But yes, joining groups on Facebook– our version of that back in 2012, I remember I got, well, this is actually a decent story and we’ll wrap up soon.

But, uh, I got banned from Yahoo Answers because I was doing what Jordan said not to do, which was: on every answer– and Yahoo Answers, for those of you who might not remember, basically it was like Quora now, where on Yahoo people would ask questions, it was open forum and anyone could answer and then you would upvote or downvote other’s answers and I would reply to all of the fitness ones and link back to my website with every single answer. And eventually they reached out and they said, “that’s against our terms and conditions. You can’t do that.” And I said, “okay, I won’t anymore, but like, can I answer again? Like, can I have my account reinstated?” And they said “no.” That was the end of that.

Jordan: [01:16:08] It’s also– thinking back to when I first started, before, I even had a website. I loved going to Martin Berkhan’s Facebook page because– Martin is the guy who really popularized intermittent fasting, leangains.com. I learned a lot from him.

Martin was always posting different studies and articles on his page, and there was a sizable audience of people who would go and look at his– it wasn’t a business page, it was his personal Facebook page that would just go follow him and comment on his posts, and there were so many people that there was no way he could answer everybody.

And not to mention, Martin is very snarky and like a lot of people were nervous to ask questions because he’d come at them like very aggressively, and I think he thought it was funny, I think a lot of people were very offended by it, but it is what it is. But basically, when there were so many comments and questions, I would go in and I would answer.

And I would not answer from a professional’s perspective, I answered from a: another person going through the fitness journey, offering my insight perspective. Not saying, “well, I’m a coach and I know this and this,” saying like, “Hey, you know, just what’s worked really well for me recently is like, I’ve, I’ve eaten more protein at every meal and like, I don’t know if it’ll work for you, but give it a shot.”

And that led to me getting a lot of my very first clients, and actually one of the people that I would communicate with in his messages is one of now my best friend who lives in Israel. It’s, uh, it’s so interesting just the people you meet through– this is going to sound crazy, but interacting like a human.

Just being a nice person, interacting. I think a lot of coaches, they struggle with this on social media because they are insecure and they feel like they have to live up to a professional perspective, that they have to be the coach all the time and they’ll almost come across, deliberately or not, as condescending, or they’re like, “well, this is how it’s done,” or whatever it is.

It’s like when you can put your ego aside and just have a conversation like a human and just say, “well, this is what’s worked well for me. Hopefully it works well for you, if not, totally fine” But people will like that better, rather than being like, “this is how it’s supposed to be done.” I think, uh, if you really want to get people to go to your page and to see your content, and see who you are with an open mind you have to approach them with an open mind. You can’t approach them being aggressive and saying, “well, this is how it’s done this is how it works.”

I see– I don’t know if people don’t think I see it, I go through my comment section every day and I see coaches doing this a lot, which, like, is fine. Like, I don’t recommend doing it to every single comment cause I’ll get a little bit annoyed if you do it to every single comment, but I see coaches going in there and answering other people’s questions and some coaches do not know how to do it. Some coaches go in and attack people. Like, “why would you do that? That’s so stupid. That’s 100% wrong,” and other coaches do it well and they’re like, “Hey, it’s a really good question. I’m glad you asked. I actually just made a post about that a week ago. If you want to go have a look, but in the meantime, here’s your answer.” And I’m like, “good job, Boris.” There’s a guy named Boris, he’s one of the coaches. I see him do it– I see him answer about three to four questions every other day, and– enough where I’m like, “okay, cool.”

Like he’s not going out– he’s not answering every single one, but enough where I’m like, “actually, that was a great answer. I’m going to like, that’s great.” And he’s very smart about it and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s gotten some clients because of it, because he’s being a kind individual, a helpful coach, for free, taking– I can’t be mad because he’s doing exactly what I’m telling you to do right now. He’s taking his time to answer people’s comments and questions for free in a very kind way. And again, if we’re talking about an immediately practical action, you’re only limited by your imagination here. There’s so many ways to do this.

You could literally, like, if you go to your haircut place, go to like the person who’s cutting your hair. Help them for free. Offer– like don’t try and barter with them, just be like, “Hey, like how’s it going with your fitness?” Like, whatever it is like, “you want me to write you a program for free?”

Then the person who cuts your hair is telling all of their clients that they’re working with an online coach. It’s like, that’s– there’s so– you’re only limited by your imagination. It’s why I said you’re also only limited by how many people you interact with because unless you’re sitting at home all day, every day, never interacted with anyone there’s no reason why you can’t help people that you’re meeting– this doesn’t just happen for online clients, this is for in-person, too. Like this– you’re only limited by your imagination and how many people you interact with. That’s it.

Mike: [01:20:33] And those people interact with other people.

Jordan: [01:20:36] That’s right.

Mike: [01:20:36] The manager of a restaurant who you help lose 40 pounds? Well, every single regular at that restaurant notices his progress over six months and asks him what he did and he tells them, “I worked with Jordan. He has an online coaching program. He’s great. I learned how to deadlift, and now I really like it.” Like, “wow, what’s Jordan’s contact information?” “Here’s his website right here.”

I know my dad; I have clients who know him from online or know him in real life. Anyone who has any kind of audience, and when I say audience, that can mean someone who’s a hairdresser, that can mean someone who works a corporate job and has clients that they work with at like– the, the, the web of people that are going to hear about you when you do right by clients and you help people make progress is going to spread organically.

Jordan: [01:21:34] Yeah. It just is. And actually– and this goes for more than just getting online coaching clients. I recently did this, I think starting in March of 2019, so less than a year when I was like, I really want to do more speaking. And so, what did I do? I did speaking for free, my very first– I’ll tell you a story.

I think you know the story of Mike, where the very first speaking gig that I got was in New Jersey. And this guy reached out to me and he– ’cause I put on my Instagram, I was like, I’m doing more speaking. I’m like, let me know if you want me to speak. And he reached out and he was like, “Hey, I’d love for you to come speak to my office.”

It was like a gen-pop group of people who would like to lose weight and understand nutrition better. None of them followed me. He was only one. He was like, “come speak to my office.” I was like, “great.” He’s like, “how much do you charge?” And it’s so funny ’cause one of the more common questions I get is how much should you charge for coaching?

And I was like, I have no idea. Just throw it a number and start, like, ideally start with less and then work your way up. But I was like, “I don’t know, $5,000.” And he responds. He’s like, “dude, I’m so sorry, like I can’t do it.” I was like, “okay, cool. How about a thousand?” He’s like, “Aw, man, I really don’t have that budget.”

I was like, “okay, cool. How about you pay for lunch?” He was like, “great.”

So– and it’s funny because I feel like a lot of people, if they’re like– a lot of mast– I have to use accent every time — it’s like the “mastermind gurus,” they’d be like, “don’t ever give a discount. And once you say your price, that’s your price.”

And I shamelessly went from 5,000, to a thousand, to pay for lunch, and it was my first speaking event. And then from that, just from posting it on my Instagram as I did it, I got two more.

Mike: [01:23:11] Yeah, it was a win all around.

Jordan: [01:23:13] I loved it.

Mike: [01:23:14] The people who attended benefited from it, the guy who got you to do it, he looked good for his colleagues and he got to meet you, so he was pumped. You got experience speaking, so you got a little bit better. You learn some things through it and you posted about it and, I’ll let you continue.

Jordan: [01:23:30] No, that’s it.

Mike: [01:23:31] But other people saw you speaking and that led to you I’m sure getting more speaking gigs.

Jordan: [01:23:38] And also, why did I choose 5,000? Well, there’s a number of reasons.

Number one, because I had no idea what to choose. I had no idea. And also, I’m completely warped by how much Gary makes for speaking events because it’s outr-, I think he’s made it public, right? He’s told people publicly how much Gary makes for a speaking event?

Mike: [01:23:56] I’m not sure.

Jordan: [01:23:58] All right, so I’m not going to say, ’cause I, I’m not a hundred percent confident, he’s made it public, but it’s a lot. Like, an unbelievable amount for an hour and it goes to show you, like, you’re very much impacted by your environment.

Like, I think people hear 5,000 for an hour speaking gig, it’s like when you know how much Gary makes, it’s all of a sudden, not that much. But I was totally fine dropping to a thousand and then when he’s like, I can’t do that. I was like, yeah, how about you just pay for lunch?

I think it’s really important to understand that this isn’t number one, just for online coaching. It’s also for in-person. It’s for whatever you want to do. If you want to make an impact and help more people start by giving it away for free. I’ll tell you this, if I didn’t have another income and I was really, really, uh, hurting for more money, then I wouldn’t have started with the 5,000, I would have started with free from the very beginning because it would have– I would have needed it and I would have– I knew I had to get my foot in the door first. If I was looking for, like, speaking to be a major source of income, I wouldn’t have started with something really high, like, I would have started much lower.

Mike: [01:25:05] One of the other benefits of deep discount fitness coaching or free fitness coaching is it gives you coaching experience and lets you organically design templates. And if you listened to the last episode, we talk about how Jordan and I design programs, and in that episode about systemizing your online coaching business, we talk about how templates are made and how not to design training program templates. And by coaching people for free or for significantly lower than your normal price, you’re going to have more clients early on, which is going to allow you to develop those systems, which is going to help you become a better coach, which is going to lead to future clients seeing better results. It just– it is the optimal strategy.

Jordan: [01:25:55] Yeah. Yeah. Just is.

Mike: [01:25:58] It just is

Jordan: [01:25:59] How far into this are we?

Mike: [01:26:01] I think we’re, oh, an hour 20

Jordan: [01:26:04] Oh, wow. So, we’ll wrap it up. So, we have to announce the winner.

Mike: [01:26:08] Correct.

Jordan: [01:26:09] And, uh, oh, so we have two announcements. All right. So, number one, we’re gonna announce the winner of the person who gets the free month in the Fitness Business Mentorship, um–

Mike: [01:26:18] And we’re selecting that person because they posted on their Instagram story and tagged both @syattfitness and @mikevacanti, uh, basically shouting out an episode that they liked.

Jordan: [01:26:30] So we’re going to announce them in a second, first before we do that. First and foremost, huge thank you for listening. Like, the response to these has been overwhelmingly tremendous and positive and we just appreciate it immensely. Second, before we announce the winner, we are really excited to announce that the next Fitness Business Mentorship is like, we’re relaunching it, and it’s starting on February 1st.

So, we’re officially going to be relaunching it, I believe in the next week, week and a half or so. So, keep an eye out for that. We’ll be announcing it on Instagram and all of our social media, probably send an email out about it, but, uh, we are really excited.

It’s, uh, we just went through a year of our first year ever doing it and this coming year, in addition to– literally, we have 12 in-depth courses all about client psychology and motivation, how to program nutrition for your clients, how to do a strength training program, periodization for your clients, uh, more in-depth information on how to get more online coaching clients. Like there’s a lot.

Mike: [01:27:32] Developing systems, scaling different revenue streams.

Jordan: [01:27:35] Basically, we spent the last year building out 12 in-depth courses that we haven’t seen anywhere else online. I’ve never seen any other coaches go in-depth like we have. This year we’re also adding to it, essentially every month you’re going to get a, for lack of a better phrase, to-do list of exactly what your goals are for that month to accomplish.

Whether it’s social media-wise, whether  it’s website-wise, article-wise, client-wise. There are so many different options that you can choose from and essentially in the same way that your clients really look forward to the new program every month, and it just tells them exactly what to do, that’s what we’re going to do in the mentorship.

We’re going to tell you exactly what to do in order to build your business and help more people. So that’ll be launching in about a week and a half, two weeks. If you want to sign up now, you’re welcome to just go to fitnessbusinessmentorship.com, you can sign up and, uh, and that’s it. Mike, you wanna add anything?

Mike: [01:28:28] No. February 1st we kick off. We’re both very excited. We learned a lot, Jordan and I did, through our first year in the mentorship and we’re thrilled and for this next year.

Jordan: [01:28:38] So, uh, with that said, let’s announce the winner– and we’re going to do another prize in the next episode where, so, if you want to enter to win a free month in the mentorship, just make sure you share this episode on your Instagram story and tag both @mikevacanti and @syattfitness, and then we’ll pick one winner at random to win a free month.

Mike: [01:28:58] So the winner of a free month in the Fitness Business Mentorship is @mylifeonfitness, Stephanie C. Congratulations, Stephanie on the free month.

Jordan: [01:29:09] Congrats, Stephanie, and I believe Dave Topp one, the last one, right? So, Dave Topp, Stephanie, congratulations to each of you for winning a free month in the Fitness Business Mentorship. We are super excited to have you.

Mike: [01:29:20] We appreciate you guys listening.

Jordan: [01:29:21] Where should Stephanie reach out? Should she email you?

Mike: [01:29:24] Stephanie can email me at mike@ontheregimen.com.

Jordan: [01:29:28] Amazing. Perfect. Anything else? Is that it?

Mike: [01:29:31] No, this was a fun episode, man.

Jordan: [01:29:33] This is great. This was awesome. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed it, a five-star review would be amazing. If you hated it, one-star review would obviously suck for us, but tell your truth.

Mike: [01:29:45] Right in the teeth.

Jordan: [01:29:47] And uh, and that’s it. Thank you so much. Keep an eye out for the launch of the Fitness Business Mentorship. If you want to hop in early, you can do that at fitnessbusinessmentorship.com. That’s it.

Mike: [01:29:57] Have a great day, everybody.