0:00:11.5 Michael Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.
0:00:12.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s going on, Michael?
0:00:14.5 Michael Vacanti: Podcasting in-person. I have the honor and privilege of having you in-person, and my first question for you, Syatt Fitness, is, How do your arms and shoulders look so big and defined in that tank top?
0:00:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Alright, Dale, alright. Back in New York, man, when I landed…
0:00:30.9 Michael Vacanti: That wasn’t an answer.
0:00:32.1 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause I know you’re just making me feel good. I know my arms aren’t that big.
0:00:36.0 Michael Vacanti: Yes, they are. They look great.
0:00:37.0 Jordan Syatt: No, you’re a liar.
[overlapping conversation]
0:00:38.0 Michael Vacanti: I’ll take a picture and email it to our podcast email list, which if you’re not subscribed, you can do so in the show notes.
0:00:43.9 Jordan Syatt: That would actually be funny if you’re really like, “Hey, by the way, here’s a picture.”
[laughter]
0:00:50.0 Michael Vacanti: “It’s a special bonus.” Give it a flex. Boom!
0:00:55.7 Jordan Syatt: Alright.
0:00:55.9 Michael Vacanti: Now, just relax. Oh, yeah.
0:00:58.7 Jordan Syatt: Does it look bigger relaxed? That’s not a good sign.
[laughter]
0:01:04.0 Michael Vacanti: They look very impressive relaxed.
0:01:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s good.
0:01:07.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:01:07.8 Jordan Syatt: Before I landed, I was like, “I wonder if when I land, if it’s gonna feel like home,” right? It’s still, it’s only been 5 weeks. And when I landed and I got out and I was getting in the cab, I was like, “It doesn’t feel like home,” which is a good… I’m happy about that.
0:01:23.5 Michael Vacanti: That’s a good sign.
0:01:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. As soon as I landed, sirens going off, choppers overhead, just like busy. It’s super busy in the city now, way busier than when I left.
0:01:33.2 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:01:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Even these 5 weeks, it picked up a lot.
0:01:35.7 Michael Vacanti: Even in these last 5 weeks.
0:01:37.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so I’m liking Dallas, man.
0:01:38.7 Michael Vacanti: Good! You made the right decision.
0:01:40.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m liking the quieter, slower Southern life.
0:01:43.6 Michael Vacanti: More space.
0:01:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.
0:01:45.0 Michael Vacanti: More heat.
0:01:46.0 Jordan Syatt: Less money.
0:01:47.6 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, cheaper.
0:01:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man! Yeah.
0:01:50.0 Michael Vacanti: Zero state income tax.
0:01:51.3 Jordan Syatt: I will say, even just walking around, though, there’s so much great food in New York and the diversity of food. So many different cultures and different types of food. And Texas is great, but it’s just like Tex-Mex, Tex-Mex, tacos.
0:02:08.3 Michael Vacanti: Barbecue.
0:02:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Burritos. [chuckle] Barbecue, which is great, but I like New York food. I think New York has really the best food in the world. It does. But I definitely made the right choice.
0:02:20.4 Michael Vacanti: Good. Well, are you gonna get any good New York Food while you’re here?
0:02:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
0:02:25.0 Michael Vacanti: What are you gonna get?
0:02:25.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know yet. I’m not sure.
0:02:26.5 Michael Vacanti: Slice of pizza? Bleecker Street Pizza?
0:02:29.1 Jordan Syatt: Definitely gonna get some pizza, definitely get some pepperoni pizza.
0:02:31.4 Michael Vacanti: That coal fire from Bleecker Street? Or you’re thinking something else?
0:02:33.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Probably Bleecker Street, but yeah. Or maybe just after I’m done here, just go to the place that we used to go to just right around the corner. Yeah, probably Bleecker Street. There’s some really great Ethiopian restaurants that I like that I haven’t been to in a while. But yeah, we’ll see. Maybe get a nice kosher bagel.
0:02:54.2 Michael Vacanti: Nice!
0:02:54.3 Jordan Syatt: A nice bagel with cream cheese and lox.
0:02:56.5 Michael Vacanti: Nice!
0:02:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Interesting that combination isn’t kosher, I don’t think. You’re not supposed to mix dairy and meat, I guess. I actually don’t know ’cause lox isn’t technically meat.
0:03:06.0 Michael Vacanti: You’re asking the wrong guy.
0:03:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, not the king of kosher over here.
[laughter]
0:03:12.8 Jordan Syatt: But yeah, how you doing, bro?
0:03:15.0 Michael Vacanti: I’m good, man.
0:03:15.4 Jordan Syatt: You had a good lift today?
0:03:16.2 Michael Vacanti: Good to have you here. No, it wasn’t a good lift today, but I got through.
0:03:19.0 Jordan Syatt: Alright, but you got through it, so that’s good.
0:03:21.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, it was fine. It was fine. Although I thought of something interesting on the way over here. A few months back, we had a discussion on the podcast about anger, and I think this is when our buddy, Carlo, wrote in about anger, and then we… That’s…
0:03:38.0 Jordan Syatt: And I went on a weird tangent.
[laughter]
0:03:39.8 Michael Vacanti: You went on a weird tangent about toxic masculinity and how masculinity is not bad, which was weird only because I don’t know if it was related to the question. It wasn’t weird in itself.
0:03:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Right, what I said was… Right.
0:03:51.5 Michael Vacanti: The tangent stands, absolutely.
0:03:52.4 Jordan Syatt: I’d misinterpreted his question and then went off.
0:03:55.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.
[laughter]
0:03:58.8 Michael Vacanti: But back to his original point, because I think I said at that time that I’m way less angry. I think what spurred his question is I previously said I’m way less angry than I used to be, and that’s weird because anger is a good form of motivation or historically has been. And in workouts, I just had been less angry and in life, in general. And while working using that anger as a form of motivation. It turns out I think that was temporary because recently, and I think I know why, I wouldn’t even call it anger, I would call it explosive energy.
0:04:33.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow! Okay.
0:04:34.0 Michael Vacanti: And I think it’s a result of my lifting and nutrition and sleep have all been dialed for almost 3 months now and…
0:04:41.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you can see it.
0:04:43.9 Michael Vacanti: I can feel it. Strength is just continuing to make linear gains like 10, 11 plus weeks in.
0:04:49.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome.
0:04:51.8 Michael Vacanti: I don’t know if it’s testosterone, specifically, or testosterone plus other hormonal adaptations going on in my body.
0:05:00.0 Jordan Syatt: HGH, yeah, yeah.
0:05:01.8 Michael Vacanti: Everything. I just have more energy, and in the form of anger, sometimes, and I thought that was interesting.
0:05:09.4 Jordan Syatt: Do you just notice that walking down the street, just like anger?
0:05:13.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, maybe like…
0:05:14.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, “Mmm!”
0:05:18.2 Michael Vacanti: It’s not persistent and consistent. It’s something I can tap into for specific heavy lifts and for motivation for working. And at annoyances, I guess I do feel it. [laughter] And very specific ones, not too many, but I’m trying to put 90-pound dumbbells in the rack and there’s someone lateral raising 10s directly in front of where they need to go.
0:05:46.7 Jordan Syatt: The worst, yeah.
0:05:48.9 Michael Vacanti: I was very close to just running into him with my 90s, because it’s so obvious, it’s obvious.
[laughter]
0:05:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Step back!
0:05:55.8 Michael Vacanti: And if this person, this individual looked like a beginner, I’m empathetic to that, I’m aware of that, but he wasn’t, and he was just standing there directly in front of the rack.
0:06:05.2 Jordan Syatt: Yup, I hate that.
0:06:07.9 Michael Vacanti: But yeah, I mean we all hate that.
0:06:09.0 Jordan Syatt: That and shrugs, just doing it right in front of the rack, just like, “Step back.”
[chuckle]
0:06:15.5 Michael Vacanti: There was a place I wanted to go with this. It led me to something I heard recently about… This might have been a Mike Matthews, I don’t remember where I heard this, but, Societies begin stoic and die Epicurean. And just this…
0:06:35.7 Jordan Syatt: We almost went Epicurean.
[chuckle]
0:06:38.3 Michael Vacanti: You and I.
0:06:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you and I. [chuckle]
0:06:40.4 Michael Vacanti: And still might, still might. But there’s something about this like, I don’t know if anger is the right word. Anger just might be a subset of the emotions and characteristics that go with this warrior, aggressor, high-test, Samurai lifestyle that I think is almost impossible not to at least partially adopt if you are consistent with a fitness regimen. That’s just what happens to your body. And maybe meditation and other practices can quell that, those emotions, rather than express those emotions, but yeah. Just a 3-month update, anger isn’t completely gone out of my life. [chuckle]
0:07:31.3 Jordan Syatt: I feel like it’s something that happens when you’re on a mission, whatever the mission is. Maybe the mission is building your body physically. Maybe the mission is building your business. Whatever mission you’re on, you get this hyperfocused, the high-power energy, whatever you said, that’s just like, “Nothing is gonna stop me from doing this mission.” And then anything that tries to get in the way, it’s like, “Get the fuck out of the way,” and that it will be anger ’cause you’re like, “Nothing’s gonna stop me on my mission.” It’s the process of being… My mind goes to 300 where the young kid has to go out and prove himself.
0:08:12.0 Michael Vacanti: With the lion?
0:08:12.9 Jordan Syatt: With the lion and fight in battle.
0:08:14.0 Michael Vacanti: The wolf? Or wolf, is it? Yeah, yeah.
0:08:15.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, whatever it is. In the movie, it was wolf, but you’re on a mission. And that’s what happens. Anything that is gonna get in the way of you finishing your mission, you’re gonna meet it with some form of anger. It’s like, “Get out of my way, dude. You have 15 pounds in your hand doing lateral raises. I got the 90s. I’m gonna truck stick you right now.”
[laughter]
0:08:39.3 Michael Vacanti: Yes, that’s a great way to put it. And it applies, like building your own body. These are important missions, building a business that helps people, but then you can escalate it to even greater, both more noble and more sacrificial missions. And my mind goes to a service man or woman on tour. That is a mission.
0:09:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Literally, yeah. Yeah, it’s a literal mission, yeah.
0:09:05.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. I remember Jocko Willink talking about how he would not bring pictures of his wife or children on tour with him.
0:09:17.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow!
0:09:18.7 Michael Vacanti: And I think he said at the time he didn’t tell them that.
0:09:22.2 Jordan Syatt: I could see why, yeah.
0:09:23.0 Michael Vacanti: But he needed to be so hyperfocused on that mission. It didn’t change his love for his family, it didn’t change his feelings for them, but where he was he needed every single ounce of him there in that…
0:09:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it makes sense. You show someone a picture of a hamburger, they get hungry. It’s very obvious that an image of something can change your emotional state or physical state, mental state, all of it. It would make sense. If you’re going into a life or death mission, you wanna be focused.
0:09:53.4 Michael Vacanti: And the softer, more sensitive… The feminine energy that exists within all of us, male and female, but that feminine energy is something that is useful in conversation with a spouse in the domestic, in the home, kind of metaphorically, I think inside the castle walls where things are safe and there is order. But when you’re out there, go back to movie 300, when you’re out there with the spear, with the wolf in front of you, you don’t need that. You need 100% warrior energy.
0:10:27.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And in my mind, I hate that I have to clarify this, but it’s worth clarifying ’cause I know some people are gonna be like, “Feminine energy?” It’s like feminine does not equate to female. Feminine is not woman. Both men and women have both masculine and feminine energies. And if you Google search masculine qualities versus feminine qualities, you’ll see it doesn’t equate to male and female. So if anyone’s offended by that… Everyone gets offended nowadays. Someone got offended about my story today on Instagram, ’cause I posted a crying baby. Everyone gets mad, so just before you get mad about that…
0:11:00.0 Michael Vacanti: Not someone, many people were offended.
0:11:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there were lot of parents who were like, “How dare you post that!” It’s like, “They’re struggling more than you!” [chuckle] It’s like everyone hates when a baby is crying on a plane. Anyway.
0:11:10.0 Michael Vacanti: You’re really good at having an understanding of what we are saying is being interpreted by the listeners because I, historically, just… I remember saying before, and this was even before we started mentorship together. I was talking about repeating oneself in content. And repetition is important, I now know in hindsight, for learning, but this conversation we’re having now stemmed from a conversation we had 3 months ago that was related to me not being angry, and then related to Carlo’s question, and we really hit the masculine versus feminine does not mean male versus female, does not mean boy versus girl.
0:11:46.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, we did mention that. I forgot, yeah.
0:11:48.1 Michael Vacanti: We explained it thoroughly there, but in my mind, I was like…
0:11:51.6 Jordan Syatt: “Why do we have to even say it?” [chuckle]
0:11:52.5 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, “Why do we have to say it again?” But then if I actually ask myself, it’s like, “Well, not everyone listening to every episode has listened to all 52, 53 episodes that we’ve done,” so good clarification.
0:12:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Right, correct. Yeah.
0:12:06.0 Michael Vacanti: But yeah, that’s…
0:12:07.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s good, man. And I’m glad that you’re having that powerful, explosive energy so that you’re on your mission. But I think, going back to that, you’ve been dialed with your training and nutrition, and I remember there was a time where you weren’t and you felt it, but getting back into it like…
0:12:20.9 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. And it’s also interesting because I can get away with not being dialed. We can all get away with not being dialed. This goes back to that there’s almost a coolness for people who work in fitness to be apathetic about their own fitness. And there’s definitely something to be said for putting your own fitness on the backburner for periods of time when you need to hyperfocus on something else. It might be family, might be business, might be anything in life, but I feel fundamentally better in every way when I am very focused on my fitness.
0:13:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed.
0:13:05.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, and there’s a lot of overlap with you in jiu-jitsu right now. Your lifting is going extremely well right now.
0:13:11.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, lifting is going great. Dude, I’m training… It’s funny, I’m training jiu-jitsu at least 4, if not 5-plus times a week. I’m strength training at least 3, if not 4 times a week. So it’s like on average, more than one thing a day, I’m training, and I just feel great. Feel really good. Feel really, really good about it. And it’s like life really goes in phases or seasons or whatever you wanna call it, ’cause there was this season of my life when I was with Gary that I barely worked out once a week, and it was just a really awful workout. And ate junk, and I was just like… It was a great period of growth for my business, but not for my personal health. And now, it’s great to accept these different seasons and to understand where you are, rather than… I think so many people try and fight the season that they’re in. They’re always trying to resist it, and they’re always trying to do everything. And the sooner you realize you can’t do everything, then the sooner you can actually focus on one thing and do really well with it.
0:14:16.7 Michael Vacanti: That’s true.
0:14:17.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.
0:14:19.9 Michael Vacanti: I do think about… Because there’s this perception that hyperfocus on one’s individual health and fitness is neurotic, and I think… Well, not I think, I know that perception is driven by the fact that that is often common, specifically, in the bodybuilding and physique worlds. We’ve seen how many people that are neurotic about their fitness to the point where overemphasis on it deters them from a better quality of life. But the other side of things is going from apathetic and maybe once or twice a week workout max and not getting a single micronutrient in, in a month’s span, going from that to actually caring isn’t neurotic. It actually makes your life better.
0:15:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
0:15:17.9 Michael Vacanti: Which is funny because these are things that we teach our clients and potential clients, but then can go through long stretches of not applying to ourselves.
0:15:24.9 Jordan Syatt: Yup, yeah.
0:15:26.5 Michael Vacanti: And sure, there can be seasons of, like we said before, there’s times where it makes sense to focus on something else. But for the long run, your own personal health has to be in the top few things that you’re focused on.
0:15:43.1 Jordan Syatt: 100%. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
0:15:45.9 Michael Vacanti: Should we get into questions?
0:15:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Before we do, let’s quickly remind everyone. Like we promised last week, the mentorship is on sale for 30% off, so if you wanna join the mentorship for 30% discount, this will last one week. That is it. You can use the code 30for30. All of the instructions will be in the show notes. The link to the mentorship, the discount code, 30for30, you get 30% off. This is only gonna be one week. So most people listening are probably gonna be like, “Okay, well, I have a week and then I won’t do it, so I’ll do it later on in the week.” It does end in one week. So after that, if you didn’t use it, that’s it. We’d love to have you, but make sure you don’t forget, because if you email us today after being like, “Oh, man, guys! I forgot!” We love you, but you got a week, so get on it.
0:16:33.5 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. Yup, yup. And we would love to have you, and we’re probably not doing another launch for, I would guess…
0:16:42.9 Jordan Syatt: The remainder of the year, probably.
0:16:43.8 Michael Vacanti: 7 or even next year.
0:16:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:16:47.4 Michael Vacanti: We’ll see.
0:16:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah, yeah.
0:16:48.4 Michael Vacanti: I would assume it’s gonna be 7 or 8 months until… Don’t hold me to that, but I’m 85% confident we won’t launch… There won’t be another sale again for 7 or 8 months.
0:16:56.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, definitely not in 2021.
0:17:00.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:17:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Definitely not in 2021.
0:17:00.8 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, so cool. First question is, “Hey, Mike. I’ve been struggling with something recently and thought it would be a good topic for you and Jordan to talk about on your podcast, and that is, how to get through many client check-ins with efficiency without quality suffering. Do you have certain routines or rituals that help keep productivity high while replying to them? I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Thanks!”
0:17:27.9 Jordan Syatt: Man, it was so weird. As soon as you started reading and not paying attention to me, I felt the urge to wanna reach for my phone.
0:17:34.9 Michael Vacanti: I told you it would happen.
0:17:35.4 Jordan Syatt: But I didn’t do it, though. I fought it, but I was very aware. I was like, “Man, I feel this gravitational pull to my phone,” and I actively fought it. But isn’t that weird? It’s like that cheap dopamine stuff we were talking about…
0:17:46.9 Michael Vacanti: Last week.
0:17:47.6 Jordan Syatt: Last week where it’s just like, “Oh, Mike is no longer paying attention to me, so let me reach for something else to take… ” Yeah, anyway, great question, but…
0:17:54.8 Michael Vacanti: Great question.
0:17:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:17:55.9 Michael Vacanti: But it… Yeah, that was a good episode. There’s no boredom. Screens have removed boredom from our society.
0:18:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. I’ve been doing a lot with boredom lately, and we’ll answer this question, but I’ve been really leaning into boredom over the last week, which had been great.
0:18:13.6 Michael Vacanti: Nice!
0:18:13.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s been really good.
0:18:16.1 Michael Vacanti: Does that mean you’re hitting putts and shooting baskets? Or you’re literally laying face down on the carpet like…
0:18:21.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no. Well, actually, I have been doing a lot of stretching. So when I lie down and stretch, I don’t have my phone, I’ll just lie down and stretch, which is great ’cause I’m literally doing nothing except staring at the ceiling.
0:18:32.5 Michael Vacanti: Nice!
0:18:33.0 Jordan Syatt: And if you stare at a white ceiling long enough, it starts to look like there’s colors in it. It’s weird that you just stare at it and you see these… I don’t know, that’s what I’ve seen, but if you stare at a white ceiling long enough, all of a sudden it starts to look like it’s moving and there’s rainbows in it. [chuckle] So yeah, but then putting, shooting basketball, the dopamine is way lesser from shooting the hoops than it is from opening up Instagram and seeing political posts and people getting mad at you for posting a story about a baby crying on a plane.
0:19:00.3 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, lean into that boredom.
0:19:01.4 Jordan Syatt: Great question. Let’s go to the question. I actually forget it. Can you read it again?
[laughter]
0:19:06.8 Michael Vacanti: Hey, Mike. I’ve been struggling with something recently and thought it would be a good topic for you and Jordan to talk about on your podcast, and that is, How to get through many client check-ins with efficiency without quality suffering? Do you have certain routines or rituals that help keep productivity high while replying to them? I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Thanks.
0:19:26.0 Jordan Syatt: Very good question. You wanna start off with this one?
0:19:29.0 Michael Vacanti: You can start on this one because, historically, we’ve done check-ins a bit differently.
0:19:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ll start by saying this. I was just talking to someone about this recently. The first thing that we have to clarify is inherently, you can’t streamline 1-on-1 coaching, and what I mean by that is you can’t streamline conversations, you just can’t. And that’s not a bad thing. I think that it’s not a bad thing. I think in the fitness industry, they get people’s attention by detox teas and cleanses and 6-pack abs in 6 minutes and dah dah dah dah dah. The version of that here is like you see these business coaches being like systems and streamline your coaching and dah dah dah. They make it seem like you’re not actually gonna have to do any work. Inherently, it’s going to be a lot of work because each individual you work with has a different story, a different conversation to be had, some longer and more in-depth, some more brief and concise. So that has to be known upfront that if you’re being a good coach and having legitimate conversation with your clients, you can’t streamline that outside of just simply maybe having better… If you have them texting you and emailing you and leaving you voice memos and on WhatsApp and on Instagram and on Twitter. No, put it all in one place, all in email, which is what I know you and I both do. Just all in email.
0:20:56.3 Michael Vacanti: That’s a great piece of advice and something that’s quite common. Get all communication in one place.
0:21:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Don’t have them texting you, and this is a big one, ’cause a lot of coaches have their clients texting them. Don’t do that. And we’ve spoken about this ad nauseam, but it’s for their benefit, because if all of the conversations are at one place, in your email, you can easily search through it and you can easily show them conversations you’ve had in the past, you can find certain things, it’s much more organized. If it’s in your text messages, you don’t wanna scroll up for 30 minutes to try and find something they said 6 months ago. So make sure…
0:21:28.6 Michael Vacanti: And one more point there, texting has an expectation for faster responses than emails, and 1, depends what you’re charging and what you’re promising, but I don’t know if you want to be promising instant replies every time your client needs you. That isn’t the way that I would, or that we recommend setting up coaching, and just simply you would burn out so much faster in that setup. And 2, you don’t want to create extreme dependence on you from your client because you’re doing them a disservice if you’re teaching them to need you within the moment for everything. Email allows a degree of independence and allows for learning and for improvement and for sustainability on the client, and that will exist after they’re done working with you.
0:22:19.1 Jordan Syatt: I used to think I was crushing it as a coach because I would reply to emails so fast. I used to think, “Oh, yeah, I’m the man. I got back to you so fast. You were worried, and then I completely took away your worry about going to dinner tonight because you thought going to dinner was gonna ruin your progress. And instead of letting you go, I just got in there and I completely calmed your nerves and dah dah dah.” That’s equivalent to a parent being like, “Oh, yeah, I’m the best parent. I put my child in a bubble. I never let them go out so they never skin their knees, they never get hurt, they never interact with anybody.” That’s not a good parent. Your child is going to get hurt, they’re gonna get their heart broken, they’re going to skin their knees, and a good parent understands that instead of preventing it, they just teach them how to handle it.
0:23:00.7 Jordan Syatt: A good coach, if you’re trying to reply as quickly as possible, you’re handicapping your client, you’re putting them at a disadvantage, you’re not being a good coach. These are all different ideas, but to understand, you don’t have to reply immediately. You shouldn’t reply immediately. I did daily emails with my 1-on-1 clients for a long time, and if I went back to it, that’s what I would do as well, I’d do daily emails. But I would have them check in daily, and I would say, I’ll reply within 72 hours. So I might not reply to every single email every single day, but when I reply to their emails, I would reply to every one. So I might not reply every single day, but within 72 hours, you’ll hear from me. And so yeah, that’s how I’d structure it. I’d just do it all via email.
0:23:44.1 Michael Vacanti: And what information were you getting from your clients when they were doing daily updates?
0:23:50.6 Jordan Syatt: So from you is, send me your calories every day, how many calories you ate the day before, how much protein you ate the day before, and then any questions or comments that you have, and that was it. And some people were so brief and concise, they would literally just put their calories and protein in the subject line, and that was it, they wouldn’t even put anything in the body. Other people would send me 2000-word emails on a daily basis. They would do calories, protein, and then just word vomit. And great, that’s fine as well. And then other people were in-between. Most people were somewhere in between that. And yeah, that’s all I would get. And then if they wanted to email me videos from their workouts, they would do that separately, they would send me an email later in the day, “Here’s what I did for the workout, here are the videos.” Again, they hear from me within 72 hours. But yeah, that’s really it. And having maybe different folders for current clients versus prospective clients in your inbox or in your email tabs so you can organize it a little bit better, but…
0:24:52.5 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:24:52.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s really it.
0:24:54.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, on that subject. And by the way, we hammer this all deep in the systems course within the mentorship.
0:25:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah. It’s like a 2-hour course where we walk you through literally everything.
0:25:04.3 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. You just said something interesting about the separate tab, you can do a separate tab or separate email folder, or you can have a completely separate email just for coaching clients, which will allow you to, if you don’t wanna be in your inbox that often or you’re not gonna be checking your personal emails as much as your coaching clients, having the separate emails is beneficial. There is something I was just going to say. Oh, so you talk about some people will send you 2000 words every single day when they’re doing daily updates, or if you’re not doing daily updates, they might just send you 2000-word emails every single day, which depends on the type of content you make, which leads to you attracting certain types of clients. But whether it’s half your clients who are sending you novels or 1 in 15 or 1 in 20 clients who are sending you novels, either way you’re getting novels. I’ve gotten to the point where I reply… If I have a client who’s sending me daily updates, they’re sending me macros on a daily basis and a green check if they worked out or did what they were supposed to do that day, I’m replying right away as soon as I see it, because I’m in my inbox every single day. But if I have a client who is writing me daily novels, I’m not replying to the novels daily.
0:26:17.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.
0:26:18.4 Michael Vacanti: For the first 1-2 weeks, especially when they’re important questions, and they might not know what they’re doing and they need answers to those, of course. But if they’re just about my life… We’ve all received them, long emails that don’t have… There’s no urgency.
0:26:35.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I was watching the news and there’s this crazy like exodus to Tibet. It’s like, okay, you don’t need to necessarily reply to that.
0:26:41.8 Michael Vacanti: So I will give that a few days at least.
0:26:44.1 Jordan Syatt: Why did I think of that? Crazy exodus to Tibet?
0:26:47.2 Michael Vacanti: I’m not sure.
0:26:48.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know why that came out of my mouth. There isn’t an exodus to Tibet, by the way. I just completely made that up. But yeah, you wouldn’t either apply to something like that.
0:26:54.3 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. How to be more efficient? You hit the nail on the head with, you can only be so efficient. It’s 1-on-1 coaching. There’s an interactive component, but what I’m doing when I’m doing weekly updates is, I have quantitative and qualitative aspects of the update. Within the qualitative part, I’m answering any questions they have. Anything they put in their update form that is relevant or needs me to address it, whether it’s Memorial Day weekend coming up and I’m doing this and working out a strategy for nutrition. If it’s an upcoming vacation, if it’s… A lot of these things aren’t going in update forms, they’re just coming in an email, but maybe it’s, I tweaked my knee doing this, or this feels weird. I’m addressing anything there, and I’m literally probably just copying what they wrote, pasting it into email, dropping below it in bold text and addressing what they wrote.
0:27:55.2 Michael Vacanti: The quantitative portion, the main things I’m looking at are average rate of weight loss. I’m looking at their last 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks of updates, and I’m seeing if this person’s trying to lose body fat. Is the scale going down? Or is it not? I’m looking at adherence. Are they doing a good job of sticking to their calories and macros or not? Are they training or not? And I’m looking at waist measurements in the same sense of, Is the scale going down? Are their waist measurements going down? What’s going on with their arm and leg measurements? And based on that information, I’m making the decision whether or not we need to do anything differently. And that’s it for each individual client. Some clients are super quick, they don’t put a lot in the qualitative questions, they’re not asking a lot of questions, they don’t have a lot going on. And then other clients take a longer time for their update. But yeah, I send out the update form to be filled out Tuesday night, so it either gets filled out Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, Friday morning, and then I’m usually replying to updates from Thursday through the following Monday and doing a handful or more each day.
0:29:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I think that’s super thorough. And just for clarification for me, I get clients their weight every day, like, oh yeah, so I get their calories and protein and their weight, and then their measurements every 2 weeks and their pictures every 4 weeks. And that’s it, and I put that responsibility on them.
0:29:26.8 Michael Vacanti: To send it to you?
0:29:29.5 Jordan Syatt: To send it to me, yeah. The first month or 2 months, sometimes I’ll send them a reminder if they didn’t, but if they’re starting coaching with you, it’s really important that you lay out expectations beforehand, and it sounds scary to do it this way, especially if you’re in the beginning of your career, ’cause you almost wanna make it as easy as possible for them to sign up, and you don’t want people to not sign up with you so you’re like, “Oh, yeah, whatever you want.” But if you make it very clear as to how your program works, it’s good, you have structure and people thrive on structure. So you’re like, “Hey, listen, this is how it works, you’re gonna email me every day, you’re gonna include your weight, your calories from the day before, protein from the day before and any questions you have. Every 2 weeks, you’re gonna send me your measurements. I’m not going to remind you, you have to put this in your calendar. You send me your measurements. Every 4 weeks, you have to send me your pictures. Again, I’m not gonna remind you. You have to do this on your own.”
0:30:22.0 Jordan Syatt: You might not wanna do that, and I understand that, ’cause I definitely didn’t wanna do it early in my career, but I found that as I started treating it more like, “Hey, I’m your coach. This is what you need to do,” people were more likely to sign on ’cause they have confidence in me and my program. If you’re just like, “Yeah, you can just do whatever you want,” you don’t have any systems, you don’t have a program, you don’t sound like a confident coach. You have to be confident in telling them how this works. And the more confident you are… I think about it like if you’re in a crisis situation, God forbid, and I don’t know, with your partner, with your kids, whatever it is, if everyone is freaking out, it’s a bad, bad situation. But if you’re in a crisis situation and you’re the calm one and you’re relaxed and you say, “Here’s what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna find the exit, we’re gonna get out of the building,” then people can take from your confidence and your coolness and your collectedness and your plans and your structure and get to safety.
0:31:20.4 Jordan Syatt: A lot of the people emailing you are often frantic and worried and they don’t know what to do, and they just wanna make progress, and so if you’re like, “Okay, cool. Here’s how this works. You email me this day, this is what you include, you email me your measurements now, you email me your pictures now,” it’s like, “Okay, now they feel like a burden is being lifted off their shoulder because you are taking away all the guesswork, you’re taking away all the frantic… How do you say this in plural? Franticism? Franticness? I don’t know how to say that. You’re taking away all the franticness in their mind…
0:31:49.3 Michael Vacanti: That’s what I would say.
0:31:51.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how you say that. Franticism? You’re taking away all the franticness in their brain and you’re providing structure. And I know it can be really, really worrisome to do that when you’re just starting out ’cause you wanna take on everybody and you just wanna get more clients. But if you take nothing else from this episode, aside from the mentorship being 30% off, which you should sign up for, then take from it that you should sit down and write a clear 1 sheet of what your program is and what is offered and how it’s structured. ‘Cause if you can become more clear with what your coaching is and how it’s structured, then people are gonna be more likely to sign up, because they have very clear instructions on how it’s set up.
0:32:30.8 Michael Vacanti: Great, I love it. Good, thorough answer. Let’s go to the one that we talked about a little bit before. How to…
0:32:41.2 Jordan Syatt: I am ESTP. I forget what we spoke about before.
[laughter]
0:32:46.3 Michael Vacanti: I think the general question was, How to grow your Instagram?
0:32:50.2 Jordan Syatt: Got it, got it. Yeah, so just before, Mike, I started the podcast, I was on a call with a client and… What’s up?
0:32:56.6 Michael Vacanti: Because I’m gonna contribute approximately zero to this, I’m just gonna put a quick clarification on here, that you don’t… In 2014, I almost don’t wanna say this, ’cause I don’t wanna be like, “I was making this much money.” But I think it’s important to know that coaches can have between 2000 and 5000 Instagram followers and be making $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 a month.
0:33:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:33:26.7 Michael Vacanti: That’s not uncommon.
0:33:27.7 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:33:29.5 Michael Vacanti: And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, and you’ve listened to the How To Get More Coaching Clients, Part 1 and Part 2, you know the massive emphasis we put on long-form content, website specifically, SEO, website, articles, YouTube. And so, that’s all I’m gonna say. But with that said, how do you get more Instagram engagement or followers?
0:33:50.7 Jordan Syatt: This is gonna be a very up-to-date discussion, more than just the principles of it, right? ‘Cause we’ve spoken about this before, about the principles of good content and the principles of growing. But this one client I was speaking to, she’s done incredibly well with her business, with social media, with Instagram. And she was saying that she’s noticed her audience is not growing nearly as much as it used to. And many others, she pointed out, have also been struggling with this. And she’s like, “I’m still posting very frequently, but I’m noticing that my audience isn’t growing and their audience isn’t growing. And is it the algorithm?” This is the common question. Is it the algorithm? Is it the algorithm?
0:34:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Now, obviously the algorithm plays a role in it, but no one knows except the people who actually make the algorithm, right? But it’s not worth focusing on the algorithm, it’s just not. Stop thinking about it. It’s not worth your time, ’cause you don’t understand it, and it’s not gonna help you. Even if you did understand the algorithm, it wouldn’t help at nearly as much as you think it would. So what we did talk about is like going through her content and the content of the people who were growing and then are not growing. The common theme that I noticed is, they found one type of content that was working for a while, but here’s the thing, If your content doesn’t change over time, it’s not gonna work. You have to progress as a content creator.
0:35:13.1 Jordan Syatt: So, for example, if you scroll down through my Instagram feed, you’re gonna see many different types of content. Starting off with the stuff that was just awful, in 2015 and ’16, just like… It wasn’t awful, but it was me shirtless and doing my power lifts, and it was all ego, I was like, “Look at me, look at what I can do.” ‘Cause I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. And then it went more towards infographics, and went infographics. I started infographics, it blew up, right? But I did the infographics for a while, and you’re gonna see that for a period of about a year, a year and a half, was most of my content. And then I went to videos, and then I went to Tweet posts and all these other things.
0:35:51.5 Michael Vacanti: Real quick, what would drive you to change your strategy?
0:35:55.8 Jordan Syatt: What drives me to change my strategy is seeing the response, and if people aren’t responding or you’re not getting the same engagement, change. That’s it. And what I’m seeing from these people, and what I was saying to this client is that they’ve mainly done Tweet posts, was a really big thing, doing Tweet posts. And I did Tweet post for a long time, they worked really, really well. Eventually, I noticed the engagement was going down, and that takes away a lot… I just saw a lot of people doing it, and I didn’t wanna just be another person doing Tweet posts, and I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna change just because of that.” But also engagement was dropping and I didn’t like that, so I was like, “Cool, so now I’m gonna change.” And then through trial and error, I found that right now videos are doing really well, 60-second videos, not Instagram TV, I found those tend to not do as well, which makes sense, it’s a short form platform. Some people do very well with Instagram TV, but most people, I’ve found, do better with 60 seconds or less. And now, a real up-to-date discussion is talking about reels. Now, I’ve never done a reel on Instagram once, but it doesn’t take a genius to look at the platform and see that they’re pushing them harder than any other piece of content. The reels are doing very, very well.
0:37:05.0 Michael Vacanti: There’s a lot of reels popping up in the…
0:37:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Explorer feed. Tons in the Explorer feed. And if I’m on my main feed, reels are often popping up more than other type of posts.
0:37:15.7 Michael Vacanti: You’ll see 3 of them within the…
0:37:17.5 Jordan Syatt: When I’m scrolling through my main feed…
0:37:18.1 Michael Vacanti: You’ll see some reels.
0:37:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:37:22.4 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:37:22.5 Jordan Syatt: More reels than anything else, they’re just popping up. And it makes sense because Instagram is trying to make TikTok less relevant. It makes sense. So that’s why they made them in the first place, was because so many of their user base were going over to TikTok. So like, “Okay, well, let’s get them over here, boost their views with these videos, so that they don’t do TikTok, because if they have more views here… ” Same thing when they did stories, and they essentially took over Snapchat in 24 hours. Where it’s like, they tried to buy Snapchat. Snapchat said, Fuck you. Instagram made stories, and then everyone left Snapchat, because they had more views on their Instagram stories than Snapchat, so that’s what they’re trying to do.
0:38:00.7 Jordan Syatt: So, I’m not making reels because my goal is not to grow my Instagram right now. But if your goal is to grow your Instagram… If my goal was to grow my Instagram, I’d be crushing reels. And I wouldn’t be doing the stupid fucking reels where you’re just pointing at different things with music in the background, or you’re mouthing… It’s someone else’s voice and you’re lip syncing with them and trying to get a different message across. Look in the camera and speak to the camera with your reels. Definitely make jump cuts. That’s totally fine. I would encourage you to do jump cuts, but speak your message to the camera with your face and your voice. These are the things I’m seeing go the most crazy on Instagram, and not only most crazy from views and engagement, but in terms of getting people to be your clients. No one is gonna watch you sing and dance and point at different things to a song and then be like, “Oh, that’s gotta be my coach.” Maybe some people, but they’re really gonna wanna work with you because you’re looking in the camera and you’re telling it like it is.
0:39:09.1 Jordan Syatt: The first person that comes to mind is Beth. Beth Feraco in the mentorship, just dominating social media, both TikTok and Instagram. Her Instagram’s blowing up right now from reels, and this is what she’s doing, she’s looking in the camera and she’s getting passionate about a topic, and she says it like it is, and she’s crushing it. And I’m like, “Man, this is what people need to be doing.” Stop dancing… If you wanna dance, fine, but you’re a coach, and people wanna work with you because of your knowledge, not because you can be like, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh and point to like ca-lo-rie de-fi-cit. No! Say what you wanna say and be passionate about it, and educate people. You’re an educator. It’s another word for a coach, you’re an educator. So, come on.
0:39:57.9 Michael Vacanti: Love the rant.
0:40:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.
0:40:00.4 Michael Vacanti: This reminds me of a little bit of a depth versus width kind of discussion and balancing act. I remember in 2019 maybe? Maybe 2018, even? I think you and I were out at Gary’s house, and you were… Maybe it wasn’t at that time, but you were making the transition from less infographs, but you wanted to work your face in more.
0:40:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yup, yup.
0:40:27.1 Michael Vacanti: And you knew that when you worked your face in, rather than an infographic or a Tweet post, it was gonna be a picture of you and by doing that, you knew that you were going to get less engagement and probably way less new followers from that post, but it was a conscious and intentional thing that you wanted to do because you could actually connect on a deeper level with your audience, which there are many reasons for that. Even from a business perspective, it’s beneficial to have a deeper relationship with your audience. I don’t know, that seems relevant here with making a switch toward something more you, rather than going with the native function of the reel, or going with the trend, just you talking to your potential client.
0:41:16.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, 100%. That’s what Eric Roberts does too, another guy crushing it in the mentorship, just like people are hungry for information. It’s funny, when I was telling people to get on TikTok, ’cause you could blow up and really educate people and build a really loyal trusting audience, a lot of people had resistance saying like, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna dance.” That’s like saying… We laugh now, but when Myspace came up be like, “Well, I don’t wanna be a music creator,” ’cause wasn’t Myspace originally for music? I think Myspace was…
0:41:52.8 Michael Vacanti: Was it? I don’t know actually.
0:41:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Was it Myspace or YouTube, or maybe both, were originally for music? We now know in hindsight that it’s not the platform, it’s how you use the platform.
0:42:05.2 Michael Vacanti: Or 2013 Instagram, I don’t wanna be a photographer.
0:42:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yup, it was originally made for just photographs. It’s not the platform, it’s how you use the platform, and I know there are probably people laughing ’cause I was being like, “Stop pointing and dancing,” ’cause most people are not excited to do that. Most people are not excited to get in front of their phone alone in their living room, and then pretend to dance to a song and point and then point to nothing in their garage or in their living room, and then type in the words and then put it over the spot where they’re pointing. You wanna educate people, and if you wanna dance, go for a dance. I wear wigs and I do funny stuff as well, but it’s not the majority of the content, and usually if I’m wearing a wig, I’m also educating later on in that video or throughout that process. So don’t not do reels just because you don’t wanna dance, and if you do do reels, I would say look in the camera and just speak to the people that you’re trying to help, ’cause I think that’s really what’s gonna… If you wanna grow your Instagram, definitely do reels ’cause they’re popping off right now and don’t do what everyone else is doing.
0:43:15.9 Michael Vacanti: Great, and I think that absolutely nailed how to grow your Instagram via creating content for free that will organically grow your Instagram. Would you, in addition to that… I know, I mean we both know because of everyone in mentorship who’s done it, but we know that that alone leads to growth. Would you also, to comprehensively answer this question, recommend people do anything else, whether it’s like collabs, whether it’s paid shoutouts, any of the… We’ll call ’em tactics, I guess, that historically have worked?
0:43:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I mean I’d say, first and foremost, join the mentorship ’cause it’s 30% off right now, and we have an entire course on this that’s just gonna tell you more information than you’d ever get anywhere else. That being said, here’s what I think. There are all these tactics. Same thing with fitness. Should I get protein supplements? Should I get creatine? Should I get… I don’t know, should I do this 7-day a week body building split? Should I get the band? You wrap yourself…
0:44:28.8 Michael Vacanti: Blood flow restriction?
0:44:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Blood flow restriction training? Should I do… It’s like, you haven’t been consistent in the gym for 3 days a week ever, but you’re asking should you do blood flow restriction training? Shut the fuck up. It’s like, Should you do collabs? Yeah, collabs would eventually be a good idea. Should you do paid shoutouts? Probably not. Probably the stupid idea. Should you buy followers? Absolutely not. That’s a really stupid idea.
0:44:52.7 Michael Vacanti: Correct.
0:44:53.8 Jordan Syatt: But first and foremost, why don’t you just try posting every day? Or at least 5 days a week for 90 days straight? Be consistent with it. It’s funny, a lot of people… I think now more and more people are starting to realize this is a full-time job. Making one piece of really good content is not like a 15-minute thing.
0:45:18.5 Michael Vacanti: Correct.
0:45:19.4 Jordan Syatt: It takes a while.
0:45:20.3 Michael Vacanti: Correct. And you don’t learn that until you do it.
0:45:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct, exactly. This goes back towards what you mentioned earlier and what we always talk about, which is the main challenge in the mentorship, this month-long form content. If you think an Instagram post takes a long time, think about a website article or a YouTube video, or even just a simple podcast, it takes a long time. We think those are the best forms of content. You’re still listening right now, you’ve been listening for however long, it’s like, I doubt you’ve ever spent this much time on one person’s Instagram page looking throughout all their content, but when you really develop a relationship with someone and you’re on their website, reading along from articles or some of their podcast, watching their videos, you really develop a deep connection with them.
0:46:07.1 Jordan Syatt: But this is a tangent basically going towards long-form content, but spend time being consistent, posting on Instagram every day or at least 5 days a week for 90 days. If you can’t be consistent for 5 days a week, 90 days straight… I mean, that’s just a regular full-time job. It’s like you go to work Monday through Friday for 3 months, that’s not a weird thing to do. Consider this part of your job, 5 days a week, 90 days straight. If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t be worrying about collabs or paid posts or hashtags. Just be consistent for 90 days.
0:46:43.8 Michael Vacanti: I love it. Alright, we got time for one more question here. What is the easiest revenue stream to make money? Which, you know…
0:46:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s a long talk…
[laughter]
0:46:56.0 Jordan Syatt: This is gonna be a long discussion, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine with that, but…
0:47:00.3 Michael Vacanti: We’ll hit up Gary in 9 minutes. So maybe we’ll go until Gary texts Facetime’s meeting.
0:47:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Cool. Yeah, we’ll do that.
0:47:11.7 Michael Vacanti: We can start by obviously saying, Look, we’re gonna assume the best in the person who asked this question. We’re gonna assume that they genuinely want to help people, that they…
[laughter]
0:47:25.1 Michael Vacanti: What’s the easiest way to make money? Because it still can be a legitimate question, right? And so we’re gonna give you the benefit of the doubt in answering this, and I think the best way to answer is to start by listing all of the potential revenue streams. So you have 1-on-1 online coaching, you have in person, 1-on-1 coaching. You have group coaching online, you have group coaching in person. You can sell an information product.
0:47:49.2 Jordan Syatt: An e-book or whatever, a course.
0:47:53.9 Michael Vacanti: You can sell a physical product. You can do affiliate marketing, so you can get paid to sell someone else’s product for them, essentially.
0:48:06.3 Jordan Syatt: And we discuss all of these in the… What’s the course in mentorship, the sales course?
0:48:10.1 Michael Vacanti: It’s the Scaling Your Business course, course 12.
0:48:13.6 Jordan Syatt: The Scaling Your Business course, 30% off, mentorship. We have an entire course on this alone, but yeah.
0:48:18.6 Michael Vacanti: That we’re gonna hit in 6 minutes.
0:48:22.1 Jordan Syatt: There’s a lot.
0:48:24.4 Michael Vacanti: Okay, we don’t need to be comprehensive.
0:48:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You just named 8 different types of ways to make money. Yeah.
0:48:29.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.
0:48:29.3 Jordan Syatt: So there’s a lot, right?
0:48:30.6 Michael Vacanti: Inner-circle.
0:48:31.7 Jordan Syatt: Memberships. Yeah.
0:48:32.2 Michael Vacanti: Yep, yep.
0:48:32.8 Jordan Syatt: Yep.
0:48:36.0 Michael Vacanti: What’s the easiest?
0:48:39.0 Jordan Syatt: So we’re assuming great intent behind the question, dah dah dah.
0:48:42.3 Michael Vacanti: Correct.
0:48:42.4 Jordan Syatt: So it covers that part of the discussion.
0:48:44.4 Michael Vacanti: They don’t need a lecture.
0:48:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Okay, so with that in mind, I think the easiest one, which is definitely not easy, but the easiest one would be 1-on-1 online coaching. I think it’s the easiest one. 1-on-1 in person is easier to get clients. The easiest way to get clients is 1-on-1 in person, for sure. That’s not the easiest job though because you’re on your feet all day, and the reason it’s such a high burnout rate is ’cause it’s so difficult and taxing. That’s real hard, and you have very little freedom. Building a membership is unbelievably difficult, I would say far more difficult than 1-on-1 coaching. And maintaining it, I think, is even more difficult, and continuing to grow it. I think e-books, and we’ll group e-books and physical products into one, which they’re not, but we’ll just… I’ll use like, I don’t know, $25 products or whatever it is, I would say are even harder than a membership to really make you’re living off of something like that, way harder, ’cause if someone… I don’t know, we’ll call it just an e-book. When someone has that e-book, they’re not gonna get it again.
0:50:08.6 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, there’s no recurring…
0:50:09.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct. And, yeah, so there’s that and then affiliate marketing, you could do well, but I would say that’s probably on par somewhat with a membership. You just need a lot of people who trust you in order to make that even feasible, and then also it begs the question of whether you even want to get into that world, which is just an iffy world. You’re generally gonna probably end up selling things that you don’t fully stand by just to make money. It creates a whole separate, cognitive dissonance in your head and heart and all the stuff. So going back to the easiest way would probably be 1-on-1 online coaching or a combo of 1-on-1 and group coaching online. I think those two would probably be… If maybe a combo of the two, so you get the 1-on-1 coaching, and then you also have the benefit of…
[laughter]
0:51:16.1 Michael Vacanti: I just farted.
[laughter]
0:51:21.7 Michael Vacanti: I got a stomachache.
[laughter]
0:51:28.1 Jordan Syatt: I was trying so hard not to laugh.
[laughter]
0:51:32.1 Michael Vacanti: David, leave all this.
0:51:34.1 Jordan Syatt: I was trying so hard not to laugh, and I just saw your face and lost it. ‘Cause usually, as your 1-on-1 grows, generally speaking, your audience will grow, as well. It tends to happen simultaneously. So I would say, a combo of 1-on-1 and group coaching both online would probably be the easiest out of all of it.
[laughter]
0:52:06.0 Jordan Syatt: You had some gluten before this?
0:52:08.1 Michael Vacanti: My 23andMe came back with a… It’s a couple of years ago, I think it was likely, I don’t know if it was a gluten intolerance likely or likely to have celiac. I don’t remember what it was, but I realized that when I don’t eat gluten, I feel much better. And then you run into the whole like, if you don’t have something for a while and then you reintroduce it, you’re going to have even more of a reaction than if you’ve been having it consistently. And I haven’t been having in it for a while and just crushed last night. And yeah, you guys didn’t need to hear that. [chuckle] What was I gonna say? Oh, the big difference between 1-on-1 online, and again, 1-on-1 in person is the “easiest”, but it’s not sustainable for a career.
0:52:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:52:54.0 Michael Vacanti: You need to be 1 in 1 million to make it sustainable for a career. The biggest difference between 1-on-1 online and the rest of those revenue streams is 1-on-1 online does not require a large audience.
0:53:06.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct.
0:53:07.8 Michael Vacanti: And the rest of those revenue streams, maybe group coaching doesn’t require a massive audience either, but online group coaching, but all of the rest of them require a large audience. And that’s okay, but it does make them inherently a bit more difficult and they’re different jobs, right?
0:53:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Yup.
0:53:27.2 Michael Vacanti: Like this is the only content I’ve made for 2 years, and my 1-on-1 online hasn’t suffered. And so, I’m not wearing content creator hat for the last 2 years.
0:53:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Is it 2 or 3?
0:53:40.3 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, see? Exactly, exactly.
[laughter]
0:53:45.2 Michael Vacanti: I don’t know. It feels great though. [chuckle] Yeah, and you need to ask yourself what you want to be doing. You need to ask yourself if you want… I mean, start, make content, but when you’re 5 years in and asking yourself, “Do I want to continue to be making content and what type of content do I want to be making?” Because the answer basically needs to be yes, at least, in some capacity, if membership or some of those other revenue streams where you need bigger audiences is your choice. And also, this is not a cool or a popular or a PC conversation, but how much money do you want to be making?
0:54:32.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes.
0:54:34.0 Michael Vacanti: You can do 1-on-1 online, and then you can hire assistant coaches and you can scale that way, and we talk in depth about that in the module 12 in the mentorship. But you can go that route, but then again, you have a different hat on. You’re no longer content creator.
0:54:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, correct.
0:54:47.6 Michael Vacanti: You are…
0:54:48.3 Jordan Syatt: Manager.
0:54:48.4 Michael Vacanti: Online coach manager. Do you wanna do that? I don’t know? Maybe that’s something that lines up with your skill set that you wanna be doing. But yeah, thinking about how much money you want to actually make and match that up with lifestyle, match that up with goals and ambitions, is a piece of the conversation because you can only take 1-on-1 coaching so far and still continue to do a good job. And you can take it a long ways, like if you do the math in your head on 50, 60, which is a very manageable 1-on-1 online coaching load. We’ve seen people do much more than that and still do it well. You can do that math for yourself, but that’s a part of it. And then what are you enjoying doing? If you wanna scale because you wanna make more money, cool. But if you also wanna scale because you’ve been designing training programs for 10 years for a lot of people and you’d rather design fewer training programs but then help people in another capacity. The membership route is super interesting for that. If you wanna help more people with maybe a little bit less depth, it depends what you wanna be doing financially and on a day-to-day perspective is gonna help you choose which revenue stream to pursue. But I think we both agree the easiest, even though it’s not easy, is coaching 1-on-1 online.
0:56:17.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. And again, again, clarifying, it’s not easy at all, but it’s the easiest. And I’ll just say briefly, you mentioned the coaches who hire other coaches. Now, they’re their online coach manager. I know a number of people who’ve gone that route and really regret it for a number of reasons, not least of which being… You have to remember, the fitness industry, the in-person fitness industry, if you own a gym and you hire people to work at your gym, you hire coaches to work at your gym, inevitably, when one of those coaches leaves, they will take clients away from your gym, and that’s not a bad thing, it’s part of the industry. So with that in mind, the same thing happens online. If you hire coaches and you give a coach 20 clients, and you’re making money from those 20 clients, whatever it is, a certain percentage, you will lose most, if not all of it, when that coach decides to leave, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You just have to decide, is that the type of business model you wanna run?
0:57:22.0 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, no, thanks. Gary texted me. He said we’re working out in 1 minute. So with that, I hope you enjoyed the episode. The mentorship is on sale for 1 week, 1 week only, 30% off, 30 for 30. Syatt Fitness had a birthday. He’s 30 years old, so…
[chuckle]
0:57:38.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s it.
0:57:38.7 Michael Vacanti: That’s the pitch.
0:57:41.3 Jordan Syatt: We gotta go. Gary’s getting on the phone for training. That’s it. We hope to see you in the mentorship. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful day. We will talk to you next week. Bye.
