Episode 104: Calorie Cycling for Muscle Gain, Slow and Steady is NOT the Best Strategy, and 5 Ways to Grow Your Online Fitness Business

0:00:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:13.1 Jordan Syatt: Listen Mike, everyone needs to listen up very, very carefully.

0:00:17.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh wow.

0:00:20.0 Jordan Syatt: We have a huge sale coming in February, in February, not January, February, okay? We do this at most twice a year. Huge sale for the Online Fitness Business Mentorship. This isn’t like your standard gurus, mastermind nonsense, we’re not gonna… I see people out there giving people scripts on what to say during your sales calls and shit. That’s like giving you your client’s meal plans. It’s bullshit. We teach you how to be the most you, okay? We’re not giving you a script. We’re not saying, “Hey, say this for the most sales and to most get the lead-gen,” bullshit. We tell you how to be the most you that you can be, the best coach, the best person, the best morals, ethics that you can possibly come up with, but also just be comfortable and confident with yourself because that’s really what not only attracts people to you, but also it removes the fucking imposter syndrome when you can just be comfortable being yourself, when you can just be you. You don’t need a script. You don’t need a script. You just need to be an amazing coach who wants to help people and comfortable being yourself.

0:01:36.8 Jordan Syatt: So huge, huge sale for the Online Fitness Business Mentorship coming in February. If you are not on the email list already, get on the email list. Link is in the show notes. We’ll be letting you know when that is. We basically only email twice a year when there’s a launch, when there’s a big sale. So we’re not going to be spamming you with emails. It’s just whenever you’ve got a sale, which is twice a year max. So get on that email list and we’ll see you in February. Or if you want to pay full price, you can do it right now. That’d be great. But either way, big sale in February.

0:02:06.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think we’ve launched in seven. By the time we launch, it will have been eight months since our last launch. So it’s yeah, twice a year max, sometimes once. So this is a good opportunity.

0:02:18.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s a life-changing opportunity.

0:02:24.5 Mike Vacanti: I mean, I completely agree. I’ll save my hard selling for upcoming podcasts because that was so well done by you. I got a great segue.

0:02:33.0 Jordan Syatt: Clips Nation.

0:02:35.2 Mike Vacanti: No, this isn’t clippable. Actually please don’t clip this because I’d rather this didn’t get back to him. Bless his heart. I love the guy. Basically, for the first time in many, many years, I just bought a five pound jug of Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey Double Rich Chocolate.

0:02:53.0 Jordan Syatt: Wow. Did you go to GNC and pick it up?

0:02:55.8 Mike Vacanti: No, I got it on Amazon. I ordered it at 6:00 AM yesterday and it delivered by like 11:00 AM for free, like no delivery charge, which is insane. But basically, you know, I don’t take many supplements, but for protein powder, I use Legion. I think it’s delicious. I trust Mike. I think it’s like great stuff. Talking about the mentorship sale coming up and thinking about like macroeconomic conditions, thinking about savings and like capitalizing on certain opportunities like a sale. $62 for a five pound jug of Gold Standard Whey compared to $60 for a two pound of Legion. Like, yeah, I have five bags in there, five two pounders like stacked up. So I’m probably going to go half and half for a while and like play with that taste. But I’ve talked about this ad nauseam and we’re not going to go too deep on it right now. But having net worth creates future freedom, not just financial freedom, future life freedom, to be able to do things with that money, to be able to take a shot at certain careers it allows you to do so many things. And one of the ways to generate net worth, you can either make more money or you can spend less money.

0:04:07.4 Mike Vacanti: And if you can find a comparable product, you know, for the last for the last seven years when I recommend a protein powder to any of my clients, I say, “Here are the two companies that I trust the most. Here are the ones that I have used myself. Here are the ones that great macronutrients. I trust they’re not putting sawdust in here. I trust that they’re not immuno spiking. I trust like these are the… And it’s Optimum Nutrition and Legion and yeah, like, a two pound bag went from 34 to 39 to 49 to 59. And meanwhile, gold standard, Double Rich Chocolate, basically just a PSA for anyone who’s trying to hit their macros, trying to get their protein and trying to make Leangains, trying to just be about that life and maximize this lean mass, have a healthy body fat percentage, get your protein. Oh, and not sponsored at all. There’s no affiliate link. There’s no OTR99 to get you 99% off. It’s just you just got to go there and get it. There’s no Amazon affiliate link even. You just got to type it in. Good luck.

0:05:03.9 Jordan Syatt: Optimum. Dude, that was one of my, not the first, first was Designer Whey. But Optimum Nutrition was like one of the first ones that I like bought consistently for years. Super good. Very, very good. Yeah. The aftertaste wasn’t as good as Legion. Like Legion’s got like a solid taste throughout. Optimum I haven’t had it in years and years, but I remember like the aftertaste wasn’t the greatest, but great, great product overall.

0:05:26.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s way better than it was. Double Rich Chocolate. Yeah.

0:05:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Did you get any other flavors or just the Rich Chocolate?

0:05:33.5 Mike Vacanti: No, no. You’re invested five pounder. I’m not trying to like, go get a random cookies and cream shake.

0:05:38.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, how do you make his protein shake. This is going to be a sick clip. So Clips Nation all right, what’s your favorite protein shake?

0:05:44.6 Mike Vacanti: I have two kinds of protein shakes. I have my morning breakfast, get some protein in me before my workout, which I want to be low volume, lower calorie. And the way that I make that is I put five ounces of cold water into a blender bottle with you know, between 25 and 32 grams of protein and shake it up and drink it. And then I’ll usually have like one piece of toast with a little bit of almond butter, more fats if it’s further away from the workout, less fats if it’s closer to the workout for speed of digestion and like how much food I want in my stomach during the workout. The other kind of protein shake that I’ll make is more of a meal replacement, which is just convenient macros in my control. Like can add chia seeds for fiber, can add more peanut butter, almond butter if I want higher fat, lower fat. And the way that I make that one, there’s actually two of them historically that I’ve made. One is a higher fat and one is a higher micro lower fat, slightly higher carb. But the one I’ve been having is a chocolate peanut butter.

0:06:49.3 Mike Vacanti: Take the, the Vitamix or any blender although Vitamix is, I’ve had my Vitamix for six years and so like the ROI on that’s pretty insane because other blenders had broken down a lot for me, but, a split like very little, maybe four ounces of almond milk. Ice cubes and you can use any liquid, any milk you want there. Two scoops of protein powder, probably between one to 1.5 servings of a nut butter, any nut butter, and then one to two bananas depending on how filling you want to make it and how high carb you want to make it. And I actually like the texture that adding chia seeds gives it. If you have like a few extra fats and you want to get some fiber in there, I’ll do two tablespoons of chia seeds, or not and yeah, that’s like a awesome… The chocolate peanut butter or sorry, the chocolate protein powder works way better in that protein shake.

0:07:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Wait, so that whole thing only has four ounces of liquid in there and that blends up really well.

0:07:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Oh, and did I mention the ice?

0:07:55.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, the ice as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you like a lot of ice?

0:08:00.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. Solid amount of ice. I eyeball the… I don’t measure the liquid because if I’m making like a two scooper, it’s a little more liquid. Maybe it’s closer to six ounces, more like three to four ounces. If it’s a one scoop of protein powder, you know, the more volume there is, the more liquid you need, but play with it.

0:08:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Does it ever get like clumped on the, you know, the things inside the blender? The fuck that was called.

0:08:24.1 Mike Vacanti: Never, never. Dude, it’s I think it was 2017 when I bought my Vitamix and I want to say 300, like for a blender, it’s like, oh, this is an expensive blender. It’s probably, I don’t know how much they cost now. I think that’s about what I paid and it was like top of the line. It’s unbelievable. The consistency, the like, yeah, the cleaning process is easy, it’s…

0:08:44.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s powerful. Huh?

0:08:45.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:08:47.8 Mike Vacanti: So no, it’s always like very dialed, very good texture.

0:08:50.0 Jordan Syatt: Man, 300 bucks. Dude, you want to see us do some math? Check this out. All right. 300 bucks.

0:08:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Put your phone down. Put your phone down.

0:08:56.6 Jordan Syatt: 2017, right? No, I’m using my math. I’m using my calculator.

0:09:00.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s not you doing math that’s like…

0:09:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude, this is me knowing how to do the math is the important part Michael…

0:09:04.0 Mike Vacanti: This is like me telling check, check…

0:09:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Every teacher always said, “You’re not going to have a calculator in your pocket.” And I’m like, “Haha, Mrs. Burkholtz. Now I’ve got a fucking calculator in my pocket.”

0:09:12.0 Mike Vacanti: You can do 300 divided by six.

0:09:15.4 Jordan Syatt: Hold on. No, no, I’m not doing 300 divided by six. Oh, I actually, that’s exactly what I’m doing. All right. Yeah. [laughter] All right. That’s 50. No, no, no. 50.

0:09:24.8 Mike Vacanti: Good job, yeah.

0:09:26.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. No, I know it’s all right. Hold on. Now I’m fucking fucking this whole math equation up.

0:09:30.5 Mike Vacanti: I distracted you. Six years 300 bucks?

0:09:35.5 Jordan Syatt: No, no. That’s not what I was going to do. I was going to do, hold on. I was going to do… Hold on.

0:09:37.7 Mike Vacanti: A dollar per day?

0:09:37.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dollar per day. Exactly. So I was going to do what? 365 times six.

0:09:44.3 Mike Vacanti: 50. 17 cents.

0:09:47.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s 2190.

0:09:49.1 Mike Vacanti: 17 cents a day.

0:09:50.5 Jordan Syatt: 2190 divided by 300. Is that 7.3 cents per day. Is that right?

0:09:55.3 Mike Vacanti: It should be 17 cents a day. 50 bucks a year, 52 weeks in a year, dollar a week divided by seven. Oh, divided by seven. 13 cents a year?

0:10:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Something like that, or a day.

0:10:07.5 Mike Vacanti: A day. Not 13 cents a year. That would be a real deal.

0:10:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That would have been a real… Wow, 13 cents a day for that blender, that’s good. And it’s only getting gain… It’s only improving that the longer you use it, you know?

0:10:20.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m a big fan. Again, no affiliate links here, just my genuine thoughts. The other protein shake that I make is, that I haven’t in a while, no nut butter, throw in half a container of either raspberries or blackberries and use vanilla instead of chocolate protein powder. And the berries plus banana, plus vanilla protein powder, ice and milk of your choice, like that’s a delicious low fat one. You get the fiber without the fats of the chia seeds. Like that’s a staple. It’s been a while though.

0:10:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Man, I like that one. That one sounds more up my alley. I like that.

0:11:04.9 Mike Vacanti: What’s your protein shake go-to?

0:11:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, mine’s super simple. I just, I take a bunch of almond milk, a bunch of ice. Like ice really makes the texture. I like thick protein shakes. If I’m gonna take my blender out, cause I have a Vitamix as well I think, I like a thick shake. And I know you’re thinking about trying to make a sexual joke right here.

0:11:23.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m not, I’m just like wondering how hard you’re gonna go on this thick thing.

0:11:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I just like it a thick shake. Like I like like a blended up. I don’t like watery shakes, you know?

0:11:34.0 Mike Vacanti: So the ratio, if you use a lot of milk base, then use a lot of ice. Ice relative to the amount of liquid you’re using is pretty high.

0:11:43.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, huge, huge. [laughter] And I like taking frozen strawberries as well. And then a non-frozen banana. I’m not a big fan of having the frozen, the frozen banana even with a really good blender can fuck things up sometimes. So I’ll take a non-frozen banana, a lot of ice, a lot of frozen strawberries. I’ll take really any protein powder, unless like whether it’s vanilla, chocolate, strawberry banana, Legion strawberry banana is unbelievable. And if I’m making a strawberry banana shake already, I’ll like go, I’ll add that one in as well. And then I’ll add in, I’ll add, what else? And I said that sometimes I’ll add in a nut butter. Usually not though. Usually like that’s literally it. I’ll just blend that up and I have a huge fucking thing. Sometimes I’ll put some mint leaves in there, some mint leaves, like give it a nice little fresh boost, but a little freshness boost. So yeah, that’s pretty much it. I like it.

0:12:47.7 Mike Vacanti: I love that. Such high convenience, measurable, trackable, easy way to get protein in. It’s like such a…

0:12:57.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s a no brainer.

0:13:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, man, we’re dialed in. It is a no brainer. Where should we go with this?

0:13:05.0 Jordan Syatt: You’re leading the way. Hot Wheels…

0:13:06.2 Mike Vacanti: Do you have an I can’t prove this but?

0:13:09.8 Jordan Syatt: No, I didn’t come loaded with it, no. But you have an I can’t prove this but, so what’s yours?

0:13:14.9 Mike Vacanti: All right, so many moons ago on the How to Become a Personal Trainer podcast, Jordan and I started a segment that was gonna be full episodes called We Can’t Prove This But… Where we had things where the current body of evidence does not fully support the claim we were trying to make, but our intuition, anecdotes, personal experience, everything told us that this was true. And the episode got a very lackluster response. I don’t think it was anyone’s favorite. I think people were confused about what we were doing, but you and I enjoyed it.

0:13:47.3 Jordan Syatt: And I love that episode. It was one of my favorites.

0:13:50.0 Mike Vacanti: And I just had a random one. Maybe it’ll be an ongoing segment. Like once a month in one episode, we just drop it in. Who knows? But I can’t prove this, but… Okay, I got it. I had my notes right here.

[laughter]

0:14:08.5 Mike Vacanti: I can’t prove this, but I believe that calorie cycling over with total calorie intake controlled, I believe that cycling between higher calorie training days and lower calorie rest days leads to better body composition than consuming the exact same number of calories per day every single day.

0:14:39.7 Jordan Syatt: I agree with you. Go off, say why.

0:14:41.9 Mike Vacanti: Dude, I don’t even have like good claims on the why or good… I don’t have a good place to plant. I have two places to plant my flag. Neither I’m super confident in, but I’ll say both. So the first, and by the way, like we’ve gotten into this weird space in the evidence-based community where it’s like calories are all that matter for fat loss. And like, just make sure your total calorie, like a bank account and I get it and I like it. And for the majority of people, like that is what matters most, right? You wanna move the big rocks first, like get that down before you’re majoring in the minors, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. However, and then, so then it became like, okay, so the reason we like calorie cycling is because there are psychological benefits. Like it gives you, and those are true, they exist. Like it gives you higher calorie days. If you have a holiday, if you just wanna eat more one day and then eat less another day, like that’s more freeing, that’s more like increases adherence for a lot of people. Like that’s better than having to stick to the exact same number every single day.

0:15:47.3 Mike Vacanti: I agree with that. That’s not part of this, what I think here. And I guess the two reasons I think this are first, your, like it actually doesn’t make sense because muscle protein synthesis… [laughter] I’m so shit on podcasts, 104 episodes in, I’m terrible. I’m trash.

0:16:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Dude, you’re the best.

0:16:16.6 Mike Vacanti: No, leave this David, leave every minute please. So one take show. Basically the thought process behind it is that, that being in a surplus in the hours closer to your post-workout window are more beneficial for muscle growth than the hours further away from your post-workout window. When I say post-workout window, I don’t mean the 15 minutes after while you’re at the gym where you try and cram all your shit in. I’m talking about like a 12 to 24 hour window. We’ll even call it 24. Call it a 24-hour window after your lift. Being in a surplus during those hours and getting adequate protein during those hours seems like it would be more beneficial to maximize muscle growth from that lift compared to hours 24 to 48 and hours 48 to 72 and 72 to 96. Like basically what I eat in the 24 hours following a workout is more beneficial toward recovery from that workout than what I eat a week later as it relates to that workout. Okay?

0:17:26.9 Mike Vacanti: So by being in a surplus in the 24 hours after that window and a deficit from hours 24 to 48 after that window leads to a net calorie balance of being the same as if you were just like at maintenance the day of your lift and maintenance the next rest day. But I think there is an immaterial marginal boost in muscle gain from being in a surplus in the hours closer to your workout rather than further away from your workout that will not materialize into anything after one workout or even after a month of workouts. And I don’t even know if this leads to like a pound of lean mass gain in a year of doing it. Maybe a pound, maybe less. But over like if that’s your nutritional high level strategy for 20 years, I think that leads to something better for that reason because you’re… And now the reason why I’m saying like, oh, that actually might not make sense is because most of the studies have shown that muscle protein synthesis actually peaks 24 hours after a workout.

0:18:29.9 Mike Vacanti: So it’s like, okay, then why is hour 12 after your lift more important than hour 36 after your lift if peak muscle protein synthesis is 24 hours after your lift? And I don’t know. But what I do know is I can’t prove this, but I think that being in having higher calorie post workout windows and then lower calorie rest days leads to better body composition. What was the other, oh, and the other reason I think it, and then I’ll let you go is I think there is something, and when we say better body comp, what we mean is less fat and more muscle. I know there’s some debate about this out there on the streets of the subjective morality.

0:19:10.0 Jordan Syatt: Politically correct.

0:19:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, like, no, having a healthy body fat percentage and having more lean tissue and having more strength, these are objectively good things, not subjectively, not like my opinion, they’re objectively good. They promote longer lifespan, they promote better quality of life, they promote objectively better aesthetics. It is better within reason, right? We’re not talking about like taking grams and grams of steroids and being, but it is better. I think that you have better body composition when you, and I don’t know if this relates to insulin sensitivity, I don’t know if this relates to calorie partitioning, to muscle gain versus fat storage when in a surplus, but when you are consistently depleting glycogen, muscle glycogen storage, and not fully, ’cause like it’s really hard to fully deplete muscle glycogen storage, like it takes way more effort than people think. But when you are at least not like close to being capped out, you leave yourself room to fill up those glycogen storage that leads to less fat gain or something along those lines, I hypothesize with calories equal, meaning if you’re eating the same number of calories every single day, then your muscle glycogen storage is staying in like a more narrow window.

0:20:28.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s still gonna go up and down a little bit, it’s gonna go down a little bit after a training session, up a little bit after you’re consuming more carbs, like depending on your activity, but it’s gonna be more like this, whereas if you’re consuming in a surplus post-workout and then in a deficit on a rest day, which is classic Berkhan… By the way, I didn’t invent any of this, but Berkhan, Leangains, like there’s been a lot around this, but then your glycogen storage looks like this over time. So like you’re filling up glycogen post-workout, you’re depleting it more, and your muscle glycogen storage is here, and so you’re in this range, but rather than this range, I think, I can’t prove this, but I think that the fact that you are lower in glycogen storage when you have higher carb, higher calorie days, leads to less fat storage on the higher calorie days, leads to better calorie partitioning, it leads to better body composition over time.

0:21:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Love that. Dude, I think the main thing, there are a couple of main things to hammer home here. Number one, is for the vast majority of, especially general population, this is irrelevant. It’s not for just people who are already struggling to be consistent with any type of workouts or nutrition at all. This is for people who are really serious about trying to build more muscle and optimize everything. Also, and this is the other thing that I think is often overlooked, I think most people or many people often just immediately assume everything we’re talking about is fat loss, and this is specific to muscle gain, right? Calorie cycling for muscle gain while minimizing fat gain and maybe even losing fat at the same time, in which case this is not saying this is more optimal for fat loss. This is more optimal for building lean muscle while either losing fat or maybe minimizing fat gain in that process. I think that’s the important thing to really take home here because if the goal is purely fat loss without trying to build muscle, then net weekly calories is definitely the most important factor. But if the goal is also to build muscle, I can’t prove this, but I agree.

0:22:39.5 Jordan Syatt: I very much agree with that, especially when you’re getting to people who are more advanced lifters, who are natural lifters, they’re not taking steroids, they’re more advanced, they’re near maxing out their genetic muscular potential, I think having a lot more calories in the 12 to 24 hours post-workout, post-strength training is probably gonna be much more beneficial. And it’s also not only just the post-workout, but also the pre-workout calories, depending on when they’re working out. You have some people who are working out in a reduced calorie state. Dude, there’s no question my workouts are infinitely better when I’m carb loaded up. Like when I’m loaded up and I’ve had a bunch of energy beforehand, and you have, I mean, if that makes the difference between getting more progressive overload on a consistent basis, that makes the difference between attacking your workout to the more intensity and going harder, and getting all your volume in, getting more intensity in.

0:23:35.1 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think there’s a question that you’re gonna lead to better results from that. How much quantifiably, we don’t know, whether it’s a pound a year of lean muscle or three pounds or a quarter of a pound, who knows? But I think it would be better. And then sort of go back on it. If I have someone who’s like, “I just don’t like to stick with this style of nutrition,” then I’m not gonna have them do it. ‘Cause I don’t care if it’s marginally better at all. ‘Cause like consistency is obviously the most important, but it is an interesting discussion. And I agree, even though I can’t prove it.

0:24:15.7 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna take this even further. And I’m gonna say, I think that over a three-year window, if the same person had 2000 calories every single day for three years, compared to if that person had, and let’s say they train every other day, they strength train every other day for three years, if they have 2500 calories on training days and 1500 calories on rest days for three years, I think that person has less body fat at the end of three years. So I actually do think that there, it has more to do with muscle gain, but I also think that from a fat storage perspective, there would be over a long enough timeframe, they’re gonna end up storing less body fat as well, which is why I’m throwing this in the, I Can’t Prove This, But section, because I know all of the good evidence supports what you said, which is total calorie intake, but over a long enough timeframe, and yeah, we’ll see. I hope in my lifetime, this is proven.

0:25:18.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, you should do a…

0:25:20.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m not running, no. No, thank you.

[laughter]

0:25:24.3 Jordan Syatt: Fair, fair.

0:25:28.4 Mike Vacanti: The thing is, we don’t even need to get into like the whys of that, but just, like the, yeah, we don’t even need to dive into that. Three years with humans, with enough humans, and I don’t even know how much you would have to pay people because to have accuracy and reliable data, you’re gonna have to have that in a controlled setting.

0:25:50.0 Jordan Syatt: And they’d have to be training hard, right? Training hard, they’d have to, yeah, that would be, couldn’t do that in a metabolic ward, that is for sure.

0:25:57.0 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:25:58.1 Jordan Syatt: For three years.

0:26:00.9 Mike Vacanti: I mean, you could, but it would be extraordinary. Like, I’m not gonna be doing it. Or maybe you can’t, maybe it’s illegal. I don’t actually know like ethics boards and whatever else you have…

0:26:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I don’t know the ethics of that, yeah. What else do we got, Michael?

0:26:14.6 Mike Vacanti: You don’t have an I can’t prove this, but?

0:26:15.8 Jordan Syatt: No, I mean, I was gonna think of one while you were talking, but I just got really caught up in what you were saying, so I don’t have one.

0:26:22.2 Mike Vacanti: I appreciate that. No, you’re fine. I think that leads to better conversation when there’s, you know, because in a lot of conversations, especially while making content, the one person’s thinking about what they’re gonna say while the other person’s talking, you just take turns giving rants versus more of a talk and listen approach.

0:26:43.4 Jordan Syatt: You know what I will say though? Like, this isn’t an I can’t prove this, but, but it is something that I think is worth saying that is like going against a lot of what people say. And people might even think this is going against what I say, but here’s the deal. I think there’s such a huge push for slow and steady and like slow habit change and just do things super slowly. And I think that it’s gotten to a point where it’s too fucking slow. I think people are going way, they’ve gone to the extreme. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the fitness industry runs on a pendulum of extremes and the pendulum has swung so far to the like, “No, no, okay, so, oh, so you need to lose a hundred pounds. Okay, so the first thing we’re gonna do is for the next six months, we’re only gonna drink, we’re only gonna focus on your water for the next six months.”

0:27:40.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m like, for fuck’s sake. And then not to mention using that person’s example as someone who has to lose a hundred pounds, that person has a real case to be made for a rapid fat loss protocol, like drastically reducing calories, doing stuff every single day, like a complete lifestyle overhaul. And you know what’s funny? I can’t prove, like, I mean, there’s a lot of research supporting this for sure, but like using my brother as like an N equals one example, I mean, he struggled with his weight his entire life. I watched him the time I was a little kid, he struggled with his weight for many, many, many, many reasons and he tried to lose it, tried to lose it, tried to lose it, did everything under the sun. And then finally, like, and there were many factors at play here, but he went cold turkey. He went cold fucking turkey into counting his calories, a pretty severe deficit for the first like six to eight months, moving every single day. There were no days off. It wasn’t a hard workout, but moving every single day, counting his calories every single day, like everything. It was so, it was a complete shift.

0:28:50.7 Jordan Syatt: And what’s interesting to me about this is, if you actually look at research, like in terms of alcoholism or drug abuse or stuff like that, we see people go cold turkey all the time and then completely change their life. And oftentimes it comes after hitting like this, the rock bottom that we hear about, you have to hit rock bottom, boom, cold turkey. And it’s not a slow and steady approach. It’s like, hey, like this is an immediate thing that today everything changes. It’s, and it’s funny, cause like people say all the time, like, “Yeah, I’ve been like this many days sober. I’ve been this many,” they know to the day. And it’s like, it usually wasn’t going from 12 drinks to eight drinks to six drinks to two. That’s usually not how it was. It was usually done like, oh, I’m like gonna kill myself. All right, cool, I’m stopping completely. And that’s it. And there is definitely a time and a place for slow and steady and sustainable, which I think is more of a lifestyle approach for someone who’s already pretty healthy and who already has most things under control. And they just need to maybe have a little bit more realistic idea of how quick progress is going to come.

0:29:58.8 Jordan Syatt: But for someone who’s unhealthy and like they’re not in a good place, I think for a large percentage, I’m not gonna say all, I’m not even gonna say most, but a large percentage of them would do better with a complete cold turkey approach of just fucking, “Hey, I’m all in now.” And I don’t know a way to screen people for it. I’m not like, you know, I don’t know how to figure out which clients are better or worse depending on what they put in their intake form. So a lot of it is just trial and error and you trying to figure out what works for them. But that’s one of the reasons why I’ll start off with someone like if someone comes to me and they’ve never counted calories before and they’re super overweight, I’ll just be like, “All right, for the next seven days, you’re counting every single calorie that you put in your mouth, every single one. You’re gonna track every single calorie. I don’t care if it’s an ice cube. I don’t care what the fuck you put in your mouth. I want you to tell me about it and I want you to put in an email.”

0:30:52.8 Jordan Syatt: And if I see someone who just goes all in on that for those seven days, I’m like, okay, this person’s in. Like this person’s really involved. But if I see the person who after like 12 hours, they’re already being inconsistent with it, I’m like, cool, cold turkey probably isn’t good for this person because they can’t even be consistent for the first fucking day. But I know some people, I’ve had a lot of people coming to me from programs like, yeah, they were just going too slow. I was ready to jump in. I was ready to jump in, but they were going too slow. So they left and they came to me. It’s like, if you aren’t aware that different people require different things and if you’re just so averse to giving people more strict guidelines, even if it’s what that person needs then you’re going to not help as many people as you could. And you’re doing exactly what you say you don’t wanna be doing, which is you’re being very stuck in your ways and you’re not understanding that different people have different needs and different preferences and different things that’ll work for them.

0:31:44.5 Mike Vacanti: Boom.

0:31:45.2 Jordan Syatt: I just P’d that up. I didn’t prepare that. That wasn’t prepared, bro. That was just like off the top of my dome.

0:31:53.3 Mike Vacanti: I know. You’re like Eminem.

[laughter]

0:31:56.6 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s an important point that you, that this is most relevant for people who have a lot of body fat to lose.

0:32:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Yes, yeah.

0:32:08.7 Mike Vacanti: And it actually could be applied in other places, but with the most success and the most urgency in people who are trying to lose fat and are very overweight and have a lot of body fat to lose. An area where I don’t want it, I don’t want what you’re saying to get for anyone to be confused about it. An area where it doesn’t make sense is like an intermediate natural lifter trying to build muscle. It’s like, okay, like, no, you can’t gain 20 pounds of muscle in the next three months, all right? No matter what I design or what article you read or where you like saw this, like there are places where slow and steady is right, but I completely agree with the pendulum going too far on like slow and steady in a lot of situations.

0:32:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I just think there’s just, people are getting so soft, you know? Like some people just need to fucking just do it. And I think some people get stifled by the, well, let’s just go slow, let’s just go slow. Some people do great with that and it’s great for some people, but to think that that’s the only way and like, no, like I can tell you, I promise there are some people who do way better, I’m just gonna go cold turkey and figure it out along the way.

0:33:22.8 Mike Vacanti: Yep, in a lot of areas of life and you listed some good ones.

0:33:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Same thing with business.

0:33:27.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:33:29.1 Jordan Syatt: Fucking like when Gary had me post three times a day every day, he wasn’t like, “Yeah, you know, I start off with one time a day,” and he’s like, “No, start posting three times a day every single day, no exceptions,” and that’s when my shit took off. It’s like, just do shit, do it every day.

0:33:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Multiple times, yeah.

0:33:50.1 Jordan Syatt: Or don’t. Or don’t.

0:33:55.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I’m with you.

0:33:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Or do. [laughter]

0:34:00.9 Mike Vacanti: All right, I like this next segment we’re gonna do.

0:34:02.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:34:03.8 Mike Vacanti: If you were a coach starting your business today, what are five things that you would do or five things that you would focus on?

0:34:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Are we gonna go tit for tat, like I give one, you give one and then I give two and then you give two or like, how are we doing this?

0:34:23.1 Mike Vacanti: We’re probably gonna have some overlap or you’re going off the cuff, I assume.

0:34:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I didn’t prep this.

0:34:29.2 Mike Vacanti: Cool. Yeah, we can do however you like.

0:34:36.5 Jordan Syatt: Don’t give a P that option. You’re the J, you tell me what we’re gonna do and then we’ll do it.

0:34:42.7 Mike Vacanti: All right, I’m gonna rattle off my five.

0:34:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Okay, you rattle off your five, cool.

0:34:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay, all right. And I’m gonna give more depth in some areas and less in other and these aren’t necessarily the top five. One, start a website and publish one article per week. Two, focus on one short form content platform and right now, if like you’re listening and this is you and this applies to you and you’re like, “Which one should I focus on?” Instagram and honestly probably Instagram repurpose to Facebook, like make the similar posts to Facebook and the reason for this is one, there’s a lot of glamor metrics on TikTok right now relative to Instagram but two, when you’re first getting started so much of your new business and word of mouth and like engagement on your posts is going to come from people who are friends, family, coworkers, like people you know in your life and those people aren’t gonna be engaging with you on TikTok, those people will be engaging with you in the 15 to 60 demo on Instagram and in the 50 to 90 year old demo on Facebook. So being on those two places, making content consistently.

0:36:00.0 Mike Vacanti: Three, this one’s a little unconventional but it’s something that I would do related to number two is I would text every single person who I know, not a canned message, not like a email BCC to everyone, I would one-on-one reach out and I would say, “Hey, here’s what I’m doing, like, hey, how’s it going? I hope you’re super well, I’m starting this fitness thing, I would really, really appreciate it.” I would basically ask every single person to follow me wherever it makes sense. If it’s my 24-year-old sister, I’d be like, “Gee, follow me on Instagram, starting this fitness thing.” I would start to build an audience of the people I know, partly because perception equals reality. There’s a reason why when Jordan launches one of your very first things, you put like five of your buddies in the Facebook group because you were like, if this is a flop and only three people sign up, I don’t want there to be three people, at least there’s eight and there’ll be some engagement. From the beginning, so much of your engagement is gonna be from people you know anyway. So I would make the people I know, make, I would ask them to follow me on those platforms and generate some momentum and support and perceived engagement that way when nobody knows who I am.

0:37:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Did I put this on here? And then like slash in that realm, I would also be making, I don’t know, 100 to 300 insightful comments on other people’s content in Facebook groups, on Instagram posts, in Reddit, like wherever. It was Yahoo Answers and Quora and like these things back in the day. But basically I would be contributing to conversations where people can then see me and get back to my stuff along with consistently making my own content. Four, spend a lot of time in the gym. I’d spend a lot of time in the gym. I would coach clients in person in the gym. I would train myself and take my own training seriously and document it and like walk the talk, which is gonna make you, it’s gonna make building your business easier. And that time in the gym with clients or even if you don’t have clients, but getting a job in a gym, essentially at least a part-time job and having some in-person coaching makes you a better coach, helps your online business, also gives you an opportunity to generate more content ideas. You see mistakes, you see questions people are asking, you see like, so you can document your own, you can document other people.

0:38:27.0 Mike Vacanti: You gave Mr. Kenny Santucci a shout out not too far back. I think he does a really good job of like consistently highlighting what his clients are doing in the gym on social. That’s such easy content to be making when you’re just there working with them anyway. And then five, I would absolutely dial in my content consumption. So I would only be consuming like really education based things. When you’re first getting started, you need to sink everything into business. First year, maybe two years, three years, whatever it is. You can’t live this balanced life. You need to be all in on starting your business. And so none of my content consumption is gonna be like on morality or ethics or like how to like random interests or like, I don’t know, like car repair. It would all be around education around fitness, which doesn’t mean I’m scrolling like Instagram and YouTube Shorts for education around fitness. It means I’m reading education around fitness and just reducing total amount of consumption because when you’re first getting started and really if you’re in a growth stage or anytime, you need to be hyper on the creation side relative to consumption. So like the time you spent creating needs to be way bigger than the time you spent consuming. Don’t get addicted to the dopamine of consumption and make the consumption you’re doing intentional and beneficial for your business.

0:39:54.1 Jordan Syatt: Love that. Dude, that was sick. I think I agree with all that. I’ll give my thoughts on five things as well. When I’m thinking about, so we have to clarify, this is for someone who’s just starting out. This is just starting out with their business. This is not someone who’s already making $10,000 a month. This is like someone who’s just starting out with their business. The first thing that I’m gonna say is we have to figure out priorities in terms of goals. I think it’s really important to have specific goals so you know, I was reading it. Where was it? I was reading an Instagram post, I think it was yesterday. I follow all these survival accounts and all these survival fighting, all this stuff. I follow this one account called @policeposts, which if you don’t want graphic content, do not follow this account. But it’s like documenting video footage, the chest cam footage of police officers as they go and some really dangerous scenes. I like it. The caption in one of them was talking about how you need to have this purpose. You need to have a purpose in terms of you know, okay, even if you get in a terrible situation, you always have to know what the purpose is, what your next purpose is.

0:41:24.2 Jordan Syatt: You could take two different people of equal skill levels or completely zero skill level whatsoever. But if you just tell one of those people what the purpose is, that person will probably fare better simply because they have a direction. They know what way to go. So the person with purpose will always do better than the person without purpose. So with that in mind, I think one of the main purposes that you need to have, the two, there are two main purposes a brand new coach needs to have. Number one is become a great coach, right? And so going off of what you were saying, Mike, I don’t know any great coach. So I know a lot of coaches, a lot of people who call themselves coaches. And I know like thousands of coaches. I don’t know any great coaches who got their education from short form content. I don’t know any great coaches who got their education from Instagram, who got their education from TikTok, all of, even honestly, even from YouTube, frankly, the greatest coaches that I know got their knowledge from reading books, like real books on these topics. I’m not saying you can’t learn from Instagram or you can’t learn from TikTok, you can’t learn from YouTube, obviously you can, but in the same way, like when you put out content on Instagram to help people, you’re giving them simple, practical ideas to help them improve right now.

0:43:00.1 Jordan Syatt: You’re not teaching them deeper knowledge, understanding and the philosophy and the science, like you’re not teaching that because they don’t need to know that. They just need to know what do I do to get better? That’s a lot of the content that you’re consuming about coaching and about coaching people. You’re learning the fluff, you’re learning the top level stuff. You’re not taking the time actually learning the basics, the foundationals, the fundamentals of what you need to learn and understand to really help to become a better coach. So with that, number one is like, you have to read books. You have to, you just have to read books on strength training, on nutrition, on coaching, all of that, you should not be spending much time consuming on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, all that. YouTube, I would say is a great one and podcast is also a very good one. But even then, oftentimes when people are watching YouTube or podcasts, they’re really not paying attention fully. They’re often doing other things. They’re like looking at notifications, they’re texting at the same time. There’s other things, when you’re reading a book, you have to be fully present. So please, for the love of God, read books.

0:44:07.7 Jordan Syatt: So with that, the first purpose is become a great coach. The second purpose is to get more eyeballs on you and what you’re saying, right? In other words, get more attention, right? So number one, become a better coach, start reading books, start coaching people, doing all of that. The second one is get more eyeballs on you, which means post helpful content. These are the two main purposes. This does not include optimizing your systems. This does not include hiring other coaches. This does not include learning amazing sales copy. This does not include any of this other shit. The two purposes are become a great coach and get eyeballs on you. That is it. What that means is you gotta learn and you’ve gotta post. That’s it, over and over and over. And we can get more into the weeds, but I see so many coaches or so many people with a business like, “Oh, I wanna hire new coaches. I wanna hire an assistant. I wanna hire this. I wanna delegate here. I wanna learn sales copy.” Shut the fuck up. You are so, that’s like someone who is 400 pounds and has never worked out and has never eaten a vegetable, aside from fucking corn ever.

0:45:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Like you’re this person being like, “Okay, I’m fucking ready to start taking anabolic steroids. I’m gonna do a test, Deca, and Dbol, triple stack. I’m gonna fucking enter in the Olympic trials for weightlifting.” It’s like, what the fuck? Like, are you at, that’s how ridiculous you sound when you’re a new coach doing that type of shit. Post and become a better coach. That’s your two main goals.

0:45:55.7 Mike Vacanti: To jump in, that’s like a big form of procrastination.

0:46:01.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:46:02.5 Mike Vacanti: Right, rather than taking the action that’s in front of you, it feels productive. I’m gonna optimize my systems. Systems for what? There’s no clients yet. You can optimize your systems once you have clients and once you understand what the coaching process is like, or hiring more coaches. Like we’re not in delegation stage. We’re in building stage.

0:46:21.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, how many coaches do you have working for you, Mike?

0:46:24.6 Mike Vacanti: None, I’m a one-man show.

0:46:25.7 Jordan Syatt: When I was doing one-on-one coaching, I was the only one. I didn’t have anyone working for me. Now that I have the inner circle, I’ve got Susan who helps with the Inner Circle, and I have Kat who helps with my emails. But that’s the team. That’s the team, like that’s it. Like all these coaches hiring out, multiple, multiple, multiple. Like I’m not gonna say it’s wrong, but I think it’s a fucking mistake for the vast majority of them. I think it’s a big mistake. And it takes away from, because then you become a manager. Now you’re a manager. And if you’re a new coach, you have no business managing. Like you have no business managing other coaches when you’re a new coach. It’s just like, what is that? You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know how to coach. So how can you teach other coaches how to coach? How can you make sure they’re upholding a high quality of coaching? You’ve barely done it.

0:47:14.7 Mike Vacanti: In fairness, once you’re capped out on clients, and if you don’t wanna take on more, and you have a mass attention on you, and you want to scale your business a certain way, hiring assistant coaches is one way to do it. But yeah, you’re… Don’t put the cart before your horse.

0:47:29.5 Jordan Syatt: I still think it’s a shitty way to do it.

0:47:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, exactly. And we’ve talked about having assistant coaches versus building out a more scalable revenue stream, like a membership, and the pros and cons of each. We’ve talked about those before ad nauseam and the mentorship, but I think on the podcast here as well. We don’t need to get into that right now.

0:47:48.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay, so should I give my five with those two purposes in mind? Okay.

0:47:52.1 Mike Vacanti: Oh I thought that was one and two. Okay.

0:47:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Well, those are just the goals with that in mind. So you know what…

0:47:57.0 Mike Vacanti: I see, I see. Yes, okay. Yep, I’m with you.

0:48:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, so you know what? Those are one and two actually. The first one is become a good coach, read fucking books and educate yourself. Number two, post content. And I’m very much on board with you there. I think in terms of posting content, you should pick one to two platforms and just go all in on those platforms. And every day, multiple times a day, post content on them. I think right now, best platforms, Instagram for sure, in terms of short form content. And if you’re gonna post on Instagram, you might as well post on Facebook as well, because you just might as well. It’s an option, it’s there. And I think there actually is really good reach available despite what a lot of people say. I think that it makes more sense to focus on, for short form content, something like Instagram and Facebook, for long form content, when you’re just starting out, writing articles. This is gonna be number three, write articles. This is not debatable. This is one of the most important things you can do for so many reasons. Number one is you can’t write an article on a topic without learning a tremendous amount about that topic.

0:49:24.4 Jordan Syatt: I should say, you can’t write a great article on a topic without learning a tremendous amount about that topic. You can write a pretty shitty Instagram post without really knowing much about something. You can write a tweet without literally knowing anything about something. Writing an article, when you’re going through, you can even bullshit on a podcast, you can bullshit on a YouTube video. You can just say shit and it doesn’t make sense. When you write an article, it can’t not make sense. It just can’t, it doesn’t work. You can’t use your charisma to just get people to keep on reading and following. With a YouTube video or a podcast, you can use other things to keep people watching, graphics and animations and your charisma and funny. You can’t do that in an article. You need to make it so you’re knowledgeable or people are just, they’re not gonna read. It is so hard to keep people’s attention in an article and the best way to do it is through really learning and understanding it.

0:50:24.7 Mike Vacanti: Not to mention, through the process of, great writing is great thinking.

0:50:29.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:50:29.9 Mike Vacanti: But great content creation on YouTube or on podcasts is not.

0:50:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:50:37.6 Mike Vacanti: To write a great article, you have to fully flesh out that idea, which I think you were saying.

0:50:43.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you just said it much better.

0:50:45.0 Mike Vacanti: I think you said it better. Continue.

0:50:47.5 Jordan Syatt: All right, all right, Dale.

0:50:51.7 Mike Vacanti: All right, Dave.

0:50:53.5 Jordan Syatt: Not to mention the business benefits that come from it in terms of you’re actually gonna be helping people. You’re giving them so much helpful advice and that’s gonna help the people that you wanna help and also it’s gonna help your business, the search engine optimization benefits. But, so I would say number one is read and learn, become a good coach. Number two, is post short form content. I think Instagram and Facebook are probably the two best places right now. Number three is write articles. And so you can see the first three are just all attacking those two purposes that I said. It’s like it’s all attacking those two purposes of become a good coach and get more attention on you. Honestly, I’m gonna leave it there. I’m not gonna add a four and five. I think if you do those three for one to three years, you will have a better, more sustainable and a more profitable business than the like 98% of online coaches. I believe that with all my heart and soul.

0:51:52.4 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go, baby. I love those.

0:51:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s it. And if you don’t wanna write articles, don’t complain about your business not doing well. It’s like your clients being like, “Oh, well, I don’t wanna eat protein. Can I just have carbs instead?” When you say, “Well, can I just post on this instead? Can I post more short form instead?” As you’re, “Well, I don’t wanna have protein so I can have more carbs instead.” No, like what the fuck is completely different. Like, yeah, carbs are great and you shouldn’t be scared of them, but like carbs do different things to your body than protein does. Not wanting to write articles is like wanting to have carbs instead of protein. It’s like, no, you’ve gotta fucking eat your protein. You’ve gotta fucking write your articles. Are there successful people who don’t write articles? Yes, absolutely, 100%. But if you’re not one of them, write articles. Like there are far, there are not many people who are very successful who haven’t at least spent time writing long form articles. Maybe they don’t anymore, but most people in our industry have done it for a considerable period of time if they’re very successful. And if someone is successful in the last year, but not prior, like it’s literally been successful like a year, I would be wary of taking their, like of following their business model because it’s only been a year or two years.

0:53:11.3 Jordan Syatt: I would look at people who’ve been doing this for a longer time. It’s very easy, you know, it’s sort of like going to the jacked person in the gym, the super shredded person and they don’t know anything. And like, “Yeah, you know, I just fucking, I just, I cut out this and I only do this.” It’s like, oh wow, taking that person’s advice rather than the person who’s been doing it sustainably for 10 years. We’ve watched a lot of people come and go in this industry, a lot of people. And the most successful by far are the ones who’ve read a lot of books, posted consistent short form content on a couple of platforms and written articles regularly in a long form format.

0:53:48.2 Mike Vacanti: Even for people who are really good on video, it’s so hard to grow a YouTube from scratch with no, like it’s easier to organic grow on short form, Facebook, Instagram. And then I don’t know if it’s a year in, 18 months in, somewhere and you’ve been writing weekly articles or high frequency articles, then launching YouTube, but like launching to YouTube from scratch with no audience on other platforms is so hard to do. So even for people who are hyper charismatic, good looking, good on video, like being on video, like utilize those on Facebook, Instagram, but it’s just so hard to grow YouTube from the beginning.

0:54:26.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And not only that, it’s not only is it hard from the perspective of like understanding the platform, it is the hardest platform to actually make the content on. Like it is, and make good content that reaches new people who don’t know you. Like it is… But like that type of content is very, very time consuming and it can be draining. And yeah, writing articles is very time consuming and draining as well, but like it’s different on video. It’s just very different. And it’s sort of like, you know, the whole never meet your heroes type things? It’s like people can hide behind a screen when they write an article, maybe you’re not comfortable on camera or whatever it is. Writing articles is much more, the barrier to entry is so much lower because you can essentially learn to be yourself. Whereas on camera and video, like, oh, go back and watch some of my old YouTube videos. You’re gonna see a very, very, very different person. And like, I don’t regret doing it because now I can go back and look at those videos, but realistically time would have been better spent making other types of content. It just would have.

0:55:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Speaking of, I actually, when you say it’s harder to make, and I understand jump cuts, the editing process, I actually think, because I told you recently that I emailed the client, headed her from her in a little bit. I was like, “Hey, everything good?” Like, you know, not, it had been like a week or something. And she was like, “It’s so funny you just emailed me because I was just watching this video of yours, like as you emailed me.” And I clicked on it, I was like, “What is this video she’s watching?” And yeah, it was from 2016. It was a vlog. It was me. I think I was recording it all with my phone, but it was super low production, super like, you know, it was a travel vlog, but I was like, oh, this is kind of decent. It almost put in my head like, and again, you have the benefit of already having an audience, but something is better than nothing on YouTube. Meaning if you’re not gonna have a videographer, like people will watch lower quality, more like intimate, more personal, less, you know, no graphics, no like crazy stuff, no good music, etcetera. People will still watch it. So that’s something to think about down the road.

0:57:01.4 Jordan Syatt: You were going hard on Snap at that time, right? Snapchat and not as much on Instagram, but you had a lot of viewers on Snapchat and I’m assuming a lot of people from Snap came over to YouTube, right?

0:57:12.8 Mike Vacanti: Yes, I wasn’t like growing on YouTube with the strategy. It was more of a depth than an organic reach play.

0:57:22.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You know what else you had? I’ll never forget this. In your, I remember when you and I had like emailed each other like early, early on, I saw that in your sign off, you had like follow me on Snapchat or I think it was follow me on Snapchat and Facebook or something in your sign off. Everyone should put that in your email sign off. “Hey, follow me here.” Like it actually works very well early on when like you’re really like trying to get more eyeballs on you, like you interact with people via email, it actually makes a big difference.

0:57:57.8 Mike Vacanti: And especially if you’re spamming on all platforms, like, “Hey, here’s my email address. I answer all my emails. I answer any questions.” Then it’s just like free, slight right hook material on the followup of helping people for free. Sweet. Good pod. This was great.

0:58:17.0 Jordan Syatt: Clips Nation.

0:58:19.2 Mike Vacanti: If you’re not on the email list, get on the email list. We’re not gonna spam you.

0:58:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, if you’re not following us on social media, what are you doing? We’re posting clips on a pretty intermittently regular basis.

[laughter]

0:58:32.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. That’s right, we are.

0:58:33.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s an accurate way to say intermittently regular basis. Yeah.

0:58:37.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s highly accurate.

0:58:40.6 Jordan Syatt: But it’s about to be regular basis.

0:58:43.7 Mike Vacanti: I’m even okay with intermittently regular @personaltrainerpodcast.

0:58:47.3 Jordan Syatt: No, I’m not. ‘Cause I know you text me, when you text me, I know you’re gonna be upset if I’m not posting regularly when you text me. So I’m aiming for regular.

0:58:56.1 Mike Vacanti: I was giving myself the out. Meaning if I don’t text you and remind you like, but yeah, if I’m like, “Hey, post, ’cause you told me to text you to remind you to post.” And then you’re like, “I don’t wanna post. I wanna watch the UFC.” Like, come on Jordan.

[laughter]

0:59:10.4 Mike Vacanti: Intermittently regular is good, @personaltrainerpodcast, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, wherever you consume content.

0:59:19.8 Jordan Syatt: And we’ve got short clips on YouTube Short, the YouTube videos, which I didn’t even realize we had really been publishing those.

0:59:28.1 Mike Vacanti: Dude, those are money.

0:59:29.7 Jordan Syatt: They’re amazing. Our YouTube channel, like not the Shorts, but the actual shorter clips, like they’re five, seven minute clips, whatever these things are fucking fire. If you wanna follow us there too.

0:59:40.1 Mike Vacanti: Great strategy too. Like especially over the longterm because they’re SEO able. It’s video, it’s well titled and just like an article that can reach someone today that you wrote two years ago, because they typed in how to weigh your meat, cooked or raw. Like that can pop a YouTube video number one and get you that long tail new audience.

1:00:04.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s it. We’ve got a huge, huge sale coming in February for the Online Fitness Business Mentorship. Get on the email list if you’re not already, if you wanna let us, if you want us to let you know when that sale is live, sending love to everyone who’s already in the mentorship. We love you and appreciate you. And that’s it. Have a wonderful week.

1:00:22.2 Mike Vacanti: See you soon.

1:00:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Bye.