Episode 114: Should You Send Cold DMs to Make More Sales?

0:00:12.0 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.0 Mike Vacanti: I am sick and tired, but we’re gonna press on and record back-to-back podcasts today.

0:00:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Man, it sort of sounded like, “I’m sick and tired of” but no, you’re legitimately…

0:00:24.3 Mike Vacanti: No, no.

0:00:25.3 Jordan Syatt: Sick and tired.

0:00:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m sick and I’m quite exhausted, but we’re pressing on.

0:00:30.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m sorry bro. That sucks.

0:00:34.8 Mike Vacanti: No, it’s part of life. Part of life is pushing through when you don’t want to do things.

0:00:42.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s true.

0:00:43.9 Mike Vacanti: Where do you wanna begin? We’re gonna do a lot of Q&A, I have one question, I have a very non-fitness abstract thought that might just be ’cause I’m sick and my brain is all foggy and could either come out very convoluted or potentially genius. I’m not sure which.

0:01:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Let’s start with that. Let’s start with that one.

0:01:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So would you agree that the best way to learn a lesson and for it to be ingrained in a person is through a really good story?

0:01:15.9 Jordan Syatt: That is definitely one of the best ways if you’re trying to teach someone a principle or… Yeah, absolutely. I think teaching if you are trying to teach someone a principle or an important component that yes, yes, I agree with that. It’s one of the best ways.

0:01:34.8 Mike Vacanti: I also agree. And I didn’t always think this, I thought that if you stated a principle or if you stated a moral foundation or… You could just state it as a bullet point in a single sentence and it would be understood rather than telling a story that evokes emotion and is easier to remember and is sticky and is a better way to teach that lesson. Okay, so operating as if that’s true, I’m seeing more and more big names starting to write fiction, which is interesting. Tim Ferriss is the one that comes to mind.

0:02:17.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really?

0:02:19.2 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm. And so that separately is interesting to me. I’m gonna try and connect all these random things going on in my brain. And additionally, so along… So and then I think we have a problem in society right now that many of the problems in society right now stem from men and people being weak. Weak-minded, weak physically, weak mentally, weak emotionally, weak spiritually, weak in many ways. And that’s bubbling up to the surface and causing, directly or indirectly, a lot of the problems that we’re having. So let me try and pool this all together.

0:03:01.2 Jordan Syatt: You can do it. I know you can.

0:03:08.4 Mike Vacanti: I think… Okay. So on top of that, I don’t know if this is just me personally or if this applies to others, but emulation of certain individuals is one of the ways in my life that I have call it upgraded my character, or my moral being, or the way that I act and aim in the world. And we live in this time where it’s very hard to have non-fictional, real-life people to emulate because everyone is getting… First of all, because all humans are imperfect and because everyone is tearing everyone down. So you can have someone who’s 99% good. Let’s take Martin Luther King for example. People hate on Martin Luther King Jr., who did such amazing things because, “Oh, but he cheated on his wife.” That’s one of many examples where you have someone who does something that is incredible and amazing, but then because they’re a real person and they’re not perfect, you have people tearing them down. Fictional characters can’t be torn down because fictional characters can be made as the ideal. And I think of General Maximus in Gladiator, I think of William Wallace in Braveheart. I think of Harry Potter as a really good example, I think of these…

0:04:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Jon Snow.

0:04:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Jon Snow. These protagonists who live in a way that is the ideal. But you can’t just state the ideal, the whole story arc teaches the ideal and I think the popularity of all four of those pieces of fiction in and of itself is enough evidence that that is something that we are hungry for and that we need. And I can list way more examples than just, MLK Jr. Is the first one that came to my mind, but many other really good people in society are easily torn down and made out to be villains or made out to be someone who shouldn’t be emulated, even if they have a lot of really good ideas and good messages and things that we need as a society. So I think if this, if there is an uptick in the amount of fiction production, I think many of the characters that come out of that wave could change the shape of society in the future.

0:05:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Are you thinking that the characters coming out of this fiction wave potentially would be great characters for people to try and emulate you think? Like in terms of…

0:05:50.6 Mike Vacanti: I assume, kind of like a cream rises to the top in fiction that that would happen.

0:06:00.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:06:00.5 Mike Vacanti: There’s a reason why the Harry Potter series was so unbelievably popular and a million other fiction series over that 20-year window weren’t.

0:06:10.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I also think, and I don’t know if this is the direction you were going or not, but the direction that I took it is that someone like MLK Jr., one of the most extraordinary people the world has ever seen for so many different reasons. I think that it’s so interesting to see how people would try and tear someone down or essentially try to say he’s not a good person because of the mistake that he made against the preponderance of evidence showing how extraordinary he really was. Where I think there’s a very famous quote that I did not come up with that I love. It goes to the effect of people judge themselves by their intent and other people by their actions. And I’m gonna say this one more time ’cause it takes a minute, but…

0:07:07.0 Mike Vacanti: I get it.

0:07:08.2 Jordan Syatt: People tend to judge themselves by their intent. And I’m not doing this for you, but for everyone listening. People judge themselves by what they intend to do, and they judge other people by their actions, what they actually ended up doing. And it’s interesting for me to watch people tear someone down because of one mistake almost as though they themselves have never made a mistake. And it’s just… It’s so interesting to me to see the masses go nuts over one mistake. And maybe it was a big mistake. Maybe it was a really, really big mistake. But everybody’s made mistakes. We’ve all done it. And it’s just so interesting how people will freaking go nuts to try and tear someone down when like, “Well, look at how much good they’ve done as well.” We can’t just ignore that. You know what I mean?

0:07:56.4 Mike Vacanti: Dude, yes. I completely know what you mean. I think that’s a great point. And I think the reason why they tear that person down is because there is such deep envy for the 99% good that that person does. So because I know that I’m not living up to who I could be, and this person is, rather than try to step-by-step, brick-by-brick, improve myself and live a better life, I’m gonna focus my energy on the 1% of that person and try and tear them down. I think that’s the primary driving force of that behavior.

0:08:35.1 Jordan Syatt: So here’s what I think could be a potentially interesting question pertaining to all of this. So you used the example of the fictional character. Essentially, they’re all good. It’s an all-good character. There’s nothing bad about them. They live ideally all the time. Could there be an unrealistic expectation placed upon all of us because of the expectations that we have set in these fictional characters? So for example, here’s another one. We look at these movies that we watched growing up, whether it’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or whatever it is, where we have these movies where there’s Prince Charming, and Prince Charming is coming to save this damsel in distress. And it’s funny because it gives young boys the wrong impression of how they’re supposed to act. And it also… And young girls the wrong impression of how men are supposed to act. And it also gives young girls the wrong impression of how they’re supposed to act. And young boys the wrong impression of how women are supposed to act. And so I’m also wondering, are these unrealistic expectations also part of the reason of why we might tear someone down? Because subconsciously or not, we have this idea that, “Oh, this person is this perfect individual, this person is… Maybe we see them from afar, we think this person is perfect. We think that they are the ultimate… They’re the fictional character who’s perfect.

0:10:15.1 Jordan Syatt: And then when we do find out, oh no, they are just a human, they are imperfect. Well, and then they latch onto the one thing that they did that is no longer that fictional character and then they wanna tear them down because of that. What do you think about that?

0:10:30.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t remember Snow White, but what I would say is if the… I don’t remember Snow White. I can’t comment on…

0:10:39.9 Jordan Syatt: You don’t need to remember Snow White perfectly. It’s more the concept of this Prince Charming or this perfect princess-type thing.

0:10:50.3 Mike Vacanti: I can only speak… So… [chuckle] I don’t know. What I do think is that having…

0:10:56.7 Jordan Syatt: That just ruined my whole fucking speech.

[laughter]

0:10:58.7 Mike Vacanti: No, it didn’t. No it didn’t.

[laughter]

0:11:02.2 Mike Vacanti: I think that even if the ideal…

0:11:02.3 Jordan Syatt: I thought that was genius.

[laughter]

0:11:04.1 Mike Vacanti: But even if the ideal is unachievable by mere mortals, striving for the ideal is the proper way to live.

0:11:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes. I agree. I just don’t think…

0:11:13.7 Mike Vacanti: So I don’t want the ideal to be imperfect just for our… “Shoot for the moon and if you fall upon the stars,” that kind of thing, I think that applies. I think you should aim for… And a lot of people probably disagree with this.

0:11:31.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no, I agree. It’s like…

0:11:32.2 Mike Vacanti: But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get there, but still try to get there because that’s the journey.

0:11:36.8 Jordan Syatt: What I’m saying, and maybe it actually does matter that you don’t remember Snow White, is that Prince Charming in Snow White, to my memory, I haven’t watched it in a long time, wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t a… It wasn’t perfect. And even Snow White, obviously, it’s the main character and it’s the character that I would imagine women want to be like, but it’s not perfect from the perspective of… How can I phrase this? I’ll use Prince Charming ’cause I’m the boy and I think that’s who you resonate with when you were a boy. You resonate with Prince Charming and girls tend to resonate with Snow White, but…

0:12:16.0 Mike Vacanti: Sexist.

0:12:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Sexist pig. I think that Prince Charming is portrayed in a certain way that we’re told that that’s how women want men to behave but in reality, it’s actually not how they want men to behave. And I think that in reverse, Snow White is how they’re told how men want women to behave. But in reality that’s not how men want women to behave in that same way, which creates this false idea of what we’re supposed to be like, which then causes resentment as a result of this fake narrative or this fake idea that’s not actually what you’re supposed to be like. And maybe this is a separate topic, now that I’m thinking about it, but…

0:13:10.6 Mike Vacanti: I would just call that subpar fiction. I would say that then Prince Charming is not the same ideal that William Wallace is.

0:13:21.2 Jordan Syatt: That makes sense. Yep. Yep. That Jon Snow as that makes total sense ’cause Jon Snow is the ideal. He is honest, he is loyal, he is truthful, he is a warrior, he can protect…

0:13:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Tough, sacrificial.

0:13:37.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That, yeah. That makes total sense.

0:13:41.3 Mike Vacanti: You’re as stubborn as your father was and as honorable. I can think of no greater compliment.

0:13:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:46.6 Mike Vacanti: You still watching?

0:13:47.4 Jordan Syatt: I took a pause, not for any other reason. What was I doing?

0:13:51.4 Mike Vacanti: Did you get to the Red Wedding?

0:13:54.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. Yeah.

0:13:55.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, so you’re in season four?

0:13:57.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:57.7 Mike Vacanti: You paused in season four? The best season of the show?

0:14:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude. I’m trying to… I’m really trying to savor this moment in time.

0:14:06.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:14:06.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t want to rush through this incredible, incredible season. I wanna savor the moment. And I’ve also… I’ve been traveling a lot. I try and save my TV for when I’m doing cardio. So for example, even though we’ll sit down and we’ll watch TV sometimes at night, I try and save the shows that I really, really like for when I’m doing cardio. So it’s like ’cause I’ve got 30-60 minutes where I can just watch with undivided attention. Whereas when we’re in the apartment, I’m still paying attention to my baby or my wife and stuff. I don’t wanna watch something that needs my full attention.

0:14:43.8 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense.

0:14:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. What are you watching right now?

0:14:50.2 Mike Vacanti: We put a pause on Game of Thrones.

0:14:51.5 Jordan Syatt: What season?

0:14:52.4 Mike Vacanti: End of five so…

0:14:53.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:14:56.8 Mike Vacanti: Spoiler, if you haven’t watched, don’t listen. But Jon Snow just died. And I sold it well. I was like, “Yeah, it’s the worst. I can’t believe they killed him off too.” Da, da, da, da.

[chuckle]

0:15:07.7 Mike Vacanti: She’s up in arms about it, I’m just like… I’m like, “You know what, let’s watch a different show for a while before we come back to season six.”

[laughter]

0:15:13.9 Mike Vacanti: So I’m really letting it marinate that he’s gone. And then season six, episode one, rising at the end of that. Just… Iconic.

0:15:21.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s what my mom thought happened when…

0:15:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Harry Potter?

0:15:25.7 Jordan Syatt: When Dumbledore died.

0:15:27.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh.

0:15:27.9 Jordan Syatt: When Dumbledore was killed, I remember she swore. She was like, “He’s not dead, he’s coming back, he’s coming back, he’s coming back.” And he never came back. And then that was devastating. [laughter]

0:15:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Seriously.

0:15:41.6 Jordan Syatt: But that actually is very similar to when Harry died. But then the Jon Snow dying is very similar to when the… It’s so funny how they all… They have so many of the same stories.

0:15:52.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s funny and it’s not. It’s like the archetypal story. If we go back 2000 years, there’s another story similar to that one as well that all of these are mirroring.

0:16:01.3 Jordan Syatt: They all follow that… They follow that theme. So crazy. What have we got next on the docket, Michael?

0:16:11.9 Mike Vacanti: This is from a coaching client of mine who asked this for the pod. I’m gonna leave her name out just because I’m not sure if she wants it. And it’s a little… You’ll hear. “Hi, Mike. I currently do consultation calls for an online coaching company. The company I work for has a DMer, basically, a person who cold DMs people through the owner’s Instagram page, and also the team page to sign up for consultation calls. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels very inauthentic to have someone else running your DMs pretending to be you. This seems to be a common practice for a lot of online coaching companies with a larger following, but it always felt wrong to me. In addition, we advertise consultation calls as a no-pressure call just for information, but now we have some sales training expert working with us to increase close rates and get credit card info on calls. It again just feels inauthentic. If it’s a sales call, don’t act like it’s not a sales call. Overall, can you and Jordan share your thoughts on a DMer and any tips for not making the consultation calls feel so gross. Thanks.” Yeah.

0:17:22.5 Jordan Syatt: And this was a client of yours?

0:17:24.1 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm.

0:17:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I love that. It’s a great client to have. Yeah, it’s funny, I was speaking at an event in Vegas two days ago and someone asked me in the crowd, she asked when you’re… She was basically like, “Do you handle your DMs, or how many people on your team do DMs for you?” And I didn’t realize that this woman actually has a huge audience and she’s DMed me before and I’ve replied to her. I only figured this out after she asked the question. And I was like, “If someone DMs me and there’s a reply, I am the only one replying.” And I was like, “No one has my Instagram password for many reasons, but I’m not giving that to anyone.” And I completely agree with the person who wrote this email. I think it’s very… You know what, I’ll give you an example. Gary Vaynerchuk did a great job with making team Gary V. He made a separate Instagram account for Team GaryVee so that… And they do that. They will DM people, but under the name of Team GaryVee. It’s not DMing people under his name, it’s not from his account. And I think that’s a much more ethical and straightforward way to do it as opposed to having people DM from his account, almost pretending to be him.

0:18:40.0 Jordan Syatt: So I’m not a fan of having people in your DMs, like if it’s your account, it should be your account. If you wanna have a different account for your team, great, go for it. I think that’s much more ethical. But then again, I can also say like who the fuck am I to talk about ethical? ‘Cause like we were talking about before this conversation, we all… We essentially pick and choose our ethics, which ethics we choose to follow. I know you’re not gonna necessarily agree with that, but it’s like it’s very easy to… If you say… If someone’s like, “You know what, fine, I’m gonna do my own thing”. It’s easy for me to say, “I don’t think you should do that”. But then I might do something else that someone else says, “Well, I think that’s unethical”. It’s like I think we all do unethical shit, but anyway, if it’s up to me, you do not have someone else answering your DMs. I think there’s nothing necessarily wrong with calling it a consult call, I think it feels sort of a little bit slimy and smarmy to like…

0:19:43.2 Mike Vacanti: They advertise it on the front end as a no pressure call, but then on the back end, they are paying a sales training consultant to help them close at a higher rate.

0:19:53.4 Jordan Syatt: The thing is like… Here’s what I would say, it is a no pressure… They’re not required to sign up, they’re not paying for the call, and I don’t have a real issue with that, to be very honest with you, they’re learning how to sell. It’s a business and they get on the phone, hopefully that person will get something out of the call and they didn’t pay for it, they’re not paying for that time. And it’s not like, “Hey, this is a no pressure call, but you gotta pay 50 or 100 bucks to get on the phone with us,” it’s like no, it’s like, I don’t see an issue with learning the skill of sales, to then get them on the phone and then see if they wanna buy from you. I don’t have an issue with that. If they’re saying, “Hey, this is not a sales call. We will not be selling you something”. But then you are, well, that’s the issue. But I don’t have an issue with that part of it, the biggest issue I have is having people who are not you in your DMs pretending to be you. So yeah.

0:20:45.6 Jordan Syatt: And then if you want, I would just be very honest and be like, “Hey listen, we have a no pressure call, if you want, you could say like, listen, part of the reason we have the call is ’cause we wanna see if we would be a good fit and like if you’d like to do your coaching with us, but if you don’t, you don’t owe us any money, it’s 100% free. You can hang up any time you want”. I think that would be a good way to go about it, if you’d like, if maybe to make you to feel a little bit better about the process and being fully honest going into it. But again, the biggest issue that I have is people who are not you in your DMs, pretending to be you. That’s my biggest issue. What do you think?

0:21:20.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m not a fan of either. I also am a much bigger fan of maximizing brand and goodwill over a 30 or 40 year window than maximizing revenue in a one or a two or a three-year window, I’d rather not burn my audience in the short term just to make an extra buck or two, I’d rather build something slow and steady. For the long term. So yeah, if someone else is gonna be in the DMs other than the individual whose account it is, assuming it’s not like a company but a person, another strategy that could be used is have the person sign their name, right. So when Jordan’s assistant is emailing from Jordan’s account she signs her name and she doesn’t sign Jordan’s name, she signs her name in those emails back and forth.

0:22:11.6 Mike Vacanti: Same thing in a DM situation, if it’s someone else, that person can have put a little dash their name at the end of the message, not pretend to be someone else. I actually just think it’s better business practice too like maybe… I think I could make an argument that it’s better business practice financially to do the right thing in both of these situations, and I’ll make the case on the sales call. Clients or potential clients who you have to twist their arm to sign up for coaching, are more difficult clients, churn quicker, cancel sooner, give less referrals, are more of a pain in the ass, than clients who you’ve given so much good free content over the years that they’re basically begging for a spot in your one-on-one coaching program are going to be better easier clients.

0:23:03.1 Mike Vacanti: You’re gonna make a way better dollar per hour working with that client, then the person who you really have to put pressure on and sell to join your coaching program. So I think it’s actually… And there’s a reason why I basically don’t sell, and I’m shit at selling is because, well, one, it just is who I am, but two, I also don’t think that the need would drastically improve a solopreneur’s business. Now, if you have a team of 15 coaches and like you are just trying to maximize the number of clients at all costs, and it doesn’t matter what the quality of those clients are, yeah maybe it is more profitable to go in with optimal sales strategies in the calls, but I’m not a fan of either approach. And…

0:23:48.9 Jordan Syatt: I agree with you, especially in the last part, which is why I don’t do that either. I’m thinking more from the ethical standpoint, is it ethical from like to have a DMer and go in it’s like, “Yeah, I think it’s totally ethical, as long as they’re not pretending to be you”. And I think getting the sales training… I think that’s ethical, as long as the way that you’re doing it is ethical, as long as you’re not pretending it’s something that it’s not… As long as that you’re not lying, any of that.

0:24:16.5 Jordan Syatt: Personally I don’t do that stuff for all of the reasons that you mentioned, I think it’s way more profitable, I think it’s a better strategy to not do that. But just purely from the ethics perspective, and in this person’s email, they had said they felt a little bit like it’s not right, and they’re not sure about it, so from that perspective, I don’t think they should feel bad like they’re doing something wrong getting sales training. But then some people do di some smarmy sales training and smarmy sales stuff, so it’s like, I don’t know what’s going on in the sales calls, I don’t know what their pressure… What they’re telling you to do… I don’t like the idea, maybe in a sales training, if they’re saying things like, “You gotta twist their pain points, you gotta figure out what their pain, is to drive that home.”

0:24:50.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s for sure what it is. 100%.

0:24:56.8 Jordan Syatt: Well, then that’s bullshit, that’s horse shit. And that, I think is very unethical, but if they’re like, yeah, “Listen, so here’s how sales work, here’s the psychology of sales, here is how… Here’s what you can do,” sort of like we do in the mentorship, how we talk about how sales work and how to structure a launch, or how to talk to your clients or potential clients, I think that’s great. But if it’s done with the back-end intent of trying to make them feel like shit or fear monger or whatever it is, just to try and get them to sign up now you’ve got a different beast on your hands.

0:25:29.6 Mike Vacanti: I’ve never wanted to hurt someone as much as being on the other end of a sales call where the person won’t let me hang up, or…

0:25:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, my God.

0:25:38.3 Mike Vacanti: When some solicitor comes and they’re like, “yeah, you know, we can debug your house and spray insect pesticide around…”

[chuckle]

0:25:48.1 Mike Vacanti: “It’s only this cost, and your neighbor Darcy and your neighbor Jerry, like they signed…” I’m like, “Look, I just moved here, I don’t know any of my neighbors. Like you trying to build that rapport isn’t working, I don’t… ” “Oh, oh yeah, I completely understand, but… ” And then they go on with their next thing.

0:26:04.2 Mike Vacanti: And there’s definitely an influence, but it’s like I say no, and then they’re like, oh, totally agree, totally understand, but let me da da da. Get off my property, I hate being sold to in that way, and therefore I wouldn’t do it and sure we can… There’s nothing inherently unethical about sales, but if you’re calling a sales call a no pressure call, and then you put maximum pressure on that person to buy your service… Yeah, that’s lying.

0:26:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Agreed.

0:26:33.7 Mike Vacanti: And people lie in business like, cool, but that’s not how we run things, and that’s not how you need to run things.

0:26:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:26:40.3 Mike Vacanti: But the real difficult thing here is this is a person working at a company, so I don’t know how much she can do to change the entire culture to… If she’s allowed to operate outside the bounds of what she’s taught, that’s where it’s difficult.

0:26:53.4 Jordan Syatt: And that’s where the question is, all right, would you rather work for someone else and follow what they say, or if you don’t like the systems, then either find another job or make your own. And if you really are not a fan of how this is being run, then go find someone else who more aligns with you or start your own shit. But yeah, I completely agree, and sort of on that note, I was thinking of something interesting, like the annoying salesperson, whether they come to your door, or they’re getting on the phone, I hate that, and it makes me never wanna work with them.

0:27:30.6 Jordan Syatt: What has worked well, especially for restaurants, is when I move into a new apartment building and they just leave something at my door, like a piece of paper for like, hey, you get this percent off of your first meal or something, bro that works on me every time, every time. And I think it’s such a smart strategy, I wanted to do this when I opened up a gym in Boston with the partner of mine, I wanted to go to all of the business office buildings and all of the residential and leave these cards…

0:27:54.3 Jordan Syatt: You get 50% off your first month of training, stuff like that, and the guy I was working with just didn’t wanna hear it, and I was like, this is like, we’re literally in the financial district of Boston, surrounded by so many people. I don’t know why you don’t wanna do this, but if a restaurant says you get 15% off your first order, whatever it is, I will almost always find something and order it and see how it is, and then often become a regular patron there. And I think you could follow that same strategy in terms of fitness where if you’re the DMer or whatever, it’s like if it’s your business and your DMing people, like… I don’t like the idea of having a cut and paste, but something like, “Hey listen, thank you so much for your support. I’m doing something right now where I’d like to get on the phone with more people and see if we’re good fits for coaching. If you wanna hop on a call, it’s 100% free. If you end up signing on, you’ll get 50% off your first month of coaching with me if you don’t wanna sign on cool, that’s totally fine. You didn’t pay anything and that’s it,” but that might be an interesting strategy for someone to try, if they do maybe like the sales process and if they do want to see if that can lead to a higher conversion rate and also find some good clients as well that might be, I think, a better and more honest and ethical strategy.

0:29:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, the way you formatted that DM is much more straightforward. I completely agree.

0:29:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Bro I saw this thing today on Instagram, AI is so crazy, bro, someone made this AI video of Biden announcing the start of World War III and how commencing the draft and all of that and… It was very good. It wasn’t perfect. I think he mumbles a little bit more than in the AI video and in the AI video, he… But even the way that he said Kiev in the video bro it was perfect and it was like, oh my God, this shit is scary that they’re able to completely make up a speech and make it look exactly… It was so real and sound so real, it was… I just thought before we got on. I was like, man, this is insane.

0:30:15.9 Mike Vacanti: I wonder how deepfakes are gonna be handled by social media companies and the internet in general, and how authentication of genuine video is gonna be tackled. I have no idea, I haven’t thought that far ahead, but…

0:30:35.5 Jordan Syatt: And… So there’s the obvious part being of people like making things up where it’s like someone makes something completely up and people could be prosecuted and put in prison for something they didn’t do because of an AI thing. And you’re laughing ’cause that’s my worst fear ever.

[laughter]

0:30:50.8 Mike Vacanti: You’re just spiraling.

0:30:52.7 Jordan Syatt: But that’s always my first thought, I’m like, “oh my God, people are gonna make shit up and like…”

0:30:56.6 Mike Vacanti: “You could go to jail.”

0:30:58.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s very real. But the other aspect, the reverse side of it, is someone could do something and then be like, “no, no, but that wasn’t me. This is AI, someone made this up” or someone could make a video of them saying something, it… Get a terrible response, people get really mad at them and then be like, “That wasn’t actually me. That was AI. Someone made that up.” It’s pretty crazy now. You’re not gonna know what to believe, you could literally see someone in front of you saying something and it could actually not be them, or it could be them, but they’re saying it wasn’t them, and you have no idea. It’s a scary time.

0:31:31.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I have no idea how that’s gonna be handled.

0:31:38.2 Jordan Syatt: Good talk. [laughter]

0:31:38.3 Mike Vacanti: No I don’t know where to take this… [chuckle] I have no control over it. I don’t know that much about the technology, I hope the really smart people of the world figure out a solution quick and then we all get to benefit from it.

0:31:56.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I agree.

0:31:57.8 Mike Vacanti: ‘Cause we don’t wanna end up in jail for the things we didn’t [laughter] say or do.

0:32:01.8 Jordan Syatt: You’re preaching, definitely I don’t wanna end up in jail for things we didn’t say or do.

0:32:08.7 Mike Vacanti: I’m not even gonna…

0:32:09.5 Jordan Syatt: What are you thinking? Say it, say it. I can tell you wanna say something and you’re like, I don’t know if I should, but it’s a one take show bro. [chuckle]

0:32:18.9 Mike Vacanti: A lot of people have accomplished amazing things while in prison.

0:32:21.3 Jordan Syatt: Why would you say that? [laughter]

0:32:25.9 Mike Vacanti: Because I’m trying to be like glass half full. But I really… And I don’t know enough about the different kinds of prison, right, clearly there’s real bad stuff that happens in prisons.

0:32:34.9 Jordan Syatt: High security prisons, yeah.

0:32:38.5 Mike Vacanti: High security with isolation or just getting raped, like getting beat to a bloody pulp like race wars, gang wars. I don’t know, I don’t know how much is movie versus reality, I unfortunately think a lot of it is reality.

0:32:51.2 Jordan Syatt: You haven’t seen the Office, if you had, then you would know about Prison Mike. Michael Scott pretends to have gone to prison and… [chuckle] there’s this whole skit… [laughter]

0:33:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you love that show.

0:33:05.9 Jordan Syatt: You hate that show and it blows me away.

0:33:08.3 Mike Vacanti: No, I don’t hate it.

0:33:09.2 Jordan Syatt: You hate it.

0:33:09.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t hate it, I just…

0:33:09.9 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause there’s no archetypal character, there’s no one to really look up to, that’s why you don’t really like it, and you don’t like that humor.

0:33:15.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t like that humor, that’s the real main thing because White Lotus didn’t have any aspirational protagonist, but it did hit culture on the nose, which is fun.

0:33:28.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what was a great show that you told me to watch? Actually, I think Gary first told you to watch it and then you told me to watch it, it was that chess show, The Queen’s Gambit.

0:33:35.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh yeah.

0:33:40.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that was a great one. That was a really… I remember that actually. I think I watched that early on in COVID. Man, that was a really good one.

0:33:47.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, chess really popped after that.

0:33:50.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it did.

0:33:52.2 Mike Vacanti: It did a lot for chess, I had to stop playing chess for a while.

0:33:56.5 Jordan Syatt: You were just playing so much. You were a chess master.

0:34:00.2 Mike Vacanti: I was playing too many hours of online chess. I’m definitely not a chess master, but…

0:34:01.9 Jordan Syatt: Well, you beat me every time.

[chuckle]

0:34:04.7 Mike Vacanti: Sure that’s… [laughter]

0:34:06.1 Jordan Syatt: He’s like, “yeah, well you suck.” [laughter]

0:34:11.1 Mike Vacanti: I started playing chess when I was like five.

0:34:11.4 Jordan Syatt: There’s one time, one time I almost won.

0:34:13.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You…

0:34:13.1 Jordan Syatt: One time and then you still beat me.

0:34:16.2 Mike Vacanti: You had an extra piece in the end game.

0:34:19.8 Jordan Syatt: You’ve been playing since five? With your dad?

0:34:22.9 Mike Vacanti: I played with my grandpa first, and then my mom shortly after that. But…

0:34:26.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Oh, so your mom played. Was she good?

0:34:30.7 Mike Vacanti: My mom knew how to play. It’s all relative. She knew how to play. Yeah.

0:34:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. She knew the rules enough. Yeah.

0:34:40.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. What else you got? You got anything… You know what, we should… We talked about this a little bit. I think it was off-pod. I have a funny feeling. I’m gonna keep it here. There might be a new format coming to how to become a personal trainer podcast, it’s gonna be fire.

0:34:55.4 Jordan Syatt: What? Let’s talk about it.

0:34:58.4 Mike Vacanti: We’ll keep it a little bit of a secret.

0:35:00.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay, all right.

0:35:00.9 Mike Vacanti: No, no, let’s talk about it.

[laughter]

0:35:05.5 Mike Vacanti: I think we both bring a few topics to every episode kind of like the Biden thing, except maybe more fitness, but the AI was related to content…

0:35:17.5 Jordan Syatt: [chuckle] you’re just like, “Yeah, like the Biden thing… But not political.”

[laughter]

0:35:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, yes.

[laughter]

0:35:23.5 Jordan Syatt: “I like that it was the AI focus and not the Biden focus.”

[laughter]

0:35:29.0 Mike Vacanti: But I think that could be really, really interesting.

0:35:29.1 Jordan Syatt: What? You mean just topics that are big right now in the world, but more fitness-related?

0:35:36.4 Mike Vacanti: It could be like a new study that came out, it could be like the health at every size influencer who got arrested for whatever.

[laughter]

0:35:45.1 Mike Vacanti: It could be anything.

0:35:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Did you hear… Oh did you do see that a doctor said…

0:35:52.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m super tuned in. I’m sure a lot of the people listening saw this, there was a doctor who was like, the appropriate serving size of french fries is six, six french fries, and you should not have more than six french fries. And then he was saying like, if you are gonna have french fries, then just take six for yourself and give the others to other people so they can have six. [chuckle] and I was like, this guy is out of his fucking mind.

[laughter]

0:36:19.8 Jordan Syatt: This is why behavioral psychology and why understanding human behavior needs to be an equal component of training and coaching and nutrition and all of that, not just understanding physiology, not just to understanding medicine, not just understand… You have to know how people really behave. To advise people to take six fucking french fries out of their McDonald’s fry container, it’s stupid. It’s just stupid or silly. It’s silly.

0:36:53.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s both. Who would rather eat six fries than zero is the real question. Like let’s say you have, I don’t know how many fries it normally comes with 80, let’s say maybe 100, I have no idea. Nice warm, McDonald’s fries, well salted like that perfect carb to fat ratio, just prime, probably the best fries of all time, some ketchup, maybe if you’re into ketchup up and then you eat six…

0:37:18.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m not a ketchup guy.

0:37:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay. You eat six and you leave the other 94. No one… It’s like the eating one Oreo it’s like…

0:37:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Get out. Yeah.

0:37:30.6 Mike Vacanti: It actually would be…

0:37:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Good luck.

0:37:34.3 Mike Vacanti: On a percentage basis compared to the actual serving size, it’d be like eating a quarter of an Oreo, and then just leaving the rest of the sleeve.

0:37:39.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, exactly right. Silly. No. Silly.

0:37:42.3 Mike Vacanti: A lot of silliness out there on the internet. What else do you see out there on the internet these days?

0:37:45.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how to pronounce this. Or is it called… Is it pronounced erythritol? Erythritol.

0:37:51.2 Mike Vacanti: I think that’s right. I pride myself on not knowing how to pronounce words and then I just say it’s because I read a lot.

0:37:57.3 Jordan Syatt: People say I mispronounce muscle hypertrophy.

0:38:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Hypertrophy.

0:38:00.8 Jordan Syatt: They say it’s hypertrophy. And like…

0:38:03.6 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:38:04.4 Jordan Syatt: I think that’s what they say. It’s hypertrophy.

0:38:07.3 Mike Vacanti: You might…

0:38:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Anyway.

0:38:07.6 Mike Vacanti: You might have an Israeli annunciation on that one.

0:38:12.1 Jordan Syatt: Yes. The muscle…

0:38:12.2 Mike Vacanti: You put the… [chuckle]

0:38:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Hypertrophy. Yes, of course you want the big muscles.

[chuckle]

0:38:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Not the accent but the the emphasis. That’s what the word I’m looking for.

0:38:24.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, the second syllable?

0:38:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:38:26.4 Jordan Syatt: The second syllable. Yeah. Yeah yeah.

0:38:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Hypertrophy.

0:38:28.5 Jordan Syatt: Got it.

0:38:29.2 Mike Vacanti: Hypertrophy.

0:38:29.3 Jordan Syatt: Hypertrophy.

0:38:31.3 Mike Vacanti: Regardless.

0:38:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Hypertrophy. Anyway erythritol had a big thing come out. There was a whole… Did you see this? This is all over social media. You had to see it. Layne made a video on it. Dr. Idz made a video on it.

0:38:41.6 Mike Vacanti: I was on vacation and then I was sick.

0:38:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah yeah, yeah. Basically, a study came out showing that higher levels of erythritol in your blood have a much greater consequence of cardiovascular issues, whether it’s heart attacks whatever it is. And immediately all these people are like, “You shouldn’t have erythritol, you shouldn’t have erythritol blah blah blah blah.” But then Layne and Dr. Idz and a lot of medical professionals came out, Peter Attia they were essentially critiquing the study. They’re like, “There’s a big difference between blood erythritol versus if you are eating it.” And what they were saying is that if someone is likely to have a cardiovascular event, then their levels of erythritol in the blood will increase no matter what. So a lot of these people might have had a lot of erythritol in their blood not because they were eating large portions of it but because they were about to have a cardiovascular event. So they were saying this study didn’t actually measure how much erythritol people were eating which is a huge flaw in the study.

0:39:55.4 Jordan Syatt: It was just solely measuring how much erythritol was found in the blood. And then they said and these people were also significantly, like significantly more likely to have a cardiovascular event. And then Layne and Dr. Idz and Peter Attia and all these people they’re just like, “Well of course that is gonna happen because that’s what happens before someone does have a cardiovascular event but that doesn’t mean that it came from them eating it. It just means that’s a natural physiological response when you’re about to have a cardiovascular event.” And so basically there are all these other people outside of the science-based fitness industry saying don’t eat erythritol. This is why da da da da da. So this is a big thing in the the fitness industry as of the last week or two.

0:40:36.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s interesting to see because there’s such a plethora of science and different studies and evidence and many of which contradicts each other for many reasons. People just cherry picking science that fits their current beliefs. And then pedestal in their current beliefs in the name of science rather than going into it more objectively and analyzing the study.

0:41:08.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s also this is the issue with having all of this information so easily and readily accessible. I remember when you and I were just getting in the industry, it’s like if someone was gonna cite a study they almost always read the whole study. Very rarely was anyone cherry picking stuff off of PubMed based off the title. It did happen but not nearly as much as it does now. And I think now it happens more because more and more people have access to these headlines and they’re seeing just some random person on TikTok or Instagram show a headline of a research article without actually diving into it. And then they don’t actually have the classical training of a reading research to understand the flaws of the study design, the physiological responses all of that. And then just making this content talking about the headlines rather than really understanding the science. That’s why I think Alan Aragon’s Research Review is the best thing anyone can really subscribe to. Is if you… To not just learn about what he’s saying. I think one of the greatest benefits I got from Alan’s Research Review was learning how to critique research.

0:42:18.6 Jordan Syatt: I was in college when I joined his research review, which I’m still a member of $10 a month and we do not get paid for this. I was in college and I was taking a class on how to read research. They had an entire courses on how to read research, how to analyze studies and how to use PubMed and how to use these different journals and how to sift through them and how to search and how to read all of that. And that was one of the only classes in college that I just aced. And it was nothing to do with what I learned in the class and everything to do with how I learned from Alan’s Research Review. Everything. Just seeing him break down studies and seeing how he understood how to read the research, how to critique the research, the pros, the cons all that. It was just seeing him do it over and over and over again taught me how to read research. It was not what I learned in school. And in school I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for and Alan Aragon’s Research Review it’s $10 a month. It was like, Jesus, this is just so much better.

0:43:23.8 Mike Vacanti: The internet’s amazing.

0:43:25.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:27.0 Mike Vacanti: I was about to go on a little anti-science rant… But after you saying all those nice things about Alan’s Research Review [chuckle] I’m gonna save that…

0:43:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Well go on an anti-science rant. We could do both.

0:43:37.5 Mike Vacanti: I just this… And this is nothing to do… I actually think Alan brings the perfect amount of science to his positions. The pendulum seems to have swung too sciency in terms of training optimization, in terms of exercise selection rep range intensity. Like everything being very, very measured versus… And less of the classic 1970s Arnold intuition based, not just approach to training but approach to life, right? Like go to bed at 8:37 PM and wake up nine minutes before sunrise and get 19 minutes of sunlight directly on your retina at a 15 degree angle at this exact time. And don’t drink your coffee until 76 minutes before you or after you wake up. And then you only have this much, everything is becoming so measured to a fault. And I think that many people myself included could benefit from just trusting your gut and acting from that position more than this hyper analysis which can lead to a paralysis via analysis and just get out there and live rather than overanalyze everything.

0:45:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Could not agree more. And it’s funny, that’s not anti-science. I think real science points to more than anything is just putting in the work. If you do the work regardless of what order you do it in, regardless of what time you do it at, regardless of any… Just if you do it consistently we see the results are essentially the same. And that’s really it, regardless of the line of pull. Or if you’re doing 11 reps or 12 and a half reps or you’re doing this, just fucking work. And as long as you do the work it’s gonna work out. But most people, they just don’t do the work. And I actually think a lot of people… I was talking about this with some people during the event that I was speaking at, there was this one woman who came up to me in particular and she was like, “I’ve been a coach for a number of years, not like 10 years, probably three or four.” And and she’s like, “I’ve learned so much.” And she was telling me all the certifications that she has and all of the books that she’s read. And I could tell just from talking to her she’s incredibly smart. When you’re talking to a coach who really is worth their salt, you can tell within 15 seconds that they actually know what they’re talking about.

0:46:16.2 Jordan Syatt: This woman was incredibly smart and I knew she had invested a ton of time and effort into learning and studying. And she was saying she has this feeling of guilt now that she should still be learning. And she’s not sure at what point she should stop learning and start implementing or essentially stop consuming content and start creating her own content type of thing. And I told her it’s not black and white. It’s not like you have to stop learning but right now a 100% of your time is spent learning. What if you drop it to 50% of your time studying and then 50% of your time is spent creating and then eventually maybe 30% is spent learning and 70% is spent creating. It’s not either or. But after a certain point, no matter how much science you know, no matter all… It’s like you’ve gotta… If you really want to implement this you’ve gotta start teaching people. And I think a lot of people use science or studying essentially as a crutch that prevents them from ever progressing. And I know some people do this with college, and some would do this with higher level education where they’re so nervous to go out into the real world that they just keep looking for more degrees because they’re so comfortable in that education world that once they would leave the education world it becomes very scary and overwhelming and they don’t know what to do.

0:47:35.3 Jordan Syatt: They’re no longer getting a latter grade. So they don’t know how to exceed or succeed, excel in life outside of that controlled environment. So they just keep falling back into that habit of I’ll just learn more, I’ll learn more, I’ll learn more. Which is great but after a certain point it’s you’ve gotta implement, you’ve gotta do stuff. You’ve gotta put stuff out there.

0:47:56.2 Mike Vacanti: Implement and then realize that… And people don’t realize this that you’re gonna continue to learn while you’re doing. Even separate from the studying. Even when you go from a 100% studying and zero doing to 50/50, you’re gonna learn through doing. Like here, I’ll give you an analogy. The analogy king, you can rate this one to 10.

[chuckle]

0:48:14.7 Mike Vacanti: You could sit there and read about how to swim. You could read a thousand books and watch a thousand YouTube videos and study the great swimmers. But until you get in the pool, you’re not gonna learn how to swim.

0:48:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I love that.

0:48:31.0 Mike Vacanti: Seven, seven? Yeah, you didn’t like it that much. Six and a half.

0:48:33.7 Jordan Syatt: Well what I’ll say is I think because…

0:48:35.0 Mike Vacanti: I need… I’d like a number please.

0:48:39.1 Jordan Syatt: What I… Seven. I’ll give you a seven to that one. The reason that I’m gonna add to it is just because this woman and many coaches they’re in a position where they want to coach people and they want to help people. So in this analogy she knows how to swim but she doesn’t know how to teach swimming. So she can watch YouTube videos on how to teach the breaststroke and how to teach the freestyle and the backstroke. I don’t know the swimming stuff but she can watch all these and read all these on coaching and manuals and the science but the only way she’s gonna learn how to coach someone how to swim is to get in the fucking pool and start teaching them how to swim. And then she’s gonna work with one one person and then 10 people and 20 people and 100 people. And ideally your hundredth student you’ll teach way faster than your first student. And because you’ll have more knowledge but it only comes from getting in the pool and teaching. It’s like you have to actually practice the skill of teaching not just the skill of learning.

0:49:42.1 Mike Vacanti: I think it was a nine out of 10 to be honest but we’ll press on.

0:49:45.0 Jordan Syatt: We’ll call it eight. Call it in the middle. [laughter]

0:49:49.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think so. I’m gonna give it a nine.

[laughter]

0:49:53.8 Mike Vacanti: Please leave us a review for this podcast. It’s gonna help us reach more people. Five star review would be much much much appreciated. Spotify, Apple, thumbs up on YouTube. We don’t have sponsors, we don’t have advertisements, we don’t have pre-rolls. We don’t have any of that nonsense to waste your time. We’re just bringing you weekly free content, Tuesday mornings, all week, every week 2023 and beyond. Love you, have a great day. We’ll see you soon.

0:50:21.2 Jordan Syatt: And we don’t have DMers either.

0:50:23.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah there’s no cold DMers.

0:50:26.1 Jordan Syatt: No one’s DMing you, no cold DMers, right? So five star reviews are amazing. Thumbs up are amazing, comments and written reviews are even better. So if you could do that as well that’d be great. But have a great day. Have a great week. We’ll see you next week. 

0:50:40.3 Mike Vacanti: Bye.