Save Your Gym: Selling During Social Distancing

Jeff Burlingame-BLOG
 

Mike (00:02):

Gyms around the world are shutting down in the coronavirus crisis, forcing owners to quickly implement new strategies. I’m Mike Warkentin and in this episode of Two-Brain Radio, sales expert Jeff Burlingame is here to talk to us about sales. Should you sell right now? If so, what and how? We’re back right after this message from Two-Brain Business. The coronavirus crisis is hitting everyone hard and Two-Brain Business would like to invite gym owners to join the private Facebook group, Gym Owners United. It’s a positive place where people can share ideas and help each other get through this period. We want interaction among actual people, not business accounts. So use your personal account and be sure to answer all the intake questions because you won’t get access if you don’t agree to play nice with everyone else. I’m actually a moderator there and I can tell you that many people are waiting for access because they have not answered the questions. Again, that is Gym Owners United on Facebook. We want to hear real positive comments and help. All right, we’re back Two-Brain Radio. I’m here with certified mentor Jeff Burlingame. We’re going to talk sales during an emergency situation. How are you doing Jeff? How are the clients?

Jeff (01:04):

Doing good, Mike doing good. Clients are hanging in there. They’ve transitioned online. Things are going pretty smoothly right now. So we’re just trying to keep things rolling, keep it novel, keep it fun, keep it engaging most of all and try to mitigate that risk.

Mike (01:18):

Yeah, I mean, I’ve been gym owner for 10 years and this is the craziest period I’ve ever seen. Is it the same thing for you?

Jeff (01:25):

Oh yeah, definitely. I had the conversation with a few mentor clients, you know, well more than a few mentor clients at this point. But overall like the overarching theme seems to be nobody has experienced anything like this in their life, like living on this earth right now, unless they’re over the age of 90, I guess, you know, go back to something like World War II or other crazy things. But you know, I mean, what H1N1 was a couple of years ago, really, it affected more people, but it didn’t have this level of impact, which is crazy to think about.

Mike (02:01):

And without, you know, I’m not going to go off topic too far, but like, I almost wonder sometimes if it’s just social media has really stirred this thing up or what, but panic is sure easier to spread now. You know, before you’d have to read it on a newspaper, hear it on the radio or something like that. Panic now is like 24/7 in your newsfeed. We’ve been trying really hard at Two-Brain here to stop the panic by giving you tactical stuff to do things, actual data, tested things, all the stuff that you can do to do your best in this situation. It is a tough time, but we’re going to help you and we’re going to give you some stuff you can do today. So right off the bat, Jeff, I’m gonna ask you the hard question. I know there are some people out there, I’ve seen them on ads. People posting, people get a little upset here and there. They’re saying, Oh, you shouldn’t be selling right now. It’s a crisis. So here’s what I’ll ask you right now, is there something wrong with selling a service right now?

Jeff (02:45):

If you are not gouging the industry and you are not selling with malevolent intent, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with selling because the world still has to run, and the world runs, you know, maybe unfortunately in your eyes, but it runs on money. So, we need to sell because we really have to do something with this economy. It’s going to tank if we don’t sell something, that’s, you know, you’re perpetuating the issue if you’re saying stop selling, and if you are looking at people right now giving away stuff for free and you think that they’re not actually selling, then you’re blind because they are. Like anybody giving anything away right now for free is 100% getting lead information and they’re going to sell to you. So nothing right now is going out the door just for free and like no strings attached. So don’t be surprised when you start getting sales emails from those companies.

Mike (03:44):

The reality of the, like you said is, is the world, the economy is a thing, right? And if the airline industry goes down, all of a sudden there’s fuel costs, there’s baggage handlers, there is the people at the airplane and there’s the guy at the fast food restaurant. The guy who tells you not to stop your car in front of the airplane or the airport. It’s this trickle down effect. And that all goes down to like luxury spending, spending on services, spending on goods spending and then that’s manufacturing, so it’s this whole intertwined thing. And the reality is that in the fitness industry, I mean five years ago, something like that, people would be surprised to think that we could push a fitness business online perhaps. And I know maybe in Los Angeles and some of the trendy places, that stuff was happening sooner, but online training’s now a thing, right? Like it’s starting to happen more and more. Chris Cooper on Two-Brain Radio a little while ago, interviewed author Allison Schrager and she works with a personal trainer she’s never met. They just work online. And you started as personal trainer, correct. Just face to face grinding?

Jeff (04:39):

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike (04:40):

Did you ever think that service could be, could be put online?

Jeff (04:45):

Probably not at the time. I mean, I started training in 2007, was like when I had my first PT clients, so probably no clue. Like the internet wasn’t at, you know, where it is today. It wasn’t something that was really reasonable, but now it’s a thing like now, us moving this thing online. It’s not like we are, you know, exploring brand new territory and trying to like figure this thing out. We’re not groundbreaking. This is just something that we’ve had access to and there are plenty of apps that have existed for long enough now that they’re vetted out, that they’ve gone through transitions, that they’ve grown and that they work really well. Not to really name any cause there’s so many out there and it’s kind of up to you which one you decide to go with.

Jeff (05:32):

But they’ve existed for a while now. I mean, they’ve existed since I opened my affiliate in 2014 and I tried using them. We just never like really went after it because we were brick and mortar businesses, right? So we focused on the physical location to our detriment we now find out, but it’s cool to be exploring this territory now and moving into it. And it’s something that what most people I think are missing right now is that it’s highly valuable. You know, just because you’re moving your coaching online doesn’t mean that it’s worth less. It’s probably actually worth more because it’s more convenient, it’s more accessible, and you can still apply a very good personal touch to it. And I think a lot of people miss that too. They’re just saying like, you know, just making it rain workouts. Like here’s 57 workouts you can do at home with just your body weight.

Jeff (06:27):

Check it out. If you think anybody’s going to like be accountable to doing all 57 of those workouts, that’s absurd. If you want them to do the workouts and get results, you put out one workout a day and then you follow up with them personally and you apply the same coaching tactics you did in person in your gym. You modify their workout, call them, talk to them for two to five minutes and ask them how they’re doing, what they’re eating, if they’re doing the workout today and if they need to modify any movements and help them do that via coach and hold them accountable. That’s really like where that value is at and that’s a huge value add that people can apply to this program and keep people happy.

Mike (07:06):

Well that’s really what it comes down to is there, you know, and I’m talking as a gym owner here, there are people right now who really badly want to work out and they don’t have gyms. Their gym has been shut down either voluntarily or mandatorily and they want to train. And we, our gym is not open to at present at the date of recording here. But our clients really want something to do. I know that some of the larger chain gyms are just shut down completely and they don’t have personal contact really with their clients other than like, you know, they swipe their way in or whatever. There’s just, they have nothing to do. So people are, there are people out there who know that health is a buffer against disease, it’s your best chance to survive anything from a car accident to a disease.

Mike (07:45):

They want to work out, they want to train, they want to build a momentum. They want to accomplish their goals, not because they, you know, cause they know they’re hoping the end of the world isn’t coming and it probably isn’t. But like, they still want a PR deadlift. They still want to run that marathon. They still want to do stuff. They still want to play with their grandkids. You know, my contention for someone who says selling is a bad thing right now, I think you’re still helping. We’ve talked about this before on this podcast. You are helping people accomplish the things they want to and if someone has the budget and wants to train right now, I think you’re doing them disservice by saying, I’m not going to figure out how to do it. What do you think of that?

Jeff (08:15):

Yeah, I mean, 100%. There’s enough spewed free workouts out there right now that they could grab on and try and do, but then they’re back to square one. I mean, that existed before this whole crisis dropped. I mean, it’s not like there’s ever been an absence of free workouts on the internet. The problem is there’s no accountability to keep you doing those workouts and they are figuring it out on their own so they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re not moving well, they get injured and then what do they do? They just say, Oh, exercise isn’t for me. So, yeah, you’re not helping if you’re just throwing free workouts out there. You need to apply that level of care to modify the movements for them, to monitor their movements. Maybe get them on video like we’re doing right now on Zoom for example. And work through that with them.

Jeff (09:04):

Maybe apply that one-on-one touch to it. You can absolutely do personal training on Zoom. It’s a thing that’s existed for a little while now and people pay a lot of money for it too, so it’s highly valuable. But yeah, there’s nothing wrong with selling that because at this point, people need guidance. They need some reassurance. These are scary times, you know, and you can lead them in more ways than one. I mean, you can lead your communities right now if you’re a gym owner, by, you know, giving them some guidance on this, like, this is something you can do. They’re bored, they’re lost, they’re at home. And what do you do when you’re bored, lost and stressed? You’re going to eat like crap. You’re not going to work out. You’re going to drink alcohol and you’re just going to get out of shape for two to four weeks or some indefinite timeframe, whatever this is that this takes, that we don’t, unfortunately, we don’t know how long this is going to take. So really, yeah, you are solving a big problem for them. You are providing that guidance and there’s a lot of value to that. And there’s no way that you have the capacity to give that away for free for a week or two weeks or four weeks or however long this takes. And there’s nothing wrong with, you know, knowing that the service you’re providing is valuable and charging for it.

Mike (10:24):

Well, and you make an interesting point too, when you mentioned accountability. There are a lot of people that are working from home right now and you know, I’ve worked from home for a decade. You’re working from home right now. We don’t, there’s no pants on this podcast right now. I can tell you that, the whole, but like it’s something that we’ve, you know, it takes a certain mentality to work from home because literally all your toys are here, you know, your recliner’s over there, your TV’s there, you’ve got the video game console, you can go shred on guitar, whatever you want. It takes a certain mentality to work from home and to start doing things. And one of the things that a gym provides is that accountability. If I signed into class, someone is checking in on me, if I don’t show up, they’re still going to charge me, they’re going to contact me.

Mike (11:02):

The good gyms will at least. That accountability and that personal relationship is huge. So you’ve got clients at home right now and they’re like, they don’t know what to do and they’re just drinking their faces off and eating the Doritos, you can actually help these people not fall off track, not become more susceptible to, you know, anything that’s going to come at them by just giving them accountability. That’s a huge aspect and I think a lot of people miss, is like it’s not the programming like you said, like crossfit.com has what like almost 20 years of workouts now. Like I don’t know what the math of 20 times 365 is, but then multiply that by 13,000 gyms that are cranking out a workout a day. Like the programming is not the secret, that’s out there. It’s the accountability and the relationships and that’s honestly why Two-Brain is talking in this crisis, not about throwing workouts at people and not even about running Zoom classes but getting your trainers to connect with your clients.

Mike (11:52):

Like you just said. This workout, Tom, is designed for you and I know you don’t have a ton of heavy stuff at home right now but we’re going to lift really slowly the heaviest thing you can for, you know, five or seven reps, try to build strength cause I know you have a powerlifting meet that you want to do in the next year, right? That is going to be more important than some of the other stuff that’s going on. So the answer here that we’re discovering is, you know, selling not wrong right now and we’ve touched on what they can sell. But you know, Jeff, what is obviously in this situation here, we can’t open gyms, we can’t go to gyms. What are our sales options? What can we do? What can we sell people?

Jeff (12:29):

Yes. I mean at this point you’re talking about selling purely your online service. So we don’t recommend that you price it the same way as you would, you know, your normal in-person classes at the physical location. But it’s not cheaper either. Let me just clarify that point. There should be a tiered approach to this and it’s something that we lay out for our growth clients. Something that was amazingly put together by Josh Grinnell, who’s on our team and did an awesome job with it. So if it’s something you want to learn about, you know, join us, come check us out, do the Incubator, which we are still offering and selling right now.

Mike (13:06):

People are signing up because they need help.

Jeff (13:08):

Same as same as your members. You want some guidance, you want some reassurance in this uncertain time. I get it. And I’ve been on enough calls with people dealing with just talking about how to survive coronavirus right now that it’s kind of ingrained in me and I’ve shed some tears and tried to pull some people out of some holes, man. And it’s been, it’s been crazy. But yeah, for online training we price a little bit differently. You should have a couple of tiers to approach to this where you have like a bottom tier approach which probably matches price wise close to what you’re charging for your normal membership. But it is going to involve, you know, far less engagement, far less one to one approach to it. And then you might have a top tier option that’s all one-to-one. It’s just you and this person, custom programming, nutrition plan, all of that. And you communicate via Zoom.

Jeff (14:03):

So basically you come up with a few of those options, you price them accordingly and then you would be selling that right now with the option to transition to your physical location when you open back up or to stay on the online route. I just got off the phone with a another gym owner who’s actually in Michigan with me, she owns Spartan CrossFit and we were talking about going to people that had not joined her gym before because they were too busy. And it was like, this is actually the best time to go talk to them because this is a service you never offered that you’re now going to offer because you’ve been forced to do so. Your hand has been dealt. But now that you’ve got it, go talk to them and get them signed up on this. So talk about that online program and she’s going to go give them a call.

Mike (14:48):

I had a client say the same thing. We’ve started doing some online stuff, and he’s like, dude, you should continue doing this after the fact so I can get one more workout in a week and it’s like, Hey, wow, I should’ve thought of that before. And he saw it right away, I should’ve put that guy on the payroll. And then the other thing of course is, gyms that are running online stuff already, like nutrition programs and things like that that don’t necessarily have, you know, you could easily move a nutrition consultation to the phone or online. I mean, you can’t do an InBody scan, but you can still have a client report weight and things like that. So I would guess if a gym is set up to run nutrition programs or things that don’t involve on site stuff, that’s probably going to be an option too, correct?

Jeff (15:25):

Yeah. So a lot of those services are no change. Like nutrition for us was no change. The only difference is we’re not physically right in front of each other. We’re just talking on Zoom. Personal training. Also the same. Kind of weird to get used to, but it’s literally the same thing. So I’ve had a few of my mentees like send me videos of them doing it right now, but like, they’re on Zoom, clients like in frame doing some box step-ups and like you see the picture of their face going like, yeah. And you know, then you obviously apply your personal touch as a coach and you’re going to modify movements. You’re not just a cheerleader, you’re still going to give them a great experience. The only difference is there’s a screen between the two of you. That’s it. So again, like this isn’t a devalued service.

Jeff (16:10):

This is a highly valued service and you’re still accomplishing the same results. There’s no reason to charge less for it or to just give it away for free indefinitely. Like I get right now what we talk about with a lot of people in Two-Brain is like, roll this into their normal fees that they’re paying on a monthly basis, the part of supporting your local small businesses and keeping your doors open. But you’re going to give them a service that’s valued at say $299 for what they’re already paying if that’s say, $150, with the understanding that the moment your physical doors open again, if they want to continue that service, they pay the additional fees.

Mike (16:50):

So if you’re wondering how you can do this stuff, we have a free guide for you and it’s called How to Add Online Training in 24 Hours. We put this together to help gym owners do this because we know a lot of people are struggling and you can sell online training, you can pivot clients to that service. We’ll tell you how to do this in 24 hours and you can find this thing in Gym Owners United. Again, you have to sign up for that group and you have to answer the intake questions. Once you’re in there, you’ll go to the left side, you’re gonna go to files and you’ll find it in there. It is again, How to Add Online Training in 24 Hours. Gym Owners United on Facebook. Jeff, the next question, this is for aggressive people out there. You know, people see stocks plummeting and they’re like, man, maybe I should buy, would you run an ad right now?

Jeff (17:37):

Actually I would, and I’m not quite a marketing expert here, so we’ll take this at face value, but my good buddy Callum has told me that engagement ads are kicking butt right now.

Mike (17:52):

What’s an engagement ad for people who don’t know what that is?

Jeff (17:54):

Yeah. So if we run an ad with the intent of just engaging people with your brand, what we’re looking to do is we’re looking to increase your visibility, and I’ll give you this from a perspective of like a social media channel. You want to get more fans right now. You have potential leads if you run an engagement ad for your local area or you drop a pin or you do specific zip codes, you’re getting the attention you need right now. They might not be in a buying mode and we understand that, we’re still going to sell, but they might not be ready to buy.

Jeff (18:26):

And that’s OK. What would be good right now, what would be worth your marketing dollars is getting them to get their eyes on you and then the moment this clears up, you’re ready to open rapidly and you can go right back to a conversion based ad and start getting them to come in and buy. But we’re gaining the fans, we’re getting the leads right now. If you guys aren’t pumping out content right this second, you need to also do that. Like organically I would be creating more videos or writing more blogs, doing more things. I mean what else are you going to do? Really, you’re not coaching classes, let’s do this guys, but create some content, get in front of people, gain some fans, gain some subscribers, some likes and followers, whatever, and then we can start throwing in a call to action, which would be where the selling part comes in, to lead them to your new online service offering via like a no sweat intro or however you want to do that.

Jeff (19:21):

We recommend a no sweat intro via Zoom at this point, social distancing and all, but it’s literally the same process. Like, I wouldn’t change a single thing on my no sweat intro except for, you know, Mike and I were talking about this before we got on, not having inappropriate backgrounds, right. And not having—remember that newscaster, there was like a BBC interview and like his kid comes running into the room, picks up some stuff and screams and runs around. Yeah. You don’t want that either. So you just want like a clear quiet space. Like I soundproofed this office I’m in right now. So this is where I take all my mentor calls, doors locked, nobody bothers me. And I have this beautiful brick backdrop, right? So just put like a nice clean, clear area. Ideally good lighting. I have like a desk lamp with some good lighting so you can see my face and I’m not like in shadows or something creepy.

Jeff (20:12):

So you can take some approaches like that. You don’t need an insanely fancy mic like either of us have. You don’t need special headphones or anything like that. You can just use your computer with regular input output, audio hardware, just preferably clean, clear space, quiet, better lighting, do the NSI the exact same way you normally would.

Mike (20:35):

The thing that I’ll add to that is I think what you can do is don’t assume that clients understand what a Zoom call is or they understand how an online meeting goes right now. You’re going to want to be able to walk them through the simplest possible way. If someone books a No-Sweat Intro you want to make it as easy as possible for them to get to that thing, quote unquote, whether they’re traveling or coming to your online meeting room. Be prepared to tell them exactly in the simplest steps that you can, exactly how it’s going to work. And I’ve walked some of our clients through this already because we are going to try running some Zoom classes and seeing what happens. And a lot of them are saying, OK, how do I do this? What do I do? Where do I download this app? Some are very tech savvy and they’ve already got the thing wired into a, you know, 80 inch TV and they’re good to go with surround sound. But then some of the other guys are like, I’m not super sure about apps and stuff. And you’re like, OK, we can absolutely walk you through it, but you should be prepared for that because the more, I mean, Amazon isn’t 16-click advertising, right? It’s like you don’t want to put all these different steps behind people. So the easier you can make it go, get them on there. So if someone’s like, if you’re on problem Zoom, I’m guessing face to face is better, but if you’re going to fumble with technology and download an app and stuff, maybe just get ’em on the phone. Jeff, what do you think?

Jeff (21:44):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, selling over the phone is something that’s existed for a very, very long time. So, I mean it’s nothing new, but we would follow the same kind of like lead funneling process that we normally would and we’ll just say like, you know, try to shoot for the Zoom because here’s the main difference that I’ve had to explain to a few mentees this week is there are, in person, there are some I guess imperceptible differences than over the Zoom versus over the phone. So if we layer this three different ways, like, you know, socially in person, I can see all of you and I can perceive signals that you send to me. Like right now you can see only part of me, so you can’t get the whole image in your head. And then like this big mic is like in the way of half the screen so you don’t get, you know, the same body language delivery or even the same or like voice inflection, different things like that.

Jeff (22:53):

And these are things that actually work in your favor if you do it properly. When it comes to sales psychology, you can build trust with better body language, with things like eye contact, with voice inflection, with, you know, just maintaining people’s attention. And you sort of lose those things when you hop on Zoom. But at least you have the face to face. So you still see some of me, audio quality is going to be a little better. We have voice inflection. I can look you in the eyes if I look at the camera, you get the idea, but then you move to the phone. It’s just not as ideal. Now all we have working for us is our voice. So you are going to have to be, I’ve been telling people, it’s like being an 11 out of 10, as if you’re coaching on the floor.

Jeff (23:34):

Even on Zoom. So on Zoom, any content you guys make, it’s all the same things. Zoom call’s the same way. You need to be an 11 out of 10. You need to be animated. You need to be active. Don’t be, you know, overly active. If you have a slug on the other end of the line and they’re very, very non-energetic or you know, an Eeyore or something like that, kind of match them. But you need to be energetic and that’s important. And when you go to the phone now your voice is working for you. You need to be as engaging as possible. You need to use voice inflection. So you need to sort of change the pace that you’re talking. And sometimes you increase your octaves a little bit and you know, you just kinda keep moving. So it’s like, it’s like vocal gymnastics. But you know, keep changing things up to keep them engaged and make sure as always with any format of performing a no sweat intro, you need to ask a lot of questions. So do not control the conversation just by making statements, ask questions and follow up with more questions and keep driving down to those very important pieces. Like what do they want, why do they want it? And then we can figure out how online training’s going to achieve that for them.

Mike (24:46):

Let me ask you the last question I’ll ask you here is for people who have never sold online training, have never, never, maybe never taken a call about it. This is the first time they’re offering it. Someone, calls and says, tell me about this online training thing or whatever. How does a gym owner start to build that value and explain what this thing is and why it would benefit someone? And we’re talking to someone who doesn’t have a gym, kind of feels screwed over it, doesn’t have, maybe equipment knows he or she needs to workout and has just called the gym and said, online training. Is that a thing? How do we start this conversation and build value?

Jeff (25:20):

Yeah, absolutely. So, in the gym owner’s mind, your mindset has to be that this is the exact same thing as what you sell in your gym. It’s the exact same thing because all we’re doing is selling results. So the big difference, how you make the big difference in people’s lives right now is you determine what their problem is and then you provide your solution. Your solution moving online doesn’t change that, right? That’s it. It’s the same thing. But what we’re doing is we’re providing them not only like, here’s this program, right? Because we already discussed that’s not the thing that’s changing them. It’s here’s this accountability. Now, normally they would have to travel to the brick and mortar location to get that accountability from the coach, to get the coaching from the coach, in person. They’re just now going to get it over the phone, text, video, Zoom call, whatever.

Jeff (26:15):

We’re telling a lot of affiliate owners right now, communicate 10 X what you normally do, right? If you feel like you’re over-communicating, you’re probably just barely communicating enough right now. So there’s, you know, in person, if they’re there for an hour, you’re talking to them for 60 straight minutes. I doubt that you’re doing that every day with every person from your gym. It’s just not happening. There’s not enough hours in the day. So to communicate them through as many platforms and provide them as much attention as humanly possible. Creating videos on YouTube, Facebook lives, sending them a text checking in, emails checking in, calling them personally, messaging them, whatever other channels you possibly can. That’s ideal. So, you know, when we moved to selling online training, I just want you to focus on the results you’re going to get them. Like anything else, if I was doing a no sweat intro in my gym, I don’t do a gym tour, I’m not talking about this is CrossFit.

Jeff (27:11):

This is why it’s so great, I’m not talking about it. This is the program we do. This is why it’s so awesome. You know, it’s not about that. Basically I just want to understand their why. This is why they’re here. This is this problem they’re trying to solve and this is why it’s so important to them. And then we’re going to develop trust through our conversation and then I’m going to more or less show them, not tell them what I’m going to do for them. Right. So when it comes to online training, say, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to, you know, wake up. When do you want to work out? I want to work at 8:00 AM. OK, great. You’re going to have a program ready for you in your email inbox. You’re going to open that up. You’re going to check it out, I’m going to call you, and then you’re going to have personalized guidance on how you’re going to do that workout.

Jeff (27:57):

I’m going to help you modify the movements so you can do it. We’re going to work with whatever equipment you have in your household so that you can not have to worry about that. I’m going to take your mind off this thing. I’ve got you covered, right? And you’re going to perform the workout. You’re going to send me your results. We’re going to adjust and modify as we go along to make sure that these workouts are intense. They’re working for you. You’re gonna send me measurements. And then we’re also going to be talking about nutrition. What are you eating, right? And you’re at home. Send me a picture of your pantry, right? Show me the meals you’re doing or that you’re eating and then we can go over that as well. So you’re getting me as your coach at all times. Like that’s what you pay for with online training is that high level of accountability that we can’t provide in a physical location.

Mike (28:42):

When you lay it all like that, and I’m listening here and kind of checking off this stuff you’re offering, it sounds like a more expensive service than coaching someone through a class where they show up, that person shows up and you’re going to give them three touch points in the class, high five at the end and some coaching. I’m not saying that’s not valuable because in that location you providing a lot of stuff and you are providing motivation and atmosphere and facilities and all this equipment, but when you’re talking about the approach that you’re giving, like how many, I guess the example is how many CrossFit coaches or functional fitness coaches are texting each client who’s in the class after the class? Probably not that many, but in online training that is like the heart and soul, I’m guessing.

Jeff (29:22):

Yeah, that’s 100% that. You’re right, it is. If you hear it that way, if you just lay it out yourself that way and go through what this person’s actually getting, of course it’s highly valuable. Of course it’s more valuable, like you should be charging more than you do for your normal membership because that person’s attention is divided by how many participants are in the class. Right. They will not get the same level of attention. And as I just said, like unless they buy a, you know, nutrition service and then it’s kinda dependent on how often the nutrition coach communicates with them, like it’s just not going to get as personal as online can get just because now, which I mean you guys are on social media, you’re on your phones. Like if you’re not on your phone, good for you. I’d be surprised. But like we’re all kind of listening to this on their phone with the podcast.

Jeff (30:12):

Right, exactly. So it’s like everybody’s on their phone all the time. What if you did something productive with that time every day? And what if that productive thing you did changed somebody’s life?

Mike (30:23):

Trade, you know, you’re just looking at your phone playing Candy Crush or whatever, you get a text that says hey dude, stop playing Candy Crush and do the workout that I just sent you. And you’re like, I actually, you know, you’d probably do it right? But if nobody sends you that text, you’re like, ah, I got a good game going here. I’m just not going to go to the gym right now. High score man, nobody stops when they’re on a heater.

Jeff (30:45):

We all know Candy Crush saves. You can just get off and go back to it later.

Mike (30:50):

Oh, you ruined it. All right. Gym owners, it is a tough time. We know it. We are trying to provide some information to help you navigate this situation. So there is actionable stuff in this podcast you can do to generate some revenue. Again, we believe it’s not wrong to sell right now if you are helping people. It is wrong to gouge people out of toilet paper at $60 a roll or something like that. But it is not wrong if someone wants to stay fit over the internet and you have the means to do that, you should help that person out. There is nothing wrong with that in our opinion. Thanks for listening. I’m Mike Warkentin with Jeff Burlingame. He is a certified certified Two-Brain business mentor and this is Two-Brain Radio. Please remember to join Gym Owners United on Facebook. Use a personal account, answer the intake questions, and then enjoy some peer support for gym owners just like you. We’re all stronger together. Thanks for tuning in to Two-Brain Radio.

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Did you know gym owners can earn $100,000 a year with no more than 150 clients? We wrote a guide showing you exactly how.