Chris Badgett, Founder and CEO of LifterLMS

Chris is the Founder and CEO of LifterLMS, a platform that makes it easy to create and sell online educational courses and digital coaching programs.

In this episode, Chris talks about traversing the world of entrepreneurship, building a community versus building an audience, lead generation, and developing a results-focused mindset.

***
If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/Itunes. It takes less than 60 seconds, and it helps get our message out to those who need it. We appreciate it!

For links, show notes, and transcripts of episodes, click HERE.

Follow PushPress:
Twitter: twitter.com/pushpressapp 
Instagram: instagram.com/pushpress
Facebook: facebook.com/pushpress

Transcript

spk_1:   0:00
What's up, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Gym OS podcast where we're working on making fitness professionals business professionals. Boy, did I actually hear We got to start over. Welcome to the Gym OS podcast. Helping fitness professionals become better business owners One

spk_0:   0:20
episode at a time. What's

spk_1:   0:31
up, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the next episode of the Gym OS podcast. Working hard to make business professionals out of fitness professionals. In today's episode, we've got the CEO of lifter L A mess as a back story. I belong to a software CEO community. Have a mentor, and there's a whole bunch of CEOs that I meet in other fields. And what kind of prompted this podcast was I realized that all these problems that these software CEOs are trying to solve in their own respective industries and businesses are almost identical to your business as a gym. And as I was listening to all these CEOs talk about the things that they're doing in their businesses toe to make things better, I realized at one point that I could I could bring these ideas to you guys and repackage them for your gym. And today is one of the first times we're actually gonna do that with Chris Badgett. Um, he's the CEO of lifter L. A mess, which is a It's like a WordPress plug in that allows you to sell educational courses via WordPress. And you're in your WordPress blogged. Um, how is that relevant to you? Is a gym you're not. You're not an educator. Well, there's There's a few a few really distinct crossover points that I thought were interesting. One. Chris kind of comes from an educational background. The people on his system are all educators and their content creators. And in some ways, if you think about yourself as a coach or or your coaches in your gym, they are to their educators. They're working on educating. You're not only just selling, finish your working on the education of the body of how, how how to move of what people can do, of exploring their limits of so many things that you're working on education. So there's there's an aspect that over late there another aspect that over laid is part of the education community, and this learning community, which is what you're building in her gym, is a learning community is that community. So he has some some distinct experience in building community around the concept of learning, which is what you guys are doing in your Jim's. Um, and the third thing that was kind of cool is in in his exploration process of what he was doing. He's worked on something that has never been. I've never described in these terms. But once he kind of laid it out this way, it made total sense. Is thes business sales models of Do it yourself, done with you and done for you. We're gonna dive into that in the episode. But what that basically is is do yourself would be like open gym. Done with You would be like group classes and done for you would be private training in our world. And if you can figure out howto build all three of those models and your gym, you just potentially tripled your revenue. Your your revenue streams. Andi, I thought that was super interesting topic to dive into which we do today. So without further ado, let's jump right into Chris Badgett, CEO of Lifter l. A mess and we're live. Thank you guys for coming back to the gym OS podcast from Push Press. This is Dan Wimmer again the CEO of Push Press. Your host here where every week we're talking about the business of fitness today I got with us, gentlemen, I've met through a sass academy group, and that's basically this mastermind slash mentoring group that I belong to in order to become a better sass CEO. Um, as you know, one of one of the concepts of this podcast is to bring to you some of the bigger concepts of business from from the business world into your gym. So you can learn from people who have been working on big problems and applying them into your gym. So, um, Chris badge, it is the CEO of lifter L. A mess. That's a platform for creating online courses and digital coaching programs. We're gonna dive into that more later because it's pretty interesting, because it's actually a tool you guys could use thio run courses or some online training stuff at your gym, so we'll let him kind of speak to that later on. Um, but for now, Chris, why don't you give us a quick overview of your system in and your experience being a CEO in the space.

spk_0:   4:31
That's awesome. Well, I think a lot of gym owners can relate. I had this same issue where I was actually a course creator myself. It wasn't entrepreneur, so it was like a subject matter expert. I taught around things like gardening and cooking. Actually, those were my first online courses. And then I became an entrepreneur, and I had Thio figure all this stuff out. Ultimately, all the tools I was finding to build online courses and training based membership sites on a Wordpress website, which is kind of my area of skills that I developed. There wasn't really great options when did a building that over time, and that's where lifter old mess came from. But I'm super excited to be here and try to add as much values I can to the gym owners out there because I know what it's like to be a new entrepreneur who's really passionate about what you do day today.

spk_1:   5:23
Yeah, that's super cool and relevant background. Um, one of the things we see with gym owners. A lot of them become what I call accidental business owners because they're super passionate about fitness and helping their communities and their friends fine fitness. And yet then they realize once they opened a gym, they become a business owner. And there's all these things they have to worry about. And I would assume with Lifter Alla mess you since you're dealing with a bunch of subject matter experts, which are what basically gym owners are in fitness. You're probably doing with same thing a bunch of people who are super passionate about gardening, cooking or whatever whatever it might be. And then they have to learn the ins and outs of business after the fact that

spk_0:   6:00
total destruction, Yeah, like learning, is a horizontal market. It's in all kinds of niches and people that actually come from who are teaching about entrepreneurship and marketing and online business and things. They have a easier because they already know sort of know the industry a little bit and how to operate. But if somebody's coming in is like artists or a fitness professional or a relationship coach or something like that, they gotta figure out this whole world of entrepreneurship and there's a lot to learn. I actually have a framework I teach called the five hats. I called the five hats problem, and the way I frame that is is to be a successful course creator. You have to wear five hats. You have to be an expert, a teacher, a community builder, a technologist and an entrepreneur. And that's really, really hard to be all five people at once. So it's Ah, it's just a knish. You a lot has to come together or you have to build a team of people with these different cell skill says to really be successful.

spk_1:   7:00
Can you Can you repeat those five again for me and for our listeners, in case they were right by them?

spk_0:   7:05
Yeah, the first is that being an expert, that's its whole thing, like really going out there and stepping up as like planting my flag. I'm gonna be a leader. I'm gonna lead by example, and I'm gonna help others achieve the results that I got for myself. That's what experts do, and there's a lot of issues that come with becoming an expert and and taking on that role. The next thing you have to do is you have to be, ah, teacher, which means you have to design programs you have to be able to communicate effectively and transfer concepts and get those concepts into action in your learners. So that's being a teacher. Number two Number three is being a community builder. That's both before the sale and after the sale. The fourth is being a technologist. So this is like putting up the WORDPRESS website, you know, building the email list and building marketing automation and things like that. And then the fifth thing is being an entrepreneur. So you've got to set up a business. You gotta do bank accounts. You got taxes. You got to do marketing. You've got to build a team. You got to be an innovator. So those are the five hats,

spk_1:   8:12
bro. I'm going to steal this because this is exactly in line with ah lot of the stuff we're working on in terms of our educational. Siri's over here, um, to relate this directly back to the gym owner expert and the teacher or what We want them to be actually the community builder to write those air. The three hats that they should be wearing. Expert, They're gonna walk into the gym already being teacher. We're gonna work with them on teaching them how to design programs, communicate and get your concepts across. But generally, a lot of Marty have that in their tool belt. Community builder. Um, some gyms need help with that. Some gyms don't but that's again something that only they can d'oh! And then technologists. That's where Push press comes in. And entrepreneurs, where we're trying to teach them how to be better business owners and educate them on some of the stuff they might not even know is coming down the pipe. But that's awesome. You are. You worried that that way, Um, let's actually dive into this community aspect. It's one of the main reasons I was super excited to have you on, because that's what you do. It's something big that you do with your business in a lot of these boutiques, gyms that that we serve community. Is this the center point, the crux of their product? And I don't think so for push press. Um, one of the biggest center points of our product is our support, and I'm going to relate that to in the gym. The product is the community, and when people join push breast, they don't know their that eventually it's the support that's key. And when people join a gym, I don't think people understand the community is key. Um, how do you feel about building community? Is that is that an important aspect in your business and your clients is business? And how did they go about building that community?

spk_0:   9:49
It's what probably one of the most important hats, if not the most important hat, because community is actually what makes us human. And if we look at something like fitness, which is very similar to learning in the sense that ah, think back in your life, too, when you got a really incredible fitness result, um, or had a really profound learning experience. In my case, you, you were often are alone. Um, there's like a social element like, Oh, there we were this group of people we were training to become Navy seals or do whatever it WAAS do become CrossFit athletes or run my first obstacle course race. There's the social part of learning, and training is literally part of what makes us human. And there's a reason why people exceptional athletes are not operating alone there. Inside teams, they have coaches and they have. There's like a community aspect to it, so it's super important. And one of the things I like to frame in for people is if you do a lot of online marketing or start getting in the sales and marketing, start hearing about the email list and building the audience, and I'd like to really differentiate. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way, but I like to differentiate the idea of building an audience from building a community. When you say, If you just take the word audience out of your language and use the word community instead, you are. This is a more powerful thing than just names or on an email list. Or, um, you know, people who have subscribed to your Jim plans interactive members like members or community, which one holds more way. It's super important, and there's lots of different ways to do it before, during and after a sale that, when done intentionally, can really amplify your results. Is an entrepreneur in and operator

spk_1:   11:48
that's huge. That is so huge. And I like the word that you said intentionally, because over and over in these podcasts, as people are listening. They're going to hear me talk about manufacturing experience or manufacturing results. And when you do things intentionally, that's what you're doing. You're manufacturing the outcome you want. And I also talked before about just the power and the intention of words. And like you said, if you change audience for community, if you say a building community in my marketing messages, not building an audience, it's gonna change how you deliver all your content. And, yes, a community is huge because you you have people as instant. I picture an audience is someone I'm talking to in a community or people I'm working with, and that's a huge differentiator. I love it.

spk_0:   12:31
That's a great weight. Oh, let words have power. And what you said right there about talking at versus engaging with is it completes a completely different feel to it,

spk_1:   12:41
right? Yeah, and and so, if you're listening this in your gym, I mean, we talk about core values and we talk about setting intention and manufacturing results. Building the word community into everything you do probably is something you should jot down right now and start thinking about after this podcast. Cool. So, um, one thing in the community building process as we were talking before this call that that you do that I thought was great. That could be done in gyms is you've you've created a You've carved out a segment of your product that enables people to participate in this weekly virtual mastermind call now and the gym. It might be different because I am. I not be virtual. And depending on the circumstances, you know, the community that can come is different. Can you describe your virtual mastermind call that you've done why you set it up, how it works and maybe how a gym owner can spend this to be a benefit to community building in there. Jim.

spk_0:   13:36
Totally. The quick story is it's called the Lifter Elements Office Hours mastermind, and I tell the story about how I accidentally started a mastermind. Essentially, I was pre selling a product that didn't exist yet, and I needed to put something in there that people who bought it, who did the preorders could get a benefit right away. So I created a weekly one hour. Um, I'll ask me anything virtual office hour that people could come, too if they purchased this highest level plan of products that didn't even exist yet. So that's how it started. And over time I've been running that for about three years now, every week. And there's people in there who come to almost every single, um, one of the calls, and I've seen people for business partnerships in there. I've seen people move to be closer to another person in there because they became such good friends and colleagues. I've seen people hire each other inside there and all kinds of stuff. So that's what I mean by accidentally started a mastermind. And what I realized is, at first I just kind of positioned as on the, you know, on the guy on the guru on the expert. Come and ask me anything and I'll help you to the best of my ability. That's what I thought I made. But what I saw was the people that came in. We're kind of like power users of myself where they had their own unique experience, life, experience and skills, and could add value as well when somebody voiced a topic or area of problem or opportunity that they want to work on on the call So it kind of evolved into this mastermind, and what I realized is a software company which I think you could probably relate to as a gym owner is I'm not. I see myself is kind of in the course creator, coach success business. Not. I just happen to sell software if I also provide, like community and training and these other benefits that all supports my customers success. So even if your main product is, you know, the gym equipment and the workout programs and the personal trainers and all that stuff, there's all these other value ads, like community that you might be able to add in to help your people get more results, which is also gonna help you with your membership retention and just overall customer satisfaction.

spk_1:   16:12
Yeah, yeah, if you wantto really dive like deeper into that concept and and I do think a lot of gyms have kind of figured this out, but I don't think they figured it like really thought it through. It's just been, like, you said, an accidental byproduct of what's happening. Um, I relate a lot of these gyms to churches in that people come there for my blessing instead of spirituality to come there for physicality. But they end up meeting friends. They end up connecting with each other, maybe finding someone to date, they end up doing business deals with each other. I have seen all the time in these gyms like, Hey, I'm having a wedding. Does anyone know a florist? Oh, I'm a florist, and they help each other out kind. Like what you said. That stuff can't be recreated anywhere, and you're not getting that in a non boutique gym where people put on their headphones and don't want to talk to each other. Um, so if you run a gym, you have to You have to understand one of the most valuable things you're actually offering, besides your actual product is this platform that Chris was talking about that allows people to make these connections, and you should be fostering that as much as you can. And, um, I've owned a gym for almost a decade now, and while I've known this the whole time, I've never actually heard it said in those words. That now makes crystal clear sense to me that it's literally a platform for connecting a community. That's what your gym is. And that's where that's why people won't quit if you keep them in that community and you don't alienate that huge, huge points. All right, cool. So there's another topic I kind of want to jump into. And this is a a big one right now, and I'm gonna kind of I'm gonna kind of lead into and then we'll talk about it. Um, in our in our conversation earlier you mentioned there's kind of three ways to go about doing business and that's do it yourself done for. You are done with you, right in the in the gym space. I'm gonna say most booty gyms have always done done with you, and that's gonna be your group class where you've got a coach standing in the room with them, coaching them through movements, warming them up, cooling them down all of that. Recently, Jim's air strike understand? Done for you. Boutique Jim's, I would say and then done for you. I'm gonna say his personal training, where coaches standing with you personally, working on exactly what you need to do and making sure you're doing it. Um, and now, like in the present, people are starting. Understand that. Do what yourself route is the scalable way too actually be able to help more people on. And I'm gonna call that remote coaching and programming. Um, from what you've seen in your space, is it the same in the learning community in the education community? Which one is there any that's better? Worse er's or better scaleable, less scaleable, et cetera. What are your thoughts

spk_0:   18:54
on that? Well, they're all different, so not one's better. Worse, the, uh, definitely the done with you and the do it yourself self guided, um, are more scalable. So what Gym owners particularly figure out just like experts in any industry is eventually for done for you or just high touch one a one consulting or service is Ah, you're gonna hit a ceiling. You can only raise your hourly rate so much. There's only so much time in the day you will max out. Whereas, ah, you know, group training kind of done with you in groups is much more scalable. And then they do it yourself remote or online with low touch or no touch. Engagement of the the trainer is very scalable. Um, the best results are almost always, at least it, like in Ah, Jim Environment, I'm guessing is going to be that one on one coach. But what also is up happening is there is a benefit to like people training and groups like we discussed already, but also with the When you're when you're going one on one, there's, ah, there's a price barrier. So if you're looking to expand your how many people you serve, price point is a way that you can do that. So when you leverage group models through either just one too many kind of program design or leverage, the infinitely scalable online components um, that's something that can you can deliver for much cheaper that with potentially ah, not much of a ceiling, especially for the digital stuff. So there's a way to expand your revenue by just thinking outside of the traditional one on one model,

spk_1:   20:52
right? And I think something that's probably of interest to these two gym owners is all three of these models can actually be deployed concurrently. Correct.

spk_0:   21:03
They can yeah, and wanted. I just want to give you another framework to to think about it, um, so you could have a service like one on one personal trainer. Then you could have a product I service, which is more of a It's not full custom, but maybe there's a little bit of customization. Think about a yoga instructor who is delivering a yoga class at scale to a group of people but also walking around and giving pointers here and there to individual members. So a little bit of customization that's like a product high service. And then there's a product which is, you know, the yoga DVD home study course where I learned you know, this this routine for this type of yoga just on my own time. Self study, self paced. So if you think about Service's product, I service's and products as kind of like separate categories. If you're not putting if you don't have options in all those buckets, you might be able to just expand your offering

spk_1:   22:06
a little bit right. So to try and frame this in a way that would really make sense. Would private training be one of those which ones? That what is the service in this model?

spk_0:   22:17
The service is really just one on one. You know. Annette expert working one on one with somebody. Thio achieve some kind of result over time,

spk_1:   22:27
okay, And then a product I service would be

spk_0:   22:30
it would. It would have, um,

spk_1:   22:33
like a group class where? But I'm actually touching touch, pointing on everybody at least once.

spk_0:   22:39
Yeah, and designed in such a way that it's it's more about its less personalized. And it's Mork kind of a set program. But there's there's some areas where there is some customization or high touch, but not full custom.

spk_1:   22:53
Got it. Okay, so So that is a lot again. Those are along the lines. Most gyms do. Um, there probably started the product and service, and then they expand either towards service or product, product or service one way or the other. Okay, well, my

spk_0:   23:08
revenue standpoint, it's kind of like you can move upmarket if you're starting with the product I service, you can move upmarket and, uh, hi touch one on one like elite level, and you can move down market to something that's more scalable using online or group formats.

spk_1:   23:24
Yeah, and I and I do think where boutique Jim's need to start going. If your goal is to run like a high revenue Jim. That's, you know, paying coaches pretty well. And you you've got a pretty good revenue base is gonna be doing all three personal training, group class, remote coaching. So let's dive into the remote coaching other things because that's probably the most interesting, because most gyms haven't figured that out yet. There are. There are a few outliers that have, and they're starting to delve into this arena. What do you think it takes to get to the point where you can sell something that infinite scale over the Internet via digital goods?

spk_0:   24:01
The main thing is that you have to get your niche right. You've got to get your positioning right, because Jim's historically are really ah local, You know, Main Street business that's only relevant to their community. So it takes a different way of thinking about having something available. That's, um, you know, not limited by geography. And when the when the target market is that big, you really have tohave something truly unique that's going to stand out in a crowded in the crowded world of all you know, fitness offerings online

spk_1:   24:39
and and to be clear about that, that's because in your local market as a gym, you can just advertise generic fitness or whatever form of fitness you do, And the people in your local market are picking that because they have to drive there after work or before work. But when you're talking about remote coaching, you need something to be able to put in front of people that cuts through all of the other noise out there that is attracting them based on their interests of their pain. Points, right?

spk_0:   25:06
Yeah, so as it to give a really concrete example like where I live. I live in a rural part on the coast of Maine, and there's one CrossFit gym within, like, 30 miles for me, right? But if I were that gym owner, um, I wouldn't just teach CrossFit on the Internet if I was trying to target people like me. I'm a 40 year old dad who primarily works on the computer but cares about health and fitness, and I would really start knitting into my customer avatar of like, where can I add the most value and speak in such a way that is going to resonate with? Even if it feels like a it's way too specific the world is a really big place in a place where a gym owner can learn about. This is if you go to um, YouTube and start going into, like all the various fitness niches on YouTube, you'll see people doing the high intensity stuff. You'll see people doing ah, bunch of diet stuff like the Carnivore diet, the vegan diet, the you know, blue blue diet, whatever. There's all kinds of these niches, different styles of workouts and different people who have, who are kind of inventing these own their own kind of bespoke movement philosophies and or people who are combining seemingly unrelated, Um, you know, fitness, flexibility, nutrition mindset, stuff to create, like a unique package that speaks to a very specific type of person. That's something that can take off a

spk_1:   26:41
bigger scale. So let's kind of dive into that real quick, because this could be something that gym owners trip up on or any any intruder could trip up on. You want to go into an infinitely scalable model remote coaching? Um, you heed these words, you come up with your customer avatar, Um, you understand who you want to sell it to. You have two options. At that point, in my opinion, you can either kind of like create your own category or niche, which, which might not be even creating a niche. But it like if you want to create the blue diet or what if it's something new, you're creating something new and building an audience around that, or you're kind of piggybacking on something that's there. So you might say high intensity fitness for dads who are over 40 who care to see their bill to play with their kids until you know the kids air out of out of the house. That niche has already been, you know, defined, and you can pretty easily define that attract people. But it's it's crowded, the other. The other way to go about is to create your own, like dad fit or something. And brand that Who, Who do you think? Each night each direction applies to, because I want to make sure the right group goes the right direction. There.

spk_0:   27:48
I got you, and I just wanted a little more example out there. If you look a, um, maybe you you, the gym owner, have heard of this guy named Wim Hof he's known as the Ice Man, though he combines meditation, cold temperature exposure like usually in water and breathing. So he literally invented his own, um, like health transformation thing that has these three pillars.

spk_1:   28:16
But that's a perfect example, because not everyone can pull that off right. But when you do, it's huge, right?

spk_0:   28:23
Yeah, And he wasn't just the breathing guy. He literally combine or the cold water guy. He combined three things. When you combine three things, it's a lot easier to stand out than to try to be the best in the world at one thing. So there's a lot to learn from that, Um, but going back to the models question, it depends like so you have to decide. Am I trying to add more value to my existing customer base? Perhaps at a lower price point? It's more scalable. Aura's a value add add on that I can charge more for as some kind of Upsell. There's all kinds of different ways to do that. But if you're going big, um, you do have to niche and you have to you have to think about it in such a way that if somebody were to fall in love with your signature style program that you teach online. Maybe dio like assessments. Meal plans, work out plans. You know either private or group checking calls. But what what would make your program so awesome? That's the perfect customer might actually consider moving to where your physical Jim is located. I call it clicks and bricks. So if you're simply in the clique world in your online program gets so into what you're doing that they might even uproot their family and move so that they can walk in the door of your gym. If it if we're firing with that much intensity, we're heading down a good path,

spk_1:   29:51
right? And I guess the one thing I want to warn gym owners on before they go down this route is to create your own Wim Hof method or any type of method that is gonna be niche down. And you need to you you have to be willing to invest a tremendous amount of time marketing and branding that because the Wim Hof method didn't become the women off method just because he put it on the Internet right, he spent a lot of time getting the word out getting people to do it, you know, educating people what it wasit. It's a much bigger endeavor with a much bigger pot at the end of that rainbow. Correct?

spk_0:   30:27
Correct. And Wim Hof himself. I mean, he he ah had ah ah, tough incident happened in his life and he basically invented this method to heal his own depression and all this stuff. So he was literally customer number one was himself. It one benefit that gym owners have is you can actually test your ideas. You should have it, since you already have these local people that you can see them react and get into your program or not. So you might already have this kind of the seeds for something like this in your existing customer base in your physical Jim. So And if you don't and you are thinking about doing something a little, um, Mork custom and unique, you can always tell I would definitely recommend testing it on your existing customers to see if anybody's interested, cause if they're not, there's no point in doing the online

spk_1:   31:21
version, right? I think this topic probably warrants its own podcast like designing a product um, that's kind of bigger than your gym, because there's a lot to it, like and And like you said, the story is gonna be where it starts. Like having a good story. Like I had depression and I created this system to get myself out of depression, and now I can help you to something people will resonate with. It's just like I want to make a bunch of money off of people on the Internet. And I put these three things together to sell to you. That's not a good story, right? Like you gotta have the story and it all packaged up. So I think I'm gonna expand out on that in another podcast and maybe some block posts. But, um, good stuff.

spk_0:   32:01
I just want to add one more point on that. And I think this is an area where we really resonate. Dan in our business is is I, um there's a mindset thing. If people are really focused on making money and in for me on the L A mess side, the Learning Management System course side. There's this whole make money online niche, and you can have that mindset and there's nothing wrong with making lots of money off line in online. But if that's your focus, you're not going to be a CZ effective as the other entrepreneur who has a results focused mindset. They prioritize their Lerner results or, in your case, your gym customers results above all else. The money will follow. So, um, having that results mindset is the key to the to the success and designing good programs

spk_1:   32:53
1000%. And on one hand, I want I'm sure all my Jim's already understand this, but I want to make sure they understand that on the other hand, e. I don't want my competition to know that because you can't beat someone who's passionate about what they dio, and we're passion about what we do. So like, I think that's our competitive advantage in this marketplace is like our competitors don't own gyms. They're not friends with gym owners like this isn't a passion play for them. But you're right, like if you're gonna start a product or a program, or if you're being open a gym like if you're doing it to make money, you're probably gonna have some problems at some point, right? Um and especially you're competing with people who are passionate about what they're doing. The difference in it is right now in at least in the finished spaces, that people who are coming into the finished space with money to make money without the passion, understand business enough to win. But once we educate all these gym owners on the business end, I think they're all gonna be winning. So that's kind of the direction we're trying to go here. All right. Um, let's talk quickly about marketing and lead generation, another kind of important slash passion concept of yours. It kind of ties into doing stuff like remote coaching because, like I said earlier, you can't launch a infinitely scalable Internet program to do remote coaching at your gym unless you know how to do solid marketing and legion. Um, there's one concept that I for firmly believe now, and that's marketing and sales always beats product. We built push press originally naively thinking that product would beat marketing and sales organizations, and it's you have to learn how to market and sell to get to get a foothold in the marketplace, and that will be the same for you and your Jim, if you're trying to do remote coaching, So with all that, said Chris, what do you think are viable ways for people to launch like a remote coaching program or even promote their group class or their gym programs? Um, in a way that's cost effective for gym owners.

spk_0:   34:46
Well, I'm a framework guy. So good I'm gonna give you another one, which is Ah, there's three types of marketing and sales. When once I learned when I was a newer entrepreneur about these three buckets, it helped me not be so overwhelmed by all the options out there. So the three styles are inbound is number one, which is also known as content marketing or attraction marketing. The second bucket is outbound, which is cold calling, prospecting, cult emailing, just outbound sales. And then there's relationships. The third options where you, you know, actively invest in developing relationships with other industry leaders. Ah, communities of all kinds and that kind of thing. And what I find with entrepreneurs is people tend to develop a strength in one of those, so you might be a super relationship person. If that might be your, you know, that might be your strength, so just continue net like amplify that if you like to attract leads, which is kind of my style. I do content marketing. So I do things like podcasts, YouTube, other people's blog's other people's podcast. And, um, you know, I use free courses also as a way to build, um, the community around my my project. But so which one are you good at inbound, outbound and relationships. And really, once you're you're super clear on the buyers journey, then you can create, and we'll talk about it in a second. But then you can create different types of content or make different kinds of relationships. Or do different types of prospects sting for all stages of the buyers journey. Once you get that, that's how you develop what looks like that when you see somebody just kind of killing it in sales and marketing. They figured this out and real quickly. The buyers journey. Think about your ideal Jim customer. They go from something called unaware to Problem aware like, and I'll give an example after I lay out these stages, so unaware, problem aware solution, aware than product aware, and then that's when you sell to them. And what happens is people often focus on one part of the journey, but not the whole journey. So that's how you leave a lot of money on the table and don't develop a really robust marketing and sales engine for your gym.

spk_1:   37:20
You mentioned like people aren't aware or they don't focus in on any of those the steps of the buyers journey. Won't you dive into those real quick and kind of give us some tips on what we could do in each of those steps?

spk_0:   37:30
So unaware? Well, first of all, most most companies focus on solution, aware like. And that's where their this is, where your customer is already aware of your company and your product in your name, and you're just kind of out there in your marketing saying, Buy my stuff So that's that's where most people start. But unaware is, let's say, um, like,

spk_1:   37:55
that's proper problem. Unaware, right?

spk_0:   37:57
What's that? Yeah, Yeah. Problem unaware. So, for example, um, if I mean, you know you're gonna have different types of customers that come to your gym, but let's say you focus on one specific type like, let's say, um

spk_1:   38:14
so, so unaware would be I'm coming to the gym saying like, um, I can't I just can't seem to get strong, right? Yeah, or unaware of why they can't get strong, that's

spk_0:   38:26
or brain frog like I have brain fog or I'm just not. I just

spk_1:   38:30
fuck it

spk_0:   38:30
feel unmotivated. And I can't I can't get my mojo back like they're not even aware that they may be in, like, chronic stress, adrenal fatigue or whatever. So you create all this, You first, you help them diagnosis their symptoms. That's what helps unaware like they're not aware of what the problem is. But they're experiencing some kind of symptoms. Whether that has to do with energy focus, you know, happiness. And at that level we can create free training courses. We can create blawg articles, we can create YouTube videos. We can, um, speak at local events about these issues. We can engage in other communities that have this, you know, who discussed this issue. We can create even things like, um, calculators on our website that helped people come up with, like, a custom plan or something like that to help them. There's all kinds of stuff that we can develop it that unaware stage. But then once they become aware like, oh, I'm a hot mess of stress. Now we're problem aware and that, you know, then solution Aware is okay, Well, I need nutrition, diet, exercise, sleep hydration. Like I start now, I'm becoming solution aware, And then I need a guide to help me go through this journey in this process. And that's where your Jim comes in. And every stage of that journey can have its own types of marketing and sales,

spk_1:   40:09
right? And then, like you said, most people are focused on which section was it? Was the your basic trying to sell your product solution aware? Yes. Lucien aware. Yeah, yeah, so it does. I mean. And we had another podcast with Greg Mack, who's a sales professional, and I don't remember if we got into digging into the pain points. But the idea in sales is you have to It's kind of the same thing problem unaware to problem where you have to get them to kind of verbalize what the pain is. Because a lot of lot of people are looking for the solution without acknowledging the problem, right?

spk_0:   40:45
Yeah, And just to give a specific example in the health and fitness industry, there's an alarming stat about the how many people are pre diabetic or diabetic. And if let's like if I was doing relationship based marketing, I would. And and part of the solution was for people to get in shape and make some changes in their diet and exercise routines. I would try to network with doctors and fitness professionals who are involved at that stage where there diagnosing people with these issues to see, to try to get um engaged with my potential customer when they're at that stage of just kind of discovering they have this problem.

spk_1:   41:30
That's a good sorry.

spk_0:   41:32
Oh, that And then that I could also, if I wasn't a relationship marketer, if I was more of an inbound marketer Ah, I would start creating content around, um, the pre diabetic condition and how you can, you know, work on that and potentially even reverse that without making any medical claims or whatever. But to do that through diet and exercise, and I would start warming up this community of people who are now ready to take action, and the pain has gotten strong enough that they're ready to make a change could so attractions. So attraction Marketing is about pulling people through, not pushing them through a journey,

spk_1:   42:10
right? Really quick. Do you think people can can become proficient at more than one marketing bucket content are inbound outbound A relationship

spk_0:   42:18
Ah, 100%. I've just seen in my experience that people tend to develop strength and one right. They're just They're just usually good at one. But you can absolutely become a full stack

spk_1:   42:29
marketer. Yeah, because in that space of example, I can see the pre diabetic example tons of content you could make, um, to make sure people understand that they might be falling into this problem set how to figure out if you're in this problem set and at the same time figuring out how to create relationships. You can give that content to doctors in your neighborhood, um, who are seeing these patients and just say like so they understand that there's people out there who are trying to help people in these situations. And if you I can see that being really powerful, if you stack those two together, get the content out there, get a bunch of you know, authority building information out there and then find the doctors who can give that content to their patients who are seeking who have this pain, right? Totally. Yeah. Okay, cool. Now, let's actually really quick segue way over to lift around the mess. I talked at the top of this episode. Um, there are some ways, actually, gym owners can can leverage this. One thing that's cool about it is many gym owners use WordPress and lift realness is built on top of WordPress races to plug in that they can put it on their website. That's correct. Okay, So, um, why don't you kind of break down? Kind of a concept that gym owners can do today to help them find more leads. I know a hot topic in the gym industries always like, find more leads, find more people in my community. You need my service is what can How could they leverage lift their elements to do that

spk_0:   43:55
well, so you can have free courses. You can have paid courses. You can have paid courses that are part of a larger coaching program, our online community. All that's possible with lifter all mess. But for getting more leads for a gym owner. Ah, I would go to our example. We were just talking about about people who are just discovering pre diabetes for themselves or in a family member they're concerned about. You could create what I call a free course lead magnet that educates somebody about pre diabetes and what it iss so to help them become aware of like what it is, how it works and what their options are. So think of it this way. You could write a long block post or something like that, but, of course, is a much more organized, intentional kind of step by step curated piece of content. Um, you could also use courses to create challenges Where, um, let's say, Ah, you're trying Thio, help somebody like a 14 day food challenge to help get their pre diabetic levels in a better spot. And I had to be careful with making medical claims in that kind of thing. But we see this all the time in the fitness industry for people who are going to do a five k a day or walk a mile a day or the pig upon had their skill level or what their interest is. Ah, yoga Every day for 14 days. Whatever the the specialty is, you can use a challenge. And what a challenge essentially is a structure around. Ah, some ideas and action so you can use a course to do that. You just pop left l a mess on your side. You create a free course when people sign up for that free course, you're getting their email address. Um, it's really just that simple. Um, And then if you decide later you want to offer, you know, let's say some premium courses or you want to use courses as more of an internal training tool toe like train, various positions or rolls in your company. You could use it for that as well, So it's really flexible.

spk_1:   46:02
That's awesome. Maybe after this podcast we could get together and work on a off the shelf learning challenge slash course that we can use a case study for how this will work. But just for the gym owners, like some ideas you can do, he mentioned a few like, um, you could do couch to five K. Um, you could do, um, you know, buildings, building a pull up like you know, the 30 day course to getting a pull up. Um, probably you can find an aspirational yoga pose and just say, like your stair step into that yoga pose. Um, one that I was thinking about, and it kind of relates to the pre diabetic thing would be like a 14 days sugar detox like step by step, how to kick, you know, your sugar addiction or or what not? And you could front load that with, you know, pre diabetic, pre pre diabetic. Pre diabetes is a condition that's affecting America, you know, so I can get some good as CEO off of it and then just say, Like, because of that, we're working on a free 14 day sugar. He talks for a community, and, um, you didn't mention this, but when we were talking earlier, and you're kind of kicking around ideas like what you do is 14 days step by step. Every day you do this, you follow these instructions. Maybe there's a video or some some instructions on there and what they can do. And then you say, Like, for everyone who succeeds, we're gonna have a huge party at the gym. Sugar free party. We're gonna give away free T shirts. You're gonna get 30 days free at the gym, come on down to clean your prize, and then you've got hopefully a whole community of people who have already seen success in value from your gym. Got something good out of you can come down to your gym now on experience, meet you shake your hand and experience the community and maybe become a part of your gym because of this free challenge. So it's pretty, pretty cool stuff you can D'oh! It just takes a little creativity the map out. And, um, like I said, I'm gonna be seeing Chris pretty soon in person. Maybe we can come up with, uh, something we could give gym owners off the shelf, like, pre done like this detox challenger? Because all right. Yeah. Um, I I thought that was a great podcast. Chris, I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your day and infinite amounts of knowledge that you have with our community on how to make the business better. I think it's super cool cause you don't own a gym. You're not in the fitness community. per se, but this overlapping skill set in knowledge base definitely applies eso thank you very much for coming on. Um, we look forward to hopefully talking again and maybe bringing some of these lifter l A mess Challenge slash free lead course magnets, um, to fruition for our gym's.

spk_0:   48:27
That's awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Dan. And I appreciate you introduced meteor community here.

spk_1:   48:32
All right. Thank you, Chris. Boom. There was what you guys think. Did you pick anything up? Am I onto something here? Can these CEOs from other software and sass businesses bring something to the table for you guys to learn? Let me know, subscribe to this? Hit me up and hit me up in the comments? Um, give me some feedback. Does this stuff make sense? Does it help you guys? Um, I'm 100% of the of the opinion that will, and it does. I need to make sure we're hitting the mark here, so I'm glad you're glad you got to check out this episode. You made it this far. If this was a value to you, make sure you hit the like on whatever platform you listening to it Now, if you think that you can get more benefits from this subscribe to us. Um, we're gonna be doing this at least once a week, every week for the unforeseeable future, bringing all this information to you to help transform you into being a better business owner, which I'm gonna go over this time and time again in today's day and age of owning a gym. If you're not ready to level up to be a business owner, you're gonna be out of business sooner or later. So let's

spk_0:   49:30
get on that path, guys. All right, All right. Cool. Until next time, keep on grinding and find a good fight later.