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How Your Marketing Agency Is Killing Your Business · Gym Business Coach Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You are listening to the built-to-grow podcast delivering the knowledge in all things, fitness, business.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We help jimrollers win, hear your hosts, ten lions, and Randy Axton.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, welcome back to the gym business coach podcast.
0:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, him lines and the studio with the lights and the screens and the brick wall joined by Randy.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So what's up there?
0:38
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you doing today?
0:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Amazing.
0:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to cool the studio of all time, nailed it.
0:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey guys, check us out on YouTube.
0:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We got a couple channels firing up.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We'll put the link in the show notes.
0:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We won't get too deep into it right now, but cool studio.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't get you flying.
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[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so take you down a comments in area for a gym here.
0:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So your gym, your goal is profit, your kind of stagnant.
1:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You maybe you're losing some clientele and you're starting to think about, how do I get more gym members?
1:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do I get more clients, right?
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So you start looking around, you get hit with some Facebook ads, and there's a gym, marketing agency, promising you the moon, right?
1:20
[SPEAKER_02]: They're promising you a hundred new clients in the next 90 days, or you don't pay, right?
1:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So you still you look into it.
1:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You do a little call with them.
1:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And it comes to find out.
1:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like they're going to promise X, but in order for them to promise it, they're going to run their play, call it their play or whatever it is.
1:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And you as a gym, because you're desperate, you need to get clients in the door, or else you're gonna go out of business, right?
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You decide to take the chance.
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me hire this agency, see what they can do for me.
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And you start to learn really quickly what you need to do to deliver on the promise that they're marketing for you.
2:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So the promise might be some type of,
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: above and beyond product or program or service that you don't offer right now, but you decide you do want to offer it because that's what they're marketing.
2:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what these people are coming in for.
2:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're willing to pay a X thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars to come in and do your program.
2:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Now remember, guys.
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You're the expert, you're the gym owner, you went to school, you have a degree, whatever it is, you're educated in fitness health and nutrition.
2:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Agency is not, the agency is in marketing.
2:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
2:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Their goal is to get your leads, get your clients, get your phone ringing.
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But in order for them to do that, they need to promise something that's not, nine times out of 10, not in alignment with what you do at the gym.
2:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So you go down this road and you get some clients and you're delivering these seminars and you're having to do the Stutrition Program and you're doing this extra accountability on the hopes that people are going to stay for the long term.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing leads to another.
3:12
[SPEAKER_02]: You're broke again.
3:14
[SPEAKER_02]: All those clients are gone.
3:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You've completely burnt your team out.
3:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You're delivering and you're broken all of your systems that got you to hear to deliver on what the agency sold.
3:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is happening still to this day over and over and over again.
3:33
[SPEAKER_02]: and we need to educate Jim owners quickly that it should not be the agency that calls the shots in regards to what you're selling or marketing towards.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They should be asking you 100% day one who's your avatar who you'd speak into, what are your programs, what are you offer, what are your services, and they need to market those things.
3:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But instead, because the gym is desperate, they want to know what's working now, what's working for everybody else, you as the gym owner decide to break all of your things even ethics sometimes, to deliver.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: just to get the people in the door.
4:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to bring this up because you're, I don't want anybody to fall victim to this, but you have to understand what's happening here.
4:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I've even seen agencies go as far as handing nutrition programs to the gym.
4:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's your nutrition program.
4:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's your training program.
4:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what you're gonna do with these people.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna do accountability sessions.
4:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna do nutrition programs.
4:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You're gonna do seminars.
4:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Here are some supplements.
4:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to agency gives the supplements or cells of supplements to the gym.
4:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, the gym is just sitting there taking it, being like, okay, I'm just going to just give you, I'm just going to do what your agency said because you're so desperate for clients.
4:50
[SPEAKER_02]: To give people in the door.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing, I think we should be, we've got a preface this before we even get into the details of more of those details of those programs is talking about the benefit of
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: what gyms have at their disposal at their fingertips and it's the recurring revenue and one of our minutes and ethos of everything that we teach is building recurring revenue around a membership base is how we we get gyms to
5:21
[SPEAKER_00]: the revenue model, the revenue numbers, 30, 40, 50, 60 upwards of 80,000 dollars a month, that's recurring revenue numbers.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a single month, that's not ran this play, ran this challenge, ran this high ticket offer, got that this month, and then look to your point, next thing you find out is six week later, those people aren't converting to memberships,
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[SPEAKER_00]: their time with you is ended because that program ended because you're now taking them from what you positioned and brought them in the door with that the agency led you down to believe you have to do and then trying to convert them into a membership where none of that is the norm.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: None of that is how you operate and your beliefs in your gym and the way that you've done
6:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, point, like built that membership base up to that point, and now also, there's inconsistency in congruency, and you can expect a consumer to make the decision to leave.
6:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
6:16
[SPEAKER_02]: They got everything given to them up front, and then when you want them to actually become a member, half of that stuff disappears.
6:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Just interesting, right?
6:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing that challenges or front end offers or short-term programs or anything with some type of time limit session count results.
6:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Lobs some fee results, promises, what you're doing by doing that is you're telling the client or the market.
6:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You're telling the person that you're attracting that fitness is only for this amount of time.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: When we all believe, you listening, do you believe that fitness is 10 sessions?
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you believe fitness ends at six weeks or 12 weeks?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Do you believe that fitness ends at three months or does fitness end at 20 pounds?
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[SPEAKER_02]: The answer is no, it's forever.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so you're already in congruent with what you believe.
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[SPEAKER_02]: you believe fitness is forever.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We believe it.
7:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You believe it listening, right?
7:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You wouldn't be in this business.
7:18
[SPEAKER_02]: If you just thought fitness was a 10 session program in a nutrition plan for six weeks, then you wouldn't be in this business.
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you're when you market for that, you're telling the market, that's all this is.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And in your head, you're like, you know it's not what it is, but you're doing it just to get them on the hook to hopefully that they're going to convert, but they're smarter than that.
7:40
[SPEAKER_02]: The clients coming in are smarter than that.
7:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They are there to go for the program that you sold them on, and then one or two things happens.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Either they get the results that they were looking for.
7:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
7:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Got me jump started.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on my way.
7:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don't need your help anymore.
7:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And they leave and they quit and they don't convert.
7:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Or they fail to get the results that you promised at some level.
8:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And they get upset and they say that your program doesn't work and then they leave and they fail.
8:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And either way, your left would nobody at the end of the day.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You sold them up program, you got the money, you spent the money, and you got nobody left.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And if for being honest, any marketing that you're trying to do is keep people for the lifestyle, the long-term, the lifetime of their fitness journey.
8:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And doing the things that the agencies are sharing with your falling forward does the opposite.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you're bringing up a good point that I think Jim owners don't think about is the things that you bring to the marketplace and you're marketing has a direct effect on your retention.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's going to have a long term effect on your retention, right?
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: We've preached the lifestyle client for years now.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That is visible in the way that we market, it's visible in the language that we use.
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the avatar client that we're looking to bring in the gym.
8:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we were to change that and go for a short-term results oriented client, and we have over the years.
9:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've tried, you know, we tried some of those things when we were the agency stuff, years and years ago.
9:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And exactly to your point, it broke the systems of what we do on a daily basis.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the coach's out, man.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: All for coaches were like, oh, great.
9:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Here comes another program, challenge, front-end, rapid development.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just say that an agency could provide that type of like influx of new clients.
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Can your gym take 50 new clients this month with the onboarding with the delivery, with the way that your gym operates?
9:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you even possibly do that?
9:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say most of the gyms that I know couldn't.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Most gyms can.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're not talking big box gyms.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got a sales guy and they're just showing somebody into the room to go through their work or, yeah, exactly.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Just push me to existing classes and stuff like that at scale.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: your average training gym can't take that level of influx regardless so that could that should be one of your first warnings or first thoughts when it comes to those agency promises is that it actually in congruence with what I'm actually looking for or yeah
10:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say, yeah, the promise is 15 new clients this month and if you got 50, what would break?
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: What would break?
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: What would the, what would the, what would the service to your current membership base go down?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was just going to take a hit because you're, you're focused all in the front end.
10:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And we saw this for years.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't new.
10:24
[SPEAKER_02]: This, this happened over the last
10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: The
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[SPEAKER_02]: the revolving door, it's a revolving door, and then you're just, you're just beholden to the agency.
10:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So listen, look, this isn't to bash agencies.
10:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It isn't.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's to bash the programs they're selling you.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Agency's serve a purpose to run ads and get you leads, keep an eye and optimize, change a creative, change a copy for the programs that you're offering.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Not to give you the program you should offer.
11:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the difference what I'm talking about.
11:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You can run your own programs, your own trials.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's something else we should probably get into is the trial offer or the front end offer should be, just to be congruent with what you offer anyway.
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just to be sure.
11:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Short or peer, so let's just say you offer three times a week, semi-private training for 100 bucks, 100 bucks a week.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's four and a bucks a month, ish.
11:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're gonna offer a front end program for two weeks, it's a trial.
11:36
[SPEAKER_02]: 100 bucks for two weeks instead of a 200 for two weeks.
11:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's okay.
11:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a little bit of a deal.
11:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But the delivery of what they get that service is identical to what they're going to convert into.
11:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever you want them to convert into is what you give them on the front end.
11:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you go.
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, like I've used the analogy over the years on the podcast.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds for some reason this one always stands out, right?
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's like a cable company.
12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: They always offer these huge front end packages.
12:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You get in there and think about this from the consumer side as you listen as the owner, right?
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever experienced this, because this is essentially what you're doing to your consumers by bringing in these types of programs.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's all inclusive, all of those additional accountability check-ins, the nutrition program that probably isn't what you normally
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: offer for nutrition or maybe you don't offer nutrition at all.
12:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You give them all the bells and whistles for six or twelve weeks and then they hit that end and then you strip away, you know, two thirds of that, right?
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at the cable companies, you get the NFL package, you get all the show time, HBO, all of those things.
12:45
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the channels and then your third month and month for your programming drops and nothing, you get eight, you know, regular cable channels, cost doesn't change, but you as a consumer left feeling that void, you're feeling like, oh, well, if they could offer this for that cost, why do I have, why am I moving forward with or have the
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: pay more for it.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Or to pay more to get what I have had for the last three months.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You're Jim.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That's six weeks.
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it seems backwards.
13:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd like, you'd like to do, I don't know.
13:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's the struggle is getting the clients in the don't.
13:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, so how do you get somebody in the door without some type of hook with being thing?
13:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you offer what you regularly offer.
13:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You tell people, we train people like you.
13:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We specialize in X, Y, and Z.
13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: We solve these five problems.
13:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the benefits of coming in here.
13:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the results you're going to get.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't do it by...
13:47
[SPEAKER_02]: promising some, you know, a big weight loss, you know, result, or you over deliver all this front end stuff and strip it away at the end and then charge a more for it.
13:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's just different.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So the bottom line is this, guys, I absolutely have to run front end offers and programs, hoax, all those things.
14:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Be careful what you put out there because two things happen.
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[SPEAKER_02]: One, you can burn your market out.
14:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And two, you can, you can definitely,
14:15
[SPEAKER_02]: affect your attrition or your retention whenever way you want to look at it by what you offer.
14:20
[SPEAKER_02]: If you offer free, it'll be shows.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: If you offer a result-based program, people buy it, they come in, they give you some money upfront, they don't stay in the long run.
14:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we preach is just bring people in on your normal stuff.
14:34
[SPEAKER_02]: and really focus your marketing on who you serve, not some promises.
14:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a very, like very important thing is knowing who you serve, not thinking that you, because you have a gym, and you may be able to work with everybody, right?
14:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If your specialty, your knowledge, maybe you could actually,
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: help somebody lose weight, help somebody build strength, help somebody over here with their movement and inequality and all of those things.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you were to look at your client base and look at your programs and really what you bring to the table, it's not for everybody.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that the better you know your avatar client,
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That gives you that empowers you to then understand the messaging to speak to the those people and not everybody and if you find yourself doing those types of things then you're going to be You will it will be attracting the right type of individual that wants your membership that isn't alignment with the
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: beliefs that you have as a facility, the type of training that you provide, instead of grasping at straws thrown at at the wall, hoping something sticks type of thing or just jumping from agency to agency.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that that happens because they don't most gym owners don't have a clear understanding of who they serve and how to speak to those individuals to get them through the door.
15:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so you just listen to whatever's working now type of thing and then you have no identity.
15:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's just an interesting.
16:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's agencies have really hurt hurt this industry as much as they've helped.
16:05
[SPEAKER_02]: They've hurt it worse.
16:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like,
16:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
16:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Jim's, you just need to take control over it, learn it, learn how to market, learn how to, you know, art, the whole thing's poles in the water, not just be focused on one thing, have a bunch of little things coming in, omnipresence, and learn.
16:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to have to learn.
16:25
[SPEAKER_02]: This is your business.
16:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not hobby.
16:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't just outsource everything.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You wish you could.
16:30
[SPEAKER_02]: One of these days, you're going to have to roll up your sleeves
16:35
[SPEAKER_02]: What what are we how do we attract the right person here?
16:39
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
16:40
[SPEAKER_02]: That's probably why you're listening to this show and you follow us and and you take coaching programs and stuff.
16:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, instead of focused letting the agency run the show it's time for you guys to take controller your business.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't let this happen to you in 2026 guys.
16:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is kind of your wake-up call like hey, you got to take ownership of this stuff.
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not easy, I wish it was, what we sell as a product in the fitness space is difficult to sell.
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, you're, you're beholden to the, the, the fleeting motivation of the client.
17:11
[SPEAKER_02]: What their goal is today, like what, but they feel like doing today and any time things get tough, they're, you know, usually finishes the first thing to get cut out.
17:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's, you know, it's just trying to attract the right person.
17:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you do attract the right person, we call it the lifestyle client.
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: When you do attract that person, they stay for decades, decades.
17:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm looking out on that training floor.
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we have people here, 10, 12 right now, as we're doing this.
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching all of the regulars walk through the door that I've personally known through 10 years, 12 years of this year, right now, at this hour.
17:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Paying that high, four or five on a bucks a month, four, 10 or 12 or 15 years.
17:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
17:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look at how they came in and if you look at what their goals are,
17:52
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not what the market agencies are pushing out into the market guys so hopefully that helps you guys jump on it If you need help links will be in the show notes jump on a call with us It would love to help you guys that's it for the show until next time keep changing lives We'll see on the next one
18:08
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, thanks for listening to another episode of the built-grilled podcast.
18:11
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want more help growing your business, join our free Facebook group, profit accelerator, helping training gyms grow to $30,000 a month and beyond.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: We'd love to see you there.
18:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Go check out the show notes for the link and keep building something great, and we'll see you in the next episode.