Optimal Aging

How Publishing a Book Can Grow Your Fitness Business with Rick Streb

• Jay Croft

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In this episode of The Optimal Aging Podcast, host Jay Croft sits down with Rick Streb—fitness industry veteran, marketing strategist, and bestselling author—to explore how publishing a book can supercharge your fitness business. Whether you're a gym owner, trainer, or health coach, Rick explains why having your own book is more than just a vanity project—it’s a strategic marketing asset.

You’ll learn how Rick helps fitness pros turn their everyday knowledge and client stories into published books that build authority, attract ideal clients, and fuel long-term growth. From using AI tools like ChatGPT to creating targeted funnels and lead magnets, Rick shares his complete process—and why it's never been easier to get started.

👤 Guest: Rick Streb

Bio:
Rick Streb is the founder of FitnessMarketing.com and a 30-year fitness veteran who has helped nearly 200 professionals publish books to grow their businesses. A bestselling author himself, Rick combines fitness experience with marketing savvy to help others become recognized experts in their communities.

Links:

🔍 Episode Topics

Why Fitness Pros Should Write Books

  • Learn how a book helps you stand out, build authority, and generate leads.

How Rick Helps Clients Overcome Writing Fears

  • From brain dumps to ChatGPT workflows, Rick simplifies the process.

Using AI Tools (the Right Way)

  • Why most fail with AI—and how Rick’s custom GPT changes the game.

Funnel Strategy and Lead Generation

  • How to turn your book into a powerful lead magnet and client conversion tool.

Jay’s Book Journey: Selling Longevity

  • Jay shares his experience working with Rick on his upcoming book.

📘 Resources Mentioned

🎤 Host: Jay Croft
Jay helps gyms and studios grow with content that engages people over 50. Learn more at Prime Fit Content.

🌐 Podcast Website: https://primefitcontent.com

👍 Rate the show on Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-optimal-aging-podcast/id1532395738
 📬 Join our email list – https://primefitcontent.com
📱 Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/primefitcontent
📥 Contact us – jay@primefitcontent.com

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Speaker 1:

And I finally sat down, wrote it and published it and it almost immediately hit number one best-selling author on.

Speaker 2:

Amazon. Hi everybody, I'm Jay Croft and welcome to the Optimal Aging Podcast, where we discuss the business of exercise, healthy living and well-being for people 50 and over. Each week, we explore what healthy living means for millions of people over age 50 and what's coming next, with a focus on communications, content and making powerful connections. Hey, have you written any good books lately? Rick Streb is here to help you do just that. Rick has his own marketing and publishing company and he helps fitness professionals, gym owners, trainers, other kinds of people turn their stories into published books. Now, the goal isn't to make the bestseller list or become the Hemingway of the weight room. The goal is to help you stand out among your competitors, to become the authority for fitness in your community or in your niche, even if you're not a writer, even if you've never dreamed of having your own book. So how does having your own book help you grow your fitness business? Well, that's the topic we're going to be discussing today on the Optimal Aging Podcast, which is for gym owners and others in fitness, health and well-being who want to grow their businesses by engaging more people over 50. And I'm your host, jay Croft, of Prime Fit Content, which helps gyms do that with original premium marketing materials.

Speaker 2:

Now I've known Rick for a few years now. I met him through Pat Rigsby's coaching group Some of you might be familiar with Pat and Rick's actually been helping me compile my thoughts into a book which will be coming out shortly with the working title Selling Longevity. We'll see if that changes. I'll keep you posted as we get closer to the publication. So let's dive right into my conversation with Rick about how you can publish your own book and how that can be helpful in your marketing efforts. Here we go. Hey, rick, how are you? Nice to see you again. I'm great, jay, how you been buddy. Well, I've been just fine. Thank you, nice to see you, as always.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate being here and we always have fun conversations, so I look forward to this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. Looking forward to telling folks about what you do and how it can help them grow their fitness business, particularly, but not only, regarding people over 50, what you do can help any gym owner or trainer grow their audience, so that's really important. It's great information that we're going to share with them today. Before we get to all of that, I want you to tell us just a little bit about your background and how you got to be doing this today. Sure.

Speaker 1:

Well, I've been in the fitness industry for 31 years now long time, so a lot of writing, fitness copy you know emails, promotions, things like that for my own, my own facilities, but then also for other fitness pros as well. And I want to say it was about yeah, it was five years ago I finally broke down and wrote my own book. I was making all the same excuses that everybody else does about why we can't, I shouldn't, write a book, and I finally sat down, wrote it and published it and it almost immediately hit number one bestselling author on Amazon, which in itself is really an exciting accomplishment. But then, like two or three weeks later, I was attending a mastermind down in Orlando, florida. I took copies of my book to give out to all the fitness pros that were at the mastermind down in Orlando, florida. I took copies of my book to give out to all the fitness pros that were at the mastermind and by the end of the three days I had four fitness pros come up and asked me to help them write their book.

Speaker 1:

And after doing that with them I realized I really enjoy doing it a lot and so I started kind of shifting to using my background and, you know. Fitness copywriting to helping people, helping fitness professionals write a book or create a marketing asset, which is the book that makes them stand out more than typical fitness copywriting. It makes them more of the authority in their community, in their niche. It positions them as the go-to expert and it also makes them stand out when nobody knew about them before. So it just changed a whole dynamic of how I could help fitness pros grow their business and become more profitable.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so out of that sort of organic event came this business. How many do you think that you've helped write?

Speaker 1:

helped write. In the last two and a half years alone, we've written almost 200 fitness books for fitness businesses around the United States, Canada and even a couple in the UK. Okay, that's a lot of books. Yes, it is.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and so these are gym owners, trainers, that kind of thing. These are gym owners, trainers, that kind of thing. Absolutely Okay. How much do they need to be convinced that a book will help them? Are they skeptical? Do they think? You know, nobody reads books anymore and I don't like to write anyway, yeah. So why do they do this?

Speaker 1:

So I mean there's all of the typical fears that we have as human beings and fitness pros. You know, when we consider doing something, we have all the typical fears. I don't know where to start. Okay.

Speaker 1:

I have the knowledge, but turning it into a book feels overwhelming. I'm not sure where to begin. You know that's totally normal. Most first-time authors feel this way. But starting is simpler than it seems. Think about this a second Every fitness pro has a book in them because they're telling their book every day. When they're talking to a prospect and they're explaining how their program is going to help them, that's their book. When they're training their clients, that is their book. The key is to just take it and basically begin with a brain dump of everything they know that helps their clients, and then we just turn it into written form. You know so when you do that, the structure becomes very clear. You don't write the book overnight, but you create a plan and then, one chapter at a time, we develop this right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know I work with a lot of uh, non-writers who say they want to write and a lot in the fitness industry, and this is true across fields. I don't think this is limited to this industry by any means. A lot of people say they want to write something and they want to learn how to do it, but the first try they make they shut down, and it's almost like you can see the incident in ninth grade English class when the teacher humiliated them or something you know, and they can't get past that idea that it has to be perfect before they publish it, or they have to be really imaginative, or they have to be really organized, or they have to be something other than just whoever they are. So I like this idea of helping people who are not communicators understand that they have stories to tell that are of value and that can contribute to their business right?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. It gets back to the old who, not how. Okay, the whole principle of who not how. Don't figure out how to do something on your own. Figure out who can do it so you can shortcut your way to success and you stay in your lane and do what you're good at.

Speaker 1:

And that's kind of the premise that this whole business now is run on. It's like you don't have to sit down and write 25, 30,000 words. You know. What we have to do is identify exactly who your ideal client is, okay. And then once we know that their you know the demographics of them, their psychographics, their pain points and fears, their desires and benefits. Once we know that, it is easy to write a book specifically to that person. And that's the key is, if you're right, it's like any other marketing you're marketing to everybody. You're probably not going to get many people, but if you market to the right person, you're going to attract them into your ecosystem.

Speaker 2:

Right. So how do you do this? How do you help the gym owner or the trainer understand who they're, what psychographics are for crying out loud and and how to do a data dump and all that I mean. I call you up and what happens.

Speaker 1:

So what we do is we sit down and you tell me a little bit about who you serve in your business, who they are, what they do.

Speaker 1:

You know, because you have a general idea of who your client is, who your favorite client is, and then we sit down and we refine that a little bit and from there I quite honestly is when I rely on chat GPT, we can plug all that information and as long as we know exactly who that person is and exactly how you help them, I can take that information and with the proper prompting, that's a conversation on its own. Yeah, sure, okay, I take that and we can generate a very detailed ideal client avatar, detailed ideal client avatar. And not only is it perfect for writing the book. In most cases it really enlightens the fitness pro into more. It gives them more detail about their ideal client, who they are, you know, what their average income is, the way they think, what motivates them, you know. So it helps them, not only writing a book, but it helps them with other marketing and understanding who the person is they're trying to get into their business.

Speaker 2:

Hey, are you a fitness professional trying to grow your business with people over 50? If you are, then you need to know how to communicate with them, how to market to them and how to get them to trust you with their fitness, well-being and money. We're talking about millions of people who are a little older than the typical market that the fitness industry usually pursues. They have more money, more time and better motivation to make the best long-term fitness consumers you'll find anywhere. If you're not focusing on them, you should be. Prime Fit Content is the only content marketing company designed specifically to help you engage people in this group and to help you distinguish yourself from competitors in your community. It's effective, affordable and super easy to use. Check it out at primefitcontentcom. That's prime like prime of your life, fitcontentcom. Back to the show. Okay, so all I have to do is go on to ChatGPT and type in write me a book, and it's that simple.

Speaker 1:

Good luck with that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, teed that up for you, rick, come on.

Speaker 1:

That is the reason so many books do fail nowadays, I mean everybody's trying to take a shortcut and when it comes to writing a book, it isn't a shortcut, but if you know how to use it, what to ask, how to structure things, it will enhance what you're doing. But then, even at that, you do use AI a little bit, but there still has to be that personal touch to it. It has to bring your personality. It has to. You know, they have to feel like they're listening to you speak in the book and that doesn't happen just by simply saying oh, here's my preferred writing style. Again, when it comes to AI, if you give it garbage, it's going to produce garbage.

Speaker 1:

So you really have to be detailed, and what I've actually done is I've created my own Chanchi PT box specifically for writing fitness books, nothing else. So when we're working with a client, we're using this and it's asking the proper questions so we can extract the right information from the fitness pro to make sure the book is directed to their ideal reader about you know. So, like I said, chat, gpt is only as good as the information you give it, and if you don't know how to give it the proper information to get the results you want when it comes to writing the book, you're going to be spinning your wheels. I just a gentleman actually two weeks ago, came to me. He had been trying for months to write his book using ChatGPT and we got in there and we looked at it and he goes I have my book done. And I could see weeks and weeks and weeks of work he'd done. He didn't have a single chapter in there because he was asking the wrong things, right, but it was just endless words and endless, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And if you don't know how to structure things, yeah, gtp chant, gpt is just going to give you a word salad. Yeah, sure, and word salads don't sell. We need to be specific. And so I literally got on there with them, said, okay, here I'm going to show you something, and we walked through just the steps. I was kind of outlying before with his ideal client. He didn't even know who he was writing to. He thought he did, but he didn't. And when we got done, it was four or five hours I spent with the gentleman. I had his whole book, the first draft of his book written, not the whole book, the first draft of his book written, not the whole book, because we still had to go back, put his personal touches to it, make it sound like him. But you can. You can generate a good first draft, an outline and a guide to lead you. That way, the fitness pro doesn't have to sit there and try to write 25, 30,000 words to have a sufficient book.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, I'll, I'll jump right in and tell you that that was the, I think, the most helpful and the most startling aspect of working with you on the book that that we're doing for me. Um, I am a writer. I'm not intimidated by writing 20,000 words, Been a professional writer since my whole life, so that doesn't really phase me and I could have gotten there on my own. But what we did in lightning speed was give me an outline. You gave me an outline to follow. I can change it, I can ignore it, I can do whatever I want, but you gave me that outline to start and that was really helpful. It got me excited to empty my brain of all this information that I have and it gave me a place to put different things to start. So that was really helpful for me and I think that it would be for you know, for anybody. And I have to confess, since we're talking, I don't want to talk about me the whole time, but while we're talking about me, I'm just going to say I was a little snobbish about this.

Speaker 2:

For a long time I've known that people in the fitness industry have written these books and I thought, ah, you know, I'm really a writer. I actually am a writer. If I want to write a book someday, I'll do it the old-fashioned way. You know, I'll slave away at a typewriter and make a bunch of print copies and send them off to publishers in New York and wait for the rejection slips and you know all that stuff right, Because I'm old and that's how people did it before the internet.

Speaker 2:

But I kind of had to just get over myself a little bit. And this book that we've got going is really good. It's got a lot of really good, useful information and it's going to help anybody who wants to grow their fitness business with more people over 50. And so I just say all that to say that I have these prejudices too. I'm 61 years old. I'm not a Luddite, I'm not one of these. The past is always better. I'm not afraid of technology, and yet I still had this resistance to it that it won't be art and it won't be sold in Barnes and Nobles and all that stuff. But you know what? We're not talking about art, we're talking about growing my business, and there's a difference there that I feel as a professional writer. I'm guessing most fitness pros aren't going to get hung up on which is good for them, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, correct. I mean, that's one of the things that you know we wanted people to understand fitness pros especially is what writing a book can do for a business. You know, obviously there's the authority and credibility where it positions you as an industry thought leader, elevates your brand's trustworthiness and perceived expertise. You know it also increases meet appeal, leads to interviews, podcast, innovations, invitations, guest appearances and, quite honestly, they access a business card on steroids. It's far more impactful than a traditional bio or business card.

Speaker 1:

Second thing is lead generation and customer acquisition. I mean, you're going to attract higher quality leads who they've read your book, they're already primed to trust and buy from your business. It's a very free or low cost entry point to introduce new customers to your services and it generates evergreen inbound leads through book sales If you're selling it on Amazon, audible, normal Books and Noble. But it also integrates seamlessly with funnel, and that's huge Okay. Integrates seamlessly with funnel, and that's huge Okay. And then, when you talk about business growth and revenue expansion, well, heck, it increases the sale of your core products or services because you're educating prospects and making them confident buyers, one you know. It opens doors to new opportunities, like I said before speaking engagements, consulting partnerships. It creates additional revenue streams through book sales. You can create courses from it.

Speaker 1:

You know coaching programs and it enhances your visibility and it does strengthen referrals. And then you know you get into the market and PR. You know it encourages. And then you know you get into the marketing and PR. You know it encourages word-of-mouth marketing. It creates viral potential. It becomes a media-free or I should say a media-friendly If you're wanting to get media marketing coverage like that, like that pr leverage. Journalists love quoting authors. They absolutely love it, and it also gives you a competitive advantage over your competitors. It differentiates from competitors who haven't published a book, allows for higher pricing due to expert positioning. It attracts better clients because they do value knowledge and leadership and it makes networking easier and more effective.

Speaker 2:

People just simply respect authors more yeah, give me some success stories of people you've worked with who have seen some good results from this. You don't have to give their names, but just some illustrations.

Speaker 1:

About two years ago, I had a young fitness pro come to me and his business was struggling a bit. He was actually thinking about getting another job and getting out of the fitness industry actually thinking about getting another job and getting out of the fitness industry and he's I'm just going to give this one last try. And decided writing the book. Was that one last try? We wrote his book when it came to marketing, cause I knew he was strapped, so running Facebook ads or social media ads wasn't practical. I told him. I said all I want you to do is give out 30 books a month, one book a day, to somebody that's going to create 30 conversations that you would normally not have. A year later, his business went from doing around $3,000 a month to $25,000 a month, in which 80% of it is all online business.

Speaker 1:

Okay, good for him, good for you. Yeah, and that's his only only way of marketing is handing out books and then creating, you know, programs off of the book. Okay, give me one more. Um, I got another one. Uh, gentleman, gentleman is a professional writer and was wanting to actually go into the 50 and over niche, ironically, and we wrote his book and he became both of those other gentlemen's and this gentleman's both became bestsellers on Amazon. But that's not where they're making their money. They're making their money with how it's growing their, how they're getting new training clients and this gentleman has increased his business considerably. I mean, he's a one-man show, doesn't want to grow to massive sizes, but he's also already trying to figure out where he's gonna fill people into time slots, because he's starting to get too busy.

Speaker 2:

Okay, good for him.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like, I'm sorry, that's the problem. You paid me to help you achieve.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, okay, well, good for him, and he's more our age.

Speaker 1:

The first fitness pro was younger. Second one is more our age.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

So it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you are. This works for you.

Speaker 2:

I want you to go back to a little bit and talk about how, uh, how it integrates with funnels and the rest of of marketing strategy, or it can, because I think that's uh, that's key in my brain Um, how we do what we as entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, small business owners we do all these things, you know, to promote ourselves. So if you can get a piece that ties into everything pretty seamlessly, that's really helpful. So how does this do?

Speaker 1:

that. Well, when it comes to a book funnel, there's a couple of ways you can do it. You can either do a free plus shipping funnel where you give away the book for free charge, only shipping, and then upsell your services. Or you can do it as a landing page, pretty much like a lead met digital copy of the book instead of a physical copy. Offer the book as a free download in exchange for their email address. Now you have the opportunity to nurture them, okay, and to make offers into other programs. You know the key there is what are your offers going to be?

Speaker 1:

Most fitness pros with any like league magnets we do and this is a big thing that I see most fitness pros do wrong is they go from some sort of league magnet or free offer straight to a higher, high dollar coaching program. Most people aren't, aren't at that place in their buying cycle, so we have to have some sort of smaller offers that leads them up to it and it sends them to where we want to go. So when I'm working with fitness pros, I try to help them also develop those. So their readers now on their email list. They take smaller steps to get to where you want them to be and with each step, they're getting to know you, like you trust you, more, and the more they know you, like you trust you, the more they're willing to spend.

Speaker 1:

Right, so we work on two because and I want to make this perfectly clear when you write a book, we're not trying, we're not doing this for book sales. Yes, it's nice to get the book sales and everything, but we start by figuring out what your end game is, which is typically growing your business. So the book becomes, I like to call it, the Trojan horse. It's what gets you through the door as you pass the gatekeeper and it starts teaching people why you're the best, best solution for them. Okay, and a book is an employee that works for you 24-7, 365 days a year, never asked for a raise, never asked for time off, and is always delivering the exact message you want delivered.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm excited to see how this know. I guess this year I've kind of been trying to deliberately shake off some of my, some of the old, old ways of thinking that I've been clinging to, and this is this is one of them. So it's been a real pleasure, if nothing else, to get all this out. You know, when I was a reporter, I used to call it ringing the sponge, like I would go out and report, gather all the information for my article, and it was often like a sponge that was full of water and then I'd come back to the newsroom and start writing and have to squeeze out that sponge to get all the stuff out Right. And that's such an important, healthy part of any communications effort. You know, we all do this, trainers do this, people who you're helping, who've never written anything more than you know a letter, are learning this. They're so full of stuff, of good, valuable information, but they don't have that mechanism to get it out.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's what you're providing them. What fitness professionals need to understand is fitness is an authority business. It's not a service business. It's not a show up and post daily business. It's hope they reach out business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, fitness is about trust, visibility, perception and positioning. People buy from who they trust, who they see the most. Clients don't choose trainers based on price. They choose them based on expert, on perceived expertise. So your audience isn't comparing your workouts. They're comparing you, okay, they are comparing you to your competition and if you don't position yourself like an authority, then you're not going to stand out, you're just going to blend in with the rest. You're going to get stuck in that noise because you've never packaged your message to stand out or to claim your position as the category of one. Yeah, instead, you're one of the many. So I mean there's a lot of great fitness professionals. They're brilliant, overlooked. They're skillful but scrollable. People scroll right by them. Yeah, they're capable, but they're forgettable, and it doesn't have to be that way. You know a book, it isn't just words on paper. It's a powerful business asset. When it's strategically written and marketed, it can generate leads, build credibility and multiply revenue streams. The key is leveraging the book beyond just selling copies, turning it into a marketing and authority building powerhouse.

Speaker 2:

Okay, A few minutes ago you flashed the working cover of my book. Can you show us that again so we can get another look at that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, let me bring it back up real quick. There it is, come on, can you see it? Look at that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let me bring it back up real quick. There it is, come on, can you see it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Selling longevity.

Speaker 1:

This has been a fun project.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, why, why has it been fun?

Speaker 1:

Because the 25 years that I had my own fitness facilities, I basically catered to 50 and over folks, more 45 and over. So this one was an easy one for me to help write, you know, and then, when you started adding your expertise in it, it really became a powerhouse. It became a really really good book that is giving fitness pros incredible information. It really is, so I'm excited to see it go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so am I, and I hope it does bring some value to some people. I think it will, and I want you to tell the folks how to get in touch with you, what their next step is If they think that this might be something that they want to look into. What do they do?

Speaker 1:

Sure, they can reach out to me, rick at fitnessmarketingcom. They can even call me. I give my phone number out. I'm still old school as well, all right, let's have it, and I answer my phone number out. I'm still old school as well? All right, and I answer my phone. The only time I don't answer my phone is if I'm on a call like this or working with another fitness pro and my phone number is 573-302-8400.

Speaker 1:

We can just talk about if it makes sense for you. I'm not going to try to sell anybody something that I don't think they should have. We're going to see. If it makes sense, I'll answer your questions. If not, I'll try to lead you in the right direction on how to market your business, because that's basically what my business is is helping people market business. This is just what I found to be the most powerful way to market a fitness business. The most powerful way to market a fitness business. We'll have a conversation and if it makes sense, I'll tell you. If it doesn't make sense, I will tell you. I mean, it's better for both of us for me to be straightforward.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Okay. Well, good, so just email you or call you to get started. I like that a lot and I'm looking forward to it. I'm ready to to make this happen and to get this out there, so we'll keep people posted on when the book becomes available, and thank you for your help with it and thanks for joining me today to to tell other folks about your services.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I enjoy this. Like I said, we always have fun conversations. We do.

Speaker 2:

We do Well, rick. Thank you so much, and uh, you're off tomorrow to see Pat Rigsby and his mastermind. Tell them all. I said hello.

Speaker 1:

I will do so. It's always fun when I get down there with those folks. Yeah, yeah. And actually here soon. Pat and I have a book coming out that we wrote together. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Do you want to plug that shamelessly right now? Here's your opportunity.

Speaker 1:

It's called um position published profit. It's about how a book will help you grow your business. I mean, if you know Pat, he's the leader in fitness marketing, helping people build businesses. He's a firm believer in writing a book. I think he's written close to 15 or 20 books himself and the only reason somebody like that does it is because they know it works.

Speaker 2:

Excellent endorsement, excellent conclusion to the conversation. Rick, thanks very much, my pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Optimal Aging Podcast. I'm your host, jay Croft of PrimeFit Content. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll subscribe, review and tell a friend. All of that helps me grow my audience. I hope you'll share any comments you have with me, including suggestions about people I should interview and topics I should cover. You can learn more about my newsletter and content business at primefitcontentcom and write me at jay J-A-Y at primefitcontentcom and I'm on all the social channels. Again, thanks for listening. Join me next time.

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