Optimal Aging

Elevating Your 50+ Clients to Superhero Status

• Jay Croft

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In this powerful episode from the Functional Aging Summit, Jay Croft—founder of Prime Fit Content—reveals how fitness professionals can use client storytelling to attract, engage, and retain more clients over 50.

You’ll learn how to frame your clients as the heroes of their own fitness journeys (not you), why that subtle shift builds trust and credibility, and how to avoid the most common marketing mistakes that push people away.

Whether you’re a gym owner, studio operator, or coach working with midlife and older adults, this episode is packed with actionable advice on messaging, member profiles, retention, and building community.

🎧 What You’ll Learn:

  • The “hero’s journey” and how it applies to your clients
  • Why most fitness marketing misses the mark with older adults
  • How to tell stories that inspire action (without selling)
  • Real-world examples of member profiles that work
  • The retention benefits of client-centered content

Purchase recordings for the 2025 Virtual Functional Aging Summit:
https://www.fbasucceed.com/faisummit

📥 Download your free guide:
How to Attract Clients Over 50 with Better Storytelling

📘 Book a strategy call:
https://primefitcontent.com/contact

🧠 Connect with Jay:
Instagram – @primefitcontent
LinkedIn – Jay Croft

⏱️ Timestamps:
00:00 – Real-life superhero story
01:30 – The hero’s journey explained
03:15 – Why older clients are overlooked
05:45 – Common marketing mistakes
09:20 – Client-focused storytelling
15:00 – Member profiles that resonate
25:00 – Success metrics for fitness pros
30:00 – Building community & retention
37:00 – Live Q&A on marketing strategies

Speaker 1:

You get to actually say that you work with people who perform superhuman tasks because they do, and so what you need to do is honor that and show that. The woman on the left it's hard to tell there, but she's got a snow shovel in her hand and she lives here in Atlanta where it doesn't snow very much. Very often Maybe every three years, we get a little, so the city doesn't come along and remove it because it's not worth it economically to have the equipment. So this woman lives in a nice neighborhood in one of the suburbs and we all woke up to a bunch of snow one day and she went out and shoveled it off. And she took this video and posted it on the studio's social media and said look at me. I cleaned off my driveway, I cleaned off my sidewalk. Then I went down to the next door neighbors and did it for them too, and I only was able to do this because I've been working out with you these last few months. She had a big smile on her face. She couldn't have been happier.

Speaker 1:

Who's your favorite superhero If you work in fitness, health and well-being for people over 50, I hope you said one of your clients. I mean sure, I love Superman and the Avengers as much as anybody, but when it comes to real-life strength, courage and perseverance, you probably don't have to look much farther than your own membership roles. Think about it Anybody who's showing up and doing the work and trying to improve their health later in life is already performing heroic tasks, and I hope that you are treating them that way, because it's not just the right and respectful thing to do, it's also smart for your business. You know, like everyone else, people over 50, 60, 70 and above everybody wants to be seen and acknowledged, and too often, older people are overlooked at gyms, studios, by trainers, by healthcare providers. Even so, don't make that same mistake. I talked about this recently with the Functional Aging Institute at their online Functional Aging Summit, and in this episode I'm going to share my full presentation, courtesy of FAI. Thanks, guys, and I encourage you to check out all the other presentations at functionalagingsummitcom. You can get them there, the presentations at functionalagingsummitcom. You can get them there.

Speaker 1:

Now, to answer my own question, who's my favorite superhero? I have to say it's you gym owners, trainers, studio owners, anybody in health and fitness and wellbeing who works every day to help older people look better, feel better, move better, enjoy greater health and autonomy, extend their lifespan, feel better about themselves. It's so important what you guys do every day and you have so many powerful stories to share. That's where I come in. I help you do that and it's what I get to talk about in this presentation. So I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think. All right, let's go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining me today for this talk about your clients and your prospects and how. I believe, if you put the focus of your content on them, that it will not only make them feel good, but it'll also be good for your business. So I want to talk about serving superheroes that's what I call your clients who are a little bit older, and how to present them as the awesome specimens that they really are, while also making your role clear as well. So just a little bit about me to get started.

Speaker 1:

I'm Jay Croft. I'm the creator of Prime Fit Content, which helps gyms and fitness studios and trainers and others grow their businesses by reaching and engaging more people over 50 to become prospects, to become members and to stay members longer. I also host the Optimal Aging Podcast, where we discuss how to grow our businesses by helping slightly older people or anyone over 50 really live a healthier life and have better habits, and I'm delighted to be here today at the Functional Aging Summit. My business was born out of the Functional Aging Summit a few years ago, was born out of the Functional Aging Summit a few years ago, and I'm sure a lot of familiar faces are participating in this weekend's virtual summit and a lot of new people as well. I think that's just great. I'm really happy to be here and I want to encourage all of you to make the most of this opportunity to learn a lot and network and meet people and get phone numbers and get email addresses and check out web pages and all of that because I met a bunch of great people here Dan, cody, celia and a bunch of gym owners who convinced me to start writing content to help them reach more people, and that's why I'm here now. So really dive in, have a great time.

Speaker 1:

I got started into the Fitness Over 50 field a little bit differently maybe than some of you. I don't own a gym and I'm not a trainer. I come to this as a communications expert with more than 35 years in mainstream media daily newspapers, your hometown newspaper that we all used to read every morning. I wrote and edited those for a long time and then I worked in some Fortune 500 companies and their communications and marketing departments, and I've freelanced for CNN and WebMD, and I want to talk a little bit about what we're going to cover today, so that you can have an expectation of where I'm going with all this. I want to talk a little bit about why I see that a lot of gym owners and trainers are missing the mark with their outreach to people in general, but specifically with people over 50, how we can easily flip it to put the focus on the clients where it belongs, keeping you as the position, as the trusted guide. I want to give you some practical examples of how to do that, how to shift that focus and also to stay consistent in all of this, and then we'll have time for questions. I hope you have lots of them, because I can talk about this all day.

Speaker 1:

So before we dive in, I want to do, I guess, a couple of just sort of housekeeping items. I'm going to talk a lot about fitness over 50. And don't put too hard a point on that. If you focus on people over 40, over 65, whatever Functional Aging Institute says, 55. It's all pretty much the same thing we mean at this point in life where our bodies, our lifestyles, our home situations, our work situations are all changing and that to me it seems about 50, and where people are starting to look at their, their future in a different way, because previously they were looking at a lot of working years and raising kids and the body always being there for it to work, perfectly right. But now things are a little bit different. When we get up to around 50. Our bodies change, our health needs change, our fitness needs change, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

And then, secondly, before we get to the superheroes, I want to put the broader context of that in to the idea of what are superheroes in? Well, not just comic books. They're in everything now, of course, but superheroes are the main characters in stories, and stories are super important in how you present your business. And so I want you to think about stories, your stories and your businesses stories, but, most importantly, your clients and prospects stories and how you are telling who you are, by which of their stories you tell and how have really important stories to tell. They can help you reach more people help more people live better lives, and you can move them to take that action that maybe they know they should, but something's holding them back, they're not quite sure. You can make that emotional connection with the right kind of story and the right kind of content to improve those lives and improve your business. And as the head of your business, you're the storyteller, you're the editor. You get to decide where that spotlight goes, who you're going to focus on and why you're doing it.

Speaker 1:

So a problem that I see a lot in fitness is that gym owners and trainers too often think that their marketing, that their storytelling, is supposed to be about them. And I get it because we're always told tell your story, tell your story. And so we think, oh, I have to talk about myself. That's not what I mean, and I chose this kind of photo to make a point. I know they're kind of extreme in the presentation and that's really to get your attention, because we've all seen things like this and I'm not saying that you're all doing it, but we all see it out there Trainers and gym owners who want to show how awesome they are, how beautiful they are, and then also how many initials they have after their names and then also how many initials they have after their names. Right, we do that a lot because we want to show everyone that we have credibility, that we've been certified by everyone under the sun, and I guess we think that if we show that we're really built, that that's going to prove that we know what we're talking about.

Speaker 1:

I think it can have the opposite effect, particularly with people over 50, who generally don't harbor the illusion that they're going to look like either of these people anytime soon. Maybe some of them do, maybe some of them will, maybe some of them want to, but by and large, you know that their motivations are different than that, that they're much more interesting and compelling and that you can help them travel and play with their grandchildren and enjoy their leisure activities and their sports and keep their health in line and keep their weight in line and just maintain their overall quality of life and autonomy. It's my fear that with images like this that you put up a hand, you say to them no, we don't want you because you don't look like this. You're never going to look like this. You never did look at this. People like this used to make fun of you in high school and now it's past you, you're too late, so just stay on the couch and the beautiful people over here have got it covered.

Speaker 1:

I know that sounds extreme and kind of ridiculous, but a lot of the prospects that you're trying to engage are really looking for any reason to not come see you. So remove those reasons presented as frail, helpless, out of touch, that kind of thing, not superheroes, right, and probably not the people that you're really interested in helping. We see this not just in those kinds of, you know, overly sexualized images, but even in something as common as member profiles, which should be about the member, should be an opportunity to tell a little story about how the member's life improved by coming to your business and doing what you advise them to do. Instead, I think, because we're afraid to ask people questions and be nosy and be rude or whatever, we end up being vague and just talking about how great our gym is. Being vague and just talking about how great our gym is, I see a lot of member profiles that just say hi, I'm Susie Jones and I love working at, you know, acme Fitness, because everybody here is so nice and welcoming and I feel good here and I'm getting results and it's a great place. And if you want to feel better, you should come to Acme too, because Acme is great and Acme is the best and Acme, acme, Acme, right. I don't know anything about Susie. I don't know what her story was. I don't know if I relate to it. All I have are these platitudes and cliches about how nice everything is at the gym.

Speaker 1:

So when we talk about superheroes and stories and your clients, I want to reference something that's called the hero's journey. Not to get too academic here on you, I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this. It's not like I invented it or discovered it. It's a pretty common idea that most stories in Western culture are based in this thing called the hero's journey, and so central to that is, of course, the hero, and the hero always has a mentor. The hero enters a new world, faces challenges, fear, confusion. A mentor helps guide the hero through these series of challenges until the hero emerges triumphant a new person, better leader, better skills, better something.

Speaker 1:

I want to give a couple of examples that we're all familiar with here so that you know what I'm talking about. This photo, of course, is from Star Wars, with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, so the hero of Star Wars, as everyone knows, is Luke Skywalker. He's just this boy on some remote planet and he gets sucked into this adventure and he's in way over his head and he meets this guy, this mentor, obi-wan Kenobi, who helps him become the hero of the story and save the galaxy. So when you think about yourself and your members and your prospects, who are coming to you for help to see if they want to work with you, which one are you? Are you the hero? Are you the mentor? Are you Luke Skywalker? Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi? Just another example that we're all familiar with, from a different era and with a different gender.

Speaker 1:

In the middle of it, dorothy landed in Oz, overwhelmed, had to go on this journey, had to go on this freaking yellow brick road to go meet some wizard, just so she could get home to Kansas, right. And who helped her? A lot of people helped her, but her mentor in this was Glinda the Good Witch. Glinda's pretty fabulous, I will tell you, and she does have her own backstory, as we've been learning recently from the Wicked movie and the upcoming sequel. But the Wizard of Oz is about Dorothy. It's not about Glinda. It's about Dorothy's quest to return home, and Glinda knows her role in that.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to be aware of that Doesn't mean you're secondary. Doesn't mean you're boring. It means that you know who the star is and what your role is in helping them. It also doesn't mean that your story is not important and that you should never talk about your story. That is not what I'm suggesting. You all have fabulous, interesting, compelling stories and you need to know what those stories are and when it's relevant to talk about them. If you don't know your story, I want you to take some time and think about it over the coming days. Make some notes about it, talk to your people about it. What's your story as it relates to your business and your clients? Now, when it's relevant, talk about it. When it's not relevant, it's still baked into your DNA and it's baked into everything that you do. It might even be a part of your business plan. It might be a part of all your marketing. It might underpin your core messaging that you've come up with, that you want to make sure is relayed somehow in all of your communications and marketing. So to illustrate that point, I'm going to tell you my story, which is I don't like to talk about myself very much. I'm getting better at it. It's a little difficult for me, so this won't take long, I promise.

Speaker 1:

But I got started in fitness largely because of this guy, bruce Springsteen. Now, this picture was from the summer of 1984 when he emerged with the Born in the USA album and Muscles, and previously Springsteen had been a scrawny, runty, scruffy little street urchin right, who just wanted to be a good writer and entertainer. Well, I was always the scrawny, runty, little street urchin type too, who wanted to be a good writer. Not a musician, don't want to be on stage but I wanted to be a good writer. And I had no muscles, no masculine presence, anything. And I was 20 that summer. And when he came out looking like this, I thought, hey, it's not just for meatheads. You know, here's someone I admire. He's done it. Maybe I can do it too. And out of that grew this obsession with fitness that led me to be here today.

Speaker 1:

A few years ago, as I was mentioning, at the Functional Aging Summit from 2018 in Orlando, I met Dan and Cody and Celia and a bunch of folks, and I was looking for a way to get into the fitness business as a writer, and they gave me the entree convincing me that there was this need to help gyms and trainers and studios reach more people in this demographic, and so that's what I set out to do. This was right after well gosh, I had turned 50 a few years before, and when I turned 50, I had this epiphany. I was at the gym when it happened and I realized that the fitness industry was no longer marketing to me. It's difficult to say why or how I realized that, but the closest I can come to is when you're riding in a car with teenagers and the radio is on and they're singing along to all the songs that you've never heard before and you don't know who the singers are. It's because you've aged out of the market. You're no longer that that narrow focus that they want to reach on the radio. But I felt that's how I felt with the fitness industry and I thought you know that's ridiculous, because I'm young and I'm fit and I've got money and everyone I know is young and active and wants to stay that way and there's a missed opportunity here. So the timing was just serendipitous for me to hook up with these leaders in fitness and out of that I developed Prime Fit content, which these are a few elements of my storytelling, for lack of a better word.

Speaker 1:

Everything you do, everything you put out, every conversation you have must tie back to your core messaging, your storytelling, your basics, and these include things like your tagline. For mine, it's reach more fitness prospects and clients over 50. It shows my customer and my purpose. It doesn't say grow your gym with teenage boys who want muscles. It doesn't say help first-time moms lose the baby weight. It doesn't say help elite athletes make that 1% improvement in their performance. Right, because that's not what I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

You need to think about what you're doing and be really clear about it. I chose these colors because I think they're kind of corporate and not too stale, and my tone is very deliberate, very intentionally highly readable and engaging and focused on the consumer. And I have to be somewhat broad, because I'm selling my material to a bunch of gem owners all over the place and they need to be able to use it to reach their end user, their consumers. So think about all of this. Think about your origin story, your superpower. You might never talk about it in public, you might never post about it on Facebook, but you might. And even if you don't, it's really important to know who and what you're all about.

Speaker 1:

At that level need to very consciously and deliberately make the client the hero in your content, and by content we of course, mean things like social media, email newsletters, my ebook there, things like that all of it. When you put out content on a consistent basis, you are revealing who you are by telling other people's stories, along with enough about you and your industry and your qualifications and your business. I'm not suggesting you never talk about yourself. Of course that's gonna enter into the picture. But through all of this, people see who you are and what's important to you and whether they fit in, and they get this clear, emerging picture of what you're all about. They get to know you and like you and trust you, and that's when they want to do business with you, because a lot of the people we're talking about are shy about all of this kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

It can be expensive. To join a gym, can be intimidating. It can be a very intimate thing because you're in space with people and maybe it involves being touched or whatever. Who knows what's going on. But they need to know you and like you and trust you before they're just going to walk into your gym and if all they see is stuff about people they can't relate to, then they're not going to come in. 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.

Speaker 1:

So again, whether it's podcasts, speeches, your website, it's all important, and not just the text, but the photos too. I do, I talked to, I do a lot of consulting with gyms who want to learn how to get a hold of their image and their, their communications and their content In addition to providing the content to let them do that. And I was talking to a gym owner in California a few years ago and he lived in one of those tri-state excuse me, tri-county regions and sort of semi-rural Northern California, and he was frustrated because he said his was the only gym in the tri-county region that focused on people over 50. And yet nobody over 50 ever came into his gym. I said, well, let's take a look at what you're putting out to the world.

Speaker 1:

The first stop was his website, which had precisely zero words or images of, or related to, people over 50. In fact, it was very much 20 and 30 something active, with even a lot of content about prenatal and postnatal fitness for women who are thinking about being pregnant, might be pregnant or have recently been pregnant. It's like, dude, what are you talking about? Do you not see that disconnect, that dissonance? We need to bring it all together because you can talk all you want, but when people see what you're doing and what you're putting out to the world, that's where they get a sense of what you're really all about. So let's talk about how you can shine that spotlight where it's best used for your business, and this is what we're talking about. We're talking about your business. We're not just talking about being nice or giving pats on the back, although those things are important. We're talking about being clear about who and what you're all about, so that you can grow your business. Some of the ways that we're going to talk about doing that are testimonials that show the challenges and victories that you've helped people achieve Member videos more so than videos showing your trainers doing uh exercise.

Speaker 1:

I, I follow a gym, that a studio that again says it helps mostly old people, older people who are deconditioned and want to get back in shape, and they always post these videos of their trainer doing pretty advanced exercises and I guess they think it's interesting and maybe it's interesting to the trainer, but it doesn't speak to the audience. If you're 65 years old and retiring after 40 years, as at a desk job, you don't really want to know how to do a. You know I'm blanking on the name the thing where you get up off the floor with a. You know with a kettlebell above your head or some of these really elaborate moves that look kind of scary right. You just want to know that you're going to find a place where they relate to you and that they see you and they can help you and give you safe, positive experience. And you do this through showing real clients doing real activities.

Speaker 1:

I don't mind a little stock imagery now and then. I don't mind it, even half of being stocked, because, let's face it, we don't have the budgets always for original photography. But we can show enough real people doing real things that it all comes out in the wash and we can speak in plain language not fitness speak and we can focus on function and ability to do stuff and enjoy life more than before and after. As you know, before and after can be dramatic. It can be very effective and a great way to show that working out and eating right pays off, but it can also lead to this idea that it just matters how you look, or the only thing that matters is your weight. Of course, it's more involved in that and and we want to sell that you're being able to enjoy life. So show people what they're doing. You know your members really are everyday superheroes.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to talk about a few of them that are pictured here right now. Um, most of these are people I know. No, that's not true about. Most of these are people I know. No, that's not true. About half of them are people I know and others are affiliated with people I work with. So they're not, you know, just made up. And you get to actually say that you work with people who perform superhuman tasks, because they do, and so what you need to do is honor that and show that.

Speaker 1:

The woman on the left she's got it's hard to tell there, but she's got a snow shovel in her hand and she lives here in Atlanta where it doesn't snow very often, very much, very often. Maybe every three years we get a little, so the city doesn't come along and remove it because it's not worth it economically to have the equipment. So this woman lives in a nice neighborhood in one of the suburbs and we all woke up to a bunch of snow one day and she went out and shoveled it off. And she took this video and posted it on the studio's social media and said look at me. I cleaned off my driveway, I cleaned off my sidewalk. Then I went down to the next door neighbors and did it for them too, and I only was able to do this because I've been working out with you these last few months. She had a big smile on her face. She couldn't have been happier. The two women underneath her are traveling in Europe having a grand old time.

Speaker 1:

The woman in the upper right-hand corner is that was posted on another of my clients' social media pages. Actually, I might've even taken that picture because I was at that event. It was a charity event and it was an 80s night. So there she is, dressed as sort of a Madonna wannabe from back in the day, and these pictures were posted on the studio's social media to show that they're involved in the community, that they have a sense of humor, that they care about people Great stuff.

Speaker 1:

And then I guess my favorite here is the gentleman. His name is Jerry. I actually know Jerry pretty well because we go to the same gym and have for a long time. He is now, I think, 78 years old and this photo was taken one or two years ago. Jerry's story is that, in anticipation of his 75th birthday, he decided he wanted to run his first Spartan race. So he'd been working with a trainer for a while and he went to the trainer and told him this goal and they did it and they worked really hard and they got Jerry into shape to be Mr Spartan. Spartan man, put a big S on his chest. Right, there's a superhero for you. He didn't just do one and quit, he does them all the time. Now Sometimes he does three in one weekend because they have 5k, 10k and marathon level. He's seven. I think he's 78. You know, this is great stuff and it shows the commitment and dedication and training skill of his trainer and the gym where he trains, without saying, look how great we are, without lifting up your shirt showing your abs. Even if you never want to run a Spartan race in your life, you're going to be moved by him, you're going to like him and you're going to get some reaction out of hearing his story.

Speaker 1:

So we need to ask ourselves the three-part question over and over again when we're talking about our content and our marketing what problem do you solve, how do you solve it and what does success look like? I'm going to break it down really simple with an obvious basic level kind of example. But what problem do you solve? You help people who are afraid of falling. They're at the age where their mother fell and broke her hip. They don't want to do that. How do you do that? With strength training, balance training, what does success look like? They're more confident, they're more able, they feel like they can enjoy life now and they're going to keep coming back to you, to keep training with you, to keep that confidence and that strength and that functionality. So for them, they get to be in better shape. For you, you get a long term client. So a few other ways that we can keep the spotlight on the member and this one is is about those spotlights. I want to talk a little bit about how to how to do those better.

Speaker 1:

I guess the number one thing is to talk to the person. A lot of you are just sending emails, and I can always tell when a member profile has been done by an interview or by an email, because the answers are very short oftentimes and there are no follow-ups. So there's no conversation, there's no juice, there's no richness to it and you can't tell a story out of that. Nothing's going to emerge out of that. How do you like working out? I like it. What's your favorite part to people? What's your goal? Lose weight. What's your dream vacation? Mexico, right? Who cares?

Speaker 1:

So take the time to speak to them and tell the people that you want to tell a story about their fitness journey the beginning, the middle and where they are now. The beginning is what they were like before they came to see you. The during is the catalyst, as you know. There's often a moment where they a light bulb moment, where something happens and they think, oh, I've got to make a change in my life. So what was that? And then how did they feel coming in? Were they nervous, were they confident, were they excited? And then what's their life like now? They've lost weight, they've gained muscle mass, their balance is better, their doctor's happier. They're no longer type two, whatever it is. Those are the elements of the story before, during and after. With you know progression and someone in the middle and your role in it emerges. It's very clear. Again, I'm not saying you don't talk about yourself, it's just obvious what we're talking about here. And when you share real client photos of people training and smiling and moving, and when you write in common language and you highlight the functional wins, show real bodies of different ages, different abilities, different shapes, then that's the kind of member profile that's going to connect with people.

Speaker 1:

The best member profile I've done lately is a woman who I think she's in her early 60s. She's overweight, she recently retired and she was mortified and humiliated when she had to leave her toddler granddaughter's birthday celebration because she couldn't play on the bouncy bounce thing. She got winded. That was her moment. She went to the studio, she got in shape and at the next family picnic she was running up and down the slide with the, with the toddler doing it so much that she's just laughing and having a great time and and the kicker is, the little girl kept saying one more time, grandma, one more time, grandma, one more time. But you can't. That woman will never leave that studio. She's there for life because they gave her that moment.

Speaker 1:

So move on to another way you can keep this focus on your superhero clients, and that's with your superhero website, because this is a major way you show who you're for, superhero website. Because this is a major way you show who you're for. And I'm going to illustrate what I mean by showing you this image, which is the part of the homepage of Full Circle Fitness in Orange County, california. It's owned by my friend, rosa Coletto. She's the third one from the left. Rosa's in her thirties, I think. The other women are her clients, except for the woman on the right who is one of her trainers. And so when you are, if you're in Orange County and you're looking for a gym for people over 50 and you find this one, you know you're in the right place, don't you? Because she says so in big type and because those faces look like you.

Speaker 1:

So this is a, you know, just a really ideal opportunity to make it clear what you're talking about and who you want. Don't be shy about it, don't be vague, don't be unclear. There's nothing wrong with pursuing your business plan, which your marketing and your content are supporting. Another way to do this is through your neighborhood. You'd get to know your neighborhood better. Get out of the gym, get out from behind the computer or out of the weight room and walk up and down the streets. Get to know the people in your neighborhood, as Mr Rogers told us. Find out what you can do for them, how you can help them, or just make an introduction and get to know them so that this can become perhaps an in-real-life relationship. And the commonality there is your client. Maybe there's a hair salon where some of your clients get their hair colored. Maybe there's a nice restaurant that draws some of your clientele. That kind of thing draws some of your clientele, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

Another way to do this in your neighborhood is to sponsor events, participate in things like community festivals, 5k runs, things like this. You want to see and be seen, because it shows people, it shows your customers, your customer base, that you're a part of the community and that you care about them and you're going to learn more about them and their desires and their fears and what's important to them, the better you get to know them. So get out of the gym and go meet people and then finally, after you do all of that and they come to see you, you got to deliver. You got to give great experience, great customer experience, not just results for people who stick with you for three months or six months or long enough to really get the fruits of your expertise, but from the minute they engage with you, you've got to be delivering that top tier customer experience and it needs to continue pretty intensely for the first few weeks and the first few months. You need a protocol so that all your employees know how to treat newcomers, particularly newcomers who are a little bit older, because we want to be respected, we want to be called our name, we want to be looked in the eye, these little things that might not be important to 25-year-olds, but they're important to me and I think they're important to other people in our demographic. And they also tell the reluctant newcomer that you see them, you want them, you care about them. You remember that they came in here because their granddaughter's getting married in six months and they want to be in good shape for that. You remember that they've got a vacation coming up in six weeks, whatever it is, and your people do too. So deliver on that customer experience by developing one. And if you don't have one for newcomers, I want you to meet with your team and put one together. You can't just lure them in and then throw them in with the gen pop, so to speak. It's okay, they don't all need handholding. I don't need handholding. I'm thoroughly comfortable in any fitness environment. But for those who are not, you need to be prepared, because these people are in need of your help. They're in need of your attention so that you can mentor them, you can guide them just like Glenda did for old Dorothy and Obi-Wan Kenobi did for Luke Skywalker so that you can help them become the person they want to be, the hero of their story on their journey, and then you highlight their stories and your role in it becomes apparent and it's clear, it's simple, it's compelling and a story emerges about you. Your story emerges that this is what you're all about and that's all I have to say at the moment. So I want to take your questions, curious, to see what your experiences are. So let's have them. Okay, here we go. Thanks, guys.

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Celia says how do we maintain positivity when the journey and progress are nonlinear and may even have setbacks? Well, that's a great question, celia, and all of you know that there are setbacks for any of your clients, for any of us, toward any goal, and the great thing about working with people who are a little bit older is that they've been through life a little bit. They've had other goals, they've tried to do other things and succeeded at them. Maybe they've tried at other things and failed at them or gave up fitness not necessarily related to fitness, but it could be. So we celebrate the little victories. We point out from the beginning that there will be setbacks, to expect them. You know that this is just part of the process, that getting fit, staying fit, living a healthy lifestyle isn't something you, it's not one and done. You don't walk in and buy something or do something one time or for six weeks or for three months or whatever, and then you're done. That it's a lifestyle that you're doing for your health and that over time, if you're consistent, you're going to get closer to your goals and be healthier and feel better about yourself, particularly as you age. The better you get to know your client, the more you can provide feedback that's meaningful to them. But I think it's just being realistic and I think by the time you're 50 or 60 years old, you understand that it's not just always a simple linear step. If I do this, then this will be the result.

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Wise Moves Fitness says how often should we be posting on social media? Well, I recommend Facebook being your main social media channel. You can also do Instagram, because very easily, because Instagram and Facebook are now part of meta and it's easy to post on both of them at the same time and I recommend that you post something at least once a day on Facebook. Now, some of you might think that's excessive. Maybe for your particular situation, that is, I'm not an expert on your business or your community or your audience, but I think for most of you, you need to be getting something out there once a day on Facebook and then the rest of the social media channels I really wouldn't worry about, unless there's some specific reason why you think it would be more effective for your audience.

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Eric says how should professionals effectively communicate their own value and expertise without overshadowing the client narrative or falling into self-promotion? Well, I think if you keep the focus on the client and not ignore your role, then that becomes clear, particularly over time when people see these same kind of narratives and same kinds of stories over and over again. What's the commonality? You right, and that becomes clear. And then I think also it's okay to promote yourself sometimes. Just do it in a way that is respectful of your audience. And I started with the Mr Abs and the girl with the waist like this, because I don't think that's particularly respectful of your audience, not because it shows skin, but because it's not relevant. It's showing them that you don't care about what their motivations are. You're just going to show what you have to say. So learn what their motivations are and create promotional material about yourself that speaks to them, and then maybe do that one out of five. Maybe you've got some. People say there's an 80% rule, that 80% of your content should be about them and 20% can be promotional. I'm not sure if I agree with that directly, but something like that feels right to me.

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Janet says the non-linear element of life Okay. Eric says have you found building community among clients to be important for those over 50? Super important and a great opportunity for you, for you gym owners and trainers and studio owners. It's not just important for them that they find it with you, it's important for you that you maximize the opportunity because it's good for your business. I don't mean to be cynical by always saying it's good for your business, but I think that too often we think, when we're talking about working with older people, we tend to think that we're being altruistic and maybe there's an element of that. But you're running a business and there's nothing wrong with remembering that. So provide that community, absolutely. People need it. We saw it so much in COVID, you know, because a lot of people in our demographic live alone or have you know, have at least don't get out as much as they used to when they were going to a job or when they had kids in the home or that kind of thing. So that community is super important and I love that you brought it up. So yeah, absolutely, it's very important. Celia says you touched on this, but this is another one that was on the dashboard how should professionals Okay, we already talked about that, thank you, celia Janet says can I use my tips for getting back on track by highlighting how a client used them?

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Yeah, I think so. You know, I recommend when you tell the client stories, oftentimes they just stand on their own, but sometimes they reflect a specific thing that you want to highlight about your business. So let's say that you've got a new program that you're promoting about how to get back on track and Susie Jones went through your program and nailed it and she's awesome because she went through your program to get back on track. Yeah, I think, absolutely. Use her. Talk to her first, get her buy-in, make sure she's cool with it and if she's not, then do it with someone else. I don't think it's worth the friction to do it if she doesn't want you to. If Susie says you know, I don't want to be out there like that, don't do that, then don't find someone who does, because most there like that don't do that, and don't find someone who does because most people won't mind. Most people will be happy to see themselves inspiring other people. So, yeah, find someone who exemplifies something you're proud of.

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One of the one of the gym owners who got me started in this, dina Medina of active age fitness in California, started a nutrition program and she asked me to write four profiles of clients who had gone through her nutrition program specifically so she could say look at my clients who went through my nutrition program. So absolutely, you bet Smart. Any more questions y'all? Well, I would love to hear from you. My email is jjaprimefitcontentcom. That's prime like prime of your life, fitcontentcom. You can check me out there about my content services and let me know if you're interested in how I can help you consulting on your communications or just providing you the content to use in your emails and social and blog posts, and I would love to hear from you. Have a great summit.

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Jay Croft

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