The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
Escaping the Lead Generation Struggle
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the constant chase for leads? In this episode, we're tackling the misconception that more leads translate into greater success. Join me as I share my personal journey of breaking free from the lead-generation trap and stepping into a realm defined by purpose and meaningful connections. I recount the pivotal moments that reshaped my vision and discuss how defining your ideal client and their pain points can lead to more substantial relationships.
The conversation flows into how aligning your business growth with personal values serves as a foundation for authentic marketing strategies. Learn what it means to understand your unique selling proposition and how narrowing your focus can create a more fulfilling entrepreneurial journey. By nurturing the right connections, we move beyond mere numbers and into a space where our brands reflect who we truly are.
This episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and practical advice for anyone seeking to create a sustainable and impactful business model. Join us and redefine your approach to lead generation today! Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave us your thoughts!
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I was doing exactly what I tell my clients not to do, which is just go out there and get as many leads as possible. Just try to bring them in. You look at them as a number. Hey, everyone, welcome. I'm your host, zach Coleman, where we're going to kind of do something a little bit different. We've started to change things up a bit. We're still going to continue on our path of having the overall podcast, where we sit down with individuals and talk through those visionary ideas that come to us during our daily normal gym break. But we're also going to add in a couple of additional segments. Don't know if you all know this, but in the past, if you watch through some of our old videos, we used to have go very much deep into content and you know, talking about tips and tricks and marketing and branding and all that stuff. But that was a couple of years ago and things have changed for me. I've grown, I've adapted, I've shifted my mentality towards the types of information that I want to give you guys as you continue down your path to build your brands. So we're going to add in probably about two individual podcasts a week where I sit down and kind of go through some tips, some stories, some hopefully inspiration that can help you make it to the next level of what you're trying to do. And today I want to talk about something that's been on my mind, probably a lot. I've gone through it. I've seen multiple prospects go through it, multiple clients go through it, depending on the type of audience you have. But overall I kind of want to talk about that lead generation predicament, breaking free from really that struggle on what puts us in a place of continually grasping at those low quality type clients. If you'd be in a B2B market, if you'd be in a B2C market, it doesn't really matter. Let's just kind of go through this and I can kind of go through my story how I started to make my shift in my brand and in my business, what I've started to do, how I've started to grow. And this will be the first real episode of what I call our foundational series. It'll be about three months worth of these individual podcasts. You can subscribe down to our newsletter down below if you want to get the written version of this and get the whole series.
Speaker 0:About two and a half years ago I went down the journey of realizing that something was missing in my brand and my business. I was starting to grow to a certain point where I needed to expand. I was already a delegator, but I realized that there was this pivotal point in my business, my brand, where I was burnt out. I wasn't happy. I was trying to force all these different things, all these different things that I wanted, and I kind of lost my why. The thing that makes me me, the thing that makes my business my business, and what it ended up doing, is it actually had me start to grow a brand that I didn't really want.
Speaker 0:At the end of the day, you know, you can separate your business from your personal life. You can say they're the same thing, whatever you want. You can say, hey, our business isn't meant to make us happy. You can say it is, but at the end of the day, we all want to wake up in the morning and enjoy what we do. And I kept feeling this constant pressure that I had to either outbeat competition or I had to outbeat myself, even maybe some of my past traumas of trying to perform and show people. I can do certain things.
Speaker 0:But I realized towards the end of that TEDx journey, because I was going through and I realized that I wanted to speak more. I wanted to connect. If you want to hear more of my TEDx, you can always click the link or view it down in the comments. But during that journey, I realized that I had to get away from just sitting behind a computer screen. I had to do more. I had to go out there. I wanted to connect with people. Now you could be someone that's the exact opposite. Maybe you're connecting too much and all you're doing is connecting, and maybe you need to get a little bit more into operations, but that's another story for another day. What this experience really taught me is that, as I was growing my brand and my business, I was doing exactly what I tell my clients not to do, which is just go out there and get as many leads as possible. Just try to bring them in, look at them as a number, look at them as this, and we could go through the whole spectrum of oh well, if you're a large value type client instead of a volume type client, which we can always explain in another video and another podcast. But it is going to be a little bit different, right. But it is going to be a little bit different, right. You know an e-commerce brand that sells a $20 product, or you know an agency model that sells, we'll just say, $1,000 monthly packages versus $10,000 a month packages, or $40,000 projects compared to $5,000 products. Yeah, it's going to be different. Volume is going to be a whole different role there. I don't think this is really. That's really the point of this video. I think the video is.
Speaker 0:I had to start to realize and prioritize my joy of what I wanted out of the business, more so than that external push towards success. And I then saw this correlation with clients and prospects somewhat doing the same thing and how that correlates with people in business, depending on where they're at in life, where they're at in their journey of brand ownership. And you know, one thing that I really started to delve into is really just grasping and understanding the frustrations that we get with dealing with low quality members, clients, and how we can really make that paradigm shift, how we could really bring in our self-worth, understand that the business and the vision of what we want can be what we want. And I had this aha moment. I realized that if I want to work with the people I want to work with, if it be volume, if it be value, no matter what the offers are or what I'm trying to display to my audience. I had to allow myself to realize that this isn't going to happen overnight. Even if it's been eight years in a business, even if I've made over a million in bottom line and retain earnings, I think that what ends up happening is people become very inclined to not understand that stage and that shift paradigm that they need to go through and they get stuck.
Speaker 0:I've talked a lot about validation mode. It's a very similar concept. It's yes, I do think when you start a project, you bring in unqualified leads, totally fine, just bring in anyone that you can Test. That's validation stage. That's coming up with a product to fit type situation. But for the most part, you will go through a shift, and it's not just a shift that you need to go through from a personal level, which is probably the most important part, but you're also going to have to go through from a personal level, which is probably the most important part, but you're also gonna have to go through a shift in your business.
Speaker 0:Here's the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge that I see is is that people tend to think if they're not in a certain industry, that's easy, and I'll use this as a great example. Do any of you really think about the government job and the person picking up our trash every day Harder in different perspectives? It's a government job. They get a paycheck versus a business owner. But do you really think on how hard it is to pick up that trash drop off? I mean you go buy a dump it's disgusting, smell right to pick up that trash drop off. I mean you go buy a dump it's disgusting, smell right. But if you were to take a day in their shoes, understand what they're doing, you would understand how hard it is. And I think it's that spectrum of understanding, this understanding, that ability to realize that you're not going to make a million dollars overnight. Your success shouldn't be determined by someone else's success. I once knew a very successful lawyer. That lawyer ended up quitting his job because he no longer wanted to run it and he decided to be a Duke janitor. Do I look down on him? No, I find it very inspiring that he's still helping out our community in some way, form or another and he has chose something to himself because he doesn't want the stress.
Speaker 0:Now, how does this relate to lead generation? Well, because, as a brand. You think that it's easy to get leads. It is easy to get leads. I mean I tell prospects all the time that are like I want 400 or 500 leads a month. I mean I have clients that I get 1,000 leads a month. Do they all convert? No, but we get them 1,000 leads and these clients assume that that's easy, that it's easy to get those numbers.
Speaker 0:So when is that shift for you From a personal level? You have to start looking at yourself. Like I said, for me, I had to come to realize that you know, this isn't going to happen overnight. If I'm selling a value-based product versus a volume-based product and I'll say product, as it can also be a service that you have different marketing strategies. And there's the key word there strategy. So many assume I've been guilty of this that implement, implement, implement, implement, try things, do things, which is true in some aspects. But there comes a time when those strategies are going to give you better ROI than the implementation and the efforts. So how do you make that shift personally? Well, first you just have to come to realize that if you're stuck in a spot where you're dealing with agencies or you're dealing with hiring certain types of people, too soon. You say I want to be a marketing agency Okay, that's great. But do you have? Are you making over 10 million a year? Do you have the efforts to build that type of ecosystem? If not, then slim your horses.
Speaker 0:Look at your vision. Maybe you even need to develop your vision. Maybe that's your problem. Maybe you're at a point where you're like we're stuck at, I'll say, 500k a year. Look at your vision. That's the first step in the next level of what you're doing. How do you figure out a vision? Well, first you have to determine what you want out of it. So see how this turned from a lead generation and the struggle of lead generation back to you, because first you need to figure out who you are. And I have a reason for this. Look at that vision of what you want for your life and you have to change it, change that perspective of success. Do you want $10 million a year business, do you? If you do, that's okay. If you don't, that's okay too. You want to hustle? Do you want to work five hours a day and have the rest of the team do it? That's great too. But remember you're the owner. Your vision is what's going to push everybody else. And there's the key there Team. Are you looking at your team wrong? Are you at a point where to move to the next level, you have to do something more strategic instead of more operational? They're kind of somewhat work together, but they're two different types of scenarios.
Speaker 0:So let's talk a little bit about how you can possibly start this process. How do we get better leads? Well, first you can write this down. You can take one of our downloads. We'll put a link to our mini courses and our downloads down below in the newsletter.
Speaker 0:But how do you figure out your vision? Well, first you have to figure out what you want. What are your values? What do you value in life? I value my children. I value being able to work only six, seven hours a day, still having my time away from the house to have my daily gym session. So I have to start hiring team that match my values, which I've done, and maybe that's what you need to do. But this will start bringing in leadership type roles, or, if you are a leader, this will start bringing in people that relate to the same common interests that you do. This is gonna help your messaging resonate better. This is gonna help your efforts towards the audience. You wanna work better, and then it will trickle down from there.
Speaker 0:Not to get too far into this, but once you figure out what your values are, you figure out what your pain points are. It's going to be easy for you to then pinpoint the values of your audience. Your vision should align with that and then everything that you do from there should align to that pain point. Good example If you're a local brick and mortar people don't purchase online. Look around you. Convenience probably pretty much sums it up. People want to be able to drive 30 minutes at the most that's probably pretty high 10 minutes to your location to have an experience or to do what you want.
Speaker 0:Now, of course, the way you have your offers and your model is going to take effect into that. Do you have members? Do is retention. Your main goal is new acquisition, your new goal. But take those values, take that vision, and then you align that to the audience that you want to attract and bring in and then slowly start to implement. Implement that amongst everything you do clients, your prospects, your employees, that your new hires. Then starting to understand the value of your selling proposition. What is your selling proposition, or USP? You know, and I'll just use this as a great example Our unique selling proposition for our studio side of things are, you know, boutique studio side of things, jim Mark is we help you build a sustainable lead flow.
Speaker 0:Because of the ups and downs of lead generation. That's a pain point. They get one member one month. They do a challenge this month to do that. It's much easier to deal with cash flow, especially on a retention model, when you start having consistent amount of leads in. So we help them build a sustainable lead flow. I won't go much into it in the app On the creative side, which is much more of our consulting firm, which is a different audience the leadership it's really comes down to. We help develop brands that help develop you because we go in deeper into that strategy. We teach them this strategy.
Speaker 0:Now how do you develop a simple yet effective lead generation strategy? How do you start that process? Or how do you start the process and then delegate it to the effective people that are going to do it? Well, your operations, of course, is going to be different than your marketing operations. Having your team do the marketing isn't probably a great idea. Having them be part of the face of the company and the brand. That's a different story. Getting them to understand the messaging, the vision, and that's building that. But besides the point, how do you start this lead generation process?
Speaker 0:Well, first off we talked about it you take your audience. What are the pain points of your audience? Figure out who they are. Doesn't matter how broad or how big. We'll just start here, because this is what most people are doing. They're saying let's just get some crappy messaging created, let's not hire anyone to make anything even close to visually compelling. And let's take that and let's just throw it on Facebook and do it and spend all this money. It's like, dude, you shouldn't even be advertising it, to be honest, if you're making 250 a year, 500 a year maybe. So figure out your audience. And I'm just going to do, I'm just going to come up with one on top of my head. I'm going to come up with a rough strategy for you to start this off.
Speaker 0:Say you're a studio. You figured out your offers. Certain offers are working, certain ones aren't. Say you're kind of underwater operations. So, as of right now, you're spending very limited money on marketing, but for some reason, you're upset because these challenges aren't working, retention's not working. So, first and foremost, you sit down, you look at your numbers and you realize, hmm, majority of our clients are moms. We'll just say moms in the corporate world. So, first and foremost, from an operations side, you align your classes during the time that they're available, you cut out the offers that are no longer working or that are cheaper and you tailor everything that you're kind of doing around that focus audience. You tell your themes around, you tailor all of the new offers around that, your timeframes of when they're supposed to be around. Now, how do you bring them in? That's lead gen, right? Well, you're the leader, so lead. You decide to say, hmm, well, in this case, most moms do go on. We'll just say Instagram. We'll say that social media platform. So there you have one. You have one platform you can do, if you, how do we tailor messagings and an offer around stay-at-home moms? We'll target and retarget them and then we'll give them some sort of deal where they can come in.
Speaker 0:Now here's the beauty with offers. Offers will make or break everything that you're doing. If you have too many of them, people are going to get confused. If you have too little, then people are going to. You're going to be basically niching a little bit too fast and you need to have a little bit of broadness there. So stay at home, moms. Instagram are you going to do?
Speaker 0:Cold outreach or warm outreach? Two different formats that you can use. One you're pushing to them, the other one they're pushing to you. They're coming to you, they're looking for you. You're going to get a lot more lower quality from outbound compared to inbound. You can say outbound or inbound, cold outreach versus warm outreach Same, very similar concept.
Speaker 0:From inbound. Now you can come up with a plan of attack. Look at your general area, find people that possibly do, maybe daycare, maybe you can partner or let a daycare run a room in your facility. And that's that's just. That's their whole business, that's their whole model, especially if you're smaller. You have them rent good strategy, because now you're bringing money in over here, but you're also bringing, utilizing them as part of your marketing strategy to bring them in.
Speaker 0:So that was very basic. Of course, that was on top of mine. I was just trying to use my creative juices to come up with something, but I think that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. This struggle that people have over getting leads goes both ways. I mean, I've gone through it myself.
Speaker 0:I was going through a pivotal point in my business my brand where I thought I had to do crap, load of cold outreach. Realized after I wasn't feeling fulfilled, I was feeling burnout, that that wasn't really how I wanted to grow my brand. I didn't value it. That's what helped me move away from that type of marketing strategy and I focused very heavily on what type of things do I find value from, what type of things do I look at? What kind of people do I want to work with?
Speaker 0:And so, to sum up this whole podcast in a couple of minutes here you want to identify your ideal clients, their pain points, understand the importance of having a strong, unique selling proposition. I help blank, do blank with blank. That's a good place to start and then start to develop a simple marketing strategy. Think about your audience, think about what they like. Could it be hybrid with multiple things? The one I told you about did. And at the end of the day, I just want you all to really understand the importance of really understanding your why, your vision, how that really is going to align from a branding perspective to the marketing side.
Speaker 0:And again, my name is Zach Coleman. I appreciate it if you walk through and listen to this whole new format of our cast. I hope you have a good one. And just in case you haven't already, why don't you hit that subscribe button down below? Give us a rating. This is the down below. Give us a rating. This is the audio version. Give us a rating on this cast, or subscribe to our newsletter where we go through this type of content. We sum it all up for you in a neat little package. Go through those step-by-step processes that you can start to get yourself more aligned with your visionary, how you can start to become more of a leader. Until the next one.
