Run a Profitable Gym

Smart Marketing: Getting Leads on a Shoestring Budget

March 22, 2024 Chris Cooper Season 3 Episode 549
Run a Profitable Gym
Smart Marketing: Getting Leads on a Shoestring Budget
Show Notes Transcript

Check out these monthly marketing stats from today’s guest:

About 60 leads, 25 appointments, 23 shows and 18 closes.

These are great numbers, and gym owner Kieran O’Dwyer isn’t breaking the bank to post them.

In this episode, host John Franklin sits down with Kieran to learn how he’s built such a successful marketing funnel on a small budget at Bathurst Strength and Conditioning and Orange City Strength and Conditioning in Australia.

Kieran’s marketing strategy starts with posts on Google Business Profile and Instagram, and then leads are moved to a more personal setting on Facebook.

By the time leads book appointments at one of Kieran’s gyms, they typically already understand pricing and respect the gym’s authority, professionalism and communication. From there, closing the sale is easy.

This episode is packed full of tactical and inexpensive strategies for boosting lead generation and sales—tune in to hear them all.

Links

Gym Owners United

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00:51 - Kieran and his gym

7:32 - Be sure to get photos

18:32 - Starting the conversations

26:41 - One more piece of the puzzle

34:51 - Kieran’s onboarding

Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of Run a Profitable Gym . I am your host, John Franklin , the CMO here at Tub Brain . And , uh, it's a good thing I am the CMO because today we are gonna be talking about getting leads on a shoestring budget. With me, I have a very special guest, Kiran o' Dwyer , emphasis on the, the w and the Y. So I'm told of Bathhurst strength and Conditioning in Bathhurst, which I didn't know of until 20 minutes ago. It appears to be a very tiny town of 30,000 people. That's about three and a half hours from Sydney. So a lot of these strategies today will apply to gym owners who are operating in smaller markets. But I've personally seen a lot of the work that Kieran puts out. If you are running this playbook in a bigger market, it's gonna work as well. 'cause a lot of these strategies are evergreen. Now, I will stop talking and let , uh, Kieran introduce his gym to the gym world here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, John . That was beautiful. You got my name down Pat. Introducing my gym to the gym world Run Bath Strength and Conditioning for the audience who listens to run a profitable gym. Think of it similar to a CrossFit gym. We just focused a little bit more on the strength side of things, but everything else is quite similar. The community, the vibe, the onboarding, the personal training. It does very well in my town. And I also own another one in a smaller town as well called Orange City Strengthening Conditioning. There you go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. A lot of people think that two Brainin is all about selling personal training and doesn't necessarily like a group model, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Kieran operates a group model. He has over 200 members. His gym is pushing over three quarters of a million dollars of Aussie dollars. So I don't know, that's probably, I , I don't know the conversion rates and I'm not gonna look it up, but it's a big number and , uh, it seems like the overwhelming majority of his leads come from organic and he still manages to have a very high average revenue per member . So , uh, based off of the conversation we had, it sounds like you are pushing around 300 and how do you , how do you get to that number?

Speaker 2:

300 in terms of average revenue per member a month?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. How does that break down and how do you package your price?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we have a group training for 69.95 a week, which in monthly is 300. We also have our weightlifting club, which goes from anywhere from 50 to 90 per week, which would be 300 plus, sorry . In Australia we do everything weekly as well. We also have those ,

Speaker 1:

Were early to that trend. You guys were ahead of the time. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100%. But mainly, mainly in terms of that is the group training and then the other variations of group training, weightlifting and youth, which kind of span around that number. And then of course, our high tech onboarding, which starts at five 50

Speaker 1:

And and goes . And do you live is , is Bathhurst just like a loaded town? Is it like the American equivalent of the Beverly Hills? Is everybody just super rich out there?

Speaker 2:

Not , not even slightly, no. Every, every small town , uh, considers themselves, you know, not well off . And I'd say that we're the same. So

Speaker 1:

A lot of people will say three to 400 a month in a small town for group training sounds astronomical. How, how do you sell that?

Speaker 2:

We just do a really good job. And from the , from the whole funnel, man. So in terms of the brand building, we've done a really good job of being professional, number one, getting people interested, demonstrating authority, and then through that from the second they speak to us, by the time they get into the sales consultation, because they've just being like, you know, hammered with love and communication and professionalism. It's , if they need it, they're gonna pay for it. You know, some people obviously can't afford it, but like, yeah, pricing is not, no , it is an issue. People say it , but if people, you know, the doctor has told them to go to the gym, right? The doctor has told 'em to get their health in order or that they have an injury they need to fix, or if they need it for their mental health or whatever. Pricing for them then is not the main thing. Even if they presented the main thing, the main things of health .

Speaker 1:

So you consider yourself or you are known around these parts as a , uh, positioning and branding expert. You said that is one of the two most important parts of your process , um, that you've used to be successful in your town. Uh, maybe talk about the, the, the thought process that goes into how you brand and position yourself. And if you need me to pull up stuff from your site, your Instagram, whatever, just uh, shout out at me. I'm your assistant. I will pull up , uh, whatever we need to help the people out who are watching on YouTube. And if you are listening on the podcast, I will do my best to explain what I'm seeing

Speaker 2:

My own assistant. This is, this is awesome. Okay, so I like to think of it, I like to think of the brand awareness piece from three different angles essentially. So firstly, you have simplifying, keeping things simple. So let's use Instagram. And if you want, you can just pull up Instagram at and you point during this conversation. But let's use Instagram as the main, as the main concept for our conversation is that firstly people make it too complicated from an action point of view. So gym owners do, I don't know what to post, I don't know how to go about it. Do I use reels versus posts? Do I use stories versus what cameras should I use? Honestly, it should be just, I'm going to get my target market onto my screen and show them winning. That's the first step. So as you can kind of see here, if you scroll down a little bit or you get my face out of the picture, you just see who we're trying to hit. So John, what would you say our , our age bracket is? If you go up a little bit. So

Speaker 1:

As I look through, well, let's go from the top. You got the top line here, which I like a lot. So your three pinned posts are how to start, what people say and how we help. And so you got coaches who are smiling, they're wearing collared shirts with the logo on it. So instantly I , uh, I , I'm getting a whiff of professionalism. I already think this might cost a lot of money just based off of these fancy polo shirts. We go down a little bit, our next row, I'm seeing some, I'm seeing some mom vibes. And then there you go , uh, as a lot of lot of kids. So there's some family oriented stuff. So it looks like you can bring the whole fam . But , uh, as we continue the journey down , uh, it seems like the overwhelming majority of the people that you are targeting, I would say are in the 35 to 45 mom category. And it looks like , uh, you encourage them to drag their husbands along based off of what I'm looking at.

Speaker 2:

<laugh> . Yeah, man , that's 100% right. So the idea is to keep it simple for the audience to see what you're about. So like when someone looks at your Instagram, they should kind of know that they're welcome. Your target market is welcome, number one. I should also kind of know where it is . So Bathurst a hundred percent, they should also know how to talk to you. Book a no sweat intro. And here we've like taken the guesswork out even more and just pinned it. Here's how to start, what people say, how to help. So the idea is, is that whether I come from a Google ad, whether I come from seeing a friend's tag, which we'll talk about later as well, I jump on here and it's simple for me. They do exercise, they do, they're obviously professional, they're in Bathurst. If I wanna talk to them , I click there and it's people my age.

Speaker 1:

I'm with you so far. And then let's, like a lot of these pictures, are these professionally done or are these , uh, done by a coach at the end of the class here? Because it looks like you got a mixture going on here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's all done by the coaches. We have one camera that we just bought for $900 that I use . So anything that kind of has, maybe

Speaker 1:

That's , that's a coach pick this guy deadlift. Yeah . That's all.

Speaker 2:

That's a coach pick. Yeah . Yeah, he, my coach brings his camera, he likes it. Uh , he's got a pretty good camera, so we uses that for a lot of those. And he just does it during the class sometimes. And then

Speaker 1:

This guy happens to be a photographer. <laugh>, the guy you photographed with the good looking photo.

Speaker 2:

Oh , he happens to be a photographer as well. But the coach likes photography at the same time. So we got lucky there. But like most of them are done on an iPhone or a camera that I bought that I just take or the coaches take as part of their SOP.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So how do you do that? How do you go about collecting , uh, these photos that you post on the social here?

Speaker 2:

So in your class, SOP it says on a , you know, greet everyone with a smile, say hello to everybody, get three photos or get three videos. And then we post them to the Instagram stories after that and we tag the members . And it's just part of the daily class checklist really. So this , and also this is all stuff , let's see . Yeah , so you click through the

Speaker 1:

Store , 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 stories going on right now. And so you maintain that rhythm.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a hundred percent. So we had three five per coaching block. So there's two coaching blocks a day that's 10. And another thing that,

Speaker 1:

So it looks like he did squat yesterday a

Speaker 2:

Hundred percent. Another thing that's very important, John , is that I try to hammer down to gym owners is that you need, when you get stories up there, you need to be tagging people. Because let's say I get 300 eyes on this, and then young Scotty puts it on his story. That's another 200 to 300 eyes . Now that's done like, you know, five to 10 times a day that's near a thousand eyes. And all I've done is taken a story and popped it up.

Speaker 1:

So for those of you that are listening to this, we are walking through the gym's story. Looks like they did squats yesterday. Uh, they have about 15 different things on the feed. Most of them are just member squatting. They are tagging the member and , uh, saying something funny or insightful about that member. The idea is the member then shares it to their story. So you guys will get about 300 views. The member will get some views and that just creates a lot of like inbound eyeballs to the gym on a consistent basis in a way that you've like systematized. Right,

Speaker 2:

Exactly. And that's all done during the class and then 10 minutes after the class. And it's just like on clockwork like that all the time.

Speaker 1:

And so are the coaches, the people putting it onto the story or do they feed it to somebody else who manages the account?

Speaker 2:

Nope , they , the coaches do it. We all do it in-house.

Speaker 1:

So everyone's like logged into the Instagram account and manages it collectively.

Speaker 2:

Work phone. We have a work phone and the Instagram is on the work phone .

Speaker 1:

So there's a burner. Yeah. So you got a burner phone at the gym that everybody operates off of. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

100% outta burner phone. And that's kind of the, the point maybe trying to make here is that like, there's always an answer to how I go to go about this. 'cause a lot of people say, I don't know what to post, or how do I get my coaches to do it? Just put it as part of the SOP and get a work phone and then, all right .

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like that is a thing you do. Uh, it's just every coach is required to get collateral during the class and , and post. And so that creates some inbound stuff. Uh, what else are you doing and how are you thinking about the actual posts themselves?

Speaker 2:

100%. So scheduling, so the way I like to go about it is I kind of follow this schedule, which is Momentum Mondays Technique . Tuesdays winning Wednesdays, testimonial Thursdays feature Fridays and super Saturdays. Just the alliteration makes it easy for me. And then every day I kind of know I can just like clock on in my mind and be like, oh, I'm gonna post that. So for a Momentum Monday, it's easy. It's just a group video or people working out with a nice tune, tag 'em on it, say something motivational, say something happy, and post that. And if the person likes how they look, they'll repost it and they have more eyes. So scroll down to go to maybe remember the goal. Oh no , don't go . No, go down. Yeah. We love Getting Stronger with Brooke right there.

Speaker 1:

Did I go past it? Oh, here's a Monday. We love Mondays.

Speaker 2:

There you go. So then it's just, see iPhone videos, people benching people using the cables.

Speaker 1:

Cool. And then it's just like a little affirmation here and then says, train with intent, live with purpose, and then you tag all the people in the video.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So this kind of goes back to the idea that you are just trying to, when people click on your page and they wanna see what you do, you need to be showing them what you do through videos. Not just like , you know, Canva images all the time or whatever, but like videos of the people working out.

Speaker 1:

And then Tuesday is the tip.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Technique Tuesday . So there help. I feel my back. There's yours truly being incredible.

Speaker 1:

All right . So now you're, you're telling people how to do , uh, barbell. Good morning here.

Speaker 2:

Exactly right.

Speaker 1:

All right , there we go. And then this will be our we Wednesday one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah . Which is like winning. There's Caesar, he had to clean a PB three times. And there are also, there are also other winning ones with people holding whiteboards as well, which really, really helps because they retarget, they reshare it . Sorry.

Speaker 1:

So like, they'll , they'll be holding a whiteboard listing out like some social proof that they got going on.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I , it's actually, I've essentially been listening to you and Kalida talk for a long time. And you say about, you know, you like before and afters, you need proof that your gym actually does something. You need to show your results before. And afters can be a bit tricky with some of our members. So whiteboard wins where they explain it themselves. Like you can see Donna in the top right, or Paul right there, you know, it just works really well. Person smiling.

Speaker 1:

So this is a guy holding the whiteboard says, gone from training, from no training to five sessions a week since joining Bench press increased 35 kg to 50 kg , uh, 50 kg times eight in that time, feel so much better mentally and physically. So just , uh, yeah, just explaining all the benefits of going to your gym.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. And we probably do that once or twice a week. Yeah. And then you can see the testimonial to the left there.

Speaker 1:

Yep . It's just right off of a Google review, I'm assuming.

Speaker 2:

You're exactly right. Nothing complicated about it. That took five minutes. Yeah, that's really,

Speaker 1:

What did we miss? What did we miss? We , does that get us through Friday? What was the weekend? There's a , what are all these group shots? This looks , uh,

Speaker 2:

The weekend is like where you , where you do group shots or just anything that you kind of wanna chuck in.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I

Speaker 1:

Just , so if you're someone who doesn't post a lot on social group shots always do well. Like, it's very tough to, to beat a group shot , especially in gym, right? Because members like to see themselves and so, and they like to feel like they're a part of something. So these are always , uh, easy to get if you got a pat class and always gonna perform well.

Speaker 2:

Mm , that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

All right , let's bop over to your Google map because it looks like you, you've put some thought into that. You got a hundred forty four five star reviews. How are you, how are you getting all these five star reviews?

Speaker 2:

I ask people every single week as part of the SOP

Speaker 1:

And what it , what does that mean? How does that work? So

Speaker 2:

Technically I've got this marketing operating procedure that I kind of follow. It says post five business profile, Instagram, post, a week post on my personal Facebook five times a week, you know, do the stories. And then part of it's also outreach to kind of build the Google SEO and then also just to build the brand awareness around the gym. And that includes asking five members a week for a Google review, and maybe one to two do it. They all say yes, or one to two do it. And it's a nice easy stream of Google reviews. And then I can use that to post on social media as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it looks , uh, this , this page looks fairly built out. So you got all your, your Google reviews, you got , uh, question, answer from the community. So it looks like somebody's there, you got your popular times, got some information published from the owner. Looks like that's been updated in the last 22 hours, which is great. You got your, your phone, your address, your email, your hours, your calendar, and then if we go to photos, you got a ton of them. And the first one is just a big smiling image for all the coaches, again, looking professional with their polos. And then you got photos of your avatars doing lifting . Are these , these are still coach photos here, because these all look pretty good. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Just happens to be , uh, some of them are the camera that I use and some of them , the camera that my coach uses, his camera is better. But that camera was done by me, that was done by me to , to most people. You can't really tell the difference. I I know you can.

Speaker 1:

So I , no, that's why I'm asking. So we got some group shots, we got some, a bunch of members lifting, smiling. We got kids, we got, looks like we're hitting all the avatars , uh, with this one. So definitely showing a wide range of ages and body types. And then , uh, stitching in photos of your kos here. So, yeah, looks good. You see this place and it's not, you know , every, the gym looks clean, everybody looks like they're smiling. Everybody's having a good time. Definitely feels like a more premium facility, even though I haven't done a thorough , uh, market analysis of the Bathhurst gyms. Uh , I'm assuming this would rank on the better side of the competition in terms of positioning.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. All right . What else do we need to know for brand? It looks like there's some consistency here with your colors. Uh, you got this , uh, maybe blue color and black. Seems like those are, you maintain consistency across all the different , uh, posts that you make in all the different places you post. Is that just something that happened accidentally, or are you , uh, or is that something that everybody knows to focus on?

Speaker 2:

It happened on purpose, but like, number one, the gym is just the , the colors that they are. So that helps. And then when we use Canva, we just set that, the standard template we use is the beaks of C colors, and we just press that button on everything and then it auto-populates. And it's just really easy . So

Speaker 1:

You have a , you have a gym Canva account with all the social media templates that you run, and then all the hex codes are pre-populated in there. So everybody knows can instantly click and have your, have your colors show up. So there's consistency, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a hundred percent . That's

Speaker 1:

It. Okay. All right . I, I think that this stuff's all the stuff that you can see here. That's the tip of the iceberg, right? And so from, from just the tip, it looks , uh, solid, but we, we gotta go a little deeper, right? That's the, that's the top of the funnel. What are we doing to push people down? How are , how are we turning on these pretty social media posts into some, some people we can reach out to? Uh, how are we starting conversations?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so number one, obviously if we've done a good job with, if we've done a good enough job, if somebody are ready , then they'll click on the post and then they book a no sweat intro. That's good. And for some people that works, especially if they've come from Google and then they're already looking. But for other people, that's not enough because they're not ready yet . So we do a couple of things. We either make Instagram posts such as, Hey, I've got 10 keys to fat loss to give away . Or I've got a six week running program. If you want it, drop a thing down below or DM and I'll send it to you. Now, that's most usually where I either send it to them via email or I add them personally on Facebook, just get their name and type it in. And then I have them on Facebook. And that's kind of where it really gets juicy, so to speak, as in the idea is to get people off of that storefront into a container of some sort. However you do it, email, website, Facebook. I just happen to use Facebook, Facebook groups and my va

Speaker 1:

Just so people can see if you're listening along, this is five Keys to Fat Loss. And then if you free download , uh, DM us with the word keys, and then you gotta people, a lot of people commenting keys here. So here's some hot old leads. All right ? Yes, exactly. Uh , cool. Got it. We got a visual.

Speaker 2:

So we have that. Some people write under it, but where it gets really vast is if we were to go into Facebook and my virtual assistant is adding every new person who follows us on my personal Facebook. So then I have them. So then they say the stuff that I write as well. And then my virtual assistant also for the longest time. And I was as well, just typing in the word Bathurst into Facebook search and adding like 25 people a week. And I just find it, if we have mutual friends or add them, add them, so then they can kind of see some of our stuff first I can invite them to my free Facebook group, and that's where I can really send them things. So to condense all that, I'm trying to get everybody off Instagram, onto Facebook and into my Facebook groups, so then I can talk to them personally.

Speaker 1:

So you're pushing everybody here, you're adding people. So it looks like all the stuff you're postings about your gym , uh, see a lot of like the same photos that were over on the Instagram, which is cool. So you're repurposing a lot of that content. And so I guess the second piece of the funnel is move people from Facebook over your personal profile, get 'em on there, and then you invite them over to your Facebook group , correct?

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. Should I share my screen and show you how that works?

Speaker 1:

Let's do it. I

Speaker 2:

Just press share. Are we on ? Oh , right . Cool. Sorry, I couldn't say it. So then this is my Facebook group, the one that I run, Bathurst and Orange Free Tip Fitness Tips. This is part of the organic funnel. It's in the toolkit on , uh, two Brain as well. Now I add 50 people to this a week. Just go to invite and just add people. Some people don't accept, some people do. And then once per week I give them something such as I've got a Chin Up program for you. And they write under it, chin up please. Chin up , please. So

Speaker 1:

Looks like this gets a little more , uh, a lot more attraction than , than the stuff you're posting on Instagram looks like it's pretty vibrant.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And this is where, this is where it really starts to take shape is that Instagram and Google, in my opinion, is your storefront, but you need to get people into the store, which is your world. So you can give them free things, give 'em free samples, not your service, but eBooks. Things that they may not do, but they give them that feeling that they're gonna take action before they then talk to you. So now I try and get everyone here. So here a week program, download lots of comments, nutrition care package, lots of comments

Speaker 1:

For those, like, these all have like 60, 70 comments. And there's not a ton of members in this group. What does that say? It's like 900 ish.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So these things are churning, these things are churning up a lot of leads. That's a lot like obviously some of those comments are replies to people sending out stuff. Uh, but like to have a essentially 3% conversion rate off of these like , like a random Facebook post for a , a lead magnet, that's , uh, very difficult to do. That is , that's high engagement. So this is , sounds like you are , uh, you got your finger on the pulse. So how , how do you make these lead magnets? Ha and how do you know what's gonna like, do? Well,

Speaker 2:

I've really no real idea what's gonna do well. Uh, I have determined that things like recipes and things like body weight, anything that's easy does well, things that are like , um, why strength training is good for you and things like that, that people can just find on the internet by typing it in. They don't really do well. They won't opt in . But if it's something that they can do, like a running program that works really well. And the way I write it is I go into chat, GPT and I say, write me a program. They write me a program, I chuck it into the Canva template. I then edit that template, just make sure it looks good, make sure the metrics are right for Australian and everything, and make sure it looks okay. And then I post it. And that roughly takes 40 minutes to an hour max

Speaker 1:

To make it , to make something from scratch, is what you're saying,

Speaker 2:

To make something from scratch. When I didn't have chat , JPT , of course it took me a lot longer 'cause then I had to do the typing, but now I just ask chat JPT to do the bare bones for me, and then I make sure that it's good, I edit it and we're good to go.

Speaker 1:

Did you know , uh, Canva has its own GPT now, so you, you might be able to save a little time from that. Oh ,

Speaker 2:

There , there you go. Say I'm learning on this as well

Speaker 1:

Here. If you stop your share, I can show you where to find it. Just so , uh, maybe other gym owners will benefit from that. 'cause if you have something prompted up or like in the system already, you can, you can talk, you can connect your Canva account directly and uh ,

Speaker 2:

Cool. There you go. I've stopped it. Or yours.

Speaker 1:

So you just go over to explore GPTs here. And then , uh, trending gpt, you just go to the Canva, GPT and then, you know, tells you, it gives you special prompts that you can give it, and it , it'll interface with Canva and help you out there. So, you know, maybe we'll do a full tutorial on that one day. But just f fi that's the thing that's there. It's definitely not perfect now, but like everything else, it's, it's getting better every single day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So that is one piece.

Speaker 1:

Throw your screen back onto that group. Let's see that. Let's see that sucker. So we pop it on there, we write a little , uh, are you writing the captions or are you using chat CPT for that as well?

Speaker 2:

I write the captions, but a lot of it is copy and paste for what I'm already written in the past. So, oh , they , um, still in the secret here . Hopefully members don't see this, but like, if I've written one maybe like a year ago, I'll scroll down, grab that, come to the top of the page, hop it in there, and just change the words to match the thing.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that is , uh, like a lot of people think that you have to always come out with fresh stuff over and over again. I was at a conference this weekend, one of the speakers was a fitness influencer with like , uh, close to a million followers across all the social media platforms. And he said, that's just like a , and , and he's like been doing it for a while , like over 10 years. And he said that's like the cornerstone of like part of his content. If something works, he republishes it literally every three months. So he's just got this big backlog of stuff that's gone viral for him and he just hits it over and over and over again. And he said like , uh, he'll get messages from people who'll be like, I've seen you post this like 20 times, but every time you post it, like, it was just, I needed to hear that today. So I appreciate it. So, and , and the idea that people care enough about your gym, social media platform to know everything you like, read and consume, everything that you write is ridiculous. So don't feel bad about posting or reusing content, especially if it's something that works well because stuff that works well , uh, will probably continue to work well for a very, very long time. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

There is one more piece of this puzzle as well, which is really important. So I use the Facebook group and then whatever I post here, I then go to my towns Facebook group, which has 28,000 members. Everybody has a town Facebook group. Yep . If you, if I show you my name, I just post that same thing. Sometimes I get, sometimes I get a little , a little like only a few hits. And then this is also where I do things like 5 1 30 posts for all our promotions. And then it acts like this Connect the Dots thing as well. So I post in here, anybody that likes or comments, I send them, I start talking to them . I also add them on Facebook and then I try and get them into that Facebook, the other group at the same time.

Speaker 1:

Who , um, like did you get permission for this? Or you, like, do you know the owner? Like I know some of these town Facebook groups run different rules. Like how do you go about that? Or is it just like in the, in the wild west of Australia, you can post whatever you want on , uh, the town Facebook group.

Speaker 2:

Uh , so there's like five town Facebook groups. So this one, there's like four others. This was the only one that didn't get mad at me, so I just kept doing it. The other four didn't like it, <laugh>.

Speaker 1:

So it was a ask for forgiveness type situation. Is is the approach you took with it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, man, like when I, especially when I started this and where a lot of gym owners are at now, is that like I needed money and I needed members. So like, it , it didn't matter. Like, I just stopped thinking, stopped caring about what I posted really, or where I just needed and I put it everywhere. And this is what's happened.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's a very important point. Like creating the content is only one piece of it in the beginning. Distribution matters a lot. You have to be able to scratch and claw for those eyeballs, right? Just because you make the best piece of content in the world, you post it to the internet doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna get seen. So you really have to grind out for every single comment, every single eyeball, every single lead. And then you kind of fall into a system like this where it runs itself and looks like you got like leads on autopilot and all of this. Uh, aside from a va, who I'm assuming is that , um, is that someone outta the Philippines or something like that? Or is that somebody local in your gym?

Speaker 2:

Philippines? Yes, exactly right.

Speaker 1:

So that costs you a couple hundred bucks a month, I'm guessing? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

Yep , exactly right. She, in terms of this, she just sends the PDFs. Uh , I could, but I do the rest of it, but she sends the PDFs.

Speaker 1:

So this is something where, you know, I, I don't wanna say we said shoestring budget in the beginning. That sounds like a shoestring budget to me. The reason a lot of people don't do this is 'cause it takes time, but in the beginning, your time is worth next to nothing. And if you don't have members, it's, it's even worse. Probably every hour you're spending in your business, business is a negative return. And so, and then once you built a system like this and you have traction , uh, this is still, it becomes higher value because every time you make one of these things, I mean, you said you do one of these weekly or monthly?

Speaker 2:

I do, I post one weekly. I don't need to create as many anymore. 'cause I have ones from like a year ago, but I post one weekly. I probably create once a month or once every two weeks.

Speaker 1:

And across Instagram, this group, your other group, what type of traction do you get every time you do one of these? On average

Speaker 2:

A lot. So if I scroll down, th this group, so the towns group is the most, the, the Facebook group, which I run is the second most, but I get a lot like, I get like this one here. And here's actually another point is that the PDFs are to again, build brand awareness. Like people like us, people know that we're giving away free stuff in the exact same way that Chris Cooper has done his Forever two Brain . Like that's how everybody joins Two Brain , they get a free guide, they do a little bit other than themselves that then can't do the rest, and then they get coaching. So I just took that same idea. And then when I post this, the 5 1 30 post, I'm looking for five teenagers, people have seen everything else and then they jump on it. So I had a lot of comments on this one.

Speaker 1:

Almost a hundred comments for those that are listening there. Uh, basically looking for teenagers who want to improve their sports performance without injury is more or less the hook.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And

Speaker 1:

Right parents got it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Cool . And then , alright , talk to them .

Speaker 1:

And then what happens?

Speaker 2:

Then I get them into my dms. Some of them book in, a lot of them don't, for whatever reason. It's just, you just go through the process and then you just kind of talk to them. So every now and then, the ones who don't do a nose , sweat, intro straight away or maybe the pricing is too expensive or whatever. After we've had a little conversation. And then about six months later, I just have it on my checklist, or no , it's six months, sorry, like six weeks later. And then again, six weeks or six months, I then check on them , Hey, how's your fitness going? How's this going? Almost like a friend checking up on a friend, you know what I mean? And then I get a little few from them and then they see our posts, they see what I do here, and then when they're ready they book in. And a lot of the people that book into a no sweat intro I already have on Facebook. And

Speaker 1:

How do you do the reminders, right? Because a lot of people forget , uh, because there isn't really a great way to automate Facebook messaging or Instagram DM nurture, right? It's not like email or text where , uh, you could use a product like Kilo or Gym Lead machine to uh, help you do one of those things. Uh , this is something you really have to tackle manually. So, so how are you doing that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have a lead list just on Excel. We, we have a similar version to , uh, gly Machine , an Australian one that I've had for years and years that we , that we kind of use. I my mind just works better with the spreadsheet, so hop them in that. And then there's a little column that says if I followed up with 'em or not. If it's unticked, I'll then follow up with 'em and tick it. And then I go to the next column, which is follow up with 'em again. Yeah .

Speaker 1:

So you have , uh, your own manual, CRM?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Manual CRMI should probably use the digital one , uh, like the automated one better. But yes, at the moment it's manual.

Speaker 1:

All righty . Now let's talk about your lead to book to show buy, because it seems like you are nurturing them. Well, they see a lot , uh, they see a lot of information coming from you and it shows based off of what your , uh, what your show rate looks like. So what I have here is , uh, this strategy is bringing in about 60 I would consider hot leads a month. From there you're booking 25 , uh, consultations 23 are showing, which is crazy. And from there about 18% buy

Speaker 2:

No 18 . Oh yeah . People find out total

Speaker 1:

18 buy out of the 60 is what I have on my debt sheet here. All right . And so 18 of the 18 of the 60, it looks like for every lead you get about 30% go on and buy, which is , which is solid. Uh, at what point in especially considering it's 300 bucks a month, right? And so at what point are you dealing with pricing and handling those objections?

Speaker 2:

Most? Uh , well, like we don't face too much pricing objection in the consultation process. 'cause most of the people, especially through this funnel, have a very good sense of what we're doing. And if they , they go through the referral funnel as well. And they've probably already spoken to me in some capacity. I've given them an idea around pricing. If, if you've been talked to, so John , if you've been talked to by gym owner for six months and they've sent you like free guides and everything, and then you finally pull up the courage of like, I've tried everything and I can't do it by myself, pricing might not be the main thing on your mind when you sit down with me. You might just be like, oh , I just need to do it. And that's kind of what I'm finding. I don't have to price object too much, even though we have a pretty , um, a pretty expensive onboarding. It starts at five 50 .

Speaker 1:

We didn't talk about that. So your onboarding is separate than the the weekly price. So what, what is your, what is your onboarding look like ? So what , what are you selling when I come in for a consultation, what , what am I buying?

Speaker 2:

It just depends on kind of what you want, but it's some variation of training. Either personal training or it's

Speaker 1:

Naked . Man, I wanna look, I wanna look great naked.

Speaker 2:

Well, you're already there, but I'm sure I can help you with feeling better. Okay . But if anybody who we just kind of go through the standard NSI template, you know, find out your goals, prescriptive model, and then yeah , it's just based on their time. We ask them, would you prefer group training or pt? They essentially let us know if they want pt. Then we pretty much get them onto a PT or semi-private membership straight away . And if they want group training , we say that's great. We're gonna do the onboarding package first, which is X amount. And there's three levels of that. Got

Speaker 1:

It. And so it's around five 50 is what you're saying?

Speaker 2:

The first one's five 50 . So our bronze is five 50, our silver is one one , and then our gold is 1500.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So five 50 is the base, 15 hundred's the top end. And that's for what period of time?

Speaker 2:

The four. So the bronze is two to three weeks, so six PTs and then the other two are variations of six PTs plus extra PTs. And then group, it's kind of like a big paid exploration into what they need and what will work for them.

Speaker 1:

Got it. And push . And then from there they will just renew into one of those memberships that we talked about at the front end of the show .

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right. When they decide which route route they wanna go down to.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. And so I think we covered the, I think that gets us from no lead to point of purchase. Is there anything else that we're missing that , uh, Jim would find helpful that we should talk about while we're going back and forth here?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what they'll probably find helpful is , although it seems robust in terms of the daily commitment, it's 30 to 40 minutes for me a day at the moment. A little bit longer when I have to create something. But at the moment I do most of this by myself purely 'cause I like it and because of my own personal reach, 30 to 40 minutes. Yeah. A day, maybe an hour sometimes. That's

Speaker 1:

It.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's it. That's like in terms of creation conversation, I just schedule when I'm, when I'm on Facebook, if obviously the sales process would be another hour on top of that. But in terms of the actual marketing, 30 to 30 to an hour a day and then a little bit longer, I have to create an ebook.

Speaker 1:

Wow. That's less time than I would've guessed.

Speaker 2:

It's just because this is a lot less than it seems. It seems big now, but it's just a few Instagram posts and then a few conversations really. And then one post, which I do the same post in all the areas, like for the Facebook group and everything. Well ,

Speaker 1:

It is , it is a lot. It just sounds like you've baked it into a very systematized process. So

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100% .

Speaker 1:

Let's go back and you and I will summarize together everything we went through so people understand. So , uh, at the top of the funnel, we have the Google My Business where it is well laid out, it looks like somebody's there you are asking five members to leave you a review every single week on the Instagram you have a clear call to action in the bio, you developed a process for your coaches to take three pieces of media collateral, post it onto your Instagram story and tag your members. Exactly . You post exactly every single day using a content calendar, which we laid out where , uh, Monday is motivation, Tuesday is a tip. Wednesday is our, what was Wednesday?

Speaker 2:

Winning Wednesday, testimonial Wednesday . Winning

Speaker 1:

Wednesday, what's Friday and Saturday

Speaker 2:

Feature Friday. And then SA super Saturday, which is group. One thing that I probably didn't say is that anytime I can, which is a lot of it , I'll just schedule all those in the one block as

Speaker 1:

Well. Okay. So you'll make all that in a , in a block, schedule them all right ? Yeah , about once a week you will post a guide onto your Instagram that is , uh, guide on a topic that is relevant to your avatar. So getting your first pull up is an example of one that we saw there. And then over on the Facebook side, anybody who engages on Instagram, you have an admin who adds them personally to your Facebook account. Uh, you look for, you search for your city and you add 25 people that have mutual friends. Yes . Every single day in your Facebook group, you add , uh, 25 to 50 people a week . Is that a week or a day? A week. Oh ,

Speaker 2:

It's a week . It's a week . Once a week at Jump on .

Speaker 1:

Yeah . All right . So we do a big , a big bulk invite in the Facebook group and a local city Facebook group. You offer the same , uh, guide that you did on Instagram. When people comment, you started DM conversation, you act normal. Um, and try and push them towards , uh, no sweat intro, which is a sales appointment. And then once you're at the sales appointment, you sell them on a higher ticket onboarding package that renews into , uh, one of your memberships. If you don't hear from them, you follow up with them every six weeks. And you have just like a spreadsheet that you use to keep track of all the leads you're working at any given time?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I will say where the funnel, where, where I lack sometimes if the follow up . But in terms of that, I definitely try to stay on top of that. I just think about it as earning the right to coach them . So we've gone through this whole process, they've seen our stuff, they've seen the , the care and the professionalism, and by the time they're ready, they just trust us.

Speaker 1:

Got it. And that's it. We , we broke down the whole process and it took , and all that can be yours, gym owners for 40 to 45 minutes a day. Uh , 30 to 45. What was that ? Is that what you said?

Speaker 2:

It just really depends. Look, because it's easy for me, 30 to 45, but , uh, starting out they would need to give themself a minimum an hour a day just to like, just to work through all the limitations.

Speaker 1:

All righty . Any, any other tips? Uh, if we haven't overwhelmed them already, you know, we , we let 'em peek inside the Komodo. If they're, if you're starting from, I'll give them a tip because this is a lot. If you're starting from scratch, don't try and implement all of this at once. How long has it taken you to build out this process?

Speaker 2:

Three years .

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So this is something that you develop over time. If you try and do all this, you will burn out . Um, I , I , i , if you, depending on where you are now, pick one element, kind of do that consistently for a month and add another element, and then over the course of six to 12 months could build a system like Kirin's and yeah, you would've done it three times faster than him and just watch this podcast over and over and over and over again to do that. Or , uh, even better, you can , uh, become a two brain client and work with Kiran directly. Anything else? We should let the people know. Any other tips in terms of implementing this system?

Speaker 2:

Two things. Number one, don't let perfectionism take over. Like at the beginning, you just set a timer for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or an hour and just get to work. If it doesn't sound amazing, just post it anyway. If the photo's not that good, just post it anyway. Consistency is key. And if there's one thing that gym owners are do , like could do today that would be very easy for them would be to post Instagram stories of their members doing cool things and looking cool and tag them , let the members do the work for them by sharing and talking about it.

Speaker 1:

Got it. And so is it , if you were, if there was a gym member who's like, I'm so overwhelmed by this, I just need like a starting point, would that be the post consistently to your stories? Would that be what you would tell them

Speaker 2:

That obviously making sure that the Instagram has the basics, you know, where they live and everything of course. But yes, Instagram stories and then posting minimum three times a week as a standard post. If they can get to five or six then that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Karen, this has been super helpful. Where do people go if they wanna follow you or , uh, find out more about your life

Speaker 2:

To here in Oguire on Facebook, in the two brain group , uh, yet on Facebook or Bat Strength and Conditioning on Google or in city Strength and conditioning on Google, any of those places. And that's how they can find me.

Speaker 1:

And uh, so you know, listeners , uh, run a profitable gym. We have a Facebook group, it is called Gym Owners United. You can go to gym owners united.com and join there. Kieran hangs out in that group as well. So if you have any questions from the episode and you aren't a two brain client, feel free to post in there and tag Kieran and uh, he'll do his best to answer. And if not, one of the other eight or 9,000 gym owners in there , uh, will certainly have an opinion to put it on there. So Kieran , thanks for taking the time to do this. This has been awesome, ton of value packed into this episode. Guys, this has been, this week's Run, a Profitable gym. If you haven't like subscribe, leave a review. We appreciate you and , uh, thanks for sharing your most valuable resource your time. We will see you next week.