Barbell Shrugged - Turn Pro: How Fitness Coaches Turn Their Passion into Professional Careers w/ Dr. Sean Pastuch, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #588

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Dr. Sean Pastuch is the Founder and CEO of Active Life where he is on a mission to change the way Active people improve their soft tissue and joint health. Dr. Sean believes that the way to make healthcare inspiring again is to get it out of the doctor’s office and into the gym. With help from his team Dr. Sean has been able to help people remotely, from all walks of life avoid surgery and work towards elite performance through coaching and programming.   You can purchase his new book, Turn Pro: The Fitness Professional's Guide to Ethical Sales and Career Fulfillment HERE   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   Why group classes are effective but not optimal Why sales is the answer to turning your passion into a profession  Why SALES is not a dirty word Why all sales should be ethical and how to avoid unethical sales Tools to master the sales process   You can purchase his new book, Turn Pro: The Fitness Professional's Guide to Ethical Sales and Career Fulfillment HERE   Dr. Sean Pastuch on Instagram   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

This week on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking to Dr. Sean Pastuch from Active Life Rx, Active Life Professional, Active Life, all the things. And in today's episode, we are talking about how fitness trainers, coaches can take their love for fitness and helping others reach their goals and turning them into professional coaches. From a very personal standpoint, Dr. Sean is one of my favorite human beings. He's one of the best people that can walk you through the exact sales process. And I know that I will personally be listening to this show again and again because we lay out the exact steps that each gym owner and coach needs to take in order to turn their passion for fitness into a profession, which you can make a livable salary, make decent money, actually be able to take some time off work and not be grinding yourself together running group classes. Before we get into the show, I want to thank our friends over at Organifi, as we do every single week, Organifi.com forward slash drug. That's where you save 20% on the green, red, and gold, making sure that you get all the highest quality vitamins and minerals, the micronutrients that you need to make sure you're recovering well, sleeping well,

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you sleep and how much more rested you feel when you wake up. And for Shrugged listeners, you can go to magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged and use the code shrugged10 during checkout to save 10%. That's magbreakthrough.com forward slash shrugged to save 10% use the code shrugged 10 m-a-g-b-r-e-a-k-t-h-r-o-u-g-h dot com forward slash shrugged didn't use the code shrugged 10 mag breakthrough it's great I take it every night helps me sleep calms me down I sleep beautifully even with a brand new kid friends let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Bash, Dr. Sean Pastuch.

Today, dude, today's an exciting day. I'm so excited to talk about this brand new book you have coming out. And if there is somebody on this earth right now that is designed, like when you were born, somebody I feel like reached out and touched your shoulder and said, this man, at one point in his life, will be the guy that will be teaching all of the fitness coaches how to actually sell a membership to a human being. And his name is Dr. Sean Pastuch. I appreciate that. You know, it's an interesting juxtaposition that I find myself in having to, wanting to make sure that people

understand that we're not just a sales and growth company that we actually want to teach the sales to somebody who is going to provide a valuable service and really good at sales. Yeah. I think, uh, sales typically comes across as like a really dirty word. I would love to just when you look at the fitness industry as a whole, and I think the interesting spot that you guys have positioned yourself is like CrossFit had this gigantic boom and we all kind of came from this, even Travis being an Olympic weightlifting, like the growth of weightlifting from CrossFit and all that.

But the boom introduced so many problems as we played the game out. And you guys positioned yourselves in a way of solving a lot of problems. But I would love to know just kind of how you got, where you guys are at now with the ProPath and really building out a system for coaches to learn how to make this a profession. Yeah. So the simplest way I can put this is that we started off helping people get out of pain without going to the doctor or missing the gym. Because if somebody came to the CrossFit gym, which is the only gym environment I was finding myself in at the time, I owned three. And then they would come to

my clinic. They would say, hey, I went to this other doctor. They told me to stop lifting heavy. I heard that you don't tell people to stop lifting heavy. What can I do to get out of pain without missing the gym? So I was like, oh, that's a good tagline. Get out of pain without going to the doctor, missing the gym. So we started working with coaches from around the world to help their clients do that. Soon enough, coaches were like, hey, how are you doing that with my client when I live in, for example, Brazil and you live in New York? Why is my client flying out to you instead of working with me? And so we started teaching coaches how to do it. And then the coaches started making more money than the gym owners who were employing them by selling the solutions that we were

teaching them to use. So the gym owners were like, Oh, what's going on? Why is my, my coach made $500 in, in a real example, my coach made $500. her name was Sam Hirsch, in, I want to say, March of 2018 or 19. And in July, she made seven grand. What changed? I didn't make seven grand. Good bump. Right. And so we started teaching gym owners how to support really good coaches who could solve really big problems. And so much of that is sales because sales is just good communication. It's having a,

it's having a conversation where you allow somebody to understand all of the factors at play, trust you enough to let you solve their problem. And if you're not a sleazy salesperson, you'll only sell to people whose problems you can solve. Right. Yeah. When you start to introduce these like core concepts of communication to people, do you get a lot of pushback from coaches? Like where are coaches at in their journey of becoming a professional when they come to you? It's so funny you ask that. My sister-in-law asked the exact same question of me last night at dinner. She's like, do people like come to you and just tell you I'm not doing that?

Yeah, I'm sure they do. And then you go, okay. Next in line. Sometimes. The thing is this. I think our content does a good job of screening people. Meaning you're not going to see our stuff and then come and ask for our help and be like, oh, but I'm not going to do any of that.

Very rarely does that happen. And honestly, it happens most commonly when somebody refers a friend. So when a gym we work with refers another gym, a coach we work with refers another gym, a coach we work with refers another coach, they haven't seen our content. They come in and in that initial conversation, we're like, so where, where are you? What are you charging? They tell us. And I'm like, oh, like, I'm not going to ask you to raise your rates today, but a one-on-one session should cost like $70 more than that. And they're like, I don't even charge $70. I'm like, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So, and then they'll tell me nobody's going to pay for that. I'm like, that's because what you're delivering right now isn't worth that. Yeah. So like, they won't pay for it today. We're going to help you become the coach who deserves it and who knows how to demand it and can help somebody buy it.

Is it? I thought that we solved or we came to the conclusion when CrossFit was just booming that the personal training model was dead. Oh, don't start me. But now it seems like we're going back to the personal training model. Why isn't it dead now? I feel like what you're doing right now is like I'm one of those tops that you're just pulling the cord. That's what I do. Pulling it, pulling it. That tops that you're just pulling the cord. That's what I do.

Pulling it, pulling it. That's what he does. Push the buttons. I know. I know. So CrossFit from my perspective, I owned three CrossFit gyms,

two of them really poorly. Full disclosure. I did a really. My third one was the worst run one. Well, you got, you got, you got issues because that was when I stopped caring.

I was like, I got to get out that was when I stopped caring. I was like, I got to get out. What do I do now? My first one was fine. We lost it in a hurricane. Can't do much about that. Yeah. The second one, I just absentee managed straight into the ground.

And the third one is still up and running. I'm no longer a part of it. And I'm thrilled to no longer be a part of it. I don't have, I don't have the chops to be the day in day out operator, frankly, of any business. I don't operate my own business. We have Ray Gorman does that for me. Yeah.

He's, he's our, our, our VP of operations. And I just, I get to vent to him, share the vision with him. And he's like a mesh between,

not a mash, a mesh between me and everybody else that's brilliant yeah and it comes back so um i forget what the question was what was your question personal training yeah yeah yeah crossfit does a great job getting people generally fit like if you take a thousand people and you throw them into look you're all going to do group fitness and this hundred went to crossfit this hundred went to zumba this hundred went to jazzercise this hundred went to arm series this hundred went to fit body i believe that the random cross-section of crossfitters is going to have a better outcome than the random cross-section of any other group.

However, that's the random cross-section. So there's a bell curve to anything. And a group program can only solve group problems. And a well-rounded program can only help somebody who doesn't have corners. So what happens when somebody comes in and the workout of the day is not right for them? Oh, well, we can scale it. Sure. Sure we can. But nobody ever walked into a gym and they're like, nobody wants to do less than everybody else because they're less than everybody else. It's like the Matthew McConaughey movie, Days and Confused. He's like, you know, be a whole lot cooler if you did.

Can you do parts? Even the gym that I go to here, I hear that like, it's like, how'd you do on the workout? Good, comma, but, dot, dot, dot. Yeah. And all they're doing is qualifying their own effort, even though they're giving the same effort. workout, good, comma, but, dot, dot, dot. Yeah. And all they're doing is qualifying their own effort, even though they're giving the same effort, even though they're a part of the same workout, but they feel like they have to find their rank and they're not doing the thing. And innately over time, you get tired of saying this, comma, but, dot, dot, dot.

Yeah. Well, I had this conversation with Eric Rosa last week. I told him my wife got her first pull-up in our CrossFit gym and was super excited to get the pull-up. And when she got it, I was like, ah, I'm excited for you. Like, cause she kipped into, she'd had no business kipping into a pull-up. I love her. I love her. I'm happy that she felt empowered. She got that pull-up. No business doing it.

So I told him this because my belief is that everybody who joins a gym is best off doing the program that they will do. So if you'll do CrossFit and show up to the CrossFit gym and you won't show up for one-on-one you're better off going to the crossfit gym than you are showing up to one-on-one if you'll do both you're better off having both yeah when you look though at the personal training model i can i can see a scenario um and when i owned my, we ran things a certain way and I would love to know how you guys approach gym owners to structure personal training like this. But the way we did it was always a share with the owner. So, and I shared my percentage with the gym

as its own entity, but like how I can see scenarios in which coaches come to you and then all of a sudden, its own entity, but like how I can see scenarios in which coaches come to you. And then all of a sudden, six months later, they're making more than the gym owner. And now we've got conflict. We only have conflict. If it's a dick measuring contest, we only have conflict if the coach, if the coach is like, I need to make more than everybody in the building. If the coach, if the owner, I mean, here's the reality. I want each of my staff members or each of our team members to make more than I do off of what they do. And I want to reap the rewards of all of these people making more than me and giving me some

of what they do. So if you, let's say, for example, a coach in the gym is making, I'm making a percentage up. We don't do percentage based splits. I believe they're flawed terminally. I want to hear this. Yeah. Cause I was, we went 70, 30 and I always gave 30% back to my own, whatever the, that entity was the gym entity. We'll go there. So we don't do splits like that, but let's say it was 70-30. Let's say it was your example. Yeah. If we're selling sessions for a hundred bucks and you're making 70 and I'm making 30, then I'm going to make, and you do 10, I make 300 bucks, you make 700 bucks. Andrew's made more than me. But if Travis also does 10,

now I'm at 600. Travis is at 700. You're at 700. If Doug also does 10, now I'm at 900. Now I'm winning. Everybody I'm winning. If I need to play the scoreboard game against, I make more than my coaches. And, and everybody is winning because everybody is getting paid what they need to get paid right so i'll explain to you the the non-finance the non-percentage split the rationale for it and i want to preface it what there is no right way this

is how we do it um we like to create an environment in which the coach never, ever, ever thinks about their wallet when they make a sale. Never has to think about their wallet when they make a sale. And we want the sale to represent the value of the session. And we want the gym to make enough money on that session that they're like, I'm glad the coach is doing that instead of coaching class right now. So we factor in some things that need to be paid back to the gym in order for the gym to be made whole on a session that's sold. What does it cost you to pay somebody to coach a class? Let's say it's 25 bucks. Okay. 25 bucks first back to the gym. What is the credit card processing fee on the session that just got sold? Let's say it's 3%. Okay, so 3% on $100 session, three bucks back to the gym. So now the gym is

at $28. What's the payroll tax that you're paying to the government for having the coach do the session? Let's say it's five bucks. You're going to split that. So you get 250 more. So now the gym is at $30.50. Then who's going to oversee that. So you get 250 more. So now the gym is at $30 and 50 cents. Then who's going to oversee the personal training department, making sure that all of the coaches are doing a really good job. When a member has a problem with the way that the training session was performed, they don't have to come to ownership and complain about it. So the owner's not getting bogged down. Let's add 20% of that $30 and 50 cents to pay to somebody to handle all of those problems. So every session that gets performed,

they're getting a piece of two, it's gonna be another $6 and 10 cents. So now the gym is making $36 and 60 cents on every training session. No matter what it's sold for. Well, kind of. So what happens next is we look at, okay, we have 12, 24 and 48 packs. Based on our experience, we know that the average session is going to sell about 50% of the price between a 12 and a 24. So in our example right now, let's just pretend it's a hundred bucks to keep the math simple. Cool? Yeah. Okay. So now on this, the gym is taking $36 and 50 cents on every session.

What's a hundred minus $36 and 50 cents. It's $54 and 40 cents. The coach, no matter what package size they sell makes $54 and 40 cents or whatever. Yeah. So this way, if the coach thinks somebody needs a 48-pack, they sell them a 48-pack, which will cost less than a 24-pack per session. If they think they need a 24, they sell them a 24. They think they need a 12, they sell them a 12.

The coach gets the same thing no matter what for every session. The gym gets a variable rate that evens out. I see. Yeah. So now what happens here is gym owners will typically come to us and say, I don't want to discount my sessions. Don't worry, buddy.

Our 48-pack price that we recommend is typically about 40% more than the most expensive session you sell in your gym right now. Calm down. Right. Yeah. So like, so like, for example, we set the prices based on where are you located? Let's take the median household income of your area, double it, add 10% and divide it by a thousand. So if the average household near

you earns 50 K, double it is a hundred, add 10%. It's 110. That's divided by a thousand. So it's a hundred add ten percent it's a hundred ten that's divided by a thousand so it's a hundred ten thousand dollars a session hundred ten dollars per session is your one session price that's awesome how did you come up with that equation i i worked in commercial gyms for a while and i looked back at what are commercial gyms charging in different areas because even within the same brand they're not necessarily charging the same thing. And which ones of them are selling well and which ones of them are selling poorly. So for example, a company like Equinox

has a 10% roughly sell-through rate of clients doing training sessions. And a gym like a- That seems so low. It's the standard. Yeah. No one's touching that. Yeah.

And most gyms are below like a two percent yeah so okay great what are they charging where are they located how are they paying the trainers and now we look at how can we pay trainers even better than that have the gym win because they're financially profiting off the group class as well. So that the gym owner wins, the trainer wins, the client wins. I have to imagine. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Well, so a 24 pack on a session, that's $110 for one. And we vary the rate of the discount from here. But a 12 pack off of $110 would cost right about 94 bucks each session. A 24 pack is going to cost about 85 a session. And a 48 is going to be like 80 a session, 79 a session.

Most gyms are not even selling their single session at $79. So don't worry about the discount. About all that math. I must've, I did great back in the day. I feel so good about myself. Great job, Anders. Here's a simple way. No math.

Take what you pay for a class and multiply it by one and a half. The gym takes that on every session. The gym owners must love this because one of the biggest pain points I had as a gym owner was when a coach that was already coaching 20 classes a week would come to me and go, can I coach more classes? I need to make more money. And I'd go, well, the next five classes I give you are going to be so lackluster. You're going to be so burnout that you're just going to sit on a rower basically, or, and have no energy to actually be coaching because you really start to max out that, that, that energy output at like 20 hours a week on the floor. Agreed.

Yeah. Well, I think you can stretch it a little bit if you're varying what you're doing on the floor. So I think if you're working with a one-on-one client and classes, it's a different kind of energy. Totally. I don't need to be like, hey, let's get it, get it, get it for a one-on-one. Yeah. Right.

So it's a little bit different. I think we can stretch like 25, 26 floor hours. That being said, the bigger problem here, Anders, is the way that the industry is currently paying coaches because it is sending them to a totally unincentivized path where there's no reason to deal with the emotional distress of somebody saying, I don't want to pay that much for it. And most coaches are like, I don't want to have the conversation. Nobody wants to buy that, right? No one wants to pay that here. And plus it's not

worth that. Well, it's not worth that if you're giving them the whiteboard workout done one-on-one, but there's a value to one-on-one. Now, when you, with most of the gym models that exist right now, and I'm not going to call any other brands out, that's not where I want to go with this. What they fail to do first is look at what does a person need to make if they're full-time at the highest possible pay per hour to live where that gym is. So for example, if you're coaching a class and you're getting paid 25 bucks, fine. I think that's reasonable. If now when you do a personal training session, you're making 35 bucks. Okay. I hate it. Neither here nor there. What does it cost to live in that area? How many classes does that person need to coach a week before you'll allow

them to do training? Like what is your role as an owner? What is their job description? How many hours are we expecting to work? If we now back into it, if 25 floor hours is what we're capping them at, and the most money they could make per hour is $35, let's do the math. 25 hours a week, $35 per hour, 4.3 weeks per month. Is a one-bedroom apartment that you would happily live in going to cost 30% or less of the amount of money that a person can make at that rate? Probably not. We ran into this a lot in San Diego, Pacific Beach. You and New York, it's brutal well well but it's we paid so much we were like double what people were paying for crossfit coaches back in the day we paid like 30 bucks an hour in like 2011 yeah it's a big which is absurd and i then i would

like do the math be like well you're gonna need nine roommates to survive. Yeah. Well, so I'm talking with one of our staff members right now who I really badly want to live in New York because she's a rock star and I want her on camera and I want to do all kinds of stuff. She knows it. So I looked up apartments. I worked at the realtor. I said, find me really, really good apartments that she would be pumped to live in. And then I'm going to factor that as 30% of what I pay her. It doesn't matter what job she's doing. If I want her full attention, I need to pay her a livable wage. Yeah. Do you only do fees per class or is there some combination where like you're coaching classes? but then you also have other responsibilities more like on the kind of the business back end or sales and marketing and Administrative finance whatever whatever it is

Do they share roles or do you have completely different staff members that help with the other activities? It depends on the gym and it depends on the people so I have a core belief that So we want to keep people 80 of the time in their unique genius. So what I mean by that is you may have somebody who coaches for you, who just crushes your Instagram, your Facebook, and your sales. Well, let's have them doing that 80% of the time if they like it and not coaching as much. But the mistake that I see people making with their coaches is they'll say, how much money do you want to make? And the coach is like, well, $60,000. They make a number

up because they have no idea. And okay, here's how you can get the $60,000 in the gym. Coach this many classes, do this many one-on-ones, start these programs, clean the floor these hours, do this administrative work. And the coach is like, okay, that sounds great. And then they quit. Yeah. And then they quit because the reality is they don't want to do those things. They didn't think about the 60 grand. And frankly, it might've been 80 grand if you really dug down on them. But I think, Doug, that every hour that someone who wants to coach, they just want to be a coach. Every minute that they spend earning revenue, doing something other

than coaching or selling coaching with them is a hedge. It's a bet against their ability to be successful getting clients to coach with them. Yeah. If they're really, if you teach them to be good at those things, you should, as a, as an owner, you should want them to be doing those things versus like random stuff that they may or may not be good at that may or may not make me one cent. So do you basically treat them like they're like a dentist or like, or like a doctor, you should be only dealing with patients and doing whatever necessary medical

paperwork needs to be done, and then all the back-end stuff is taken care of by the administrative staff? I heard a quote by Donald Rumsfeld that I liked that was all – Donald Rumsfeld making his way onto Barbell Shrugged. It was – We have a first, ladies and gentlemen. I bet he's listening i bet i bet it was all statements spoken in absolutes are false including this one agreed and and so i love it

and so i i don't know if i would have somebody doing only one thing It really depends on that person's acumen at doing that one thing and monetizing it. So, it depends. How do you overcome the, say somebody gets great at selling, they're great at assessments, they're great at getting someone from step one to step two to step three. We're in a 48 package session. We're all making good money. Everybody feels empowered by their job. Everybody is, that 48 session just keeps renewing for year two and year three and everything's great. But we're still in that one-on-one model, trading time and money. And we have to, at some point, be able to scale past that or you become the business owner. There are many inherent problems with the situation that you just brought up.

Number one, the reason why the coaches we train, the gyms we work with, find so much success is because of the honesty that they give to the client before they sell anything. The purpose of buying personal training is to develop the competence and confidence to do the things that you're going to do in the gym and in your life. Once you have the competence and the confidence, you should no longer be regularly purchasing 48 packs of personal training. It becomes a dependency model so the but if you just like the person of all the people that i trained that i had for three four five years they just like hanging out with me but like you said it's a dependency model or it's like hey dude can we just go get a drink like once a week? I need a peg back. So I think that that happens a lot.

And personal training becomes a social model. And look, if everybody involved knows that that's what it is, sure. No problem. And are there exceptions to that rule? Are there people who will always need to work with people one-on-one? Yeah. All absolutes are false, including this one. That said, I think that personal training over time is best done from a high intensity of volume up front to a,

let's really reduce the amount of time we're spending one-on-one together over time to be refining things, to build competence and confidence in parts of the movement, in high skill stuff, or let's do something that actually makes you physically uncomfortable, that touches on the pain you had so that you can gain the confidence that that's not going to kill you when you see it because I'm there with you. We don't, however, transition people out of one-on-one into randomly designed and say what you want. It doesn't matter. If there's no linear progression, the program is random, even if random by intentionality. We don't just throw them into group class.

Everyone's doing the same thing, scale for the, you know, right for the best, scale for the rest. We don't do that. So what happens next is we will take that member of the gym and move them into a model in which the whole class, everyone who shows up first five minutes is going to be a group heat up. The next 25 minutes, you are doing an individual design program written for you by the coach. Oh, there you go. Right? To make sure that you're fixing what you came for. So if you come to lose 100 pounds and Travis comes to gain 20,

we're not both doing the same A piece. And then we come together in the group for the last 30 minutes and your version of the workout has already been customized by your coach so you never feel like a burden on the staff saying hey i'm still modifying pull-ups ring rows again so when you go to the whiteboard and circle up doesn't just say hinge to your skill level bend your knees to your skill level like how does how does that look as a high level structure and then filter down to the people great question the intent is written on the board the stimulus that we're looking for is written on the board the way it should feel is written

on the board the rpe is written on the board the not the workout yeah because everybody already has their workout delivered to them. Their individual program. Yeah. But, but, but, but Travis, if we're doing, this is brilliant. Thank you. Yeah. Let's say for example, we're doing, we're doing hang squat cleans, thrusters and running. Right. Right. You're going to get the intended stimulus of hang, squat, cleans, thrusters, and running. Even if your program doesn't have hang, squat, cleans, thrusters, and running in it, it's going to have the same time domain. So we're all now working out at the same time as if- The same energy system.

Everything. Yeah. Brilliant. So as if the coach had set it up exactly right to scale for you. And then what happens is each month, each member gets a one-on-one touch point with a coach. This does two things. I don't care if they get a cup of coffee to talk about their goals. I don't care if they're getting a nutrition conversation or if it's a one-on-one training session to refine a skill or if they're exploring RPEs together. It doesn't matter what they're doing in that hour, as long as it brings value to the client. Quarterly, there's goal setting

seminars so that they have the opportunity to talk this through as a team. And what this does is, let's say that I'm coaching you, Anders. I'm your one-on-one coach. Well, when you come to class, Doug is going to train you. Travis is going to train you. And so when the gym owners decides I shouldn't work in this place anymore or I decide I'm going to move, well, you come to the 5 o'clock with your four friends who all still want to come to the gym who are coached by Doug and by Travis and you like Doug and Travis's classwork,

you're not leaving with me the coach. You're staying with the gym. Yeah. Yeah. Do you lose any of the camaraderie and that like, that just that fire, that fun that goes along with the whiteboard that we're all in this battle together? No, because the whiteboard can still exist. It's just not a competition anymore. You know, like a lot of still hanging out. I mean, really, that's what it's about. No, because the whiteboard can still exist. It's just not a competition anymore. You know, like, like a lot of still hanging out. I mean, really, that's what it's about. Like, for sure. So much of the unity of gyms and specifically in the CrossFit model is built around. We all gather around this place. We all look at these numbers on here and then we go and battle it out again. The thing that, yeah,

the thing that CrossFit does extremely well is it brings people together through physical suffrage in the class. Yeah. Like that's what people bond over. So we wanted to keep that with what we do on the second half of class. Right. And they get that.

They get that. The thing that, where I feel like the pendulum has an opportunity to swing back a little bit is if you, we do this often, ask an owner to name a member in the gym. First and last. Got it. Now we ask a coach who coaches classes in the gym that that member takes.

What is that member's goal that they joined for? I think they joined to lose weight. Got it. So you're not sure. No. Okay. How long ago did they join? It's got to be like two years now. Okay, great. Are they getting closer to their goal or not? I'm not sure. And they can't be sure because they don't know the goal. So what a lot of the gyms who we work with are actually able to do is they have a whiteboard for goals and, and like meaningful goals. It's not just, you know, be fitter, uh, or even not specific goals, not just play with my kids, right? So it would be something like be able to play with my kids for 45 minutes without getting winded.

And now when class starts, a coach can say to that member, hey, I see on the board that your goal that you set on this date was to be able to play with your kids for 45 minutes without getting winded. Are we closer to that goal than we were when you set it? Yes. Outstanding. No. I'd like to talk to you after class if that's okay. Yeah, no problem. And now we need to amend that program. When, I guess, when the coaches begin this process, like, what is kind of like the first step for them to be able to like carry this process out?

When they sign up for an active life or active life professional now, that's the one? We have both. Our ex is servicing the individual. Professional is where we- Servicing the coach. And the gym, right? Gotcha. Think of our ex as the lab.

When they sign up, yeah. When the coach comes to you, what is like the first step of them learning this system? Yeah. So, short answer is it depends if they come in as a coach or if they come in as a coach of a gym, meaning the gym signed up or the coach signed up. So, step one would be if they come in, let's say, as a coach who came in as a coach. They take our seminar. It's a two-day long seminar. We teach them how to see and identify and communicate movement impairment to the member

so that the member can enjoy coming to the gym again. Alleviate the issues of working around pain. We shouldn't have to wait until George squats and says, my knee hurt when I did that, to be able to stop George from having to experience the knee pain. We should know before he does it. I actually, can I jump in? Because the number of times that somebody would come in and feel a tweak and feel a twinge, and then two days later, three days later, they go, I just, I need to cancel my membership. I've got a bum knee. And it would frustrate me so much because quitting the gym was the last thing they needed to do.

But in a way, it wasn't until the end of my gym ownership slash career of in-person coaching in that model that I really had the tools like on a personal testimonial of like people need to have this skill because many people are going to come to you and say like, well, I need to cancel my membership because I had this thing happen to me. Well, we have this huge, huge pile of dirt underneath the rug in the room. And it is that when you ask a gym owner or a coach, are people getting hurt in your gym? The answer is almost exclusively no. And then we have a post, like there was a post I saw the other day from Make Wads Great Again. And it was a meme talking about if you've been doing CrossFit for 10 years, like the following are true.

You own 15 pairs of shoes. You have three jump ropes, nine, whatever. And one of the things on it was you have a random shoulder pain that comes and goes. Yeah, you're going to get injured. I don't want people to think that CrossFit is like the most dangerous thing in the world, but you will get hurt because you're going to try and be good at it. It's not that it's a dangerous thing inherently. Yeah.

You can get hurt the same way going for a run. You can get hurt the same way. Anything you want to be good at is going to hurt. Yes. You need to push the margins. The reality is you need to push the margins in order to find out where they are. Yeah. And so it's not unreasonable to expect that you're going to deal with some achy shoulder stuff. What I'm describing is how can we build a model where that comes off of the meme as being something that everybody laughs at and says, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Totally agree. CrossFit is safe when done really well. Anything is safe when done well, whether it's weightlifting, powerlifting, CrossFit, strength and conditioning. When done well, when you don't ask a person to do something they're not capable of doing when you don't ask a you know a 40 year old accountant i don't know why i always use 40 year old but like you don't ask a 40 year old accountant who's been sitting at a desk for 20 years to go do a snatch when we all know that his shoulder and scapula are not prepared for that you know if you jump back into any sport as a 40 year old that hasn't trained and recently and you go back you try to play competitive basketball competitive soccer

competitive hockey competitive football mma whatever it is like you're probably going to get dinged up it's it's almost it's inevitable right so i can't believe they choked me out. All of my joints. I was so excited. Nobody cared. They just said, do it again. Well, you used a word there that I think is really important that needs to be examined in the gym, sport. So any of us, Travis coaches Olympic weightlifters.

Doug, you train MMA. Anders anders i imagine you do something athletic he's the most athletic of all of us man but sports slightly above average some things everything nobody plays sports to get healthy nobody nobody's like hey you know why i picked up football i needed a healthy habit yeah everyone can go walking dude we just need to get that out there i wish the whole world would understand that people don't play sports to get healthy you know there are a lot of other benefits to get from it but that's not one of them i just had a weightlifting coach that said weightlifting is really good for you unless you compete in it. Right.

But now the problem is people start competing in it without being competitors. And the competitor, all I mean, I don't care that you show up at a competition or not. That's not what I'm talking about. It's the decision that I will pursue diminishing returns at the expense of my body for the thrill of the diminishing return happening. That's a competitor. It doesn't matter if you compete. You make the decision that I'm going to chase PRs. You're a competitor. Yeah. Now you're getting hurt. And that's what Anders was saying. You know, the whole let's compete every single day. That was the flaw, I think, of CrossFit.

When I come to you, a 40-year-old accountant is coming to you to get healthy, to feel better. And so then they go to you. Next thing you know, they're caught up in this daily competition and they're going to get hurt. Versus this model, this is a brilliant model. And every CrossFit should adapt to this, I believe. I've been, you know, for years thinking that is the flaw. You can't have a four-year-old competing every day. It's something they can't do.

I appreciate that. And I want to also make sure that I say we don't ask every CrossFit that we work with to adopt that model as a full model. Because some of them do CrossFit as it's meant to be done really well. And they don't need to go to that model. So what we do with them is we say, yeah, they're a sport. If you're doing it for the sport.

Sure. But we teach people to be successful in three different ways. And after that, we'll be creative, but we're not sure we can do it. One way is mostly class, some one-on-one training for the members who need it and then throw them back into class and make sure they understand the risks.

Another way is have a few of these classes on your schedule for members to enroll in have some one-on-one training have some group class the third way is everything is these classes i like that model i mean you know for a sustainable model you know financially and for really helping the most people like I feel this is where most people should go. Unless you own a gym, you know, that you have a ton of competitors. That's different. Then it doesn't matter, you know, like, if I'm a competitor, I don't care what you say. I'm doing all in.

I can actually speak to that, Matt, because that was what our gym was built around. And what happens is, I mean mean and this was 2010 2016 we're like and still to this day i don't know why you would do crossfit unless you were trying to compete in something or just get way better because there's so many less painful ways to go about being in really good shape and lose body fat and build muscle like there's there's just way more fun ways to do it. But what happens is when you position yourself as like the competitive gym, you get a lot of competitors, but not nearly enough to pay bills. Right.

We sent, we sent a team to the CrossFit games two years in a row who were all people who had never done CrossFit before they came to our gym. So it's like, we didn't recruit from other gyms. That's boss right there. We grew athletes. And to this day, people don't join the gym that I used to own because they think

they need to be a better athlete to sign up. I hear that all the time. But we haven't been to the CrossFit games in seven years. And the nanny who, who works in our home, she wanted to try CrossFit.

I'm like, you should go to that gym. The one I used to own, that's where the best coaching in town is. And she's like, I've seen those people like I'm no way. And they're not like, it's the best gym in town.

Despite the fact that I don't own it anymore. So it's. Yeah. I think that, I think that, um, you branded it X and that's going to be brand unless you burn it down or something. It's that's the brand. Yes. And I did burn it down. It still is.

My question to you is like, is that sales process? I'm, yeah, I love sales personally. Like, so I would look like someone comes to you is like, is that sales process? I'm, I love sales personally. Like, so I would look like someone comes to you and what do you do? How do you, how do you convince this person? This is what's going to solve their problems. Yeah, we don't, we don't convince anybody of anything. So the first thing, the first thing I would say is our first rule of sales is only sell to people in the market for what you have and always sell to people in the market for what you have that's the pen trick yes i don't want a pen yeah can you write down your can you write your name for me and they go can you sell me this pen they go well i don't

have anything to write with well now i do I do, and it costs you a dollar. Right. But again, it's I don't want to write my name. You shouldn't buy this pen. Yeah. So the first rule is does somebody want or need what you have? If the answer is yes, then you should be selling it to them. If the answer is no, you should be honest with them and tell them that you can't help them. Right.

And let them go elsewhere. I think that most gyms struggle to turn people away because they don't know how to get people to come in. Right. But that's an aside. If the person's in front of you, the first decision you need to make is, can I help this person? The second decision you need to make is, do I want to? There's a lot of people who've come to us who want help,

who we can't help. Well, I'm just like, you are not a fit. I don't want to work with this person. So. What are the reasons they might not be a fit? They want results super fast or they have a personality of like, I'm not doing anything until you can prove 100% to me that it can be done that way. Or they just, they, they're inflammatory in nature. Yeah. Bad vibes. You know, we run a group. The biggest value of what we do is the network of the people who are in the group. The gym owners help each other. We, we're secondary as much as we do. And I need to protect that group or that group goes to hell in a handbasket pretty quick.

Same with the coaches. You want to hear a great story about one of the only members I ever said that this probably, this gym is probably not for you. And he stormed out all pissed off. Yeah, I do. This guy, I was in the office.

There's coaches outside, out in the main room coaching class. He comes in and he's like what's up with this music he's like all he's all fired up you can just see like the anger on his face and i was like what what's wrong with it what's happening like i had no idea what was wrong with the music and he was upset there was too much swearing in the music was like gangster rap type music and he was we're in the south he just he just wasn't having it and he's like you need to change that and i I was like, Whoa, like he's like in fundamentals. He's been there for like a week. Right.

So I was like, um, we, we certainly can, you know, put on songs that are, that have less swearing than this one. But if swearing is a problem, then this just probably isn't the place for you because you're going to be, you're going to be frustrated every day. And so, you know, there, you know, there's many other CrossFit gyms in town that are like kid friendly. I know many of those gym owners that they don't, they don't play this type of music. And that might be a better fit for you. One's like a mile down the road. And he goes, and he left. guy at my gym that I still own. I'm just in there training. I'm not coaching. I'm not really doing anything like operating like an owner, but I just happen to see him in there while I'm training. And I go up to him and I say, oh, hey, how's it going, man? I'm Doug. And he goes, oh,

hey, how's it going? I'm this other person. And we totally pretended like we didn't know who each other were. I acted like I didn't know who he was and he acted like he didn't know who I was. I said, okay, nice to meet you. And I went about my day then um now knowing that he's now a member at the gym like two years later after that i'm at a christmas party like the crossfit gym christmas party right and he's had a couple drinks comes over to me and says hey um and right when he goes hey i go i go yep okay we're gonna talk about it okay yeah sure we can talk about it and he goes remember that day i was like yeah i remember i remember and uh he goes that day i wasn't actually concerned about the music I wasn't angry about it at all. I go, oh, it's not like I can say. He goes, the workouts were just too hard and I was embarrassed

to be there because I couldn't keep up. I got pissed and left. Now he's a CrossFit coach. No way. He turned it all around. He walked out just so embarrassed that he did that. Then he did that and then he he started training and he got back into it and and now he's good for him went home and looked in the mirror what a cool of you to like to be honest and say you know do it you i think you handle conflict better than anyone i know i think you should have walked over and put that damn rap song loud as hell the second time you saw him.

He said, remember this song, buddy? You're back. Let's roll. But, Sean, so only sell to people in the market and always sell to people in the market. So, okay, I'm in the market. Now what? So a lot happens before we want you selling anything.

So Andrew's asking how do people come into our world? When a gym comes into our world, the coaches start in what we call the mindset phase. The gym owner is starting in the financial business phase. What should things cost? What do they cost? Why are you afraid to charge the right price for them? What value do we need to add before we raise the price?

What fears about communicating with the staff do you have before we raise the price? And simultaneously, we're supporting the gym owner by helping the staff develop the mindset that when they have that value, they're going to charge that price so that the gym owner doesn't come in and be like, all right, prices are going to this. And then the staff is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. People are going to be angry. The staff is like, yeah, let's do it. So that's the first thing. They need to have the mindset to know that they have the value they're asking for. We teach them to do that. We teach them what we call the cost of inaction, which means somebody

comes to you, you're in the market. Why did you come in? So if you give me an example, Travis, I can work with you on this. Why did somebody walk in? You know, I wanted to play with my kids more. I can't, I don't move as well as I used to move. Great. Now, I understand the reason you're here is because you want to be able to move around with your kids and play with your kids so you can be a great dad right right okay yes do i believe in my heart that the other gyms in town are going to help you do that as well as i'm going to help you do that hopefully not so let's say i don't let's say that i don't i'm'm like, okay, well then now, whatever I cost, it doesn't matter if I'm a thousand dollars a month or $10 a month. And provide the service.

Before that, whatever I cost, I'm weighing you not being a better dad. Right. I'm not weighing what I cost. I'm thinking about if, if Travis doesn't enroll here, he's not going to become the dad he wants to be. And it's going to be in large part my fault because I couldn't show him the light. Right. So, and we have, I have a really, really good example of this. I'll tell the story later if we get to it. We're definitely getting to a bookmark yeah this is good stuff well so so now in my mind i'm no longer thinking about how much money i make

if travis signs up i'm thinking about travis needs to be a great dad we can help him do that there's no way this fucking guy leaves without becoming a better dad. I should have, before you come in, pre-framed you to make sure that you knew you were coming in to make a buying decision. Right. To make sure that if your wife needed to be with you to make a buying decision, she was there. All of those things are happening before you come in because I want you coming in with the mindset

that I'm coming to make a decision today. Right. It's so important. How do you do that? This is great. I mean, I love the process. This is great. So, so I'm on the phone with you. So Travis, you know, great. It looks like Friday at 5 PM is going to be a great time for you to come in. We'll have a conversation about what you're really looking to do and make a determination if I believe we can help you or not. If I do believe I can help you, I'm going to ask you to enroll in the meeting so that we can get your first session with us on the books right away. No waiting time. Does that sound reasonable to you? Sure. Great. Just to make sure that you're able to do that, Travis, is there anybody who helps you make decisions around finances in your household, in your family, in your life,

who it would be beneficial to bring with you so that they can ask whatever questions they have before you commit to spending any money? Yeah, my wife. Great. Can she make five o'clock at five at five with you on friday yes yes outstanding and what's her name i want to write it down so i can greet her by her name when she gets here too emily drew we're southerners now living in new york so in new york all right so perfect so i look travis i'll see you and emily drew on friday at 5 p.m awesome great all right now now when she comes you understand all right we're gonna you're gonna be talking the whole time before you come sure what what do we want to ask this person what's

our budget like you're thinking about all those things sure you are none of them are true but you think they are anybody who's ever anyone who's ever gone house shopping knows they're not true what's your budget 250k this one costs 300 we'll take it yeah right like okay so that's that's there now when you come in the beginning of the meeting i should be talking 10 of the time you should be talking 90 totally i want to learn everything i possibly can about you why good i just think that's the sign of a true salesperson if they're talking all the time like you think of a car salesman, then they're not very good. If they're asking great questions, then they're pretty good,

as long as they're listening, of course. But if the other person is talking the majority of the time, you'll probably have a better chance of selling that person. Yeah, I like to say amateurs have all the answers. Professionals have all the questions. Totally. Great. Yeah. that person yeah i like to say amateurs have all the answers professionals have all the questions totally great yeah so i there's no way i can know if i can help you or not without asking you a list of questions what are some of those questions so we have six you cheated up for me thank you we have each of these questions may have questions that come off of them but there are six questions

that we want you to ask that you must ask. Question number one. I almost want to jump in and just see if I get them right. You won't. Damn it. Go ahead. I'm just going back to my gym ownership days. Go ahead. It's passing me out. I know. Question number one is, is that true? Now you're not actually going to say necessarily, is that true? It's just your way of remembering to repeat to them what you believe they said to you to make sure you got it right. You're confirming you heard what you think you heard. Is that true?

Got it. Question number two, how long has this been a problem for you? So that you know how long they're dealing with it for. Like if they woke up that morning, like I've never thought about losing weight until today, they might not be ready to make a significant financial investment with you. They might be, but they might not be. So how long has this been a problem? Six years. Wow. Okay. Six years. That's a long time. What have you tried to fix this problem? Is this still question number two or are we on to three now? We're on to three. So what have you tried? Because the last thing I want someone to say is,

oh, I tried CrossFit six different times. And then you're like, oh, I own a CrossFit gym. I'm really confident we can help you. They're like, oh yeah, I've heard that six times. So what have you tried? They'll tell you. Question number four, why do you believe none of those things worked? Because now if you're CrossFit and they tried CrossFit, you can talk about how your CrossFit is different and you're in a different conversation. If they've never done what you did before, then now you're explaining to them the value of what you do. Question number five. So would you say that getting the results you came here for, so losing the 20 pounds, is it a high priority that it happens now? Like,

is this the time in your life for it to happen? Or is it more whenever it happens, it happens kind of thing. If they answer it's whenever it happens, it happens kind of thing, abort the sale. Stop selling. Because now you're going to get pushy and sleazy because they just express they don't really want it. If they say, that's whenever it happens, it happens. Great. What I would love to do is let's just, there's no reason for you to sign up today. What we're going to ask you to do is going to be high commitment. It's going to take a lot of your energy. And I don't feel ethical about asking you to do that, knowing that the priority of getting this done doesn't match the effort that it's going to cost you or the money. Brilliant. They might come back to you and be like, whoa, what do you mean? Have that conversation. Maybe they decide they want to buy, but you're not pushing them away just to get them to come back.

That's beautiful too. The takeaway. Yes. Is it great? It's like, you're like, and they see that you're different. That's the big key. They see that you're not trying to force them into something that you just want what's best for them. That's, these are great. All right. And then, and then question number six is great. If I would you like to. So it's great. So I think that we're a great fit. You need to tell them that you believe you can help them. If you believe you can help them, you need to be emphatic about that. Hard repeat. Yeah. If I got you started, if I could get you started today and your first session would be on Monday. So today you would go home with some homework to do,

get yourself ready for that first session. Would you like to enroll now or do you still have some questions brilliant get the last thing out on the table and and the reason why we do it that way is i expect 95 of people to say i still have some questions yeah what what does this cost how does this work and now we're into objection handling in a way that no one typically people haven't experienced typically what they experience because it's what's taught to gym owners is somebody asks them what are you spending your money on where can we where can we reprioritize those funds right somebody is asking how important is this to you i thought you said it was important now all of a sudden 400

bucks a month isn't worth it doesn't line. They're taught that if somebody isn't paying, it's just not a priority. They're taught everybody can afford it, which isn't true. Not at all. Yeah. So, so what comes next is let's anticipate objections and let's ask for them. Let's ask for objections instead of trying to sneakily avoid the objections and get someone to sign up. We don't want to get someone to sign up. Have you ever heard of ECR? It's like, it's a sales term. It means you empathize, you clarify pretty much what you're saying. Then you isolate whatever it is. Then you respond. Right. Well, so we do it a little bit differently. We have what we call the AARP model, which is acknowledge, agree, repeat, and pivot.

Yeah. That's a lot of money. You're right. 100% is a lot of money. May I ask you a question? Yes. Ask them a question. In that case, now we're going to isolate the objection, right? Is it that it's more than you can afford? Is it that you're not sure that it's worth what we charge? And it's totally fine to tell me that, by the way. Or is it just more than you expected? And oftentimes people, by the way, will say it's just more than I expected. And then trainers, gym owners go back and they're like, well, let me explain to you why

it's worth it. Stop. They didn't tell you they didn't think it was worth it. They just said, it's more than I expected. Take a second. Got it. It's more than you expected. I hear that all the time. So would you like to enroll or do you still have some questions? They didn't tell you it's too much money. They didn't tell you they can't afford it. They didn't tell you it's not worth it. They just said more than they expected. Yeah. So give them a second to internalize it.

But now for everybody that just heard a little bit of a pause in there, those were counting one, two, three seconds where you just let yeah you let you let that feeling sit in for a second the important three seconds of letting it just sit there well because because they are they're racking in their they're thinking now like that's more than i expected i have to recalculate whether it's worth it or not or whether i can afford it or not or whatever they're recalculating whether it's worth it or not. Or whether I can afford it or not. All of those things.

All those things. They're recalculating. So we anticipate objections. We want objections because I don't think that somebody can actually buy something full-throated and be totally excited about it unless they've told you all of the reasons they're afraid to buy it. Totally. I want to hear all of them. So in Jordan Belfort's book, The Way of the Wolf,

he talks about three things that people must be certain about in order to buy. We add a fourth. The first one is they need to be certain about your business. They can trust your business. You have the best interest in mind. So if they don't know anything about your business, it's likely they don't trust it you need to tell them about your business right number two your process or your product

so i came to this gym to lose 20 pounds every gym is going to tell me they can, how is this gym going to do it? And so we teach our gyms to have a process that they can explain with phases that have success criteria, best case scenario of succeeding, worst case scenario of failing. That's a whole different, it's collateral that comes to the meeting. The third thing they need to be certain about is you and your intent. Is this person reeking up the room with their commission breath? They just want to sell me something and get paid? Or does this person genuinely want me to be successful?

And the last one that we added is they need to have the certainty that they can be successful. They need certainty in themselves that they can be successful in your gym with your process with you. So oftentimes people don't have that last one. And now what needs to happen is you need to go back in and rebuild all of the certainty in the world in the other three where people often go wrong in sales, Travis, besides the convincing people telling them, yeah, but if you bring up the word, but what you're telling somebody is, I hear you and you're wrong. Let me explain to you. And nobody wants to hear that. Let me explain to you. I know. Yeah.

And nobody wants to hear that. Let's get on the same team. Yeah. So like it is expensive, but let's take a look at what you get for it. Okay. So you're telling me it's actually not expensive. Yeah. Got it.

It's a terrible way to respond to anybody. Yes. But. So, so what we do is we're actually kind of temperature reading the whole time. How much certainty does this person have in all of these things? So the first time I ask you to enroll, there's no way that anyone in their right mind should do it. Nobody should enroll. In fact, if you did, I wouldn't take your money. I was no value been built at all. You know, you're going to have buyers

remorse 20 minutes later and call me for a refund on the drive home. Sure. I didn't even ask you how this works. Right? No shit. So let's make sure they, let's, let's make sure they know. So we're fishing for objections all the time until they run out of them. And then we're asking if they'd like the sale. So, and it's always, are you ready to enroll? Or is there something else you'd like to ask? Or are there more things that you're thinking about? Not would you like to think about it? Are there more things that you're thinking about? Do you have some more questions? Are you ready to enroll? Are you ready to get started? Or is there more you'd like to talk to me about? Because when we're done talking, you're going to enroll.

Right. So that's the very, very basic premise of our sales process. It's searching for objections, repeating the objection, acknowledging that it's a real thing, and then pivoting to a question that we can ask to get the information out of the person that they already know the answer to that question. So for example, I'm just not sure it's it's worth it like that's a lot of money totally understand it sounds like i didn't do the best possible job of explaining to you what we do right would you mind explaining to me what your interpretation of how this works is so i can make sure i did a thorough job of explaining it and if they repeat to you exactly what it is that you do and they don't think it's worth it then you say you know what

okay this isn't gonna work you're right if you don't think that's worth it we shouldn't we shouldn't go forward right yeah they they literally at that point either can't they can't afford it or well no at that point they don't think it's worth it right if because i might ask them then is it that you don't think it's worth it is it that you can't afford it or is it more than you expected right i can't afford it i understand is it that you can't afford the upfront cost is it that you can't afford the recurring costs or is it that you can't afford the recurring costs? Or is it that you don't think you can afford the whole thing at all? And I always like to say, you're not sure you can afford,

or you don't think you can afford. Because if it was heart surgery to save their lives, they're figuring it out. Yeah, it really is, to be honest. Right, but we don't want to bury people in debt. Right. So, okay. Although I'm not making that decision for them. I don't think I can afford the upfront. Got it. Okay. So you're saying if the upfront didn't exist,

you'd be able to do this for the long haul. Yeah. Okay. Well why don't we just build the upfront costs into your ongoing costs so you don't have to come out of pocket as much up front. You would do that? Yeah. I'm here to help you. I want to make sure that we can get you in. Right. Or it's the recurring costs. I understand. So what you're saying, if I'm understanding you correct, is that today you don't believe that you have enough money to justify enrolling in this. It would be an irresponsible financial decision for you. Yes, totally understand. And I want to respect that. Do you think this is something that you would like to do

if money was not an object? Yeah, totally. Great. I would still like to help you. Now, I can't have you coming to the gym working out for free. That's not fair to the other members. What I would like to do though is support you while you earn the money necessary to join the gym from a distance. Would that be okay with you? Ah, that's brilliant. I see where you're going with that. Yep.

Yeah, that would be totally fine. And now I'm going to build a schedule of content that I'm going to send to this person that's going to solve their problem some of the way. Right? At home. As much as I can without them being here. And what's going to happen is I'm the only person who they ever didn't buy from who helped them anyway. And they're starting to see the results that I'm getting for them without even coming in. And if the reality was they weren't prioritizing, they're going to turn around and say, you know what? I got to

prioritize the rest. If this is what this guy can do for me for free, imagine what would happen if I paid. And much of this is coming from like the getting people out of pain into the gym or dealing with just kind of existing nagging injuries or coming out of classes and probably getting ready to leave the gym. This is kind of like the sweet spot that you've created in between the chiropractic career back in the day to the fitness career of owning a gym. And I love listening to you talk about the future of fitness

and the things you guys are building. Can we talk about healthcare, fitness, how you're merging them together? Before we do, I'd like to tell you the story that you earmarked. Oh, look at that. The earmark is back. God, you need a podcast hosting job. So I do. It's called the Actify Podcast.

So I had a client. I'll tell the story in four minutes or less. Her name was Brittany. She knows I talk about her all the time. Brittany called for help and we cost 199 bucks a month for one-on-one service at the time. And she was having shoulder pain that was slowing her down in the gym. Told her we could help her. She asked if she could talk to her husband. I said, sure. And I didn't pre-frame properly. She didn't buy. Okay. At that time in my life, that happens all the time. Whatever. It is what it is. On to the next. A year later, she's on my schedule again. I'm talking to her and she's like, starting to cry a little bit on the phone. Like, what's going on here? She's like, so this year I ended up going and getting surgery on my shoulder. And I feel like it was a mistake because I got a surgery

and now they're telling me I need a second surgery. Can you help me? And I asked her a bunch of questions and I determined that it would be unethical for us to try to help her. She needed that second surgery. So I said, unfortunately, I don't think we can. I think that second surgery is necessary. Okay. Cries, goes and gets the surgery. Six months later. And by the way, after that one, that is when all the sales training for me went from the stuff that's innate and just learned over time to I'm going to become the most ethical, savage fucking salesperson anybody has ever met because I'm never going to let that happen to somebody again. I took it personally. I failed her a year ago. What were the steps you took in that? What was like the education over that six months? It was unreasonable.

That's fine. I like that. I was reading sales books. I was watching documentaries about great business leaders. I was watching YouTube until I fell asleep with the computer on my lap. And then woke up an hour later and started all over again. I was following people on Instagram who were good at selling. I was, I was, you name it. I was doing it to the point that my wife was like, I'm concerned about your obsession over this. You need to relax.

That woman having surgery was not your fault. I'm like, you don't understand? It was. And it's never going to happen again. So I get her on the phone again six months later. And I pick up the phone. She would describe it as she was ugly crying the moment I said hello. That's how she would describe it.

I had my two surgeries and the doctors want me to get surgery number three and surgery number four. Good God. What was wrong with your shoulder? Little tears. Yeah. Little tears. Sounds like 17 labrum tears. Can't actually fix them.

So I really want to avoid it. I can't pull up my pants. I can't cook. I can't wash my hair. I can't work out. I gained weight. I can't pull up my pants. I can't cook. I can't wash my hair. I can't work out. I gained weight. I can't coach in the gym anymore. When a girl puts her hair up in front of me, I just want to kick her in the back. Like that's, that was where her mind was at. I said, look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't know if we can help you. I don't know. I do believe it would be worth it to try though at this point, because the worst case scenario is you get surgery again.

What do you think? And she's like, Oh my God, thank you so much. Yes, let's do it. $200. Right.

And like, Oh no, things have changed. Things have changed. And I told her she was going to cost her $2,799. She had to buy the year up front. That was the only way we would take her. I got to talk to my husband.

I'm like, hold on a second there. I asked you if your husband needed to be involved in the buying decision. She had a legitimate response. Last time it was $200. We had that cleared. We didn't have 2799 cleared. I said, great, let's get him on the phone.

And I leveled with her. I was like, last time this happened, this is what I did. This is where it sent me. And I believe if I let you off the phone, it's going right back. Yeah. We'll talk in six more months. So now she's on her third year of one-on-one coaching with us and she hasn't been in pain for 30 months. And she spoke at our first event for the gym owners for 25 minutes. She cried in front of a room of gym owners and coaches and explained to them that me selling her in that moment was the most important thing to happen to her in her adult life

because she was considering ending it all because she had lost her identity. So that is what we call the house on fire. The person is sitting in a room. The house is on fire. They can't see the smoke or feel the flames. What do you do when you're walking by? Do you just let them sit there or do you pull them out of the house? Yeah, I got to pull them.

So the cost of inaction is showing up at the funeral feeling guilty you didn't jump in ah so so that's that's where we teach coaches this and then we talk about um all kinds of stuff psychologically to make sure that they understand it's important that they take action you know diffusion of responsibility the idea that like if I don't say you call 911, if I say somebody called 911, there's a stronger likelihood that nobody calls 911. Right. So it's you now, they're sitting across from you. They might not go to somebody else. Now, you asked me a question about the gap between fitness and healthcare.

And we've recently come to the realization that this may ruffle some feathers. It is what it is. We're no longer interested in making fitness better. We're interested in creating an entirely new field. Yeah, it's awesome. Right. So the gyms that we work with are not fitness providers. They are gyms who solve the problems that fitness providers and healthcare providers create. So the doctor who says, work around it. You're getting too old for it. Find a new hobby. If it hurts, don't do it.

They come to our gyms. Right. The gym member who's been modifying for two years, who's still dealing with the aches and pains, who's still rowing when everybody else is running, they leave that gym and they come to the gyms we work with. And so the beautiful thing about that for the gyms we work with is it doesn't matter how many gyms open in your town.

In fact, the more the merrier because they're all sending you clients. And your members cannot leave to go join one of those gyms and get the same service, not even close. It can't be mistaken as the same thing. What would you call it? Is there a new name label or what? Yeah, of course. We're calling it Active Life.

Active Life. So the idea for us right now. Also, number one in your Google search, if you just type in active life. I hope that's true. Phenomenal job, sir. Maybe it's just because I've been to your website a couple of times here and there. Could also be because we spend Brinks trucks full of money to make that the case. Could be because I haven't turned on Facebook without seeing your face in like three years. It could be. But we're now uh making meaningful headway with health insurance companies

to create an avenue for trainers and coaches who we educate to bill health insurance for their services and i'm not talking about like 200 bucks every every six months because you went to the gym i'm talking about like three thousand to thirty3,500 available to a member of the insurance plans each year to work with a trainer Active Life has educated. That would be a great thing for qualified people for sure. Yeah, it's good for the insurance companies if they look at it long term. Most of them are pretty good about that. It comes down to, all travis comes down to the

efficacy of it because they've already we're far enough into the game with them that they've done the actuarial math and they know it's going to save them a ton of money on surgeries and all this other stuff yeah well because here's the thing here's a statistic for people to hear a person who sees a physical therapist before seeing an orthopedist will cost the insurance company 72% less money to service. And they have a higher likelihood of a positive outcome. So now we start looking at, well, what would be before the physical therapist? And we look at things like if somebody can't lay down on their back and stand up without putting their hand, knee, elbow on the ground, they're at risk. If you

can't imagine somebody sprinting 10 seconds all out, like any human should be able to do because you're like that person would just explode. That person is also likely to end up in physical therapy or orthopedists in short order. And then they're also likely to end up on the heart medications, on the blood pressure medications. So what can we do to help that person not fall into that cycle before they fall into it? We just have to expand what we believe illness looks like from symptomatic to

discoverable. Beautiful. I love it. Where can people learn more about this process? Coach is coming to find you. What's step one? Let's make it really easy for everybody. I love it.

Dr. Sean Pastuch on Instagram. Look at that. And then because all the accounts are linked from my personal page. It's not that I want all the followers. Just you'll find this stuff from my page. Coach Travis Bash. Clubhouse, by the way. Clubhouse is fun. Do you want to go on Clubhouse? Here's the problem with Clubhouse. What is Clubhouse? Oh, don't tell him. Don't tell him.

I'll be really quick. I'm on Clubhouse today at 5 p.m. You should join me. We're having a conversation about should fitness be healthcare? Clubhouse is like walking into a bunch of different rooms. Like you're walking down a hallway and there's a bunch of rooms that you're passing and each room has a label on the door of the conversation happening inside. And there's a big table and you can walk into the room and take a seat at the table, unmute your microphone and add to the conversation. What? Is this a new social media platform? Do you feel like the clubhouse problem though is that it all disappears? Like we could do the same thing right here. No, because what I'm finding is that I am making meaningful connections

with people on there because they can hear that I'm not full of shit. Because you can – You just talk, yeah. And then – and I can tell that they're not full of shit. And so then you backlink to Instagram, and we'll take the conversation there and extend it. Travis, you need an invite to be in the cool kids. Yeah. I'll send you one or Sean sent you one.

Someone will send you one. We all have them to send now. Sweet. So yeah, I got to check that out. That's what you need. More social media, bud. No. So as long as it's good social media. Thanks for being on the show, bud. No. As long as it's good social media. Thanks for being on the show, man. This has been really eye-opening and exciting to hear that maybe fitness is going – or not fitness, not healthcare, but active life, that people are starting to develop things that actually help people, a more wholesome way of helping people.

So it's cool to know you're out there. And I wish every person that are in CrossFit would know that sales is not a bad thing if they do it like you, you know, you're actually trying to help people. And if that is your true, you know, main goal when you're selling someone, then you should be wanting to be, you know, an awesome salesperson if you have the right motive. So anyway, I appreciate that. And if I can share the name of the book. Oh yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So the book is called turn pro the fitness professionals guide to ethical sales and career fulfillment. That's awesome.

And it'll be available for free for six months. Cause I know that people who don't know how to sell might not have the money to even buy the book. So it's going to be free for the first six months. And then I'm going to start selling it. It's beautiful. Yeah. Doug Larson. You bet. I'm Doug Larson on Instagram. Sean, good to see you, buddy. I really, I really always enjoy having you on the show. I feel like you're, you're a very clear thinker and you put a lot of care into everything you do and it's really impressive. So I appreciate you being here. I appreciate that. Fun side story to watching your career and being friends with you. I owned a company in 2016 right after the gym that I got into this same world of helping people get out of pain and stay in the gym

and keep them moving and doing all this called MovementRx. From 2016, when I sold the gym, I started the online piece of that. And it's very fun seeing somebody that is taking something that I have experienced, but going like a million miles further and farther than, uh, had I stayed on the path, I would, you would have been somebody that I was like, oh, we could go do that thing next. Um, so it's very cool to like watch you doing all these things, uh, having a small piece and, and look into the window. Um, and I love it. Well, I appreciate that.

And I appreciate the platform that you've given me to amplify it. It's easier not having to follow you. Let me say that. Just make sure you keep following me on the socials. There you go. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged to Barbell underscore Shrugged. Get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash DieselDad.

That's where all the dads are getting strong, lean, and athletic without sacrifice in family, fatherhood, or fitness. And you can find us on the shelves at Walmart in San Diego, LA, Palm Springs, and Vegas. We're in the pharmacy. Three programs. Friends, we'll see you next week. That's a wrap. Make sure you get over to DieselDadMentorship.com for busy dads that want to lose 20, 40 pounds without restrictive diets, crazy supplements. Friends, we'll see you on wednesday