Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Build a Career in the Fitness Industry

Episode Date: January 22, 2016

In this episode I talk about some of the things I think are crucial to succeeding in the fitness industry, such as having a great physique (6:02), being educated (10:24), knowing how to get results (16:15), being helpful (24:09), and much more. Have questions for me? Go here: http://www.muscleforlife.com/mike-matthews-ask-me-anything/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient

and we cite all supporting studies on our website, which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission

for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get Muscle for Life something in there, but it, uh, it didn't happen. So instead I just ate a bunch of food and gained a couple pounds and then came back and now I'm back to normal. And, uh, yeah, so here we go. This year I'm going to be on the podcast. I want to focus on a couple of things just to improve it. One is I want to start reaching out to and finding good guests. It's I've had trouble with guests. I

mean, I've had a lot of people reach out, but if you're familiar with me and my work, you know that my opinions or, I mean, I guess I have opinions, but at least I try to back them with facts. But my positions, I guess I could say, are at odds with a lot of other people in this industry. And so I've had trouble finding guests that I thought would be valuable to even have talked to. I mean, there have been people that have reached out that I thought would be valuable to even have talked to. I mean, there's, there have been people that have reached out that I wouldn't even want to bother introducing you to because I don't agree with, uh, you know, what they promote. I don't agree with what they have to say about diet and training. So that's why I've kind of just kept it myself, not necessarily because I think I'm so

amazing or I just want to talk endlessly. Anyway, so that's one area is I'm going over. Nico, one of the guys that worked with me and I are kind of putting together an extensive list of people that we really want to go after that we think could contribute valuable information to the discussions that I think are going to help you know, that I think would, was, are going to help you achieve your fitness goals. So there's that. And then as well, just, I'm going to generally going to be, uh, trying to improve the overall quality of the content, uh, putting together better outlines and stuff because, you know, I usually have like 22 different plates. I'm trying to keep spinning. And, uh, sometimes the podcasts and sometimes even some articles would be, you know, last minute type. All right, what's what's today's article going to be about or not?

Well, I guess in the articles that I need a couple of days out. But what's today's podcast going to be about? With that in mind, I'm going I mean, I always I'm kind of guided by your feedback. So, you know, when everybody writes me emails or social media messages or whatever and asking questions and giving me suggestions, I'm paying attention to that. So, you know, in this case, this episode is, like, the reason why I'm doing it is because it's just, I'm getting these questions more and more frequently. So as opposed to, you know, writing out responses every time or having a response I can just copy and paste, I thought it would make a good podcast, a good topic for the podcast,

something different. And so, yeah, so let's just get to it. So in this podcast, I want to specifically talk about, so the questions that basically inspired this podcast are, how do I create a career for myself in the fitness industry? Maybe do something, people asking, how can they do something similar to what I've done. And then also just general business questions, you know, how do I build an online business or just how do I build a business in general? And so I want to take those two really categories of questions because there's a lot of kind of sub questions that I've been asked and then just talk about them and kind of share my thoughts. So let's talk about getting into the fitness industry as the first topic. So the first thing that, you know, I always would tell people and really, I think the

most important thing, if you want to have success in the fitness industry is you have to have a great physique and you have to be objective about that too. You can't think that, you know, really what that means is as a guy, you have to be objective about that too. You can't think that, you know, really what that means is as a guy, you have to take, let's say you take someone who's a normal, normal looking guy, you know, he's going to have to gain probably 30 or 40 pounds of muscle and be under 10% body fat to, in my opinion, to, to, to really show that you walk the walk. Like when I see that now, and I see people, especially I see success stories and I see, uh, you know, guys achieving that and I know how much work that takes and, uh, that's walking the walk. So, you know, if, if, if you are a girl, it's probably, you know,

10 to 15 pounds of muscle. Uh, you've going from like a normal, you know, girl's body, uh, 10 to 15 pounds of muscle and 20% body fat or less, somewhere between. I find, you know, I've worked with thousands and thousands of girls. And I'd say the look that they generally are happy with is probably about 17% body fat with probably taking, so starting from a normal, you know, whatever type of body. body fat with probably taking, so starting from a normal, you know, whatever type of body gaining 10, 15 pounds of muscle. And then being at about 17% body fat seems to be the look that most girls are, uh, striving toward. And that's that lean athletic look where you see you have curves, uh, but everything is just, you know, tight. You look like an athlete. You don't look like a CrossFit, you know, a behemoth or a bodybuilder. So that's

the first thing that you have to do is show that you can get results, you know, in your own body. You have to, you have to show that you can walk the walk. And that also requires, of course, that you get educated. That means that you yourself are going to have to learn how to diet and how to train to get there. Um, I mean, I, I know that really shouldn't need to be said. Uh, you know, if you're going to, if you're going to, uh, I know that really shouldn't need to be said. Uh, you know, if you're going to, if you're going to, uh, take lessons from, if you want to learn tennis and you're going to go find someone to take lessons from and you go meet somebody and they suck at tennis, you're not going to take lessons from that person. So if your physique is just mediocre,

then think of that as, you know, would you take, would you take tennis lessons from someone who's okay? They're not very good. They don't, they don't, you know, you as a complete newbie, knowing nothing about tennis, if you're not impressed with how well they can play tennis, you're not going to feel, you're going to, you're going to say, there's got to be someone better that I can take lessons from. And so same thing with, you know, fitness. The point is that you need to have the type of physique that the majority of the people that you're going to be marketing yourself to want to have. So in my case, my primary demographic is guys from 18 to probably 50 years old. So I myself have to have the type of body that those guys look to, uh, as a, as a goal and say, wow, that, that guy looks really good. Uh, so that's the first thing and the most important thing. If you are say, wow, that guy looks really good. So that's the first thing and the most

important thing. If you are considering creating a career for yourself in the fitness industry, and you're not there yet, you don't really have a great physique, you're not big enough, you're not lean enough, you just don't have the look, then I would focus first and foremost on that. Now, it's not to say that you can't do anything else in the meantime until you get there, and foremost on that. Now, it's not to say that you can't do anything else in the meantime until you get there, but just know that it becomes a force multiplier. You could say the better you look, the more people are going to listen to you, the more people are going to talk about you. And, you know, that just is the way it is. You could have the best information in the world. You could know everything inside and out, but if you don't have a physique to back it up,

you're going to find it very, very hard to gain traction. And especially now with the health and fitness, just the whole space is growing very quickly. And this is going to be a trend. I mean, it's becoming more mainstream to just work out and to be healthy, to build muscle, to look lean. And I think this is a trend that hasn't, that wave, this wave hasn't even begun to crest yet. I think this is a trend that's going to be building over the next 20 or 30 years. And, you know, hopefully it never goes away. Hopefully it just kind of with, with the advance of science and technology, hopefully it just goes to new and new levels. And, you know, that we're able to do even more and more impressive and, you know, better and better

things with our bodies. So that's the first point. The next point is you have to be educated, meaning that you have to actually know what you're talking about and you have to be able to get results. And that for me, the most beneficial thing has been really diving into the scientific research, reading a lot of scientific literature. And, you know, it's tough at first, but if you just clarify words, you don't understand you have the internet, you have dictionaries or whatever. And that means that sometimes you're going to go off on tangents. You're trying to read a paper on blah. And let's say that that would normally take an hour, but now it takes eight hours because you know, you, you see something, you don't know what that is. You don't know how, what, what is it?

What are they talking about? And then you have to go read two hours on that to really get an understanding of that one little piece of that original, uh, you know, study that you're trying to, that you're trying to read and then you go back to it. And so that happens, but you know, in the beginning it's, it's a grind you have to really push. Um, but once you get that flywheel kind of turning and you get your vocabulary building and you get your just general understanding, the more and more things you add to that foundation of knowledge, the easier it is then to read more universally and actually understand what you're reading. And you just end up spending less time going off on research tang, research tangents. And you can spend more time

on just learning about the subject that you want to know about. And, um, there's no shortcut to that other than taking the time to make sure that you do understand the words being used and understand the concepts being, uh, explained and not don't just skip over things you don't understand. It's very important that you have a holistic understanding of whatever it is you're trying to learn. Not that you understand little bits and pieces, but you don't really understand how they connect because you have holes in your understanding and so forth. I mean, you have to read obsessively. You really have to make it your obsession. If you want to be successful, whether it be in, whether it's in fitness or anything, uh, you, you know, even, I don't care if it's,

if it's an art, you want to be a successful painter, whatever you have to obsess over it. And that's just the way it is. I mean, it has to be something that's on your mind. The majority of the time, it's not just, you know, you turn it on for an hour or two, and then you just turn it off and go play video games and hang out with your friends. That level of dedication to something is, is just not going to get you anywhere. Uh, it needs to be something that you feel compelled to spend a large majority of your waking hours doing and thinking about. I mean, uh, I, myself, I, I find myself at most times of the day, I'm thinking about something related to, I'm working on, whether it be articles I'm writing or book projects or things with Legion marketing business things. It's just the way I am.

I don't even try to turn it off. I just roll with it because I don't mind it because I enjoy it. If I'm in the shower, I don't know how many times I've had just random good ideas, marketing ideas. And, and, you know, Jeremy, my business partner as well at the most random times, because that's just, you know, I'm sitting in the mall and my wife is shopping and I'm sitting on, on the chair and I'm just, okay. And I'll just start thinking about what are, what are, all right, this is what we're doing right now. What could you be doing better? And so, I mean, you have to take that approach with especially in the beginning when you're educating yourself and you're really learning the fundamentals of, of, of dieting and of training and muscle growth and fat loss and blah, blah,

blah. You're going to have to spend a lot of time reading about it and a lot of time thinking about it. Uh, but the, the good news is there is an end, not an end, but there is light at the end of that tunnel, meaning that in the beginning, it's going to, you're, it's dark and you're groping around and you feel completely lost. But then after a few months of really working hard at it, you see where things are going. You start getting your bearings and, uh, and you know, I'd say probably depending on how hard you work at it, six months, you can gain a very solid understanding, especially with the amount of good information that's out there, not just from people like me,

but, uh, you know, there are, uh, other, other sources of, of information like Lyle McDonald has good stuff. Alan Aragon has good stuff. Uh, Brett Contreras has good stuff. Um, Brad Schoenfeld, how do you pronounce his name? I don't know how to pronounce his last name actually. Um, he has good stuff. So there are, and then from, from them, you then find other people. And, um, so then you, you know, you build your little stable of go-to sources. So I'd say six months of, of, of real diligent study is enough to gain a good enough understanding to get results, uh, in yourself and in others. Um, now of course, my whole thing is shortcutting that. Like I want someone to be able to read one of my books and be able to get results in themselves and others. And, um, I, I think I've done a pretty good job of that. And I have obviously I've gotten tons of success stories. We have hundreds now up on the

website. Uh, but if you're going to really build yourself as an expert and really build your, build a following, you're going to want to know more than what's in bigger than you're stronger or what's in thinner than you're stronger simply because when you start working with people, you're going to find a lot of different circumstances and you know, many people, they can just go with a simple cookie cutter approach and there are no problems, but many other people run into different issues and run into different things. And you need to have good advice for them. You need to have good, you know, science-based advice and workable advice and practical advice. And that just takes time. And, you know, the more you learn just broadly in, in the overall

fields of health and fitness, the more valuable you are as a, uh, as an expert and as a source of, of information. So then the next thing, which I think is vital for, for really establishing yourself, uh, in, in the fitness industry is prove that you can get results. I mean, that ultimately is what matters the most. I don't care how articulate someone is or how well they can write or how many scientific studies they can cite or have read and understand, blah, blah, blah. If they can't get results, then who cares? And that's true in a lot of disciplines, but especially true in health and fitness. So, I mean, that's, that explains why there are so many trainers online, offline and gurus and experts and, you know, authors and so forth really don't know what

they're talking about scientifically and they get a lot wrong and they have a lot of misconceptions about how the body works, but they get enough right that they can get results. A good example is let's say, you know, let's say some, some blogger or whatever thinks that it has totally bought into paleo and thinks that paleo is the key to losing weight. And what they don't realize, of course, is that if somebody goes from a traditional Western diet of eating tons of refined carbohydrates and tons of sugar and blah, blah, blah, and they switch to a lower protein intake and they switch to a paleo type of diet where they cut a lot of that stuff out, now they're eating a higher protein diet, they're eating more fruits, they're eating more vegetables, that the overall caloric intake is lower and the energy expenditure is

going up. Like just for instance, going from a low protein diet to a high protein diet, protein is a, the thermic effect of protein is quite high, meaning that it costs quite a bit of energy to digest and process and absorb protein. Whereas with something with carbs, it costs much less energy. And with fat, it costs much, much less energy. So if that person though, they don't realize that the reason why people are losing weight when they are told to, you know, when they put their clients on, on, on the paleo diet and they lose weight, they don't realize that it's, it's really just a matter of energy balance and macronutrient balance, which can be explained scientifically. The trainer or guru or whatever thinks, well, it's just something with hormones and it's more in tune with how our body's programmed and blah, blah, blah.

So they haven't isolated the correct cause, but it works. the correct cause, but it works. That person is going to do much better in terms of, you know, making money and, and, and, and building a following and getting results and having success stories than somebody who knows that, let's say, you know, paleo is it's fine if you like to eat that way, but the, it's almost the whole, the underpinnings is kind of just a mythology. That's not how our ancient ancestors ate. And it doesn't cause magical, you know, changes in the body that cause weight loss. We can explain this scientifically, blah, blah, blah. But if that person can't create a system that other people can follow fairly easily and get results with,

then that person who's way more informed and really knows what they're talking about is, is just not going to really go anywhere. So the easiest way to prove that you can get results is in the beginning, uh, take, take people on for free or take them on and take people on, take clients on and train them, set them up with a good diet plan, set them up with a good training plan, get results, uh, and, and either do it for free or, you know, tell them that, Hey, I'm going to work with you for, uh, whatever, two, three months do it for free or, you know, tell them that, Hey, I'm going to work with you for, uh, whatever, two, three months. If you know, at the end, if you're happy with the results, then pay me some money. Just do whatever it takes in the beginning. Who cares? Just prove

that you can get results and get video success stories or something I'm going to start doing just because obviously a lot more credible. There's, there's, uh, there are just so many fake testimonials in this space. It's just ridiculous. And good testimonials, good before and after pictures get ripped off instantly. The second they hit any website, you'll see them on. Within a few weeks, they're going to be on those landing pages. Eat this weird food to lose belly fat and stuff like that.

So get video testimonials, uh, if, if you can. And, uh, if, I mean, you don't necessarily have to have video testimonials. Any testimonials are better than, uh, better than none, but just think with that. Think with how can you, how can you create more credible testimonials and really get people's story? You know, how, what, what were, where were they at before they, they worked with you? What did they tried? What were their frustrations? Uh, what were they concerned they worked with you? What did they try? What were their frustrations? What were they concerned about working with you? Why did they think it wasn't going to work?

What was the experience like? Now what is it? And now what have they achieved? How do they feel? Blah, blah, blah. You really get their story, not just, hey, look, this person looked like this and looked like this. And here's the difference in terms of quantities. They lost 15 pounds. I mean, that's fine.

Here's the difference in terms of quantities. They lost 15 pounds and that's fine. But working at working at the story angle and really having someone open up and share the emotional side of it is very powerful. So just do whatever it takes to get results in the beginning. Don't be a prima donna. Don't be self. Don't be in have this idea that you're entitled to anything in the beginning and you'll you'll do better than, you know, because I've spoken with people that they were, they, they push back on that idea and they say, Hey, you know, I,

I've put a lot of time into, uh, learning how to, to, to do this and I can get results and people should pay. I totally agree. But in the beginning, if you really want to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible, just do it for free and proving get results. And that will also get word of mouth. I mean, obviously, uh, our physical phys the way that we look and the way that our bodies, the way that our bodies look and feel, uh, is some of the most important things in our lives to us. So when someone can improve that, we talk about it. And of course people see it as well. Hey, wow. You, I haven't seen you in three months. You look amazing. What the hell have you been doing? Oh, I've been working with this person. Oh, can I get their email number or whatever? Um, you know, that, that kind of goes to book sales. The number one

way to sell a lot of books is to write a book that people talk about word of mouth. And cause I get a lot of those questions cause I've sold a lot of books in the last few years, probably over, I mean, I'm getting the final numbers for last year, but it's over 500,000 books in the last three years. And so I get those questions. How'd you do that? I, there are no simple tricks, really. I mean, it's just doing a lot of little things, right. And first and foremost, though, when excluding anything about marketing and branding and advertising, blah, blah, blah, uh, it's writing stuff that people talk about. It's writing a book that when that person is, he gets 50, he reads 50 pages or she reads 50 pages, goes to work and around the water cooler says, oh, I started reading this book. I love it. You

should check it out. That's how you sell a lot of books. And that's just the way it's going to be. That's also how you build a big blog and it a big blog or a big YouTube following or whatever, or even Instagram. I mean, I don't personally care about Instagram. I'm bad at social media, I know, because I just can't care. I can't bring myself to care enough to really want to do it. But that may change this year. I may be changing my – I've just been putting my focus into other things. Anyways, so the point is this is a very word of mouth driven space.

So you have to, you have to prove that you can get results. And that alone, if all you wanted to do is just train people, if you just wanted to have, let's say 20 people paying you a couple thousand dollars a month or a thousand dollars a month or $500 a month or whatever, then, you know, if I really think you could get there just by doing what I'm talking about. You don't need to be a fancy marketer. You don't need to be writing 10,000 words a week of blog articles and producing tons of video content. If you did some simple things to get out there and get started and took on some people for free, got results, and then just kind of leapfrog, leapfrog, leapfrog. You, I think, could build up to that fairly quickly. All right. So now another very important

point is really be genuinely helpful. One of the most annoying things that I ran into personally before I was anybody in the fitness industry or whatever is asking for help regarding diet or regarding training, but, but really just having a quick question, like nothing that I'm not asking for even five minutes. It's just a, you know, you've said yes, no, or Hey, can you point me in the right direction and asking various people that I'd come across in, in just in the fitness industry at that time and just getting no response or getting a response, basically telling me to just go buy something that's stupid. Be, be helpful. Take set aside a couple hours a day just to answer emails. Now in the beginning, obviously, um, you're not going to get any emails. You have to get things going,

but fairly quickly, if you offer it, if you say, Hey, let's say you're building up a little bit of an Instagram following and you're, you're taking on clients for free or very inexpensive and you're starting to post those results and those people are spreading the word, blah, blah, blah. And then you do make it prominent that, hey, you can write me anytime type of thing. You start getting emails, take the time to actually give good answers and don't just pitch and find more and more ways that you can help without asking for anything, whether it be, you know, searching hashtags on Twitter and answering people's questions there and not asking anything or going on Quora and answering questions there and not asking anything or Reddit or blah, blah, blah. There are a lot of

different ways you can do this. And it creates a, it creates goodwill. And it's also rare because a lot of people, they don't want to take the time. And especially, uh, as you, as you grow, it's people generally expect you to stop doing that. Like people are very surprised that I still answer emails and I still answer, uh, anything that, you know, that I'm, that I'm available at all because technically I don't have to. It's not like, it's not like I'm, I'm gaining anything in that moment by answering that email. But one, I like staying in touch with people. There's something I enjoy. Uh, but even if I didn't enjoy it, I would still do it because it's very valuable. Uh, from, uh, from a business perspective, I view it as a customer service kind of thing. Even though,

you know, you don't have to have bought anything, you can reach me, you can email me, regardless of whether you bought anything of mine or not. And regardless of whether you ever will or not, you can always reach out to me and always be available. And I'll, you know, take the time to really answer your question and do my best. So that is, that just creates that kind of wow effect, which is something that in business I think is something that we all should strive for is not just how do we provide a good enough kind of product or service that people where they pay their money and they get it and they go, all right, I got what I paid for. No, let's strive for how can we wow people? How can we get someone, how can we get, you know, a fair, a large

percentage of people to, to pay and get, and then be like, feel like they got, you know, five, 10 times what they paid for. So that's really what I'm striving. That's the kind of effect I like to achieve in people. Cause it's cool. Like I like to receive that effect. So I think that in a, in a karmic sense, you know, if you, if you put out the type of stuff that you want to come back to you, somehow it kind of works out that way. So someone that is just an asshole in general to people and mistreats a lot of people, they get mistreated and you have that vicious cycle where they feel everyone's an asshole to them. So they're an asshole to everyone while chicken or egg, you know, type of problem. On the flip side, if you are constantly helpful and you are kind to people and you're generous, then it just comes back to you. I really do believe that. So that's just kind of a personal fundamental principle that I try to live by or value. You could say that I try to also apply in business. So the next thing I want to talk about is creating content because this is something obviously I'm very biased to because it's something I enjoy doing.

And it's really a core pillar of, of my businesses. I do a lot of writing and I do this podcast and now I'm going to start doing shorter videos, you know, some more YouTube content in the greater scheme of things. Content creation is really just going to stay my focus. I still am involved in a lot of different things related to, you know, we're doing a whole revamp of muscle for life this year and launching all kinds of things with all kinds of things with it. I'm building this app, which by the way is rolling. I'll probably send out an update. Uh, I'll probably send out like a recent update in the next couple of weeks. Not much to

report other than it's with a big company called Appster. They've built hundreds of apps and, um, it's going to get done. It's going to get done. Well, the previous dev team, they just kind of quit. Actually, they just gave me the code and quit and, uh, even skipped being paid a milestone payment that they were going to get paid. If they just did some more work, they just gave up. Um, so, you know, whatever shit happens, but now I have it with a, with another better company. Um, anyways, so I have other things related to Legion as well, marketing things, but as I kind of, um, delegate more and more of that stuff, what I can delegate, that time that I'm freeing up

is going to be poured more into content creation because that's also, I think, something that is, I am, it's something I'm good at and it really is just a driving force. So again, it kind of depends what you want to build. If you want to just build a good online training service, creating content is going to help, but I wouldn't say that it is

completely necessary. I would recommend it. And when it comes to creating content, I wouldn't necessarily just say you have to write articles or you have to record videos or you have to do a podcast. Let's take them one by one. So writing articles, I would actually recommend that you don't write articles if you don't enjoy it. And if you are not good at it, and if you don't, which comes back to enjoying it, if you're not going to work to get good at it, because, um, a few years ago, it was much easier to start and build a health and fitness blog than it is now. It is very, very difficult now. It just is. The health and fitness space has exploded. There's a ton of content out there. Tons of companies are spending absurd amounts of money building links. And link building as a general

SEO strategy, there are ways to do it right and there are ways to do it wrong. In the past, you just go on Fiverr and buy link wheels. Don't ever mess with any of that stuff. It's just going to get you penalized. It doesn't work. If you want to get a better idea of what real link building is, go check out Neil Patel's stuff. Go to neilpatel.com or quicksprout.com and search his blogs for, um, just link building tactics and strategies. And you'll see, it's a lot of leg work and it's valuable, but you have to do it

right. So my point is though, you'll have, I mean, I know of, uh, a rather new blog in, in the, in the health and fitness space, um, that out the gate was spending $50,000 a month, just building links. So you're in, and there are, you know, very, very big established websites that are spending more than that every month. So you're up against and, and, you know, some, some very, very stiff competition. Now that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to do it. But it means that you're going to have to create really good content, kind of coming

back to, to, to book sales. If you want to sell a lot of books, you got to be able to write to create really good content. Kind of coming back to book sales. If you want to sell a lot of books, you got to be able to write a really fucking good book. If you want to build a blog fairly quickly, then you're going to have to write really fucking good articles. Articles that get shared around on social media, articles that people share,

you know, that they get shared around period. They get emailed around and shared on Twitter and shared on, on Facebook. Those are obviously, it's not that those, uh, it's not that those Facebook shares are all that valuable, um, per se, like Google has said that they, they do notice that if, if an article has been shared around a lot, but they don't even, it doesn't have the weight of a backlink. For instance, they, I think the word at the time they used, um, it was the, I forget his name, the, the guy that Matt or something like that at Google, that's always, he's kind of like the face of their, of their, their PR face for, for changes in their algorithms, algorithms and stuff. I think he said they're, they consider

them votes. So they do, they do see that. But more to the point is if an article does well in social media, it shows that people like it enough to actually talk about it. That means that you are creating content that is good enough to be talked about. And that's what you have to be able to do. So if you are writing articles and you have a bit of a Facebook following or Twitter or social media or whatever, and you share them and nothing happens, you get a couple of likes and no shares. The content probably isn't very good. I mean, that just is the bottom line. If you, if you really enjoy writing, then it's something that I think you could get good at. If you're not already good at it, if you don't really enjoy writing, I wouldn't really recommend

it because it is not easy to be good at. It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of, uh, it takes mental energy. It takes, you have to be, you have to have a certain baseline, uh, passion for writing regardless of what you're writing about. Like sometimes I write articles that, um, I'm, I'm not also, I'm not that passionate about the subject. The subject I'm writing about isn't all that interesting to me. It's just something I've been asked a lot about. Like I wrote an article on bulletproof coffee and I personally don't really care about bulletproof coffee. I didn't, you know, it's not something that I would have sat down and spent 10 hours researching and put it all together just for fun. But a lot of people had asked me about it. And so I thought I'd make a good article. And so I was happy to do it because even if I don't really care so much about the subject, uh, I still enjoy writing. So I always have that. Um, and, and, and, and also I'm, I have like a rotation kind of, of, of, of how I read. So I'll read like a business or marketing book, and then I'll read a, like a history or biographical book. And then

I'll read an art or creativity or writing book. And then sometimes I'll just read something for fun. I'll throw in a fiction book, and then I kind of restart. So I'm constantly reading, on average, probably one book on writing a month. Depends on how long these other books are. Depends on if something really grabs me, then I'll screw up my rotation and it happens. But, but the point is it's just a subject. It's, it's something that, that I personally really like, and I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I mean, I, I, I want to, I don't, I'll never master it, but I would like to get as good as I can at writing across a wide variety of genres and, you know, disciplines, so to speak.

genres and, you know, disciplines, so to speak. So like, I like narrative nonfiction. I like historical, uh, you know, well, I guess I got, I like, I like narrative, like in terms of nonfiction, if it's going to have a historical slant, I do like, I do like narrative nonfiction. Um, I like fiction, uh, which I'm working on a fiction project. Um, it's just a slow grind, but it'll, I might be able to be done this year, actually, if not this year, next year for sure. a slow grind, but it'll, I might be able to be done this year, actually, if not this year, next year, for sure. And, uh, I enjoy how to type stuff, practical writing, which is my health and fitness stuff. So, um, my point is if it's not, if writing is not really your thing and you can't make it your thing, I would say, don't even take the time and find something that you can get worked up about and can get enthusiastic about.

So a good example of this, a buddy of mine, Greg O'Gallagher from Kino Body, cool guy. He's doing well. And he was writing articles infrequently. And I remember talking to him about this because he was asking me, like, how the fuck do you write so much? And how do you do that? And I was explaining to him what I'm explaining to you, that it's something I genuinely enjoy and I genuinely want to get better at. And, uh, it's, it's probably the favorite work out of all the work I do. Writing

is probably my favorite work. I really enjoy some stuff about marketing and branding in that world. But if I had to pick one thing, writing is, is it. And, and so for him, he's just saying he just didn't, he doesn't enjoy writing. Like he, he knew that he wasn't very good at it and he wasn't into it enough to want to get good at it. So he then decided really to just take that time that you'd normally, uh, you know, spend grinding out an article and just put it into something that he did enjoy, which is creating YouTube videos. And now his YouTube channel, um, I mean, I think he, I don't know, he's probably at 150,000 subscribers and he's growing very quickly and he has, you know, his followers like his videos and he's being consistent with his videos because he enjoys it. It's not something

that he has to force himself to sit down in the chair, put his hands on the keyboard and put some music on and, you know, force the fingers to work. Uh, he, he has now, you know, getting creative on his videos and he's inspired and he's working hard at it. So if you're going to create content, I just say, my advice is find the medium that it inspires you. They get too enthusiastic where you go. I want to do that right now. I want to sit down and create that right now. So if that's writing great, if that's video, great. If that's audio, great. If that's, I don't know, vine videos, whatever, maybe it'll work. The point is if you can't really get into content creation, it's just going to be mediocre blog content. That's going to deliver mediocre blog or worse results. All right. So now one final

point here on just breaking the fitness industry and building something in the fitness industry is the subject of networking. And this is something that I am bad at, but it's I'm actually, it's not because I don't get along with people or can't make friends. It's because I don't really putting time into networking. So I actually don't have great advice on how to network, but I think it's, you might be encouraged to know that you don't need to network to make it at all, actually. Because yes, I mean, the, the, the fitness industry is very clicky. You know, a lot of the big name people, the faces, the people that have really established themselves are, you know, they kind of they run in their little circles. And it's very hard to break into those circles. And I never really wanted to bother trying. I didn't want to, I didn't feel that that time out of all, you know, the time that it

would take maybe sucking up to these people or doing things for them or trying to add value to them. As people say, uh, I would rather just use that time creating products and services that you like, because if I can just help you get in shape again, you're going to tell five people. And out of those people, how many people are they going to tell? And it becomes just this compounding effect that builds a following. And that's really like my, as a business, I think one of your, uh, one of your first goals, if you're, you know,

starting any kind of business is to build a, what you could say would be a minimum viable audience. So you have this idea of a minimum viable product, something that is good enough, uh, to put out in the world and sell. And it's not shit. It gets results. Uh, it works. It's not perfect. It's going to take time to perfect. And you know, that's, uh, I I'm, I'm a big believer in that. And I've learned that lesson, you know, we've done it well in the case of, uh, well, in the case of the books, starting off with one book, it's, it was a good book, bigger than stronger, put it out there, get a lot of feedback, uh, put a lot of work into creating a much better second edition, get that out there, you know, get feedback at some point I'll probably do a

third edition. Um, and then I've done it, you know, I went in now poorly, like with the app. I should have started with something that was a little less ambitious for launch because then I would have something out there now that was being used and I could get feedback as opposed to a – I mean, the app is going to kick ass because it's going to have quite a bit of functionality, quite a few cool things. It's just taking a lot more time and money than it was supposed to take initially. I was told initially four months, $60,000, and now it's been a year and the total cost is going to be closer to $200,000. So again, I totally say that it's my fault. Even the previous devs that gave up, I should have never went with them. I should have just went with a company like I chose now. So I learned that lesson. Get something out, get people using it, get feedback. And you'll find that a lot of people are very happy to be those early adopters. And if they know that you care and you're trying to help them and you're going to listen to their feedback and they can, they can help make it better.

There are a lot of people, I mean, that's, that's not everybody, obviously. There are a lot of people that want to wait for all those people to make it really good. And then they'll jump in, but there are a lot of people. And those are also, those are generally, those early adopters are going to be your most ardent fans and followers. Those are the people, I mean, I hear from people that have been with me from the beginning, still a lot of people, I hear from them regularly, which is just very cool for me. And I understand it's cool for them too, because they, you know, say, hey, I remember when it was just build healthy muscle and muscle life didn't even exist and you just had one book and you have all this stuff now. That's so cool. And so, I mean, it is cool and it's cool to receive that type of communication. And it's also, it's cool to create that effect in somebody else, because I know from just my experience, you know, being that person and being in on the beginning on something and seeing it grow and feeling like you had a role in that, even if it was a minor role, it's just, that's just a fun experience. So you get your MVP out. Your goal is to build that, that minimum viable audience. Meaning if you can get, let's say, let's say you're a writer. If you could have, if you could just get 10,000 people that will buy anything that you put out every book that you write, you know, let's say, let's keep it simple. You're, you're writing fiction. So you're just going to write a, uh, write fiction books for the rest of

your life. And you're going to come out with one a year. If you could just get 10,000 people that will buy every single one that you put out and give you feedback and spread the word and whatever, you can make a very good living. So that applies to any business. products or upgrading products and new services, upgrading services. You can't just have one thing and just sit on it forever, which is also one reason why even with Legion, we're always looking at how can we take our existing products and improve them? Because as we're growing, we're benefiting from the economies of scale where products that were very expensive per bottle initially are now still expensive, but we've been able to cut those costs down. So we're looking at, yeah, we could just make more profit, but I personally would rather take some of that and now go, okay, so what were the ingredients? There's a point where we just ran out of money and there were things and we had to go, all right, we want these ingredients.

We have to have these. We're okay if we don't have these, if we can't afford it. So now we're like with Pulse, we're, we're looking at adding agmatine. We're looking at maybe alpha GPC Alcar. The problem, which I've said previously though, is these ingredients taste terribly. So, you know, we have enough money where we can do a clinically effective dosage of one, basically. So we've tried alpha GPC over and over tastes so bad. It's disgusting. It makes it go from its current taste to just like mouth puckeringly tart. It's awful. Alcar, again, we've tried so many times. It tastes like detergent.

It makes the pre-workout taste like detergent. So now we're working on agmatine. Agmatine tastes bad. It's almost as bad as alpha GPC, but it's not as bad. So we might be able to make it work. Anyways, my point is when you are, you know the fit in the fitness industry, you should be creating products. You should be creating services, uh, that, that people want that, you know, that help people and improving upon them. And if you can build that audience of people that are

really there, you know, they're, they're your fans or your followers. They buy everything that you, that you have to sell because they know that you put out good products and good services and they want to support that. That's your goal in the beginning. So I'd say you could say, make your first milestone a thousand people. Can you get to a thousand people that will buy anything that you sell essentially? And then if you can do that, then you can make it to 5,000. If you can do that, you can make it to 10,000, et cetera, et cetera. And then all you have to do is don't be a piece of shit. Don't exploit them. These people have put their trust in you. They put their money, uh, you know, where they put their money behind that. And, uh, they put in a sense, some of their identity behind that. And they put their reputation behind that

because they tell others, you know, to fall to, Hey, you need to check, you need to check my guy, you need to check so-and-so out. You know, I really like this person's stuff. So you've, you've set a standard to get there. Don't compromise on that standard. And that's also something that that's why I spent this entire year working on updating my existing books, as opposed to just writing new books. Financially speaking, it would have made more sense to just write new books, to have more books to sell. Um, especially with books because books, there is every book that you add. It's to sell, especially with books. Because books, there is every book that you add, it's not just having one additional book. It's like a rising tide. All the boats rise. So every book that you add, it increases the sales of everything.

And in my case, it doesn't just increase the sales of other books. Every book I add increases the sales of supplements. It increases the sales of meal plans over Every book I add increases the sales of supplements. It increases the sales of meal plans over at Muscle for Life. And again, we're going to be doing a whole revamp on Muscle for Life. So it's going to be offering a lot more things. But instead of doing that, I've put a ton of work and a ton of money too. This year, I've spent at least $100,000, maybe $150,000 just working, doing these new additions of books. Cause the costs add up very quickly. Um, uh, they, they just do editing and covers and proofreading and getting all the files done and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, I'm doing, uh, the, the, the second edition of the

shredded chef is a good example of this. It's going to be out. Um, I hope it's going to be out in like April. I think that's realistic. Uh, yeah, March, April, no later than may, but probably March, April. And it's a really an overhaul, a complete overhaul. I've got, I've gathered a ton of good content, uh, or good content, good, good suggestions, uh, from, from people on what they would like to see like new content and, and, and, and tweaked tweaks made to the existing content and content about cooking and how to just good general tips on how to cook better food, which recipes people really like and why, which people, which recipes people didn't like and why. So I've taken all of that into account. I, there was a point where I, I feel like I get enough,

like, right where my, my word doc is now, you know, 15 pages long or something. And I, now it's like, all right, it's time. And so for quite some time now, Jeremy and I have been working on this, so it's going to be completely brand new. With everything that made the first edition good that people liked about the first edition is going to be in the second edition. It's going to be even better. And the things that people didn't like about the first edition, generally speaking, are fixed and are either removed or fixed or whatever. So that is, uh, I'm doing that because again, I want to hold everything up to a standard, um, eat green, get lean as a cookbook, probably going to retire that. And I'm just going to stick with the shred chef as a brand.

And I'm going to do, um, uh, other, I'm going to do cookbooks under that brand. So I have the Shredded Chef and then I'm going to have the Shredded Chef One Pot Edition, the Shredded Chef, maybe I'll do a vegetarian or vegan edition of it, or maybe a special dietary needs type of deal. So it'll have some dairy-free stuff, some gluten-free stuff. It'll have some vegan stuff, vegetarian stuff, just for people with special dietary needs. And that's also based on a lot of feedback that I've gotten. So back to the networking, instead of focusing on trying to reach out to people like me or people bigger than me or more important than me or whatever, and trying to build a relationship before you've really established anything, in my opinion, just go out and establish yourself.

Just go out and prove you can get results, create your content, build your following. And then there's a point where you'll be noticed and people will start reaching out to you or maybe not. In my case, I don't get very many people reaching out to me. The people I speak with are just people like you, people that email me. And I'm totally fine with that. I haven't needed anything from anyone, you know, in the industry. I don't owe anybody any favors. I haven't really asked for many favors. Um, of course there's been, there've been some mutual favors that I, you know, I are that, that, uh, that have taken place and that's fine. There are some people that I do like. Um, but you know, I've also intentionally kept it that way. Cause again, I don't like a lot of the people in this space. I don't like what they're doing. I think that they're just deceptive and, um, you know, it's really just

all about making money, making money, making money. Yeah, fine. Making money. Uh, but me personally, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't, I'm not willing to sacrifice my integrity to just make more money. I can make a very good living doing things the way that I think they should be done and guided by, you know, values that I think are important, like being ethical and being honest and delivering what I say I'm going to deliver and stuff like that and not misleading people and blah, blah, blah. And so that's what I'm going to keep doing. And I meet people along the way that feel the same way. And we resonate in that way. And, you know, there's an ongoing dialogue.

And then I meet people that they don't like that. You know, they don't do things that way. So they don't, there's just, there's an inherent conflict of personality that just doesn't work. So I should also just quickly mention guest posting. I mean, that's obviously a networking reach out type of thing. I don't do any of it myself. I may actually start doing some this year, maybe like one article a month. Bodybuilding.com has reached out. I've written one article for them, I think, and they liked it. So maybe I'd do something like that. So I don't know personally. I've heard that guest posting is kind of just dying because it's so beaten to death.

But I think that if you're a good writer and you can create really good content that gets shared around that people talk about, guest posting is a useful tactic. Because you are going to get in front of a certain number of people. And a certain percent of those people are going to say, I really like this person and that's valuable. But coming back to the content creation side or discussion, uh, if you don't really enjoy writing and you're not really good at it and you write articles that don't really go out, they just fizzle. Then I wouldn't bother with guest posting. Just trying to get a link isn't valuable. It's you have to, the value is that you're getting in front of people that could become fans of yours, but you have to really give them a good reason why they should become a fan of yours because they have a lot of other people they can be a fan of.

And we only have so much time. We can't read everything. So, you know, we, we guard our inboxes, some people almost obsessively and, you know, ourively, and our blog feeds and our podcast feeds. And as it should be, I mean, I'm the same way. I'm very picky with what I spend my time doing. And I don't spend time just reading random articles or watching random YouTube videos or something like that. It needs to be relevant. There needs to be a purpose to that time.

Unless it's, you know, if I want to just relax, I'll watch a documentary or I'll read a book. So just keep that in mind. And one other thing is I should just mention is appearing as a guest on podcasts and YouTube channels. I mean, if it's something, again, that you enjoy doing, if you are well-spoken and if you are received well, then again, it's worth doing. I'm going to be doing quite a bit more of that this year because it doesn't take that much time. I can take an hour. If I'm going to write a guest post for a website, it's going to take anywhere from five to 10 hours probably. And that's great. I like to do it, but that's a large chunk of time when I already have so many other things going in my schedule is kind of crazy as it is. So, uh,

appearing on a guest, uh, on a, on a podcast though, 45 minutes, maybe an hour done gets out to a lot of people. And, you know, I don't know, I, I, people generally, they, I guess I, I, I come across, uh, interestingly enough in video and in audio that, that a lot of people, you know, I get a lot of people emailing me and just reaching out. Hey, I really liked you on so-and-so's podcast. Or hey, I really like your podcast. So that to me is just an indication. All right, well, I'm good enough at it that it's worth putting time into. And I'm not crazy about it in terms of like I don't love to get up on the pulpit and just lecture. But, you I, I, I'm not crazy about it, uh, in terms of like, I don't love to,

to get up on the pulpit and just lecture, but you know, I don't mind it. I don't mind. I like just if I'm a guest in someone's podcast and we just have a conversation and the guy's cool or the girl's cool. Sure. It's fun. So I do it. All right. So, uh, this whole discussion on how to break into the fitness industry and how to build a fitness career has gone on a bit longer than I anticipated, which is fine. I mean, I hope you liked what I had to say. Hopefully you found it helpful. I think what I'm going to do is as opposed to going on for another 40 minutes about just building a business in general, because I wanted to talk about that. Specifically, I want to talk about, so if you want to, again, if you'll say, let's say fitness

is your thing, you want to get into fitness. Do you want to just be an an online trainer and not that it isn't a business, but that's different than, do you want to do something more like what I'm doing? You want to create products, you want to create services. Um, do you want to write books or which could fall under products, but you understand what I'm saying? That's, that's, that requires different skill sets and acquires, you know, it's, it's harder and there's obviously more reward, uh, financially. And if you enjoy, you know, entrepreneurial type things, there's more reward spiritually, you could say. Um, but that's a different discussion. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna save that for the next podcast. Um, because I, I think I probably can have a good 45 to 60

minutes of, um, just advice and lessons that I've learned along the way. And yeah, so I'll see you that for the next podcast. I hope you liked this one. If you have any questions, depending on how you're watching or listening to this, you can put them into YouTube if you're watching. You can go ask them over at my AMA thread, which I have just at my website, which I'll put a link down below. Or you can email me. You know how to reach me. So again, reach out. Let me know what you thought.

Ask any questions. And thanks for taking the time. And I will see you next week. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of like four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscle for life.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.