0:00

Today, we're chatting with Jordan Syatt, and I was so excited for this conversation.

0:05

If you follow Jordan Syatt on social media, then you already know that this

0:09

conversation is full of expletives and full of absolutely BS free advice for

0:15

health, fitness, and nutrition coaches.

0:18

Jordan has built a very successful online fitness business by being real,

0:21

by doubling down on efforts to educate and by methodically creating useful long

0:25

form content, even as the world seems to be evolving to goofy TikToks. Sorry, just my opinion.

0:31

This conversation, though, is a total blast.

0:35

Have fun with this one, folks. Please welcome our guest, Jordan Syatt.

0:40

Hi, I'm Erin Power. And I'm Laura Rupsis. We're certified health coaches,

0:45

and this is Health Coach Radio. This podcast is about the art, science, and business of health coaching.

0:52

We share our insider tips to help you become a better coach and entrepreneur.

0:56

And we interview expert guests to discover how they've made it in this growing field.

1:01

It's time for health coaches to make an impact.

1:05

It's time for Health Coach Radio. Jordan Syed, how are you today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

1:13

Well, we are excited to be jumping back in. Aaron and I have been on a bit of

1:17

a hiatus with podcasts, and we made an exception for you.

1:21

That's how excited Aaron was to have you on as a guest on our podcast.

1:25

So let's go. Thanks for joining us.

1:28

Yeah. Yeah. So we like to start every episode with you telling a little bit

1:33

of your origin story about kind of who you are and kind of how you landed here.

1:37

Yeah. So, I mean, I could ramble for a long time. So if I talk too much, just say, shut up.

1:42

I'm a short, bald, nerdy dude who likes to lift weights and help people with

1:46

their health and fitness. I grew up outside of Boston, sort of suburb of Boston, and I,

1:53

you know, come from a very short family. So short family, not very athletic family. I was terrible in school.

1:58

And, uh, I like, which is where I was the black sheep in my family,

2:01

everyone in my family, moms, uh,

2:04

like uncles, aunts, grandparents, everybody is like doctors,

2:08

lawyers, teachers, professors, superintendents, like all super,

2:11

super smart, but none of them were good in athletics.

2:14

And I was the complete opposite. Like I was terrible in school.

2:17

I was in special education, but I loved sports and fitness and I was fortunately really good at it.

2:21

I have no idea who I got it from at all.

2:26

Because like we were pretty small my mom wanted my brother and i to be able

2:30

to defend ourselves because like we were on the smaller side for our age uh

2:33

and just in general small small boys and so she walked in the living room one

2:37

day and she was like i want to put you two in wrestling,

2:40

and at eight years old the only wrestling that i knew was wwf style wrestling

2:45

so i was like you want me to hit someone with a chair and she was like no you

2:49

idiot like olympic style wrestling which i had no idea what that was but i was

2:53

like okay cool give it a shot and i just fell in love with it.

2:56

I absolutely loved it. I was very good at it. So I did that starting at eight. And then by the time I got into high school,

3:03

I made varsity as a freshman. I beat a junior out for the varsity spot. And I was good from a technique perspective

3:08

and an endurance perspective since I'd already been doing it for a number of years.

3:11

But on varsity, I was 14 years old, mainly going against 16,

3:15

17, 18 year olds. And so the strength differential was pretty significant.

3:19

And so I knew if I was going to be competitive, I would have to get stronger.

3:22

So I found a gym a couple of towns over for me in this town called Newton, Massachusetts.

3:27

And I just, I wrote them an email and I was like, listen, I'll take the trash

3:30

out. I'll clean the floors. Like, let me just come and learn from you just so

3:33

I can learn how to get stronger. And I was really lucky because, um, number one, they said, yes,

3:38

they took me under their wing. And number two is they were unbelievably science-based.

3:42

They were like from 14 years old, I got put into a ridiculously science-based gym.

3:46

They introduced me to some of the greatest coaches of all time.

3:49

They gave me all the textbooks I needed. And, and from 14 years old,

3:53

I worked at that gym all the way through high school. So I knew I wanted to be a coach from the time I was a young kid.

3:58

And I was just really lucky to have an amazing community around me from the

4:01

very beginning. So I didn't really waste much time with the pseudoscience.

4:04

And I was really lucky to be around some amazing coaches early on.

4:09

So pretty, pretty, we like that origin story. That's sort of the, the hero's journey.

4:15

You know, you had a health transformation of sorts, not really the typical one

4:18

that we would hear you, you started as a kid and you were looking to build strength

4:21

and get, you know, improve your skill as a wrestler.

4:25

One thing that I picked up when you were telling your story is,

4:28

you know, you kind of started with the beginning saying, I'm,

4:30

I'm this guy who helps people with their health and fitness.

4:34

So that's a broad statement. Um, what is there, is there any more specific granularity to that?

4:41

Or is it, is your target audience that broad?

4:45

So a lot of people hate when I say this and you too might really regret having

4:49

me on once I say this, but I hate, I hate when, when people are like,

4:54

you need to niche down, you need to niche.

4:57

I can't stand it. I'm like, there are several main goals in the fitness world.

5:03

There's athletic and performance-based goals is one.

5:06

There's pain reduction or elimination. There's another.

5:09

And then there's aesthetics. So like looking good naked, whether it's losing

5:13

fat, building muscle, those are the three main goals.

5:15

And they usually work in combination with one another.

5:19

It's usually not just one. Usually most people want to look better, right?

5:23

So they often want to lose fat, build muscle, get more defined,

5:25

but maybe they also want to reduce pain or maybe they also want to like be more

5:31

athletic or something as simple as getting chin-ups or doing a heavier deadlift

5:33

these are performance-based goals so they all, run in congruency with one another um.

5:39

Everybody in the world wants to be more confident with their body and feel better

5:44

and not be in pain and to be stronger and more athletic.

5:48

Everyone wants that. So no, I don't have a more specific niche,

5:54

long roundabout way of answering that.

5:56

I mean, when I was younger and a powerlifter, I thought that I would only want

6:00

to work with big, sweaty, hairy powerlifter dudes.

6:04

And so I was a competitive powerlifter for many years. and I ended up deadlifting

6:08

four times my body weight. So I deadlifted 530 pounds, weighing 132 pounds.

6:12

And as you can see, like I'm not a big jack dude. I'm five foot four.

6:15

I weighed 132 pounds. And this was in 2014, I believe.

6:20

And so all leading up to that, I started getting a ton of women clients.

6:25

And I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back around 2009,

6:29

2010 is when women in powerlifting really started to grow in popularity.

6:33

Like women really started to want to strength train around then and get stronger.

6:36

That was like the really beginning of that girls gone strong came around around that time.

6:40

Like it became like that became the time when women was like,

6:43

Hey, I want to lift weights. But they also didn't want to get big and bulky. And it's funny,

6:48

because now we're seeing women want to get bigger now, which is interesting

6:52

to see that progression. But at that time, they're like, No, I don't want to get big and bulky.

6:55

So they were looking at me as like, this kid's tiny, like he's a small,

6:59

scrawny little kid, but he's strong. So I started getting all of these women

7:04

wanting to coach me for powerlifting, wanting to coach them for powerlifting.

7:07

And so that's how I sort of took off just in more of a gen pop, a gen pop crowd.

7:13

And then once I retired from powerlifting, I was like, like,

7:17

no one's gonna want to work with me anymore, because I don't powerlift.

7:19

And it was just the complete opposite. I just, it was actually funny,

7:22

my business grew more when I stopped posting about powerlifting.

7:24

And I started posting more about just general health and fitness. this.

7:28

So here's something that I'm kind of picking up on here.

7:31

And this is something that we see happen when people are kind of afraid to have

7:36

a niche, that they're going to somehow not attract enough people.

7:40

Many people come into this, I think, from this sort of scarcity mindset, right?

7:46

But what I heard you say is that, you know, I thought I was going to be focusing

7:49

here, these big power lifting dudes.

7:52

And I found what was attracting to me were these women.

7:55

We find that that that happens a lot of times that once you get really good

7:58

in an area and you become an expert, then other people are like,

8:01

I want to work with that guy, you know? So your niche sort of broadens. It's really more from the standpoint of I'm

8:06

going to start here and build a name for myself here.

8:09

And, and we find that, that, that, that happens. And I, I, it doesn't surprise

8:14

me that once you sort of decided to let that go in your business matured into

8:19

something, because you know, more, the more people you work with, the broader your knowledge set becomes,

8:23

and you can help more people and that happens naturally.

8:29

You know, even though you weren't going into this, like I have to niche down,

8:33

I'm still seeing like this common trajectory.

8:36

Like this was this area that I got started in and I got really, really good at that.

8:40

And that's what we're trying to tell people to do. Be really good at something

8:43

and the rest will follow. I agree. I think the main issue that I see is a lot of people worry about like,

8:50

what, what should I niche down in as opposed to just doing what they love?

8:55

It's like your niche down should be whatever the you're passionate about. out.

8:58

So like, I was really passionate about powerlifting. So that's what most of my content was around.

9:03

And then I was no longer passionate about powerlifting. So I retired and I started

9:07

posting about what I was more passionate about. And then surprise,

9:10

surprise, my business grew. And ironically, like what I was passionate about was just helping everyday people get healthier.

9:15

It wasn't about necessarily getting a stronger one rep max deadlift or any of

9:18

that. It wasn't just more about health and fitness. And so I just would post about what I was passionate about. My,

9:24

I see issues with people being like, all right, so you need to find like your perfect avatar.

9:29

You need to know what, what radio shows they listen to and what magazines they read.

9:34

No, you don't like, especially for this industry, you just need to post about

9:39

what you are passionate. And I, I've changed my content so many times over. Like now I'm posting more

9:45

about my wife and our future kid and all this stuff.

9:48

Like it's because that's what I'm passionate about right now.

9:50

So like that will change my demographic, which is totally fine.

9:54

I think most people feel like they're put into a box and they need to find the most advantageous box.

10:00

It's like, no, like whatever you care about the most is that's your niche.

10:04

And like really you, if we really think about it, like you are your niche.

10:08

Some people are going to love you. Some people are going to hate you and that's okay.

10:12

Just whatever you're passionate about, that's fine. And some people might start

10:14

off loving you and then eventually hate you. It happens to me all the time.

10:18

And then other people will start off hating you and they'll end up loving you.

10:21

It happens all the time as well. So it's, there's, there's no wrong way to go unless you're trying to force yourself

10:26

to do something that you're not really passionate about. Like, we have such an amazing opportunity, like for the first time in the history

10:32

of the human race, like we can work from home, like all three of us are in different

10:36

homes right now having this conversation, we can do the.

10:42

Why would you not do what you're passionate about? Like you get to choose.

10:45

Why would you not do what you are most passionate about? And if that changes

10:49

over the course of your life, why would you not change?

10:52

It's like we have the opportunity to, it's totally fine.

10:55

I love that. That's great. I've said that before too, because Laura and I are

10:58

both also in the business of training health coaches. We work on the faculty of a school that certifies and trains health coaches.

11:03

And so the question that we hear the most from new aspiring,

11:08

recently trained, recently graduated to fitness, health and nutrition coaches

11:12

is this, you know, not having any idea how to put themselves out there to whom,

11:18

how, where it's just this bewilderment and,

11:23

everything you just said, just to reiterate it, first of all,

11:25

lucky you, you get to do whatever you want, you get to do whatever you want.

11:30

So just pick something out of thin air. You get to do it. You don't,

11:32

you're not beholden to some employer anymore. You're stepping into entrepreneurship.

11:35

Yeah. That's actually hard for some people who are making a career change out

11:39

of having worked for someone. They're waiting for someone to tell them what they should be doing.

11:43

And it's like, you're going to have to put on your big person pants and figure that out.

11:47

And the good news is it could be anything.

11:51

And so what I've kind of moved away, I've moved away from the find your avatar

11:56

client language and more towards stake your claim in something.

12:01

Decide you're going to be an expert in something. And just whatever that is

12:05

right now, whatever jumps to the front of your your mind right now, go with that. Go with that for right now.

12:09

It doesn't matter if one year, five minutes from now, you change it.

12:12

Well, maybe not five minutes, but let's sit with it for a little while.

12:15

It can change. It will change. But right now, stake your claim in something.

12:18

And to your point, Jordan, take something that you really love because otherwise

12:22

this whole thing is going to be a real drag. Yeah, that's exactly right. A hundred percent agree. Yeah.

12:27

Did you always own your own business or did you ever work?

12:31

Can you speak to that? i mean when i first started coaching like i interned

12:35

at this gym for free and then i worked at other gyms as well um but like so

12:40

i started my online in 2011 in july 2011 when i started my my website and i.

12:46

I was, it was, it was very lucky and very advantageous in that in 2011,

12:50

online coaching wasn't really a thing before Instagram existed,

12:54

like online, like there were some people doing it, but, uh, actually the only

12:57

guy I know who was doing it at that time, um, his clients would send him a check

13:03

via the mail and that's how they would renew online coaching.

13:07

Um, and so when I first started my website, I didn't know an online business was possible.

13:12

And I very much believe that's why I actually have succeeded is because I wasn't

13:18

expecting to make money five days after I started my business.

13:21

Like I had no idea. I assumed that one day I would open up a gym and that I

13:26

would have a gym in person. And like, that's all I thought I wanted.

13:29

And then after, so like when I would post articles, like I wasn't doing this short form content.

13:34

It was like one article a week, every week, at least one article a week.

13:38

And each article was like 2000 to 5,000 words.

13:40

It would take usually at least between 14 to 24 hours of work on that one article

13:44

before I published it from thinking of the article, writing the article,

13:47

editing the article, publishing the article, research, all of it.

13:50

So it would take like 24 hours of work just for one piece of content.

13:53

And for the first year and a half, my website got like 20 views a day, 18 of which were my mom.

13:58

Like it wasn't that like, there was nothing going on. So I wasn't making money

14:02

for like a year and a half. And, uh, and most people now they make like four posts on Instagram.

14:07

Like, Oh my God, it's not working. Like what's going on? It's like, well, Well, first and foremost,

14:11

your last four posts are about your pickup truck and your dog.

14:14

Like none of it is helpful at all for anybody.

14:17

So what do you expect is going to happen? Not to mention like it takes a long time.

14:22

So I used to coach in other gyms and all actually, and I did actually end up

14:26

opening my own gym in 2014.

14:30

But then I sold it after about six months. I got rid of it after about six months

14:34

to my partner and like, that was it.

14:37

But like, and I just went fully online at that point. But for the first 10 years

14:41

of my career, it was all in person with a little bit of online.

14:45

And then once my online picked up, I dropped in person and went fully online. I love hearing these stories of folks

14:52

who were early adopters.

14:55

Yeah. I think it's really- I remember he was talking about that, remember?

14:58

Like he was one of the, yeah, about, he's like before like anyone even knew

15:02

what the internet was, he was out there trying to start an internet-based business.

15:05

Yeah, I love hearing that. And I really love hearing and almost remembering

15:10

those early days, you know, banging out a 2000 word article article that nobody

15:17

read and you didn't make any money off of it. How do you, when you reflect back on those early days, like what feelings do you have about it?

15:23

I mean, now, cause I like, I don't work nearly as hard now as I used to.

15:28

Like, I'm like, Oh, like if I lost everything, like, cause here's the thing.

15:32

When people come to me, like, Hey, I'm just starting now. Like,

15:34

what should I do? I don't say get on Instagram. I don't say do you take,

15:37

I'm like, start a website and start writing articles. Like that should be your number one thing.

15:40

And I was like, man, that it takes so so much effort like to write these long

15:45

form articles, like long form content is the best content ever.

15:49

It's like, it's the best content. It is the most sustainable. It builds a great foundation for business.

15:52

I don't care if it's a website articles, YouTube videos, or podcast.

15:57

Those are the three best pieces of content you can do.

16:00

Podcast is difficult because it's difficult for people to find you.

16:04

If you don't, if you don't have a current audience, it's very difficult to start from scratch.

16:09

Website articles are great because of search engine optimization,

16:12

same with YouTube videos where you can literally start from nothing and it's

16:15

much easier for people to find you. So I think those are the two best places to begin for anybody, including nowadays.

16:22

But most people are like, they just want the instant gratification,

16:24

which is funny because fitness coaches are like, don't do the rapid fat loss thing.

16:28

Don't do the detox, the cleanse, all that stuff. Just because you're losing

16:31

weight quickly doesn't mean it's anything. But meanwhile, they'll turn around and they'll like, I want to go viral on TikTok

16:35

and I want to get all these likes. It's like those, those numbers mean nothing. The same thing,

16:39

like these, uh, these coaches are like, don't worry about the scale.

16:42

The number doesn't define anything. It's not that important.

16:44

But meanwhile, they're, they're not getting followers as quickly as they want.

16:47

And they're like, what the fuck? it's not working. I only got four likes.

16:49

And it's like, who cares? Like that's, you're focusing on the number. You're being a hypocrite when you

16:53

tell your client not to focus on the number, but now all you're doing is focusing on the number.

16:57

So, I mean, if I could advise one thing, it would be start with just website

17:01

articles, just long form website articles, one a week. You do that for two to three years straight.

17:06

I guarantee you, you will have a very successful foundation for an amazing business that is built.

17:13

It doesn't mean you're going to be viral, but I know people with hundreds of

17:16

thousands of followers who are struggling. And I know people with like a couple

17:18

hundred, I mean, think about this. A lot of people, Oh, I've only got like 300 followers.

17:22

Imagine if you had 300 clients, like set, not to mention, imagine standing in

17:28

front of a three, a crowd of 300 people.

17:30

Every time you post your post, you know, a crowd of 300 people.

17:33

It's like, if you got up in front of a crowd of 300 people, you'd be scared.

17:36

You'd be like, Oh my God, like, what am I going to talk about?

17:39

But now it's like, you're like, you have no idea like what to say on social

17:43

media or you're like, I don't know. You treat those 300 followers like they're not real people.

17:47

I think the best thing you can actually do is long form website articles and build a.

17:54

Grassroots foundational business from that long form content.

17:57

And when I think back to it, I'm like, I don't know if I have the energy to do that anymore.

18:02

It's hard. It's very, it's way more difficult, but generally speaking,

18:06

the things that are more difficult are the things that are going to yield the best results over time.

18:10

Right. Yeah. I think that your real talk about the hypocrisy of,

18:14

we don't want to give our clients quick fixes, but we're

18:16

looking at the quick fix is it's stark very stark

18:20

bleak as well true well the thing the thing was

18:23

social oh i'm sorry erin go ahead yeah i was just thinking i

18:26

just think it's wild that your your advice and wild in a good way by the way

18:30

that your advice because that was the whole spirit behind my question is okay

18:34

like that's how you started but how would somebody start today it's like same

18:37

thing just same thing and i wonder if there's a number one website in the world google google.

18:44

Google, Google, people like there's, you can look like there's something called an Alexa ranking.

18:49

You can see what the most popular, if you want to learn something,

18:52

you don't go to Instagram. If you want to like, Hey, how do I do this? You go to Google and you type, how do I do this?

18:59

And what comes up? It's not Instagram by design. It's not Instagram.

19:03

It's either website articles on the, on the article page or YouTube videos on the video page or, um,

19:10

Pinterest on the images page, which at Pinterest is another,

19:13

but oftentimes what they'll do is for Pinterest, this is a whole separate business

19:17

model, but like they'll take the images and they'll embed them into a website article.

19:21

The best places to build your business, our website and or YouTube and over podcasts.

19:25

That's like the foundation for a business. It like it without question,

19:29

the foundation, but most people aren't willing to do it because they're only

19:32

going to get seven views for the first year. And it's really difficult.

19:35

Yeah. So anyone that, because my role at our school is admissions director.

19:41

So I'm talking to all these people that are like, what's this health coaching thing all about?

19:45

And one of the big questions I get all the time is, do I have to be on social

19:48

media? I hate social media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

19:51

So what I'm hoping people that

19:53

have that in their mind are taking away from this is it has its place.

19:58

Social media has its place, but that's not necessarily really how you you can

20:01

build a viable, longstanding, strong business, it's got to be in your website

20:07

articles, actual videos of you talking to people, or podcasts,

20:12

which is recordings of you talking to people, right?

20:14

And getting that sort of content out there. I wrote a couple things down because

20:19

I feel they're important because they're a common thread with everybody that

20:22

Aaron and I have interviewed that have been successful at this.

20:25

And one is consistent publishing, that you posted something of value,

20:30

long form, thoughtful, took a lot of work every single week.

20:35

And we talk about the value of content marketing, meaningful content marketing,

20:39

not like clickbait, right?

20:42

The other thing I heard was- Just look at me, not just like,

20:44

oh, look at my abs. Like, no, that's- Right, no one gives a shit about your

20:48

abs. They want to know about theirs, right? Wasn't making money for the first year and a half, Aaron and I have been pounding

20:55

the table that this takes three years,

20:57

that your first year, you will make some money, but, and you're likely be profitable

21:02

because in an online business that, you know, the, I guess the overhead's not that high, right?

21:09

Your second year, you'll make more money and you've hopefully got all this repurposed

21:13

content that you can turn around and reproduce. You sort of found your sort of personality and you've You've learned a lot of

21:18

lessons and you're making more money. And boy, this thing's really rolling.

21:21

And there's something about that third year where I heard you say,

21:25

I don't work nearly as hard now as I did.

21:27

And I find this sort of path to be common across any business.

21:32

There's something about like that third year where all that work you did in

21:36

the first year and a half, two years finally starts to gel, finally starts to take off.

21:41

And now you're like, for real, you don't feel like the new kid on the block

21:44

anymore, even though it wasn't that much time. It's not like it's 10 years have gone by.

21:48

It's enough time that you've, people know who you are if you do this right, right? Yeah. Yeah.

21:55

And you've built a reputation for yourself. And like, I wouldn't say,

21:58

I don't really know anyone who's been like as successful as they want to be by three years.

22:02

But like, I've seen an amazing foundation built in those three years to the

22:06

point where you could go fully, like solely rely on that income.

22:10

Like, well, you can leave your full time job, you can fully rely on this.

22:14

And then from there, continue to build where I would say what I've seen is usually

22:18

between five to 10 years, depending on the person, some people,

22:21

they just explode more quickly. And other people, they take longer, but like between five and 10 years,

22:26

I haven't seen one person who's literally give it all of that time who who hasn't

22:29

had an amazing business. Right. And the other thing I was thinking along those lines is, oh,

22:36

this idea of, I get really salty about this idea of, well, how do I scale my

22:41

business? How do I scale it? Oh my God. It's like, you don't even have anything yet.

22:46

Yeah. Like how about before you scale to six figures, you make four figures.

22:51

Let's start with four figures. And then to your point, let's get you to a point

22:55

where you're making, you know, in a few years time, a reasonable living.

22:59

Yeah but it's this idea of again leaping to

23:02

this celebrity status i don't know i think

23:05

that must be something cultural that has shifted with our

23:08

collective consciousness a lot of the instant social media that's social

23:11

media they're out there telling people they can be making six figure incomes

23:14

in like three weeks yeah it's ridiculous yeah and the the coaches being like

23:20

oh yeah i want to have a scalable income that's the equivalent of their clients

23:24

saying like yeah i want to lose weight and get stronger without working out

23:27

or paying attention to my nutrition It's like, all right.

23:29

They're like, what you're really saying is you just don't really want to work

23:32

that hard, which is fine. I get it. But like, if you want to work, if you want to be successful,

23:36

you have to work hard. Like, it's so funny.

23:38

There's so many parallels between fitness and business and all of these coaches.

23:43

They're like, who like pride themselves on how hard they work and how dedicated

23:46

they are and, and the intensity they bring to the gym. Meanwhile,

23:49

they're like, well, how do I scale my business? I just, I don't really want to like do so much with it. I'm like,

23:53

what are you talking about? Then don't build a business. If you don't want to

23:56

work that hard, it's like, it's crazy.

23:58

It is. I was actually thinking, I'll throw myself under the bus a little bit

24:02

because I was lamenting what a pain in the ass it was to spend 45 minutes writing

24:09

an Instagram post the other day. It's like, oh God, all this work, nothing, no, right? It's absolutely nothing.

24:15

But like, again, we're just getting sucked up in this, swept up in this instant gratification,

24:19

sort of this fast moving culture that I don't know what it is,

24:23

but I completely agree with you that the advice

24:26

we give to our clients tracks almost one for one to

24:29

the advice we should be taking ourselves when doing anything doing anything

24:32

that's important to you i completely agree so we

24:35

go back to your order like if people say i get this all the time but i'm a little

24:39

bit nervous putting myself out there no one's yes cool like what do you say

24:43

when your client says i'm nervous to go to the gym and work out like it's like

24:46

i don't everyone's paying attention themselves like they're focusing on their

24:49

it's like but if you want to get results you've got to put yourself out there and like, and do it.

24:54

So, and they're like, there are ways around it. So with a client working out,

24:58

yeah, they could buy equipment and do it at home. Cool. So like for yourself, you could do website articles where you're not making

25:03

videos and you just, you write and no one has to see your face.

25:06

You don't have to put yourself out there, just write articles and just,

25:09

you don't even have to share it on your social media. Just let people find it

25:12

organically, which will take longer, but that's totally fine.

25:14

It's like same thing, but you're going to like, you're going to have to put

25:17

yourself in an uncomfortable situation in order to see results.

25:20

Olds like that's it so same thing yeah it's wild how it tracks so but going

25:25

back to your origin story so you're you're you know slaving away over a keyboard

25:29

writing these long-form articles now in current days like you do have an enormous

25:34

social media following right in a few different platforms.

25:38

Like do you use social media that way or is that just like how do you approach

25:44

social media i know how you like i love following your social media because

25:47

you just have this perfect amount of like snarky real talk that I just adore.

25:50

But how do you use social media to this day in this day and age,

25:56

like this TikTok era is ridiculous. So I'll say this. I would not,

26:02

I would, for anybody, I would not look at how I use it now and sort of,

26:07

and try and mimic what I'm doing now. I would scroll down my feed and look at what I had done. And here's what I say.

26:14

So the main thing I do now is I do Instagram Q and A's, um, because like,

26:19

that's what I have the most fun with. I enjoy it the most. And I get to answer the questions that real people have.

26:24

And I get to rely on my strengths, which I think is like being a little bit

26:27

witty and funny and And also giving like real in-depth response.

26:31

I also share a fair amount about myself and my wife and my family and my own

26:34

personal thoughts, which I did not do for many years. It was just all, it was like 95% education and 5% like a little bit of entertainment

26:43

and a little bit about me. Now it's probably more like 70% education and 30% about me and my family and life.

26:49

But like, that's not how I started. It was all education.

26:53

What's your question? I just want to know when that shifted and why. Why?

26:56

So a couple of reasons. Um, I, so one of the best pieces of advice that I got,

27:02

um, when I, I don't know, I was probably 24.

27:06

Um, someone said to me, there comes a point in your life where, uh.

27:11

Making more money will solve more problems until you get to a point where making

27:16

more money will cause more problems. And if I really wanted to just make more money, all I would do is just do educational content.

27:23

That'd be the vast majority of what I do, because that's like how you get more

27:26

business, especially in the fitness industry. Like you teach people,

27:29

you educate them and they'll go to your business. And that was also what I was really, really passionate about was like educating, educating, educating.

27:35

I was posting three times a day, every day on Instagram, one time a week on YouTube,

27:39

one time a week on my website one time a

27:41

week on my podcast like i was going crazy doing i was

27:44

like abusing adderall so i could stay up late and work

27:47

late like i was just working working working working working uh and it got to

27:51

a point where i was like making more money is now going to cause more problems

27:55

than it's actually gonna it's like all the like thank god what a blessing at

27:59

a point where i don't need to do that anymore and maybe at one point in my life

28:02

i will but for right now Now it's like, I'm, I'm, I'm good.

28:06

Like I need to relax a little bit. So now my goal is not to get more followers.

28:12

I have more than enough followers for the rest of my life. I could lose 500,000

28:16

followers and still be fine. No big deal. Right?

28:19

So if I wanted to gain followers, it would be more about education and less about me.

28:24

But now, so more followers is, it was what we would describe as with trying to get a greater reach.

28:30

I'm creating more depth now with my current audience. So what I'm doing is I'm

28:34

telling more about my personal beliefs, my political beliefs,

28:37

my family life, my religion, just talking more about me with the people who care.

28:41

And there's a fair amount of people who don't and they unfollow me, which is fine.

28:45

But the people who do care, love it.

28:48

And they develop a very, very deep connection with me and relationship with

28:53

me, even though we might have never actually spoken.

28:55

But that's why I'm just speaking more about what I do and what I believe now,

28:59

knowing some people will hate it and the people who don't hate it are going

29:02

to go over the top loving it so.

29:05

It came from me being at a very blessed point in my life where I don't need

29:10

it anymore and I don't necessarily want it. And if I kept chasing, it would probably do more harm than good.

29:14

So, but I mean, I think the vast majority of people, like if I,

29:17

let's say I was going to come back and I was like, okay, I need to go crazy with content.

29:21

Like I need, I need to build my business. I was like, I have a real financial issue.

29:24

I would stop talking about me and I would just educate. And I would post on

29:28

my feed every single day, at least one time a day.

29:31

And I would just do an educational piece of content and that would be it.

29:36

And I would also do stories and all of that. But like in a day and a,

29:40

what I'll look at, I'm looking at like the reels, like TikTok reels,

29:43

shorts, all that stuff, the stuff that you're going to do is like the dancing

29:48

and like the dancing and pointing to things. And like, you're not even saying

29:52

you're not even using your voice. You just like that you point to things and I don't, I don't get it,

29:56

but it's a terrible business strategy. It's awful.

29:59

It might get you a lot of views. It might get you a lot of views,

30:03

but this is a whole separate topic, but I think Instagram and Tik TOK are inflating

30:08

views because they know that people are really, uh, they are drawn to views.

30:14

So like they'll inflate those numbers so that you will use their platform.

30:17

Platform social media is not like instagram tiktok

30:21

all this stuff they're not social media platforms they're disguised as social media platforms

30:24

they're advertising platforms right that are

30:26

disguised as social media platforms they make money by

30:29

you spending more time on their platform so they know if you

30:32

inflate views and they use your platform more you're going to

30:35

make more money as a company which is like great cool that's smart like instagram

30:38

tiktok their company is like no no harm no foul but as a as a user of their

30:42

platform and a free user might i add like you have to know this and be aware

30:45

of it and as a business owner so this is why like going by views and going by

30:50

the number is a really big mistake i would do one piece of educational content none of this dancing.

30:56

And just pointing like educate educate them if if all you're saying is like

31:01

uh like i don't know like i i don't even know i don't know how they come up

31:05

with this stupid stupid content but like they're just like dancing and they

31:09

point at little things and number one it like it goes by too fast Ways to reduce inflammation.

31:13

Yeah, it's just like, it helps nobody. And I know a lot of people who get a

31:17

lot of views, but they're like, it's just not translating my business.

31:20

Meanwhile, I have other people who are like not getting nearly as many views,

31:23

but they're killing it in the backend, the numbers that actually matter in their

31:27

bank account and all that, because like people are actually getting helped from their content.

31:31

So stop focusing so much on the views, focus more on just educating.

31:35

The phrase that I use, I think every single post should have what I call an

31:38

IPA, and immediately practical action.

31:41

If you don't know what exactly the person reading or consuming the content can

31:46

do immediately after consuming that piece of content, what they can do immediately

31:50

to get better, then it's a piece of content.

31:54

They should know exactly one thing. What can I do now that's going to improve

31:58

my life and help me reach my goals? If that is not included in your post, if you can't clearly identify that, it's a post.

32:06

Yeah. You know, I don't get the whole real thing either. I just think it's goofy.

32:11

And I see some people that I think are very serious people that you can tell

32:16

their marketing people talk to them into doing something like this because it's

32:18

like all the rage, you know, and you can just tell them like,

32:21

oh my gosh, don't, you know, I just,

32:24

I guess my question for you is driving people to that educational content.

32:30

So you need some eyeballs on there.

32:35

And I guess that could be where some of these other social,

32:38

whether it's Facebook or Instagram or some of the other platforms that I don't

32:41

view to be as serious, really more for infotainment than really information

32:45

and then driving them maybe to a YouTube video or your website or what have

32:50

you and kind of using that as a bit of a teaser.

32:53

So, I mean, I would, I guess I just love your opinion.

32:56

You know, speaking to someone who may be the early days, maybe they've been out a couple of years.

33:01

They've, they know what they're doing now in terms of coaching,

33:04

right? They're a good coach and they just need to find a way to an educational

33:11

piece of content a week, a day.

33:15

I'm sorry. So where should they be? Should it be on their website and then just

33:19

using social media to drive them there? Should it be YouTube? tube? Do you think it depends?

33:23

So it depends. There's not one definitive right answer here.

33:30

If there's one thing I've learned in my years as a health professional,

33:34

it's that changing lives is much easier when you're doing it alongside a team of experts.

33:40

Physicians, nurse practitioners, and other care providers have learned this

33:43

too, which is why they're looking for health coaches just like you to join their

33:48

medical patient care team. Primal Health Coach Institute's Health Coaching in Medical Practices Specialist

33:54

Certification prepares you for that.

33:57

You'll learn how to work alongside a clinician and advise and motivate patients

34:01

to change unhealthy lifestyle habits and manage chronic conditions.

34:06

By the time your studies are complete, you'll be ready to secure a position

34:09

at a practice that fits best with your coaching style and you'll have the tools

34:14

you need to plan programs, accept referrals, and coach patients.

34:18

If you're a health coach with a passion for helping patients get the life-changing information,

34:23

encouragement, and accountability they need to make sustainable changes in their

34:27

health, visit PrimalHealthCoach.com to learn more about the Health Coaching

34:32

and Medical Practices Specialist Certification.

34:35

Music.

34:42

So it depends. There's not one definitive right answer here.

34:46

Um, I would say like going back to what you said earlier, do you need to be on social media?

34:50

No, you don't. You don't. If you just do your website, uh, that's great.

34:53

I would encourage you to get an email list as well. I think that'd be super important.

34:57

So once people go to your website, you can have actually have their contact

34:59

information, but from social media, I would go to the ones that like you would enjoy using the most.

35:05

So like, um, I think Instagram is still super powerful.

35:09

Uh, and like, there are many ways to grow on there and i enjoy

35:12

it much more than i enjoy tiktok i mean tiktok is just

35:15

a mess pool i can't stand it um like i

35:18

can't stand it so i don't i don't really i have over a quarter of

35:21

a million followers on there and like i don't use it it's just i hate it um

35:24

so instagram i prefer and mainly

35:27

i prefer because it's much more easy to actually communicate with people

35:30

one-on-one and to interact with people like i

35:33

think stories and q a's like

35:35

again my goal being depth not with right now it's

35:39

so powerful like i would look at this i think your feed

35:42

should be educational content almost

35:45

solely like like 99 like

35:48

really the only personal stuff i have on my feed are

35:51

when i proposed to my wife um when we

35:54

announced that we're having a baby uh when we got

35:57

married like just a couple personal things the 99

36:00

is just all education which i think is what what you should do

36:03

and stories should be like a mix of like

36:06

almost like a mini vlog and education as well um so i think instagram would

36:11

be great is a really really good way and for whatever it's worth even though

36:14

i don't like these short form pieces of content they are you can make a 60 or

36:19

90 second video very educational it's the question is a lot of people they just they.

36:25

They really suck at it. They suck at making content and it's because they don't practice.

36:28

They don't know the skill of it. And it just takes time and time and time and

36:31

time. You go back and look at my old content. Like it sucked.

36:33

It was awful. It's only gotten better because I've been doing it for over 11 years now.

36:37

But like, um, the vast majority of my first pieces of content on YouTube were

36:42

just exercise video tutorials. Like you should just exercise videos. Just, Hey, here's how you do a deadlift.

36:47

Here's how you do a Romanian deadlift. Here's how you do a dumbbell row. Here's how you just, if you become the person

36:52

in your community of 300 people, that is like Like the expert on exercise technique

36:57

guarantee you, you're going to be getting clients for do to do training programs.

37:01

You could also do content. Like if you can't explain something in 60 to 90 seconds

37:05

in a very like brief overview, that's a problem.

37:08

Like you should be able to do that. You should be able to explain,

37:11

um, like three things you can do to improve your health nutrition wise in 60 to 90 seconds.

37:17

Like you should be able to do that. If you can't, then you shouldn't be a coach.

37:20

So it's like that you should be able to do that. And then from there,

37:23

let's say you have a podcast or an article that covers the nuance of it.

37:26

Cause you can't do nuance in 69 seconds. You can cover the basics. Cool. All right. So I want you to eat more protein.

37:31

Here's why you're going to eat more protein. Cause it fills you up more.

37:34

It has a higher thermic effect. It's the only macronutrient that can be used to build muscle,

37:37

eat more protein. Cool. Great.

37:39

Then by the way, link in my bio to my website that covers my top sources of protein,

37:44

how to figure out how much protein you should be eating, uh,

37:48

what time of day you should be eating your protein, how often you should be

37:51

eating your protein, you go into the nuance of it in the longer form piece.

37:55

So you have a great piece of short form content and then leads them to a longer

37:58

form content that gives them more nuance. That's how you get that all encompassing.

38:04

And now, I mean, on stories, I think everybody can post a link now,

38:08

like you used to not be able to, like everyone can post a link,

38:10

put the links in there, have the link in your bio to your website or to your

38:13

YouTube or your podcast, whatever. But when you share something, post the link and say, Hey, click here,

38:18

read this and post it several times. Sometimes you have to post it two,

38:20

three, four, five times for people to click on it. It's funny. Like I'll always look at my, uh, in my stories.

38:25

I'll be like, okay, so first I posted this link and I post again in the next

38:29

story and I posted again in the next story and I post again in the next story.

38:31

And I like word things differently. And I see over time, cause you can see how many people click the link.

38:36

And I can see over time, more people will click the link by the fourth story

38:41

as compared to if I just only posted in the first one, I would have gotten maybe

38:45

half the number of people, But because I asked them four times to go,

38:48

now they're more likely to go do it. So you have to ask more than once.

38:52

Yeah. I think in defense of reels, this goes back to what you just said a minute ago.

39:01

In some ways, it's in training us to be articulate in short form.

39:08

I feel like when Instagram stories kind of... We've heard this advice before.

39:13

A lot of aspiring and practicing health coaches, like, get into your stories

39:16

and just riff. Be yourself. Show us your life.

39:19

And sometimes people that I follow, they have no breaks.

39:23

It's like there's like 75 little lines up there. It's like, I'm not hanging

39:27

in for 75, 15 second continuations of this.

39:31

Correct. Yeah, yeah. Yep. So I think that the 60 to 90 second timeframe,

39:35

it's been interesting to practice. How am I going to get this generally quickly across?

39:40

And I think to your point, then the follow-up activity is you've got to add

39:43

the nuance, the context, all the detail that's really actionable.

39:48

So just in defense of Reels, I think it does teach us to be concise.

39:52

A Reel doesn't cover an entire topic. It covers one tiny aspect of a larger topic.

39:58

So, I mean, what I would encourage someone to do is like, you should write an

40:01

article all about protein, write the article first.

40:05

It should answer every fucking question someone could ever have about protein.

40:10

How, like how to figure out how much they should have. What are their top favorite

40:13

sources? What are your top favorite sources that are vegan and plant-based for those people?

40:18

Like what, like different types of protein, whey, casein, egg,

40:21

like everything about protein Cover all the myths around protein, uh,

40:25

or in terms of like, uh, timing, like about the anabolic window,

40:28

all this stuff, everything for every subsection, make a reel for every,

40:34

for every subsection, cool. Anabolic window.

40:37

A lot of people think that you need to eat protein within 30 minutes of your

40:40

workout or as a waste of time in this quick reel, I'm going to explain exactly

40:43

what's going on here and like what you need to know about it. Boom.

40:46

And you explain it for the next seven seconds. If you want to know more link

40:49

in my bio for my article on this whole topic.

40:52

For that matter an exercise that coaches

40:55

should be doing right out the gate when they get started

40:58

is developing a program a methodology this is

41:01

how i work with people this is my nutritional philosophy or my exercise philosophy

41:04

or what i have lifestyle and or all of the above um you're

41:08

creating programming you're writing programs maybe you're

41:11

maybe you're recording videos if you're an exercise oriented coach or maybe

41:14

you're creating eating strategies if you're a nutrition coach but at the the

41:18

point is that's also content and even though that does live behind the paywall

41:23

technically putting it out there for free in little bits and pieces i mean it's already created.

41:30

You already wrote it, like put it out there. What do you think about that?

41:33

The free, the free content thing. A lot of coaches get a little squirrely about giving it away for free.

41:38

Do you have any thoughts on that? Idiots. It's so stupid.

41:42

Like when you go to the mall, you go in the food court, you go to the Japanese

41:46

restaurant because they got the free sample outside. You taste the free sample and you're like, oh man, I'm going to go get that.

41:52

It's like, it's a free sample. They're out there with a ton of their meat, which is delicious.

41:56

And then you try it like, all right, nevermind. I'm going to go here instead of this.

41:59

So they give you a free sample it's uh not to

42:02

mention and that that's like a good example but not great i'm

42:05

going to go into more like great discussion around this there everything

42:09

that someone could possibly need to know about health

42:12

and fitness is freely available on google everything not

42:16

to mention literally nothing that that

42:18

you know and not i'm not talking to you too i'm talking to the person listening

42:21

to this who's like i don't know why i should be posting for free you know

42:25

nothing special or unique about health or fitness

42:27

nothing that you know is special or unique

42:30

or a secret you learned it from somebody you read it in a book or

42:33

an article probably not even a book nowadays most people don't even read training

42:36

books they just like probably saw it on instagram so you learned it from someone

42:40

else and it's freely available people don't hire you because of what they think

42:46

like you might know right they hire you because of what they know know, you know,

42:52

based on what you've taught them for free and equally, if not more important,

42:57

they hire you because they trust you.

43:00

And how do you get them to trust you as you teach them for free?

43:04

They're not hiring you to learn secrets.

43:07

They're hiring you because they like what you've put out and they like your energy.

43:11

One of the best quotes I've ever heard is people aren't hiring people for coaching.

43:16

They're hiring coaches. They're hiring you for you, not because of what you have to offer necessarily.

43:23

So give everything away for free. Everything.

43:27

Everything away for free. I keep trying to tell people, we don't have a lack

43:32

of information problem. We have a lack of application problem. The information's out there.

43:37

Your client is completely bewildered

43:39

on how to actually apply it to their lives, their circumstances.

43:42

Well, so-and-so tried this, but it didn't seem to work for me.

43:44

And then, you know, that's, that's the problem there.

43:47

You know, we have a lack of application problem or a lack of how do I make this fit?

43:53

How do I reconcile all the different things that are telling me something different?

43:56

How do I translate all of this stuff? Cause I don't really understand.

44:00

That's what they're hiring a coach for. I 100% agree with you.

44:03

Nobody is Googling health coach near me.

44:05

They're not, they're not. They're looking for a solution to their problem.

44:09

So pick a problem, become an expert at it and have a solution and stick to it.

44:14

Are you gonna be the perfect fit for everybody? No, I'm not the perfect fit for everybody, right?

44:18

But you're gonna be an amazing fit for a lot of people.

44:23

And that's what you need to kind of just hold onto with both hands and run with it.

44:27

So I don't know if you mind Aaron, but I would love to transition a little bit,

44:30

Jordan, into how you work with people a little bit about your business.

44:34

I know you've worked with people one-on-one, you have this inner circle thing

44:37

now, tell us a little bit about kind of what your business was like,

44:40

how you worked with people as a relatively new coach and how that's sort of

44:45

evolved with you and matured. Yeah so so like i said before don't

44:51

look at what i'm doing now and be like oh i'm

44:53

gonna start that that's a really bad idea it's

44:57

sort of like um it's sort of like i don't know let's you're a coach right you're

45:01

a coach you've got a six-pack or whatever you're strong and it's like your client

45:05

who's like super overweight and nervous to get in the gym being like okay well

45:08

how do i look like you tomorrow so that's okay well that's not gonna happen

45:11

um so when i first started it was all one

45:15

-on-one and I'll start when I first started online, it was all one-on-one.

45:19

It was all one-on-one. That's all I did. Um, and I did that from 2011 to 2015 solely.

45:26

Um, in 2015, I only had like 3000 followers on Instagram. Like it wasn't that much.

45:34

Um, but I had like 80 clients one-on-one

45:38

and i was spending about 14 to

45:41

16 hours a day i had 80 clients at

45:45

about 400 a month and so like i was doing well from a money person i was making

45:50

more than either of my parents had ever made i was like man this is great but

45:53

i was spending like 14 15 16 hours a day doing emails and then like all weekend

45:58

doing programs and i was like this is not how i want to live my life um now Now,

46:02

it's so funny to hear about like make six figures and it's not that hard.

46:08

Like from the perspective of if you have 40 clients paying you $200 a month,

46:12

you're making six figures. Now, you really have to ask yourself, what is your goal with your business?

46:17

Do you want to make millions of dollars, which is like probably not a really

46:21

good goal, to be honest, as a personal trainer, but like, fine,

46:23

if you want to, that's fine. Very few are going to be able to, not because it's impossible,

46:28

because most people just aren't really willing to work that hard.

46:30

But like, do you want to make millions of dollars or do you want to live a good life?

46:32

Right like that's really the question that I would ask and I realized,

46:38

I was making more money than I ever thought possible than either of my parents

46:40

ever did, which really was very difficult for me emotionally.

46:44

And I was like, but this is not the life I want to live. I'm not living a good

46:47

life. I'm sitting on my ass all day, every day, answering emails,

46:50

writing programs like this isn't fun for me. So then that's when I was like, okay, now that I have a big enough one-on-one

46:56

business and a big enough waiting list, I'm going to also make a membership.

47:01

It's a lower cost membership. And this way I'll be able to work with more people

47:06

at a lower cost. And I didn't just, the phrase is, you don't want to kill the cash cow.

47:10

I didn't just stop doing one-on-one. I just stopped accepting one-on-one clients

47:14

and focused more on building the membership. And I started this in December of 2015.

47:20

And when I first launched my membership, I'll tell you a funny story.

47:23

This is a funny launch story. So I really wanted people, I called my inner circle,

47:28

and I really wanted people to join. And so, uh, for the first inaugural launch,

47:34

I was like, okay, you can join for $1.

47:38

You can join this for $1. And if you don't like it, I'll refund your dollar.

47:44

So, and not only will I refund that dollar, I will pay you a dollar.

47:48

So I was like, worst comes to worst. You make money on this. If you don't like this program, I got,

47:55

I got 80 people to sign up, which is again, not that many for that offer.

47:58

Like that's great i only got 80 people one guy

48:02

asked for the refund and the payment which

48:05

i was like so i had to pay one guy a dollar um

48:08

and and but 79 people were in

48:11

so i had 79 people that was my start over the next

48:14

two months i lost about 40 people makes sense

48:18

like it's it's a it's a lower cost like a membership base you don't give as

48:22

much one-on-one so i lost about 40 people before i started the inner circle

48:25

i said i have to give myself at least one year yeah like i have to give myself

48:29

at least one full year before i decide whether or not it's worth it uh those

48:33

two months it went down to about 40 members and that was the lowest it ever

48:37

got and then from there it slowly. Started to build and that's what i did and so i kept doing that and it wasn't

48:42

until uh so i started in december of 2015 and i did both inner circle and one-on-one

48:47

and then in this in july of 2017 17 is when I really like started like,

48:54

okay, now I need to cut down one-on-one because I still, I wasn't taking on anymore,

48:57

but I still had a handful from those several years.

49:00

And so then I started just like, Hey, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore.

49:03

So then finally I got down to about like 10 one-on-one and solely and almost

49:08

solely inner circle. And now it's just all inner circle.

49:10

Um, but like this took years, like years and years and years and years and years.

49:15

And I will say this, the membership model sounds really nice.

49:18

And a lot of people like, Oh, I want like passive income like oh yeah like i

49:21

want to scale it's like you have no,

49:25

how hard it is to run a membership. Not to mention, it's not just about running

49:29

the membership. It's about getting people in and getting them to stay in.

49:32

And most people do not have a big enough audience to run a membership.

49:38

The one prerequisite of a membership is having a big enough audience of people

49:44

to sustain the drop-off, to sustain, because the churn rate is higher.

49:50

So you need to to have a big enough audience to allow for that to happen,

49:54

which most people don't. And also they don't realize that if you just have like 40 to 50 one-on-one clients,

50:01

like you can live an amazing life, an amazing life. You'll probably end up working less than I do.

50:06

And like, you can make an, a substantial amount of income, support your family,

50:10

support yourself, live a wonderful life and having an amazing work-life balance.

50:14

Like that's for me, that's what I consider successful.

50:17

Successful um and like if i didn't have

50:20

the audience that i had i i wouldn't i wouldn't have

50:23

this membership but that's like because i have this audience yeah i

50:26

think too i just to go back to your comment about the work it takes it's

50:29

like you have to make a thing that people also will want to continue to have

50:32

their credit card assigned to you can't you can't just pop them in a membership

50:36

community and say and dust your hands to signify completion you have to keep

50:40

making this thing valuable right people people it's so funny people coaches

50:45

often think oh i I want to make a lower cost membership and like, why?

50:49

And like, well, I think people are going to be more likely to pay for something

50:51

that, that costs us. No, no, they're not.

50:54

It's like you could get something for free online.

50:58

You can get it for free. But if they ask you to put your credit card information

51:00

in, even though it's free, like, Nope, not doing it. Even though it's.

51:04

Free. Just because it's lower cost, people aren't going to buy something just

51:09

because it's lower cost. The hardest part of making a sale is just getting them to take their credit

51:13

card out, period, end of story. I don't care if it's for 10 cents or $10,000.

51:18

The hardest part is just getting them to take it out. And I've always said,

51:21

if I could get someone to take their card out for $7, I could get them to take it out for $1,000.

51:26

That's it. It's the same thing. It's just the hardest part is getting them to take it out.

51:30

So going lower cost for the sake of going lower

51:33

costs because you think you're going to get more people signing up is a huge mistake

51:36

that is not how it works no yeah i was thinking

51:38

um dana lynn bailey you know i think

51:42

we all know who she is but whatever bodybuilder extraordinaire miss

51:46

olympia a couple times as far as i know anyway she's got two million followers and

51:49

her monthly membership is seven bucks a month and so

51:53

somebody might say oh i'm gonna make a seven dollar a month

51:55

she has two million followers if one percent of

51:59

her followers pops their credit card down for she's she's

52:02

making 150k am i like that's to your point like if

52:05

you have a huge following sure but

52:09

most of us don't and won't and also i hope that's not why we went into this

52:14

industry like how can i nickel and dime people to my own wealth correct correct

52:20

it's exactly right and that's i mean the amount of work that goes into it is it's insane.

52:25

Like it's insane well tell us like what so

52:29

you must have staff or you're like i mean i have

52:32

a very small staff relative to other people who i know who have

52:35

memberships um they have like tons of coaches and

52:38

they have business partners and i'm like no no no no like i

52:41

didn't i'm a personal trainer i'm not a manager like i and i don't even call

52:46

myself an entrepreneur like honestly i can hate it when i'm an entrepreneur

52:49

no you're not you're a personal trainer fucking relax like an entrepreneur is

52:53

someone who opens multiple businesses and like all it's like no your personal

52:56

trainer get over yourself um i think that's where a lot of like um,

53:01

And it's where a lot of imposter syndrome comes in. We have these coaches be

53:04

like, I'm an entrepreneur. It's like, no, you're an ACE certified personal trainer. Relax.

53:10

So I have one co-coach. Her name is Susan. She's awesome.

53:15

On paper, it looks really weird. She's like 62, I think 62.

53:21

So it's like, you got this like short, bald Jewish guy, 31 years old.

53:25

And this like older woman, 62, but she's jacked. And like, but like,

53:30

she started off as a one on one coaching client of mine in 2015.

53:34

And she just had an insane transformation. She left her career as a teacher,

53:38

she became personal trainer, and she joined my inner circle.

53:40

And then she was answering a bunch of comments in the Facebook group.

53:43

And I was like, if Susan ever leaves, I'm because she was like,

53:47

Would you want to work with me? And she was like, Yeah, absolutely.

53:50

So now we work together. And she's my like, main coach in the inner circle who

53:53

will help answer a lot of questions, emails. I have an assistant, her name is Kat. She was also a previous client of mine.

53:59

Uh and i helped her with her eating and nutrition and

54:01

then she just she loved it and she came on as my virtual assistant so

54:05

she her and susan like saved my life and then i have other people who help like

54:09

i have a website designer who does all my website stuff i have an app developer

54:13

who does all my app stuff um i have a podcast guy who helped me come up with

54:19

podcast ideas i have a videographer and all that.

54:23

But like, I mean, it's a lot like it is a ton.

54:26

Um, it's, it's a tremendous amount of work and the vast majority of it is not

54:32

actually coaching at this point. The vast majority of it is like managing and, and figuring things out and organization

54:38

and all of that. It's like, if you love coaching.

54:42

And you just have 40, 50, 60 one-on-one clients, you get to coach people and

54:46

you enjoy it. And that's it. You don't need a whole staff. You don't need other coaches. Just do that. Cool. Awesome.

54:51

It's like, I hear people talk about like, oh yeah, like I want a whole business.

54:53

It's like, I want like to employ people. And like, listen, there's a great, there are many positives to employing people,

54:59

not least of which like I get to positively contribute to society and help the

55:03

economy and all of that and like help their families, which I think is great.

55:07

Not to mention and the help that I'm giving to the actual members of the inner circle.

55:11

But the aspect of being able to help support other people and their families

55:14

is something that I really enjoy. And like, I, I really respect and like doing that, but it's difficult and it's not coaching.

55:23

And it's, uh, I think a lot of people overlook this. It's like,

55:26

it's, it's one thing to be a waiter. It's another thing to manage waiters. Right. It's very different.

55:33

So so with that said knowing

55:36

what you know now making the move that you made would

55:39

you do it that way again um i

55:43

if i knew that i would grow my audience yes

55:46

uh if i didn't know right if i like you know sort of struck lightning with growing

55:52

an audience like it's uh lightning strikes twice type of thing like that was

55:56

like pretty crazy and and granted like yes i earned it But like,

56:01

I was posting three times a day,

56:03

every single day on social media for over a year, my audience went from 5000

56:07

to over 200,000 in that timeframe.

56:10

But like I was posting on social media for years before that,

56:13

and like nothing ever happened. But I had a very successful business looking from the outside,

56:16

you'd be like, Oh, it doesn't have that many followers. Like I was doing really well. It was great.

56:20

But like, because my audience grew, I now had an opportunity to take this next

56:25

step. But so yeah, I would, but I don't think it's feasible for the vast majority

56:29

of people unless they have those eyes or unless they're a genius with advertising.

56:35

And like most people, like they try and get into Facebook advertising.

56:39

They don't understand like that's, that's a whole separate profession.

56:42

Like all the work that you put into becoming a coach, people do that for Facebook

56:47

advertising. They have businesses just based around that.

56:50

Nevermind Google advertising, YouTube advertising, all that stuff.

56:52

So like you, the only other way, aside from having an organically large audience

56:57

is using Facebook advertising, which can be very, very beneficial,

57:00

but even then that's more effective if you have a huge audience.

57:03

So like the, I think the best way for people to use advertising.

57:07

Is take your best content, the most, the content that people love that you get

57:11

the best engagement on and advertise your content.

57:14

So literally spend money on your free content. I do that all the time.

57:18

I will take my best content that I created for free. And then people are like,

57:21

I'm not going to give away free content. I spend my time creating free content. That's really, really good.

57:25

And when it does really well, I put money behind it. So it reaches more people. That's a good idea.

57:29

But it's, that is the best way that I've found. If you're going to use Facebook

57:33

advertising, instead of using it to try and get more clients,

57:35

just use it to get people to see your free content. Yeah, that's smart.

57:39

I'm grateful actually that you shared that sort of that previous little tidbit

57:44

about if you really love coaching, you can build a coaching business, coaching people.

57:50

You don't have to scale to a group program or membership because I feel like

57:54

that narrative is so common.

57:57

And I've hired business coaches that said, well, you're at the point,

58:00

Aaron, where you need to scale to groups. I'm like, yeah, but I don't want to

58:03

to work with groups. I like working with individuals. What if I just became a really good in-demand coach that could charge more money

58:08

to work with individuals? Because that's actually what gets me in a flow state and lights me up completely.

58:14

And that's part of the narrative that's never shouted loud enough.

58:19

You could scale your business that way. Yeah. It's like supplements, right?

58:23

It's, oh, well, all right, now you're in the point of your fitness where you

58:26

really need to start getting your supplements. And it's like, no, you don't.

58:29

It's the same thing. And the reason they do that is because they make more money,

58:32

with with if you buy their supplements like business coaches will make more

58:36

money if you sign on they can show you how to scale your business like no i'm

58:39

good like people especially, especially in america like listen i i'm big fan of capitalism like hate me love

58:48

it whatever like i love capitalism i think it's great uh there are obviously

58:51

huge flaws to it but big i'm a capitalist i like capitalism um.

58:56

In America, it gets taken too far. It is like, and I've been very fortunate

59:00

to travel all over the world, like here, the hustle and grind to make more money.

59:06

And it is, it's, it's too much.

59:09

And it's, it's really, I honestly think it's one of the reasons why people are

59:14

dying so much younger is because they're so stressed. It's all they think about.

59:17

They don't have balance. And like their sole form of success in their life is how much money they can make.

59:22

It's like, you go to other countries in the world. it's like it's

59:26

a very small part of their life is work and

59:29

they live they're so much happier so much healthier it's why

59:32

i'm like this like i don't i

59:34

don't need a grind like i'm done i i'm done

59:37

i don't i'll work just enough to provide for my family and be happy but like

59:43

you really gotta ask yourself what's the point of all this right yeah i think

59:48

it goes back to the very beginning of the conversation which is a really nice

59:50

way to kind of like start to button it up which is Because, you know,

59:53

earlier in the conversation, you came down pretty hard on niching. You say, look, do what you love.

59:58

But that thread should continue the whole way through.

1:00:01

Like, keep doing what you love and don't feel the pressure to hustle and grind

1:00:06

into some other avenue that feels there's friction there for you.

1:00:11

Yeah. You trust your sort of inner wisdom, I guess.

1:00:15

I mean, there are people that love that. They love building something and then

1:00:19

selling it and moving on to the next thing. You know, that's an entrepreneur to your point.

1:00:22

That is not like that kind of, but if you want to just coach people and watch

1:00:28

people transform in the aha, that light bulb that goes off and that sense of.

1:00:34

I finally figured it out. Right.

1:00:36

Like, oh my gosh, I just, that's the kind of thing that lights me up too.

1:00:40

And so it's interesting that, um, this constant, I mean, we talk about the hustle and grind.

1:00:47

So many of us want to leave the hustle, especially now I'm talking about more

1:00:51

people now after coming out of the pandemic, right?

1:00:53

They're calling this the great resignation for a reason because it's all these

1:00:56

people that want to leave whatever the job is.

1:00:58

And it's coming from all industries trying to like find this sense of purpose,

1:01:03

find this path and something that they really love.

1:01:06

And there's a lot of people that are interested in this.

1:01:09

And so here's something I kind of want to throw at you and get your point of

1:01:13

view, because I do hear from people coaching is a scam. Nobody makes money doing this thing.

1:01:18

There's, you know, no one's, you know, blah, blah, blah. So like just the ads

1:01:21

that our school puts up, that's the kind of stuff that you hear from people,

1:01:25

you know, that this is a bunch of nonsense. You're going to pay all this money to get certified. You're never going to get

1:01:29

anywhere or be successful. And it's like anything else. You put a tool in the hands of somebody that doesn't

1:01:35

use it, they're not going to be successful. But if you put a really great tool in the hands of somebody that actually uses

1:01:40

it and works hard and with passion and purpose, they'll be successful.

1:01:44

But I would kind of love your two cents on like the coaching industry and kind

1:01:48

of where you think it's going and that kind of thing before we kind of let you go.

1:01:52

The code i mean the barrier to entry has never been lower which is a big issue um so i mean,

1:01:58

we see a lot of it's funny a lot of people are like do you

1:02:01

think it's oversaturated do you think it's oversaturated like can it's like

1:02:04

no not at all like for a number of reasons number one is there are like we can

1:02:09

look at this in layers on like uh on like the we'll say i don't know the bottom

1:02:14

layer is like where everyone is like the bottom layer it's like all of the people

1:02:18

who call themselves coaches, including the people who just put it in their Instagram bio.

1:02:22

And like, they literally just decided this morning they were going to be a coach.

1:02:25

They go, cool. I'm a personal trainer. Cool. That's everyone go one layer up.

1:02:29

It's like, now we actually go, let's go to people who are like actually very good coaches.

1:02:35

It's like, that is a very small percentage of the overall bottom layer.

1:02:40

So then we go, you up very good coaches. Cool. Like that's That's a tiny percentage that would maybe two to 3% of all of those other coaches.

1:02:48

Then from there, we have very, very good coaches, but one layer up all the coaches

1:02:54

who are actually willing to be consistent online with content,

1:02:58

whether it's social media, whether it's website articles, whatever,

1:03:01

that is like a tiny percentage of the very, very good coaches.

1:03:06

And I'm not talking about consistent for a week or a month or a year.

1:03:08

I mean, like you were saying, at least three years, tiny percentage of that group.

1:03:14

And then from there, like everyone who's consistent for that amount of time

1:03:17

in this small group will be very successful.

1:03:19

And unfortunately, they don't even need to be a good coach to be successful here, right?

1:03:25

Like you could have people who are super consistent on social media who suck

1:03:29

as a coach, but they do very, very well because they're consistent with social media.

1:03:34

You don't even have to be a good coach at this point. But like,

1:03:36

if you're a good coach and you're consistent, oh my God, like it's,

1:03:40

it's actually shockingly simple.

1:03:43

It's sort of like fat loss, simple, not easy, building an online coaching business,

1:03:46

simple, not easy, but you can absolutely do it.

1:03:50

It's just, if you're willing to put in the time and effort, that's literally

1:03:52

it, but you can absolutely do it. I would say realistic timeframe.

1:03:57

Three years to go fully on your own, not necessarily be massively profitable,

1:04:01

but to go on your own and be comfortable five, seven, 10 years to really have a business.

1:04:04

That's like, you can wake up when you want, you work for yourself.

1:04:07

You feel very lucky and passionate to be able to help the people that you want

1:04:10

to help. Uh, you can, you know, wake up a little bit later, go to bed a little

1:04:13

bit earlier, whatever it is you want to do. Uh, you can go away and go on vacation and not have to worry about it.

1:04:18

You're still able to get paid or you can provide for your family that can happen

1:04:22

to anybody within five to 10 years. for sure.

1:04:25

Amazing. This is great. This has been really great, Jordan. Appreciate your

1:04:28

absolute no-nonsense approach to, well, everything, but especially all the stuff

1:04:33

we've talked about today. I don't think there's too much ambiguity here for coaches listening.

1:04:39

We covered a lot of bases, consistency. Hopefully it was worth y'all coming

1:04:42

back to the podcast for this one. It was a great return.

1:04:46

Thank you very much, Jordan. So let everybody know where they can follow along

1:04:50

with you if they aren't already. ready. Yeah. Use the Google machine. Google my name. I'll come up everywhere.

1:04:55

My podcast, Instagram, Jordan Syatt. You can, you know, Google. Thank you.

1:05:01

All right. Thanks so much, Jordan. Thank you both. Thank you.

1:05:05

This podcast was brought to you by Primal Health Coach Institute.

1:05:10

To learn more about how to become a successful health coach,

1:05:13

get in touch with us by visiting primalhealthcoach.com forward slash call.

1:05:17

Or if you're already a successful health coach, practitioner,

1:05:20

influencer, or thought leader with a thriving business and an interesting story,

1:05:24

we'd love to hear from you. Connect with us at hello at primalhealthcoach.com and let us know why we need

1:05:30

to interview you for Health Coach Radio. Thanks for listening.