Tue, Feb 22, 2022
Jay Croft joins host, Justin Hanover. Jay Croft is a veteran communicator with more than three decades of experience. Jay is a former newspaper journalist who also worked in marketing and communications for some of the country's biggest corporations. He created Prime Fit Content in 2018 to show fitness professionals how to reach more people over 50, who represent a powerful, lucrative demographic that is largely overlooked by the fitness industry. He also hosts his own podcast, Optimal Aging, writes for fitness organizations and publications, and contributes to CNN and WebMD. Within our conversation, we dove into marketing strategy especially around attracting the over 50 demographic. He hit on the importance of creating clear communication channels that easily portrays your values and process on how you serve. A direct quote from Jay " If you are not making time to tell your story then you are missing the boat on other areas within your business. So get ready for a great conversation around a marketing perspective that sets you up for long term success. So let's jump in and bring Jay on the show.
Thu, Feb 24, 2022
Garrett McLaughlin is a health care licensed athletic trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and certified active release techniques provider who loves helping others achieve their desired health and fitness goals. He currently operates inside of Motiv8 Fitness in West Bloomfield, Michigan as well as online. Garrett received a BS in Athletic Training/Sports Medicine from Quinnipiac University and a MS in Physical Education: Sport and Fitness from Florida International University. Aside from his strong educational background, Garrett credits much of his knowledge and skills from many great mentors throughout the years. He has spent significant time applying his knowledge in the field by completing internships with the University Maryland Sports Medicine Department, North Carolina State University Sports Medicine Department, Graduate Assistantship with Florida International University Sports Medicine, and provided sports medicine coverage at the United States Olympic Training Center (Chula Vista), Boston Marathon, USTA Dunlop Orange Bowl, amongst other things. Within the conversation, he really opened up and shared what has been working and what hasn't been working. He operates his business out of an existing training facility which allows him to keep his overhead low and change up his work environment. His focus is in the running community and has found success through webinars to drive new leads and members. Which of course we dive into. So let's jump in and bring Garrett on.
Tue, Mar 1, 2022
Greg Justice is a bestselling author, speaker and fitness entrepreneur. He opened AYC Health and Fitness, Kansas City's Original Personal Training Center in 1986. Greg is the co-founder and CEO of Scriptor Publishing Group, and the Chief Fitness Officer of EndlessRope. He was inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame in 2017. Greg writes feature articles for many industry publications including Club Industry magazine, IDEA Fitness Journal and Personal Fitness Professional magazine and on the Advisory Board of Personal Fitness Professional magazine. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 books. This was such a special conversation to be able to talk with a veteran in the industry that has helped shape how a lot of fitness businesses operate today. His story is eye opening and one I know you will find insightful. Greg uncovered his path to where he is now, and how his mindset has shifted from just starting out to where he is now. He also discussed how he processed the opportunities that presented themselves to him along the way and how he knew which ones to pursue. Often an area that can send most down the wrong path.
Thu, Mar 3, 2022
Tony has been a personal trainer and strength coach since 2002. He is one of the co-founders of Cressey Sports Performance where he served as coach from 2007-2015. He now owns and operates his own personal training studio in Boston, MA called CORE. He's also a prolific writer with his work routinely featured in publications such as T-Nation, Men's Health, Women's Health, and the Personal Trainer Development Center. In addition, he's also the co-author of the Complete Shoulder and Hip Blueprint. This was just a great conversation with someone who not only has done well in his career but is having an impact within the fitness industry. We dove into his business and he broke down how he structures his service and operates his facility in a way that best fits his lifestyle. Then we tackled the writing side where he shared tactics around improving your writing and how to better utilize this approach within your business.
Tue, Mar 8, 2022
Javy was originally born in Puerto Rico and was driven from the start. Since he was 16 owning a gym was on his mind, and he got that opportunity in September 2012. At that time, he had a partner and they opened CrossFit on the Hill in Roxbury, MA. About a year later, through their success, they opened a second location which is CrossFit Jeffries Point/EastieFit. After navigating a couple of years with both locations as a partnership it was decided to separate the business and in May 2016 he became sole owner of CrossFit Jeffries Point/EastieFit. Javy is driven to lead and to raise those around him. Javy shared his journey within our conversation and opened up about the difficulties he was experiencing when it came to marketing. Until an idea clicked with him after looking at his data. He decided to focus his efforts towards the Spanish-speaking demographic and he experienced a positive shift. This is a great story to open your mind up to thinking differently about how you market. How are you breaking through the noise?
Thu, Mar 10, 2022
Dr. Lisa Lewis is a licensed psychologist and certified addictions counselor. She holds a master's degree in clinical counseling psychology and a doctorate in counseling and sport psychology. Lisa has worked in college mental health, community mental health, inpatient and intensive outpatient psychiatric and substance abuse treatment centers since her career began in 2003. She currently provides psychotherapy and consultation services at her private practice in Brookline, MA, and online. She is also the head of behavioral sciences at gWell Health. Dr. Lewis specializes in working with athletes and athletically minded clients who struggle with mental health problems or addictions, as well as high-achieving professionals who come to her practice to pursue goals, enhance motivation, or change behaviors. She also provides workshops, continuing education, and consultations to fitness professionals and athletes. Communication is essential to being a business owner and even more vital for a gym owner. It's not just talking to talk either, it's about effective communication. How are you leading? Bringing your team together? And keeping your members bought into the journey? If you want a thriving business then this is a skill set you simply cannot delegate to anyone else. Lisa breaks this down for us along with providing tactics to apply right away. Then she goes into the program she created to allow you to fully develop this skill set along with a special bonus for our listeners to save $75 on the Psych Skills For Fit pros program. There will be a link and coupon code in the show notes.
Tue, Mar 15, 2022
Anna is truly dedicated to her clients and pushing this industry forward. She started this journey back in 2007 with SheStrength. Her time it has taken her from being recognized as the 2017 Personal Fitness Professional Personal Trainer of the Month to speaking at the Chicago Down Syndrome Society Event. When she is not working in her Barn gym with her clients or coaching softball she will be taking in life and creating memories with her beautiful family. Anna talks about how she created her business to fit what she needed from a business. She built a business that best supported her lifestyle. She wasn't interested in following trends or what worked for someone else. A huge lesson a lot more needs to be heard and learned.
Thu, Mar 17, 2022
In order of least importance, Trevor is an ex-professional athlete, boutique fitness facility creator, software founder, coach, dad to 2, and husband to 1. He got his feet wet in the fitness industry training himself for peak athletic performance. After a pro contract fell through, he started his professional fitness career. Over the next four years, he grew a client base from 0 (training his mom doesn't count) to over 220 in a rural farming community of 5000 people. Scaling a client base past just a handful of clients brings certain limitations to the surface. One of those is providing an exceptional experience and maintaining a high level of accountability for each individual. Since launching the software in 2016 he has been fortunate to bring two awesome boys, Asher and Ezra, into the world with his incredible wife Erin. In my conversation with Trevor, we hit on the technology side of the fitness industry. Given that is software Coach Catalyst is designed to not only bring a more personal touch but to allow your business to run efficiently. If you have still been trying to do everything through multiple platforms and spreadsheets then this would be the perfect conversation to listen in on. You will even hear where Trevor sees the technology in the fitness space going and how Coach Catalyst is staying on top of it.
Tue, Mar 22, 2022
Andrew is the co-owner and operator of FitTown Jupiter (along with his brother), a 400-member micro-gym that does over seven figures per year in revenue. He opened the gym in 2012 under the brand CrossFit Palm Beach and then decided to re-brand and disaffiliate the gym from CrossFit back in 2020. He is also the creator and host of the Care-Coach-Lead podcast and YouTube channel, where he helps gym owners and coaches have a deeper impact on their clients. This was an energy-packed conversation where Andrew brought amazing value around developing rockstar coaches. This applies to the independent trainer listening and the gym owner. Andrew has this dialed into the different levels of coaching and the skill set needed for each level, and of course he shares what those levels are. He even shares with us how to get access to his next 12-week coaching program.
Thu, Mar 24, 2022
A little background on Adam. Adam was a gym owner for 9 years in Southern California. He really enjoyed the marketing aspect of the business and discovering ways to keep improving it. He was able to build a solid team where for the last year of owning his gym all he had to focus on was the marketing. He got "lucky" and sold my gym in 2019. Now his main passion is to help fit pros solve one problem. In my conversation with Adam, I really picked his brain to find out the major areas gym owners need to be aware of when it comes to advertising. Things like the biggest mistakes he consistently sees most making, how advertising has changed over the past year, and how his solution Fitlio removes the bottlenecks and makes it even easier to get high-converting ads out faster with 3 clicks.
Tue, Mar 29, 2022
Sumit is a strong believer in the power of human connections and has the ability to bring people of differing skills together to achieve a common purpose. He was a partner at a staffing firm that he contributed to scale from ~$15M to $100M+ in under 10 years, earning it recognition as one of the fastest-growing and largest staffing firms. He exited that venture to focus on his health, reconnect with his family, and find solace in fitness. In my conversation with Sumit, it led us down the path of some major bottlenecks for most gym owners, around communication and system inefficiencies. Sumit traveled the country meeting with different gym owners and he shared the biggest challenges they all had in our talk. We didn't stop there. He also addresses how his software Naamly fixes those challenges and makes owning a gym easier, more profitable, and more personal. Let's go ahead and get this conversation with Sumit started.
Tue, Apr 5, 2022
Nick Winkelman is the head of athletic performance and science for the Irish Rugby Football Union. His primary role is to oversee the delivery and development of strength and conditioning and sports science across all national and provincial teams. Prior to working for Irish Rugby, Nick was the director of education and training systems for EXOS. Nick completed his PhD with a dissertation focus on motor skill learning and sprinting. Nick is an internationally recognized speaker on human performance and coaching science and has multiple peer-reviewed publications and book chapters alongside his own book, The Language of Coaching: The Art and Science of Teaching Movement. We all have had those coaches who just knew how to get the best out of us. It was something about them that unlocked a different way of thinking and brought higher levels of performance. How do you think it would affect your business if you fully understood how to apply that consistently to your team and clients? It would have a massive effect on your business. That is exactly what Nick dives into within our conversation. You will end this podcast episode understanding the power you have when you utilize the language of coaching.
Thu, Apr 7, 2022
Dylan is a modern Renaissance man and The Genuine Copywriter. Growing up he struggled to find his own voice and what he wanted to be. He explored theater, martial arts, and then creative writing. Through the process of finding his genuine self he developed a method that helps brands find their true voice. He focuses on helping bold brands who give a damn create genuine marketing campaigns through authentic messaging. Dylan broke down effective copy writing and how it drives your business. Doesn't matter how good your service is if you can't get the right message out to the right people. If copy writing is an area you are looking to improve then you found the right episode.
Thu, Apr 14, 2022
Cory graduated from UW-La Crosse in 2001 with a B.S. in Exercise and Sport Science and an emphasis in Fitness with a concentration in Strength and Conditioning. He has accumulated over 20 years of professional experience in the fitness industry from managing gyms, being a fitness coach, training people with disabilities, and a pretty sweet internship with the Chicago Bulls' strength and conditioning staff. It has been his dream and vision to provide a more accessible and less intimidating means for people to become stronger and more resilient for life outside the gym. He has been living that dream at Fitness Lying Down since 2014, being able to offer those opportunities of growing stronger and moving better for our clients and watching their successes as a result. Cory hit on a major hot topic for gym owners. Chasing the shiny object and going after quick money. He explains how by doing that you lose your identity and it ultimately crumbles what foundation you had. Learn the power of patience with this talk with Cory.
Thu, Apr 28, 2022
Mitch is an Enterprise Strategic Account Manager for Trainerize, one of the world's leading fitness engagement platforms making fitness accessible to millions of people all over the world. In addition, Mitch is also a Strategic Fitness Advisor with the TUT Fitness Group, a high-performance portable home gym using Time Under Tension technology that can be assembled and stored almost anywhere. Mitch is a former Personal Trainer, Manager, and General Manager for Canada's largest network of personal training studios. During this time, managed 3 locations with 30 employees. Within our conversation, Mitch shared the power of Trainerize and how it can massively shift how you operate your business from multiple viewpoints. We talked about how Trainerize creates an omnichannel experience and if you are not sure what that is then you are in for a treat. So if you have been holding back with bringing your business into the year 2022 then this might just be enough to give you that little extra kick.
Thu, May 12, 2022
Anna is a competitive figure skater...turned banker...turned Facebook ads expert - with a passion for helping entrepreneurs on a mission to rapidly and sustainably scale their reach, impact, and profits through social media advertising. She started her advertising career at Tier 11 - a leading global Facebook Ad Agency, before breaking out as an independent ads expert. Nowadays she partners with businesses across a wide range of niches including fitness and health, SaaS, personal development, and online education. Safe to say most gym owners would say that their biggest pain point revolves around lead generation and sales. Well, we tackled that head-on with Anna breaking down how to go about creating a lead generation campaign that works. Along with what not to do and how to avoid common mistakes when it comes to running lead-generation campaigns. We also took it a step further and she shared insights on how to handle leads as they come in even if they don't buy right away.
Thu, May 26, 2022
Joe was born in New Bern, NC, and moved to Wilmington when I was 5 years old. The most important aspects of his life are God and his family. He has a beautiful wife Melody and they have 2 sons and a daughter. Aiden, Noah, and Bella. Outside of God and his family, he has devoted his life to learning about health, fitness, and the human body. All education aside, He loves what he does. His main focus at this point in his career is to create careers for those who are a part of the BFP Family staff. If he can create an amazing experience for them, with systems, accountability, and leadership in place, they will be bought in and create an awesome experience for the clients. In my conversation with Joe, he held nothing back and shared the good and the bad throughout his journey till now. He has achieved what he most desired by opening up a second location and doing it successfully. We break down how he knew he was ready for this next step to the marketing tactics that allowed him to get up to 100 new clients in under 6 months for the second location. This will for sure be a conversation you will receive so much value in.
Thu, Jun 9, 2022
Dr. Dan Ritchie started his fitness career at Southeast Missouri State University with a bachelor's degree in Fitness and Sports Medicine and then spent a year as a graduate assistant coaching Division 1 athletes. He completed his master's degree in Health and Physical Education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he won the 2002 Thesis of the Year. In our conversation, Dan hit on some powerful points about serving the baby boomer generation. If serving the demographic with the largest buying power and time availability matters to you then you will find amazing value. We got into marketing and understood what to put out there to attract this demographic to the types of offers that work. Then if you aren't already serving this demographic Dan shares his functional aging certification and how it will ultimately allow you to serve this population and grow your business.
Thu, Jun 23, 2022
Anthony Milia owns Milia Marketing, a successful, award-winning marketing firm based in Cleveland, OH. Anthony helps Small and Medium-sized businesses get the best ROI for their marketing dollars by shedding light on their sales and marketing challenges. Anthony was the recent recipient of the Crain's Cleveland 2021 20 in their Twenties Award. With a goal of helping people, he's offering advice any business can follow to grow their customer base and their revenue by asking simple, and often overlooked, questions. He hopes to educate people on marketing and demystify the common misconceptions that so many businesses fall prey to as well as offer advice and assistance to those who need it most. Marketing is a huge topic and pain point for most business owners but as I discussed with Anthony today it is usually due to misconceptions as to what marketing is and how to actually implement marketing strategies that do work. So, if you are looking to build your marketing awareness and be able to guide your business effectively then this is a conversation you want to be listening to.
Thu, Jul 7, 2022
Roger's experience includes 24 years with Enterprise Rent-A-Car where he led business intelligence for their Used Car Sales division. Like he did for Enterprise, Roger created Unleash Insight so small to mid-size companies can play "Moneyball" too by adding science to the art of decision-making that results in cutting waste and unlocking opportunities. Unleash Insight's primary niche is supporting multi-location companies. Their services include market research, location planning, marketing optimization, talent studies, and leadership scorecards. Playing "Moneyball" serves two of Roger's values community and fairness. Community in that teamwork rules and the data insights can help coach the team to more winning outcomes. Fairness by ensuring performance evaluations consider the opportunity each team or person is provided. Are you giving your business the best possible shot to succeed? Do you know if you should expand in your area or not? Powerful questions that you can answer when you know how to properly do market research and let the numbers guide you. If you are thinking about opening up your first location, a second location or possibly moving your current location then knowing your market is vital and that is exactly what we dive into in today's conversation with Roger.
Thu, Jul 21, 2022
Asa has been in the fitness industry for over 15 years. Her professional experience includes growing her own fitness business to over 350 clients with 11 staff members and selling for a 200% ROI. She also has professional and educational experience in business development and marketing. Her BA is in Business with a Minor in Marketing and is also a Certified Business Coaching Specialist through the Business Training Institute. Over the past few years, she has coached over 40 Fitness Revolution clients to numerous business PRs spanning from Dec.2017 until the present. Asa also coaches FR's High Performance Mastermind Group composed of 12 Fitness Business entrepreneurs. We went through the top categories in business from marketing, sales, and fulfillment outlining the most common mistakes and what is working for Asa's clients right now. This is an episode you will want to be taking notes on for sure.
Thu, Aug 4, 2022
Jonathan began his personal training career at the Pelham, AL YMCA at age 19 and has since held positions as a personal trainer and Personal Training Director at both national "chain" gyms and local gyms. He currently holds the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification from the NSCA, the Corrective Exercise Certification (CES) from NASM, and the Functional Range Conditioning Mobility Specialist from FAS. Jonathan has been with Fitness Revolution since 5 months into his business. Now since working with us he has increased his yearly revenue 8 times and is not showing any sign of slowing down. He shares the foundations of what is working in his business. He doesn't focus on flashy tactics but truly builds a culture of growth for himself, his team, and his clients.
Thu, Aug 18, 2022
Alicia Streger is a business coach and content creator who specializes in helping fitness and wellness professionals around the world systematize, streamline, and scale their businesses. She is the founder of The Content and Social Media Club which provides social content, email nurture sequences, and marketing strategies to help health pros save time and expand their impact. She is also the creator of Fit Pro Accelerator, a 16-week coaching program designed to help fitness pros systematize and scale their business. In our conversation, we dove into one of Alicia's many strengths: content marketing. This is such a huge part of being in business today so we walked through exactly what it is, what you need to know before starting, and how to make sure you never run out of the right content again. Be sure to check out the show notes where we will have a link to Alicia's content creation strategy we discuss within the conversation. Now let's bring Alicia on.
Thu, Sep 1, 2022
Marshall has been a coach for over 17 years and has a passion for helping people transform their lives through training and nutrition. Marshall has earned the credentials of CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist), PICP (Poliquin International Certification Program Level 2), and Pn1 (Precision Nutrition Certified Level 1). In the conversation with Marshall, we went into the different areas of his business from marketing, sales, and retention to share what didn't work for him and what did. One particular thing he shared was how he operates with the bottleneck theory. He focuses on the one issue that will unlock the flow. Going from marketing, sales, and fulfillment what is the kink in the chain to address and attack issues in that order. I'm excited for you to hear this conversation so let's bring Marshall on.
Thu, Sep 15, 2022
Pamela MacElree is the owner and co-founder of Urban Athlete in Philadelphia, PA. Urban Athlete is a staple in its community and has created a community culture that supports both its clients and coaches while also lending as much as they are able with a charitable hand in philanthropy through various activities. Pamela holds an M.S. in Injury Prevention and Sports Performance from California University of PA, along with a B.S. in Photography and Graphic Design from Pennsylvania State University. In addition to her role as a business owner, she has been a success coach with Fitness Revolution since 2011. She is a Certified Business Coaching Specialist from the Business Training Institute with coaching and business strengths in philanthropy, community involvement with strategic partnerships, time management, meeting facilitation, finances, and issue mining.
Thu, Oct 6, 2022
Marketing is an essential business function. Debbie Oster, co-founder of Entrepreneur's Edge and the Fractional CMO for multiple small businesses, explains how gym owners should be looking at their marketing. As you grow and scale your fitness business it becomes more important to identify roles and put the right people in those roles. In this conversation, Debbie breaks down exactly what a fractional CMO is and how to leverage a position like this to keep advancing your business forward without losing sight of the future vision.