What you’ll learn from this episode
⬤ How Andrew uses an app to manage $1k clients without having to train them live
⬤ Why he makes challengers prove themselves in the beginning of the challenge
Highlights from the interview
[03:44] – How Andrew uses an app to manage $1k clients without having to train them live
[07:02] – Why video is better than in-person training and How virtual coaching thru app training could be superior to training live
[14:02] – A unique approach to a 28-day fitness challenge that that easily gauges clients progress through points
[22:23] – Andrews competition structure that allows extremely fit and extremely unfit clients to fairly compete with each other
[29:20] – Why he makes challengers prove themselves in the beginning of the challenge
About our Guest
To know more about our guest, visit the first part of our interview.
Edited transcription of Fitness Business Secrets Podcast, Episode 39
How Andrew uses an app to manage $1k clients without having to train them live
[03:44] Kristy: So, you have a funnel here, you have your group, your hundred dollar product, then you have your 28-day program and also your one-to-one. And I was wondering, since there’s so many ways to even still do one-to-one, I know some people just write the programs and then some people actually train with them through zoom.
How do you do your one-to-one programs? Do you actually train with them virtually?
Andrew: Oh, no, I’m not doing that. And yeah, you gotta think, like I’ve got guys in Alaska, I’ve got guys in, you know, the time difference is too much. That would just be ridiculous in some cases.
So many different questions about software and things like that. But the reality nowadays with video and messaging and stuff like that is that, sorry. I use a training program called TrainingPeaks and I see a lot of people talk about, “Well, what do I have to coach?” And Trainerize and I dunno all these other things and look, honestly, they’re all shit.
TrainingPeaks is the king. I’m going to tell all your listeners now it’s the King of online training programs. I can legit get enough data off TrainingPeaks to send someone to the Olympics if I want to. I can test threshold of VO2 max and then speak and create annual training plans for people.
The amount of metrics available is next level, the connectivity it has with HRV, Gammon. Like all these different things doesn’t exist on the other platforms. So like for instance, if I go for a run, my Gammon automatically links it to my TrainingPeaks. All the data turns out I didn’t have to go into TrainingPeaks as a customer and put anything in, my Gammon has done it all for me.
How this special app is different
Andrew: I get from my end, you know, I can even see where I run. I can see the elevation change. I can see the map. I can see in some cases that what my customer really did for a 5K run, was go to the local oval and run laps for 30 minutes. Because that was softer than running on pavement. And I can say to them like, “Hey, you know, times are good, blah, blah, blah. Wasn’t that boring as hell, running around in circles non-stop?”
And you know, the amount of information I get is crazy. And when you look at all these other apps, it’s just not there. So I provided a program in TrainingPeaks. And the other thing I really like about it is that it’s cheap, even though it’s more expensive than the other ones.
What I know is per person per month. And that’s the premium account. That’s for the best account. It’s really fast to create workouts. So, I can do a month of training for someone in under 10 minutes if I want. So I’m one of my superpowers, probably my only superpower is actually how fast I write programs.
And now, because I’ve been using it for two and a half years or so, I’ve got something like 50 different one month of training in it. And so, you know, it’s a drag and drop kind of thing. So I’ll go, “Oh, this person, needs this this month,” open up the relevant program that I’m looking for and put it all in there.
So, 10 minutes is actually the time it might take you go. For instance, like I’ve got one guy, he’s got everything you need at home, but he’s got a low roof. So he can’t actually do overhead pressing princes cause you’ll hit the roof. And so if the program’s got overhead pressing in it, for instance, I have to go in manually and change it to, I dunno, like tall kneeling pressing or change it to floor press or whatever, but that 10 minutes I put the stuff in, plus go back and edit it individually for each person once that template’s in place.
Why video is better than in person training
[07:02] Andrew: And so, you’re like when I look at how I train people. So this is what the coaching side of it, if they have problems about, “Hey, I’m not sure I’m squatting right or whatever,” take a video, send it to me. And video is actually better than in person because you did five reps in front of me.
I see five reps. When you video five reps, I can see 500. If I want, I can watch it over and over and over. I’ve got a 27 inch iMac. I see it in big detail. I don’t miss anything and I can extract every bit I need from it and give you all that information.
The thing that I really liked with, I’m just gonna say the connectedness now, how many different options there are in TrainingPeaks. I can have a conversation with someone on Facebook messenger. I can do it. The people who are within Australia, we actually text as well. So, yeah, there’s a lot of opportunity to talk to people these days and to get video and whatever, it is more often than not it’s not about, in my age group, having a chat about, “You know, you need to turn your toes out more when you squat or anything like that.” It’s more about. Hi, you said you were tired, like what’s going on with that? Oh yeah. You know, my, my kid’s sick or whatever. Okay. I’ll just move. Tomorrow’s workout for you. We’ll have an easy day. The ability to change stuff day by day is very, very good.
How app training could be superior to training live
Andrew: And I think a lot of the perceived downsides of online training just don’t exist. So TrainingPeaks, for instance, I can see your HRV, which means that I can see how stressed you are. So unless you live in New Zealand where you’ve woken up before me and train straight away before I started work.
Other than those guys, you wake up in the morning and take your HRV. I will actually see it straight away. And so even if you’re about to do something stupid and train hard on a day, when the HRV app says to take it easy, I’ll go in and modify your workout before you even have a chance to hate yourself like that, which is as good as when people would come into my gym.
And again, cause I know them really well. You’d say, well, how you doing? And you know like this and they say, “No, no, I’m fine. I’m going to train.” Because they’re motivated, hardworking people. And I would say, “No, no, we’ll go over here and we’ll do something moderate and easy instead of this heavy workout you’re going to do because you’re just not ready for that today.” And I can do that online. Whereas I think you like some of these other apps, because I don’t have that connected ability. They don’t allow for that kind of stuff to happen so I can change the program day to day if I need to with people.
Why you should consider virtual coaching versus live virtual trainings
Andrew: Well, I’m not there on Zoom with them and what my root problem with that as well as like you just try any money for time. The whole purpose of being online is that you should have some more flexibility. So my Workday tends to run from 7:00 AM until 4:00 PM. I work solidly like a normal sort of office workout, but, also we did some paving stuff out in the back.
So I needed like two days off last week, but I worked first thing in the morning. I worked late at night. I worked over the weekend. So still that flexibility allows me to get all my work done, which doesn’t exist if you’re on zoom calls with people. I mean, if I have to be on a zoom call with someone at 3:00 PM to watch them squat or whatever, I can’t change that.
And to me, that’s, that’s not really online training. That’s like displaced personal training, like in-person training. It’s still in person. It’s not online.
What should a $1000/month coaching service provide to be worth it to your customers
Kristy: Yeah. So, when someone signs up for your one-on-one, they get this personalized, constantly updated program from you. And it sounds like you said you charge a thousand or $500 for that one on one.
Andrew: $1500. That’s Australian. So it’s $1,050 US right now.
Kristy: Okay. And that’s a lot. But you know, again, they get the customized programming. Do they get anything else?
I noticed you mentioned nutrition. Do they get one-on-one calls with you? Like what do you tell them what to expect and not to expect?
Andrew: Okay. So, we do nutrition, so my fitness power links to TrainingPeaks as well. So every single day I see what they’ve eaten and yeah. So, you know, they’re quite likely to get a message off me going, “What the fuck do you mean? You had 2,800 calories on Sunday with, you know, like 400 grams of carbs or something that is not what we agreed upon.”
So, I see what they’ve eaten all the types of accountabilities there every single day. The diet stuff I use is very simple. So it’s a combination of the old school, precision nutrition. I had this thing called the 10 habits, which you can’t find anymore, but you can see I’ve written articles about it.
And those actually rank higher for some reason than Precision Nutrition’s own stuff about the 10 rules. It’s really hard to find stuff there because they’ve kind of morphed and changed things as they’ve gone along. And then just a simple calorie-counting kind of thing. We work out, you know, like a base number of calories.
The reality for most people is they overeat. I think they’re more active than they really are. So they tend to give themselves the multiply that would say that I am quite active.
The reality for most people is they overeat. I think they’re more active than they really are. So they tend to give themselves the multiply that would say that I am quite active.
Most people are office workers, which is going to kind of century, even somebody who trains an hour a day, that’s only seven hours a week.
So that’s the full percent of the way we kind of count that person as being active, they are not active at all. And so once we set that up, we give them a sensible deficit, if they’re looking to lose fat. Most people are looking to lose fat. I mean, that’s 70% of the world is overweight or obese. So, you know, most people who come to you are going to need to lose some fat.
How to differentiate between your one-on-one program and your group program
Andrew: And so we do that. It’s really interesting. So this is looking at the dynamic between a group and one-to-one. So one-to-one, I’m talking to people every single day through TrainingPeaks. I’m having conversations with every customer every day as if I was in person just with typing it out.
With the guys in the group, the setup is they get a video at the start of the week, which is based on having watched the previous week and going, okay, so as a group, this is the thing, that’s the biggest problem right now. So this is the thing I want to draw your attention to. And the second half of that video is, the training this week is doing this and that.
This is what I need you to concentrate on for this week. Make sure you notice that for instance, this exercise changes how many sets and reps it needs versus last week, whatever it happens to be. They then give me an update for their previous week by video in the comments below.
And I’ll interact with that at the end of the week, they get a wrap up as well. So I get a recap, “Okay. Guys, questions for this week. What’s troubling you?” And I do a live on Friday morning to answer all the questions. They also get an in-person call every two weeks. But while I’m interacting with them in the group and I’m giving them videos and stuff like that.
It’s actually still not as much contact as it is in the one-to-one thing. The one-to-one guys are getting way more interaction. And I’m happy to get on the phone with them and talk to them. They just don’t need it because we’re actually having all these contacts through TrainingPeaks.
The group guys, because we’re not using TrainingPeaks, I mean, it’s an Excel spreadsheet. You’ve got to take the program. Like, this is what I’m saying, people worry about production quality and how fancy things are. I made an Excel spreadsheet and sold it for $1,500. It’s basically what that group is.
But it’s not anything fancy. Those guys I’m on the phone with, for 15 to 30 minutes, about every two weeks. So they book in, this week now is the N to Z guys, next week will be the A to M guys.
A unique approach to a 28-day fitness challenge that that easily gauges clients progress through points
[14:02] Kristy: Okay. And for the 28-day program, do they get like a manual or something? Besides the first and the last week videos.
Andrew: Yeah, totally. So they get a PDF that I made. So, it’s how many pages? It’s over 40 pages. It’s got like the basic set out of the program. So it talks about sleep, walking, food, training, both strength training and cardiovascular training. It’s got a pretty cool scoring system. So the 28-day challenge is actually a game and the goal is to maximize your score.
And the reason the scoring works is because, let’s say for food, for instance, you’re supposed to eat four times a day, so you can get 28 points for food for the week. And the format is the same in all the groups, it’s always a weekly startup video and an interview question and answer.
So on Monday, when I give my video and you give me your wrap up. You tell me your score for the week. If you told me you got 12 points food out of a possible 28, it’s very easy for me to figure out where you’ll be. If you get a point tonight for getting more than seven hours of sleep and you tell me you only got three for sleep. Well, I know we need to focus on what you’re doing before you go to bed.
So, the scoring system is both the way they make sure you’re on track, but it’s also an easy way to figure out where your biggest problems are for the weight. And so, you know, my instruction might be, “Hey, I really need you to admit a tight for five to 10 minutes before bed every night so you can go to sleep easier,” or “I need you to maybe turn your screens off. Start turning down some houselights so your body starts to wind down late at night.”
And we start to bring in some different strategies for things, but the manual overall, I sent it to a friend when I first wrote it. And he said, “I hope you’re going to sell this” was the first thing I was like, “Oh, Maybe it’s a little bit more special than what I thought it was.” He started using it, he’s a division one on football coach. He started using it with his players and their performance went through the roof.
And I was like, okay, so this works with everybody, not just with 40-year old guys. So it’s a pretty good system. And then I use that as well to create the women’s challenge. And so the women’s thing, the main difference is the training is different. And the diet has some specifics in it too and to do with the menstrual cycle because it’s a little bit different than guys who’ve got a slightly more stable hormone level through the month.
But the overall kind of framework of it is exactly the same as the men’s thing. It’s just that the women’s thing runs a bit longer as well to deal with, you know, the up and down nature of water gain.
Because it’s really unnerving for women when they maybe have done everything right for a month. And then just because of timing, maybe see what looks like either no weight loss or weight gain, get frustrated and chuck it all away. When, if they just stuck with it for another week, they would actually see all that water go away.
So they get a manual too, but it’s, it’s very similar to what the men’s one is. And those PDFs are pretty good. So I actually paid for someone to edit those and, you know, like put a camera on them and like some pretty stuff.
Kristy: Yeah, that’s nice.
Andrew: I don’t do anything pretty usually. Those are some of the prettiest things I’ve done.
Kristy: It sounds like you’re a proud father. It sounds amazing. And because I love your point system and I kind of need to understand it a little bit more because I’m thinking what if someone gamed the system, if it’s the biggest wouldn’t they try to seem have poor points in the beginning and high points. It’s the biggest transformation.
Andrew: So the 28-day challenge is just you there’s no prize at the end, right? The personal best thing there is a prize for most improvement. I mean, you know, when you’re talking about one of the events in the personal best thing is body fat, so who can get the list, but the other four are all performance-based things.
So if you decide to starve yourself, to try to lose as much fat as possible. You’ll take it in the other four events anyway. And so, you know, if you say to me, well, I’m 6% body fat. I say, great. Show me a photo. And you’re clearly not 6% body fat, or it doesn’t matter what you say does it? Because I mean, these days with pictures and video and whatever, I mean, I can see exactly what you’ve got.
Andrew’s perspective on clients who don’t want feedback
Andrew: The 28-day challenge. I call out a lot of people for bullshitting me. You know, a lot of people say, “Aw, I gave myself this for food.” I’m like, “Well, what would I give you for food?” if I was scoring that. And I had a conversation yesterday with a client where I said, “To me, it sounds like breakfast, lunch, and a snack are going well, is dinner as good?” “Oh, well, you know…” So that’s annoying.
That’s okay. I’m not mad, but let’s be honest about stuff. And so a lot of guys don’t like that I’ve had, for instance, my partner is a firefighter, right? I’ve trained in Melbourne. We’ve got about three and a half thousand firefighters. Only about 10% of the women, are women I’ve trained, 10% of the 10%, right?
So like I’ve trained a disproportionate number of female firefighters. And I know a lot of firefighters thanks to my partner. And I had a guy from another state who was a firefighter telling me, I didn’t know anything about his job. You’ve been a firefighter for one year, I know everything about what you’re doing because you are where my partner was five years ago.
I remember everything. I remember like how hard it was getting to sleep. I remember, you know, like the stress on the body. I remember that the little injuries from being tired and doing something dumb and dropping something or not picking up great. I know everything about your job but didn’t like being told actually the way he was at, it was nothing special.
Because, you know, at the time I’ve got guys in special forces, I’ve got guys in SWAT, I’ve got guys who are doing really demanding stuff on very, very limited hours of sleep. I’ve got a guy who’s a cardiologist. So he routinely works at 20 hours shifts at his hospital and then goes home and goes to sleep for about a day.
Yeah, so people don’t like being called on this stuff. And I just feel about it. Like if they’re not prepared to be coached, then we can’t work together. And so I fired another guy recently for the same thing, he didn’t like being told what he was doing wrong. You hired me to tell you to help you, but you are not happy to actually be coached.
So until you’re ready to be taught, I can’t help you. And so here’s your money back and I’ll see you later.
So until you’re ready to be taught, I can’t help you. And so here’s your money back and I’ll see you later.
And the benefit now is, so when I had the gym, I would have had to keep training those people. I didn’t have enough spare money that I could turn them down.
Now, things are pretty comfortable and I can actually say to people, “Hey, we’re just not a good fit. There’s no hard feelings for me, but. So here’s your money back and I’ll see you right up.”
The grand prize categories in Andrew’s 28-day challenge
Kristy: Okay. So tell me, since I misunderstood how the prizes work, I think you said there are four transformation prizes. Well, what are the categories?
Andrew: It’s five events. So it’s body fat is one, right? So let’s see who can get the leanest. It’s a 2K row, max deadlift, max pushups, max pull-ups. And so I didn’t just pick them up randomly, I picked body fat, because when you’re leaner, I know you’re healthy and your risk of heart attack goes down.
This is not aimed at the guys who had 10% body fat or whatever already. This is aimed at the guys with 30% body fat and really need to get healthy. So I know, straight away when you lose fat, you’re going to be healthier. You’re going to be around longer to be a good dad, look after your kids more.
So that’s why that’s there. The 2K row, because I know if your time improves that both your aerobic and anaerobic fitness has gone up when your cardiovascular system is healthy, I know you’re going to be around longer. The biggest two gifts I can give to you is a better heart and lungs and lose body fat, because that means you’re less likely to have a heart attack.
So the biggest killer for guys over 44 is heart attack. Under 44 in Australia, it’s suicide. Now I’m not a mental health professional. So I don’t really deal with that stuff. I try to help people with some really basic self-help kind of stuff. But mostly to make them accountable for their stuff and not point the finger at the universe and blame other people.
It’s not my job. My job is to make people healthy. So I focus on health first, so lose fat and get a good heart, lungs. It’s the thing that’s most likely to keep your lives. That’s why those two things are there.
Max deadlift, because it’s a maximum strength test. And pushups and pull-ups because of their strength endurance. So actually with those five things, I cover an awful lot of stuff. The only other thing that I would reasonably want to add in it would be who gets closest to doing the splits or something. So we had a flexibility test as well because the range of motion is still important.
Andrews competition structure that allows extremely fit and extremely unfit clients to fairly compete with each other
[22:23] Andrew: The ranking is not like if you come in and let’s use the row as an example. So a seven-minute time for the 2K row for a guy is pretty quick. So if you come in and you’re already a 720 and you go to a 710, that’s great. 710 is really fast, well done, like super job. But if someone else comes in and I was 740 and I got down to 710, even though you had the same time, the guy who improved the most scores, the highest.
So each event, they get range one to 25 because there are 25 guys. The goal is like golf is to have the lowest score. So your goal would be to have the most improvement in body fat, the most improvement in the row, the most improvement in deadlift. And that’s clearly not going to happen. Like some of the guys who, I’ve got two guys who were crazy lean, like one of the guys is like six and a half percent body fat.
But he’s only 60 kilos, 135 pounds. He’s just a little guy, you know, he’s deadlifting his road. I’m not going to be his strong point. whereas you’ve got guys who are like 220 pounds deadlifting 450 to 500 pounds. But, you know, like, obviously struggling for body fat. So, you know, there’s some differences there, so no one is going to rank high in everything.
So it’s kind of a neat thing. I guess it’s somewhat like the actual pentathlon, decathlon, dilemma, it’s very rare to find someone who would win every event. Like that’s unheard of. Right. So, watching the different dynamics and it’s funny what people’s eyes get drawn to. So, you know, when you think about it from an advertising perspective, I can tell you how great the program is.
I can show you the difference in someone’s row. I can tell you what the difference in the deadlift is, but the number one thing that still sells fitness is abs. Right. I don’t focus on it. And I joke about it is that I think I’ve got more 40 year old guys with six packs than any other training in the world.
And because the number of guys I’ve got six packs is nearly all of them. So there’s not many guys with six packs anyway, and there’s not many 40-year old guys with 6 packs and I’ve got maybe 35 or 40 of them. So, when I need to advertise something like the 28-day challenge, the most successful way I can advertise it is going to, here’s a before shoot, here’s an after shot, abs, boom, there’s my post.
And people buy that. If I make a post about like, I’ve had a number of diabetics do it. And so this is really serious, right? Because we’re talking about insulin use. We’re talking about potential death. We’re talking about like a whole bunch of really dangerous side effects. And I talk about having, or going down to a quarter of their insulin use about like, better sleep about all these different things that have improved.
That’s really powerful. No one cares, no one even notices, but put up pictures with abs and people will buy it. So, it’s when guys in the group doing the challenge, I’m talking about who’s doing the best and who’s not, and they go, “But so-and-so look at his picture.”
I’m like, “Yeah but, but you do more pushups, you do more pull-ups, you lift heavier. I’m not really sure why you’re just focused on this one thing.” It’s very interesting seeing what the mindset of the fitness consumer is. The fitness consumer is still concerned about abs primarily. I mean, if you’re a dude, let’s be honest, it’s muscly and ripped. If you’re a chicken, skinny and ripped, those are the things that everyone wants to buy.
How to make sure clients are not gaming the system for virtual challenge that is based off of improvement numbers
Kristy: Yeah. It’s tough to get away from. I mean, even looking at your page. you know, you naturally become very impressed by these pictures, so I totally get the struggle, but at the same time, and you’ve adapted to the struggle and you do have to kind of talk about what does convert.
So put some abs up. Why not? So, you have these interesting challenges. And since it’s virtual, how do you make sure that that’s accurate? And they actually do, like, in the beginning, they don’t kind of, you know, try to shoot short so they can have a bigger change.
Andrew: So the push-ups, pull-ups and deadlift they video. So, I can see them and like I’ve watched enough people do pushups to know if someone’s got three or four reps in the tank or they genuinely went to failure and nearly knocked their teeth out. I’ve seen enough people deadlift.
Andrew’s personal accomplishment — training his 78-year-old mother to win a world championship deadlift
Andrew: So, my mother and this is, you know, talking about training systems. My 78-year old mother is a two-time world champion, full-time world record holder in the deadlift. Now she’s tiny, she’s only 50 kilos, like 110 pounds, but on one of the world championships, she was the strongest woman in the world on that day, based on there’s a formula for like age and gender and whatever.
So, I’ve seen legit maxes pulled it all kinds of levels. Even up to a world championship level. I’ve seen it at all ages because you know, at the world champions you can compete with like on different days, but you’ll have guys like the mountain will be there competing on one day and then the next day will be my grandmother right by my 78 year old mother lifting.
How he make sure all challengers submit accurate benchmarks at the beginning of the challenge
Andrew: So, I’ve seen what max looks like. If a guy pops up off the floor, like he’s got 20 kilo in reserve, well, I noticed that. And so, with the rowing again, I’ve seen that many people row, that many times. I know if I look at someone, I’ll be like, “Ah, that’s about what I’d expect or, you know, I’ve got a rough ballpark.”
And we had that at the start of the last challenge was. One of the guys he’s rowing time was really slow, I said to him “What happened? Did you fall off the rower or something like it’s about two minutes slower than what I would’ve expected.” And he said, “Oh no, I was actually sick. I kind of have a cough, a bit of a fever.” And whatever it is, this is January. So this is like just at the start of the coronavirus stuff. And so luckily he didn’t have it, but I might even wait two weeks and retest it.
Because I said, what you’ve done is not accurate, you know, so we need an accurate starting point. So, I might video and whatever makes all this stuff possible now. And you know, again, having done it with so may people so many times, like if someone says to me, “Oh, you know, I did three pushups to start with, and then they finished with 63.”
That’s not possible. No one makes that kind of improvement. So you lied to me at the start. So, it’s noticeable. Video allows you to check all that stuff now.
Same start date or different start dates for his 28-day challenge?
Kristy: Yeah. Okay. That’s interesting. And I’ve never heard of that type of virtual challenge and I’m really into fitness challenges.
So I’m really kind of geeking out on this if that’s okay. So, I guess my question for next part, when you put on these 28-day challenges, does everyone start at the same time and then like the beginning of the month and the end because you know, people come to different times.
Andrew: Yeah. Nice. So the thing with the five events, that’s the personal best thing, that’s three months that starts at a set date. So they’re now into, this is halfway through week three. The 28-day challenge starts at a set time as well. There’s actually one that’s sort of advertised at the moment. It’s starting August 3, obviously runs for four weeks after that plus, you know, another week to wrap up at the end, but all of them start at the same time.
Why he makes challengers prove themselves in the beginning of the challenge
[29:20] Andrew: Yeah, because one of the things that people miss online is actually contact. So as much as you know, like even if we’re training one to one, if you went to the gym, you’d still have people that were there at the same time. You maybe talked to them, or you say hi to the staff.
And like you still get contact with people. Being in a group is really important to success. So there are studies that showed that you’re six times more successful if you’re part of a group if it’s some group accountability with your fitness journey, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s writing or fat loss or whatever, like being part of a group is really important.
And so, for people would be allowed to stay in the group they have to prove themselves to be good teammates. So I kicked people out even before challenges begin because they haven’t done what they’re supposed to do. So right now in the 28-day challenge, they’ve got their homework which is a 90-second intro video so I get to know you.
Now I know some of the people who come in, because maybe I’ve done stuff with them before, or I’ve met them at workshops or whatever. But a lot of the people, I don’t know, there were over 300 guys who’d done that in the last 12 months. So, there are definitely guys in there that I’ve never met before.
There are people who sign up through Facebook with no profile picture and their profile is completely locked down as you can’t even go in there and kind of snoop them a bit and get to know them. It’s really important that I get to know them so I can help them.
So I started advertising last week, bunch of guys signed up, no one had done the intro videos over the weekend. And you know, like you can see on those stats, right? Like I can see every person in this group right now has actually watched this video. And yet none of you have done the hard work yet.
So I got on there Monday morning, I said, right. So first thing I said, and in the video, it says that actions count and that’s not being a wallflower in this group. If you plan on staying here, this is what you need to do. You guys need to pull your finger out and actually follow the instructions, or you’re not going to be successful.
And so magically yesterday, a whole bunch of videos appeared, right? And so now I get to know them, I can interact with them. But we’ve actually been done in the process now. Whereas if they’re not interacting and being part of the group, it’s no good. So even though the challenges start at a set time, there’s usually a two or three-week leading period, and I tell everyone don’t wait until the last minute, because the 28-day challenge, for instance, and now they get a video tonight, cause it’s Wednesday, they’ll get another one Monday next week.
That’s the final week on Thursday next week, they get a video a day that’s 20 minutes, that explains the point system, that explains the manual, that explains how we eat, that explains the exercises just one after another.
If you’re not up to date and you’re still going to make your videos, you now have two hours of videos to watch as well. Plus the manual to read through. You’re going to be inundated with stuff, and you’re going to start on the back foot because what should really happen is Sunday next week, you should be at the supermarket, buying your food and then prepping your food to start on Monday. If you think you’re going to sign up on Sunday night and be ready to go on Monday, it’s not going to happen. So I usually encourage people to get in there as fast as possible.
How he uses an interactive mini chat funnel as a sign-up process
Andrew: And from a business perspective, it means that you, there’s people who kind of who decide not to sign up. And so it’s a mini chat funnel. We talked about this before, right? So, the signup for it is a mini chat thing. I see through my messenger, how many times you’ve kicked the tires on it before. So there’s a guy right now, and this is no joke. He’s nearly signed up. He’s gone to the end of the signup sequence six times over 18 months. He hasn’t signed up ever. So, you know, from my perspective, I want this guy to shit or get off the pot.
You need to actually get involved or don’t bother me ever again, because right now all you are is a waste of time for me. I need you to actually spend some money with me. So, you know, it’s worth the investment I’ve put in, in terms of the content and stuff like that.
But I actually sent him a message and said, “Hey man, 18 months. This is going to be a world record. No one else has thought about it six times and not signed up.” He hasn’t signed up, but it’s good because now I know not to bother with him anymore. He’s just not going to be a customer. So that’s okay. Whereas you push other people.
And I said the same message nearly to another guy who nearly signed up four times and said, “Hey man, like four times over 12 months, like it’s time to either get serious or admit, you’re not that serious about getting in shape.” He signed up straight away.
So, that thing has helped tremendously. But it also gives you freedom as a business owner because there’s nothing worse. Let’s face it. You make a sales call with someone they tell you they’ll think about it. You never hear back from them. You’re like, well, do I keep message them?
Do I annoy them? Do I email? Like, what do I do? Just tell me. I’m okay, I’m going to tell you there are 7 billion people I can chase down for sales. If you say no, I’m okay. It’s much better you say no than I keep chasing you for another three or four weeks trying to figure out whether you’re serious or not. This guy 18 months, I’ve been trying to convert you. Just tell me no, man.
How he uses his $100 28-day fitness challenge to increase sales
Kristy: So that brings me to my next question. So, it was really interesting understanding what your program is and then the different levels. And, Oh, before I forget, just a small question as you mentioned you had the 28-day program and then the personal best program. The personal best is three months, right? That’s a group program.
Is the 28-day one, the hundred dollar one?
Andrew: The real picture of the 28-day initially was I was sick of having to tell people to go to bed, right? Like I should not have to tell a 40-year old guy that you need more than five hours of sleep a night. You’re not effective. And we can’t train hard while you’re doing that.
So, I wrote this thing initially as a handout to clients to say, this is like the basic lifestyle rules I need you to adhere to. So that actually your money is going to be well spent with me. So we optimize what we’re doing. And then I send it to this football strength conditioning coach guy. And he said like, “Are you gonna sell this?”
I was like, I’ve never thought about that if I should totally sell it. And so, I came up with a scoring system and you’re like, and what it’s become is so:
A. It’s a really good way for the clients to learn the basics. So, that’s the first thing is the understand now the importance of sleep and food. Because the training, it is not very much, it’s half an hour, roughly a day, six days a week for four weeks.
And there’s no crazy like hip program or like insane intervals or whatever. It’s all very moderate and easy, but they give these great results. And so they see how important the lifestyle stuff is. So that’s the first thing.
B. And the second thing is it actually gets people used to give me some money. So, here from a sales perspective, I have to take you from either cold where you’re maybe just looking at my Facebook page, reading an article or slightly warmer where you’re in my fitness group. So now you’re actually a fan and you’ve come into my fitness group, but you’re still not actually a customer at this point.
And I need to get used to being a customer and giving me some money. So, you know, I need to, it’s a low cost entry to getting to work with me, and then you should like me and trust me at the end. And then I put an offer in front of you and we convert you to one-on-one or into this personal best thing, or one of the other programs that I’m now working on. So there’s there’s options for people.
Stay tuned for the third part of this interview with Andrew!
Andrew Read
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