Content is King in the 50+ Market - Jay Croft

If you want to distinguish yourself in your community, you want to be seen as an expert, and you want to establish really good relationships with a great number of people who will come to you at some point, then I think content is really a key part of that. Advertising just won't do it. It's just too annoying and too transactional. It's not the way we consume information anymore.

Welcome back, Fitness Friends. This is the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. And this is your host, Eric Malzone. And this is a quick request to hit pause and go to helpmypodcast.com and just fill out one minute, quick survey. Um, I think it's six questions in all I want. I'm not selling anything. I just want to find out what you value in this show. So helpmypodcast.com. It'll really uh be extremely valuable to me and what we do here to offer more value, finding out more about you, what you are looking for, uh, what you find helpful. Um, and we'll double double double down on that in 2020. So it would be extremely helpful for everybody if you go to helpmypodcast.com and fill out the survey. Greatly appreciated. So this is episode number 166. This is an interview with Jay Croft. He is the founder of PrimefitContent.com. And uh Jay's a very talented guy. Um, great, as you can tell through the interview, he's a uh very well spoken, um, excellent writer, and he's got a great story to tell. And what he does now is he helps fitness professionals reach the 50 over market. And we came to a number here uh during the show. It's a market of about 100 million uh in North America, 100 million people that are being underserved by fitness professionals. If that doesn't smell like opportunity to you, then uh I don't know what to tell you. You know, I just don't. It's it's a huge market, it's a great market. And I've said it many times on this show before, it's something that I think people should very, very much uh consider going after and adapting your business to them. So not only does he talk about that, he also talks about you know what it is to create great content on an ongoing content marketing strategy and how valuable and vital it is to the fitness profession to have one. Um it's how you build trust, it's how you gain clients in the long term, it's how you build retention, it's all these things. It's core. And if you're not doing it, reconsider or hire someone like Jay. That's my message. Primefitcontent.com and Jay Croft. So um, two sponsors, level five mentors, L-E-V-E-L, the number five mentors.com. If you are interested, if you're an entrepreneur and you're interested in the highest levels of freedom in your time, your money, your relationships, your purpose, and your health, then you probably align with our values, and I believe we can help you if you're stuck. So go to levelfive mentors.com, go ahead and book a free consultation with me. Love to chat with you and find out more about you. Um, our other sponsor is certifiedcoursecreation.com. So if you have a concept for an online accredited certification, uh, and you're not sure how to bring it to market, uh, we want to help. So uh why why? Why an online accredited certification? Why? Because the market's huge. People are constantly looking for CEUs, and you probably have a solid knowledge base that you need to get out there in the world and you need to leverage yourself and you need to get that message out, and you can stop training time for money and have a great online product that's literally selling while you sleep. Compelling, I think, right? So certifiedcoursecreation.com, go check it out, and uh you can book a call there as well. Without further ado, let's get on to it. Episode number 166, Mr. Jay Croft from PriFitContent.com. We're live. Jay Croft, welcome to the show, man.

Hi, Eric. Glad to be here.

Yeah, really excited to have you. And uh before we dive into your story and the wonderful world of content marketing, I want to ask my audience, um, because I know a lot of people fast forward through the initial introduction like I do with many of my podcasts. So, audience, I need your help. I'm taking a survey this year um to make this show better in 2020. So if you can go to helpmypodcast.com, I believe it's five questions. Just take one minute of your day. Helpmypodcast.com, do the survey, give me some feedback on how we can improve this thing going into next year. I would greatly appreciate it. So let's say that's my quick pitch. Uh on to Jay. Um, Jay man, I I've got to know you quite well over the past uh, I don't know, six, six to nine months. And yeah the uh the value that you're offering to the market is outrageously good. And you have a great background. I'm I'm not going to um I'm gonna let you tell your story, kind of how you got into this, because you know you you've got a lot of experience on your belt. So give us some background on yourself, kind of how you got to what you're doing now with uh Prime Fit content.

Sure. Happy to. Thanks for thanks for having me, Eric. Um so my career, most of my career has been in large communications organizations, primarily in the mainstream media. Uh I was a newspaper reporter for about 20 years, newspaper reporter and editor at newspapers across the country. And that's all I wanted to be. I wanted to be a newspaper journalist. And then um, when the internet and smartphones came along, that took a really big hit on the newspaper industry. And uh, like most of my colleagues, I had to find a new way to make a living about 10 or 12 years ago. And so I sort of stumbled into corporate communications and was fortunate to work for some very large, powerful corporations that are based here in Atlanta, and learned a lot from them and met some really smart people and realized ultimately after a few years that that was not the situation that I wanted to be in. I like creative situations and I like writing and I like talking to people and I like sharing their stories in ways that uh help someone grow their business in positive ways. And that's uh largely what drew me to journalism many years ago, and then um I wanted to get back to that. So I was at a bit of a crisis, I don't know, four or five years ago. I'm 56 now, and this crisis came around shortly after I turned 50 when I realized that I could no longer do Fortune 500 marketing and communications because it was just not a good place for me. And um I needed something more creative and more rewarding to me. And so I thought about the things that are important to me and the topics that I read about and would enjoy writing about anyway. I came up with a few categories and I pursued work as a writer and journalist and content marketer in those categories. And one of them was fitness. I'm not a trainer, but I've been working on my whole adult life. It's second nature to me now, it's important to me, always has been, and I'm interested in it. So, along these the same time, like I said, I just turned 50, and and you're a few years away from that, Eric, and you're gonna find out.

Let's keep let's keep it to you, Jay.

I'm sorry. My story, my story. Well, shortly after I turned 15, you know, I I noticed that um I was no longer the target of marketing campaigns and pop culture and entertainment. You know, the the demographic that everybody wants is about 18 to about 42 or so, and 45 maybe, and I'd always been in that age group, you know, but then suddenly I got to be about 50, and I noticed, man, all the marketing was not relevant to me at all, and even less so to anyone older than me. Our culture is youth obsessed, as you know, and our industry, the fitness industry, is youth obsessed. It's all about being young and hot and having six-pack abs and the girls looking good in their booty shorts and all of that. And that's great. I have no problem with any of that. But there needs to be more. You know, uh, I just felt like the fitness industry was not speaking to the 80 million baby boomers in this country alone, which I am one, and they were missing a huge opportunity. And so I thought, well, that's a way I can meld what I do, communications and content, to serve the fitness industry and the fitness um consumer as well. Looked into it, found out that nobody's really doing it. And uh, I think it's really important. You and I both know a lot of trainers who are trying to help people live their best lives. And I want to help those trainers and gym owners and studio owners reach more people through my content that will distinguish those gyms and studios and trainers in their communities. It tells the tells the community, hey, I'm here, I care about you, uh, I want to help you enjoy your best life, whatever that is for you. So that's that's kind of how I got into it. It's why it's important to me. It's it's very um personal to me and the people I care about, and uh gives me a chance to uh to uh I hope do some good in the world, help people, help others.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And and you know, that story is is compelling. And you know, if people even don't pick up on on that messaging, the the number of 80 million should get people's attention alone, right? Yes, it should. That market is tremendous. And you know, having worked with the you know 50, 55 plus, um, you know, out of all the coaches, all the classes that I've coached or people I've trained, I've always enjoyed that market the most. Yeah. Because it's um there's just no BS. It's like it's it's so you can do so much good, right? By just helping someone improve the quality of their life. And you don't get those, you know, no one's there as I mean, very there are a percentage all population, but they're not there to get like optimal fitness or you know, eight percent body fat. They just want to feel better, yeah, continue to stay active. Yeah, right. I mean, you you wrote a nice little ebook on kind of like what the seven, is it seven? Seven, yeah. Yeah, like go over that. Like what are the what are the seven the reasons that sure.

So I I noticed over the last over the first year or so that I was writing about writing content for uh fitness over fifty market. I pretty quickly noticed that there were about seven categories that almost every person I met who had a really powerful story about why they wanted to either get fit or stay fit at this stage in life, kind of fit into one of about seven categories. Now you could quibble and say six or eight or whatever, but I picked seven. And they're very compelling uh and they're very interesting. And to me, as a writer, as a storyteller, I'm more compelled by people in those seven categories than than I might be by some young guy who just you know wants to look good in a tight t-shirt. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not terribly interesting to me as a writer, and it's it's not terribly lucrative to gym owners and and trainers for a number of reasons that we can get into later. Um so the some of the reasons that I found people over 50 want to get fit or stay fit. Things like they want to be able to enjoy their grandchildren. You know, a lot of people at this stage in life, they have been working really hard their whole lives, and now they're approaching retirement and their kids are grown and they're starting to have grandkids, but they haven't been active. They were busy raising kids and paying off the mortgage and going to work every day, and suddenly they wake up one day and maybe they're overweight or they're pre-diabetic or they've been smoking or their back is, they have chronic back pain, what have you. Very common things. And they want to get down on the floor and play with the baby and they can't. So a lot of them will go to a gym and a trainer and say just that. Help me. I don't want to be the boring nana. I don't want to be the the pop pop that nobody wants to play with, right? I want to enjoy my grandchildren, help me do that. That's one. Another is their sports. You know, I have a lot of friends who've been who've played sports or golf their whole lives or any number of other sports, but just happen to be a couple that that uh men that I know really well. They're not suddenly going to stop wanting to play golf and tennis because their their age changes. Oh, I'm 52. I guess I'll give up this thing that I really love. Why? They don't they don't want to, they want to still be competitive, they want to still beat their brother-in-law's ass. They you know, they want to still be able to enjoy the day golfing without you know getting sore and uh winded, and and they want to keep their strength on their drive, right? So that's another another really good reason. And uh travel, you know, when you when you think about it, let's say you're 25 and you're going to Europe, you don't worry about whether you're strong enough and fit enough to go on the tours and to climb up the steps and to stand in the lines and to lug around the luggage and to get lost, you know, while you're trying to find your hotel or whatever typical travel, let alone something that's really more demanding, like a lot of bucketless trips tend to be. But I've met a lot of people over 50, 60, 70 who have always enjoyed traveling, and they notice that their c their buddies that they're going traveling with are really boring because they can't leave the hotel room. Their back hurts, or they're tired, or they don't think that they can climb those famous steps to the at the top of the cathedral or whatever, you know, and and they don't want to be like that. So they go to the gym or the trainer or the studio and say exactly that. So it's not so much I want to go to the gym so I can go to the gym, or I want to be fit so I can be fit. It's like I want you to help me live the life that I want to live, the life that I have lived and want to continue to live. I want my autonomy, I want my health, I don't want to fall, and I don't want to be a burden on anybody. That's really compelling. That's rich stuff. And it doesn't go away. So you get somebody at 50, 60, 70 years old with those goals, that's a long-term client. That's a lot of money for a trainer or a gym or a studio. Yeah. So yeah, those those are like the I could go on about the other seven, uh, all seven, but it you get you get the point. They're really compelling reasons.

Yeah, very compelling. And it's it's interesting to me because if I asked 21-year-old Eric um what 43-year-old Eric would look like, I'd be like, oh, he's done. He's old, really, probably overweight. I'm 43. I feel better than I did at 25. And people are now living, you know, you talk about this magical retirement age, which is, you know, going the way of the buffalo. But it's like, you know, 60, 65, you know, back, you know, 40 years ago, even 30 years ago, that was like, okay, you got about, you retire, you got about 10 more years, and now people are looking at 30, right? Anecdotally, this is interesting, is that the the mountain that I ski at every every winter, uh, whitefish used to have this deal was once you hit 70, you got free season pass, right? They upped that they got rid of it because there was too many active 70 plus people skiing. I mean, now it's like 150 for the year, like it's still ridiculously cheap. But they're like, yeah, yeah. Like we can't see it's the numbers too big. And that's like people look at 80 million and they're like, okay, well, that's a lot. But just from that one small calculation, I don't live, oh, this isn't a big town. We're talking about 7,000 people, right? That they had a major investment like that. So people are it's it's it's a very active crowd. They won't they see that, like, hey, my the days, days are going way out now.

90s, yes, yeah, hundreds. Yeah, right, just the way it is. We're living longer uh for a number of reasons for that. We don't smoke as much as we used to, we don't drink as much as we used to. Fitness became a part of the everyday culture for common, ordinary, everyday folks in the 70s and 80s. All of that's different than when our parents grew up. You know, when a lot of people smoked, a lot of people drank a lot, and fitness was like, what? What's that? You know, something you watched on the Olympics every four years on TV, you know, wasn't a part of it wasn't a part of everyday life for millions of Americans like it is now. So we live longer, and you know, this baby boom generation, the 80 million that we're talking about, they've always run the world, really. It's the biggest consumer market in the history of the planet. So to um ignore that market, any industry is doing that at its own peril, to pursue that market is smart. You know, you're whatever your fitness goal is, if you're in this generation, if you're over 50, 55 and up, you know, you don't want to just quit living. You're not just gonna stop, you want to keep doing it. And that skiing example that you gave is really powerful for two reasons. One, because it's typical of all kinds of athletic events and lifestyle things that people enjoy doing, and the other because it's not so typical in that it's very expensive. You know, skiing is an expensive hobby or sport or what have you. It's not something that everybody can can just do all the time. It's something you have to save for, and it's a that's a big deal, which again speaks to the attractiveness of the the baby boomer market, the over 50 market. I want to want to say one thing about I keep saying baby boomer, but that's just sort of an easy conversational way to talk about it. It's really more than the baby boomers. The baby boomer generation was 1946 to 1964, and there are about 80 million of those people in the United States. But a lot of over 50, a lot of people over 50 are not baby boomers. They're either Gen Xers coming up after us, baby boomers, or they're um whatever they were called before baby boomers. I don't know if that generation had a name, but you know, my my mother, for instance, is not a baby boomer, but she's still a vibrant active person with money to spend on fitness. You know, so when you add in all of that, it's more like a hundred million.

Yeah.

Yeah. Big, big numbers. And what's interesting, and I I don't want to belabor the skiing thing, but every year, uh another thing that's fascinating about this example is that there's a a vertical like competition every year. Like how many vertical feet can you ski? Right. And there's a you can see people have season passes, like who's who's on the leaderboard? Yeah. Top five are all in their 70s. I mean, granted, they have more time than most people. Yeah. But still, like, what does that say? Like they're they're skiing the most out of everybody. So it's it's it's really interesting. And I think we've proven a good point. I I think people should focus on it. If I was gonna go back and open a gym today, uh, first of all, I'd probably be facing divorce. But um, I would go, I would go to the 50 plus. I would just focus on that. Oh, and be super happy about it because um great clients refer um loyal, uh, have money to pay for you know the right, the right service, um, and just you know, the the metrics that you need to get to hit to make them happy and and is is a lot easier than trying to get someone down to eight percent body fat. Yeah, that's challenging.

That's hard.

It's hard. Yeah, that's hard. So yeah, it's awesome. So let's let's talk about content marketing, right? Sure. Um can we define it?

Yeah, sure. There's a number of definitions about it, and you know, just basically it means providing useful and engaging and relevant information to your target audience that isn't a hard sell, that provides some kind of value and then helps you establish a relationship with people who could become your clients at some point. Um that's a pretty good definition of it, I think. Uh, it is not advertising. Advertising is is one shot to you come and give me your money, and I'll give you a 20% discount, or I'll give you a two-for-one special, and this expires next Tuesday, or whatever. It's a hard sell. Um and that's important. You know, maybe you should be doing that at your at your gym or studio in your training business. Uh it's not an either-or. Um, but content is a conversation that you have with your prospects and with your clients as well that shows that you value them. It's a way to provide interesting conversation material and to show that you appreciate them for more than just uh a quick buck, right? It's like I think of it as like um if you have an old friend that you haven't heard from for several years and he only calls you when he needs a favor or he needs 500 bucks or something, uh, everything's very transactional. You know, nobody likes that. But if you've got someone who you have a steady relationship with and you engage each other on a regular basis and there's no forgive me, quid pro quo, you know, it's just a it's just a relationship, then that's that's good. I'll give you an example. You know, you think about email. We all get tons of email, and gyms and trainers and studios need to be sending email to their con to their prospects at least three times a week. And when I tell people this, a number of them say, Oh, I don't want Be that guy who bombards people and is annoying with too many emails. And I say, give them good stuff, and you won't be annoying them. They'll be looking forward to it. They'll be happy to see, hey, there's another email from Eric. I always like what he sends me. If you send them an endless barrage of how great you are and all the certifications you have, and how what your personal best is at the bench press and how great you are at what is it, sumo squats instead of regular squats and blah, blah, blah, then yeah, I'm gonna unsubscribe from that right away. So, you know, it's important about your that your content be good and engaging and not a hard sell. It's important that it be consistent and valuable. And um that's just the approach. It's a more long key low-key long-term establishment of a relationship instead of a quick hit sale.

Yeah. And it's it's uh I think it's the the foundation, besides having a great product and service, which is number one, right? I think it's the foundation of any great marketing strategy for a business. There you gotta have, because if you're if you're paying for ads, this is this is just you know one man's opinion, but it's probably true. If you're paying for ads, you know, only X amount is gonna convert right up front for whatever offer you have, right? Yeah. The gold is in the next one to 12 months where you're following up with content marketing, building the trust, right? That's um, I've seen, you know, Nicole Spencer was on the show not too long ago, brilliant, you know, really good content marketer. Um, she started her whole business, which is quite successful now, uh, off a list of 30 people, right? She just started delivering these people really good content, you know, heartfelt, to the point, connecting, right? Authentic, honest, all of those key things and make great content marketing. And then she grew right. And people are like, well, I don't have a list. I'm like, sure you do. You can compile a list of 30 people. I guarantee anybody listening right now, you can compile a list of 30 emails and start your content marketing, right? That's right. That's right. That's it. And and you just start doing it. And I look at it like um aerobic training. One of my initial coaches was James Piscelli. He's like, true aerobic training is sustainable and repeatable. Okay. Right? So if you're if your content marketing is sustainable, which means like if you can truly only get to your email and send one out once a week, right? That's all you can do. You're so limited on time. That's great. Do it once a week, but do it for 12 months. Yeah, that's right. It's that's right, it's way better than nothing because you're constantly in their mind, subconscious or consciously, right?

Yes, all that is true and very important. And there's another thing that I think is perhaps uh not consciously realized on everyone's part, but I think is just as important. If you're not consistent with it, then it shows that you don't take it seriously and you don't care about it. And therefore, your audience isn't gonna take it seriously, and your audience isn't gonna care about it. They're gonna know it's something that you just gotta check off your to-do list. Fine, here's another bullshit email, or here's another stupid blog post. Fine, leave me alone now. And then you don't do it for three weeks, and before you know it, a year has gone by, and it's just clear to the people you're trying to reach that you're really not trying to reach them, and that you really don't care. And uh, I'll tell you, you know, a lesson about this. It might come from my newspaper background, right? Where we at we lived on deadlines, you know, deadlines are everything, and it has to get done right now because it has to the newspaper has to be on all the doorsteps at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. or whatever it is. So, no, you don't get to do it tomorrow. I mean, you can try it again tomorrow and and you write another article or create another ad or something, but you have to do it right now because that's the commitment you made to your audience that we will give you the news every morning. When I went to a corporate job, my my job was to create the company magazine on a they told me on a quarterly basis, and I came in and quickly found out that they weren't producing on a quarterly basis, they were kind of just doing it whenever. And um, I said, no, you know, we gotta we gotta bring some rigor to this, we have to do it quarterly. Well, why? It doesn't matter, we'll just do it whenever we do it. No one cares. I said, that's right, then no one cares. You're spending a lot of money to send this information to all of your many, many thousands of employees, presumably for some reason, right? There's some business reason why it's you have decided that it's important to communicate with your employees. If you want them to read that information and take it seriously and give it credibility, then they have to know that it means something to you. And if you just kind of crap it out once every three months or five months or seven months or whenever the heck we feel like it, yeah, come on. That's just not gonna work. If you don't take your work seriously, then your audience won't take it seriously either. So that's my preaching about deadlines, man. They matter.

Yeah, they matter a lot. I mean, deadlines get shit done. That's it. You know, um, I, you know, for a very long time, um, I took a little hiatus, but I'm back to it now with my email list. But two-week minimum. You know, two a week minimum.

Yeah.

That was it. As long as you hit it on Monday and Wednesday, if you want to throw an extra one in there, that's great. But it's gotta be minimum, you gotta commit to it. It's gotta be the thing that you do, and it will pay off. And that's the thing, is like people are like, we'll try it for maybe this is and this is a good, you know, segue into like what can people expect, right? From an ROI perspective, is people like, well, I tried it from you know two weeks and I didn't nothing happen.

Yeah, that's true. Well, yeah, and fortunately we have this uh you know this mentality about a lot of things that we want instant results in fitness, but in all sorts of things. And uh, you know, and then think about it in fitness. How many 21-day transformations are we gonna have? And how many new new body by six weeks and the little black dress in time for your sorority party or whatever? Is that fitness? I don't know, is it? I mean, it's one thing to lose 10 pounds in the next two months, it's another to live a healthy lifestyle for the rest of your life. Um so I'm a little, you know, I think it's interesting the way everybody wants something right now and prove it right away. That's what a two for one coupon is for. You know, put a two for one coupon in your local community newspaper or in a flyer or in a direct mailer to everyone in your zip codes, or what have you. And then you know what? You can tell exactly how many people use that because they walk in and they show you and they give you the coupon, and then you know precisely what your ROI is. That's advertising, that has a place in what you're doing, but that's not what we're talking about. So the return on your investment that you're looking for in content is it's a little more nuanced than that. The return on investment that you're gonna get is goodwill, you're gonna get identity, distinction in your community. People are gonna know that, oh, that's Aaron. He likes everybody to come to his gym, not just 25-year-olds, or not just teenagers, or not just old people. But you distinguish yourself in your community by your content. And if you want a certain type of person to come to your gym, then that's the kind of person you put in your content, and that's the kind of person you pursue in your content with your content marketing. And the payoff is um, like I said, in goodwill and in distinguishing yourself in your community and in establishing yourself as an expert on whatever your niche might be. You know, uh, maybe your niche is helping teenage, uh, teenage athletes get get in the maximize their potential so they can get a scholarship, right? Or maybe your niche is helping young mothers lose their their baby weight, or maybe your niche is helping people over 50 get fit or stay fit so they can be clients for yours for the next 20 or 30 years. And uh the way you the way you do that, the way you put your own uh story forth is through content. And if you're not out there telling your story, then they'll find someone who is telling their story because that's what's happening in the world right now. If you don't get it, quote unair quotes get it, your competition gets it. You bet they do. So if you want to distinguish yourself in your community, you want to be seen as an expert, uh, and you want to establish really good relationships with a great number of people who will come to you at some point, then I think content is really a key part of that. Uh advertising just won't do it. It's just too annoying and too transactional. Uh it's not the way we consume information anymore.

Yeah. And we're the last statistics I I read is that we get hit with 3,000 ads per day. Constantly. Per day.

Yeah.

That's insane. Like it's time to try, you know, something that's a little bit more proven, which is building relationships. Uh, you know, we it it you talk about storytelling, and I, you know, another anecdote was we had our first um our first workshop at level five mentors a couple weeks ago in uh in a house up in British Columbia, and it was everyone started with their story the first day. Everyone got around, they told their story, and we heard some really powerful stories. And then the second day we got back to, okay, well, you know, we did stories yesterday. Let's talk about how important storytelling is. And I asked everyone around the room, like, hey, what do you remember about art? Right. And like, well, Art at one point had $44 in his account. Right. And like, well, what do you guys remember about Scott and Katie? Like, well, Scott and Katie had the power turned off at their gym and they had to go, you know, run to the store and get, you know, propane-powered heaters so they can continue until the power thing got figured out. Right. And like, what do you guys remember about Ken? Well, Ken battled cancer and won, right? No one remembered like how successful that person was at the time or how great they were at XYZ or whatever it was. They remembered that that pivotal point where they're like, ooh, that struck me and that struck me here, right in my heart. Like that. And they'll never forget that. I will never forget any of those stories. I will forget everything else about what their business is doing, what it, you know, all of that. Storytelling is incredibly powerful. And people are a little scared to share their story sometimes, right? Yes. But no, it's probably your greatest marketing tool.

Oh, it is. Absolutely. Your personal story and your business story. Sometimes they're the same thing. Um, it's it's what you have. No one else has Eric's story. Eric is the only one with Eric's story, and I'm the only one with mine. And we all have more than one, of course. So, you know, we can we can apply the the storytelling skills to the situation at hand. With trainers in particular, I find that they confuse who's the hero of the story. You know, if a prospect walks into your gym, the prospect is the hero. It's not the trainer. You know, there's a lot of trainers and gym owners who will tell you how, you know, all everything you ever could possibly want to know about them to convince you to give your business to them. I'm gonna be drawn to the one who realizes that it's my story and they're there to help me. And the the example I often use is we we know you think about Star Wars, right? We've all seen Star Wars, and the hero of Star Wars is very clearly Luke Skywalker, the classic hero's journey that we're all familiar with, uh, or maybe we're not, but you know, we are whether we realize it or not. The classic hero's journey is the basis for most stories in Western culture. And and you know, it's Luke's story. Part of the hero's journey is that there is a helper, there's just someone there to help the person become the hero. And that person is uh Obi-Wan Kenobi, right? Who teaches Luke the ways of the force and welcomes him into the world of adulthood and being a man and being a hero and saving the galaxy and all that stuff. So the trainer and the gym owner is not the hero of the story, it's the prospect or the client that's the hero of the story, and your role is to help personally, you're the Obi-Wan Kenobi to their Luke Skywalker. So if you can make that shift, you know, that understand that the story is not mine, it's theirs, then I think that's something to really be aware of. And you're sharing your story so that maybe they'll share yours, share theirs too. And you'll understand why they want to lose that 30 pounds. It's not just because they want to lose 30 pounds, it's maybe it's because, you know, they always felt like the fat, ugly girl in school, and they still do, even though they're successful and happy, right? Um, or any number of reasons that help you as the trainer really understand their motivation and their point of view to do your job to help them get where they want to be.

Yeah. Yeah. It's there, there's the mindset is around content. You mentioned people who like don't want to be salesy. They don't want to be that person who's annoying in their inbox, right? Well, first of all, that's why services like yours exist. You can get someone who's a professional content marketer at primefitcontent.com and then have someone like you actually do it for you at a very, you know, kind of a high value point. Um but you know, one of the things that's always telling me is my sister's a great example. My sister runs one of the biggest women's ministries in on the central coast of California, right? And she writes love letters. They're called love letters. She writes into her list of women. And what she does is she she writes it as if she's writing, she knows, she thinks of one specific person in her ministry, right? And she writes to that person in a caring tone, but something that that person needs to know and understand, right? Yeah. And I find like if you can take that approach, that helps me too. I think about like one person that I want to write to, you know, and how I want to bestow value on and possibly a lesson or something that I can, you know, a coaching moment, right? And I write from that perspective. And then it just feels right. It just feels good. And it's a lot easier when you look at it from that perspective. And that's that's me, right? I like to pick someone an avatar and be like, okay, I'm gonna write to this person today.

Oh, yeah.

Um is that a solid, like what else do you use to help?

Oh, that's a great hack. I'm so I'm so glad that you you you brought that up. The way I often do it is is is I'll I'll say to someone, tell me like you would tell a six-year-old, or tell me like you would tell your mother or your neighbor or your friend from college. Smart, well-intentioned people who care about you, but who don't want to know every freaking little detail, right? They don't want the encyclopedic version. They just want to know how are you and what's new with your situation, whatever it might be. Um, so you know, think of it, think of it like that. You're you're communicating to that person what you think they might need to know instead of just talking until you hope that something useful comes out, right? Um, that's a really good, really good hack. You know, um, I think another one is to always be aware of who you're talking to uh and what you want them to do. You might have to adjust your approach depending on your audience. If you're a gym owner and you're having a team meeting, you might talk to all your trainers and your employees in a certain way. You might use some jargon, you might use some abbreviations, you might get rough with them a little bit if you feel like they've been slacking off or whatever. You're not gonna talk that way necessarily to a group of prospects. But hopefully your key messaging is the same and your core values come through in both conversations. Um you know, you wanna you wanna know who you're talking to, you want to do your homework before the before the interview or conversation or what have you. You don't want to walk into someone and say, Okay, so who are you? Why are you here? You know, you need to know that beforehand. There's no there's no excuse now to not know where someone went to college, where their last job was, or any any number of just basic information. Um, you need to organize the priorities of the conversation so that you don't end up going all over the map. And you can even make those priorities known to the person. Hey, Eric, thanks for coming in today. You know, I just want to remind you, I wanted you to come in and speak to me today because boom, boom, boom. Today we're gonna talk about XYZ. That's great. Give someone expectations, they feel like they're in good hands. Um and then this might sound kind of obvious, but let people let people talk. You know, you want to have a conversation with people. You don't just want to badger them with yes-no staccato answers. You want to ask a variety of questions in a range of styles so that you get some yes-no answers when you need them, but you also let the person just wander a little bit within the boundaries that you've set up so that um you know you can ask some good follow-up questions and and uh let sometimes people need to get warmed up before they can get to the good stuff. So you need to be patient with them. And I think that these principles of of having good conversations really apply no matter what the situation is. You know, I used them when I was a reporter and was interviewing people for all kinds of situations. I also have used them in corporate communications. I now use them when I'm talking to gym owners and trainers, and also when I'm talking to 80-year-old women who just, you know, hiked across the northern Spain and that that uh the hiking trail that you know, the pilgrimage, though I can't think of its name. Yeah, people who've done remarkable things, people who have done ordinary things, whatever it is, if you can just ask the right kind of questions, keep your ears open, let them speak, show a little respect, you know, they they want to share their stories with you. They really do.

What uh in in the world of content creation, content marketing, like who inspires you? Like who who are the people that you look at and like that person's doing it right? Is there anybody like that? I mean, I look at Seth Godin, right? From an entrepreneurial standpoint, and this guy's on point. Is it's like it's like he's talking to you specifically. It's all natural language, it's a very concise thought. He doesn't sell to you very often. When you do, you feel cool, you feel good about it. You're like, oh, thank God he's finally trying to sell me something, right? Like he's offered me so much value that I feel like I I you know what I mean? Like that, who's that for you?

Well, I tell you, someone that I really love in in the content marketing world is a woman named Ann Handley. She is a writer and something of a content marketing guru. And she doesn't really have anything to do specifically with the fitness business. I'm just kind of a fangirl for her. She's um she's my kind of writer and editor, and she's in content marketing, which uh shows me that I'm in the right spot. She wrote a really terrific book that I recommend to anyone. It's called Everybody Writes. And the idea is that nowadays we all do because of the you know the way we communicate now, everybody is a writer and um and needs to learn how to write pretty well. It's no longer something you you know you can just do poorly. If you've got copy on your fitness website that's full of mis uh typo typos or misspellings or poor grammar, why should I give you my business when there are 10 other gyms that have have good copy on their websites? Um if you send me emails that are redundant because you're too lazy to realize that you've just sent me the same content already, I'm gonna unsubscribe from you. I'm not gonna give you my business. So when I say everybody writes and they need to do it pretty well, I don't mean they need to write like I do uh for a living. They need to understand that communications that's how you put yourself out to the world. And um, and we all do it in some form or fashion all the time, every day. So Ann Handley wrote this really awesome book called Everybody Writes. And it's this really smart combination of Strunken White, which a lot of you will remember from college, the style definitive style guide for uh for writing of all kinds, with the internet age. And she breaks it up in really smart chapters. So if you want to write a video script, there's a chapter on how to write a video script. And if you want to write a blog post for your boss, there's a way to do that. And and she shares my disdain for Galbody Gook and bureaucraties and maximizing your synergies and optimizing your modalities and all that nonsense, right? She speaks like a person speaks. Um she writes in a no nonsense fashion. She's a good editor. She's clear, she's concise. So much fitness edit writing and and content is just uh lazy, you know. It's just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Anyone can do that. Anyone can just open their mouth and start talking. It's on all of us to be more responsible with the communications we put out in the world. Whether you do it yourself or you have someone like me do it for you, it's still important. So I Anne Handley is my recommendation. I'm always happy to give her a boost.

Yeah.

Anybody else? Um, you know, I really like um I like Lulululemon, believe it or not, which is and and brands like it. It's not the only one, it's just the one that came to mind probably because they needed to do a little shopping. But um because I like the I like the product, but I also like the soft approach. It's it's it's not um or Eddie Bauer's really good at it as well. Apple's really good at it as well. They they meld their product and their logo and their services into a lifestyle that is aspirational and somewhat attainable. It's not telling me to come in and buy this pair of shorts, it's not coming, telling me to always get new ear ear pads, which I I obviously need. Um, you know, it's it's more makes it feel good to be a part of what they're doing. Yeah. And it's ingenious, but it's not shady. You're happy to be a part of it instead of feeling like you've got conned.

Yeah, I think um Apple's a really interesting thing. And we I use it all the time for an example because out of all the options for you know mobile devices, laptops, I feel like people have the strongest connection to Apple because there's a story, right? Do you um maybe you remember? It was only aired once. Was that that famous commercial, the Apple commercial where everyone's like 1984? Yes, 1984.

I do, because I was I was in college and it was uh so I was you know old enough to remember it. And it did air once, and it was directed by Ridley Scott. Yeah, and it was during the Super Bowl. It was during the Super Bowl or the Olympics, which was it?

Oh, it was more yeah, I think it's Super Bowl. But either way, it was a major event.

Anyway, it was a major event. It aired once. They spent a fortune on it. They got an A-list Hollywood director to do it, the man who did uh who did Blade Runner and Alien. Right? Awesome. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful ad. And um, you know, since then they have kept this this level of elegance and simplicity. Um, and the stories that they tell are stories you want to be a part of.

And anti-establishmentarianism, like I know that's a big word, but that's like what they kind of represent is like we go against status quo, right? Right. We're for artists, we're for creators, we're for people who value their their individuality. Like, who doesn't want to resonate with that? Who wants to be like, yeah, you know, I think I just want to be normal in status quo. That's what I want to do with my life. Like, no, people resonate with that, right?

Right, right. And and you compare that to, you know, the giant computer giant of a previous generation, which was IBM. I can't tell you one thing about IBM. I have no sense of feeling or emotion or remembering a video a commercial that they did 30 years ago, or nothing. They just seem corporate and just stiff and boring, and and they're they've gone the way of the newspaper, haven't they? I mean, they're they're you know they're really not around anymore, but everybody knows Apple and even to a lesser extent, Apple's chief competitor, Microsoft, right? They've got a good story too. They have a great story, yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, man. So let's tell everyone like what let's talk about your service really quick. So Prime Fit Content, you do what?

Prime Fit Content is uh a service that gives gyms, trainers, and uh fitness studios regular, um, regularly delivered content about fitness over 50. It's the kind of content that you might read in in a magazine. Uh when I when I was starting it, I thought I wanted to go for the people magazine level in that it's easy to read, but also fun and and and positive and engaging um without being silly. And so that was kind of the approach I was going for. But very quickly, someone, a subscriber corrected me and she said, No, no, it's Parade magazine. I said, Yeah, good, I'll take it. That's it. Remember Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper? Yeah, that's that's kind of the tone that I'm going for. So I'm a reporter, everything's reported, it's backed up, it's not just me pontificating, it's not my personal opinion about anything, it's a lot of personal stories tied together with subjects that uh are are gonna resonate with people who are not directly involved in them. And the idea behind all of them is that they're uh relevant to people over 50 who want to live, be fit, or get fit. Um that's the the broad umbrella. Um I deliver stories that are some stories are a little bit longer and more, you know, more meaty and have more of a human element to them. Some stories are shorter and kind of bulletin-y about uh a new news development or five tips to do this or that. I also curate recipes, healthy recipes for people over 50, um, which are very popular, which really that's something I learned about this, uh, about doing this business is people really appreciate good recipes and good healthy recipes. And then I give you a meme as well. A meme is we all know is a nice image of a scene or a celebrity or an engaging image with a quote or some word of inspiration, and those are really um really well received too. The intention is that the content is ideally used in your emails, on Facebook, and on your blogs. If you don't have those three things, that's fine. You can use the content in whichever ones you do, you can use them in whatever you want to. I I have a subscriber who uses them as video scripts. She makes her own little videos using her phone and sends them out to her email list and just reads, reads my stories. That's great. If that works for her, that's awesome. Um but primarily most people use them with those three channels email, Facebook, and blogs. And if you don't have email, Facebook, and blogs, I think you probably should. Um, I I think those are the three really effective ways to get your story out consistently to people in this audience. People over 50 are on Facebook, they read, they want to hear from you, they want to know that you're out there, they want to know that you want them. And you you can't rely on one on one channel. You can't just send an email and forget it. You really need to hit them on at least those three. So I give you the content to do that on a consistent basis. Um, and uh I try to price it low enough so that everyone can do it and get some value out of it and you know earn back their investment pretty quickly.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, man. And uh use a uh a slogan from one of my my first fitness endeavors. If you know, uh a year from now you wish you started today. And I think that's uh that sums up content marketing pretty well. Like if you're not doing it now, you're you're gonna regret it.

You just gotta start because it's you just have to. It's the world we live in now. Sorry, but you know, to go back to the beginning of this conversation, all I ever wanted to be was a newspaper reporter, and I made it and I got there, and then when I was 40 years old, it all disappeared, and I had to learn something new. And the world we live in now requires that small businesses need to tell their own story, period. And if you don't, you're gonna get left behind. And with this market, believe it or not, it sounds kind of funny to say it's an emerging market of a hundred million people who already are living, but it is an emerging market, and the fitness industry is beginning to take note of it, and you need to get on uh in on it. Absolutely.

Yeah, awesome, man. We'll leave that there. That's pretty powerful. So, Jay, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is tons of great value. Um, primefitcontent.com. And uh, you're all all over social media too. People can find you on Facebook. And you also have a Facebook group.

I do join my Facebook group, it's free, and uh, there's not a lot of solicitation on there. And um uh we'd love to have you. It's a great place to talk about business, the fitness business more broadly than just content. And yeah, check me out at primefitcontent.com, download my ebook, um, take a look at what we're doing. And thanks for having me here. It's always great to talk to you.

Yeah, man, it's awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Croft. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And we're we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness MarketingAlliance.com