Creating a VIP Client Experience - Matthew Walrath

I think one of the problems that most people have when they try to ascend clients is that they try to complicate lowdown in the value ladder. Maybe they don't focus on getting the person on the other end to win so that it seems complicated so that you want to pay for the high value service. But it's actually the other way around. You want to get them those small wins, small wins, small wins so that when you're hitting them with an offer for a higher paid service, they're like, okay, if this is the value that I can get for $9, what am I going to be able to get for $100?

What's up, Fitness fans? Welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 147. Talk to Matt Walrath. He's back to the show. And uh so good to have him. So Matt is the founder of BeyondMacros.com. He has built a highly successful online nutrition coaching business uh with multiple coaches and multiple revenue streams, and he lives the life. I mean, he's uh he's now settled in the sun sunshine coast of Australia after about uh you know a year or so of being a digital nomad and traveling and doing all that while he was building his business and give us all the insights. And you know, the thing about the online space, it's super attractive, right? It's sexy. It's like, you know, you can live and work from anywhere. Uh you can have the laptop on a beach in Bali. Um, your overhead is low, there's almost no barrier to entry in the space. But what does that mean? It means a lot of people are rushing to it, and uh there's a lot of noise in that space. So, how do you stand out, right? How do you create a business that doesn't drive you crazy? And how do you market it? How do you develop an awesome client experience that builds referrals and loyalty and all of that? And uh Matt gives it all because he's done it. So he's he's given it all to us. We talked a lot about it in this interview, and he also has a certification now at beyondmacros.com, so you can become a Beyond Macros certified coach. Um and it's essentially online nutrition or nutrition coaching business in a box. So definitely go check it out. Uh, before we get into the interview, this is brought to you by level5mentors.com. So me, Ken, a couple other people, uh, we're doing it. We've been doing it for a long time, but now we put a fancy name to it, and you can go to level five mentors and find out more. If you are an entrepreneur, CEO, founder, and uh you're looking to achieve higher levels of freedom in finances, time, relationships, health, purpose, all those things, the five freedoms as we call them, uh, you should give us a call. Go to our website, levelfivementors.com, fill out the free assessment because it'll give you a really good insight of where you are in all those categories, um, how you're doing as an entrepreneur. How are you really doing? Not just the bottom line of your finances, which is really important. Um, that's one freedom, but how are you doing in all the other areas? Are you truly building a business that suits your lifestyle or your desired lifestyle? So you'll find out. The assessment gives you clarity on that, and it's free. So go to levelfive mentors.com and check it out. Without further ado, we have episode number 147 with my guy Matt Walrath of Beyondmacros.com. Enjoy the show. Matt Walrath, welcome back, man. Oh man, my pleasure to be back.

Our last chat. I feel like we could have kept going.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And uh, I always joke, but you know, Matt had me at SEO. That was like as soon as we brought the map, I was like, I'm gonna like this guy. We're gonna have some good talks. Um, so yeah, man, you it things you've been busy, right? Since you came on the show last time. I think it was about a year ago. Um I remember because I was in Whitefish uh last December. And uh yeah, you've been busy. I think you're, you know, I don't know if you were in Australia last time we talked, but I was in like the middle of nowhere. What's been going on last year or so?

Yeah, so we actually chatted when I was visiting Australia, and I just happened to fall in love about a week after we chatted and uh did about a year-long distance with my girlfriend before moving over here just under a year ago. So I've been living in on the Sunshine Coast in Australia, which fortunately for me, as I was traveling when I came here and visited some friends, I was like, this is the most livable place for my lifestyle on earth. And then I just happened to fall in love with a woman who lives here, which was perfect. So it's like I fell in love with the place and the person. And uh yeah, it's really allowed me to continue living the lifestyle that I love to live.

Yeah, uh, that's such a magical story. Yeah, uh it's a little, it's a little too magical. Um tell me what you like about it. What's what's uh, you know, hopefully it doesn't send a ton of people there and ruin everything, but you know, what do you what do you what do you love about it?

For me, the thing that I truly love about it is the fact that I am so close to both mountains and the ocean. And I can easily, when I'm going to some of the mountains in the hinterland, so just a little bit to the west, because we're on the east coast of Australia, I can go 10, 15 minutes to the west, and it feels like I'm in the middle of nowhere. You've got cows and dairy farms and beautiful vistas of mountains and you know the black-all ranges, but then I can go to the beach, I can get some amazing surfing up the coast to some point breaks, I can go down the coast, and it's just stretches a beach break. So you can go to a crowded point or you can be at a beach break that is completely to yourself. And then the really amazing thing about it is it's not isolated, even though I can go out into nature within 15 minutes and feel like there's nobody else on Earth. So, since we're about an hour outside of Brisbane, which is a capital city, the capital of Queensland, there's still a lot of ideas and people and facilities, and just there's people who are bringing their A game to whatever they do. We've got coffee shops where people are bringing their A game and making the best coffee. Uh, we've got like florists who are bringing their A game and making the best arrangements. Like it runs the gamut. And I've also got a friend, uh Luke, who runs Muscle Nerd's Health down about 50 minutes south of here. And he's one of the smartest people I know in the fitness industry. So it's like I can still get and plug into those great ideas, but I can still have that romantic fantasy of uh, you know, moving out onto some land and having some animals and things like that. So it's it's a great mix for me. Yeah.

Yeah, man. It's um, you know, there's a lot of people, you know, who talk a big talk when it comes to like building an online business and living this dream lifestyle, but you know, meanwhile, they may just be living off credit or maybe you know, money they've had in the bank for a long time. Uh you're like you're you're the real deal. Like you developed your, you know, you start when did you start Beyond Macros? Like how long ago? Is that like eight years?

I started Beyond Macros in 2016, but I was coaching as an individual before that. So starting Beyond Macros is really the point where I ended up hiring, training, and developing other coaches to coach the clients who were sitting on my wait list. And that just expanded from there, turned into a coaching brand. And uh, you know, we really started to grow. Once I started to actually put people in place who could take some of my client load and let me see the force for the trees and actually start to develop the business side of things more instead of being bogged down in the admin of coaching.

Yeah. Yeah. And and I want to get back to that for a second because there are a question I want to ask you in there, but you're doing it, right? You're you've developed an online business. You can work from literally anywhere in the world and you take advantage of it and you formed a lifestyle or business that completely works around your lifestyle. You know, like I know you get up early morning for you know, surf and coffee, and then you meet with people. It's pretty, it's pretty ideal, like, I mean, it really is. Pretty cool. But you said um you built a brand, right? And this is like a fascinating thing to me because uh I recently had a conversation with Jim uh Krull of OPEX, and we talked about what does that mean? Because I think a lot of people talk about like, well, I want to build a brand. Okay, well, define that. What what do you think separated you from Matt Walrath to the brand of Beyond Macros? Like what took place to become a brand.

Yeah, it wasn't a super easy transition because most of the leads that were coming in were coming in to me. They were coming into Matt Wallrath initially because essentially what happened is I had been nutrition coaching for a while. I had built my own personal website out, which actually I don't even think is on the internet anymore, but I built my own personal website out and I had a lot of people who came in wanting to work with me. But the thing is, I was on a wait list. So I was like, hey, I've hired and trained some other coaches. I've got this coaching uh company beyond macros, you know, they've all trained under me rigorously. And if you want to work with someone right now, I can, you know, I've got someone who's great for you. I've got a male and a female coach if you have a preference there and I can get you set up. And some people were like, no, I want to wait and I want to work with you. But then some people were like, yeah, I don't want to wait for nutrition coaching. And if you say they're the B's and E's and you're gonna be there uh supervising, then I'm fine with that. And it really did take some time to separate myself from the brand initially. Because the other thing too is that when you're creating a brand, people don't buy from a logo. Like people aren't buying from the Beyond Macros honeycomb. Uh, they're still buying from me or my coaches, and they're still buying that culture that we've created. And that's still something that I'm I'm working on is getting the faces of my staff and my coaches out there more so that it's again not just me. But you think about you mentioned OPEX, it's like, you know, Jim Crow's becoming more of a like the industry-facing guy there. But then if you talk to anybody who's interested in OPEX methodologies, they can probably instantly tell you that James OPT Fitzgerald is like the OPEX guy. There's still that guy, that figure behind the brand. And so I think that's one of the important things to recognize is when you build a brand, it shouldn't be soulless. Like the founder and the team and the culture is really the soul of the brand.

Yeah, yeah, those are all really, really good points. And it's, I think um one of the, especially when you go into the online space, right? Online coaching of any sort, or you know, yeah, let's just talk about online coaching because it's so relevant. You know, to get to the first clump of clients, right? Let's talk about like 10. Not terribly difficult, right? I mean, you can do it. You can just, you know, I could probably call 10 of my old clients or whatever it is, but in order to really build a business that's sustainable and scalable, the brand has to be there, right? Do you agree? Yeah.

I do to some degree. I think for for me, when I first started out, I didn't know what my brand necessarily was. I think when I first started out, it was easy enough to just say, I am a nutrition coach for people who do CrossFit. But and that was niche back then. There wasn't that many people that were like, I'm doing nutrition coaching for CrossFit. But now everyone and their mom and their dog is trying to be a nutrition coach for CrossFit. So it's no longer this niche thing. And so, like back then, I was able to get a lot of experience coaching people. I was able to work with competitors, I was able to work with people in menopause, women in menopause who were just getting back into fitness. I was able to work with new moms who finally their kids in preschool and they've got a bit more time for themselves and they're getting back into the gym again. I got to work with that whole range of people and start to identify who are the people psychographically, who are the people in terms of the struggles that they have, who are the people in terms of their demographics that I really like working with. And as I started to develop that sense, then I could create a brand for those people that I did want to work with. Um, and that's what I really try to teach to coaches now is like initially my brand was built on we do nutrition coaching for CrossFit. And then, you know, it started to narrow a little bit as I've recognized who my coaches that I've hired and developed are good at coaching. We really try to speak to those people.

Yeah. Oh, that's great insights, man. And you know, I think a lot of the stuff we're we're gonna talk about today is um relevant to your certification that's coming out, right? And I think uh I'm excited to talk about that and full disclosure, you know, I've had the opportunity to work with you on that. And I think it's yeah, outstanding. Like it's it's outstanding. And and the difference, I think, you know, with a lot of um trainings, and we can get into this too, you know, especially just in the fitness and health pace, is there's not the now what, right? We talked about this. It's like, okay, cool. Well, now I know how to teach people, you know, um, how to do all these kettlebell moves safely and efficiently, right? And effectively. Yeah. Now what? What do I do? How do I get my first client, right? How do I create uh, you know, a client experience? How do I do something like a value ladder, which I'm dying to get your insights on? Um and that's that's a big thing, is you know, you're you're providing people with a now what because you can go out and you know, I won't name any of the brands, but you can go out and get a certification on how to coach people nutrition, right? Yeah. It's not and they're fantastic. They're fantastic.

I have some of those certifications and they do such a good job.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a functional diagnostic nutritionist, or at least I was before lapse. Amazing. Yeah, right. Like the knowledge, I think it was probably one of the most valuable certifications I've always done. And even there, they did give you some insights into like, hey, how to get your first three clients, right? Um, but I had a gym, so it wasn't hard. Uh but I think for a lot of people it's a struggle, especially if they're just going online. So um I guess the big question is with the onslaught of online coaching, right? From it's so popular because people hear a story like Matt Wallrath or like, dude, I want to live in Australia, right? I want to surf, I want to do all that stuff. And like, I want to do that. And then the barrier to entry is so low. What do you mean? Email, Zoom? Yeah. Google Drive. Google Drive, right? So it's like almost zero money. Uh so there's just a lot of people getting into it, and the overhead is of course lower. As a gym owner, you start looking at it, you're like, wow, I have a huge margin on this, and my gym's expensive, right? Yeah. Um so how do you separate yourself now? Like what's how do you build clientele? How do you build brands? How do you um yeah, how do you separate yourself from a constantly impacted industry?

Yeah. And it's a really hard thing to do when you're new. I find that it's there's this really delicate balance between um getting context for the clients who you want to work with. So when you're first starting out, if you haven't worked with a lot of clients, you don't necessarily know who it is you want to work with. But until you know who your ideal client is and who you're speaking to, it's a lot more difficult to attract people in. But the thing is, I think people start to niche a little bit too early. And that's why I think it's really good to find a way to get experience coaching a lot of people. I I was lucky enough to work in a CrossFit gym, and even though everybody had the common denominator of doing CrossFit, anybody can come in and do CrossFit. So I had the opportunity to work with a lot of people and coach them in that capacity. And then I also had access to them for the nutrition coaching side of things. So I think just like let's say a master smallier or somebody who's like a coffee expert or you know, does a really good job like picking out individual notes in single origin chocolates, they can only do that because they've tasted a lot of wine. They've tasted a lot of coffee, they've tasted a lot of chocolate, they've tasted everything across the board. They've tasted things that they don't like to things that they do like, but they can be a bit unbiased and be like, okay, this is my preference, but I know you know what that tastes like. Um, so by getting that context and working with a lot of people, you can start to develop your own palette for like who do I want to work with? Who is that ideal client? And then once you start working with just those people or you create your client filter where that's like who perfectly fits, maybe you go like one standard deviation outside of that like psychographic or demographic. But once you really start working with those people, let's say you put your brand out there and let's say that I'm a guy who works with uh new moms who are just getting back into fitness. Then if she's going out and she's like searching on YouTube for, let's say, you know, nutrition-related things, and she sees that I'm saying nutrition for new moms who are getting back into fitness, then she's going to end up resonating with my brand. And she's going to end up consuming the content that I'm putting out because it speaks directly to her versus somebody who maybe just is putting out some generic information. So even if somebody has millions of views on their video for the generic information, if I have something that speaks directly to her, then she's a lot more likely to engage with what I'm saying because it's designed for her. And that's the way that you really set yourself out at this point in a really crowded low barrier to entry industry. Because the thing that happens as we like, as I learned in business school, whenever profits are high, so whenever like costs are low, especially and the ability to charge is high, then a lot of people are going to move in and fill that vacuum. So I even saw it early on, like you know, in 2016, it was like fishing with dynamite, just coaching nutrition online and especially targeting people who do CrossFit. And right now, it's like you're going out with a spear and you're like, you know, hunting predators almost at this point. It's it's a hard thing to do. But then if you can then like become the bait uh for those fish and just get you can sit back and you can still enjoy um, you know, a good business. So I think that's the important thing to realize is now, like you said, with a low barrier entry, um, it's very saturated. You're gonna see a lot of people getting into it and serving people, and then there it's there's gonna be a lot more flyby night coaches. So people who do that get frustrated, they've still got their side thing, and then all of a sudden, let's say a year down the track, they've only worked with a few people, then they end up just moving back to their side thing. They've still got that passion, but you know, now they've got their part-time job becomes their full-time job again, or they just, you know, they're no longer in it. But there's gonna still be so many people at such a high rate feeding into wanting to be that, you know, online nutrition coach because there's that idyllic picture of it that we just painted. Um, you know, it's it's always gonna be tough. And you're really gonna need to figure out a way to commit, get that context, figure out who you want to work with, and then really be specific about who it is and speak directly to that person. Otherwise, you're not gonna have any success.

Yeah, yeah. It's it always comes back. You know, I don't know who said this, but I use this quote all the time. I should probably figure out who it is. But it's uh everyone overestimates what they can do in a year and underestimates what they can do in 10. And I think, you know, when you look at like uh, and it can see it's similar in podcasting, right? Like how many podcasts end at seven episodes? Yeah. People are like, well, I did seven, no one listened. Well, no shit. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're no one knows who you are yet, right? Um I mean, people are finally starting to listen to me. It took 500 interviews, right? Between my two podcasts, and I was like, Well, I'm just gonna keep going uh for five years. And then that's my plan. And I think a lot of people look at something like the online coaching and they're like, Well, within a year, maybe because people are promising them things like, you know, the perfect funnel, right? All you need is the perfect funnel, and everything's gonna work out, everything's gonna be great. Exactly, right? You're gonna be Matt Walras sitting on the beach surfing, just this funnel. Um and and they just get discouraged because they don't see uh the dream happening right away when it's just gonna take a little while. Uh, and I think that's that happens a lot, right? It just happens a lot. Yeah.

It's understandable though. I mean, like I even just being in the fitness industry, I get bombarded with all of these like zero to three hundred thousand in one year with this one simple, you know, all those things that make it seem really, really easy. Um and you know, there are those stories, but it is an outlier who managed to do that.

And chances are they had a mentor who was already there who just or there's like 10 years of activity, you know, before that that that leveraged it.

And uh said that about Beyond Macros, like zero to you know, six figures in one year, that'd be true. But the thing is that completely ignores the fact that I was in debt a few years prior because I was working on getting things going. Um, yeah, you can always say zero from whatever and ignore all of the work that went in on the back end.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like that's an unfair assessment.

And and you look at like um like uh Grant Cardone, right? You know, that guy, I read his book a few months back. And in there, he always he stated a couple times in his book like it took him three years, you know, after quitting his corporate job to recoup that income, right? Yeah. And you know, after selling my gyms, I'm finding that to be a pretty similar thing. Like it takes a little while to get back to that, and you're gonna have to be ready for a transition and just understand like how much time it may take. Uh, and that's a really important thing. And you know, I want to go back for a second because talking about niching, right? And you had a great example of um, I think it was moms who you know just had. Kid who wants to get back to fitness. Now that's broad, right? How narrow do you think you have to get nowadays to really get your messaging across? Like, let's use that example. Like, do you would you go narrower? Would you stay at that width? I don't I mean, how do you know?

You absolutely could. Absolutely could. Because the thing is, there are so many different exercise modalities out there. So you could say that let's say you're there for new moms who want to, whatever the struggle is, you specifically solve that struggle that they're having. And then you could also go down to what type of fitness do they do. So I work with new moms who are just getting back into orange theory. I work with new moms who are just getting back into spin. And then you've identified a community. And once you identify, let's say, the struggle, then you can put out all this content about solving that struggle, and you can really like be the go-to person for that struggle. We look at Brett Contreras and he's the glute guy, you know? And you could be like, let's say, the glute guy for moms, you could be the glute guy for guys, you could be, you know, whatever it happens to be. You can you can get more specific. But you think about that, he solves a certain struggle. He takes you from like my mom has this mortifying uh experience in her life where somebody said that she had a pancake ass. And so let's say it's not true. I feel terrible that that you know it came out on air, but someone said, You have a pancake ass. So imagine somebody saying, You have a pancake ass, and the next day you see an ad for Brett Contreras, the glute guy. Like, you know, you've got that pain, you know, you're going to Brett Contreras. Um, so you know it's just you can get really specific and then you're speaking to those people, and you may have some trouble getting in front of those people initially, but over time, as you start to become the go-to for solving that struggle, as you become the go-to for that community, or especially if you combine the two and you become the go-to for solving that struggle for somebody in that community, then you're gonna start to get traction. But there's definitely gonna be a tipping point where um, you know, like initially you're like really struggling to get in front of those people, then you get in front of a few, and then you know, just snowballs from there.

Yeah. Yeah, and there's no um, there's no one way to do it either, right? Like you had you had strong SEO, right? And yeah, maybe now you use some some paid advertisements, pay-per-click or whatever it is, but you know, there's a lot of different methods, and I think a lot of people start out and uh they don't think outside of the box, right? They think, well, I'm just gonna social media, you know, throw some ads at it, and then it doesn't work, and they just throw their hands up in there and be like, This is this isn't ever gonna work. Well, you know, are you getting in networks? Are you um giving talks? Like, remember when people actually used to get up in front of people and talk? Right? Yeah, and you know, provide value in that way and experience. Uh I mean it happens, of course, you know, at at seminars and conventions and things like that, but on a local level, it could be happening all the time. And that's something that uh Oh yeah, yeah. That was actually big for me early on. Oh, me too. Yeah, I would go to you know, talk to you know, busy entrepreneurs for a half hour at lunch, right? Some lunch in. Next thing you know, people are like, Yeah, man, all that stuff you said resonated with me. Like I'm struggling, like my stress is out of control. Like, oh yeah, cool. You know, I can help.

Yeah.

Uh and it was you know, it was a half hour of my time. And it's that way to create connection too. And um so let's talk about you know, with your differentiation and how you people how you do it. There's really we talked about before, and I talked to a lot of gym owners, fitness professionals who feel like maybe their services and selling right, whatever it is. Um so like, well, I think we just need to lower our costs. It must be the money, right? It must be the money because in our minds as fitness professionals, and um unfortunately, most of our clients make more money than us, right? Yeah. For most fitness professionals, it's just the kind of the way things are. And so we put this money belief on them that you know, well, I couldn't afford my own gym membership, so or my own, you know, consulting fee, whatever it is, so why would they ever pay for it? And then you push this belief on them, and that that's one angle of it, right? And then, you know, people think that, you know, well, I'll just throw more free offers out there to start 10 days free this, one day free that. But you're you're setting up a mindset, right? Up front.

Yeah.

How do you like you you've established a very high quality, right? Um what you call VIP experience, and you charge for it appropriately. You know, and it works. And I think a lot of people are scared to do that. What what tips or what ways, thought methods, things like that, do you run through giving people insights on how to create a truly amazing experience that they can they can charge top dollar for?

Yeah, well, I actually have I just created like a video and a little spreadsheet recently to shift people's mindset around things. So for example, with the Beyond the Macro certified coach program, every if I take the average price that every coach that's gone through it so far was charging before the program, it would be the equivalent of $120 US dollars. Because we have some international uh people going through the certification as well. It would be the equivalent of $120 US dollars. Now, if you have an average client lifetime of 12 weeks, let's say you know a client stays with you coaching for three months, you would need to have something like 72 clients at any given time. Now, if you think about trying to manage 72 clients, there's very little that you can do to have a high-touch experience that makes them feel like your only client. And I've seen this a lot with other brands that will like have really high client loads for each of their coaches. Is when people switch from that service to our service, one of the big things they complain about is that what they were promised when they signed up is that they'd have very quick turnaround on answering of questions and things of that nature. But then sometimes they won't hear back for, let's say, 48 hours, 72 hours, whatever. So there becomes a disconnect between what's promised and what's delivered. And it's really just the nature of you're so darn busy because you're constantly having to do the marketing to support that large of a client load. So if you have to have 70 clients at any given time, think about how many discovery calls you need to be on. Think about how many, you know, how much traffic you need to send to a sales page to convert somebody from a sales page. Because you know, with a $120 a month service, you're gonna have a really low conversion rate from traffic to somebody converting on a sales page. So you're gonna be spending so much time in marketing, and then think about the administrative load of 72 clients that you're coaching one-on-one at any given time. All of a sudden, your administrative load is through the roof. So then how are you gonna possibly provide a good client experience to those people? You're it's this terrible negative feedback loop where they're not gonna have a great experience, so their retention stays low, maybe at that 12 weeks instead of being high at what we like. You know, right now we're at about seven months. My goal is nine, because I feel like nine months is the average time it takes to make a sustainable transformation. So, you know, if they're at three months, they're probably not going to get to their ultimate end goal for one. They're probably not gonna have a great client experience, they're probably not gonna refer people into your business, which then means that you have to go out and actively market and actively advertise in order to get new people in the door at all times. And it really just becomes this terrible negative feedback loop. You're never gonna be able to go full time in it if you're charging a paltry rate. However, if you then think about charging $200 per month, then all of a sudden, you know, to live a good lifestyle and to make like that coveted six figures, it's a lot more manageable. But if you think about increasing the amount of time that a client spends with you and really getting them over the finish line so that they then refer people in, you're now freeing up time because you don't have to spend that time marketing. You're working with less people so you don't have as much of an uh administrative load. And then you can put a lot more time, energy, and focus into exactly what's what matters, which is client experience. Like viewers aren't going to be able to see this up here because you know, webcams mirror things. But on my ideal schedule for how to break out a week, it there's two days per week that says do something to provide insane value for existing clients. There's no other uh group of people that gets more attention than the existing clients. Because if I have a five-day work week, two of those days are going to the existing clients. Because I have a team, one day goes to the team, and then from there, another day goes to growing and serving people who have not currently um signed up for our services. So it it just, you know, it's a matter of priorities from there. And then one of the days is for me to learn and grow and integrate things. So, you know, self has to be a priority as well.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you give us some examples, man? How do you, on those two days where you're you're focusing on an incredible experience for your clients? Like, what does that look like? What what what's one of your you what's one of your tactics? I am for lack of a better term. Tactics not right.

Well, what are some of the things that you've done in the past? Yeah, so checking in on them obvious is an obvious thing. So that's something that we promise. But the thing about client experience, and oh dude, I am so excited. I I brought on a con or actually for the coaching brand to be on macros, so that I could focus on the certification business. And something that she said the other day, because I brought her on, I was like, listen, you do such a good job with client experience. I really want you to put your focus there. And the other day she said something, I wish I had the exact quote, but she essentially said the way that I think about client experience is that somebody is coming to you to lose fat loss, if they are, then if you help them lose fat, then you've gotten them to their goal. But you haven't provided a good client experience. You've just provided exactly what you promised and exactly what they came for. For her, what she sees as being a good client experience is creating that relationship with the client and providing remarkable experiences. So rather than just being like, okay, this will help you lose fat, this will help you lose fat, this will help you lose fat. How do you develop a much better and more robust relationship with that client? How do you develop more trust? How do you open bigger lines of communication? And then from there, once you get to know them and you've built that relationship, it becomes a lot easier to give them those personalized and remarkable experiences. And not only that, you want to, because you formed this connection with someone and you really want to serve them on a deeper level. So the way that you're serving them in terms of their fat loss goal, you know, you're really a lot more committed to being their guide towards that goal. But then you're also like, oh man, like I noticed Eric's been stressed out. And I really, what I want for Eric is I want, I know that he wants this. You know, I know he wants to not be stressed, I know he wants to go out and get snowboarding. So like I can hold him accountable to that, or I can help him think through ways that he's gonna be able to get through this crazy workload he's got so he can get out to the mountains this weekend. Um and that is creating a great client experience. But then if you've got 70 people you need to check in on, your clients probably become a number. It probably becomes something on a to-do list that you need to check off. And so, really, the tactics that you can use to create those remarkable experiences come from creating that connection with that client. Maybe you know, you happen to see something that would make a good gift for that client. You know that you know, Eric's a fan of, let's say, fishing, and you happen to go fishing with your father-in-law, and he's got this amazing lore that like is the secret of like backwoods, Tennessee. So you get one and you send it off to Eric, and you're like, check this out, you know, something like that. Or you know, you send even sending a picture of it, like, look what I found. This is in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's the sickest bat, you know, whatever it happens to be. You provide that experience, and that emotional high that happens is one of the things that the client's gonna remember. Because the client's gonna remember essentially that first big emotional um, you know, just how they feel about your service, and they're also gonna feel like think about how things ended. Um, so those are really important things to think about in terms of the client experience. But yeah, it really comes down to the connection and the relationship you build with that client.

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And it reminds me of our colleague, uh Kate Haramillo, and she uh she runs Ketogenic Living 101. And uh we were talking about like we had a sales call coming up, and you know, I'm like, well, here you know, here's my goals for she's like, my goal is I just want to be best friends with them by the time it's over. I'm like, that's it. Like there's no like next step. She's like, no, that's what I focus on, and it works. I'm like, that's yeah, amazing. Like it's so simple, right? Just focus on the person, the relationship, you'll it'll take you a long way. And uh yeah, God, that's awesome. I I it's funny because every time, you know, if I've had a good a great coach, those little things that seem innocuous at times, right? Like you mentioned, just even like if you know, I'll try to send a client. If I see a book or something that reminds me of a client, I'll I'll just get on Amazon, I'll send it to them. You know, for me, it's like, oh that's just something I did. And then again they're like, This is you sent me this? Like, yeah, like, whoa, thank you. That's really nice. And they remember that, right? Um, it can be it can be little things. It can even just be like you said, like a photo of like, hey, just thinking of you, you know, I saw this uh, you know, nice coffee shop, right? Uh here's a picture of a flat white I'm having in you know Italy or whatever, thin little circles there. But it goes a long way. It really does. And uh I I think that's really cool. So I I I've thought about this a lot in recent years is you know, I I I've never been one to charge low rates for anything. Um, because I've tried to take in the fact that like going, I think people should do the math that you're talking about, right? Like, okay, how much do you actually want to make? Right? How many hours do you want to work? How's that accumulate to your how does that add up to the lifestyle you want to live? And from there, just reverse engineer it. Well, if I want to make $10,000 a month and I want to give, you know, 10 clients my best effort, well, that's okay. Well, that's the thousand per per client per month. And you might be like, whoa, and I'm just using, you know, fun numbers. But then it's like, well, instead of saying, well, I don't know, I don't, I'm not worth that, do it the opposite way, is like, well, how do I create a thousand dollars worth of value for people? Right. And then it may not be tomorrow, may not be next month, may not be even a year or two years down the road, but how do you start accumulating enough um you know knowledge, expertise, uh, experience, all those things to drive, you know, technology, to drive a thousand dollar experience. And I think that's something people miss, is they just assume, well, I I can never create a thousand dollars. Yeah, you can because people pay it all the time. Yeah, I've had clients who do. Yeah. I paid, I paid over a thousand dollars for a mastermind group per month, right? Yeah, I'm sure you have too. And it's like easily. Yeah, easily. Yeah, it's kind of low. Uh and it's well, you know, I do was it delivering the value? Who's in the room? All of those things. And um, you know, it's it's just a different way to look at things besides saying, well, you know, people aren't buying it, so I'm just gonna draw my rate. Yeah, so they'll buy it now. Because I've seen a lot of people get stuck in the trap of like some sort of membership-based thing, right? Where they become beholden to it and they hate it. Right? The $20 a month, $30 a month, be like, well, yeah, but I've got you know $150, 200 people in it. Okay, great. What's the math on that? It's like two grand. Do you it's enough, it becomes enough not to stop it and quit altogether, but it's also taking up so much of your time that you can't do the things that you want to do. Right. Exactly. How would you coach somebody out of that?

Oh man, I mean, I'm I'm always about personalized, so I would be diving in and asking a bunch of questions. But yeah, it's interesting. I'd actually I'd probably refer them to a friend of mine who actually he had a membership-based site that just was not his ideal clients. Like it was people he liked having a conversation with, and it was bringing in maybe $3,500 a month. Um, you know, he was doing a decent business with it, and he just realized this isn't who I want to be working with. And I'm putting so much energy into this when really like he does high-end consulting for startup founders, and it was like, oh my gosh, I'm making eat like over $5,000 per month for each of these founders in you know, two businesses, whereas I'm making $3,500 for this membership-based site. And the membership-based site is sucking my soul because I'm trying to figure out how to get people more engaged. And you know, I'm showing up for group calls and one person shows up when you know I'm like charging thousands of dollars to my client here. He's like, I was out of integrity. I wasn't really um, you know, feeling fulfilled by it. I couldn't get people engaged in the way I wanted to. And he just shut it down. You know, for most people, they'd be like, oh my God, $3,500 a month that you just decided that you were gonna take out of your income in one fell swoop. Honestly, I'd probably say, you know, go talk to my friend and hear his story, and then I'd start coaching them from there based off of hearing what their insights were.

Well, I think you know, it's if we talk about that scenario, um, because that, you know, any type of membership base, it could be anything, could be a gym, could be an online group, could be um, I don't know, even a Facebook group nowadays, right? Yeah. Uh I I would have to think, first of all, you have paying clients. Yeah. You've converted people from prospect to paying client, which is tremendously huge. So then how do you start moving up? And you're like, where this is going, how do you start moving them up a value ladder? So maybe that's it. So maybe you start creating another level of value, right? Because there's, you know, let's say you have 100 people in a membership group or whatever it may be. There's gotta be a handful of people who are looking for something more. Yes. So how do you start working them up? How do you create uh a well tell me first of all, how do you def how do you define like what a value ladder is and how do you create something like that?

Yeah, so I mean, with a value ladder, you're essentially ascending your clients to higher and higher price tiers, but also higher value tiers. So let's say the the easiest thing that most people understand is moving somebody from, let's say, a lead magnet to a tripwire to a full paid service. That's one of the most basic marketing value ladders that you can possibly think of. Oh yeah, I'm gonna go over it. So essentially, yeah, yeah. So essentially, for people who don't know, a lead magnet is like a little freebie. It's like to put it tangibly, imagine you go to an ice cream shop and they give you a free scoop of uh, you know, a couple different ice creams to try it out. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, I want that one, and it was so good, I'm gonna get the large instead of the small. Like that's that's essentially the little spoon that they give you is the lead magnet. And then from there, um, you know, the ice cream thing doesn't really work for a tripwire, but a tripwire is essentially the thing that gets you um pulling your credit card out and actually putting your money down and saying, okay, the value that I've got up to this point is good. And now you're promising me something that, yes, I do want that outcome. So oh my gosh, I can't believe you're selling it for only $9. You know, take my money. And then the tripwire gets somebody. So the lead magnet, it gets someone a result. You know, it's something that most of your clients would be willing to pay for, but they can get for free, and it gets them a quick result, like let's say within a week. And then the tripwire, same thing. It's a low cost thing, it solves a struggle that most of your ideal clients are gonna have. And then it's really cheap. But the thing is it becomes kind of like a loss leader where you sell it really cheap because it's gonna get them another result. It's gonna get them to know, like, and trust you even more. Uh, gonna get them to know, like, and trust that when they spend money with you, they're gonna get the value that you promise. And then from there, you end up having your back end offer, which is going to be, you know, let's say your one-on-one services that are a higher value uh service, let's say something that's like $199 a month, or maybe a program that costs over $100. And that's the most basic uh way to lead somebody up a value ladder to the higher paid service. So the most important thing to realize is that it's called the value ladder for a reason. You're hitting them with value at every step of the way. You never want to hold. I think one of the problems that most people have when they try to ascend clients is that they try to complicate low down in the value ladder. They try to make it seem like the client can't do it on their own. Maybe they don't focus on getting uh the client or the person on the other end to win so that it seems complicated so that you want to pay for the high value service. But it's actually the other way around. You want to get them those small wins, small wins, small wins so that when you're hitting them with the offer for a higher paid service, they're like, okay, if this is the value that I can get for $9, then what am I going to be able to get for $199? So that's That's the real big idea behind a value ladder. I'm sure you're seeing that common thread for me of like providing people with a really good experience is that you need to be hitting them with actual value. Um, so yeah, that's the most basic description of a value ladder I can give.

How how do you do it like in beyond macros? Like we'll just give a you know an example of how do you escalate people through your value ladder.

Yeah, so honestly, we have probably the worst lead magnet in the world, to be honest, but it just has generated so many leads and it's kind of this monster of its own tree.

It's great in one way, right? Because I know what it is, but it's also like, yeah, it explain why it's good and bad.

Yeah, okay. So we have a macro calculation worksheet. And that is our lead magnet. And the thing is, it is just a really simple worksheet that helps you calculate your calories and your macros. And it's amazing because anybody who's searching for how to calculate macros, how to calculate macros, CrossFit, all these different keywords, you know, we have really good SEO organic ranking for those keywords. They're gonna show up on my blog post that then ask them if they want this worksheet. And we have really high opt-in rates, and we have a lot of people coming in for that. But the thing is, where it falls short as a lead magnet, as I mentioned, is you want to get somebody a quick win. Calculating macros, like, yeah, okay, now you've got your numbers, but it doesn't get you any, like it doesn't get the person on the other end a quick win towards their ultimate goal. The real reason that they searched how to calculate my macros is they wanted to know how do I lose fat? How do I gain muscle? How do I use macros to perform better? And so this thing doesn't solve a specific struggle and it doesn't do it in a quick way. Because when we're coaching somebody and using macros, it's going to take 90 days probably in order for them to get to their desired result. They'll see results probably early on. But the thing is, I know there's so many struggles that pop up early on with counting your macros. And so what we've had to do is really, you know, after somebody's opted in for that lead magnet, we've really had to kind of help them address those struggles that are going to be coming up. But the thing is, for a lot of people, there's frustration. There's not a quick win when they've calculated their macros and they try to count it, like, oh, this counting macros thing is hard. I don't really like it. I don't have, I don't have the support. Um, and then because they might have had that negative uh emotional experience after consuming our lead magnet, then they're no longer gonna be like, okay, I should go to beyond macros for coaching. So it's a really bad lead magnet in that sense. So we've had to do a lot of things to actually educate people on the back end about how to use them. Like, yeah, you know, the things you're struggling with are pretty common, you know, there's ways around it. You don't have to track your macros forever. All that, you know, get getting those messages out of the way in order to make sure that people like actually trust us in order to then ascend up the value ladder. So it has taken us a lot more effort and a lot more essentially wasted leads over the years in order to figure out how to ascend people from that to our paid coaching. Um, but yeah, our so for us, um our like paid things or our tripwire is actually an initial call. And people pay a deposit. I actually refund it or apply it to their um membership when they sign up. That's kind of the next step in the value ladder is getting on an initial call with them, really helping them just lay things out on the table in terms of what their goals are, what they're struggling with, what they do well already that could actually help them kind of overcome some of those struggles. And, you know, we just get them to lay it out on the table, maybe give them a little bit of advice um based off what we see. And then from there, we let them know what our services are, and then if they want to sign up, you know, over 70% of people sign up from that call. But um, it's because they're already pretty warm at that point. But it's yeah, it's I mean, that's that's our value ladder is essentially the lead magnet, a lot of educational emails on the back end, a call that you pay for, but it's refundable. Uh, it's just a deposit to make sure people show up and don't ghost us. And then from there, you know, we've got our our paid service.

Yeah. Well, there's some interesting things in there. First of all, it's funny, like the lead magnet kind of did its job, but from a big perspective, it's kind of it's it's become a challenge, right? That's that's interesting. Um, because it's doing everything you want from a lead magnet, right? But then it's causing problems down the road.

It's doing everything on the front end of the lead magnet, but not the back end. Like the front end of the lead magnet, you want it to be attractive enough to get names and emails and have the opportunity to nurture them, but on the back end, you want that quick win. So, like, for example, one of the women who went through uh the Beyond Macro certified coach program wanted to do a challenge where there was going to be like um a focus on fasting one week and a focus on uh you know macros another week and like kind of fire hose of information. I was like, no, that's not a good lead magnet. What you need to do is get someone a quick win. And she eventually realized, like, okay, a quick win for somebody could be taking them from feeling like they're starving from doing a 12-hour overnight fast to being able to do a 16-hour fast and feeling okay with it within seven days. So, you know, that's a decent lead magnet where you essentially show somebody, you know, you become their guide, and they're essentially like the hero of the journey, where you become their guide, and it's like, okay, um, so I kind of am struggling here, and you're giving me all these helpful resources that then take me to like feeling like, whoa, okay, I can do this. Like, I do have power. And then from there, being able to send them from that place of like empowerment rather than with our calorie and macro calculator, potentially trying to send somebody who's in a place of frustration and overwhelm. You know, that's a it's a little bit different, uh, different situation.

Yeah, yeah. And it's true because you know, I think a lot of times people are like, well, when you know, motivation causes wins. Actually, it's the opposite of the way, you know, wins cause more motivation and inspiration. And I think what's interesting about your value ladder is that you charge people for your initial consultation and everybody gives them away for free. Right. So A, you're there's no value associated with it because you haven't put value on it, right? Um, and then like you said, people will ghost you all the time because there's no value. They don't see it. Yeah, yeah. They think it's just, well, it's a free consultation. Everybody and their mother knows that a free consultation nowadays is a sales call.

Yeah, right.

That's what it is. Uh that's uh yeah, that's an interesting point. And I think a lot of people would take away from that. I will. I'm like, I'm gonna stop giving away free consultations. Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. Well, okay, let's let's shift gears and let's talk about the certification. Um when when is it out? What what can people expect? Who is it for? All that.

Yeah, so it's out, it's out and about, out in the world. And uh yeah, so with the certification, you said this early on in the uh in our conversation. It's really that now what? Where the reason that I created is I've done so many different certifications, and they are absolutely fantastic when it comes to giving you that knowledge that you need, that foundational knowledge you need in nutrition. Like I've done precision nutrition, it is fantastic. I revisited that book every year for five years after I did the certification. I reread it and found something new. Like there's no doubt about it. Like what John Barardi and his team has created is fantastic. But there's not that now what? Even though the second half of the certification like gives you a lot of resources to about coaching, which I think goes beyond what any other certification I've done. Um, you know, it goes way beyond. You know, the fact that it actually teaches you how to coach, you know, the psychology of coaching, the behavior change of coaching, that to me was just amazing. Uh, you know, I've done like the CISSN, which is pretty much the CSCS of nutrition coaching. So it's the certification for the International Society of Sports and Nutrition. Amazing, really deep dive into nutrition. I mean, the third second or third chapter is on molecular biology, but again, not a certification that then teaches you how to run a business or how to coach people. Um, you know, so I've done all of these different programs and been like, okay, no, none of these actually teach you how to deal with a client who's not compliant. None of them are teaching you how to troubleshoot progress issues. None of them are teaching you how to actually deliver a client experience. Like, what does it look like from that, you know, creating a lead magnet and getting somebody in, starting that conversation all the way through a raving client? Like, what does every step of the client experience look like? And so I tune people into what a VIP client experience looks like. Um, and then also there's just not a lot in terms of business training. So I really wanted this to be a full uh certification where in the beginning I do teach people how to create an evidence and experience-based nutrition plan. Um, but there's a big focus on the now what? Like now that you've got that, yeah, where does it meet the road? Like, how do you then tackle uh difficult client issues? And then from there, how do you create that experience for the client that they're willing to uh pay a premium for? And you know, how do you actually put that uh foundational, I hate the word funnel, but it really is. How do you put that foundational funnel in place that's gonna actually allow you to, if you have somebody uh who refers a client in, have that person you know see what you're offering and become a client, have somebody who doesn't know you yet see what you're offering and eventually become a client. So putting that foundational funnel in place where you know, whatever you do for marketing, Instagram, and you know, whatever your focus is, that you can actually ascend people to becoming your client and really also creating a filter for the ideal client. So it really is a program that I created where, yes, there is a nutrition component, but the thing is it's designed for people who like the ideal person for this program, somebody who's already done some type of nutrition education. You've done PN1, maybe you've done a degree in nutrition, we've got RDs in the program, but it's really, you know, it's the now what. It's you've started to work with people, you recognize that there are some challenges that you haven't overcome yet. And you know, you see that there's challenges with running a business, you haven't necessarily made nutrition coaching your full-time thing yet, but you maybe want to, or maybe it hasn't even like achieved what you want it to achieve on the side. Like I had one woman who her sole goal was, I want to make 2,000 a month coaching nutrition on the side of my CrossFit coaching job. So, you know, it's really okay, I've done something, I've got the foundational education, now what?

Yeah, awesome. And and just having seen it and how you built it out, you know, I think the the biggest takeaway for me was okay, you can actually take the certification and have a career after. Like you have all the tools, it's all there, right? You you know you can teach people, you teach people how to be a nutrition coach, how to change behavior, how to market, how to run a business, all those things. And effectively, for lack of a better term, it's an online business in a box, right?

Pretty much. I mean, there's even like the worksheets for copywriting different uh aspects of your website for doing the copywriting for lead magnet landing page. Like, you know, there the workbooks there, when you do those workbooks, you don't even have to think about like, what's what's the copy that I need to have for these pages? It really is designed to leave you with no question. Like, you're gonna need to figure out how to make the page look pretty, but um, you know, actually the words on the page that are going to really attract in your ideal client and kind of make your energy vampire client allergic, like to what you're offering, um, that's gonna be there.

Awesome. And it's uh I think for people who are seeking out CEUs that you have accreditation as well, right? Who'd you get accredited by?

Yeah. So far we've got NASA, AFA, and ISSA at the moment.

Nice. Awesome, man. Well, where do people find out more about the cert? Where do people find out more about you if they want to reach out and ask you questions? Uh yeah, where do you send them?

Yeah, so beyond macros.com slash certification is uh the page where people can learn more about the cert. Uh they can apply. So pretty much, you know, if anybody's interested in it, the initial thing that you got to do is you got to apply. Because as I've mentioned over and over here, like I'm all about client experience. So I don't want the wrong people in this course, like the people that are at the wrong point in their business. So there is an application. After the application is done, then we do have an initial call just so that I can answer any questions. But so I again I can make sure that you know what they're after is what the program is going to be delivering. Um, so that's the best place to go, is beyond macros.com slash certification. Uh, you can learn more, you can apply from there. And then if anybody has any questions about things, um, you know, I I'm always a little like, oh, do I want to put my email out there? But yeah, it's just Matt at beyondmacros.com. I'm sure somebody could guess that based off of how everybody creates their emails. Yeah, that's not that hard. Not that not that hard if you wanted to guess it. So yeah, if anybody has any questions after listening to this, uh feel free to reach out.

Right on, man. Well, Matt, I uh I always when people come on for a second time, now I call them friends of the show. So thanks for being friends of the show. And uh it's great having you on. And uh yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Matt Walrath.

Thanks, Eric.

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