Mike D'Angelo - Retain More Clients with BodyEvolver

Hey fitness fans, welcome back. This is Eric Malzone with the Future of Fitness podcast. This is episode number 25. It's a quarter of a century. It's a big mark. So I get to talk to Mike D'Angelo. So Mike has been in the fitness industry for a very long time. In 2004, he partnered with his current business partner to start Body Evolver, which is one of the first to market and premiere softwares for personal trainers to track and retain clients. So a large part of this episode is just talking about that, right? How to retain your clients through tracking their progress and using his software, specifically Body Evolver. Then we get into some other really, really good stuff too. So specifically focusing on over-delivering for your clients. You know, it's it on it always gets missed. We always want to look for who the next client is. We're always out there trying to sell and market and do all these things. And really, it's it's extremely easy to miss sight of who your current clients are and how you can be over-delivering for them and how they are your spokespeople for your business. So that was great. He also talks about some great tips on how to get started in an industry and what that means and the simple things that you need to focus on and import all of your energy in to be successful. So I hope you enjoy it. Mike is a wealth of knowledge, he's extremely positive and energetic, and I really enjoyed our conversation. And uh Mike and I get to talk quite often nowadays. So yeah, I hope you find him as great as I do. Now let's talk about the sponsor for this, which is us, Fitness Marketing Alliance. And we are making a special offer. So if you are in the fitness industry and you are looking to grow your digital presence, maybe you have online nutrition, maybe you're doing online coaching, maybe you're selling an ebook, something like that, and you really want to expand, you're gonna want to use our do-it-yourself software. So if you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash DIY, as in do it yourself, and you enter the promo code FMA D I Y, you will get access to our digital dashboard, which gives you all the control you need to know to see how you're growing your business. So go there, enter the promo code, and we will waive the $250 setup fee, and it's just $99 a month. This is an extremely good value, you guys. Uh, I can't tell you how much it's worth to have control of your online business and see, even if you're a brick and mortar, just see how you're being um where your traffic's come, so coming from social media, if it's coming from the web, it's paid traffic, whatever it is, how your competitors are doing, how you can maybe take advantage of some of the things that they're uh being successful with. So just a ton of information. If you want a consultation, just go ahead and email me, Eric, at fitnessmarketingalliance.com. Uh, I'll hook you up and we'll talk for a while. Love talking to people. So without further ado, this is episode number 25. It's Mike D'Angelo, Body Evolver. Enjoy everybody, this is Eric with the Future of Fitness Podcast, and I have the extreme pleasure of talking to Mike D'Angelo today. Mike, thank you for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Eric. I love it.

Awesome. So, Mike, you have a ton of experience in the fitness industry, and I'll I'll talk about that in the intro. But um, I want to get right into, I think you are an awesome example of a fitness professional who has taken all of his experience and and passion and now has taken it to a position where he can he's gone global, right? So you've really extended your reach. Um, you're really doing the help of a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah. Well, we always have to fly, you know. Yeah, on the shoulders of giants, right?

Yeah, like my business partner for one.

Uh so tell me, what is it that you are up to now with Body Bobby Evolver and and how you've gone into the tech world and how you're you're leveraging that for the fitness industry.

Well, I mean, I spent, you know, I got a degree in exercise science and I was a personal trainer in Boston for 20, you know, 20 years. And um, I was all about you know, collecting client information and using that information to educate the client on where they're at and to sell them the services that I could provide, you know, and it and it was easy and it was fun and it was awesome. And in the process of doing that, I met tons of personal trainers that are just awesome people, you know, but not everybody collects information on their clients and really, you know, tracks it and holds clients accountable. And those awesome personal trainers, very few of them kind of continue training after a few years. So it's kind of like you know, they've got this passion for training, they want to train, they want to make a living out of training, but it's kind of hard if you're not collecting data on clients and showing clients return on investment and give clients a reason to come back to you because you brought them to the promised land and then they fell off the wagon and now they want to come back. And and and if you've got information and data that supports all of that, it makes it so easy for you to really serve your clients and to really have impact on them, to help them get them to their goals, and uh, you know, and and in the process, you know, live the lifestyle of a you know fitness trainer helping people change their world. And um, you know, after doing all that I did, you know, in Boston, you know, um, it was pretty apparent that you know there needs to be systems in place that make doing all that a lot easier. And so I had, you know, certain systems that I used, it's all you know, they were it was originally paper methods, and then it was Excel spreadsheets and stuff, and and then uh my god, I had like I had like a thousand client records in an Excel spreadsheet on my gym in Boston, and someone came in off the elevator and took my computer. Oh talk about like yeah, my stomach just dropped. Right. So in and around the same time, this guy JT Barnett walks in my gym and he plops down like 10 grand for training for you know a couple months or whatever, and turn him around completely, right? And this that's actually a really funny story, we can get into that later. But turn him around, he's like, dude, man, we gotta take this whole thing, we gotta stick it on the internet because it will make it life easier for all of these trainers, and it will give trainers a real chance at making a successful career out of their passion and to really help people, and that's really what it is. That's simple. And it's been 14 years now that we've been building the software. You know, we've got clients all over, 14 countries, you know. Um, yeah, 42 states, and uh that's it, you know, and now my world's a lot different. Now I just talk to trainers like this all day. That's great. Let's do some client, let's do some client assessments, some case studies, what's going on? Show them how to use the system, how to, you know, pull some reports or how to follow up with people, whatever.

So yeah, and I think this is really interesting and and and really cool too, because and tell me if you disagree, but I do believe that fitness trainers uh in the as a profession uh tends to be very undervalued, right? I believe so, yeah.

Well, uh yeah, and and part of that is because um the there aren't it it's it's not easy to really show a high level of professionalism in your industry, and in it is what you're doing, unless you're really, really organized, really organized, and you're you know, uh a stickler for detail and and things like that, because then people do take you seriously. And then people do listen to you and follow your advice, and as a result of that, they get out what they're looking for. You you know have uh just solved your retention problem because you're actually helping your serving your clients, you know what I mean? Right.

And yeah, so let's let's let's say I'm I'm somebody, uh, I'm Joe Fit Pro and I want to, you know, I'm I'm I'm interested in your service, right? Body evolver. How walk me through the process. What is everything that it does? Um, how does it help me make more money? Uh how does it help me retain clients? Give me all the details.

Yeah, it's real simple. Okay, so you you sign up, right? And you can use it from your tablet, your laptop. It's not you can use it on your phone if you want, but it's you know, it's like you're running your business, right? So it's one place that you can stick all of your client health-related information so that you have easy access to it. So instead of writing notes down, like listen, trainers are really good listeners. Typically, trainers are doing you know 20% of the talking and they're doing 80% of the listening, right? They should be listening, asking clients questions, and all that information is going in, and you're gonna retain some of it, but you're not gonna retain all of it. So the idea is to write everything down, document their goals, document their motivations, well, and keep asking the question well, why, why, why, why, and just write it down, write it down, write it down. Then you do your assessments, whether you're doing movement screenings or push-up still failure or plank or body comp, whether it be skinful, bioelectrical impedance, you can even do just a simple umbilical circumference and it'll predict the percent body fat based on gender and height and weight and all that stuff. So all of that stuff is in the system, ready to go, so that however it is that you want to serve your clients, whatever it is that that client needs, you can document it. You can write it down, and then you have easy access to it so that you can hold them accountable, remeasure, reassess, show progress, grow your business.

Awesome. Now, is the client have interface with it as well? Do they go into it?

They can. You can allow the client to log in. If you want to let the client log in and view their profile, you can you can you can do that.

What do you what do you see as the best, like someone who's using your software extremely well, right? Who's who's really um seeing all the benefits of it? How how are they using it? Is the client doing most, you know, getting in there on a certain percentage of time? Is the is the trainer doing most of the the input and updating? How does it what do you think?

Yeah, typically, typically the the trainer, you know, puts the information in. You know, it's like and and it's almost like writing it down on paper and then like usually just write it right into the system right then and there because it saves time. You'll never have to deal with it again. Instead of having a piece of paper that you've got to carry around with you with these notes and then uh try to transfer the labages, boom. Open the system, put it in. You're on the gym floor. If you want to do if you can put your programs in there, whether they're Excel you know documents or whether they're um, you know, however it is that you're doing your programming, all of that stuff can be saved in the system so that when you log in, boom, it's all right there. And you get the next client coming in, boom, you just click the next client's name, all their stuff's right there. You want to re-measure, reassess, whatever, you can do that, track it, show them progress, or just go right to their profile. Um, and that's that's that's how I use it. There's birthday reports, let you know, okay, hey, you know, these people's birthdays coming up tomorrow. Did you know that? No, come on in, free body comp. Woo-hoo! You know, like whatever, you know, whatever, whatever it is, you know, like there's a third, there's a 30, 60, 90 day reports like, okay, 30 days ago, I met with Susie for the first time. You know, how's she doing? Had has she lost any weight? You know, like let's make sure we're weighing her in because if you're not showing progress within like six to eight weeks, that client's gonna be a flight risk. Yeah, you don't want that. Like, you want to show progress so that they're like, man, I am, I lost two pounds. Yeah, girl, you're killing it. Right? And then you show them that they improved, you know, some strength. I'll get you're getting stronger. Look at you were only doing this before, now you're doing this. They're like, Yeah, I am making problems. Because if you're not looking at that stuff, what do they say? It's a saying it says, that which gets inspected gets respected. So if you're inspecting these things and you're and you're holding clients accountable and setting the expectation that, hey, I'm here to deliver a service, and I want to make sure that I deliver that service. One, the system helps, you know, me as a trainer deliver that service to hold me accountable, but then because the information's in the system, you you're also not holding the client accountable. So there's accountability on both ends.

So that's interesting. It reminds me of a quote that a mentor always reminds me is that um, you know, motivation doesn't lead to success, success leads to motivation, right? So if you can show people little wins, then all of a sudden like they get fired up, right? And they're really excited to be there, and and uh that that that snowball continues to grow. So you're in a perfect position for me to ask this question, but how do you see um tech changing the industry right now? How do you see it, especially maybe in the next two years?

Oh, it's it's massive. I mean, there's so many trainers that are now doing online consulting just like this.

Yep.

I could we could be I we I mean, I'm not gonna do a training session with you, but we're gonna do a consult. I'm gonna set you up on a program. We're gonna talk about what your needs are. Maybe I have you do some some things and to kind of see where your mobility's at or whatever. You know, we could do body comp stuff with an umbilical circumference, we could track, I mean, anything. It's all, I mean, it's and it's all happening, and it's happening now. It's not even like, I mean, yeah, you can say the future, but you know what? It's now, it's right now, you know, and that's the online training thing. And then in regards to, you know, personal trainers serving the public, and that you know, like in a facility, in a gym, in a studio, even if you're going house to house or in a boot camp or whatever it is, at the end of the day, your business is going to be built on the data that you collect and the progress that you can show your clients. And when you do that, it makes it very easy to grow your business. And that's how you get referrals, right? You show you bring clients to the promised land, you hold them accountable, you you know, you keep remeasuring, showing, hey, you gain this much lean mass, you gain this much strength, you lost this much fat, this many inches, all the stuff. And people are walking around, they're like a human billboard, right? They're they're a billboard for your process with them as a trainer. And then that's how you get, well, my God, you look amazing. Well, I'm training with Eric. Boom, you know, and that's how you get referrals, you know. So, you know, that that technology stuff, it simplifies all of it. Because otherwise, you've got to be really organized. And if you're doing paper files and and Excel spreadsheets, you know, it's just not Excel spreadsheets aren't um scalable. You can't you can't scale the data in an Excel spreadsheet, you know. Um, and paper files are you know even more archaic, you know, and you just the reality is you know, I've got like dude, I got files, right? I got I got program files from some of my clients. Oh my word. These are like all program files that I used to have on on clients that I just kept. You know, if I want to rec I got a call from a trainer, I mean from a client of mine that I haven't trained in five years. She calls me on Monday. She's like, dude, can we hook up? I'm like, when are you gonna be in Boston on Tuesday? If you want to do it at 7 a.m., I could meet you. I met her, pulled up her data, showed her that in you know, five years now I haven't trained her. She's gained three pounds of lean mass since I saw her last. She's gained a total of 10 pounds of lean mass since I first met her in like I think it was like 2012 or something. And I got all her data. I got the words that she said, what were her goals when she showed up, you know, like and she comes back to me, boom, 200 bucks, bam, done. You know, and I'm got her on a new program, showed her a few new things, you know, reassess her, you know, I'll talk with her a few times here and there, but for the most part, she's she's on her own, you know. But if I didn't have that data, she ain't gonna call me back because I can't, I can't really help her show what progress she made or what progress she hasn't made. I mean, that's a that's a a rare case, you know, where somebody shows up years later and they've been doing your program for all those years and they're still making progress. That's awesome. But a lot of people, you know, they reach out because they made really great progress with you as a trainer and then they fell off the wagon. And then it's like two years later and they're 14 pounds up, and they're like, Mike, I need your help. I'm like, well, come on in, girl, let's just see where we're at. And then you rerun their numbers, and she's like, you know, well, you know, it's not that bad. And she's thinking it's horrible. They're like, it's not that bad, man. You could be there, and then we got this goal page, right? That just naps out exactly what you need to do and how long it'll take to get there, because science applies to all of us, right? And it's like, dude, we could get you back there in seven weeks or 12 weeks, or you know what I mean? Like, and then you can identify, and and you know, this is what we gotta do. Boom, boom, boom. If we do these things, science says this is what's gonna happen. We did it before, we're gonna do it again. Let's get after it.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, and I remember too, back in my when I first started programming for people, I had uh literally a desktop calendar for each client. So I had a stack of desktop calendars, right? And you know, it's it's interesting too because I think a lot of fitness pros are like, oh, you know, Susie, uh, you know, this is where her starting point is. I'll remember that. I won't forget it. No, you will. You totally will. You'll forget it within a few hours.

You don't want to forget it, but you just do. You got you meet with all these people all the time. You can't remember everything.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. So I'm curious, you know, when you when you got started in your fitness career and your fitness training career, um how did you differentiate yourself? How did you make how did you separate yourself from the pack?

I didn't. I did. I'll tell you what I did though. Yeah. I remember I got my first client. I was like, oh, this is cool. I'm like officially a trainer, you know, I was all psyched. I get a train. Then I got another client, and I had like three clients, right? And the second client that signed up, um, I was really, first off, with my own fitness, I was my own little guinea pig. Like, okay, I'm learning exercise science in school, I'm applying everything to myself, I'm going to the gym, I'm tracking my own progress, I'm making sure I hold myself accountable to make the progress that I wanted made, make, right? So you kind of know what it takes, right? So then you get a client and you start wanting to do the same thing with them. Well, you know what? I pushed this woman so hard, I pushed her right out. She just quit. And I'm like, I'm like, oh my God, that's horrible. Like, I just totally like I was too anxious to provide results that I pushed her too hard. And I'm like, okay, note to self, don't push clients beyond, you know, push them to a safe space, but don't push them out the door. One. That was like first lesson number one. And I'm like, and then I got depressed for like about a 12 minutes. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, I still got two clients and it's only been a week, so I'm doing pretty good, you know, like whatever, right? So then it was like, okay, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna just simply focus on getting results for the people that I have. And that's what I did. That's it. I documented things, I held them accountable, I stayed on them, I'd call them, I'd text them, you know, I'd meet with them, I'd remind them of you know what it is we're trying to do, and you know, try to identify what the hangups are that are getting in the way of progress and talk about them openly, no judgment, just care and love. That's it.

Oh, that's awesome. And that's such a good lesson, too, because it's so and and this is coming from me, a digital marketer, right? Where everyone's like so focused on new clients, new sales, new right? Everyone wants to go out and have this these massive sales funnels. But really, all it comes down to, and and the biggest thing where you should spend 95% of your time is just over-delivering for your current clients, and things will and great things will happen.

And I think that's a bird, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Right.

You take care, you take care of that client. Yeah, that's awesome. And if you take care of that client and you do whatever it takes, whether you have to go learn stuff about upper cross syndrome in their back because they're they're kyphotic, and you need to learn how to how to fix that or learn, you know what I mean, talk to a physical therapist about it. Whatever, whatever it takes. Just deliver results. And if you deliver those results, you attract those results, you get retention. I never marketed my personal training services ever until I bought the gym that I was training at. Then I needed to do marketing to get members in the door. I already had a hundred-something training clients. I didn't need clients, I needed members, which would we would then pull from that membership base. You know, some people would go into training and some people would go out of training, say, listen, we're kind of done with you, you're good, just keep coming in, we'll check in on you, make sure you're doing okay. You know, and then people come in and out of training, you know, in and out of group training or private training. They get pulled out of group training because they got some mobility issues that need to be worked on that cannot be worked on in a group setting. So let's work on some mobility things for a couple weeks, let's educate you so you know how to move better, and then we'll pluck you back into the group stuff so that you can, you know, save you some money so you're not buying private training, which is more expensive. You know, that's it. Just care for your clients. That's it. That's all you gotta do.

I think that's a whole nother episode that we can talk about.

Let's do it. We'll do a whole nother episode on just that.

Just that. So uh my business partner Doug wanted me to ask you a question. Uncle Doug! Yeah, Uncle Doug. So we're we're kind of we've already we've already stepped one foot into it, but how does a little guy survive? A little guy or girl in the industry, how do they survive? Right? How do they how do they get started? How do they you know how do they they compete? What's what's your advice to that person if you're talking about?

I think it's very, I think it's very important that anyone who wants to become a personal trainer really has a a huge passion for fitness and that they apply it to themselves first and foremost. Awesome. If you can, if you if you apply fitness to yourself intensely and you can you know really own it and feel it, and and it's gonna be much easier to communicate that to the people that you serve. And once you start to serve somebody, serve them and serve them well. That's all you gotta do. That's beautiful.

That is beautiful. So, Mike, where do people find you? Where do people, if they want to talk to you, they want to ask questions, if they want to get signed up with Body Evolver, where do they find you?

Uh you know, at BodyEvolver.com, Facebook, whatever, man. I'm out there. It's I'm easy to get a hold of, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get I get my phone, I get text messages from, you know, I probably got 30 text messages this morning going back and forth with somebody, what's up, blah, blah. It's fine. But yeah, we're, you know.

If I can make a presumption about why you why you did differentiate yourself, I think it's uh this incredible positive energy that you have. And uh I think it's it's just you know, absolutely zero ego. And I think that's a a very cool thing that people probably are really attracted to, whether you know it or not. So uh Mike, thank you. I appreciate it. It's a great talk. And uh we'll be in touch soon, I'm sure. Everybody, Mike D'Angelo.

Peace out. Eric, thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Future of Fitness podcast and webinar series. Uh, we're working really hard here to keep great content coming out, and we like to express our gratitude by offering you a free seven-day marketing crash course. So here's how you can claim it. If you go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash free gift f R E E G I F T, and you enter the promo code FitMARK F I T M A R K, you can claim it that way. The other way is you can text us. So you can text the phone number 805-619-5550, and you text the word FitMark F-I-T-M-A-R-K. So thank you, keep listening, go claim that offer. It's a ton of value. And if you ever want to get a hold of me, or if you have suggestions for guests, topics, or anything else, or if you just want to ask me questions, uh, I always respond. You can reach me at Eric E R I C at Fitness MarketingAliance.com and keep listening. We have a lot more coming down the pipe, and uh we'll make sure that we're keeping the value great for you guys. And farewell till next time.