The Top 5% - Mike Arce

You've never bought sneakers from a Nike ad, have you? Have you ever seen a Nike ad on TV or a billboard or a magazine or anything and go, I'm gonna get Nikes today? No! What happens is one day you need sneakers, and when you go into the store, you gravitate to the familiar brand Nike over the brand you haven't heard of or haven't heard of in a while or as much. Which is why it's important to always continue marketing and advertising, always being prevalent, always being front and center, period.

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 84. I talk to Mike Arcy. He is the CEO and founder of Loud Rumor, which is one of the global powers when it comes to digital marketing uh agencies for the fitness and health industry. Uh guys, Doug. And uh, you know, if I I don't know how to get you more excited than tell you this. Right in the beginning of this interview, Mike throws out a bold claim that this will be the number one uh future of fitness podcast when it comes to value for the listeners. And this is gonna be the podcast that you are gonna talk about time and time again and share with all of your friends. And uh he really he brought it, he brought the value as he always does. So um I was extremely uh grateful and had a lot of fun talking to him. You know, some of the topics you'll you'll get from this, uh, we talked about the top five percent. So Mike uh has been in the industry long enough. He has uh won over enough hearts and minds that he gets to work with the top 5% uh in the fitness industry and he gives us insights into what makes them different. And you know, the big part about it is that they practice, practice, practice, right? Always learning, reading, educating, practicing their craft, and then implementing at game time. And uh he does it within his own agent, within his own agency, and he tells you a little bit about how they do that there. So a lot of value in that. Uh the other thing we talk about is lead generation. I have yet to talk to a fitness professional who doesn't want more leads. And lead generation is a very hot topic, yet I think it's a little misunderstood as to what it actually is. And Mike goes through and talks about cold, warm, hot leads and why they're important and why all leads are important. Um, not necessarily uh the ones that turn over right away to clients, but ones that you nurture over time, and that's essentially where the riches are. So a lot of high value there as well. And I really need to talk about the fitness accelerator. Uh, you guys, I'm I'm so fired up. By the time this episode is released, uh, we'll be well on our way growing this Slack community of fitness professionals. So think about it this way it's an online community uh that is part mastermind group, part incubator, and part networking group. And you know what? The best part about it, it's not on social media. That's right. Yeah, I'm pretty tired of social media. I'm on all the time because I feel that I have to be, but I think we're all a little sick and tired, aren't we? I mean, there's so many notifications. It's such a time suck and all these things. So we decided not to put this particular community on any kind of social media, whether it be Facebook or LinkedIn, because you know what? I love cat videos just like everybody else. Uh, I love a good uh thread where I hear a couple rants from people I know, but it's not getting business done. And that's what this industry needs. I have interviewed well over 300 fitness professionals over the last nine months, and I can tell you there's some things that people need within this industry. And number one is better networks. So we're gonna get people out of their silos, we're gonna get them communicating, we're gonna share secrets, share insights, and just grow this thing together. And that's why I want you to check it out. So go to fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit FIT Accelerator, and you'll check out uh we have two weeks right now uh for one dollar. You can get in and check out the community, um, start getting value from it right away and get a feel for what it is. It's a hard thing to describe until you actually get in it. So go to fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit accelerator and get two weeks on me. That's it. So without further ado, let's get on to episode number 84 with Mike Arce of Loud Rumor. Enjoy the show. All right, Mike Arcee. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited. This is uh this is quite a high value interview for those listening today because Mike has uh he's done a lot, you know, as far as digital marketing within the fitness industry and just achieved a lot over a period of time that most people don't, you know, get to that that level. So I'm excited to extract some some things for our listeners uh from you today. And uh let's do this, man. Tell me exactly what is it that you that you do now? Um, and then we'll kind of go backwards on how you got into it.

Absolutely. And and to kick things off, because I know with podcasts, I I host three of them. I listen to yours, I listen to a bunch of others. You got like a minute and a half for that listener to decide whether they want to listen to the rest of this. So for everyone listening right now, just know that I'm giving you everything I've got, and this is gonna be your favorite episode of Eric's. This is gonna be the one, the one you refer back to, the one when somebody says, Should I listen to this podcast? You're gonna say, do it and start with this one, right? Because you you want your friends to be hooked, and this will be the one that hooks up. Okay. Is that fair, Eric? Can I make that? That's more than fair. So go, go. Now I got now. I gotta live up to it. So all right. So what um, you know, my my background. So right now I basically own uh the number one ad agency for fitness studios, independent gyms, and uh sales and marketing resource. So we work with now over 800 plus fitness studios throughout the world, obviously United States, uh, that's where we are, right? But then we also have a bunch in Canada and Australia and Hong Kong and UK and um you know, just kind of all over the map now, as long as they speak English, which believe it or not, all those countries they do and very well. So um, but yeah, we we basically help them with lead generation. But what we've learned is that a lot of them don't know what to do next, and they think they do until they get in the position. And so we have a ton of sales and marketing resources. When you work with as many studios as we do, and you compile and aggregate the top 5% of them and figure out what the heck they're doing to be so successful, that creates the content for our learning center where we say, hey guys, here's what the top 5% are using as far as software, as far as tools go, here's how the top 5% take people through a sales process, here's how the top 5% get more referrals, get more uh upgrades, upsells, add-ons. And so now you got people that are not in the top 5% that obviously everybody wants to be in the top 5%. So my ears are open and I'm listening and I have I have their attention. So that's uh that's what's been the biggest driving force for us. People stay, not just because they get a ton of leads, which they do, but they stay with us because man, I mean, if if I don't have the answer for them, I've got like 80 to 90 people in the top 5% that have got the answer forum. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

So how did you get into this, Mike? How did you build? I mean, how did this whole thing start? Now you're the number one, you know, fitness digital marketing agency um in the world. How did that how tell me about that story? What was that path like? How did you get there?

I'll I'll keep it quick because it's it's only it's only not boring to me, I think. But I'll give the fun bits and pieces, right? So I was in the fitness training industry for seven years, started out as a personal trainer, then I went to selling training, then I managed different clubs and studios, and my job, they basically sent me to the clubs that were underperforming. My job was to fix a sales process and make sure that we grow the membership in personal training. Uh from there, I started my own personal training business, uh, my own fitness business, uh, went on for a little bit to do that. Um, I ended up selling that business to my partner and really decided to jump into sales and marketing uh because I got cocky and I felt like I could do anything, right? And so I took some really good opportunities, did that for about six years in sales, marketing, that kind of stuff. Started my own agency after that, um, where it was again, we help anybody, dentists, doctors, surgeons, all that. And I felt like I was so cool saying, I'll help anybody with anything that has to do with growing your business. I realized very quickly you can't be great like that, and you just can't. So I decided to focus. And so I brought my two passions together, which was sales and marketing, and then fitness. And I married the two. And once once we did that, we went from 42 clients to you know 400 in our first 18 months. So we literally 10x'd our business in 18 months, and it and and it took us seven years to build up what we 10x, right? So um that was really great, and now you know, obviously we've we're at 800 plus, and I don't know when this episode comes out, but we're adding 50 or more studios every single month. So um chances are we'll be much higher as the listeners listen in.

Yeah. So um, you know, I have a question because you know, in the fitness industry, you tend to get this a lot, right? Well, lead generation is is like everyone wants to talk about lead generation. That's that's number one. And we can we can dive into you know the good and bad of that particular term within the industry. Um, but also, you know, all the time you hear uh within the fitness profession, well, my market is different than everyone else's, right? My my marketing is special. Um, I have the unique challenges, right? My clients are different. How much of that is bullshit?

And how much well here's the thing when you say I'm different, and so does everyone else, that means you're all the same right off the bat, right? If everyone's saying the same thing, you're all the same. So, I mean, at the end of the day, my kids are all different. Uh I'm at but we're all gonna sit down at dinner, we're gonna figure out how to work as a family. So, yes, my market's different. Okay, great, that's awesome. Um, my my my clientele is different, I need higher-end people. Um, you know, my salespeople are really good, but we need better leads, we need better salespeople, we need a better market, we need people that actually want to spend money. We need, we need, we need everyone's very good at pointing externally as to why things aren't working. But when everything around you seems to be an issue, usually you got to start with the man in the mirror. And what I've learned is the top five percent always start with the man in the mirror. This one guy's got let me just tell you first who this guy is and why he's incredible, and then I'll show you how he works, how he operates. So this guy, Daniel, learned English seven years ago, moved to the country five years ago. Literally, as soon as he came here, he decided to start a business because he couldn't get a job. So he started a fitness business, personal training company. He committed to waking up at 4:30 every morning to read for two hours on business just to start his day. He figured not only will I learn business, but I'll also learn English by doing it this way. So he literally learned English and business at the same time, two hours a day. He still reads two hours a day. He now has just last year, let me tell you what he did. Just last year, he opened up his fifth location. On top of that, he's adding $12,000 a month and recurring revenue to each location. On top of that, he wrote a best-selling uh best-selling book called FitBiz and the story of a seven-fill-figure gym. He also got on a Netflix documentary, uh, Arnold Schwarzenegger's documentary, Generation Iron 2. And uh he now is working with NASA on a plan to help strengthen their astronauts through his training to help them colonize Mars. Guy just learned English seven years ago. Guys just moved to the country five years ago, right? So, but what what what this how he operates, you know, he was working with us in one of his locations, two of his locations actually, because one was in pre-sale, they weren't really getting the results that he was hoping for. The leads weren't like closing, right? They just weren't closing. He didn't say the leads are bad. He learned in his books already. You the leads are never bad, right? Like something's gotta be better around it. So what he did was he actually started really focusing on his sales training. He hired people with sales experience, and he also hired a call center to field the leads and make sure everything got uh acknowledged, answered, and responded to within five minutes of the lead coming in. Once he did that, all his locations were now adding 12,000 plus recurring in revenue, right? And so the way he thinks is not how can I go get a better external something? He says, How can I make this thing that clearly works? How can I get this thing to work better for me? What do I have to fix internally, in-house, in order to make this thing work? Right? The the weights at the gym are fine. I don't switch gyms because all the weights don't work. The weights work, right? But you gotta work the weights. Do you know how to work the weights? Do you know how much to lift, how many sets, how many reps, how much waste time uh weight time, do you know all that stuff, the science around it? Because if you just go in there and push and pull stuff around, yeah, you're not gonna get results. You're gonna quit gym, you're gonna go to the next one.

Yeah, yeah. So let's let's let's take that, let's point it back at you, Mike. Well, you know, through your evolution as a businessman, business owner, you know, what I guess what are some of the things that have really elevated you and allowed you to scale? You know, when did you take that look internally and say, you know, okay, I need to start with me and start changing yourself, and then your business started to flourish? Is there a point when that happened?

Yes. So um, I my first book that I was recommended and that that I read was EMyth Revisited by Michael Gerber. Yeah, and that was my first book. Honestly, in high school, I didn't read books. I was a really I was really resourceful and I found a way to still get the report done, right? Right. Um, whatever it took. I first read my first real book was a business book, E Myth Revisited, and then I got hooked. I I've read over 250 books. If you come into my office, you'll see them all stacked up. I get my team to read the books, I reread some of them depending on the situation I'm in. Because I've learned like music, you've got to read what you need, right? So people sometimes when they come in, they see the library, they go, which one's your favorite book? Which one do you recommend I read? Read what you need, just like music, right? What's the best song? Well, what do you need? What do you are you working out or are you on a date? Because those are two different things. Are you putting the baby to sleep or are you moving? Because the song's different. You're not gonna put the baby to sleep to Rocky. Well, working out's a great song for Rocky, but you're not gonna work out to a lullaby. So for me, right now, my focus is right now upsells and add-ons. I gotta get better at upsells and add-ons. That's a that's a thing that I know we can do better in. So I'm reading Ultimate Sales Machine right now by Chet Holmes. I've read it in the past, but now when you read it when it's relevant to your problem, words jump off the page differently to you because they're addressing a pain point that you currently have. So what are you really going through right now? Is it a people problem? Are you have are you having high turnover? Um, or do you have a cash problem? Are you are you having a problem with your your bank account not lining up with what your PL says? Does it say you have money in your PL, but your bank account's dry? Um, do you have a problem with operations? Do you feel like everyone's doing their own thing? No one's doing the same thing, sales, marketing, whatever, right? PR. What are you really, what's your pain point currently? Read that book because every word will jump off the page differently than if it wasn't redressing a pain point. Because the whole time you're reading, you're gonna be thinking about that thing that's bothering you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So once I started reading, once I started reading for pain points, everything was easier because every book, I don't care what book you read, you're gonna realize they're telling you to improve. Every book. No book is saying, now if you're reading this, chances are everything around you needs to get better. You stay the same, everything around you gets better. And as a reader, we go, oh yeah, no, no, nobody says that, right? Every book says you need to figure it out. FIO, figure it out, right? And so once you start getting that, there's not one moment, it's just compiling of over and over reminders that I need to get better and the things around me will change, you know.

Yeah, so Mike, you recommended to me a few weeks back a book called Um Outwitting the Devil. Yeah, yeah, did you read it? I'm I'm halfway through it right now. I just started the audio version because I put it in cue. Um, because I walk about an hour every morning and I listen to it then and just let it sink. And holy shit, that is an amazing book. And it's it's uh, yeah, tell it, tell because you you gave it to me. I'll let you I'll let you dish give the dish on this one, why it's so amazing.

So, in short, the book was written like right after Napoleon Hill's uh best-selling book that everybody knows, Think and Grow Rich. He so he also wrote Outwitting the Devil about a year later. But he uh the title, his wife was concerned about the title. She didn't want him to release the book with the title because the Great Depression was just kind of coming back, and it was like every the world was coming back together a little bit, and a lot of people were so clutch on religion, she was nervous. And so she said, change the title. He refused, he said the title's perfect, so he waited a little bit until his wife would like mellow out. But unfortunately, he passed, book got into the next person's hands. Now we're during Vietnam time, and same thing, he was like, Yeah, I don't feel like this book is a good book right now, the title, but in the in the um will he couldn't change the title. If you want to release the book, you have to keep the title, that's the rule. So they didn't release it, got into someone else's hands in 2010, and they said it's perfect. Released it in 2010, became a best-selling book, which is crazy because it's like 60, 70 years old. Anyway, the idea of it all is that people operate in under either fear or faith. Every decision you make is operated under fear or faith, whether you think it or not. Most people think they're faithful until they read this book and they realize they're operating under fear. And only 2% of the world really understands how to do this. So this book is great because it's so fun to follow because it's Napoleon Hill interviewing the devil, and the devil who has control over your fear, right? Um, he basically um has to answer every question, honestly. He's like some magic power over him, he can't lie. And so uh so it's interesting when they show you like everything's parallel to your life, either your past or present. You're like, oh my gosh, it's me. Oh my god, I do that. Oh, why? And it gives you a different paradigm. You're like, why do I operate that way? So if you haven't read out without definitely read that book.

Yeah, that's like upgrading your operating system, right? Essentially, that's that's that's uh it's pretty amazing. And you know, that the I don't want to dwell on the book too much, but I'm I'm reading it right now, so it's just fresh, so fresh in my mind, everything I do. Fact that it was written 70 years ago, and then they interject in certain spots and be like, so what do you think? You know, did he predict the future? Is this actually what's going on? And every time you're like, holy shit, yes, it's it's incredible. Um, so anyway, thank you for that. That's that was a great book.

Here's the thing, for everybody listening, this is what I this is what I learned. You were born with two fears. Everybody was the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Everything else has been created by the society around you, telling you what you should be afraid of, or by watching other people be afraid, that kind of lets you think you should be as well. And so your entire being of fear and faith is created by the society around you. Get away from it because you'll look you'll notice the greats, they're all away from it, and they show that in patterns, which is cool.

Yeah, yeah, you know, and so from a personal anecdote as well, is you know, last year I sold my gym and it hit the road with my wife, and we've been in very remote areas. Right now I'm in the middle of the Rockies in British Columbia, right? So I've had a lot of time to think, reflect, and uh, and get away from you know things that were kind of always inundating me in a gym setting. You know, I had 250 plus members in my gym, so it was always, you know, things are just flying at you all day, and and having that time uh to think and reflect on things is has been a very powerful thing. So yeah, I agree. Lead generation, Mike, that's um it's so pervasive within the fitness profession, right? And you spoke about it. What is your like what is the relationship between the term lead generation and the fitness profession? And well, let me expand on that question a little bit. Is most of the time when I talk to people and they say, yeah, everything's great, I just have an issue with lead generation. Um to me it's a it's a and you've touched on this, you've alluded to it already, it's a it's a symptom. It's a symptom of something that may uh may otherwise be going on. Some companies just need lead generation, right? They just need heads in the beds, and that's that's awesome. They just need more members, they need more clients. But in your in your experience, having worked with almost you know 800 plus, you know, what what is this? Is lead generation something that most gym or most uh fitness professionals need? Um, or is it generally a symptom?

Lead generation is something that every business needs. I mean, if you're in business, the idea is to grow. And you're not growing for the sake of yourself, you're growing as a responsibility to your employees because your employees want to grow, but they can't grow unless the company grows. You can't give them raises unless money's made. You can't give them promotions unless new positions open up. So once you become a business owner, what I've learned is I've had a responsibility to grow the business, not because I need to hit my number, but because I've I've got a responsibility with everybody in that room right now. Um but here's the thing: uh, lead generation, although it's needed by everyone, I think it's very misunderstood as all leads are not created equal. There's hot leads, there's uh you know, warm leads, there's cool leads, there's cold leads. And you've got to really understand the difference between them all because if you don't, um you're gonna end up spending way too much time um complaining or being frustrated or and all that stuff. So I'll give you a great example. Hot leads. Hot leads referrals, right? Somebody was basically uh sent to you by a current existing member, and if that person comes to you as a referral, chances are they've already talked with their buddies, they want to know before coming in. So they know what kind of hours you guys have, they know what kind of classes you have, they their buddies already sold them on how the workout is to them, like their experience, their perspective. Yeah, uh they already pretty much know the pricing, uh, they know everything, right? They come to you, you're not selling them anything, you're taking an order. So if you think your sales closing ratio is 90% because you're closing nine out of 10, it's not 90%. Your order taking is 90%. And because of that, you that means you need to work on sales. Because I don't know how you didn't close the tenth one. Something went on. You know, that guy's ready to go. So most people, when I sit down with them, I say, Yeah, I talk about their sales process and and Everyone, everyone, every single one of them. Oh, oh, sales, uh look, sales is fine. We're great at sales. If I get somebody in front of me, I'll close them nine times out of ten. Everyone says that. And then my next my next question is that's awesome. Where do you get most of your leads from? And mostly everybody says word of mouth referrals because they're bragging about it, right? They're proud because that says something about their service. It doesn't say anything about your sales. Because if they're coming from referrals in word of mouth and you're only closing nine out of ten, you're failing. Like, how'd you let the one go? Where do you go? When it comes to warm leads, which is walk-ins, right? Somebody walks in, they saw you as you were driving by or something like that, right? They saw your sign, that's warm. They're not fully sold yet, but the fact that they came in here means they're probably in a location where they consider working out already. They like something about the outside, there's something convenient about this place, they're interested. That's pretty warm lead. Um, but then you got your cold leads, which is your internet, right? Internet leads are cold. If they don't expect to be pitched, right, or anything like that, it's a cold lead. And what happens is with your warm traffic, you should be closing 33, 40% or better on your warm. Your hot traffic, you should be closing 100%. As close to that as possible. Your cold leads, um, one of my mentors is Grant Cardone, one of the top sales trainers out there. I just had a meeting with him. We hung out for a couple hours over in uh in um Miami just a week and a half ago, and we were talking and he was showing me his numbers. He has the most militant sales training process and staff out there. Plus, he's got one of the best products I've ever seen. We we have it. He closes internet leads at six percent. Six percent. That means if he got a hundred leads from the internet, he's okay with closing six to ten of them. Because what he says is closing ratio is based on that first month. But how you follow up, which that's where the fortune is, the fortune's in the follow-up, how you follow up really helps you close a lot of those leads later. The problem is most people don't have that follow-up process. They're always looking to kill whatever came in that month. And then after that, they consider it a dead lead, but it's not a dead lead. Most of his business comes from old leads that he's continued following up. Because what we don't realize when we run an ad or an offer on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, AdWords, whatever, Yelp, it doesn't matter. When we run an ad there, we think that because they filled out the form, they're gonna buy. Doing business with them, uh, you know, it's not about when we're ready for them to buy, it's about when they're ready to buy. That's the problem. We think because we're ready to sell them, that means they're coincidentally also ready to buy. Look, your pain point for getting new customers may not be equal to their pain point and get in better shape. Yeah, it just may not match up, right? Not because they don't want to be in better shape, but that pain point may not be strong enough. You've got to wait for, and if you follow up, you keep following up over and over, that you will have perfect timing. You will have perfect timing because you're literally doing it all the time. I'll give you an example. You're a guy, I'm a guy, all guys do this, and every female listening knows guys do this when they're single, right? I'm married now, but happily married now for almost 10 years. But what we do, if we if when we were single, if we really like a girl and we really want to date that girl, but she's in a relationship with somebody else, we still follow up. We'll just check in. Hey, just thought I was thinking about you, just want to see how's school going. Hey, just checking in, just want to follow up. How's your work? How's work going? How's everything with you and Ryan? We may even mention the boyfriend, right? And everything's good, everything's good. We're following up for six months to a year. Some guys may be following up with six or seven girls, right? And then all of a sudden, Ryan messes up bad. Good old Ryan cheats on her, good old Ryan doesn't pay attention to her, good old Ryan gets in a fight with her father, good old Ryan gets in a fight with her roommate and it's insulting or crosses the line, and now you just happen you were to call that that this particular day anyway, even if Ryan was a great boyfriend today. It just so happens that you call today and G is in a pain point. Where Ryan's the jerk and ignores her, and here you are, not even her boyfriend, and you've been following up, you're more interested in her life than he is. And now you've got an opportunity, right? And so all you're waiting for as a salesperson in the fitness industry is you're waiting for that woman that you're following up with to be told by her four-year-old nephew in public, hey, are you having a baby and she's not pregnant? You're waiting for that person to have their friend post the pictures from everybody at the lake, and everyone looks good in the picture, but you don't, you do not. And it's posted, you can't be the insecure guy that says, Hey, can you take that down? I look terrible. You can't do that, you have to deal with it. You have to deal with your husband saying a little remark, like, what happened to those jeans? I don't even see you wearing them anymore. And yeah, because I don't fit. Whatever, right? The point is, pain will happen, and you will either be there following up, or they'll go out to someone new and they'll get the business. You see what I'm saying? So it's not about closing the business when you're ready for them to close, it's about closing the business when they're ready to buy, when the pain point's strong enough. Nike. You've never bought sneakers from a Nike ad, have you? Have you ever seen a Nike ad on TV or a billboard or a magazine or anything and go, I'm gonna get Nike's today? No. What happens is one day you need sneakers. And when you go into the store, you gravitate to the familiar brand, Nike, over the brand you haven't heard of or haven't heard of in a while or as much. Which is why it's important to always continue marketing and advertising, always being prevalent, always being front and center, period. And it's so cheap today that you gotta do it. You just got to. Because if you don't, and your competitor does, if I'm competing with you and I'm in front of them over and over, I'm the Nikes, and you're the random one that is maybe even better than me, right? There's a lot of runners that think Nike's not a good shoe. Nike's not a good shoe, right? But it doesn't matter because the uneducated consumer just feels better with the Nike. They believe it's a better shoe just because they've seen it more. So if I'm competing with your studio or you're competing against my clients, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. When that pain point kicks in, you're in trouble. So you've got to get that right. Constantly be in front of you. You're only targeting five miles, so get it done. Yeah.

Yeah. Incredible insight. And you know, I have the opportunity to consult with some gym owners as well. I don't do the digital marketing services at the level that you do. And, you know, so much there, there's this common theme for many that, oh, well, I ran a Facebook campaign and I only closed one lead, right? And I paid, you know, $18 a lead. I'm like, well, how many did you close to expect, right? You know, how many did you expect to close right off the bat? And I think it's a mindset that's pretty pervasive within history. And I think you just explained it beautifully, you know, is that, hey, you know, this this is gonna take time, it's a process that you commit to. So, Mike, give us some details. Like, how, you know, if you can, like, how does this work with your clients? Like, how do you set up systems? How do you do the follow-up? How are you generating leads? Like, give us what you can without giving away um you know, secret sauce here.

Well, our best customers, the ones that are open to it, which is a lot of them, we have a lot of really great customers. They're we first, I mean, we got to educate them because it's unfair to not educate them on what lead generation is like in the internet world versus everywhere else. Yeah. Because they may quit something that could change your life, and they stick with something that changes our life that works, right? So, first thing is that that low closing percentage is actually good. That's normal, right? And so, what like let's say me, uh, I'll give you an example. We we had my team, my ads guy on my team for loud rumors to help grow my agency. He said, uh, because you know, just instinct, right? He said, Hey, you know, we got this campaign, it's doing okay, but we're we're actually getting a less lead. So out of a hundred leads, maybe we're only like getting six or seven of them to buy, right? Um, I think, and this is natural everybody thinks this way, right? Because we think like operations, but this is not operations, this is marketing, two different worlds. He goes, I mean, I'd rather get less leads and get better quality than get higher volume and get lower quality. I want both. I if you have a campaign that can get me a higher quality, I want that campaign. Yeah, but I also want the one with volume at lower. And in fact, 10x that, right? If I've got a hundred leads coming in and I'm getting six of them to buy, well then let's get 600 leads and get 60 of them to buy. Let's do your idea here too. I'm not gonna pick, I'm gonna do both. Because both will work, right? Because now, here's the difference. If I pick the the low volume and higher quality over high, let's say you and I are competing. Let's do that. You and I are competing. Here's your fitness here, here's mine. You decide to go the other route. I'm gonna get less leads and I'm gonna close more of them because you want to feel better about yourself, right? Because you don't you don't, you know, it's like the kid that doesn't want to play basketball because he's not good at it. Then all of a sudden he gets good at it and he can't get off the court, right? Kid that doesn't want to swim until he learns to swim and then he can't get him out of the pool. So for for you, if I'm competing against you, you go, okay, I'd rather get 30 leads and close 10 of them than get 100 leads and close six. And I say, okay, you go do that. I'm gonna now go get 600 leads and close 60. Right? And what happens is over the course of that month, you close 10 out of 30, but 20 of them to follow up with. And only 30 total know you exist. I, on the other hand, have 900 people that know I exist. I've closed 60 and I have 840 to follow up with on pain point. Just waiting. I have 804. In the girl scenario, 840 girls, right? Yeah. Over the course of the year, I've got about 10,000 people. You've got about like three to 400 that know who you are, that know who I am. I'm still closing more. I could still run the campaign you're running, but there's no way I'm not gonna pay for that volume. Go get more. The lead's not as good, go get more. You know? So, what our business does is, you know, we we like to focus on the multiple campaigns. We like to do the high volume, high quality, high quality, but we also like to do the high volume because there's something to be said about if I recognize your fitness studio versus if I don't. And the more I recognize, the more familiar is, the more I buy. So actually, if I can get higher volume at a lower cost for volume, I'll actually end up closing more leads later on down the road as well, or in my higher lead generating campaigns, because that familiarity exists versus the other studio. It's the first time I see you and you're offering me a free week. I don't know what the hell you do. Right? So we like to run both of them: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. It's too cheap not to do all three of them. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and then we run everybody through a funnel. So every every customer goes to landing page, a thank you page, automated text, automated emails, automated voicemails, automated lead sheets. I mean, like just so many things happen automatically, and the the person that we work with, our client, doesn't have to do a damn thing other than sell them. That's it. You take care of everything else.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So um, Mike, you stated that you know, the top five percent, you really pay attention to what they do, that allows you to essentially, you know, that's that's a rare advantage because you've earned it over time. You get to work with the top five percent. So now you can scale and leverage that now. So is there anything, you know, if the people listening, Joe Fit Pro, um, Jim, the Joe, the the gym owner, whatever it is, um, you know, from that, those lessons from the top five percent, is there a golden nugget that you can give us uh for something that they do differently with their sales and marketing that most people are missing?

Yeah, exclusive, like seriously, everyone is consistent on this. The top, they train every day. Every day they practice their skills as a salesperson and business owner. They read books, they role play with their team. I've got a video out when I was with that guy, Daniel, in St. Pete's, yeah, and I went to his location just to go visit him, and we actually filmed me walking in. This guy has five of his employees, instructors, everybody, in office role-playing how to answer the phones and how to get the person to come in for an appointment. Role playing that. I mean, you don't just read something, or you don't just come up with an idea and then go do it. That's like, you know, if I teach you a move right now, I go, hey, just so you know, in basketball, a really good move is a fadeaway. So you do this turn, then you do that, and you make it. You go, okay, cool, I'm gonna do that tonight in the game. No, do not practice new moves in the game. Right. Where do you practice new moves? In practice.

Yeah.

And then you execute practiced moves in a game. And the top 5% is consistent with it. They don't take a day off of training. We train every day. First hour of every day, we train. We we we watch new lessons, read new lessons, we discuss those lessons, we role play, and then we execute the day with all that fresh in our minds. A lot of them wake up at 430. I wake up at 4:30, but a lot of these guys wake up at 4.30, 40. I know one guy wakes up at 3.30 every morning, some wake up at 5 every day, and they train their mind and they get ready to get their mind right, and they try, they give themselves skills, even ones that they've already learned, just to be sharper, right? If Michael Jordan knows how to make a free throw already, doesn't mean he doesn't go practice free throws still. You gotta keep it sharp. And then they run their day. Uh Abraham Lincoln, I can't I may botch up the hours, but it was like if I have six hours to chop down a tree, I spend the first four sharpening my axe.

Yeah. Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

Yeah, so that's what the top five percent. The bottom five percent, they just work. They get up every day, they don't learn anything new, they don't role play, they don't train, they don't discuss the game plan, they just kind of get up and they start and then they end their day, and then the next day looks different. Uh uh, I'm sorry, the next day looks the same, but they want the results to be different.

Right.

It doesn't work.

Yeah. Yeah. So with those in those training sessions that you guys do every morning for the first hour, you know, give us an example. What does that what does that look like, man?

Get us in the first 20 minutes. We watch about four different videos, or uh so we have a bunch of videos that we've got, like on sales, on upselling, downselling, um, cross-selling, um, getting a person to come in, getting a person to buy, getting a person to refer. I mean, there's like hundreds and hundreds of videos, right? So it won't circle back when we run out, right? But we go we all watch the same four videos. They're all about two to six minutes. We watch the same four videos uh together, I'm saying, uh, in the morning. The next day there's a different set of four videos, but we all watch them together. And uh then after we watch those four videos, takes about two, well, it's basically uh nine oh um nine twenty to nine forty, we watch the videos, nine forty to ten o'clock, hard stop. We discuss how this applies to what we've been doing dealing with right now, and then um then 10 o'clock to 1020, we role play. I'm sorry, nine o'clock to nine twenty. I think I messed that up. Hold on. 8.06 to 8:20, we have our team meeting, the entire company. 8:20 to 8:40, we watch the videos. 8:40 to 9 o'clock, we discuss. 9 o'clock to 9:20, uh, we role play on those specific things that we've talked, we partner up, and then 9:20, we begin work. Yeah. A lot of people may listen to that and go, you just wait an hour and a half, you could have made calls, you could have done this, you could have done that. Okay, how about this? Think about yourself. Think about if you had two versions of yourself, one version every day for the next for this whole year is going to train for an hour and get better every day first. And then they work, and then your other self, your other version is just gonna work. At the end of the year, which guy do you think is in a better spot? If you had to compete against one of the two guys, would you rather compete against the guy that trained every day, or would you rather compete against the guy that didn't? Well, if you'd rather not compete against the guy that trained every day than become that guy, because that's your competitors don't want to train against either, right? So, or compete against either. So, I mean, it's a hard concept for people that haven't been doing it to get in, but nothing gets in the way of it. Somebody wants to do a demo with us, doesn't get in the way. Sorry, I'm booked. So somebody there's a phone call, sorry, I'm not answering it. I'm booked. Yeah. There's there better be a fire in the building, and even then, you know, uh maybe there's a spot in the corner we can train. But somebody better be dying, or there better be a fire because nothing's taken away taken away from you getting better.

Yeah, which is interesting too, which I I fully agree. You know, I've I've been uh in my past few years, uh, I've really instituted more of a learning requirement in my life, right? A growth requirement that that really seems to not only give me more productivity at the end of the day or efficacy, but just makes me happier, you know, because I'm growing. Now there's there's a rare read too, and um, I've worked with a few of them who spend too much time in the training phase, and then they never get to game.

Well, because you don't implement what you do. Right. Like scared, they like learning, but they don't like to implement. So that's the role, that's the reason we role play. The reason you people don't implement is because they don't have the confidence doing that move in the game. Yeah. But what gives you confidence is doing the move in practice successfully, smoothly. Then you can't help it. You you don't even plan on doing the move in the game. You just do the move, it naturally comes to you. And so, same thing goes. If you've just learned how to phrase something in a certain way that increases upsells, you don't practice that for the first time against the customer. You don't practice on your customers. You practice with your team and role play. When you do that, it's crazy. You just did that 20 times. Now, when the customer comes in and buys, you don't even, you just you just do it. You you can't you can't stop yourself from upselling with that phrase. It just happens because that's what you just you just created a habit, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So let's let's shift ever so slightly. I um I know you've you've been consciously working on community building as as a presumably a marketing and sales and business strategy as well. So talk about your recent experience in community building and maybe some things that you know the people listening home can take away and start applying to to their business locally or online, whatever it is to how they're they're they're doing their business now.

Well, I don't have one coach or mentor, I have many coaches and mentors. And depending on the thing that I need, I go to this guy or I go to that girl or that guy, that girl, whatever, because they all have their own different strengths. Right. And so I created this community because I shouldn't be the only person people are learning from. So I mean we we I have tons of videos where I share with people what to do and how to do it, and it works great, but I shouldn't be the only person that you learn from. Because there's a lot of people doing really great things. So with this community, what we've learned is we have our Facebook group, we have our events, and everyone gets everyone's together, right? And so, like yesterday, I asked people, it was if I said, Hey, it's the end of the month. Um, you know, hopefully you guys had a great month. As we roll into August, uh, do me a favor and let me know what your biggest win was and what your biggest challenge was. The great thing is when you post your biggest win, other people reading the comments, right, are going, oh, I should have done that, I could have done that, I could do that. Yeah. Then when they post their struggles, somebody says, Oh, I had that too in April. Here's what I've done. Go ahead and give it a shot. And then it's super valuable, right? So, and and sometimes it's not one idea. Sometimes you'll have like four comments on that one comment. They're four unique ideas, and you take the one that maybe you have the resources to roll. So it's great because we're helping more people by creating an environment where people can actually help each other, and uh everything comes full circle. And instead of everybody working alone, which is how sometimes entrepreneurs work, right? We're on this mission alone. Yeah, you have your employees, but it's different, right? Um, now it's no, we're working, I'm working on this with other people that have the same goals as me, the same challenges as me, all different stages, all different life lessons, right? And that's really what's been amazing for uh for our customers, and I love it.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's such a powerful thing. And uh, you know, I was during my gym ownership days, the last three years, I was part of this group called Two Brand Business with uh Chris Cooper, who's a founder of it, and then just this amazing community of all CrossFit affiliate owners, you know, three to five hundred of them. And every Friday they had this thing called uh uh Bright Spots Friday, right? Where you just lined up and you just everyone shared what what they what was the win of the week. And it was so I couldn't wait till Fridays, man. I couldn't wait to share, you know, what had gone right, see what other people were doing really well. Um and no matter how shitty of a week you may have had or thought you had, if you search out that win, you know, you know that that power, right? The power of the positive reflection. It's it's incredible. You you search you seek out the yeah, is that what you have? So if people just listening, Mike has like a thousand post-it notes.

Uh oh, if I if I were to turn my lap here, look. That's incredible. The whole room, the whole room, all the walls are smothered in these post-it notes. So basically, what this is you know, I want people to do something when they first get here, I want some people to do something when they first leave, but clocking in, clocking out is kind of dull. So, what I do is I share the strategy that's always worked for me. Three years in a row, I've hit my big goals, whether it was going to Italy, getting a new house, um, getting a new car, um, and a type of car that I Wanted, right? Whatever it was, paying off this or saving up this much money. Um, I was able to hit my goals, and I've always reached farther than I thought I could. And so one habit that I did that it worked really well for me was I wrote my goals. The first thing I did is I write my goals down every morning. It's the first thing I do, I write them down. The same ones, right? I set goals for the beginning of the year, and then I have to get them done by the end of the year. And every December 31st, I set new goals, right? And so I write down those goals every day for a year. Even when I hit them, I still write them down, but I get to put a checkbox next to them, right? It's a good feeling. It actually increases dopamine, um, your to-do list chemical, which is fantastic. Yeah, because uh once you get that increased, you actually get more chemicals in your body to do more. We're fully driven by chemicals. That's why everything's chemicals, right? So certain drugs like cocaine or heroin or marijuana or scotch or caffeine, they all raise different chemicals differently, which is why you act differently on different drugs and different like alcohol and stuff like that. So, well, if we already know that, why don't we just raise our chemicals a certain way? So uh anyway, post-it notes, we do that in the morning. Um, and then and then I write my goals down at night every day before I go to bed. The reason I do that is because I kind of take an inventory of my day of did I actually work on these goals or not? And if I didn't I feel like shit. The great thing about that is when I wake up the next morning, I write my goals down again. First thing I think about is how much like shit I felt last night because I wrote down the goals and I work on them. So I never go two days without work, working on my goals, right? So my days have more intention. Shared it with these guys. So these post-its here, um, you know, they're they're unique to each person, but I've had people that have not hit major goals like this in their life, and now they take goals like paying off school loans, paying off credit card debt, uh getting an apartment on the water, traveling to Italy, traveling to Japan, um, snow uh surfing every weekend or every other weekend, uh, which we live in Arizona, so that means they have to fly somewhere, right? So these are see the difference is, you know, most people in the world they do have goals, but they're more like dreams because they don't actually have a date and a plan. So they just kind of think about them when somebody asks them what do you want to do or when they see it again, right? They see an Italy commercial come up. So what my goal was how do I make it so that these people out there don't just serve Loud Rumor, my agency, how can Loud Rumor serve them? Because here they are here for the paycheck, but not really. They all want the same thing, they all want to have a bucket list that they're checking off. They all want to be able to say, I did that this year, I did this, I did that. And what we're noticing is uh they're noticing how much they're they're accomplishing compared to their friends and family because their friends and family don't have this system. And so we've had people accomplish some really cool goals here. One of them even uh met her biological father. That was a goal of hers. Never met her, but met her biological father, right? Pretty cool. So um just just some things that you know I want to I'm hitting my goals and that's fantastic. But as a leader, I think my team should be doing the same. So that's what these are up here for.

Yeah, that's amazing, man. So uh Mike, is there any last thoughts that you'd like to bestow upon the fitness profession before we kind of wrap this up? Any any dying, burning things you want to talk about?

Uh study marketing, people undervalue marketing and sales. You know, if you think of the best CEOs, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Marcus Lamonis, any of the Shark Tank guys, they all have a deep understanding of marketing and sales so that they can execute things the right way. And I think a lot of people delegate the education part. You can delegate who does the things, but you've got to understand what you need them to do and what the expectations should be so that you don't fire the wrong people or hire the wrong people, right? So study marketing. You know, what do the best companies do? Why are they done? What are what are your you know, your plan? How do you create a marketing plan? You know, what's the difference between marketing and advertising, and how does sales play a role with each? Um, I I think if you look back, every great leader of an organization has a good understanding of marketing. Uh Elon Musk is doing it right now. I mean, everything that guy does is marketing, right? Everything he does, but changing the world with his stuff. So your business is no different. Understand marketing, give yourself the really great edge because if you don't have marketing, you don't have opportunities. You don't have opportunities, nobody knows who you are. You can't buy from me if they don't know you. That's a fact. I can't buy from someone I don't know exists, right? Yeah. So get known. Get known and get known in the right way, the positive light, the way it works. If you do that, I promise you, I a hundred percent promise you, if you study marketing and sales every day, specifically marketing, um, at the end of two years from now, you will be in such a different place than any of the people you were competing with before. Such a different place. And if I can get the world to really understand and appreciate that, um, man, like you'll just see businesses. I know because I see the ones that do and don't. And everyone should be doing, right? So, anyway, that's what I would leave everybody with.

Study that stuff. Awesome. Awesome. Mike, thank you so much. This this has been amazing. I've learned a lot today. And uh, if people want to get a piece of Mike Garce, where where do you send them?

You so everything is my handle at MikeRC Live. So Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, at MikeRC Live, right? Um, and then um loudroomor.com is uh our agency website. Awesome.

Mike Garce, thank you so much for coming on. Uh, this has been amazing. And uh, ladies and gentlemen, that is a wrap.

Yep, for everyone listening, I don't know, am I on still? Am I on? Yeah, for everyone listening, I hope I lived up to the expectations. And if I did not, if I did not, message me on Instagram, the part you hated the most, and the part you love the most, and I'll make sure to send you some stuff to make up for it. But I promised you that I'd send you something great here today. And if I didn't fail, if I didn't reach that promise, let me know and I'll hook you. I'll make it up to you.

Yeah, yeah. There you have it. Personal guarantee. 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'll 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 the 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 MarketingAliance.com