Tony Avilez on Fitness Marketing and Info Products

 

Chris McCombs (CM): Hi, Tony. How're you doing today?

Tony Avilez (TA): I'm doing fantastic, Chris, how about yourself?

CM: I'm doing excellent. Tony, you know you're being recorded, correct?

TA: Sure do.

CM: Okay. Perfect. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

TA: Well, I've been a fitness professional - my tenth year. I left a better than decent corporate job working as a financing officer for one of the largest banks in the country, working in New York City. I like to say I really enjoyed the first two years I was doing it, I hated the last eight. So I made a decision that I was going to follow up and create a lifestyle and a career that was conducive to my interests and just doing what I loved to do. Since them, I became a fitness professional, by accident, literally.

CM: How did that happen?

TA: Essentially I had a bad motorcycle accident. And I was in intensive care for three and half days. It was pretty severe. I survived it without any - [indistinct] for a little while - but fortunately I survived it without many complications. The doctors told me a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was really diligent about keeping myself in good physical condition. And I had to be home for a while on the mend.

It was during that time period I did a lot of soul searching and said, "You could have not made it through that. You weren't living your life the way you really wanted to. So this is a second chance for you to re-create your life the way you really want it to be." So I started looking into what I really, really wanted to do. I came up with becoming a fitness professional. The reason I had that happen - I was searching the internet trying to find out ways to help rehabilitate my shoulder, because I had a dislocated shoulder and some other things. It said, "After you finish your physical therapy to start working with a personal trainer."

I said, "You know what? That's it! That's what I want to do!" So that's how I got into the industry. Like I said, by accident, literally.

CM: Wow! That sounds like one of those blessings in disguise.

TA:  Absolutely. Absolutely.

CM: That's amazing, and truly inspiring. Tony, how do you go about getting most of your clients?

TA: Well, in the beginning, everyone. I've done everything from hanging signs to handing out business cards at supermarkets, to asking my family or friends that are out of shape if they ever thought about what they need to do to get into shape. That was really in the beginning. I work on Staten Island, which is right across the water from Manhattan, a boat ride away from Manhattan, and it's sort of a - I wouldn't say it's polarized, maybe it is. Really, it's an island unto itself and personal training referrals systems are a lot of what helped me out in the beginning, at least to build my initial client base

So, after the last ten years, I've really acquired a better than decent reputation for assisting people to achieving their fitness goals. So a lot of my stuff comes now through referral, but I still do a fair amount of marketing. I still do some direct mail, I still do email, I still do a lot of publicity. I also do a lot of writing. Some of the things are just kind of basic. Starting with your clients, developing the best relationship possible, pretty much blowing away your competition. So, in a way, I've kind of positioned myself as kind of an expert.

I often challenge people if they look at my price and say, "Well, I can get someone who's less expensive," or they may say, "more reasonable."

And I say, "Well, go visit another trainer. See how they treat you, then compare it to the way I've treated you during our consultation."

So I think nothing's more important than just delivering great results.

CM: That's great. I've some similar experiences myself. You have some information products on the market. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

TA: I think the fastest way - like I said before - I position myself to be an expert. The expert really is the person who can deliver results, in my opinion. The thing about it is that, there's a difference between being an expert and then positioning yourself as an expert. One of the worst things that you can be in your locale is to be the best kept secret. That's the worst thing. You want to be the person who's first on - the best option that someone can get if they come up with something to achieve. In this case, of course, people looking to get in better shape, lose weight, or some facsimile of that.

What I did is I just created a shortcut for myself to expertise for distinction, that was by writing books. That was the first thing I did. So I've written five fitness books and two other books, one called Scientific Advertising for the Fitness Professional and then I've written a couple other books that are not fitness related, directly.

So the reason I was able to write these books was not having to do with having a lot of time, or even having some abundance of ideas. It's really about having some basic things that I want to share, and then creating a system of how to write and publish the books quickly, effectively, and efficiently. So what I decided to do later one was assist other fitness professionals, making my system available to them. So I have a line of products that actually teaches fitness professionals how to create their own books, how to produce their own videos (I've done that as well), how to produce their own medical newsletters, how to produce their first product (which is an audio, as well as fitness journals).

So I've created a product line around the product line that I've created. It's really assisted me to have a better than decent fitness business.

CM: Do you see any value in a trainer starting out creating an information product that he can give away for free, like, say, a viral e-book or free audio download, or something like that?

TA: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I did a seminar last night at the YMCA, and - I still do them - as a matter of fact I did another one this last weekend. And you know what? Think about it from the standpoint of how you're trying to condition yourself. If you try to position yourself as an expert, and let's say there's another person that does what you do, and a potential client is looking for someone that they want to work with. One person hands them, let's say, a business card or brochure, and you hand that individual an audio CD.

From the perception of the person receiving both items, they're going to look at you and say, "This guy must really know what he's doing." Because the perceived value of what you're giving them is much higher. Because most of the time a business card is going to get filed. The CD, in and of itself, is basically an audition to the person of your services. They'll spend more time with you. How much time do people spend looking at a business card? Maybe five, six seconds after they've read everything that's on it. But if you give them an audio disk that's 20-25 minutes, half an hour, you basically have a half hour (or 20-25 minutes, whatever it is), to spend with that person and convince them that they should work with you. Much higher perceived value.

CM: I agree. I completely agree. Are there any tricks to trading a product quickly? Say a trainer really wants to get a product out in the next month or two, are there any ways he can do this? He can trade an e-book quickly, or an audio program? What would you suggest?

TA: The audio program - I have a product called How to Create Your First Fitness Product in a Weekend for Less than $100. I don’t think it gets any more basic than that. I go through it step by step. Because, first of all, the gold standard is a book. If you really want to be in a state of distinction, got to be the book. And it doesn't have to be a big book. Anyone who's out there creating results for someone has enough information, expertise, experience that they can comprise 100 pages, without question. The challenge is looking at the daunting task of creating 100 pages. In actuality, what it is, is you're just taking the level of communication that you do on a day-to-day basis and you're putting it in written form.

But if you want to do it quickly - and as I mention that because the gold standard is the book. If you really want to separate yourself from your competition, write the book. Once you understand how it works, it's not that hard. But in the interim, yeah, do the audio program. Do the audio program. Because once you've got yourself - once you've collaborated your product and you've made an outline, and you've put that whole thing together, it should probably take you an afternoon. Let's put it this way: if I had the opportunity, if I really wanted to create another product, which it's Friday afternoon when we're speaking, I could have it recorded and ready to go by Monday morning, easy. I wouldn't even be rushing.

CM: Really?

TA: Absolutely. It's because - I have a lot of expertise, a lot of experience doing that. Once the individual knows how to do it, the audio recording is really, really simple. It's almost as if everyone should have an audio recording. And then, from the standpoint of doing the recording, without going into details, it's like that, basically, is the fodder that's used for your first book. So if you have enough - once you've, again, outlined, and you're ready and prepared and you've done your audio recording - you can get that transcribed. Once you get it transcribed, it becomes the basis for your book.

CM: I actually barter for transcription. Like, with this interview right here, I'm training a transcriber and bartering for her time.

TA: That's great. That's exactly what it is. I have a woman who does my proofreading, same situation, and we don't do dollar for dollar time, because my cost is higher than her cost, but we work on a sliding scale that's comparative to whatever the value is of the different services. And that's the thing that people can look at. It's not really the product. Because when you have the product you're not selling the product, because people do not use a trainer. People don't want a trainer, they want results.

So when they have [beep interruption] that's what they want. They want results. They want information. They want what's behind that. So it's not just saying, "Hey, can I trade information for [beep interruption] and give it away to people that talk to me?"

Not necessarily. But what it is, it's basically your passport to bigger and better clients. It's your passport to being distinguished from your competition. And that's really what it is. I've sold a fair amount - a great amount of [sound interruption] as a matter of fact. But I can't say I'm an expert because I'm selling 1000 books a month, or anything like that, but the residual income that comes in is from when I speak to audiences and when I position myself in the media, which ends up resulting in clients, which bring phenomenal results over the years because of the information products.

CM: How do you market and sell your products?

TA: It's for each individual case. Because I know a lot of people who market on the web, and I do have a fair amount of people who find my stuff all over the web. So I use things like Google Ad Words, and creating a contact list, but I'm at my best when I'm in front of an audience. So I do my best to get in front of audiences as much as possible, because I really believe - I guess not really believe, but my history will show - that if I'm in front of an audience that's really looking for information that I have, I mean, I've sold as much as 75 percent of the room. Which means that if I have an audience of, let's say, 40 people, and I'm offering, let's say, a combination of books, video, or they can purchase one or the other package, more than often, I can sell 25 people out of the 40.

Now what does that result in? I don't know what most trainers are charging an hour, but if I can spend an hour talk and sell 25 people my $25 book, or $50 package, that's a great hour.

CM: Sure.

TA: And not only is it a great hour in that case, but the residual that comes with that, is potential ongoing clients. That's why this thing is so powerful.

CM: How do you get booked for these events?

TA: That's a good question. I remember once saying, "It's really a magic formula. You just ask." Any place where there are people who may be interested in your services, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your business, you owe it to the people who depend upon you, your family, for you to make a way to be a part of that talk. And very often - like, for instance, I have ongoing agreement with the YMCA that every quarter I go there and I run a seminar. And how did that happen? I walked into my local YMCA. "Can I speak to the director, or the person who handles the booking for workshops."

"Here she is. Her name is Stella."

I sit down with Stella and said, "I'd like to speak to you another time regarding possibly doing a workshop."

She pulled out a proposal.

I said, "Yeah, I'd like to do this. Would you like to talk about it now?" I gave her the idea.

She goes, "Well, me the proposal. Let's just book a date now."

Because the thing about it is that most people don't want to get up in front of audiences and speak. So if you can sit yourself aside - and, also, I gave Stella a copy of my book, that was one of the things. So when she asked for the proposal, I said, "Yes, I will do that, but in the meantime, let me leave you with a copy of my book."

She said, "Okay, the proposal's fine. Let's book the date now," which was the result of her looking at the book and saying, "This guy knows what he's talking about."

So that's what happens, and if you're good, or you're going to get good, then you can get the opportunity to speak time and time again. Because people will say, "I had this guy in. He spoke. He's really, really good. I recommend you have him."

So you can do that at things like the YMCA, the JCC. If you have kids, or know kids, or parent-teacher organizations, any place that people are getting together, koala's clubs, there's groups all over. You can speak as much as you want to, but then the key is this: as you go there, you can sell products, which is great. Again, information product is the passport to get you to speak in front of people.

Outside of that, you can still collect information. So, here's the whole deal, when I give away the CD - because I do have a free CD I give away - I give it away based on them filling out my mailing list. Why? Because I want to be able to stay in contact with them.

CM: Now once you have them on your mailing list, do you offer a newsletter or –?

TA: Yes. And that's another thing, because I offer an online newsletter, but then, even more importantly, in my [indistinct] at least, I offer a physical newsletter. And this is the best part of it. My physical newsletter - and I didn't make this up. This is something that [indistinct name] recommended that personal trainers do. He said, if you create a physical newsletter, and when you create the newsletter - and if you know anything about printing, if you want to do full color, and you want to run, let's say a four pound, 8.5 by 11 page - it's pretty costly. Or it can be pretty costly. Only because a printer is not going to print 100 of them. They want to print 5,000-10,000 of them. But the key is that you can get those done without even using your own money.

What I did - and this is based on what [indistinct name] talked about in his program - was, you get the medical professionals and you encourage them to be a part of it, and they pay for it. It sounds like a daunting task, but I actually have a product I call Fitness Newsletter Made Simple, - and that's on the Fitness Products Made Simple website - I go step-by-step exactly how I did it, because we did first [indistinct]. I was actually doing another one with another networking group with about 30 people, business people from different backgrounds.

But that's the whole thing, that once you understand how you can develop the relationship - and again, if you can show yourself to be a producer - in this case, for me, it was a publisher with the books, I was the one who did all the work for getting the newsletters done - you can take that experience and you can take that expertise and their recognition of your expertise, so then you can parley that into other things. Does that make sense?

CM: Yeah, it does. How do you distribute your newsletter? Do you do it yourself? Do you have your assistant do it? Do you have a fulfillment company?

TA: I try to make it pretty simple. First of all, you're doing the newsletter with three medical professionals who should all have their own practices. So you have your - in my case I have a physical therapist, I have a cosmetic surgeon, and a chiropractor. So it's available in all three of their offices. That's the first thing.

Second thing - and this is something that happens in my municipality, it may be available in others - in the local paper - in my case the Staten Island Advance - they have a program where you can pay them, I think it's $40, and they'll actually stuff 1000 of your newsletters into the paper.

CM: Really?

TA: Yes. And they will distribute it according to zip code. You can say, “I want 1000 in this zip code. I want 1000 in the other zip code. I want 1000 in the other zip code.” And they’ll do that for you.

CM: Have you had luck with getting a response?

TA: Yeah. Actually, it’s been very good. It’s been very good. But this is the situation. You’re planting seeds. Because as fitness professionals we are hardest option trends of physical effort, and we are (in more cases) the most expensive option. So by the time they’ve gotten to you, they more than likely have gone through Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. So the person who comes to has got to have what? The resources and a real desire to work. Because these are definitely not the people that are watching those commercials and saying, “I want to put that electronic belt, or use those pills.” These people have figured out that that’s not the way to go about it.

So you don’t know at which point in time, that you planted that seed, when it’s going to start to break the ground. So in the meantime, I’m not saying that you’re going to get this newsletter and all of a sudden you’re going to have 100 people calling you. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. But people take this stuff and they hold on to it. I’ve had people bring crumpled up gift certificates to me a year and a half, two years later and saying, “I’m still interested, is it possible we could work together.” So you don’t know where this stuff is going to land.

So what’s most important is that you create the win-win situation. Like, for me, my medical professionals have no idea how to publish. One guy’s a surgeon, the other guy’s a chiropractor, the lady’s a physical therapist (she owns a practice). So that’s what they do. They’re looking to me because I’m going to establish myself not just as a fitness professional, but also as a marketer. So, for them to say, “I’m going to give you x amount of hundreds of dollars, and you’re going to produce this thing - you’re going to put 10,000 copies out there,” for them what I do is great. “All I have to do is write you a check, and write an article?” It was a dream for them. But it’s got to be positioned properly.

CM: Wow. This is really good stuff. There’s not a lot of trainers out there with the information products, but I definitely think if a trainer wants to take his business to that next level, it can definitely be one of the keys doing that.

TA:  Well, yeah, and I think it has too. I wrote my book very early in my career. I wrote my book very, very early, and you know what?

CM: Which book was that?

TA: I’ve written - well the book I wrote first was The 14 Day Miracle Transformation, which was an accelerated fitness weightloss program - a jumpstart program - for people to get started in just two weeks.

CM: Is this an e-book, or a –?

TA: I sell this both. It’s available at 14DayMiracle.com. And the reason I wrote it, because I had done some amateur body building, some recreational stuff, and I knew how to get results really, really quickly. Let’s say if you’re getting ready to lose a good amount of weight to get ready for a special event, or you’re really toward the end of a body building contest, have much cardio to do, so I just put this together in a book. And I started selling it online. And a couple things started happening, especially when I started introducing it to clients.

Because they knew I had this program and people would say, “You know what? I want you to put me through this program.”

And I said, “Okay, great.”

Or, “I want to work with you,” they would say.

Now, normally if someone hires you and they’re ready to work, they’ll say, “Well, I want to train with you maybe one, two, three times a week.” As a result of this book they were saying, “I want you - I’ll buy the book, that’s not the problem, but I want YOU to take me through the program.” So this program, within the first two weeks, we were normally getting anywhere from one to six sessions - you get ten sessions in the two weeks. So, as a result of the book, I had people who were paying me to take them through the workouts, and take them through the entire program. And not only were they spending money - or investing in the ten sessions, but they were getting great results in the 14 days. So what does that make me? Like a miracle worker to them? Right?

So I had to position it properly to make sure they understood where I was coming from. But in the meantime, there’s nothing better than you being the catalyst for someone to get results upfront. So that’s why that whole thing was wonderful. That was the essence of the beginning of my career. So when that started happening, I started doing workshops and seminars about the program. That’s the thing that really was the sparkplug for me creating a great reputation out here. Because you have these people getting results really, really quickly, and they’re like, “Who’s the guy who’s doing it? Give him a call.”

And so, again, if you think about the information product, it’s not just the product. It’s that, that’s supposed to be a means of communication that’s going to exemplify your ability to give people results. And there’s nothing more important than that. Because if you can get people results, and you have a system or process, or you can put it into a system or process, then you’re way ahead of most trainers who are just concerned about putting people through workouts. Does that make sense?

CM: It makes complete sense. What mistakes would you say you see new trainers make when they’re getting into the training business? I know a lot of trainers who work at some of the corporate gyms, things like that, have a hard time getting clients, they only make a lot of money per hour and they don’t see the potential here. Because this is one of those businesses where you can actually - if you’re goal oriented and are good at what you do, you can make an astonishing amount of money, and help a lot of people. What mistakes would say that you see people getting into this business make that separates them from the ones who are extremely successful?

TA: Well, I think - and you hit it on the head - for instance, just to share a personal story, I went through a very, very challenging time in the beginning of the year, because my mother had gotten very, very sick. And so, I had to take quite a bit of time away from my business, and I made some big investments in my business, and it was one of those things where all the investments had to go by the side, all the clients had to go by the wayside, because I had to get the opportunity to tend to my mother.

So, it was a couple things that happened. Number one, is that the income that I was living off at that point in time - because even during that time period, that stretch when she was ill (fortunately she’s much better now) - during that time period I lost, like, 70 percent of my income. Which is a damage. And I’ve had a better than decent career. But, they say when something happens to your career, that your family means everything. When something happens to your family, your career means nothing. So, I had to go back and re-prioritize.

But a couple things: the income that was coming in was all from products - that’s the first thing. The second thing was, I was mandated to kind of build back everything, because I was kind of starting from scratch, per se. The first thing that happened for me was going out speaking informational products. That was the catalyst to getting people back in.

So, to answer your question, what are the things that new trainers have to learn? I haven’t worked very much in a training environment. I worked 99 percent of my career as an independent. But I think it’s a mindset shift. New trainers - new trainers at least that I’ve seen - don’t think of themselves as being fitness entrepreneurs. They think of themselves as being employees. And many cases - there was a short stint where I did train in a corporate gym environment - I saw people that were complaining that they weren’t getting clients, and they weren’t getting referrals from their training manager. And they felt that their training manager was the person that was responsible for how much money that they were going to make.

CM: That’s common.

TA: But, what I found in actuality - even if getting clients is your training managers job, how much money you make is still your responsibility.

CM: 100 percent.

TA: And you have to be the one who’s going to be responsible for that. And so, again, it’s a mindset shift. That’s the first mistake I would say. That, you know what? You’re going to be in charge of how much money you make. And if you’re good, and if you’re caring, and you make the decision that you’re going to provide a great service to people, your reputation will move forward. Your reputation will move forward.

Because, what happened for me is that - again, I had to be gone, practically gone, from local training at a higher level, with let’s say doing - and I don’t do many clients. I have other things, my products and stuff, so I’m not a trainer who trains 60 hours a week. I train more like 30 hours a week. And the rest of it is doing other things to build my business. I went from training 30 clients a week to training, like, three, four. So you can imagine how devastating that was.

But in the interim, what happened was being able to build that back was going to based on the fact that I knew that it could be done. And I knew that I had done it already. So I went from having the worst time in my entire career, to having my single best day, and then having my single best month.

CM: Wow.

TA: All in the same year.

CM: Wow. You actually got into my last question here. I’ll let you go in a minute, because I know, like me, you’re an extremely busy guy.

TA: I love talking about this stuff.

CM: What’s that?

TA: I love talking about this stuff, so don’t feel the need to rush.

CM: Okay. Okay, I appreciate that. I wanted to get into mindset a little bit. I know with myself, I used to be really heavyset, so I’m not the best shaped guy around. If you look at me - if you were to line up 100 trainers, I might be the last one who’d look like a trainer, or one of the last ones. But I know I’ve had quite a bit of success in my own business. And I know, for me, honestly, it’s 100 percent mindset. It’s the way I see the world. It’s the meaning I give to things. It’s the energy I put out there. Mindset has just been everything to me. Can you explain to me a little bit about how important you feel mindset is, and what tips you can give to a trainer getting into this who’s maybe, kind of been a naturally negative thinker his whole life, or is that employee mindset, or that mindset of the problems out there - or the solutions out there - it’s my fitness manager who’s responsible for it. Any tips you can give for that?

TA: Well, let me give you a classic example. As my mother got better, I had to start re-building. I had really prided myself on never having worked for anyone as a trainer, I’m very, very proud of that. I held that as a badge of accomplishment. Well, I told my wife that now that mom’s okay, I’m promising to do whatever I need to do to help to build this business back. And so, what I did is I humbled myself and took a job as a trainer at a gym. And I’d never done that before. Never, ever done that before. But, again, I walk with the understanding that my income, my lifestyle, my livelihood, and my family’s lifestyle, is no one else’s responsibility.

And so, before all that turned around, by the time I was having problems with the training manager, because he knew that I was on par, if not above, with him, so he treated me differently than anybody. On top of that, I couldn’t dedicate enough time to really get that going, because by the time I was getting started and getting clients, my own business was growing back to where I said it was in the first place. So I couldn’t dedicate enough time to that, because what was going on was, “Okay, I’m back to 30 clients on my own. Now I don’t have time to train your clients anymore. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

And that all has to do with mindset, because, believe it or not, if you position yourself as an independent (from what I’ve seen) you don’t have the restriction - again, this is my opinion. I’m not trying to take anything away from trainers who train in clubs. But you have the restriction of the club philosophy, the club processes that you can do on your own. Of course, if you have the consideration of benefits and you have to provide stuff like that for yourself, so you really have to do what you have to do. But from my standpoint, I didn’t have that issue. So, for me, I found it even easier because I could position myself tried and truly as an expert without having to worry about getting a recommendation from someone at the club. It just made sense that if I was freelancing I would be able to just do that. I would begin to work with a greater degree of freedom, without the restriction.

So, if you can position yourself like that and say, “If I had all the resources in the world, if I didn’t have the restrictions of the club, what is it that I want to become?” Because even when you’re training your clients, when you work your clients - at least, when I do this - I do consultations initially. So before the clients ask me - before I answer the questions about “What should I eat? What exercises should I do?” My question to them is, “What do you want to get out of this? When you look in the mirror at the end of our tenure together, or our first point of reference, what is it that you want?”

I think that most fitness professionals, even most people in general don’t start out like that. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective People “keep the end in mind.” So that’s it. So do you say to yourself - five years from now do you still want to be training in the club? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But if you begin with the end in mind, then you know how to start.

If your idea is to say, “Well I want to train and five years from now I want to be a manager,” then you should be training and also keeping one eye on the manager to see what he or she does, so that you can start emulating that, or improving upon it, whichever way that you want to handle it. So start to think bigger, start to think larger, and not to think with restraints.

You were saying - or asking - what are the actions people can do? I want to make sure that I say this as tactfully as I can, because I have a problem with tact. If you have people in your training group that are bitching and complaining, see where they are. If they’re not where you want to be, then you need to get the hell away from them.

CM: I agree. Done it many times. It works well.

TA: You can’t keep around the negative banter at all. Unless that’s your thing. If you want to be there with the negative banter and you think it’s - well, if you don’t want to be around it, then you have to get away from it. You may say, “I just listen to it, but it’s not effecting me.” And that’s not true. It’s effecting you tremendously, you’re just not recognizing it, or not acknowledging it.

CM: Yeah, it’s been my experience that it can pull me down. So I’ve made the personal choice to stay away from that, myself. And it’s funny, now it doesn’t even seem to come around me at all, since I’ve kind of pulled it out of my own space, it’s just not even a part of my life anymore.

TA: But that’s exactly the case. That’s exactly how it works. I remember before I got married, dating. I remember the kind of mindset that I had dating. And then, when I decided there’s a certain type of woman that I never wanted to deal with, all of a sudden I never met them anymore.

CM: Yeah.

TA: It’s like they didn’t exist any longer. It’s like, what happened? Was it them? All of a sudden every woman in the world changed? No. What changed was me. So that attraction factor was no longer there.

CM: Yeah. The attraction factor. That’s been my personal experience, Tony. This is good stuff.

TA: Some of these things, Chris, are universal law. So, you know, it’s like - I relate it to gravity. Universal law. You may say, “Well, I don’t believe in the attraction factor.” Well, it does exist. It’s been written about over and over again through the ages. If you look and you search, you’ll find it in your life over and over and over again. And whether you believe it or not, it still exists. Like, someone can say, “I don’t believe in it,” but hey, it’s like gravity: universal law. Just because you say you don’t believe in gravity, I still recommend that you don’t jump out the second story window.
CM: Yep. And what’s great today is quantum physics can prove this stuff. That we attract in our life whatever we think about predominantly. And I’ve seen in my life time again and time again, negative or positive circumstances, how I created those circumstances.

TA: Without question. Without question. Like you said, quantum physics can prove this, can prove it. So, if I have a recommendation for a trainer - let’s say you are in a case like I was. You know, you had a great business. You established yourself having a great position in the industry. But everyone goes through highs and lows. Everyone goes through ups and downs. These things simply happen. That’s just part of the ebb and the flow of life. It’s called the rhythm of life. But you know what? The first step that I had to go through was to say, “You know what? If you did it before you can do it again.”

CM: Wow. That’s great.

TA: And if this isn’t come to just pass, this is something that you can start building back again. But the first step is that you have to say yes. You have to say yes. You can’t say that that was a fluke, or you can’t talk about how difficult it’s going to be, because everything that’s worthwhile is going to be difficult. That’s just the way the world works. But if you can start saying yes - yes to your opportunities, yes to your possibilities, and start to suspend doubt and suspend fear, and just say, “You know what? This thing can happen. I’ve seen it before. It can happen. It can. I will. What do I need to do?” Then you go out and do what? We go out and do it. That can make a difference.

CM: I’m fortunate to where - I live in an area where there’s a lot of trainers and I know five or six very successful trainers all making at least $100,000 a year or more, and a few of them making well over $200,000 a year. And that’s just training their own clients. And every single one of those understands these concepts we’re talking about right now.

TA: I believe it. Oh, sure. Because, believe me, if you can do six figures as a trainer, that’s really good. Because - I made a commitment to myself, even before I was dating my wife, I said, “You know what? I have to be able to play. If I can’t play, I’m not happy.” So I can’t do a job that’s not fun for me. I’ll be miserable. I will be miserable. So think about both of us fitness professionals, who get the opportunity to, essentially, play all day.

CM: Yeah.

TA: We really do. I’m fortunate to be at the stage, I don’t work with people I don’t like. I fire clients. I do not work with people I don’t like. Life’s too short and too unpredictable to spend even an hour of it miserably. When you position yourself as an expert, and you an get yourself to higher level clients, by what? Because when you position yourself as an expert, do you get all the clients? No. You don’t get all the clients because some people are going to be bargain hunters. You’re not going to get all the clients. Your job is to get the best clients. Because the best clients do what? They pay you, no problem. They show up on time.

CM: They refer their friends.

TA: They refer their friends. They follow everything you tell them to do. So why would you want to work with anybody else but that?

CM: Yeah. That’s been my experience too, is, if I’m not selective in who I’m working with, that - if I’m working with someone who’s looking for the lowest price in town, they’re the ones who have the inability to pay, don’t always show up for their workouts, their credit card bounces, just things like that. So I’ve made that choice myself, too. It’s interesting you talked about having fun at work, because, actually, the most successful trainer I know is the biggest goofball out of anybody I know. He just laughs all day. He’s actually pretty obnoxious, but he’s extremely successful and has fun all day, and his clients - they love that. Because they’re working out hard, but they’re enjoying doing it too.

TA: Exactly. One of my clients, a new client of mine I just acquired recently, who’s probably one of the most successful dentists here on Staten Island. If you met him, you’d probably say that he’s pretty obnoxious as well. He would probably tell you that he’s obnoxious as well. And he paid me a great compliment today. He said, “You know what? I hate exercise, but I enjoy coming in and spending the time with you. You work me hard and time seems to fly. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t do it.”

This guy makes a boatload of money, boatload, but he hates to exercise, he’s overweight, he’s trying to take command of his lifestyle now, and he just wants it to be enjoyable. So, again, that’s part of the package. That’s part of the whole thing that’s making it about service delivery.

And, Chris, what’s interesting about this guy - how I acquired him. He had a trainer. This guy’s a stickler for time. His trainer kept showing up late. And then no-showed him a couple times. So he came with almost zero marketing dollars. For all the marketing dollars I spend for other stuff, he came after zero marketing dollars. We were in a similar networking group and, you know, we knew each other. It was kind of by the wayside and he said, “I would use you, but I have another trainer.”

I said, “No problem. You never know what may happen.”

Then he’d ask me for some tips. I’d say think about this, think about that, think about the other.

So when the trainer guy kept messing up, it was a no-brainer for him.

CM: Yeah, I’ve found that to be a big no-no. At the end of the day, no matter how good you are, if you don’t show up on time every time for your clients - unless it’s an absolute family emergency, the very rare thing - that’s just not going to fly. Every trainer who I know who does very well is always there and they’re always on time, and that’s just part of the deal.

TA: Yeah, that’s the least thing you can do for your clients who pay good, hard-earned money for your services.

CM: Well, Tony, how can trainers get a hold of you or your products? Where can they find your information at?

TA: The best place to go is to my website FitnessProductsMadeSimple.com. And that shows my entire product line and everything that’s available. They can also sign up for my free information product course, which goes through step-by-step of how to get started with creating an information product business as part of your fitness business.

CM: Well, Tony, I appreciate you being willing to share some of your wisdom here, and help a lot of the trainers out there be more prosperous.

TA: The pleasure’s all mine. I love this industry, and after overcoming the challenges of the beginning of the year, anything I can do to help trainers get started and to build, all my pleasure.

CM: Awesome. You are an inspiration. Tony.

This has been a health and fitness business info product marketing interview. If you liked this interview you might like some of the other interviews on this site, like the personal trainer marketing strategies with Pat Rigsby or the personal training sales strategies interview with Bedros Keuilian

Chris McCombs is a health club and gym marketing specialist