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Sam: Hey everybody. It’s your main man Sam here with my boy Danny Aguirre. Danny, what’s going on?
Danny: How’s it going? Good.
S: Danny is a very successful boot camp owner and he trains like 50-70 people in one class. You offer 1 class a day and you crush it.
D: That’s it, just one hour. That’s it.
S: As a matter of fact, I’ve just calculated Danny makes more money per hour than I do and that’s no joke. He does one hour per day and he totally crushes it, I feel kinda jealous.
Now, one thing that Danny has done is this amazing… how he had built this amazing relationship with his clients, totally bonded with his clients. I mean, it’s absolutely amazing. I don’t want to go into further details, that’s another story for another time.
But, recently something’s transpired that we all experience in the fitness industry. You know you had that one client that starts out with you, they are kinda chubby, and you get them in good shape and then they think they’re all that and a bag of chips. And now, they go and build their own thing, they think that they can do whatever you do. It happened to me, trust me, I had a client who literally, we get her in shape from frumpy to fabulous. They go up the street, literally a mile from me, they try take all your clients, messaging people on facebook. This is the fitness industry, whenever you know… like my friend Steve Cabral says, whenever you have a low bare of entry profesion, somebody would think that we could start a vocation and all of a sudden becomes a “fitness expert”. Anybody can jump in at any time. So, recently something like that has happened to you… to Danny. And, it’s so funny because… I’ll tell you this right now, I was telling Danny that I would be afraid to go up against Danny because you know his level of enthusiasm, the bond that he has in forming relationships. I would not go… if I had to go against Danny, I wouldn’t want to go head to head with Danny. I’ll tell you that right now. But, recently something happened that one of his clients who went from you know… frumpy to fabulous and tried to steal all his clients on facebook and he went out there and really fired how many people?
D: I had to fire 9 people.
S: You fired 9 people and how much revenue was that?
D: That’s about $1800
S: Now, honestly that’s like you know… I’m getting goosebumps right here. $1800, you fire 9 people… $1800 on the spot. Talk to me a little bit about what made you do that and give us some sort of… because I think we all went through this in the fitness industry. And I really, really think that there is a big takeaway here.
D: Well, first and foremost. My man Sam, thank you for the awesome introduction. I really appreciate that.
You know, as a trainer one of the most important things that I look at is building an awesome culture with my clients. And, one of the things that I focus more on is the loyalty, the trust. That’s what I’m here to do. I try to be here to inspire my clients to come in and want to work with me, not just the opposite way, but them coming to me. So recently I had one client that I got her into amazing shape. She went from like 31% body fat down to about 15% body fat. She absolutely looks amazing.
So she decided that she was gonna go out and start her own boot camp. Well, she and her entourage, it was like her and 8 other girls. She started sending messages and emails to all my clients. And, one of my clients come up to me and says “Hey Danny, I heard that you’re doing a boot camp at 6:00 at this other location.” And so I was like “Really???” I actually went to the location to find out more information. What I found out is that it was her and her sister that decided to start their own boot camp. So what I did was I got about 22 of my boot camp champs, that’s what I call them – boot camp champs to let me know exactly what it is they were sending them. What I come to found out is that it was her and 8 other girls. So, what I did I just compiled a bunch of information. I got who was sending what, what they said, and I wrote all 8 of them and the girl a nice little email saying “Hey look, you’ve just created competition for me. You are now my competitor” and I sent them all their last billing invoice and cancelled all their contracts. It’s essential, you have to fire people like that.
S: As you said, this is like cancer right?
D: It is cancer.
S: You were talking about earlier, it’s like cancer.
And, what’s really mind-boggling to me is that the clients reached out to him. Basically met him up for coffee and showed him every single message. Now, for a client to take the time, because usually nobody wants to get involved with this cr*p. So what happened to you was they took the time to meet you up for coffee, show you their messages, show you their facebook profiles and what messages were sent to them. That just tells you that they love you, they really love you, they really respect you and they don’t want anybody to hurt your business. Hurt their, because they feel like they are part of your business, part of your family. And, most other trainers or fitness professionals wouldn’t want to lose $1800 revenue and they keep the cancer there. You gotta kick cut the cancer as soon as possible and if somebody out there is going out there soliciting your clients, well unfortunately here in the city of California there is no do not compete agreement. They can legally come, they can still beat you, they come to your boot camp and then they would solicit them outside of your boot camp while they are still at your boot camp. One thing that you said earlier is that, and this is something that I didn’t know. It’s about facebook, so you have a private facebook group, so tell me how she was posting on your private facebook group and you couldn’t see her post.
D: That’s right. She actually went and I think she blocked me so I couldn’t see any of her posts. I guess you go to privacy settings and you actually block the person. I didn’t know that so that’s one of the things that you guys need to look out for what people are posting, to track the people in your business, you better be sure that you find out from other people what it is other people are doing… it’s important. It all boils down to communication, as long as you are communicating with your clients and you let them know what exactly what it is you are all about… I mean they’re gonna come back to you.
S: Now, you said that you fired 9 people and that was $1800 worth of revenue…
D: That’s right.
S: … but you already made it back.
D: I made it back and more. I’m already up $900 from what I’ve lost, so $1800 plus 900 bucks. You know, the thing is if you have people like that in your boot camp, you can tell. As soon as you get rid of them your money is gonna go up. Why? Because people are gonna be much happier showing up to your boot camp, they’re gonna refer friends and family. As a matter of fact, I got like 9 other girls that just showed up… through referrals and signed up. So, I made my money back plus more and this was in three weeks. It’s not like it happened over a course of a couple of months. It’s about building the culture.
S: I think the takeaway lesson from that is to … I’m gonna try to break everything down. One thing is Nothing is gonna beat relationship, the bond that you have with your clients where they feel like if someone is hurting you it’s hurting them.
D: That’s right.
S: The bond that you build. Number 2, It’s what you said about the Facebook privacy setting. I didn’t have any idea that somebody can be on your Facebook group, post on your private Facebook group and you can’t see it. So, the takeaway that I get from that in this day and age of social media and everything like that, anybody can really come and reach out to your clients and try to solicit your clients and things like that. You really can’t stop that, so what can you do? Just be the best trainer, bond with your clients so that if somebody does… okay, you have a Mercedes Benz dealership and somebody down the street opens up a Hyundai dealership and now they’re trying to solicit your clients. Well, we are really not interested we are okay with what we have right now because we feel like we have the best. And, that’s what you have done and that’s the big takeaway. Danny, thank you so much for sharing that with us.
D: Thank you Sam, I really appreciate it.
S: Sam here, take care. Bye.
D: Bye.
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