“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

Don Corleone; The Godfather

Haha – and just like the Don, there’s been a guy in the fitness industry that’s making trainers an offer they can’t refuse for years now – that man’s Ryan Lee.  He’s been telling trainers to look beyond just their hourly sessions,  gyms, and immediate customers, and embrace the wide world of potential clients out there, and how technology can now help you leverage the job of serving them.

Ryan’s responsible for the some of the biggest success stories in the fitness industry. To name who he’s inspired is pointless, because there’s hardly a single person you’ve heard of doing anything big in fitness, whether it be on or offline, that hasn’t been inspired by Ryan in some way.  Guys like Mike Boyle,Eric Cressey, Alwyn Cosgrove, Chris McCombs, Craig Ballantyne, and Nate Green are just a short list of the guys that pay him a huge debt of gratitude.

In my case, I hardly had an email account before I heard Ryan’s call to begin embracing the web.  That sparked the learning that allowed me to finally go truly INDEPENDENT, not have to rely on a gym for clients, and empowered me greatly.  Although I’ve chosen not to go into hard-core info marketing, the lesson I took was to go beyond the old, textbook definition of what it means to be a trainer.

So you can imagine it was a blast getting him on the phone for the blog – once we got started, we couldn’t stop, and here’s over 45 minutes of audio from our conversation.

Just like anyone in the public eye, Ryan’s got haters, but he seems to have more than his fair share. Even on this blog I’ve taken a few good-natured shots at him. I think he has that problem for precisely the same reason why he’s so effective; he’s taken the lessons of being highly prolific and high speed of implementation from the world of niche marketing, and taken them to another level.  It’s the reason he’s been able to inspire and reach so many people that love him, but also why he’s gotten the criticism from the many people he’s reached that are outside of his target market.  It’s truly an example of your greatest skill being your worst enemy.

But I think Ryan’s safe from any future pot-shots, because he’s moved on from just the realm of fitness into the global world of marketing, which is really where a guy of his talent belongs.

On that note, he’s assembling a truly all-star line-up of speakers for his Ozworth Live Continuity Summit in Connecticut on May 15-17.  There will be guys like Mark Joyner, who if you want to talk about influence, may be the person who INVENTED the e-book, Russell Brunson the 25 year old whiz-kid who’s made millions as a web-entrepreneur, and Stephen Pierce, an inspirational rags to riches success story, and now a world-class business coach and motivational speaker.

What does an event like this have to do with Personal Training? Believe it or not, information marketing was born as an extension of the realm of consulting, which as Personal Trainers, that’s what we are.  That’s why it’s valuable to look into all of the information there is on the subject.  It should truly open your eyes to new things that are possible for you, and you may end up the next big success story in this business like the guys I mentioned earlier .

Here’s my link to the event. I’ll be over there, and if you sign up through my link, I’m looking forward to hanging with you too.  And here’s the link to Ryan Lee’s continuity income and passive income blog.  Just a word of warning: this world is kind of like a crime family – once you’re in, you’ll have a very hard time getting out!