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Kaiser Serajuddin: Hey. What’s up? This is Kaiser with Super-Trainer.com and today, I’m talking to one of the biggest stars in the fitness business and he has gotten to that spot in a very short time at a very young age. It’s BJ Gaddour. BJ, what’s going on man?
BJ Gaddour: Not much, man. I’m glad to be here.
Kaiser Serajuddin: Yeah. I’m glad to have you on, man. I’ve been hearing a lot of things about you and I finally wanted to get you on here and to talk to you about a lot of the projects you’re working on specifically boot camps. But before we get to all of that, how was your start in the fitness industry? I know you have a pretty interesting story, kind of a rags to riches story. Can you talk about that a little bit?
BJ Gaddour: Absolutely, man. Well, I started like many of the people in the industry start. Really excited to change people’s lives and thought that was going to happen in a one-on-one training format so I started doing in-home training.
I graduated college in May of 2005 and [0:01:06] [Indiscernible] that summer, I started getting some in-home clients, started working one-on-one in the club and we found out that you can’t really make that great of a living doing one-on-one training and getting burned out and very close to quitting in the industry to be honest.
I bought Jim Labadie’s how to start a boot camp product. Actually I think it’s called the Ultimate Boot Camp Start-Up Kit and basically got that light bulb switch that went off and said, “You know what? I’ve got to make the switch to group training,” and didn’t even realize that I had a client underneath – within my contacts that I just helped lose 105 pounds of fat that owned a company and basically I launched my first corporate training program.
I got rid of all my one-on-one clients and then kind of got off to the races and started a group training business and now we focus almost entirely on our boot camps. I run a Get Sexy Boot Camp here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and we’ve really quickly grown an incredible membership base of people that love to work out and get their butt kicked and it has just been a phenomenal experience and now I work with Pat, Nick and Jim on a product called The Boot Camp Blueprint which is designed on helping master the business side of boot camps and it has been awesome helping others achieve that same success.
Kaiser Serajuddin: Oh, you made some awesome points there especially like the importance you put on the business side of training whether it’s personal training or boot camps. That’s often overlooked, too often overlooked by trainers. That’s usually the make or break factor so that kind of explains why the program has been so successful.
Now I mean beyond just creating the program and running your own boot camps, there’s a whole side to this which I’m sure you’re obviously very aware of. It’s the whole marketing of a program like this.
Now how is your education in marketing? What has that process been like? That’s a totally new science in itself. What has the marketing of this product been like?
BJ Gaddour: Well, for the boot camps, the key is to get started and when you do that, most people are so excited with the concept of, “I just want to get money right away,” and when you do that, it’s going to make things go very slowly.
We’ve started our camps. We’ve started camps for free. We are so confident in what we do as a business from a training system, nutrition system perspective and then also just above the relationships with the client that we just want to get bodies in the door and we knew that those could actually continue to – could afford to continue [0:03:40] [Indiscernible] and that’s what happened. I mean we launched our program. We got 50 people in the door on our first camp and we did keep anybody that actually could afford to continue and from there, you build a bit of a base and referrals are to take place. The free trial giveaway is by far the most valuable thing that you can implement.
Now the thing is, a lot of them don’t know how to implement the free trial giveaway. What we do is the trial. People have two weeks. It’s on us but two weeks to try out – to show us that they are a fit for our program and based on their performance, their attendance, their attitude, we then decide whether or not they’re going to be invited into the program and the difference between the typical boot camp that just gives things away for free versus us who provides an opportunity for people to show their stuff, it’s night and day. It’s basically you finding to get these people to pay you money versus them finding to be able to pay you money and when you switch that mentality, how to apply that development road if you will to these – say your boot camps. I mean you won’t get people finding to pay you money. It’s a beautiful thing.
BJ Gaddour: No, I totally agree with that. That’s a very good point you brought up. I was actually talking more about the Boot Camp Blueprint Program itself, the marketing of that.
Kaiser Serajuddin: Oh, the way we market that program?
BJ Gaddour: Yeah.
Kaiser Serajuddin: Well, to be honest, we didn’t really do much. Pat, Nick and Jim have quite a following because of their individual businesses and what they do. I mean I had a following as well because of the company I own called Workout Muse which makes integral music training soundtracks – I’m sorry, music interval training soundtracks. I should probably know how to say that, shouldn’t I?
BJ Gaddour: Yeah.
Kaiser Serajuddin: As the creator of the company. For boot camps, it automates your sessions. It allows you to work with more people per hour and tells the client exactly what to do so you can supervise them, coach them, motivate them in a non-restricted way and a lot of boot camp trainers already knew of me in that format and when we combine Pat, Nick, Jim and I, it just became – basically our track records were aligned and people joined.
You were at Fast Track Kaiser and when we spoke about the success of the program, we shared – when I shared the Done-For-You-Marketing System, the 30 Days, 30 Leads Program that has helped so many people really just fast track their camps and pull them up quick, it generated a lot of excitement and people just were dying to jump onboard.
So we didn’t really need to market it a whole lot. That probably wasn’t the answer you’re looking for but again, when we have had success with people as you do with your clients, the word of mouth tends to spread and the people know what they’re getting when they join us because of the passion and the work ethic and the success that can be brought to the table from us.
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