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Episode 536: How Stoked Athletics Fills Its Gym Through Business Partnerships with Mike Bouranis

32m 44s

Episode 536: How Stoked Athletics Fills Its Gym Through Business Partnerships with Mike Bouranis

In this podcast episode, host Michael Keeler and guest Mike Brannis discuss the "Three Mile Famous" strategy for gym owners. Brannis argues that gyms should focus on becoming well-known within a three-mile radius of their community before relying on paid ads. He introduces the "FAME Plus" model: First, fully know your avatar by understanding their demographics, psychographics, frustrations, and goals. Second, align with businesses and organizations where that avatar already spends time, such as coffee shops, hair salons, or PTAs. Third, market through the right plays—starting with simple collaborations like shared signage or social media posts, then progressing to joint promotions and co-hosted events. Brannis emphasizes the importance of building relationships gradually, offering a menu of partnership options to streamline the process. He notes that effective follow-up and conversion systems are crucial for turning leads from these partnerships into paying clients. Keeler and Brannis agree that this approach creates warmer leads than cold ads, making subsequent paid advertising more effective. The episode encourages gym owners to invest time in community presence and strategic partnerships to sustainably grow their business.

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[MUSIC] Welcome to the Business Futuricorns podcast, where we help Jim and studio owners create a business and a life they love. I'm your host, Michael Keeler. Join me and the Business Futuricorns team each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym. Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry. [MUSIC] Hello, my friend. If you're a gym owner, listen to this podcast. There's one thing I absolutely know to be true about you, which is you probably want more leads and more clients for your gym. I mean, what gym owner doesn't. So if you want that, you'll want to get a free copy of our free book. It's our little book of gym marketing secrets. Honestly, the book we always we had when we first opened our gyms. It's really a zero fluff guide. You can read in less than 30 minutes. And it covers everything you know to grow and market your gym. To get instant access to your free copy, click the link below in the show notes, and download it right now. You'll be glad you did. Hello, fitness business nerds. What's up? Welcome to another episode of the Business Futuricorns podcast. I'm here with a frequent cast of this podcast back again is Mr. Mike Brannis co founder of Stoke Athletics and Long Island New York. Welcome back, my friend. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I know you're really becoming a regular on this podcast, which I am pun intended stoked about. And so glad you're here. We're recording this podcast just like a week or so after our retreat or unicorn study retreat in Atlanta. At which you gave an amazing talk called three mile famous, which is about the idea of all gyms need to really be like running for mayor in their communities right they need to like be out pounding the pavement. Be a familiar face in in your community. And you gave this amazing talk about really specific strategies about like how to become famous in your community. And I thought this would make an amazing podcast. Obviously we're not going to go through the whole talk was like an over an hour, but I thought we at least give some podcasts listeners some of the kind of key takeaways from your talk. So maybe let's start with why does this matter so much and how have you approaching your own business. Yeah, for sure. So the idea, like you said, of three mile famous is that obviously within a three mile radius, the people that you want to know you do know you. And I think number one, why this matters is there's this idea that the first thing that people should be doing is going straight to ads, which I disagree with. I think ads can be very useful. But I think that without using the systems that we talked about in really building that three mile awareness and fame within the avatar that you want. But the systems on the back end aren't built. So when you run the ads, there isn't that same return on the investment that you would get if you were a little bit more famous with your avatar. If you had the systems aligned in your business, not with just the marketing, but with your services. And then I think with us at the gym, my biggest business partnerships and really working with communities that serve the same avatar. And that's how I've been attacking over the last year and the return on that investment has been way better than anything we've seen with paid ads. Yeah, I think that's so smart. I think so what I hear you saying I want to repeat back is that obviously you can get lots of great leads when just by building a great reputation in your community, including partnerships of other businesses can really move the needle if you do it well. And if and when you go to run paid ads, they'll only be more effective if you have a reputation in your community when someone clicks on a paid ad of a company they've never seen a heard scene before heard up before doesn't look familiar. They don't know anyone that goes there. That's very cold lead and we want those leads from paid ads, right, but it's a very cold lead. But if you're if you're unnissable in your community that if it's almost impossible to live with a three miles and not at least have seen your logo somewhere, right driven by it, see that you've seen what the farmers market heard some heard of someone that I know that goes there. Then that person who clicks on who sees your ad is already just that much warmer and that much more likely to convert it's they've already jumped over that hump of trusting you because they like, oh yeah, I know them they're on the street or I know them my neighbor goes there and that's just so powerful. And for most of you, if you're in markets that are not major markets, if you're not in New York City or L.A. But you're in a place where you actually can build a three mile reputation, which is most places. Then this is an important this is important strategy. And then you said your business partnerships have really made the difference. You say a little bit about how they've made a difference for you. Yeah, I think a perfect example is I had a new person this morning who when I was like, oh, how did you hear about us? It was not just from the promotion we did with the moonies coffee shop and there's where she had entered a raffle. She did not win, but with our follow up strategy still came in, but it wasn't the only time she heard about us. Her hairdresser also is one of our business partners. So it worked out where it's like targeting that avatar started to know about us a little bit more as far as the actual ways of going about this is the system that I put in place here is called the thing plus model. And it starts with what I just said fully knowing your avatar where they go with a hang out with things about them. Aligning yourself with those what we call the dream 100. So the businesses organizations charities that your avatar frequency or is has an affinity towards and then through there to marketing with different plays I mentioned give away this could be a cross promotion. This could just be setting up a table and a charity event and then the key is having the right entry points and conversions. So knowing how to get their information from a capture standpoint and then how to know how to convert them into an actual offer whether that's a discounted month or just a free assessment or a four week front and offer for a specific community. Love it. I love you. I love a good acronym. So I think it's so helpful when we can kind of remember what the process is. And so let's break down each one of those each one of those letters one at a time. So fully knowing your avatar what's a quick and easy way for people to really dive in and have a clear vision of their avatar. One is a plug it. Join business unicorns and. Yes. Our playbook because I think there's a lot of things in there that people miss but the two main things I look at when people think about avatar is demographic but we need to psych a graph again well we need to understand why they're frustrated with their fitness in the past what they've tried before their fears. What is their short term and long term wants what is life look like for them if they work with you a year from out or if they don't work with you. So that's just like their age and where they live and what they do for work but it's also like why is this important to them because when you look at your brand and your business as a whole. You are inevitably going to be speaking to one type of person whether you know it or not and if you don't know it you probably have these little bits of time where you're talking to one specific person and then it changes and then it changes so you never have this cohesiveness in your marketing. So fully knowing your avatar is the starting point for all of us. Yeah I think it's so smart and really getting clear about the demographic and psychographic is a great exercise just make a list and one of the tips I'll give is that I think it's really helpful to think about a specific client that you have when you're writing your avatar. I think all too often we try and make it because a malgamation of 20 different clients just think of the one person who's in the center of the bull's eye for the kind of client that you help the best. They're like the right age, the right attitude, the right set of needs, the right challenges, the right personality, the right that if you could have 100 of those person that's who you have 100 of and that's not to say you want to track people who are not exactly like that but they're at the center of the bull's eye and don't worry about the fact that the people on the periphery who also come to your team that's okay. You really because we have limited marketing resources we got to focus on talking one kind of person and then the rest will take care of itself other kinds of people will also be attracted to your messaging that's alright but we think thinking of that one client has always been helpful to me and just describing them yeah. One thing I talked about in the presentation is at the end of the goal unfortunately is not that you're going to get 100 of that client you're going to get a good amount of them but a lot of people love to hang out that person and that's who is that periphery that you talked about. Exactly. A lot of them are like them in other big and ways and small ways a lot of them want to be around that person a lot of them are just related that person who live near that person who work with that person. And so they really are like the kind of bait you're using to catch all kinds of people yeah okay great so the fame acronym fame plus acronym F Flinder avatar a is aligned aligned with what I can't remember. Line with where they already are yeah so say more about that how do you find out where they already are. Yeah, finding out is the easy part, that's just talking to them, talking to your members, talking to that one person. When we were really focusing on this and shaping this up, we took a group of people out who fit our avatar at our gym out to lunch one day and it was a three hour lunch. And we broke down their daily lives where they go, where the restaurants they go to, what breweries they go to, what coffee shops, what charities they like to support. Organizations like, are, for us, PTAs are big. We try to support a lot of PTAs. But that's like the finding that out is crucial because I think we are so limited in our time and resources as gym owners that you don't want to go out and hunting through a crowd of a million people and trying to find a hundred that work best for you. Instead, find the businesses and organizations that have already organized these people together and then work with those businesses to be in front of them. Love it. I think that makes so much sense. And there's all kinds of ways, as you mentioned, to do to find out where people are, where their eyeballs are on a regular basis. One, ask them, right, either casually in conversations, train your team to ask them and record their answers. take a bunch of them out to lunch, coffee. dinner brunch, whatever, and do a little focus group like, like, my did, right? You can also do a survey, do a survey anonymous or non-anonymous survey to try and get some more information there. I do think I prefer your strategy. I prefer sitting down with a handful of people who really are the center of our bulls-eye avatar and really doing a deep dive with them and figure out where they go and how do they spend their time when they're not at the gym. I think that's useful because you can ask follow-up questions, et cetera. But if you have to, and many of you just may not have the time or capacity for that, I think a survey or even a poll in a Facebook group, anything can help get you started with understanding where your avatar is, whether or not at your gym. And then those are the, that's your list. That's your list of places to get started. Yeah. And so when you have that list, I know it may be seen a little obvious, but just talk a little bit about what's the first step, right? Because I know oftentimes we talk about, you don't want to start a partnership by rushing to someone and the first thing you do is just ask them for a bunch of shit. So how do you build like that kind of rapport with a potential business partner? Yeah. I think the first thing if it makes sense for you is to become a regular at whatever this business organization is. So like just show face and get them to know who you are and that you own a business in the area. You probably have a couple of mutual clients or customers that you could start chatting about. And even if you're not a regular like, for instance, I use the example of the hair salon, like I'm not going to that hair salon, but I try to get to know them as soon as possible and make that connection and definitely leveraging your members in a way to make that introduction for you is extremely helpful. And even some of your members may own a business that works for your avatar as well. And then before we really dig into anything, it's just find out more about them in their business and how you can help them because the obvious way is obviously bring them more business. But sometimes that's not what they need or what they want. Sometimes it's in the coffee shop we work really well with because when we go to work with them, we handle all the social media for it and all the Martin for it. And that takes a load off her plate. That's something we're really good at that she just wants to focus on making the coffee. So when we go in there, we make videos and we take photos, it helps boost her business in a way that she wouldn't have that help otherwise. Yeah. Great example. Finding out what they want and then having that ask about what you guys can do together, it makes more sense because just like our members, when they walk in the door, we need to figure out what their goal is before we start trying to figure out what service is best for them. Yeah. I think that's so smart. I remember you saying in the presentation you gave it Atlanta before you ever, ever going to be a partner with someone you have to at least just not be a stranger. Right. Have to at least show up and let them know who you are and be a familiar face. And then over time, like any real relationship, it will grow from you just being in their presence multiple times and showing face at their events and and connecting with your shared clients or customers. And so I think it's really smart. That's a really smart way to do it. All right. So we covered the F. We covered the A. Now we're on the M. So walk me through this one. Yeah. Market through the right place. And this is where a lot of people start getting. It gets a little tricky here because there's some new ones to it that we have to dig into. But when I say the right place, there's a ton of plays you can do. And what I suggest is starting small and building up just as if you're dating, you're not rushing right into marriage. Right. When you're talking with these partners, you want to get a sense of one, are they down to play ball? Are you going to be going up to them and pitching them in these ideas and trying to run an event that they don't do any of the work for it? Or are they into it and they and you learn that they are just as excited about this as you are and then you build up to things like those events. Just starting out, it could be a simple, okay, let's just both have signage in each of our businesses, shadowing each other out or sharing promotions that we're running on social media. I'll share yours. You should have mine. Like I said, having that community presence too, if they're putting on an event or a five K for charity, I can go out and sponsor that and just show good faith and be in front of their customers. And then from there, you could do joint promotions like if we did one with the Harris Long recently where their members got for the exact thing, but it was like half off of color and then a blowout plus they then got half off our LBO. And ultimately the best one in my opinion is the co-hosted events when you're just gathering everybody from both groups together and just having a killer event. And everybody has a good time. Yes. Makes for weight easier marketing. Yeah, I think it's so smart. And one of the things that we have in our for our unicorn sign members in our playbook on this topic, we have a business partnerships playbook is I, we encourage people to create a little menu of how you want to work with business partners with exactly those things on it. So when you go to a business partner, you can say, Hey, here are some things we like to do with other business partners. And that way you're not starting from scratch every time, right? Having to like reinvent the wheel every time you talk to a business partner, it can be exactly that stuff that Brannis just listed, which is one, we can share signage it into other places too. We can share social media content. Three, we could share, we could do right for each other's email newsletter. Four, we could do a share promotion. We could co-host an event. We could write and just having three to five things. These are the things we do together. We find our successful when we do business partnerships, which one do you want to start with? And that way really it helps, you know, helps them kind of a vision because not every business owner you're going to talk to that you want to partner with is going to have experience doing this. So in many ways, you might be educating them on like how this works, what the benefits are, what the options are. And I also find that when folks get overwhelmed with business partnerships is because every partnership is so unique and so different that they've made different promises to every single person. And they do different strategies with every single person. And so I think also having a menu to choose from somewhat stream lines and codifies your approach. So you can scale it. You can have 20, 30 partners. If all the things you're doing with them are the similar ish, it's easier to scale than having five or 10 partners with all the very different needs and promises. And so I don't know what you would add to that. Yeah. Number one is that menu is so invaluable to me. I literally have them in my backpack at all times. And one in the library just make a copy of it, put your logo, your colors, change everything you want. I walk into businesses every day. And I'm just like chatting with them. And if I just think it's a good idea, it's like I just whip it out right there. I'm like, Hey, let's grab coffee one day and talk through this. Yeah. I had another piece, but it's gone. That's a brand. So we'll come back if I think that's okay. But I think it's a good, it's a, it's a good, the M I think here is really important, right? Like marketing using the right offers, the right channels, the right approaches. And it's going to be different for each person, right? But having some sort of men you can choose from of things that you know have worked for you that you like doing, right? Also, that's an important part, right? Don't put things on the list that you want to do. If you don't like writing for email newsletters, don't put that on the list, right? If you hate events, right? This might be a tough strategy for you overall. Because the events are critical. But if you hate events, don't put events on there, right? But also ultimately, I think this is a really important part. So we got the F, the A and the M. Yes, but I did just remember that last one. Oh, yeah, please. Now, I'm going to fill in with it. Is the beauty of this is once you have all these going on, there's a lot of these marketing plays that can be pretty passive. So you don't have to have an event every single weekend, for instance, the in store raffles work really well. So we've really locked down how they run. So we're collecting leads. While I was in Atlanta, I had 80 leads that we just from different raffles going on. And I have the automated workflows on the back end to then be texting everybody and following up with them. And what I love about it is it doesn't muddy your marketing because I think a lot of people will be posting about seven different things at once on their social media, on their email and in their gym. And it just it becomes noise where all these things can live in their own space. So you have raffles going on at different businesses. You got different promotions you're going at different businesses that aren't on your social media, aren't on your email and you're collecting those leads. And if you have the bandwidth to then do the follow up if you have the automations to help, it just makes it so much easier to get more leads that are a little bit warmer because it coming from a trusted name. Yeah. I mean, it's so smart, Brannis, because it's all too often. All these ideas of things you want to do, but our email and social media channels are already full of offers. We're making directly to our lists. And so if we had to have everything we do with partnerships also in those same channels, it would be overwhelming. But many times they're marketing strategies and things you can do with partners that don't wind up on your channels at all. And I think having those lead generation things happening in the background, especially with automations, if you have access to those, it makes all the difference in the world. That's awesome. All right. Let's keep going. Tell me about the final letter here, the E. We do have the e-book. We also have the plus and which I'll touch on. So the E is the entry points that convert and the big mistake I used to make when I went to these events or I table that places is either one, I wasn't collecting any lead information, which is a waste of time. Or two, I would be trying to hard sell them on something like start up for a month here and maybe it's a hundred dollars off. And that's a big ask if somebody that doesn't really know you. What I found is I like to split it into two pieces and it's capturing and converting. So capturing is the entry point at the marketing play that you're doing. Something like a raffle where I'm in store, I have some sort of bored there scanning a QR code entering a raffle, I'm gathering their information. The convert on that would be if you don't win, I am now offering you something like a discounted trial, maybe a free consultation. And it depends a bit on the warmth of lead. I'll get into that in a second. But having these two separate pieces allows you to one, at least set the tone of getting their information so that they're on your list. And if they don't convert into something, they'll be hearing more about you and they might show up to more events. And then the conversion is there as the next step. So if somebody is ready after the capture stage, you could get them into some sort of offer that gets them into your gym. And I mentioned the warmth. This is going to depend on the event and the person you're working with and how well this group knows you. On the cold side, I would have something like a local street fare where there's a thousand people, thousands of not walking around. And you can't do something super high stakes there. This is a free month raffle that people can just walk by. You have a conversation with them. They can scan into enter. And if they don't win, it's something like a free conversation. consultation where it's a very low barrier for them. They could ghost you if they want and again, if you need to have the bandwidth for this. But at least it's something where you could get a lot of leads for and probably a lot of conversations with new people. That's a pose to something a lot warmer, which in our case is something like we're partnered with a run called that we've been partnered with for years and they know us because we're every single week we're being mentioned and they're signing you about us. We could go there and run the warm up. And then when we're there, give away this free lead magnet, maybe it's five of the best exercises for runners. So now they're downloading that. I'm capturing the information. And then because there are much warmer lead and they've seen us so many times, we could offer something like a four week front and offer that is two days a week at our gym running specific and it can be a couple hundred of dollars because they know us and trust us already. So it depends on that warmth of the lead in terms of which entry points will use. But once you figure that out, I think that's the magic piece that allows you things to be so successful. Yeah, I think that's really smart. I hope our listeners are taking notes there because there's a two pieces of capture and convert. And then how you capture and how you convert, it's going to depend on the style of event, the warmth of the lead, right? You're going to try and meet each person where they're at to meet that crowd where they're at in terms of familiarity with you and ease, ease of connection. Like you mentioned, if you're at a big farmers market with thousands of people walking by and most of them maybe have not heard of you before, that's one strategy. But if you're with an a partnership that's going on for years and everyone's at least a little familiar with you already and you're going to have some face to face time with all of them and make that connection that's a whole different ball game. And so having your offer and your capture strategy really match that, I think makes a ton of sense. Maybe give the folks just a few quick examples of capture and convert strategies that really work for you in the past. Absolutely. So capturing, like I mentioned, is the raffles and giveaways. I think people is under their information, they have a chance to win. If you're doing an event, the event registration itself, when we start with this, if you're doing an event, you should have registration somehow. Yeah. I hate when people have open and did events and just please show up, have people register even if it's free. Amen. And then lead magnets is just another great way. If you're going to an event or you're at a response on the table, I've something. It's like a very easy way to just get people to download some sort of PDF is just to give the information. As far as the conversion points, we're looking at, again, free consultations for those colder leads. I think if they're a bit warmer, you can get into the discounted assessments and trials. So just bringing down your LBO a little bit. And then the three to six week is where I like to put it for a front and offer is probably the most I'll ask of somebody, but they have to be a pretty damn warm lead for me to want to sell them $199 package right off the bat. Makes sense. I'll add there that this incredibly important that I've learned from BFU over the years is our highly attractive irresistible time sensitive offers. So those conversions, the consultation discounted assessments or front and offer should be some sort of time sensitive as in you can only sign up for this in the next two days or even if you're at the run club that day and you want to do this, say I'm a discounted trial, it's only available today. You have to purchase it today if you want to steal. So making sure that there's some sort of time clock or clock on here with the conversion to actually get people to want to do it then. Yeah, it's a critical component. Yeah, we have to have that time pressure. You just say a little bit about the amount and timing of the follow up you do for these kind of activities. So let's say you've had a you've been in a farmers market or you're a run club and you captured the information through whatever means. How often and how are you following up with them after the event is over? Yeah, so especially something like one of those raffle giveaways we just did, it's going to be if they do not win. So when somebody wins, one person gets the texting that they want, everybody else just gets the evergreen hate. Sorry, you didn't win, but we are offering you whatever it is. Say half off our LDO, but you have to purchase within the next week or this deal goes away. After that, I will call the whole list and just make sure that they are aware of the deal and see if they want to sign up right then. And then from there, I'll typically do depending on where that time sense of offer lies. Just to say it's a week, I'll probably do one in the following day. If I didn't get an answer just to make sure that they saw it one, two days before it ends and then one on the day it ends and those are just text messages typically. Again, it's going to depend on how warm this lead is. If I'm getting a bunch of leads from a farmer's market, I'm probably not going to want to bombard them every single day for two weeks because you're going to make a lot of enemies and there's going to be a word spreading to not sign up for my raffle the next time I'm at that event because I'm going to be barred them with texts. But generally speaking, it'll be three to four texts and one phone call in a week span just to try to see if I could get them while they're hot. Yeah, great. I love that. That's awesome. All right, let's wrap it up with the plus. We got the Fame Plus model. So what's the plus all about? So the plus is where the magic made in my opinion. This is the ever dream reinforcement. So this is what are the things we're doing for our marketing day to day week to week that doesn't necessarily lie in an event or some sort of promotion, but just evergreen. So we're looking at consistent content on our social media and email if that's where you go. We're looking at sell by chat, which for those that don't know is another playbook in the BFU universe here, which is just making a connection with new followers. We're looking at seasonal promotions. So our marketing calendar is making sure that we're touching on. Our never been clients are former clients and even our current clients for referrals. With that, of course, is the referral system as a whole. So the points of contact in your business where you're asking for that, whether it's the point of sale, when somebody's hitting PRs, if it's in their 90 day onboarding at certain points. And then lastly, just our local presence. So just being out in the community that you're gym is in, wearing your sweatshirt, stopping into these businesses, just having that presence so people start recognizing you. If you want, I'll go into like why I think it's important, obviously. But I'm not sure if you have any questions. I think it's clear because the thing that we've mentioned here is that for all of these partnerships, capture comes first and you're going to capture a lot of folks through all these activities. We're not going to convert all of them. So what you're left with is this growing list of people's names, phone numbers and emails. And you need to have some strategy throughout the whole year for engaging with that list that's growing, right? Some strategy for making them regular offers, some strategy for making sure that they're following on social media and that social media account is active in some way. And it looks like it's alive. That if they're on your email list, they're getting some regular content that speaks to them and their needs. It's one thing to capture those information. It's another thing to convert and the conversion may not happen right away. So I think having time throughout the whole year that you're strategically reconnecting with these people, I think makes a lot of sense. Anything you would add to that? Yeah, I think the benefit of this is insane. So if you aren't working on these systems, one of the things I mentioned is the presentation is that marketing cannot be optional. And I notice overwhelming and I hope that people at least take away from this presentation a couple of things to start working on and at least prioritize the time of their week because when you're doing all these things together, especially with this ever-dream reinforcement of these systems being built, over time, that relationship that this lead has with your gym just grows exponentially because they're just constantly are learning more about you and have more points of entry over that relationship. And then when you're doing events or you're doing promotions, you just get such a better response. And we saw where I used the example, I'll say her real name is Kelly in the presentations of Sarah, but where I saw this girl multiple times last summer, different events, and we were at a lot of events, she was at because we knew our avatar. And she did not convert on anything. And then what worked was eventually her friend joined the gym, put us on her story. Kelly followed us from that. We started a cell by Chad PM, he came in with her husband who both signed up and since then they've referred more members like their neighbors and coworkers. So it just shows that when we're doing all these things right even if they're not converting, we have the systems to still have the entry points available. Yeah, 100%. When I think of all these systems in this kind of plus category, it is the ongoing marketing engine that you're running throughout the year and in some ways that acts like a safety net, right? To catch all the folks who aren't converting right away when you first meet them, right? At some point they're going to be caught in that net and come in otherwise, which is awesome. That's exactly what it wants to have happen. And not everyone's going to be ready right away when they first meet us. At some point they will be. You mentioned before that for a lot of folks listening that they don't have a lot of bandwidth to do marketing, right? As gym owners, we wear many hats. There's only so much time energy, money, resources to dedicate to this sort of thing. And on this call, in this thing plus model, we mentioned a bunch of things to do. There's a lot of things they could tackle. And so if anyone listening to us and feeling a little overwhelmed, where do they start? You start with your avatar. You have to get in. So I was saying obnoxiously detail. You should know your avatar as if they were a family member or a loved one. Well, you know, almost everything about them before it gets really weird and stalkerish. You start there and then from there, a lot of things happen naturally. You start to understand what businesses they go to and what organizations they're part of. I would start by getting the avatar and then listing out their dream 100 again. Those 100 businesses in their area that they would frequent because that's going to get you a lot right off your plate. After that, if you got that stretch and you can do a little bit more, I would say set a goal for the next three months, pick one partner from that list for each month and just have the conversations with them start to build their relationships and try to plan out some sort of marketing with them. Whether it is just getting some signage for it, if you know them a little bit better and you know yourself and you have the bandwidth for it, maybe putting a cross promotion or a co-host event on. Yeah, I think it's a great roadmap. I think it's allows all of our listeners to do it at the pace that makes sense for you. Start with the avatar, which is an activity you can do on your own and control yourself with a handful of clients. then making that big list again with your clients on your own time of the top 100 gyms and then you can start to make goals as Brannis said for how many you can tackle how quickly and You might want to get some efforts of your team involved in this if you have some trainers with some extra time on their hands And you want to train them to do exactly what we talked about which is go be a familiar face go make friends with these businesses In some cases, that's just gonna be fun to get to know people in your own backyard If it wasn't hand out, I think you'll be you want to be known as the nicest kids on the block and so it's helpful that way For example, I marked for sure fitness we did a lot We put on like unicorn onesies and buy MFF slap bracelets and run around and put slap braces on people and give them like his neighborhood Car VIP cards and in many cases because we're in New York people's the roller eyes and don't give a shit And we're not interested at all But did people know there was this weird unicorn gym nearby even if they rolled their eyes and wouldn't take a slap Yeah, they knew they knew what we were all about they knew we were around and that reputation is what we're aiming for People just have some familiarity with that we're around and even if we're not your cup of tea you might know someone who is Yeah, yeah awesome any final thoughts here Brandon says we wrap it up Yeah, it's just even though this might seem overwhelming once you get started and you start to do in the little bits of work with the avatar and the businesses You will like you said be a little bit more in control and you'll have the bandwidth and it only takes a couple hours a week So if you have stuff on your plate that you can delegate I would say do it now because whether you're marketing or not you are You're marketing in some capacity even if you don't know it So you want to be in control of it so start prioritizing this now Yeah 100% 100% Have people want to follow you online or learn more about stoked athletics? Where do they find you? Yes, stoked athletics online is just at stoked athletics and on Instagram I'm at the stoked Brody that's BRG We are OGI great. We'll put those links down below and if you want to work with my brand as your business coach You've got to join unicorn society because he's one of our coaches and you could work directly with him on all of these things We'll put a link down below for learning more about unicorn society as well But thanks as always Brandon some should be on the podcast again But thanks as always for your wisdom and for this great presentation that you gave I think this is an amazing model that healthy but really understand how to build a reputation in their community And I think it's just so valuable in our work So I appreciate you sir and I'll see you on the next one Yes sir, see you soon. Have a kick ass week everyone

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Gym owners should prioritize building a local reputation within a three-mile radius before investing heavily in paid ads, as warmer leads from community awareness convert better.
  2. The "FAME Plus" model includes
  3. Business partnerships are most effective when built gradually—start by becoming a regular, understanding the partner’s needs, and using a menu of collaboration options to scale efforts.
  4. Co-hosted events, joint promotions, and passive marketing plays (like in-store raffles) can generate leads with less ongoing effort once systems are in place.

Summary:

In this podcast episode, host Michael Keeler and guest Mike Brannis discuss the "Three Mile Famous" strategy for gym owners. Brannis argues that gyms should focus on becoming well-known within a three-mile radius of their community before relying on paid ads. He introduces the "FAME Plus" model: First, fully know your avatar by understanding their demographics, psychographics, frustrations, and goals.

Second, align with businesses and organizations where that avatar already spends time, such as coffee shops, hair salons, or PTAs. Third, market through the right plays—starting with simple collaborations like shared signage or social media posts, then progressing to joint promotions and co-hosted events. Brannis emphasizes the importance of building relationships gradually, offering a menu of partnership options to streamline the process.

He notes that effective follow-up and conversion systems are crucial for turning leads from these partnerships into paying clients. Keeler and Brannis agree that this approach creates warmer leads than cold ads, making subsequent paid advertising more effective. The episode encourages gym owners to invest time in community presence and strategic partnerships to sustainably grow their business.

FAQs

It's the idea that gyms should focus on becoming well-known within a three-mile radius of their location by building a strong community reputation and forming business partnerships, rather than relying solely on paid ads.

When people see a familiar gym logo or know someone who goes there, they are warmer leads and more likely to convert. Ads are more effective when the gym already has local recognition and trust.

FAME stands for: Fully know your avatar, Align with where they already are, Market through the right place, and Execute with the right entry points and conversions.

They should identify both demographic and psychographic traits, such as frustrations with past fitness, fears, short-term and long-term goals, and daily habits. Focus on one ideal client as the center of the bullseye.

By talking to members, taking a group out to lunch to discuss their daily lives, or using surveys. Look for businesses and organizations like coffee shops, breweries, or PTAs that already attract your target avatar.

Become a regular at the business or organization, show face, and get to know them without immediately asking for favors. Leverage your members for introductions and focus on how you can help them first.

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