The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
Attract Better Clients for Bigger Wins
Life can often feel like a game, one where strategy, humor, and unexpected inspirations guide us through its complexities. Imagine viewing your everyday challenges as levels in a video game, where you learn to laugh off minor annoyances and focus on the truly important quests. Our episode kicks off with a personal tale of how a father's short stint in the NFL surprisingly fueled a career trajectory that now involves working closely with professional athletes. This journey highlights the unpredictable paths life can take and how they can align with our aspirations. We also ponder the simulation theory and the notion of a creator, while humorously acknowledging how dogs might be the best judges of a person’s energy.
Transitioning from life’s philosophical musings, we draw analogies between romantic partnerships and business relationships. The quest to find the right fit becomes an enlightening exploration of client dynamics. Reflecting on my own experiences, I share insights from eight years in business, where understanding the psychological nuances of clients can be as crucial as demographic data. Discovering the ideal client isn't just about ticking boxes; it's about learning from past experiences, navigating through difficult client situations, and ultimately creating successful relationships by balancing hard metrics with intangible qualities.
In today's bustling digital marketing world, where the tension between quantity and quality prevails, our conversation shifts to strategies for thriving in this landscape. Much like in dating, the focus on quality over quantity is emphasized through the selection of client management systems and marketing strategies. Finally, we delve into the specifics of B2B marketing within the construction industry, where branding and crafting compelling RFPs are pivotal. Whether you're in digital marketing or navigating life’s unpredictable game, our episode offers insights and strategies to ensure growth and fulfillment in various arenas.
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I look at life as like it's a video game, and so I don't think take a lot of things serious. I take serious things, serious, right, the right thing, and a lot of the pet peeve stuff. We laugh about it right now Like it's just our pet peeves. You know, we're one in billions of people that live on this planet and everybody's going to do their own thing differently. There are important things to think about, but yeah, I kind of just think it's all funny.
Speaker 1:I somebody was driving really slow the other day and I got behind him. I couldn't get over and I was like, oh my god, I get around this person and I got up in front of him. Finally I went to go into the turn lane and I thought to myself, you know what, I'm gonna wait for this light to go almost red and then I'm gonna dart. And that way they missed the turn light. I didn't do it intentionally, but then I got like a message on my phone. I should have been looking at my phone, but I like looked and then the car starts honking behind me. I'm like, oh shit, it's already yellow and I turned it. I was like I just did what I thought would be funny if I did, but I wasn't gonna do it because I was an asshole, but I ended up doing it anyways, which was just super funny to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know why, but this is the second time you brought up video games, uh, or uh, the matrix, you put it earlier, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's interesting that you say that because I don't believe in the simulation theory per se, but I do, I mean, I guess I could. I mean, I guess from a scientific standpoint, from a scientific standpoint, I think that the simulation theory of how we exist, no matter what, is still similar to a video game, even if it's not ones and twos, but it kind of is, because that's how science kind of portrays atoms. And I'm not a big scientist by any means, but I love science stuff, I geek out about it, yeah. And it's interesting because you you talked about, you know, video games and there's always this, this path that you, you can push yourself into and I think that's just like life. You know, I would like, when I first started my business, going back a little bit like my dad was a retired nfl player, like he played for he played for the uh broncos and the cowboys and it was way before I was born.
Speaker 2:he didn't play longer than a year. He doesn't talk about it that much Because at least he's a little salty about it, he is.
Speaker 2:He is. I think he feels bad for himself, like he thinks he could have made it longer, but it really wasn't his fault. He was a kicker and it was right. During the phase of NFL was cracking down it was in the 70s, cracking down on college and grades and stuff. And he, he was so good at kicking that a lot of his teachers were like, here's an a, here's a, you know b? And so he made it through. And then, um, what the story that I've been told? And, dad, if you watch this, you know I'm sorry, but if I get it wrong, but uh, they came back and said oh we, we can't count those.
Speaker 2:They basically did an audit on schools and even before in the year before and basically told people they couldn't come back, and so we only had a year. It was literally during that transition that happened, and he would have had to go back to school and do all that stuff to actually get the grade, like basically spent another four years in college almost to get those, and so he did that. But that, funny enough, like when I was a kid, that was my goal was like I'm going to be, I want to be like my dad, I want to live up to my dad, I want to become a professional athlete. Of course that didn't happen. I went to college.
Speaker 2:I found a different path for myself that I enjoyed better, and then when I started my business, that's what pushed me into working with professional athletes, and so that simulation theory is really interesting to me, because my path my path is still still had. I had like this end goal in mind of like this is where I wanted to be. I follow these little incremental goals or sets of things that led me to still somehow work in that field I don't work for the suns for like two years and I worked for, uh, like I said, a lot of professional athletes going through up until and I still do some. Somewhat I do, but for the most part, like I said, I switched the gyms, but it led me to that, and so it's always interesting because it shows you energy in the, in the universe and the way things work, and it just I always am like it's just like simulation theory. Man, there's something there there's something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I'm not religious uh, I grew up very religious my family but I do believe in a creator. I just don't know like who or what, because things are so like the further you zoom down, it just in infinitely complex. And the further you zoom out it gets infinitely complex. I was the other night just stepping outside and looked at the stars and I was like damn, like what if this is just like we're on an atom and this is like part of a bigger being, like you know what I mean? It's just crazy to think what if we're microscopic?
Speaker 2:yeah, we we're on a bigger cell or a cell on someone's fingertip. That's what I'm saying. What if?
Speaker 1:that's are you and it's that's what blows you away, and I think a lot of that stuff, uh, is just you just for hours watch this. I've loved watching. It's fascinating. But the one thing I do know for sure is I definitely believe in good energy. Yeah, and dogs, um are, they can sense energy too.
Speaker 1:You ever have like a dog around somebody and they just cower away for no reason, like they're always friendly around people. But then you meet that one person and they just have a certain look or feel about them, like I had my dog out and he's wanting to run up and meet everybody and there's just one guy that he just cowered away from, just like wouldn't go near him, and I looked at the guy's eyes. I was like, oh my God, something is wrong with that guy. He's done something. I could just see it in his eyes. You know what I mean? He was a killer and dogs can sense that stuff. So what I'm saying is, if a dog can sense that stuff and we talk about it, I definitely think we can too. It's just our emotions are so complex.
Speaker 2:We can get roped into all the time. I, I, I, I don't believe in religion, but I believe that, um, I believe in energy, I believe in spirituality, I believe to connect it to the business. I was looking at pastors and stuff.
Speaker 1:They're really good salesmen. A lot of. What's the word? Is it evangelists or missionaries or whatever People that go out and preach the gospel to people? They're really good salesmen. I mean, think about it. You go up and knock on somebody's door and sell them on a religion. You have to give up sex and alcohol and swearing and your lifestyle and all this stuff and come donate your money to this place and hang out with us. It's like no, but they sell it to people and I think a lot of it is and I want to know your thoughts on this is conviction.
Speaker 1:They just have 1000% conviction. Like I know for a fact, when I die I'm going to heaven and the I think a lot of that portrays as confidence. Like we, we really gravitate towards people who are really confident. That's why con artists are so good at conning people because they're so confident, they're so cocky, so they have such conviction. They tell you with certainty that their product is the best. I would you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean, yeah, and there's nothing, honestly, there's nothing wrong with it. Like my coach is very religious and his values are around religion because he values that. But when I look at it to me, I look at it and I always think the business part of it and I'm like, oh, this is just very similar to creating a vision. Like you have a vision that's part of your confidence. You have to lead by example and you have to have conviction towards following that path. Of that this is my vision. Like my vision is I want to help, I want to help people find their community. Like that is my vision, that's my conviction. Like that, everything that I do is going to follow that path.
Speaker 2:It can become very narrow-minded, I feel, but sometimes that's good. I think in the business world it's good because then you know that marketing complexity and that you know what did I call it earlier? The marketing fatigue doesn't happen as easily because you're like wait, I'm helping my community, does this decision really help with that direction? But I think that there's also nothing wrong with your first trying to find a religion or first trying to find that conviction that you, what do I? Like I did.
Speaker 2:I had a friend that was a Jehovah's witness when I was a kid and, yeah, I was very spiritual, I had nothing wrong with that. So I studied with him because I still love learning about things and cultures and religions and stuff. But I do believe that that conviction, um, it can become narrow-minded, but I agree with you that, uh, all power to anybody that, but the sales part. You said the sales part. I think that comes back to the connection side. Right, you know, they have a community, they have a culture and they're like we're really just trying to convince you that you match our values and our community and if you do, great, if you don't, then that's probably when they get the door slammed on them.
Speaker 1:Sales is so closely related to the dating.
Speaker 2:Businesses too.
Speaker 1:I use that all the time, yeah because I really sucked at dating in my early 20s. I read a book called how to Be a 3% man by Corey Wayne. He had little YouTube videos where he would read people's emails and he would do his response back and it was like the best thing ever. I read the book like eight times and, uh, I had no issues with girls after that and it was amazing. Just because I understood it now, I mean, now I'm at that that I struggle with sales. So I know I just need more information, I need more reps. You know what I mean. Um, but yeah, it's like it's a lot like dating. It's like I used to look at salesmen the same way. I used to think they were all shit. You know the shitty car salesman who's?
Speaker 1:always trying to rip you off. But then once I learned more about just how the world works, that sales is in everything. Like you said, it's like trade. Is that? It's like dating? When you go to date, you're going to find the douchiest person you'd ever met, like complete, just shit person. And that doesn't mean everybody else in the dating realm is the same way it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Right, you just got to find, and then you'll meet people that are great people, but you just don't match up. And then you'll finally find somebody who you match up. That's a great person as well and is a good fit. And it's the same way with business, I think. And it's the same way with business, I think, and I'd love to hear your thoughts more about it, because it's like, yeah, you know, a couple of your clients are just terrible people. No go. And you got a lot of great people that would be great clients, but they just don't match up. Like you made the milk example earlier, they're lactose intolerant, so they're not going to buy milk. And then you have the few people that you meet that they're a great customer, they have the budget for it, it's a great match, they need your service. There you go, boom.
Speaker 2:Well, you actually made me think of something in my head which I'll get to, because when I look at like when I had my relationship with my wife, we met. We met in college, my last semester in yoga class, which I always thought oh, you did yoga. I took it last semester in yoga class, which I always saw oh, you did yoga. Yeah, I took it last semester because I needed to take one more credit and I'm like I'm good with everything else and so I took it. Um, that's where I actually met my wife and it's funny because I'm I'm no player by any means like I didn't go there going. I always joke like I'm gonna go there and meet my the fuck you get a girlfriend house. And then I did, and so I'm always like I always use that. But no, I was the growing up. Growing up I was always that really romantic guy, really the romantic type guy, a little bit smothering, I would, I would say, cause I really value a lot of dudes are early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I really valued wanting that connection. Um, and my wife, my wife now says she's like, oh, you're not romantic at all, but she's like I'm, like I am, it's just different. But back to the dating. Like I met her in yoga and I think it goes to show you very similar from a business and a sales perspective. It's like I met her at yoga and I told myself, like this is the type of person I mean I'm not going to find a drunken you know one night standard in yoga class, right.
Speaker 1:Like no, definitely not, definitely not.
Speaker 2:You find some very committed people in there people in there and so, and probably a certain type of value and a certain type of step. So it's very similar to that aspect of audience. Right, you have to find where your audience is. And you know, I was very similar. I, I went up and I, I I had my fun in college, I did Um and I met my wife at the very end and we've been together ever since Um and we did have a little break period there in a middle, in the middle of it all, but I think that helped us. But, uh, that's besides the point. Um, you mentioned something about uh.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to remember, because then I got on a rant. Um well, I was talking about the uh right fit for like the right customer. I made that example about the milk and the lactose intolerant.
Speaker 2:You said you were gonna bring up something about yeah yeah, yeah, I can't remember now, um, because it was something that I just thought of at this moment in time.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, it's popped in your, your head.
Speaker 2:I just popped in my head maybe I'll come back maybe. Yeah, I think it had something to do with um relationships and um it had to do with had to do with relationships and oh yeah, because I had this really bad customer last year that I thought that I wanted and how many years have you been in business, so far eight, eight years eight years.
Speaker 1:You knew what you were doing well at this point.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not perfect and I think that I think that there's definitely still things that I'm growing at. She's seen a lot, though. I've seen a lot. I have so many stories, but uh, it goes back to customers, cause you were talking about that's right. You're going back to like like customers, finding the people that want this and this, and you know, when you start a relationship, um, you know, you have this premise of I can only use a story that I remember hearing years ago, where a woman was on this talk show and she was, uh, she was like talking about how she, she was in her like early 20s and she, she opened her boyfriend's computer and looked at the history and she's like I broke up with him right away and I'm like you know what You're going to get to, like 35, 40. And those small things that no longer matter. It's like you said, the stages, right, you're going to come to. You're not going to say settle, but you're coming to realize that no one's perfect in those types of situations. So in business, I think it's a very similar concept. I think it's a very similar concept.
Speaker 2:I think that you, either you have to have those crappy clients or vice versa, you have to work with those crappy agencies or the crappy partners. You have to go through that stage to understand what you want or what you don't want, and you will get to a point where you realize, all right, this is my avatar, but there's always going to be, there's never going to be a perfect client. There's never going to be a perfect situation. You're going to say I love this client more than anything in the world. I don't want to lose them, because every single one of my clients I have, like I'll say that hey, they're kind of my ideal client. But of course there's some pains.
Speaker 2:The difference is I have to work out with each of them. And if you try to strive on the demographics of a person in business and you say, hey, I have to, it goes back to the numbers and the connection thing. It's like if you have to go back and look at a person in sales and this happens in sales a lot where it's like all right, this, this person. And back to when I was talking about gyms, where it's like, okay, one of our criteria is if they're at stage three of gym ownership, they have to be making between 500 and a million, because if they're not, they're not healthy for other reasons. We can't help them. If they're at stage four or five, we have to look at this. We'll look at those demographics as a baseline, but there's always going to be a situation where someone's out of the norm, you know, and you have to be able to the psychological counterpart of the person, um, and so I think that that's really what I've been focusing on as I've been trying to be my ideal clients is it's like okay, we have to focus on the demo, everyone should, but don't, don't sacrifice the psychological counterpart of individuals, which you can't really track. That's it. That's a whole branding philosophy around it but you can't track. Every single person is going to be different. They have different backings, they have different trends and what they do they like, blah, blah, blah. But those are the types of people you really want to work with, right Are the ones that are like oh, and using that client.
Speaker 2:Last year I brought on a client he's paying us about 10 grand a month. Owned a wellness company in the e-com space here seemed very great off the bat. He had what I call ex-girlfriend syndrome funny enough where he had a bad agency beforehand and he was trying to. At first I should have saw the red flags, but he was starting to funny. You say that, yeah, I call it. I even tell client I I'm pretty honest with my clients and so I'm like oh, you have ex-girlfriend syndrome. They're like what's that? I'm like you're putting all of your worries and your pains on me. The last one that happened from the last relationship that you had. Isn't that so funny? I am and some of them laugh.
Speaker 2:But he had that scenario going on. He signed a year contract. It was going to be $120,000 contract. We got about two and a half three months in and that whole period was a pain. He'd be on the phone, he'd be great.
Speaker 2:But then he'd send us these emails that were like opposite of what we were on the phone with, about like crazy stuff, trying to switch our services around telling us oh, I want you to do performance, I want you to do this for free. It's like, dude, we went through three calls, a competitive analysis that you pay for. So we went through a three month almost onboarding process of vetting, making sure he was a good fit, doing a competitive analysis to make sure he thought we were a good fit, making sure the price point was there. He owned about, had about a $10 million, like I said, e-com company and we get, we get three months in. He's sending these nasty emails all the time and I didn't fire him, but I chose to let him feel like he was getting out of the contract, if that makes sense, because I was like I could have easily went after him, because the way our contracts are written is like, hey, if we literally I sit down with everyone because I value connection, right, so I'm very big on All right.
Speaker 2:Before we sign, I want to go through the contract with you. I want to make sure that you understand everything that we're going to do, everything that we're responsible for and you're responsible for, because this isn't our business. We're here to help you and went through it all. He agreed, he signed and, like I said, month and a half and two months in, he was sending us emails talking about if you don't do this, in two weeks, I'm canceling.
Speaker 2:And I'm like dude, you signed a year contract, you can't cancel. Like it's a cash offer, which means you got a discount for signing a year contract that basically states that you have to pay us this whole thing and we're being nice enough to let you pay us in increments as a cash offer. I see, and that's how our contracts are stated for those types of contracts, those large ones and three months in, like I said, and he was giving us this stuff, and so I, finally, after having a couple calls with him, and you have to come to a realization of, like you know what, like I'll probably pay more in counseling than I would in a real estate and I will and yeah, this extra 80, and I took a huge blow because that was the growth, that was the client we needed to make it to the next level, like I could start expanding a little bit more, and so I had to let them go.
Speaker 2:But it was a great decision. I had to let go of those air bag, those. Take those, those bags off my air ballooners well you're, you're doing quality.
Speaker 1:You're doing quality over quantity. Yeah, you know, I think that, man, because I'm at that age to where you know, I grew up as a kid with like no internet and the ball was in the bottom of the mouse, and like I had the big computer screen but then quickly to flip phones and then the headphones, so like I saw, like I'm like in this middle ground right to where I've just heard so much old school shit and new shit. It's almost like it's drowning me in information, it's too much. But, um, I've been studying more successful people later or now with a better reputation, and they keep saying the same thing quality over quantity, right, like you need the quantity to grow and have a business, but you got to start with quality first, right. So so like they were showing example, like for photography, for pricing like you could charge.
Speaker 1:The girl gave an example of $500 for a photo shoot to X amount of clients. So you make this amount of money, right, and if you raise up your price to $1,500 per photo shoot doing higher end stuff, you're going to lose like half those clients, but you're actually going to make more money because you're getting paid more per person. So it's kind of like the, the quality or quantity type thing to where the, I think, old school way was when you made like a, you know, like a watchmaker they would spend weeks and weeks and weeks to make one little watch so perfect.
Speaker 1:It's just a perfection, and I think that's the one today. Now is why people don't think that we built the monuments, like in India and stuff where they hand carved all these intricate stuff out there. There's no way we did that. It was all laser cut. No, bro, you realize, people used to sit there for a lifetime with a chisel and just fucking go out. The Eremains would be a good one.
Speaker 2:A good example of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like you just realize that if you just do something and you never stop, you'll get it done. Yeah, right, it's not out of the the realm of possibilities, and so I'm seeing that more now. It's like instead of, like you said, just blasting out all this stuff to people, it's just more quality stuff, more quality connections, like, I think, for the dating realm. A good example would be going to the club. You know you go to the club. You're not going to really meet any girls because you can't talk in there. So, goddamn wow, you know what I mean To where you could have, we could be. Hey, let's just go to this club. There's all the girls here in the world. You know they go out there and you're. You know there's no connection being made. You'd be better off going to a place with less girls, to where there's quieter music, good energy, to where you could actually have a conversation and make that connection. You see what I'm saying Better quality not quantity.
Speaker 2:A coffee, and it's funny. You say quantity over quantity because I've battled with that in business. You say quality over quantity. I believe in quality over quantity.
Speaker 2:I'm a brander and I feel like, in a nutshell, positioning, branding is about quality, it's product, it's about finding your audience, it's about positioning, it's about strategy. Digital marketing, on the other hand and I love to even hear what one of your friend that you had on that was in digital marketing, what his thoughts were on this no-transcript metrics, and if we were to put it into the dating world. That's why I would rather go to like, uh, you know, I'm not gonna say I don't know what the dating sites are now, but one of the paid, one of the paid ones, at 50 bucks a month, compared to the $10, or the free Plenty of Fish. That was back in my day where it was free. It's the same with eHarmony. Yeah, eharmony was 10, I think I was going through a phase where I was using them when me and my wife were broken up.
Speaker 2:But I think, like Plenty of Fish was one of the really cheap ones, right, but that was quantity, right, but I feel, like digital marketing, there's a situation right now where, because the computer anyone can get a computer Anyone can sit down and say, hey, I do this skill set, or I've learned this skill set, that they can charge a whole bunch of money, and so what it's done is it's tarnished digital marketing because it's put everyone in a commodity. So, yeah, you have to niche and learn something, but I'm I'm the component of no like, I'm sorry, like I think we have good prices. I'm not coming in here and saying I'm not going to do your, your ads for 500 bucks a month, like it's impossible for me to make any profit on that, um, because I have a team, I try to build quality, I build value around the people that I bring on and the specialists. Um, and I want to. I want to grow too. You should want me to grow, cause then I don't go out of business and stop your marketing, you know.
Speaker 2:So, uh, but I think that that's where digital marketing is kind of gone, and so that's another reason why I had to find a way to separate out creative versus give mark, because the marketing that we were doing as a full service agency was tarnishing my ability to sell value on the branding projects and these large customizable projects, which I'm still not a fan of niching, and I can explain that later if you want, but for the most part, it's it's branding is quality to me, it's product, it's display I don't know if you've used any like acquisition systems or ever got into them. But there's like one called like go high level uh, go high level.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna look at that. I'm getting more into that stuff now.
Speaker 2:I'm still learning that well, don't, because go high level is I. I would say they were. They were a market first. They were a market first company and not a product first company. And I actually moved over to like keep, basically infusion soft we rebranded, but they're here in phoenix. But they were more customer service focused.
Speaker 2:I it was like you could tell by the product itself. And so back to your point on when you're talking about have less clients for more. I mean, I'm that's kind of what I I'm growing off of like we only have eight, I only have eight reoccurring clients, and we're about half a million, you know. So, um, I'm easier to manage like that too it is.
Speaker 2:But then you get into the, you get into a position you do get into a position where you're you have an 80 20 client, which is one that ends up, just naturally, over time, paying you 80 of your income, and so if that client leaves you, so you have to distribute your eggs a little you have to try to learn to distribute, and that's where the quality quantity comes in, right.
Speaker 2:You have to be like oh well, if I had, if I had a. You know 80 people, 80 people. And I look at there's this, there's this partner in one of my groups and I'm not allowed to say who they are, what they do, that's fine. They, uh, they have the exact opposite. They do a small service for, like, I don't know what their price point is, but they have hundreds of clients and so, like, very easy to manage, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask him this question. I love this guy. He cracks me, we crack each other up. He's funny. The way we met it was crazy. It was super cool. But he does digital marketing for construction.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful one because it's B2B and it's probably basically they have high RFP services.
Speaker 2:So what's RFP? Large B2B companies like construction companies and stuff like that, they usually get their projects either through the city or through commercial, through partners, so they basically can get like a um, it's like, hey, you have to do this building. They're very high, they're very value-based, right. So that I think that for b2B, branding in itself is much more lucrative and needed compared to, like, an e-com brand or the value-based companies it's what branding is right. But RFP is a request for proposal, so they basically can go out there and they just learn the system of creating this certain type of proposal and like, when the city or the commercial asks for it, if they can strategically find what their competitors are doing, they can kind of go in there. And so he probably does and I don't know because it's not my industry, but he probably focuses a lot on helping them be seen to probably has to do more commercial type projects, because unless he builds the RFPs for them and teaches them that strategy, he's very transparent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so.
