Future of Gym marketing & current state... 8020 or 9010. Ep 78

In a candid discussion, the host emphasizes the importance of capitalizing on proven marketing strategies, citing Gary Vee's regret of underinvesting in Google Ads during its prime. The host underscores the cyclical nature of marketing platforms, highlighting the need to focus on platforms with high attention and cost-effective reach, such as Facebook and Instagram ads, which are currently yielding high returns. With an economic versus accounting profit perspective, the host advises business owners to invest heavily in current, profitable marketing vehicles rather than being distracted by the allure of new, untested avenues. By sharing personal experiences and strategies for scaling ad spend, the host encourages entrepreneurs to avoid making marketing a bottleneck and to instead invest in what is known to work, thus maximizing immediate returns over lesser, passive income streams. The talk concludes with a call to action for business owners to seek assistance from acquisition.com if they aim to significantly grow their businesses.

• Speaker A discusses the importance of recognizing and capitalizing on marketing trends.
• They reference Gary Vee's regret about not investing enough in Google Ads during its prime.
• Marketing cycles and the importance of attention and cost-effectiveness are highlighted.
• Speaker A introduces the concept of economic and accounting profits from their economics class.
• Economic profits are described as obtaining a disproportionate return on investment, considering opportunity costs.
• Accounting profits are defined as a positive return without considering opportunity costs.
• The discussion emphasizes the challenge of finding the best investment vehicle for one's money.
• Entrepreneurs' affinity for new and exciting opportunities is mentioned, alongside the need for balance between current success and future preparation.
• The importance of investing in what works, such as Instagram and Facebook ads, is stressed.
• Speaker A discusses the tendency to seek new opportunities rather than focusing on current successful strategies.
• They mention a challenge posed to their legacy group to double ad spend and the correlation between ad spend and revenue.

"Gary Vee is someone that I actually, people have very mixed feelings about him. I mean, that's what a good marketer does anyways. But I think he's incredibly smart and I think he really understands what's going on. That's just my opinion. And he has said repeatedly, many times in many videos, that one of his greatest regrets as a marketer was not spending enough on Google Ads when it was hot."

This quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and seizing marketing opportunities, as exemplified by Gary Vee's regret about Google Ads.

"For those of you who've been in the game longer, you've seen there are cycles that happen within marketing, right? And everything comes down to just where attention is, where eyeballs are, and the relative cost of those eyeballs, sorry, the cost of those eyeballs relative to the amount of them that are actively viewing."

Speaker A is discussing the cyclical nature of marketing trends, focusing on the cost-effectiveness of capturing audience attention.

"So accounting profits is just where you are spending money on something, or you have a business in an industry that is not growing, but you are able to make a profit off of it. It is not like you are just making a profit off of a business that is existing, but it is not new or different or sexy. It is in an established market."

The speaker defines accounting profits, emphasizing profitability in a stable, established market without considering opportunity costs.

"Economic profits is when you are getting a disproportionate amount of profits from dollars that you are spending."

Speaker A defines economic profits, highlighting the significance of maximizing returns on investment by considering opportunity costs.

"A lot of us don't know because we're not all knowing what thing or what vehicle is going to make us the most money for our $100."

The quote reflects the uncertainty in identifying the most profitable investment opportunities.

"There's this balancing act that you have to do between doing what is working right now and preparing yourself for the fact that it will change."

Speaker A discusses the challenge of balancing investment in current successful strategies while staying adaptable for future changes.

"And for those of you who are on here who are just listening right now, for example, if you don't know how to run Instagram ads and Facebook ads profitably, you're missing the boat."

The speaker stresses the current importance of understanding and utilizing Instagram and Facebook ads for marketing success.

"A lot of times we put a disproportionate amount of effort towards future proofing, meaning people will spend 50% of their effort trying to find the next thing, rather than doubling down on the thing that is working right now."

This quote addresses the common mistake of over-focusing on future trends at the expense of capitalizing on current effective strategies.

"I put out a challenge in our legacy group, which was double your ad spend for the month. Because if you look off of just our own metrics, my gyms, and then now having worked with over 1000 gyms that we have in launch and legacy, it's almost directly proportionate. The amount of money that you will make in a month will be directly proportionate to the amount of money that you're spending on marketing, provided you're putting it into a vehicle that works."

Speaker A encourages increasing ad spend based on the direct correlation observed between marketing investment and revenue generation.

• Facebook and Instagram are currently in a "golden years" phase, offering significant opportunities for business growth.
• Businesses are still achieving substantial success on these platforms.
• The recommendation is to capitalize on these platforms while the opportunity is ripe.
• There is a sense of urgency to act now and invest in marketing on these platforms.

"We have four to six more years of golden years on Facebook. So if you're in here. And you're like, man, I'm too late. I missed the boat. You didn't miss the boat, all right? People are still crushing it on Facebook. We still crush it on Facebook. We still crush it on Instagram."

This quote emphasizes that despite concerns of being late to the game, Facebook and Instagram still offer significant opportunities for businesses to thrive. It suggests there is a window of four to six more years where these platforms will continue to be highly effective for business growth.

• The advice given is to reinvest profits into Facebook ads rather than traditional investments.
• The rationale is that Facebook ads can provide a much higher return on investment.
• Traditional investments might yield a 10% annual return, but Facebook ads can offer returns multiple times higher.
• The focus should be on investing in what's already generating profit rather than seeking passive income streams elsewhere.

"But if you took 20 grand of your 200, so you just took 10%, and then you just spent it on Facebook ads that you know you're going to get a five to one return on, or a ten to one return on, or some of you guys 20 to one return on, where should your attention be going?"

This quote suggests that rather than seeking a modest return through traditional investments, business owners should reinvest a portion of their profits into Facebook ads, where the return on investment could be significantly higher. It questions where a business owner's focus should be to maximize their profits.

• Business owners possess an investment that many others seek: their own businesses.
• The argument is made against looking for passive income when one's business is already a high-yield asset.
• The recommendation is to invest heavily in one's own business rather than diversifying into passive investments.

"But the point is that if you are a business owner, you already have the thing that most people try and invest in. There's no point in trying to be passive right now and build up this passive revenue stream. When you have this thing, this engine in front of you that is making you tons and tons of money."

This quote advises business owners to focus their investments on their own businesses rather than seeking passive income streams. It implies that the business itself is a valuable asset that should be the primary focus of investment efforts.

• The speaker's personal investment strategy involves putting money into indexes for long-term growth without needing to manage it actively.
• The primary investment focus is on marketing, ensuring it is not a bottleneck in business growth.
• The goal is to spend enough on marketing to continuously bring in customers without overloading the business's capacity to serve them.

"Okay, my investment strategy is not to think about it. And what I mean by that is we just invest in indexes because I know that I don't have to think about it and I will not need the money for 40, 50 years."

This quote reveals the speaker's hands-off approach to personal investment, favoring index funds for their simplicity and long-term growth potential. It also suggests a preference for focusing time and resources on the immediate growth of the business through marketing.

"If right now you're not breaking your machine, your business, because of the inflow, then it means that you should be spending more on marketing."

This quote suggests that if a business is not currently at capacity due to customer inflow, it should increase its marketing spend. It implies that a business should aim to maximize its customer acquisition as long as it can handle the volume.

• Discusses the process of scaling business operations effectively.
• Emphasizes the importance of managing the flow of leads and sales processes.
• Introduces the concept of Automated Lead Nurture (ALN) to manage increased lead volume.
• Advises to keep pushing until sales personnel calendars are fully booked.
• Suggests that businesses should focus on fulfilling their capacity before seeking further expansion.

"I want to increase the width of the pipe, which for the people who work with us, the first thing that you're going to do to increase the width of the pipe is do Aln, which is automated lead nurture."

This quote highlights the first step in scaling operations by widening the lead funnel through automation, to handle more leads without proportionally increasing labor.

"And so until that person's calendar is completely booked, keep cranking."

Here the speaker advises to continue driving the business forward until the point where the sales personnel or the individual responsible for sales is fully occupied.

"And then again, once that person's completely booked, are you able to continue to fulfill?"

The speaker is making the point that before seeking further growth, a business should ensure it can handle its current capacity in terms of sales and fulfillment.

• Discusses investment strategies and the importance of focusing on what works.
• Mentions Warren Buffett's quote on diversification and relates it to business investment.
• Encourages doubling down on successful aspects of the business rather than getting distracted by new ventures.
• Advises against spreading resources thin over multiple uncertain investments.
• Suggests investing in proven systems that yield a high return.

"Warren Buffett said that diversification is a hedge against ignorance, which I think is, like, one of the most profound investment statements, meaning he didn't diversify his funds because he knew what he was doing."

This quote is used to illustrate the concept that diversification isn't always necessary if one has a deep understanding of their investments, implying expertise can lead to confident, focused investment.

"Right now, if you spend $1,000 or $10,000 on Facebook ads, you know what you were doing because you have this machine that you've built for it, right?"

The speaker is emphasizing the importance of investing in strategies that are already known to work, like a well-tuned advertising system, rather than venturing into unknown territories.

"Some people right now, you probably need to just double down on the thing that is already working, not distract yourself with the new shiny objects."

Here the speaker advises focusing on the current successful aspects of the business rather than chasing after new, unproven ideas or trends.

• Discusses different methodologies for scaling advertising spend.
• Presents a common strategy of incrementally increasing ad spend.
• Shares personal preference on ad spend strategy, differing from the incremental approach.

"So people ask, how do you scale ad spend? So there are a lot of different schools of thought around how to scale ad spend. One is you start with your budget, and then you scale every 24 to 48 hours by ten to 20%."

This quote presents a common strategy for scaling ad spend, which is conservative and involves gradual increases to control risk.

"I personally don't do that. But that is one school of thought that is pushed out by l"

The speaker indicates a personal preference for a different approach to scaling ad spend, suggesting there are multiple valid methods.

• Discusses various strategies to scale ad spend on Facebook.
• Suggests duplicating winning ads to increase daily ad spend.
• Shares personal experience with scaling ad spend for gyms.
• Introduces the "starting high and pruning back" strategy for ad budgeting.
• Advises splitting ad spend between multiple ad accounts to avoid potential negative effects from Facebook's aggressive spending behavior.

Lots of super guru Facebook people. Right. The second is doing a duplication strategy. So let's say you've got five ads that are at $20 a day each, right? You can duplicate the ones that are winners.

This quote explains the duplication strategy where successful ads are duplicated to increase overall ad spend.

And now you're at 160 a day, and then you duplicate one of those ones again. Now you're at 180 a day.

This quote demonstrates the process of incrementally increasing the ad spend by duplicating winning ads.

So what I do is I spend usually, like, three times what I want my daily ad budget to be. And I start there, and then I prune back to get to the acquisition cost that I want.

The speaker describes their approach of initially spending three times their desired daily ad budget and then cutting back to reach their target acquisition cost.

I'll probably start with 30 ads at $100 a day, and then within 48 hours, I'll be able could easily cut out ten of them.

This quote illustrates the initial high spending and the quick evaluation period to eliminate underperforming ads.

But I'm still ridiculously profitable in my acquisition. So I sort of, like, trick myself into spending more than I was intending to and then make more money than I originally was going to.

The speaker shares how this strategy leads to higher than intended spending but also results in profitable acquisitions.

• Discusses the unpredictable and opaque nature of Facebook's internal processes.
• Expresses skepticism about claims of understanding Facebook's algorithm.
• Highlights the importance of relying on data and testing rather than trusting hearsay.

I have this weird belief that Facebook thinks once you show that you can spend money with them, that they start spending it more aggressively, but not in a good way.

The speaker shares a personal belief that Facebook may not always spend an advertiser's budget effectively after demonstrating a willingness to spend.

Anyone who claims that they know what's going on with Facebook is just either they're lying or they're lying to themselves.

This quote expresses doubt about anyone claiming to fully understand Facebook's internal workings, suggesting that such claims are dishonest.

I have friends who are very high up in the Facebook world, and they're like, we don't even find out about rollouts.

The quote reveals that even well-connected individuals in the Facebook world are often unaware of changes within the platform.

You just test and you look at what happened and you figure it out, which is what I recommend you do for everything in your life, which is don't trust anyone, just trust the data.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of testing and trusting data over people's opinions or claims.

• Encourages investing in advertising over other investment vehicles.
• Advocates for spending money on platforms where the return can be controlled.
• Emphasizes the potential regret of not investing in a "known beast" like Facebook advertising.

Don't let your marketing be your bottleneck. So spend until it isn't.

This quote suggests that one should invest sufficiently in marketing to ensure it is not a limiting factor in business growth.

And I would not be worried about how you're going to spend all of your time and attention trying to figure out how to go from 7% passive return to ten or 12% passive return when you have this machine in front of you that you will regret five years from now not spending tons of money into a known beast that you know the return on that you can control.

The speaker advises focusing on advertising investments with controllable returns rather than smaller passive investments with uncertain outcomes.

So like, spend it where you can control it.

This quote is a direct recommendation to invest in areas where one has control over the outcomes, such as advertising spend on Facebook.