This is a true story.
I was out eating dinner with another fitness influencer who had more than twice my audience size (I’m about 3M followers online, he’s closer to 5).
We hit this fancy restaurant in NY called Ken’s Steakhouse after a bicep workout we filmed and were ready to feast for our macros.
I ordered the fattiest Keto Sirloin I could find on the menu along with some brussel sprouts and a 0 calorie grape soda (as my people are predisposed to doing).
But when it was time for my more famous and less black friend to order, he suddenly began playing a game of 20 questions with our waitress:
Wait, so how much would a side salad cost?
Okay, but if I get it without tomatoes?
Would it knock the price down?
How about the sliders, how much are they?
Okay and what if I got the sliders without cheese?
This literally went on for a good 5 minutes, as I began to nudge Brian with my leg under the table and mouthed over to him with a menu covering my face from our questioning friend “this mothaf**ker is broke!”
Brian silently nodded and we continued to pretend it wasn’t weird.
I say this all to say that being internet famous does NOT equate to wealth.
I know plenty of guys (like the dude from the steakhouse) who have huge social media followings who can’t afford a salad.
Likewise, I know guys with 0 social media who are cracking 8 figures this year.
So in the video I made below, I wanted to show you how to actually do both.
That is, crush it on social media while also making tons of bread in the fitness industry.
I made the video with my man Josef Rakich, both a social media celeb (over 3M fans on Facebook) and a 7 figure earner.
The video is called How to get Rich In The Fitness Industry and you can check it out below~
Fitness Business
Take the lessons we teach from the video to heart and you too can begin affording salads AND get 500 more likes on your dirty Instagram post.
You know the one.
A big misconception that people have about me is that they think that I have a successful online fitness business because I have a huge following online and millions of fans all around the world (over 1.5 Million FB fans, over 780,000 YouTube subs, and 3000,000+ IG Followers)
The TRUTH is that it's the other way around.
I have millions of followers because I have a successful business.
50 Cent once said “Homie, you hustling backwards if you chasing a bitch, Stupid, chase the paper—they come with the shit”
The same rule applies if you’re chasing social media followers instead of the $.
In short, the fastest way to succeed as an online trainer is to make the money first and grow the following second.
That’s what I did – I built my business, THEN built my following.
This is because building a huge social media following is a FULL TIME JOB.
While I make it look easy, it takes several hours a day planning, shooting, and editing your content, in addition posting it with titles, thumbnails and hashtag that take advantage of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
On top of that, 10 years ago when I started on YouTube, the barrier to entry was way smaller. Most content creators were using cheap cameras and their phones for their videos, usually in just a few takes.
Nowadays, social media audiences EXPECT you to have HD cameras, high quality sound and incredible editing skills because our attention spans are so short now.
It's also WAY harder to grow on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram organically than it was back then.
Here’s my point: You won't have time to truly build your social media following if you are working a 9-5 job because of how demanding it is. So you have to make enough money in your online business to quit your job BEFORE you work on building a huge following.
Otherwise “you’re hustling backwards, stupid.”
The good news is, you don’t need a big following to make enough money to quit your job.
In fact, all you need is what I like to call the “Online Trainer Formula”
Here's the Online Trainer Formula:
*25 clients
*Paying you $80 a week
*For 52 weeks… …Equals $104,000 a year!!!
Read that again.
All you only need is 25 clients. Do you need millions of followers, or millions of fans, to make 25 sales?
Of course not. All you need is 25. And $80/week for personal training is a fucking steal, because most in person PT’s charge at least $80 per session.
A good example of the “money first, followers second” principle is my student Charlie Diesel from Boston, MA.
When Charlie first started working with me, he had only 100 followers. He never really put any REAL energy into building his social media (again, impossible to do with a 9-5). However, he was a really good trainer.
As soon as we started working together, he started implementing what I taught him and he started getting clients within the first 30 days. By month two, he had enough clients and income to quit his job!
He literally more than doubled his income in just 2 months. He then moved into a new apartment in downtown Boston with his girlfriend.
Once that happened, THEN we started working on building his following. We specifically focused on building his Instagram, which now has over 16,000 followers. And the best thing about it is, these followers are people who want coaching from him! Not just people who want to be entertained.
You can see more about Charlie's story here
In sum, if you want to make a full time income online, make sure you remember the Online Trainer Formula: 25 clients, paying you $80/week for a total of $104,000 a year.
Get the money first and the fans will follow.