Mind Pump Media: Pivot your Business to Digital

 It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time, what better place than here, what better time than now.
 You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 You guys welcome to the latest episode of the Radcast. Coming up on the holidays, we've got our holidays here, here, here.
 Riley has decorated the podcast room and I'm feeling, I'm feeling sensitive and excited to have found out.
 He's about to hear the host of Mind Pump and I guess owner of Mind Pump media or owner.
 What else will they call you?
 General, nice guy.
 General, nice guy.
 I really appreciate you coming on on the Radcast.
 Let's give everybody a little background and all things Mind Pump.
 Yeah, no problem. So I've been a professional in the fitness industry for quite a long time.
 I started at the age of 18 and 41 now. So that's over two decades.
 About six years ago, I started Mind Pump media with my partner's Adam Justin and Doug and the goal at the time.
 It's the same goal that we have now was to provide just true, unbiased, raw fitness information.
 The fitness industry is just rife with crap, terrible information.
 It's mainstream fitness, very, very frequently lies to people or praise on their insecurities and as trainers, it was very frustrating for us.
 I probably daily I would say I would have to overcome some kind of myth or you know this supplement said it's supposed to help me burn body fat and you know this new diet is the thing that my friend tried.
 I think I want to try it out and so we would just have to constantly overcome these myths and it was quite frustrating as a trainer, especially wanting to really truly help people.
 I did that for a long time as trainers and years went by, I met my co-hosts and we decided to start a podcast.
 We figured this would be a great way to reach more people and it very quickly took off.
 Mind Pump grass roots just kind of exploded through word of mouth.
 But a year into it, we quit our side jobs, I should say our main jobs.
 I sold my wellness studio, I had a wellness studio with personal trainers and massage therapists, acupuncturists, the whole deal, sold that.
 Everybody else stopped kind of personal training and we focused full time on Mind Pump media and today we have the top fitness and we call it the fitness entertainment podcast.
 We also entertain people with current events and fun conversation. We figure we reach more people that way and I think that's true.
 We have a YouTube channel that reaches people with exercise demos and other ways of communicating fitness.
 We have written content and so we're a full on media company, new media, podcast, YouTube and written information through the internet.
 I love it. A band after my own heart, the amplification of media.
 There's a lot to impact there but I will start.
 I love the intertwining of entertainment with fitness.
 That's where a lot of people get wrong I think with media and content is they kind of hammer you over the head with all the science and the speeds and feeds but they forget that we're all human
 and we all want to be entertained a bit.
 Absolutely. A big thing with the fitness space is when at the time when we started the company, when we looked at what the fitness industry was providing, you either had the heavy science segments and there was a few of those.
 Then you had the entertain, marketing, sexy looking bull crap side of the fence.
 Now the problem with that side was that all the information they were promoting was terrible.
 And the problem with the science side is that they were in an echo chamber.
 The people that would listen to that were other fitness professionals or trainers or other science-minded fitness people.
 They weren't reaching the masses.
 So you had the flashy marketing bull crap side that was reaching the masses with terrible information.
 Then you had the good information that was reaching nobody.
 Now here's the thing, when we started the company, none of us had any experience with media whatsoever.
 We never did podcasts, we were never on video.
 But we understood how to communicate fitness very effectively because we had trained people for so long and we were all very successful.
 Trainers, one thing you learn when you train people every day people, right, because we're dealing with general population.
 We didn't specialize in high performance athletes, we didn't specialize in bodybuilder competitors.
 We specialize in training everyday people, getting the average person to develop a long term, good relationship with exercise nutrition, solving the obesity epidemic, if you will, with the people that are suffering from it the most.
 And one thing you learn as a trainer is, yeah, you got to be a good trainer, you got to be able to communicate the right stuff.
 But your clients also got to want to see you every time they come train with you.
 They want to be around you.
 So your workouts need to be somewhat fun, conversation needs to be good.
 The person needs to enjoy seeing you because most of these people are not fitness fanatics.
 Most people don't love working out like their personal trainers do.
 So that entertainment piece was very important as a trainer.
 You knew we knew you had to be that kind of a person if you're going to get the average person to show up for week after week and month after month and year after year.
 And then eventually they develop a great relationship with fitness on their own.
 But initially it's like, why are they showing up?
 You know, why are they coming to see you besides the results?
 It's also they want to be there.
 So that was our intention with the podcast is, okay, we're reaching the average person.
 So part of that is we got to be fun to listen to.
 So a lot of our episodes start off with a 30 to 40 minute intro portion, which is current events.
 We tell stories.
 We have a lot of fun in the back half of the episode.
 We really get deep into the fitness.
 And it's been a winning formula.
 We've been able to reach a lot of people that I think we wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise.
 Yeah, I love it.
 So let's talk about the fitness business.
 COVID's poured gas on a lot of fires that were training anyway.
 I think fitness is one of them, which was this notion of virtual training that had picked up.
 You have Peloton and others that have been growing in the space.
 And COVID comes along and kind of accelerates everything online.
 Is that 100% of you guys business at this point?
 You mentioned you kind of shut down some of the brick and mortar stuff.
 And I don't know if that's 100% switch or talk about some of the opportunities and challenges with going virtual.
 Yeah, no, that's a great question.
 Yeah, COVID, the forced lockdowns of gyms just really crushed that segment of the fitness industry.
 And the, in my opinion, the message was totally wrong.
 The message is the gym is the most dangerous place to be right now.
 When in reality, up until now, your best defense against illness is preventing strength in your immune system.
 And not having co-morbidities like obesity or diabetes.
 So that's my little soapbox.
 So anyway, they, I mean, just to go down that path real fast, imagine the impact if the government got us behind
 getting people healthy as they had truly healthy as they have with shutting down things and locking one them down and eating more twinkies.
 Oh, it's incredible. It's, it's absolutely silly.
 Here's a, here's a thing.
 Okay.
 There's a few reasons why gyms are actually quite safe in the COVID era.
 First off, gyms take lots of precautions, you know, separating equipment, taking temperatures of people, making sure people wear masks and all that stuff.
 But besides that, there's something called a self-selection bias.
 Okay.
 I've worked in gyms forever.
 I've worked out in gyms since I was 14, you know, every day.
 I lived in gyms as a professional for two decades.
 People don't go to the gym when they don't feel good.
 They just don't.
 Now, they still go out to eat, they still go out shopping, they still go to the bar sometimes.
 But most people don't go to the gym when they feel under the weather.
 100% right.
 You're surrounded by people who are probably not sick, and you're surrounded by people who are a health-minded.
 And honestly, again, taking care of, not just the physical stuff.
 Now, that's obvious, right?
 You work out, you got, you're not obese, you got better insulin sensitivity, you're less likely to have diabetes.
 I've always caught more comorbidities that are so prevalent in the population of people that have severe COVID symptoms.
 But there's another aspect that is the mental aspect, physical fitness and exercise.
 And this isn't just my opinion, studies have proven this, is as effective or more effective in the long term at treating things like depression and mild to moderate depression and anxiety.
 Okay.
 So you're loading right now, depression and anxiety.
 So you're taking that away from people, stay at home, watch the news, freak out.
 Yeah, you might reduce some infection rates, but mental health is going, hey, wire, you're seeing suicides,
 it's just read an article that Japan had more suicides than COVID deaths recently.
 Children depression is going up.
 So it's just insane, but now that we're, you know, we made that point.
 Yeah, me too, I'm glad you made it because it drives me crazy.
 It drives me absolutely nuts and don't even get me started on treating free people like children.
 If we're really free people, you want four of us, we make our choices, we take wrong risks.
 Yeah, no.
 We'd go a whole different avenue there.
 Don't get me started off the wall, right?
 Look at my shirt, right?
 I love fitness, I love freedom.
 I like it.
 But, you know, as far as online fitness is concerned, yes, they've shut down, effectively shut down and destroyed a segment of the fitness industry in particular, the brick and mortar gym business.
 But the demand for fitness is still there.
 So the fitness industry or people in the fitness space have had to pivot to meet that demand.
 So you're seeing more online fitness offerings.
 I know Peloton, you brought that up.
 I know their share value is exploded and they're selling more bikes than they actually can produce at the moment.
 They actually think they have a production problem at the moment because the demand is so high.
 So people still want to work out.
 People still want fitness.
 They still want to beat see other people.
 And so the fitness space is trying to figure out kind of how to meet that.
 I know a few trainers who were trainers in the brick and mortar gym who've now pivoted to meeting people in their homes and training them.
 By the way, the black market for fitness is exploding right now because of the lockdowns.
 So you're starting to see these like speak easy gyms, kind of like prohibition era, you know, bars.
 Oh, yeah.
 The black market personal training people are having trainers come to their homes or train them in parks.
 People are feeling it they need to move.
 They need to be around other people.
 They need to work out.
 So I think if you're in the fitness space and you're suffering because of these lockdowns, the demand is still there.
 You just got to figure out how to pivot.
 How has business been for you guys?
 I mean, obviously, like we said, more online fitness shoppers for like a better word.
 But how do you separate yourself?
 Okay. Well, so we're a digital company, right?
 So our podcast is, you know, downloaded YouTube.
 You can watch online.
 So we in that from that aspect, we were we were protected quite a bit.
 Now we one way that we monetized by selling fitness programs.
 A lot of our fitness programs were easier to do if you had gym access, right?
 So they would utilize dumbbells, barbells, benches, squat racks, that kind of stuff.
 But we did have programs that were that we had created before for people who want to work out at home that require minimal equipment.
 One program or particular called maps anywhere where you need resistance bands and your body.
 And then you can do the whole workout. Well, when this all kind of went down, we saw a huge spike in sales for our maps anywhere program.
 Which at the time it was one of our, I'd say it was probably on the lower end of the, you know, our sales, I would say our gym programs were much more popular.
 But when this all went down maps anywhere went through the roof, then we created another at home program called maps suspension that uses suspension trainers.
 And then what we did is we added a modification to all of our, to most of our programs, I should say, where you could follow all of them with just a pair of dumbbells.
 So that way, you know, people could follow the programs and still do them at home.
 So that's what we noticed there.
 As far as people tuning into the podcast, we saw small dip in downloads initially.
 Maybe because people didn't work out at first because lockdowns first started, everybody was stay at home.
 But then that came back pretty quickly.
 So I think we're probably feeling some of the economic effects of what's going on.
 But because we're constantly growing, it's hard to tell.
 Right.
 Growing, I just don't know if we were growing as fast as we would have.
 But because we're digital based, you know, we were largely protected.
 I can only imagine how challenging it would have been had we been a gym, you know, a brick and mortar.
 Yeah. Talk about the marketing.
 You know, obviously you guys are smart.
 You guys do what we do with podcasting and, and, and you people ask me all the time, how do you monetize the podcast?
 And it's like, you know, every other person that hires us brings up the podcast, you know.
 So it's, it takes care of itself.
 Sure, it's similar for you guys.
 But talk about other marketing approaches along with maybe how you use the podcast.
 Yeah. So, so when we first started a mind pump, the goal really was to build some authority first at large.
 Right. So when you're talking about me and my partners, especially my co host Adam and Justin, we had been trainers for a long time here in the San Jose, California Bay area.
 Right. And we had a reputation in this area just because we've been here for so long.
 We've managed lots of gyms.
 But outside this area, nobody knew who we were.
 So if we were going to sell any fitness programs online, you want to have some kind of authority.
 Or you want to look like Mr. Olympia. None of us look like Mr. Olympia.
 You know, we're just, you know, regular, you know, guys that like to work out.
 So how do we build authority? And we thought a podcast was a great way to do it.
 It's long form media. Right. So when you listen to a podcast, it's 30 minutes an hour and an hour and a half long.
 And in my opinion, in our opinion, that's the best way to communicate to really communicate fitness and health properly.
 It's fitness and health is not something you can communicate properly in a, you know, 30 second commercial.
 That's that's the time you get the wrong information.
 So it's a great medium. We knew that our knowledge would come across. We thought it was a great way again to build authority.
 So we started with that. And the idea was, let's see how much value we can bring our whatever audience follows us.
 And so a couple of decisions we made right out the gates was number one.
 Let's do a lot of podcasts. There's two reasons for that. And what I mean by a lot is we do five episodes a week.
 Wow. A couple of reasons for that. One, one thing that we learned through our experience with fitness was if you want to get good at something, you got to practice.
 You got to do a lot of reps. Okay. None of us had media experience. So we said, okay, you know, however awesome we think we are.
 We did think we were pretty cool. Don't we all. Yeah. So you got to have a little slightly higher level of narcissism. I think to do any of this stuff. Right. So.
 We were pretty awesome. But we were also, you know, trying to be objective. And we're like, look, we've never done media. And to be honest with ourselves, we're probably going to suck.
 So let's do a lot of podcasts so that we get reps. Right. So in a year, we will have a lot of practice. So let's do that. And number two.
 Lots of podcasts allows us to just provide tons of value to whoever is listening to our show just tons of free information, tons of value.
 And then let's see what that looks like. Well, at the end of that first year. And by the way, we sold nothing the first year. We didn't have a goal of selling anything. It was the goal literally was.
 Build an audience. Provide them with a ton of value and see if we can build some deserved authority. Let's see if people really think that, you know, they like what we have to say.
 And then we'll then we'll figure out what to do from there. So after about a year. Our podcast was growing quite rapidly. People were messaging us.
 Pretty, you know, pretty often that they hope that we had a program or something that they could purchase or some way they could support us.
 So after about a year, we had a meeting and we said, OK, I think it's time to to monetize. Let's see how our audience responds. So we sold our first program, which was maps and a ball.
 And it took off. It did very well. And that's what we did. We did that for the first three years. We sold fitness programs is how we monetized.
 And the way that we people heard about our programs, the way people thought that our programs will be good programs in comparison to others was that they listen to the podcast after about three years.
 The podcast got big enough to where we thought maybe maybe we could start looking at sponsorships. I think there's a big misconception with people and they start podcasts that they're going to make a lot of money with sponsorships.
 That doesn't happen until you're already kind of big. Otherwise, you're not going to do very well with that. So we had gotten to a point where we've gotten some authority. We've gotten, you know, to a decent size.
 And we had people approaching us wanting to sponsor us. We're very, very picky with who we work with. We're, again, we were trainers first media personalities or, you know, second. So we wanted things that we really believed in.
 And so we started to work with companies that sponsored us and then that became a big part of our revenue as well. So sponsorships, program sales are two of the main ways that we now monetize.
 And the way that we talk about our sponsors on the podcast is pretty different from most podcasts. I know the traditional way of doing that would be to open your show with a commercial, you know, like this episode.
 Whatever, you know, use my code for 15% offer. But the way we talk about our sponsors is we try to keep it as genuine and as authentic as possible. So and the only way for this to work, of course, is to work with companies and brands that we actually, you know, whose products we actually use on a regular basis.
 So when we do an episode, we know that, for example, today, I'm supposed to mention butcher box. That's one of our sponsors. And so, and I know this ahead of time. So I know, okay, when's they I'm going to talk about butcher box?
 Well, by the time when they comes, I will have used one of their products. I will have used the tri-tip or I would have done something with the company. So then I can bring that up in conversation. So it's a very genuine plug for the sponsor.
 And we felt that this would be more effective at converting sales. And it was a more genuine way of selling, of talking about our partners and selling their products. And we're right. Our conversion rates are very, very good compared to industry standards.
 And so we continue to do that on the back end. My partner, Adam, manages all those partnerships with sponsors. And we are constantly in communication with how well we're doing with the conversions look like we send them the clips of the episode when we talk about them.
 And we're constantly meeting with them. And then we use our other media to make up for the difference if the podcast doesn't deliver, which is rare. But if that does happen, then you'll see us talking about our sponsors on our Instagrams or even potentially using our email list.
 To boost up their conversions or whatever. And so we've developed these really, really good relationships with our sponsors. And that's now again, like I said, a large part of how we fund this company.
 That's cool, man. You call yourself fitness enthusiast first and media personality second. I'd say pretty damn good marketers. You don't have any clients. I talked to you that I try to convince to do the same things you guys have pulled off.
 Yeah, you know what's funny, right? So not so much now because of the lockdowns, but before this all the lockdowns happen, I would go to local gyms and I would speak to trainers and I would talk to them about building their businesses and how to become successful with their clients and how to get their clients better results.
 And the way that I would open these talks and I think you'll appreciate this is that would I would, you know, I'd be in a room with 50 trainers and I'd say raise your hand and tell me the most important skills and attributes a successful trainer has. And then I would define success as a trainer who got clients great lifelong results as a trainer who had a great client base who really valued them and someone who could really support themselves following their passion of personal training.
 And then people would raise their hands and I would get things like, you know, a really good successful trainer needs to be passionate and I write that down and then they'd say something like they need to be very knowledgeable. They need to be very motivating. They need to be very inspirational. They need to be very empathetic and those are all very great qualities. Okay.
 But then I would cross them out and I'd say now those are important but there's one skill that is more important than all of those and that is effective communication skills and now I'm going to call it by something you've heard before sales skills and you could see all their faces kind of like look at me very confused and trainers hate to hear that by the way they hate to hear that sales as a part of their job.
 And I'd say look every single time your goal as a trainer is to get this person who's sitting in front of you the average person to make fundamental lifestyle changes.
 These are very hard. I mean 90% of people who go on diets or start workouts fail. This is a fact.
 You're trying to get someone to make fundamental changes to their lifestyle to start a and consistently start exercising to change their diet. That is very hard.
 Our diet is like a part of who we are. It's our culture. It's how we celebrate. It's how we, when we're sad, when we're stressed, I mean we're so much dysfunction around food and you're trying to get these people to change these things permanently.
 And the way you do that is you take what you know and what you understand and you transfer it to that person and get them to understand it.
 And that takes the most effective sales skills that you'll ever that you could ever use ever. I mean you got to be a better salesman than the best sales people that sell cars or houses or whatever.
 So those are very important skills. And so if you're a successful trainer, if you've been a trainer for 15 years and you do a great job, you've really learned how to sell it very, very well.
 And so when you look at mine pump and you say we're great marketers, really it's just the skills we learned training clients. Like how do I get Mrs Johnson to change her diet for the rest of her life.
 Man, I got to really sell her and I got to do it effectively. You know every time I see her twice a week for the next six months that she's with me. And then I got to be so effective at it that she does it forever. Like that's a hard thing to do.
 But if you try on error, you really learn how to do it well.
 Yeah. And you guys are doing it well. The I would add in their like ability. And then of course I do wonder with the virtual stuff. So many, so many trainers are like counselors. Like how you guys manage that aspect of it.
 Is that that's actually more of the job than anything I tell you is dealing with the route. I'll give you one example.
 The let's look at the route motivation is to why somebody is working out or changing their diet in the first place.
 The route motivation for most people is that there's some something about themselves that they don't like or usually something that they hate.
 Okay, so I hate my belly. I feel fat. I feel gross. You know, I need to work out. Right. That's that's how most people start.
 The problem with that motivation is that motivation or that impetus will never produce a lifelong relationship with fitness and health.
 Here's your evidence. Okay. When somebody stops, you know, trying to eat right or stops working out the average person, you often will hear something like this.
 Like you'll talk to your friend and be like, Hey, what happened to that diet? Why just stop doing that? And they'll say, Oh, man, I just want to enjoy life. I just want to live my life or why do you stop working out?
 Oh, man, I just want to look man. I just got sick of it. I just want to enjoy my life. Now there's a clue right there. Right. What do you mean enjoy your life? It was that must have.
 They must have really hated what they were doing. Now if the if the if the root if we can switch the root impetus from self hate to self care, right to self love, I'm here to work out because I want to take care of myself because I care about myself.
 I'm going to the gym because I deserve to be healthy. I'm eating right because I am somebody worth taking care of. Well, now you have a that that creates a lifelong relationship. It also creates a lot of balance.
 The person that is motivated by self hate. When they fall off the wagon, when they go off the diet, they don't just go off the diet. They go in the opposite direction. They tend to rebel as if they were oppressing themselves.
 You know, like you offer them a cookie and they're like, no, I can't have it when they're on the diet. And then when they go off, they're like, rebellion. I'm going to eat a whole box of cookies.
 Somebody who's doing it from a point of view of self care. There's a lot of balance. Yeah, I'll have a cookie. I think it's okay. Now I've been eating pretty good. And you know, I'm enjoying this time we're spending together. And then the next day, like, I don't want a cookie. It's not I can't. It's I don't want. Right. Yeah.
 The psychological aspect is so key to being a personal trainer. It's everything. I mean, if you can't get that person to shift there, then all you're ever going to get is a person who follows what you tell them when they're motivated and then inevitably motivation falls off because we're human. Everybody goes up and down with motivation when they fall off. They're done.
 And that's what everybody does. You see people, you know, they start a program in January. They fall off by March. And we'll do that again next year. You know, type of deal.
 Where's where's all this headed, Sal? I mean, what's the are you guys like planners? Are you like you strike me is you've got a plan, but you're kind of letting the cards fall where they may. But the where we headed with with MindPone.
 Yeah. So we're extremely transparent. I'm so glad you asked me that. In fact, if we love it when people ask us plans and the business and what it will tell we'll say everything. So here's the here are the plans. Right. We're going to continue to build this media company.
 Continue to get it to grow. We want once the podcast gets really big, you know, if everything works out well, then we're probably going to get off all other social media.
 None of us really like the social media aspect of this. We really don't it's such a social media is kind of a weird world.
 To say the least.
 Yeah. And you know, it's just it's a full of a lot of garbage to be quite honest. So once the podcast gets real big and you know, we're doing great.
 We're going to get off all social media, maintain the podcast on the side. We've started another business. It's an investment side of the business where we're trying to grow our wealth so that at some point that, you know, it becomes a very large, you know, source of passive income.
 And then when we get to the point where the passive income is good, the podcast is real good. Then we're really going to get to a point where we're not going to care about downloads. We're not going to care about we're just going to go and have fun and.
 And just, you know, see what happens, you know, type of deal. But right now we're trying to set ourselves up to be able to do that. But for the time being to grow this business, we're doing the social media thing. It's a great way to reach people.
 We're going to continue to build the podcast. And we're going to continue to invest on in our investment side. Take, you know, what a paycheck that maintains us and then put the rest into something that will grow so that we can set ourselves up.
 Hopefully five to 10 years where, you know, we can look at this thing and say, all right, what do we want to do and what don't we want to do? And to be honest with you, what'll probably stick around is just the podcast.
 It that's awesome. And there's so many people I talked to you that the podcast and that media that it develops can be the Trojan horse for any development of a brand, you know, if they want it to be with with just the platform, because you can atomize all of that content.
 And then you can build and layer like you guys have with ways you monetize it. So brilliant. And send my best to Adam and Justin. So the rest of the team, you guys are killing it. Sal, tell everybody where to keep up with you.
 Yeah, no problem. You can find the podcast. It's mind pump. It's on all platforms. You can find me on Instagram personally at mind pump. Sal. And then the website is mind pump media.com.
 Awesome, man. Well, I really appreciate your time, Sal. Let's, let's do the follow up, you know, down the road next year. Maybe sometime love to stay in touch.
 Absolutely. And Ryan, if you if you really want to get deep into the business, you got to talk to my partner, Adam, he's that guy is a business wizard. And I think you guys have a lot of fun.
 Love to do that. So maybe we'll line him up next, but Sal, man, have a great one. Really appreciate you coming on. We want to thank everyone for listening to this episode of the radcast. You can follow along at the dot rad.cast on Instagram. And of course, everything radcast at the radcast.com. We'll see you next time.
 Yo, guys, what's up, Ryan offered here. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate it. Do us a favor. If you've been enjoying the radcast, you need to share the word with a friend or anyone else. We really appreciate it and go leave us a review at Apple or Spotify.
 Do us a solid, tell more people, leave us some reviews. And hey, here's the best news of all. If you want to work with me directly, you want to get your business kicking ass. And you want radical or myself involved, you can text me directly at 864 729 3680. Don't wait another minute. Let's get your business going. 864 729 3680. We'll see you next time.