Guest: Rusty Osborne

Release Date: 11/29/2021

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta: Welcome to the Trulyfit Podcast I am your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. In today’s episode, I speak with Rusty Osborne. This, as you know, is our marketing month.

So I talked to different coaches across the fitness and health landscape to discover how they came to be successful, whether it was through their own business coaching or mindset coaching that they reached out to particular people to help them to overcome plateaus.

Let’s say whether they used templates and marketing agencies to help them grow through sales procedures, and all of the little nuances to becoming a better fitness professional, and health professional in the marketing realm.

Rusty talks about his journey and all the different avenues he went down to become successful. And like most of our journeys, you don’t start out that way. There’s a lot of trial and error. There’s a lot of mistakes and growth along the way. So it was a great conversation with rusty his voice is fantastic.

He’s got a great fullback and for some reason, he doesn’t want to be a fitness and health coach. He could certainly do voiceovers for a living and, I really enjoy talking with rusty and all of these insights into the fitness and health business from a sales and marketing perspective.

With no further ado, here is the coach rusty on Instagram, also known as rusty Osborne. Rusty, thanks so much for joining the Trulyfit podcast, why don’t you give the listeners a background bio of you? How did you come into the health and fitness realm and what exactly it is that you do today?

Rusty Osborne: Of course, Steven, first off, thank you for having me, I appreciate you having me on here. Definitely excited to share tidbits, tricks, tips, my own failures, so we can help people avoid some of that. So the way that I got into this, I was actually a full-time musician for years.

And I was obese, drinking too much eating too much just kind of a mess. Just a total mess, really. I did work I’m hitting the gym doing the push pole splits, then I am eating exactly what they said. I am going to go run marathons and I eat like the marathon nutrition guys said, you shouldn’t I only lost like 20 pounds, I had like 80 pounds I needed to lose.

Right? Nothing was working even with having a personal trainer and running ultra marathons and reading every book and meeting what they said. Once I hurt myself, I wasn’t able to run and work out as much as I had wanted to before.

I shifted my focus to okay, what is just going to heal the body, what is optimal health, especially in the realm of nutrition, it once I shifted my focus to there, the weight just melted off, I lost like 85 pounds, eating just tons of food.

Now that I understand these foundations like nutrition, sleep stress, obviously, fitness and movement is major piece of that. But it’s I learned that it’s not the only piece, right? And then and especially what’s going on in the mindset, why was I over-consuming on that level for so long, Once I understood those pieces and how they worked for me, I put together a framework and started helping other people do the same thing.

That’s kind of my SparkNotes version of how I went from 14 Rock Bottom moments to now I help other people do the same thing.

And we get crazy, great results. So that’s what we do. We want people to feel their best look their best perform their best whether it’s at work with family or just for themselves. So that’s that.

Steve Washuta: Well, that’s a great story. And I did review a lot of the success stories you have with your clients. And that’s, it’s fantastic.

It’s always great to be in and around people who dedicate their lives to helping everybody else and showing them the way through not only what they learned, but obviously just continued education because it’s something that you care about.

I think I love the term coach, some people don’t like the term coach, that’s sort of like a talk amongst the industry if we should use that term.

I like it because Number one, of course, we are coaching people but it’s really a wholesale approach like you said, there’s a mindset component.

There’s obviously a nutrition component, there’s a weightlifting component, there’s a movement component, there’s a marketing component, it’s all together.

I think coaches are very fitting for that and I want to jump into that and coaching and how long in your journey in becoming a coach. do you think it took you to really hit your stride where you felt like you were helping people and that this was all sort of coming together for you?

Rusty Osborne: I still feel like I’m hitting it honestly because every time you hit a new level you see what the next one is? So that’s one of the challenges of beings I’ve what’s the term at my let uses the term blissfully dissatisfied. Like I love where I’m at, but I am not where I need to be. Right, so there’s that kind of pull on that. But from when I decided to start coaching, so like, it was the very beginning of January 2019.

I said, dammit, I’m doing this, I got this, like download from the universe or God or whatever you want to call it. And it just said, start helping people instead. Okay, so from there, it took, gosh, probably a year, year, and some change before I started actually regularly enrolling clients, I’d had a handful that year that we got awesome results. But it was a lot of just like doggy paddling.

Just like I was in a fog, I didn’t really know which way to go until I really got some help from my business coaches that I worked with, that helped me understand, okay, to help them what’s going to be best for the best for me. And in that whole thing. So between getting deciding to start flailing for a while, and then getting my own coaches that helped me really launch the business at a different level. It was about a year.

Steve Washuta: I want to talk about that. Because a lot of people are hesitant to reach out and grab business coaches of sorts. And I think if you don’t have that, humbleness, that humility, to say there are people out there that know how to do it better than me, and you know that then you’re going to struggle for longer or you or you may never hit your stride.

So what gave you the insight to go get these business coaches? Were they referred to you? How exactly did this come about?

Rusty Osborne: Yeah, awesome question. And it’s a little context on this, too, is I was like, probably everyone that’s gonna listen to this very much into the nitty-gritty, nerdy health things, right. I personally don’t even have any certifications. I’m not a certification guy, because I just want to, I wanted to help people. I didn’t want to waste more time. Yeah, I’d already done 1000s of hours of research just to fix myself. I knew my shit well enough to help people.

Yeah, right. And so, because of that, I learned so much there. But I had no tools to transfer that in a way that would help me on Instagram. And just thinking if I post enough, someone’s gonna ask for help, which that’s not how life works. Events, eventually, if you post enough, as a trainer, you know that you’ve gotten hit up by other business coaches, right?

Someone’s gonna say, Hey, man, I saw what you’re doing, like, how is business?

And then, if you’re like me, you say, oh, it’s garbage?

Would you like help with that? So that’s actually how I ended up in there is, I was in pain. And they asked if I wanted help. Right. And so it was actually high impact coaching is the group that I worked with fantastic people, fantastic people that really helped me understand a coaching business, whether you’re a personal trainer, or a health coach, or just a wellness coach, or any emotional coach, or whatever it is, we can follow a similar path.

And so I was, and it’s kind of like if you want to work with someone, or someone comes to you, they’re in enough pain that they want help. Right? So I was in enough pain that I wanted to help I didn’t want to flail around. And I don’t know what I don’t know, I thought that if I did what Gary Vee said, which is, you know, work as many hours as possible, post as much as possible, comment on as many other profiles as possible, just value, value, and eventually it’ll work.

But that’s such a long-term play. Whereas, you know, they reached out to me and I understand, oh, I can reach out to other people. And ask them if they want help. So kind of long-winded caffeinated answer to I was in enough pain that I realized, if someone asked me, Do I want help that yeah, I should probably do something. That makes sense.

Steve Washuta: It makes perfect sense. And, and again, it takes a certain type of person because I think people are, people are hesitant to do that, not only from like a fiscal standpoint, they don’t want to spend their money on it, but they just, they’re wary that these people are, you know, selling snake oil, or that, or that they’re, again, like you talked about some people think, because they have a certification.

They’re almost, they’re just like, granted clients like people are just going to come out of the woodwork and jump on your Instagram and beg for you to work with them. And that’s, that’s not how it works, right? There’s, there’s a lot of people in the industry who are coaches and who are trainers and, and who are in this health realm. And you know, everybody’s fighting for a slice of the pie. So you have to do things, either differently or effectively or both. And, and that’s what I want to talk about a little bit.

So I want to talk about some marketing techniques, and I’ll go first that don’t work or that didn’t work along your journey, and then you could share some of yours and I know that I first did, I created a website. And, and I thought, Okay, well I have a website. So I’m going to have a ton of clients. But if your website’s not set up appropriately, right in a fashion in which it’s going to draw people in and make sure that they’re clicking the right things in the right areas right there. There is a science to setting up a website.

It’s not going to be effective and to your point. If you’re a brand new website, you’re not going to be ranking upon pages. So people are not going to necessarily see you. If you’re posting it to your 40 Instagram followers or your 40 Facebook followers, you’re not getting anybody. So it’s more than just building a website, you have to build a proper website, you have to do the marketing for it, sometimes you have to put money behind it.

And I know that initially, in my first year or two, I just built a website and left it up there. Now that wasn’t bad because it started to gain in the background, one of the sorts of like Google Analytics things just like how long your website’s been up. So that was good. So I do recommend people develop a website, but developing a proper website. That’s useful is important. And you have a very good one.

Rusty Osborne: Thank you. I appreciate that. It took a lot of work. So that means a lot, man. So and my opinion on websites, and I do a lot of things backward. I do a lot of things the way people say you shouldn’t because I don’t like advice from most people. When we think of what’s common sense or common knowledge, it doesn’t mean that it’s good. It’s just common.

Right? So when I started my business, most people especially my mom, which I dearly love, mom, she’s fantastic, right? But she said, Okay, website, business cards, let’s get your logo, as you know, this and that, like I said, Mom pump the brakes from an online coach. And the, to be a website, for the most part, is a fancy business card. Yeah. Because if you think about what the journey is for a client, so when you want to be a client, they have to find you. So you got to be where they are.

They’re not on your website unless you get them there. Right. So the website isn’t where they’re gonna find you anyways. And then you have to have a place where you can have a conversation? Well, your website probably isn’t built for conversations, right? And then you’ve got to get them on the phone and actually enroll them, or get them in your gym or wherever that place is going to be. And so the website doesn’t do any of those things.

Unless you’ve got other infrastructure set up to direct them to your website. Right. So I personally said, no website. I mean, I had one that I built at some point, because I was like, well, blogs, people want blogs, right? Let’s blog it up, and put some stuff up. And it was, whatever, you know, it was fine. But it didn’t drive any traffic. I got, you know, four views.

It was from my mom, my grandma, and two were for me double-checking that the blog was up. And so what’s the point? Yeah, so we got to have somewhere that’s gonna be where your clients are at. Right? That’s, that’s great. boilie Yeah, sorry. Yeah. And I’m, I’m so passionate about this because I don’t want anybody to waste their time on that.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I think there’s, you know, within the website game, like, like you said, the website is essentially just a business card, right? It has your information up there, it makes you seem, I guess, semi-legitimate in some instances, but not always, I do think there was like, the lead capture thing works sometimes.

So if you have something you’re offering for free, that is actually a value, right? So if rusty develops this, okay, 10 foods that you should eat. If you’re trying to lose weight, and 10 foods you shouldn’t eat or something, right, and it’s in a PDF, and you click it. And before you click it, you have to enter in your email, so that rusty now has your email, and then you know, he captures 100 of these.

And then even if he gets, you know, four or five of these clients working with them over time, then obviously he’s you know, he’s made his money back from the two hours, it took them to make that PDF. So I do think that is useful sometimes.

But like you said, if no one’s going to your website, then it’s not useful. You have to still use that lead capture on your Instagram and on Facebook, or find these groups where there are, there are people, you have to seek them out because they’re not always going to just stumble upon you.

Rusty Osborne: Exactly, exactly. And like you said that lead capture is going to be on your website, of course, otherwise, like that’s silly to have made it now put it there. But it’s also going to be on your Instagram, it’s also going to be on your Facebook. So the website itself still isn’t terrible.

Then it isn’t terribly relevant all the time. It is I love having one, I think it’s totally something you should have to portray authority that you care about your business, that you’re doing things that matter and people can find you in more than just Instagram. Right? It definitely brings value to people people say they love my website, and I say hell yeah, thank you, you know, but that’s not where they find me.

That’s not where they go to, to even get into conversation with us. Right? So it’s just, it’s just another place for them to see, oh, this is a real person. This is someone with authority, they know what they’re talking about. So that’s I’ve got kind of a strong stance on that because I just I have seen so many people go the Aqua Nokia clients for so long because they spent, you know, a year building a website and a logo instead of getting clients.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, no, that’s That’s very true. They’re more worried about, you know, printing off their own T-shirts and water bottles and not actually yeah, investing in the time and learning how to be good at what they do. And that’s working, you know if word of mouth will always be our, you know, our best marketing agent. So if you start to be good at what you do, and you care about the clients that you know, word will spread quickly, and then you can buy you, then you can buy your logo to water bottles that no one else has.

Actually, let So what were some of the other techniques that you learn from your business coaches that you may use that you think people are not, you know, that familiar with? Like, where they’re sort of like phone call conversations, like content and what you should lead with? or text message things and anything that’s slightly different?

Rusty Osborne: Yeah, absolutely. And every coach that I’ve worked with has templates for all those things. Right. And one thing that went through my mind that is possibly going to go through people listening right here is why would I want to get someone’s template because then I’m going to look like them? Well, it’s because when you get a template, then you can change it to be your own.

So you get to be really individualized with a template, that word that I use for building up my content. And I regularly get tons of people telling me how fantastic my content is. And like, I think I do a good job.

That’s the piece that I worry about least because it’s always working. And then I’ve got templates for the conversations we have in DMS or text messages or emails, we’ve got templates for the actual phone calls, where they’re going to enroll, I’ve got templates for how my program works in the way that I asked my clients for referrals and templates for how to re-enroll clients afterward.

And all these different systems that there is no way in hell I ever would have developed if I didn’t get someone to help me out with that. Right? It’s just paying someone to say, here’s how all these other people did it. And then you start working that blueprint is just the quickest, best way to just hack your way to the next level.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, yeah, you gotta sometimes spend the money and spend the time and learn from other people, I think there’s, there’s a hesitancy for people to, to spend money, but you have to spend money to make money as they say, and it’s, it’s just part of its part of the game.

Rusty Osborne: Yeah. And go from here and say, I’m gonna hire a coach, the first one might suck. And that’s awesome. Because that means you still took a leap of faith in yourself, you still took the action you still desired decided that you’re going to go to another level. And you’re gonna learn something from that. Even if it’s just being more detail-oriented, looking at more referrals, trying to figure out who’s gonna resonate with you better, and then go get another coach. I didn’t high-impact coaching and Xander fryer, they’re the main people that I’ve worked with, I worked with every coach before that, and I did okay,, it helped a little bit.

But really, the main purpose of that coach, it turns out, in hindsight looking at it, is they got me okay with spending a couple 1000 bucks on a coaching program that was online, to help me figure things out. So then when I go to another coach who’s more expensive, I’m less hesitant, and holy crap, they changed my entire life, like transformed, everything’s completely shifted to a point where I can help people on such a higher level, as a coach, and as a peer, and I’m able to share tips and tricks here.

And obviously, I don’t mean to, I realized I dodged your question a little bit. I didn’t mean to, I want to get some nitty-gritty tactics for everybody. But if it weren’t for getting real coaches getting real help reading books, like your book is going to be giving you ways to get through, right and get to the next level.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, and you before you give us some of those tactics, I’ll just, you know, I’ll add on to that we were running a business here, even though it seems like we’re our own individual. And it’s just sort of laser-focused. It’s, it’s not a narrow business, there’s a lot of offshoots, there’s marketing, there is obviously the coaching aspect, there’s the selling of ourselves, as well as our product. But there’s also you know, connecting with your client in a related fashion, there are all these different sorts of offshoots.

And you have to wear a lot of hats. And let’s be honest, not all of us are great wearing all those hats. So really, what we’re doing is we’re just, we’re just delegating a task, right? If we own a big real estate company or something, maybe we’re the salesman, but we’re not also answering the phone calls and taking down the, you know, the mortgage rates, you have to delegate some of these tasks, as someone in the health and fitness world so that you can do what you do best.

Rusty Osborne: 100% Absolutely. And you don’t have to start from scratch. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, the wheel in the car, the automobile is invented, you just got to get in and drive it and then you know, put your own bumper sticker on the back and make your own. So absolutely take action get help getting like, especially as men, I know that we don’t like asking for help, especially because I work with men helping them lose weight.

They don’t want to reach out and ask for help all the time. I know I didn’t. Right, we got to get over that and say look, I’m not perfect in for where I want to be. I don’t have the tools currently. You know if you think you do, you don’t know what you don’t know. I learned that from Pocahontas. She knew what she was talking about.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And we’ve got to get We’ve got at least read books, we’ve got to listen to other podcasts and figure out what other people did and like study the way that other people are marketing, so we can understand, Okay, why is it that they did it that way? 

Steve Washuta: Do you think your personal journey helped you with that, as far as I know, you said, getting over maybe, whether it was excessive eating or excessive alcohol and things of that nature and having to like, say, like, Okay, this is above me, I’m dealing with something that seems very hard. I have to, like, come to grips with this. Do you think that personal sort of story helps you with the business side of things?

Rusty Osborne: 100% If I had never decided to lose my fat, right, I was just a mess. If I hadn’t decided, okay, let’s at least start walking. Okay, now what do I do? I don’t know that. There’s what was the one Fitocracy back in the day, and I just, I didn’t know what the heck was out there. And they suddenly have these workout plans and nutrition things in calories or whatever.

They’re I had no clue about any of that stuff. And so I had to get blueprints from anywhere that I could read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, and understand nutrition and health and longevity. And then you have to put in the work. You have to experience it. You have to experiment with what is it that works for your body. Because just marathons, ultra marathons, endless training, and lowering calories that did not work for my body.

I plateaued super quick when I bumped up to like 5000 calories a day of just great quality food. I’ve melted off fat like that 85 pounds. But I had to find the solution that worked for me. Right? So and you got to put in the work and you can’t stop it, you’ve got to put it in continuously and continue to uplevel and get more help.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, but you know, the hardest part, I’m sure you would agree when you’re in that stage, I’m not talking about coaching. But you know, losing the weight is that initial, you know, that initial burst to get yourself to do it, I think you know that the maintenance is a bit easier because you get used to it. But that you know that that big push to start is very difficult. And a lot of people try it and they fail and they try it and they fail and they try it and fail.

Rusty Osborne: Mm 100% business is no different. You’ve got to get that first push. And when you have that spark of in for inspiration and motivation, and you’ve got that instance where you’re so ready for the next level, you’ve got to take advantage of that. I mean, if we don’t, then we fall back and delay on things in that disaster. Right, we’ve got to take advantage of what we got.

And the best way that I found to do that is when I’m feeling low, and I’m feeling in pain that gives my motivation a huge boost because I can’t stay in this pain anymore. And I just start reaching out, I just start texting people and messaging people like, Hey, who do you know that helps with this? Hey, who do you know, to help with this? I’m looking for this kind of help.

What do you know, because I’m so motivated that my like conscious brain got out of the way and just subconscious is saying, let’s figure this out. So reach out to people and ask for help look for coaches, enroll with someone and pay them more money than you want to because it’s gonna put a huge fire under your ass to perform and get that money back.

Steve Washuta: Take me through the rusty relationship here the client journey when you first meet a client, they find you how do they typically find you? What is the first step of the first conversation like? What is the second conversation? Like how long between the first conversation and you start to work with them? How does the journey sort of continue

Rusty Osborne: 100%. So starts with normally Instagram, because that’s where, but Instagram is where I’ve been the longest. So generally they’ll find me on Instagram because they were searching for weight loss motivation or something. Or they’re searching for something that I’ve hashtagged that has nothing to do with weight loss. So grasp guitars because we used to work with just musicians for a long time.

They’ll be scrolling through guitar photos, suddenly this quote pops up that saying, I’m looking for five people that want to lose 50 pounds.

The guy said I want to lose 50 pounds. Whoa, and he enrolls. And so that’s kind of where they start coming through is different places through Instagram Are people sharing our stories and whatnot.

So they’ll go to our profile, they’ll see that we’re motivational, inspirational, we’re bringing education and entertainment the best that we can on how to actually lose weight. So I want them to feel when they see this, that there is hope for them that there’s someone that’s advocating for them to get where they want to be.

Right, so there is very much intention behind the page when they get there. It’s not just a smattering of workouts. Right? So very intentional on that. So when they see that, I want them to say wow, okay, I know that I can change cool.

This guy’s motivational and as they start scrolling, they see our client results as well. So that way they know okay, the sky from that point, then daily Their DMS or comment on something and will engage with them and DM is because I really care about building the community and getting more. My coach Xander always says intimacy over authority. I’m not Thomas de Lauer, I’m just not, I don’t have millions of followers.

What I do have is the ability to have a real conversation with someone. And that connection, when they feel heard, is what really helps them feel that they can talk to me and let loose on their own problems in a way that someone like Thomas to our Ben Greenfield, they don’t, they don’t have the schedule set up for them to be able to do that. Right.

They’re huge. And so we get in DM conversation. And that’s one of those things where I told you, we have a script that we generally follow that we adapted and personalized, and it’s a very genuine conversation that just has a framework that helps move us from Nice to meet you all the way to would you like to get on a call and see if we can help.

From there, we move on to a short 15-minute call totally free just to get clarity, can I help you out? Is there anything I can do? Like? Would you be a good fit to work with us? If yes, we’re gonna move on to an hour-long call tomorrow, if no, I’m going to give you resources or someone else to chat with, I’m going to figure out what your best next step is.

So it’s still very much concentrated on helping this person, even if I’m not the right person to help them. Right, where how can I. And so from there, the flow goes either to someone else, or we set a schedule for our next call the very next day. So it is pretty quick, once we meet someone and they’re ready to make a change. Because like we talked about on my journey, if I didn’t take advantage of that pain point and move quickly, I would fall back. Right, and then I won’t do anything.

Whereas when we get people, okay, I just met you today on Instagram, and I’m going to get you on a call today or tomorrow.

And then we’re going to have another hour-long another free consultation, to really dig in deeper and understand exactly what’s at the root of this, then they’re so motivated, so excited, there’s hope there’s they’ve seen the results, they’ve seen our marketing are the things that show them that we get results, and they can have that, right, other people just like them have gotten these results, then they’re really ready to continue taking action, which then once they enroll, we have a launch call the next day to get them up and running at it in the program.

And it’s all online, we do, we’ve got online modules, we’ve got a community on Facebook, plus we do group calls, we go they get one on one calls as often as they need. That whole framework.

And when we bring it with that speed and intensity from the get-go, they’ve got this momentum, and they’re just a rocket ship going off into their new life and they just transform.

So that’s the overall journey of how we do it. To connect on content, we engage in the DMS, we enroll them on the phone or over zoom, and then we deliver the best that we absolutely can as much value as we can bring to give them the most transformation possible. So that way, they have a better life, and they change the people around them. And as always, that comes around, we have more people coming in as a result of that.

Steve Washuta: 100%. So starts with normally Instagram, because that’s where, but Instagram is where I’ve been the longest. So generally they’ll find me on Instagram because they were searching for weight loss motivation or something. Or they’re searching for something that I’ve hashtagged that has nothing to do with weight loss.

So grasp guitars because we used to work with just musicians for a long time. They’ll be scrolling through guitar photos, suddenly this quote pops up that saying, I’m looking for five people that want to lose 50 pounds.The guy said I want to lose 50 pounds.

Whoa, and he enrolls. And so that’s kind of where they start coming through is different places through Instagram Are people sharing our stories and whatnot. So they’ll go to our profile, they’ll see that we’re motivational, inspirational, we’re bringing education and entertainment the best that we can on how to actually lose weight.

So I want them to feel when they see this, that there is hope for them that there’s someone that’s advocating for them to get where they want to be. Right, so there is very much intention behind the page when they get there. It’s not just a smattering of workouts. Right? So very intentional on that. So when they see that, I want them to say wow, okay, I know that I can change cool.

This guy’s motivational and as they start scrolling, they see our client results as well. So that way they know okay, the sky from that point, then daily Their DMS or comment on something and will engage with them and DM is because I really care about building the community and getting more. My coach Xander always says intimacy over authority. I’m not Thomas de Lauer, I’m just not, I don’t have millions of followers.

What I do have is the ability to have a real conversation with someone. And that connection, when they feel heard, is what really helps them feel that they can talk to me and let loose on their own problems in a way that someone like Thomas to our Ben Greenfield, they don’t, they don’t have the schedule set up for them to be able to do that. Right. They’re huge. And so we get in DM conversation.

And that’s one of those things where I told you, we have a script that we generally follow that we adapted and personalized, and it’s a very genuine conversation that just has a framework that helps move us from Nice to meet you all the way to would you like to get on a call and see if we can help.

So from there, we move on to a short 15-minute call totally free just to get clarity, can I help you out? Is there anything I can do? Like? Would you be a good fit to work with us? If yes, we’re gonna move on to an hour-long call tomorrow, if no, I’m going to give you resources or someone else to chat with, I’m going to figure out what your best next step is.

So it’s still very much concentrated on helping this person, even if I’m not the right person to help them. Right, where how can I. And so from there, the flow goes either to someone else, or we set a schedule for our next call the very next day. So it is pretty quick, once we meet someone and they’re ready to make a change.

Because like we talked about on my journey, if I didn’t take advantage of that pain point and move quickly, I would fall back. Right, and then I won’t do anything. Whereas when we get people, okay, I just met you today on Instagram, and I’m going to get you on a call today or tomorrow.

And then we’re going to have another hour-long another free consultation, to really dig in deeper and understand exactly what’s at the root of this, then they’re so motivated, so excited, there’s hope there’s they’ve seen the results, they’ve seen our marketing are the things that show them that we get results, and they can have that, right?

Other people just like them have gotten these results, then they’re really ready to continue taking action, which then once they enroll, we have a launch call the next day to get them up and running at it in the program.

And it’s all online, we do, we’ve got online modules, we’ve got a community on Facebook, plus we do group calls, we go they get one on one calls as often as they need. That whole framework, when we bring it with that speed and intensity from the get-go, they’ve got this momentum, and they’re just a rocket ship going off into their new life and they just transform.

So that’s the overall journey of how we do it. To connect on content, we engage in the DMS, we enroll them on the phone or over zoom, and then we deliver the best that we absolutely can as much value as we can bring to give them the most transformation possible. So that way, they have a better life, and they change the people around them. And as always, that comes around, we have more people coming in as a result of that.

Rusty Osborne: Yeah, they’re more invested because when you’re part of a community, it shifts your identity. Right when I became a part of a mastermind group, then suddenly I am a coach. Like I Oh, I really am a health coach like had already helped people and I said I was a coach, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t believe it.

When I stepped into a solid mastermind of other coaches working towards the same goals. I believe it and I’m putting in the work and same thing for my clients. They step into this community, with other health-minded people that are all looking for the same goals. I want to lose weight, I want to perform my best. Their identity shifts to someone that is always striving to be better. Because I hang out with people that want to be better.

Alright, so it’s valuable for them. Plus, it’s honestly easier for us because they answer each other’s questions. I’ll go into the Facebook group, and someone said, what do you do for this. And there are already five replies for their favorite meal replacement for cheese. Or whatever it is that they’re looking for, you know. So it’s just a game-changer to have all that support laid out. And that community aspect is just massive.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, it’s so important. And something I certainly overlooked. Starting my business right away and on the second round of business and truly. That we were not overlooking, we’re not. We’re building a community because people want to interact with these other people. Obviously, that’s why we’re sort of how the Internet got built. In general, but like you said, you don’t need to be there all the time.

You can come in here and there, check it once a day. And answer the questions that are directed at you or chime in here. And there. You could have some sort of virtual assistant or a coach underneath you answer these questions. But for the most part, these are people chatting amongst themselves. Enjoying chatting amongst themselves sharing tips of the trade. Becoming, again a part of your community. Which further ingrains them long term as your client and hopefully for a lifetime.

Rusty Osborne: Yeah, absolutely. Even if and one problem that actually that we have with our business is we get awesome results at the beginning. To the point where they feel so sustained. Oh, no as business terrible. But when I started this, that was the point was. Can we do this for like eight weeks lead to a forever change.

And then letting them have a community there that is genuinely there to support them after the fact. They love it. And I’m still speaking with them. I still get texts all the time. I got one yesterday from it was the client that actually reached out on that 50-pound post. When he was scrolling through guitars. He said look at this guitar on me looks gigantic compared to where I was. Right and the relationship is still there.

It’s still something where I want to help him when I can, even though he’s not a paying client anymore. And that’s okay. Because when we give value, we get value back. I get constantly shown that the work I’m doing is good. Because man, there are rough days, some days totally suck. You’ll have 15 people get on the phone with you and not enroll at hertz.

Then I get a text like that and say, Okay, you’re right, Thank you universe like I am. I’m on the right path, I do help people. I’m not a pile of human garbage. And so continuing to put the focus on building relationships. Just helping people, it continues to come back, even if you’re not focused on the short-term dollars.

Steve Washuta: And these groups in these forums like any other form, you go into, sort themselves out. And he’s like natural hierarchy. So you’ll have people who are there, let’s say, you know, Rusty’s first client from three years ago. Then somebody who just joins today who asks a question. And then the person who’s been there for three years, even if they’re not a paying client anymore. Answers the question sort of on your behalf, right? Because they’re, they’re your best marketing agents.

So it’s that that’s why it’s important. Because it’s not just a bunch of people meeting each other for the first time. You have this hierarchy of old clients who’ve gone through the success of new people. Who are asking questions of sort of people who are feeling it out. That that’s what builds the community.

Rusty Osborne: 100% Yes.

Steve Washuta: So is there any big mistake that you or I can pass on I think I’ll go first that people make when they start their journey, we sort of talked about a little bit of the technical stuff and maybe a little bit of the mental stuff I’ll throw one out there and then let you go I think when I sort of started my coaching journey, I actually don’t like Coach anymore.

I don’t work one on one because of all this software stuff. But I was so focused on the pricing and all I cared about was the pricing like trying to get the pricing right I would lower it and raise it and move it around and everything was So price dependent that I was I wasn’t getting enough experience actually coaching and the price points were all over the place and I’ll say you know it’s important eventually that you find out your price point but don’t make it the be all end all right.

You’re learning on your journey here. And it’s more important that you help the client out and do what you can and the money will come down the road.

Rusty Osborne: Yeah, absolutely true. When you focus on okay, what price should I be? And then someone didn’t enroll today? Right feeling really good. I feel like I’m worth more money than you raise the price and they don’t enroll. Yeah, you’re kind of playing around with this. That’s one variable in a host of 1000 other variables? Like what have you just set one? Instead, for the next three months? This is the only price I’m asking for, and figure out how to make that happen. And improve your sales skills. Because a sales enrollment conversation is a sales skill.

Right, and it’s done. It doesn’t have to be salesy. We’re still just, I mean, anything sales are the client has a problem, we have solution would you like to buy, right? So include increasing your ability to have that conversation is really the biggest thing that’s going to let you hit those higher numbers.

So that’s a mistake that I made, I charged, gosh, nothing when I started, then you’ve raised prices, you learn how to sell you learn how to help people realize that they can help themselves.

By the way, when you learn sales skills, you become a better coach and a better leader. Because when your client says, I don’t want to skip chocolate again, today, you can handle that objection and say, well, wouldn’t you love the results that we’re talking about? Right.

So really focusing on that sales skill, and just saying, This is what I’m worth and believing it is what’s actually going to get you past that point.

And that’s a huge mistake. This leads me to the second mistake that a lot of people don’t focus on, which is the mental health aspect. And even if you don’t feel depressed, anxious, serious mental health, quote, issues, we all have junk. In our brain, there are the subconscious tapes on repeat. On 35% of our thoughts, habits, action actions are subconsciously repeated from the day before from years before, if we’re not doing the deep subconscious processing, to get those limiting beliefs out of the way, your business will plateau, you’ll never make it past it. Maybe you’ll make it a little bit past and suddenly you have a month where it’s you made a few 1000 extra dollars.

And then the next month you drop because your thermostat for your thermostat is set at let’s say 5k a month, is what you’re used to making. When it goes higher than that you do something on accident, self-sabotage, and bring it back down to 5k. You have a month that really sucks and it goes down to 3k Suddenly, your work, you’re hustle your ass off, and you get back up to 5k. If you ever want to change that mental thermostat, we’ve got to take massive action to do the deep subconscious work, that’ll help you feel on a subconscious level that you’re actually worth 1520 50k Whatever it’s gonna be. So you take actions in line with that level of income.

So, a huge, huge mistake that I didn’t understand for a long time was your mindset is absolutely critical. And you got to get help, because these are not tools that were given in school, or in certifications, except for if you do like a, which if you’re a personal trainer, you’re probably not going to do right.

We’ve got to get help on that end. And every time that I do sessions with mindset coaches, like my business up levels, my life up levels, my relationships have level, like everything just gets better when we really focus on upgrading the internal this software inside our body.

Steve Washuta: Well, that’s beautifully said and so important. You’re totally correct. And something that I’m I’m still working on and that we all should still work on. Right? That’s something that you never perfect that right. It’s the mindset part, you might perfect the way in which you train someone for a marathon or the way in which you train someone to diet down for an MMA match, but you’ll never perfect the mindset part because it’s always ever-changing. We’re always growing.

And you know, I will say just to add to that point, something that I sort of struggled with is I guess you would use the term like empathy can be bad. And I know that’s That sounds weird for some people, but I’ll explain why. So it’s actually a book a guy named Paul Bloom wrote, it’s called the case against empathy and sometimes you’re so overly empathetic, you’re making the wrong decision because you’re making decisions on behalf of other people. And people are afraid to set their prices high because they believe in unscrewing these people out of their money, right?

They’re these I’m not going to get to work with these people because they don’t have the money. Don’t treat people with kid gloves. You don’t want to be treated as a child. Don’t treat them as children right? Set your price if they don’t want to buy it, they won’t buy it. If they do want to buy it, they will buy it. Don’t pretend that you know their financials. Or that or that you’re you think you’re trying to help them out.

Because you know I give the hot dog steak comparison all the time. You go buy a pack of dollar hotdogs that are on sale. And not that you should be doing that rusty would probably tell you not to do that. And they and they sit in your drawer in your refrigerator. You never eat them because they were on the dollar.

They were $1 and they were on sale. But if you buy that $23 You know cheap Don’t stake. You’re going to eat it probably that night, right? Because you spent the money on it. And because it means something to you. So again, don’t treat people with kid gloves. Set your prices. Don’t worry about if it’s if it’s too high, I don’t think there’s really anything else that we didn’t cover.

So I’ll just throw it to you now to tell the audience how they find rusty. Whether it is they want to reach out to you directly. Because they have questions on maybe even the coaching aspects that you talked about in the marketing aspects. Or whether there’s somebody here who maybe wants to refer you to some clients. Maybe they have some clients who are looking to lose weight or friends or family.

Rusty Osborne: Absolutely, yeah, I appreciate you giving me a little shout out here. So the places you can find me and everybody. First off, please, if you have any questions about what I needed a lot of help to get here. So reach out, ask questions. I’d be happy to hop on a chat with you and help you navigate the next steps here.

You can find me on my website, Rusty osborne.com. On Instagram, the coach is rusty, or my podcast losing weight. I gotta say, I don’t know why anybody else didn’t have that one. So like, really, nobody’s got this name. Okay, cool. So everybody watches it. I call it a looking out for the front row parking spot. When I used to go to 24 Hour Fitness. The front row always had parking spots. But the rest of the parking lot was so full. Because no one everyone’s like, Oh, no one’s there’s not going to be parking spots upfront. It’s like everybody’s at the gym right now. It’s right after work.

I’d pull right in go to the front row, and it was there. So I was like, does anybody have the name of losing weight? And looking around like, I just found my front row parking spot that is too funny. Don’t hesitate to look for the front row, you deserve it. Anyway, so losing weight to the podcast on all platforms. The coach rusty on Instagram, you can find me on Facebook. Shoot me a friend request. Wherever you want to find me. Find me and ask questions, I’d be glad to help out. Business-wise or if you’ve got referrals for anybody that’s looking to lose weight for good.

That’s what we really specialize in is the super sustainability aspect. And then personal trainers just heads up. We normally end up referring people to other personal trainers afterward. Because we get the nutrition and everything so dialed in. In the first handful of weeks. So if you refer to me, chances are you get a referral back. So that’s the way that we work.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks again!

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