Episode 240: Becoming a Fitness Mogul with John Gorman

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[00:00:00] Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome back to the Flex a Diet podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. And on this podcast, we talk about all things to improve body composition, add more muscle performance, and do it all in a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today, we’ve got a similar related topic with fitness professional John Gorman.

[00:00:24] However, we’re looking more at the business side of fitness. This is especially important if you are a trainer or a coach, but I would argue that some of these lessons may even be applied if you’re not necessarily working in the fitness industry or if you’re a fitness enthusiast and just want a little bit of a peek behind the curtain as to what goes on to run a fitness business, you may be interested in this.

[00:00:51] So John Gorman breaks down all the items that he has done to generate a annual income of over 1, 000, 000. Now that may seem like something that is unattainable to you depending on where you’re at, or maybe you’ve gone beyond that. But I really appreciate his time and breaking down all the components that go into it.

[00:01:13] And his willingness just to be upright and upfront. And just tell us exactly all the work that goes into it and here’s a shocker. It’s not going to be Posting on Instagram and watching all the money roll in it’s going to be a fair amount of hard work Just like the analogy I’ve used it Is hard sometimes for the rocket to get into space it takes a lot of energy But once you’ve hit that point it does get to be a little bit easier if people are listening to this and are interested in what I do for my approach for how to maximize assessments with clients and even the business aspects of that, I am considering doing the Flex Diet Mentorship again, starting around the January timeframe.

[00:02:01] Haven’t decided yet if I will do it or not. The other one wraps up in January. So if you are interested find a way to get a hold of me. Either on social media or through the website so that as your first task, I’m not putting a link down below. You have to figure out how to get ahold of me. If you are interested, I hit me up and let me know that you are interested.

[00:02:24] And if there is enough interest, I will probably run it again. In the meantime, enjoy this podcast with John Gorman on how to make a million dollars per year in the fitness industry. Disclaimer, this obviously is not going to apply to everyone. We are not making any claims that this is going to be absolutely guaranteed nor predictions or any of that other kind of stuff.

[00:02:49] This is just for your entertainment purpose only and to present to you as a case study from someone who has actually done it. So with that out of the way, enjoy this podcast with John Gorman.

[00:03:02] [00:03:02] Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. We’re here today with John Gorman. How’s it going, man?

[00:03:09] John Gorman: Really good. I appreciate you having me on the show. You’ve got a great podcast and I’m excited to talk about, what we’ve elected to talk about today.

[00:03:15] It’s something, I think it’s going to be a little bit different for your listeners. I haven’t got to talk about a lot of this on my podcast, but first of all, thanks for having me on. You and I are old friends. We’ve done business. I had you out at the physique summit in 2016. That’s right. It was that

[00:03:29] Dr Mike T Nelson: long ago already.

[00:03:32] John Gorman: To think about that was seven years ago. You really brought the HRV topic. To our industry really and I remember a lot of the people at the time, they were just mind blown and very fascinated with that. And you’ve, you’ve been the expert on that for a while. So you and I have a history of speaking at some of the same events and, we share the same love of some of the music that we like to

[00:03:51] Dr Mike T Nelson: listen to.

[00:03:52] Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:03:54] John Gorman: Yep. So I just, it’s good to link up with you, man. We’re all so busy these days. We don’t get to, we don’t get to hang up, hang out and do this stuff a lot.

[00:04:03] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and that’s actually one of the main reasons I like doing the podcast, like it, people can go back and listen to some of the super early ones were more, I guess you could say scripted.

[00:04:12] And then, for a while I did the thing where, I had all my list of questions would spend hours, prepping and, I don’t know, I didn’t like how they sounded, it sounded more like Professor giving a lecture than anything else. And I realized at some point, I just, I started not to enjoy doing them.

[00:04:32] And then it’s why am I really doing this? And so I just said, ah, screw it. I just threw out all the scripts and I’m like, I’ll just get people on that. I actually want to talk to that. I have good information that I think more people need to listen to. And. It’s also just a nice way to catch up with people and, see what’s going on with them because they always have interesting stuff.

[00:04:50] I

[00:04:50] John Gorman: agree a hundred percent. I run both my podcasts, elite physique university and the fat muscle project podcast. to talk about fat muscle a little bit today, but I run them the same way. And a lot of the times I’m greedy and I get people on that I want to learn from. That’s the other part of it.

[00:05:04] So yeah,

[00:05:05] Dr Mike T Nelson: good times. Yeah. Cause I figure if. I’m not interested in it. I’m just going through the motions. Like no one really wants to listen to that anyway. And then it also goes back to why am I doing the podcast? For years I used to do, I only released it to some of my newsletter and some private groups.

[00:05:23] I would talk to people and be like, Hey, is it okay if we record this conversation because like before podcasting was a big thing, like I’m sure you had this too, or, you go out to dinner, you talk to someone and it’s like a two hour conversation. You’re like, Oh, that was so cool. You’re like. It’d be cool if other people could hear like this information too, and so now we have a way of distributing it, which is great.

[00:05:43] John Gorman: It is. Some of the best content is probably stuff for the last 10 or 20 years that we haven’t Recorded. So you’re right. To get people, it’s to be able to run a podcast like you’re sitting down and being a fly on the wall. I try and think of all my podcasts in that sense. Okay. How can I provide this to the listener to where they’re a fly on the wall to hear some of these interesting conversations and I’ve noticed some of the like Andrew Huberman and Peter.

[00:06:08] I’d like to hear both of them get together on their podcast, but then by themselves, it’s really hard for me personally to listen to because it’s a little too. scripted to the team to professional, but when they get together and they just shoot the shit a little bit, then it’s fun and you get to be a fly on the wall.

[00:06:25] So that’s what I’m looking forward to with this podcast today.

[00:06:28] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, man. Do you want to, you came up with the topic idea, so I’ll let you introduce it, which I thought was a great idea.

[00:06:35] John Gorman: Yeah, this is something to where a lot of people are going to hear this, probably have a lot of coaches that listen to the show.

[00:06:40] You probably have a lot of people that interested in research and they work in the research community, or maybe there’s some collaboration there. There’s a lot of crossover what I’ve been able to do. I want to try and give a blueprint and that’s not me trying to sell anything because actually the last thing I am as a salesman, I’m just someone that’s been able to build this ecosystem.

[00:07:00] Starting with training back in the day, be able to build this ecosystem to where I’ve been able to launch all these different avenues to make money and, I remember the first time I started coaching, I thought, man, I would really love to get to six figures in coaching. . And once you get there that’s to me it was like that stamp man, totally, I’ve done something that’s pretty cool to make six figures.

[00:07:20] ’cause I grew up in a trailer park, dirt poor, and I’m not gonna give that story on here, but like money doesn’t mean anything to me. But that was cool. And I thought, all right, so what’s after that? Then as you go and you make it well into the six figures, you start thinking, okay, how can I make it a seven figures.

[00:07:35] Here’s how can I bring in a million dollars a year? And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. I’m going to show people how to build this ecosystem over time. And if you’re interested in getting the seven figures, this is really the way to do it. This is the way there’s no clickbait in here.

[00:07:51] There’s no. There’s not a funnel system. There’s nothing like that. There’s not a bunch of ways to try and make money fast. This is a very organic way to scale your business and to scale what you do if you’re in the fitness industry. So that’s the topic today.

[00:08:06] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think people originally listening, cause I was in the same boat.

[00:08:10] Like initially I was, I left the medical tech industry and people are like what are you’re an idiot? Like you spend 10 years doing that. I was still doing fitness on the side. I finished my PhD. I did a master’s in mechanical engineering before. And they’re like, you could literally go down the road to a different company and start at, easily six figures.

[00:08:30] I’m like, I could, but the downside is it was okay. But then you’re working 40 to 60 hours a week. Like I’ve started two to three weeks vacation. They have to request. And when I have time off, and I just. Wasn’t really into it. I couldn’t imagine myself doing that job only. I would still be doing fitness on the side.

[00:08:50] I’d still be reading research for fun. I’d still be doing all the other stuff I was trying to do. So I just left and did it full time and then my wife worked for me full time. And then we have another part time person in Colorado. And as in the fitness industry, the sort of, I wouldn’t say it’s a dirty little secret, but a lot of people doing fitness usually have a spouse who’s employed, who has health insurance.

[00:09:16] It’s the running joke because you’ll see some people on social media that’ll look to be pretty popular and then you realize how much they’re actually making and you’re like, how does that person survive? What are they doing? And then you find out their spouse has a really good job and they have insurance and they just let them, do whatever.

[00:09:33] So this is for people who want to actually. And do a legitimate business. It’s doing it on your own. And if you have those things as a bridge or whatever, by all means that’s great. The reason I stayed in the med tech industry for as long as I did and did my stuff part time was I never wanted to be in that position where, Oh, you have to go sell something that might be questionable because you need to make your house payment or you’re going to be living in a box down by the river.

[00:10:00] So I never wanted to be quite in that position. And I wanted to make sure I have my bases covered first, caveat for people listening.

[00:10:07] John Gorman: This is also something to, I’ve noticed I do a lot of consulting these days I actually have one on one consulting where people ask for a month, two, three, four, five months.

[00:10:18] And we spend an hour a week on zoom, just like this. And those would be some great podcasts released, but obviously I can’t help people scale their business and get to a lot of these things we’re going to talk about today. But I will say another caveat is the most successful people that I’ve helped are the people that have the DNA to work for yourself.

[00:10:38] And that really, it’s really hard if you’re working for someone else and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of jobs out there where you can, like you said, go make six figures, but you’re working 40, 60 hours a week. You’re working for someone else. And it’s hard to really, that’s not really scalable.

[00:10:53] You can move up the ladder and you can get promoted, but if you’re really looking at making it seven figures, which is the topic today and the goal, it really helps to have that entrepreneurial DNA. And that is just, you either have it or you don’t. I’ve seen some people foster it and nurture it and get better as entrepreneurs and develop that later as they go.

[00:11:17] But if you’re someone that, that wants to work for someone else this just, this isn’t going to work. I just haven’t seen it work. You have to have that DNA and if you have it because you go to bed and you wake up thinking about, man, this is how I build X, Y, Z. This is how I scale.

[00:11:32] This is how I get it to the next level. And you’re really, it’s almost like a game. Like your mind is just obsessed with it. And if you have the entrepreneur DNA and you are not Mike, you definitely do. Things through a different lens. I’m the same way. Both of my sons have the exact same thing.

[00:11:46] They just see things differently. And that really helps.

[00:11:51] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, the big thing for me was I just didn’t want anyone else telling me what to do. And I wanted the option to trade time and money, where if you work for somebody else, which again, nothing wrong with that, your time and money are fixed.

[00:12:06] Like you said, you could potentially do better, you could do great, and this happened to me. Performance was great and they said, Oh, you’re supposed to get this big raise. And then the end of the year, Oh, whoops. The company didn’t do quite as well. So the money that’s allocated for raises was 12%.

[00:12:22] And now the max is three. So even though you were the top performer, instead of getting 12, you now get a 3 percent raise. And I’m like, well, wait a minute, this sucks. And I get it. Like the, finances are finances. But so if you find like little things like that bug you, then. Yeah, the business owner entrepreneur thing is probably gonna be better for you.

[00:12:44] John Gorman: I agree 100%. So how do you want to structure this today? Where do you want to start and

[00:12:48] Dr Mike T Nelson: how do you want to? Yeah, I would say for the person listening, what do you think is? So one thing I spent a lot of time practicing, I did way too much engineering is what do you think the rate limiter is? So let’s say someone is pretty good at the skills component.

[00:13:04] They’re pretty good online coach. They know nutrition, they know training, they’re pretty good. When you look at people, and you’ve done a lot of consulting, and obviously done it on your own business, how do you, one, look at it, and then, two, what do you consider a rate limiter or a constraint that most people run into when they start?

[00:13:23] Okay. From

[00:13:23] John Gorman: the coaching side of things, since that’s where I started. Yeah. You probably, a lot of people listening that are either training people one on one, they’re doing some online coaching maybe some kind of version of that. Whether it’s three clients or whether someone has 20, 40, 50 clients or more.

[00:13:38] We’ll just frame this in the outlook of a trainer or coach. All right. One of the biggest things that I’ve noticed for people who do scale this and they can get to the next level two things, one. You have to be good at what you do. That just comes with it because there’s a lot of mediocre coaches out there.

[00:13:57] Instagram and everywhere is full of anybody that looks halfway good in the gym. They’re now an online coach, or they’re now training people in person, but that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily good as a coach, and there’s so much that goes into that DNA, and we could do a whole podcast on it, but when you’re churning out.

[00:14:14] Great result. And I can name coaches left and right. I hate to do that, but I’ll leave some out, but I’ll name some good friends of mine. Cliff Wilson is a very good example. Dr. Pete Fitchin. They’re both with my supplement company, fat muscle project, Jason Theobald, my clients place high, the lane Norton’s of the world, like Mike, your clients get great results.

[00:14:34] That kind of stuff stands out. So number one, you have to get great results because that’s what, okay. Your clients get great results. They’re going to bring in referrals to you. And that’s how you scale your business. So first of all, you have to be able to grow your training business before you start taking all these other steps.

[00:14:50] You have to maximize that. So being a good trainer and coach is just something that. I’ve always noticed the people that they may not be the smartest, but they’re always the hardest worker. You can see my shirt that I’m outwork everyone. I’m not the smartest guy in the room at all, I’ve got my to do list right here next to me.

[00:15:08] I don’t go to bed without that thing checked off. I don’t go to bed with an email unanswered. I do so much to make sure I outwork everyone and I make up for what I lack. So good coaches don’t have to be the smartest. But you have to get results and they’ve got to be above and beyond just average and mediocre.

[00:15:27] So that’s to the first limiter that you’re talking about. That’s always the key. You’ve got to be good at what you do, or you’ve got to have a great product with any business that you own. So that’s probably the number one thing that I separate good average from great.

[00:15:43] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that’s what is the book?

[00:15:45] Good to great. I think that it was it Cal Newport had one that was similar. I think too, but it had been in deep work. I can’t remember, but basically the whole theme of kind of both of those books is that there’s never. Going to be a substitute for just being the best, right? There’s always, whether it’s a recession or market, like if you look at, cars are an easy example because everybody can relate to it, right?

[00:16:08] I don’t think Ferrari is ever really going to have sales problems, right? If you’re the elite of the elite, there’s probably gonna be someone that’s interested in that. And again, it’s a different market and I get it all that kind of stuff, but there’s never a substitute for just being really good at what you do.

[00:16:27] John Gorman: Yeah. And there’s. There’s, if you’re very competitive you can use that in a healthy way, a very unhealthy way, but you can use it in a healthy way, which I implore people to use. I was very competitive in 2011, 12, all the way to 15 with Cliff Wilson because his clients of mine would go against each other on stage.

[00:16:45] And, back then we pushed the limits, Pete Fitchin was coming up around then too and Lane and all of our clients took natural bodybuilding and bodybuilding general to another level with conditioning. But that was a competition component on my end because I did not want Cliff Wilson to be better than me.

[00:16:59] I just it’s healthy fuel for me and that helped push and he’s the same way it helped pushed us to another level and we learned all we could. We pushed our clients and got the greatest results we could. And that scaled our business like extremely fast. So my point is getting great results, that’s gonna, that’s going to be the first thing, but that’s the first key component to this, because here’s the other part that goes with that.

[00:17:22] And that’s time. So many people want to be a coach or a trainer for one, two, three, five years. And they think that They’re going to be making a ton of money, and they’re going to be ready to start implementing all these next steps that we’re going to talk about. I’ve been doing this since 2007, full time, that’s 16 years, and I work extremely hard, and I’m finally, the last few years, made it to seven figures.

[00:17:46] And that, before that, like I said, I was trying to make it to six figures, and like 2013, I finally made it to six figures. Ten years later, All that hard work is starting to pay off, but it all starts with getting good results. But then all that time. So think about what this is going to do. If you spend 10 years training people answering questions on social media and DMS, people sending you emails, people talking to you at person in person at events, whatever.

[00:18:14] And you. Keep answering questions and you work with clients over a 10 year span. Think about how many people now that you’ll have loyalty, that you’ve helped, that you’ve provided some kind of value to whether it’s for free or you’ve been their coach and trainer. So that’s the first component. What you’re starting to do is you’re starting to build years and years of people that are ready to support the next things you do, which is where this kind of goes from here.

[00:18:40] Coaching and training people is the base of this whole thing. I still coach people full time. It’s still my full time job. Even though I own a supplement company and I do that as well. Coaching is the base of this whole thing. And that is what enables you to start adding different things like speaking events and seminars and writing your own book and starting a supplement company.

[00:19:02] Doing all these different things. Buying a gym. Like all these things are things that I’ve done or am doing now. So we can talk about any of those or we can go back to training however you want to do

[00:19:11] Dr Mike T Nelson: it. Yeah, I think that’s a good point because I guess in general in the industry, it seems like there’s always the thing to get to the next level with the least amount of work, right?

[00:19:24] And I get it. There’s a time and a place to be efficient. But the people I know who have. Succeeded and I think are doing it well. There’s just no, it’s like training, right? Are there things you can do to be more efficient and are better? A hundred percent. But even if you decide to use drugs or not, there is, there’s never any extreme shortcut for putting in the time and putting in the work.

[00:19:52] Like it, it just, you can only accelerate so fast, even at the maximal rate and it’s still not fast.

[00:20:03] John Gorman: I agree 100%. And that takes us, from training. Now, think about this. If you’ve been doing this five years, and I’ll just go over my, the way that it happened for me. And by the way, this was not some great big master plan that I figured out back in the day, how to lay all these steps out so they would organically come together into seven figures.

[00:20:21] I just worked hard and it all fell into my lap. So that’s why now I can look back and that’s what my consulting is. I help people. Hit these different points in their career to where they can start to launch things like a good example of the next thing I did was I started the physique summit with Cliff Wilson, which is a conference series, but you don’t have to start a conference series.

[00:20:42] You can just start giving lectures. And that’s something you and I know a ton about because we do a ton of public speaking, but think about it after you spent years getting your clients great results and you built a name for yourself. Now you need to start either holding your own events where you speak.

[00:20:57] And by the way I’ve had these with four people in front of me at a gym before, like you don’t, they don’t have to be these giant, big, sexy events, just learning how to speak publicly and going to. bodybuilding camps are going to give seminars at the gym. They used to do body for life seminars way back in the day.

[00:21:13] That’s where you learn. But my point is. Once you become an expert and now you start speaking and you get good enough and then you get paid to speak or You hold your own conference like I did because I’m like you Mike I don’t like to be told what to do. I want to work for myself so Cliff Wilson and I started the physique summit conference and we brought experts in like you and other people and We made good money at those events like we made and we paid you guys good like everybody won But then we did those forever until COVID kind of hurt the physique summit.

[00:21:43] But I still have other ones that I do now that are great money making events. But if you think about it, it opens up the door for you to start doing things like that, which is additional income. And if you own your own event, you might make an extra 20, 30, 50 grand a year, depending on the size of it. If you speak, you make me, you may make two or three, 5, 000 extra year.

[00:22:03] It just depends. But that’s the next step. So now you’ve got your full time coaching and hopefully you’re up to six figures. Now you’re adding anywhere from, five grand to 50 grand a year, depending on the scale of your speaking and if you own it. So now that’s the next thing. And then once you do that, you keep speaking because that keeps you out there in the public.

[00:22:22] It shows people that you’re an expert, which brings more clients to you. So now you’re starting to scale Transcribed by https: otter. ai And in another fashion, I don’t know if you want to talk about seminars or public speaking, but that’s just one Avenue of becoming an expert and getting good results for your clients that can happen.

[00:22:37] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah I talked to Andrew Coates and a bunch of other people about this too. And the speaking thing to me is just so fascinating. So I remember getting into industry, got early 2000s, just looking at it. And I remember, reading, T Nation at the time with, I think it was right around when John Brody started there and Lonnie Lowry and Chad Waterbury came later and.

[00:22:59] And all these people and then fast forward to being able to meet them in person, and then fast forward to, Oh my God, I’m like speaking on the same stage as some of these people, like they’re friends of mine. Like I can just call them up on the phone and be like, Hey buddy, I got a question about, whatever, which even to this day still sometimes boggles my mind.

[00:23:19] But I think like you said, if you’re good at it, and then another key is to actually pay the money and attend events. My one little pet peeve is. People who I understand that it’s a pain in the ass. I understand that it costs money. I understand that it’s time away from your training and travel and everything else.

[00:23:37] Like I, I get it, but I don’t think there’s ever a substitute for just paying the money and going to an event and try to meet people, be an actual nice human being. And don’t be the annoying person who wants to speak at every event, but hasn’t really put the time in to be an expert and refuses to pay to go to events.

[00:24:00] That’s like my pet

[00:24:01] John Gorman: peeve. I can tell you firsthand because I hold events every single year, my own, and then I go speak. And they’re so important. And I can tell you, I have so many coaches and friends that do not attend events, and they don’t make it. They just stay the same. They stay mediocre.

[00:24:17] They stay average. So if you’re listening to this, and maybe, this younger generation doesn’t want me to say this. They don’t like it. It bristles them up a little bit, but you’re lazy. If you won’t spend the money to go collaborate and learn from some of the best people in the industry, how in the hell do you ever expect to get better in scale?

[00:24:33] Invest the time, invest the money, because it’s gonna, it’s going to help you make money. You never know who you meet at an event. Who you do business with. I’ve got podcasts with people that I’ve met at events. I’ve got coaches that are part of my supplement company. I’ve made so many friends and clients that have hired me over the years, like not owning the event, being at other events to go learn.

[00:24:56] So it’s just massively

[00:24:57] Dr Mike T Nelson: crucial. Yeah, I see something similar where people want the benefits and sometimes they’ll even hit me up and usually it’s someone I’m like, I don’t even know who you are. Like, what are you doing? They’re like, Oh, I saw you at such and such event. Can you put me in touch with the person?

[00:25:13] I want to speak there. And I’m like, and then the dreaded one is, Oh, will you recommend me to a certain person? And I’m like, No, I’d want I’d have never I don’t even know who you are right do I don’t know what you’ve done three I’ve never seen you speak before so I’m not gonna put my credibility on the line to recommend you to someone else I said just go to the event hang out get better if you do that enough like things will happen it.

[00:25:39] I don’t think it’s something you can necessarily force per se similar to you. I remember going to I got a chance to speak at ISSN in 2011. Joey Antonio called me up and I was, doing my PhD. I would, I had no money at the time. All my money went to pay for my PhD. I was doing some coaching on the side.

[00:26:00] And at first I told him like, Hey man, I’m like, I’d love to, but I’m like, I just can’t afford it. And he’s Oh, that’s okay. And they came out with the agenda. And I saw like a bunch of people I wanted to see were there and Lou Shuler was speaking. And I was like, Oh, and then I was like, cause one of my things was I wanted Lou Shuler to edit an article.

[00:26:18] And I want to be in, like men’s health and the magazines and stuff. So long story short, I called up Joey and I said, Hey man Oh if you still want me, I’ll still speak there. Cause in my head, I’m like if I’m presenting there and Lou’s presenting there, we’re equal, right?

[00:26:31] Even we’re not, in my head, this is what I’m thinking. And it so happened, I show up and go to the event. We both got lost. We couldn’t figure out where we’re going. He comes to my talk and we ended up just chatting afterwards with a bunch of people and ends up doing a thing in men’s health on metabolic flexibility.

[00:26:47] I’ve gone to other events where nothing’s happened, like nothing at all has ever happened from the event, but more often than not, like the people you meet, I even did an event last year was a guy first time doing the event. I wanted to help support him, so I did it for free. I didn’t make any money. I lost money on it, but I was able to meet people that I wanted to meet and got to hung out with them.

[00:27:06] And now we’re good friends with some of them too. So all that to echo that, yeah, just pay the money. Go to events, be a decent human being and things eventually will work out for you. Trust me.

[00:27:20] John Gorman: Yeah, I can definitely, I can give someone a real quick story. I know we probably need to move on to the next thing, but my first legitimate seminar in the fitness industry, I went to, I was late on this, was 2014.

[00:27:32] I went to Tampa and I got to meet Joey Antonio and a whole bunch of other people Dr. Scott Stevenson and just other great. People were there and I learned a ton and I remember looking at our team at the time when we went back home and this is just I see things through a different lens. I’m like, so two things.

[00:27:50] My goal is to speak at an ISSN conference someday because I’m a bro scientist. I look at the research that you guys do and I’m a coach and I put that research in the trenches and I see what does and doesn’t work in the trenches for the plans that I build. And that’s to me, it’s I’m a half Yeah. I’m a half bro.

[00:28:07] I like to assume things, but I like to use the research and, to be able to speak at an ISSN conference for someone like me was a big deal. So one, I was able to check that off my list Dr. Bill Campbell had me come speak in 2017. Yeah, I remember that. The other thing, the reason why I want to bring this up is, If you’re like me and you’re an entrepreneur and things through a different lens, go look at these events and learn how to hold your own.

[00:28:30] So that was the other thing I told my team when we got back. I’m like, we’re doing our own conference. And I had enough clients at the time. We had 40 people show up, which was great. I held it. That’s great. The city that I taught at for a little while. And we, it was our. We’re going to learn from this.

[00:28:44] So we learned how to do registration. We learned how to check everybody in. We had three different rooms full of different speakers and everybody rotated through and we did a giveaway. And what it did was it laid the foundation for me launching the big Zik summit is what it was, which, we have 150 people attended the last one.

[00:29:01] So my point is. You can learn how to host your own seminars. You can do them at your local gym. You can bring in a local expert. And if you have 10 to 15 people show up it’s the start of something. So that’s the thing, speaking can be a very powerful thing, but not everyone’s cut out for that.

[00:29:17] Public speaking is the number one fear that there is in the world. It takes time. You have to develop confidence in that. Outside of speaking, there’s other things that you can start to do once you become an expert, once you’ve built a solid foundation under you. The other thing people can do is self publish a book.

[00:29:33] I have four books that I’ve published. Three of ’em have hit Amazon Bestseller Status, which sounds sexy on here, but it’s really not that hard to do. All you have to do is hit number one. For a day in any category and I hit number one for a day or two and just a few different categories. Weight training I think was one not hard for a new release to hit number one in weight training if you’ve got a bunch of people supporting you.

[00:29:55] So it’s not like I’m a New York times bestseller. I’m just, I’m a straight shooter, it’s cool to see that anyone on here can publish your own book. And I’ve done that. And today, I think I brought in about six figures, since 2015, it’s not good from a book. Yeah, it’s not huge money.

[00:30:13] But someday, maybe 10 years from now, I launched something and it does make a ton of money. You just have to keep marching forward, but anyone can release your own book. Like anyone on here, like my son in second grade could release a kid’s book if he wanted to just go to Amazon and self publish.

[00:30:29] It’s really easy. But my point is, Think about it. People are on honor. They’re on here listening easier for me to say, and they’re wondering who’s going to buy my book? Think about everyone that you’ve just helped for the last 5, 10, 15 years, all of your client base. If you’ve done right by people, you’ve got people ready to support whatever you’re going to do next.

[00:30:49] And I remember when I dropped my first book, I had 350 presale. That I signed and I put, a couple of hundred dollar bills and some kind of like the Willy Wonka golden ticket. anD I mailed those out and I was like, Hey, a few of you are getting a surprise. Thank you for the support. But it was all my people that I had written diets for.

[00:31:06] I had met at shows and answered questions. I had talked to at conferences and it’s all these things add up to where, yes, you can start to speak and people want to come hear you. You can write a book and people want to buy that. So that’s another avenue.

[00:31:19] Dr Mike T Nelson: Do you think. Being an author and having a book is still a status thing?

[00:31:28] John Gorman: No, I’m, like I said I’m a pretty humble guy. I don’t like to try and put on a front. Like it’s a big deal because I’m a four time published author. It’s in my, it’s in my bio. Like when I send it to people, when I go speak at events or on my pages, it’s in there four time, best selling author.

[00:31:45] But Anyone can do it like that’s just the reality of it and it doesn’t have to be good To hit bestseller status like that’s cool That’s why I put that in there But no, there’s no there’s not the red tape that we used to have which is a good and a bad thing But to me the market decides who’s good who’s legitimate So why not let everybody have a swing up at bat, you know what I mean?

[00:32:05] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and one other tip too for people like you said If they’re doing it, they can do an ebook that costs almost literally nothing for distribution, but there is, I think, still something of having a physical book for sale, which you can do through Amazon. You can do print on demand. They don’t even take that much money to do it.

[00:32:24] So I would encourage people to definitely. Look at that doing an ebook. And once you feel like it’s pretty good, just see what you can do for a print option. Cause I do think that is for the time being, I don’t know how long it’s going to stay. It is a little bit higher status per se.

[00:32:39] John Gorman: Yeah, I agree. I’ll just tell everybody the numbers now, which you can make if, if you put an ebook together. You sell it for 9. 99. You’re going to make about six and a half dollars last time I checked out of that. Obviously, there’s no print. There’s not really expenses. That’s just Amazon keeping their cut.

[00:32:56] If you release a hard copy, paper, paperback’s what it is. If you sell for 20 bucks, you’re going to put about eight bucks in your pocket. So when people go order, they just order it on Amazon, Amazon prints it, ships it for you. You never touch it and you just get a check deposited into your bank account, money deposited.

[00:33:14] You don’t get a physical check of however many books you sell every single month and it’s hands free. And it’s nice. And you can order your own physical copies. And if they’re going to cost you, my books are about two to 300 pages long. They cost me about two to three bucks each. And then mark them up and sell them yourself.

[00:33:31] I sell mine on my fat muscle project website. And there’s, at events, I’ll sell them. I’ll give them away for Christmas, like in, orders and stuff like that. So it does enable you to be. It does enable you to be an entrepreneur and an author at the same time. So if you have that DNA, you can hustle, you can find ways to sell it.

[00:33:53] And if the book is good, word will spread for you. So that’s, and I’ve got a lot of five star reviews on my books because I’m just being honest, like they’re good. Like I laid them out and I showed people how to get results and put the research in the back of them. And I really took my time with them.

[00:34:08] So it can be good. It’s just never going to be a giant moneymaker unless you’re a huge name with a giant following. And 99. 9 percent of us aren’t. That’s why we’re creating, I hate to call it a following. We’re creating this trail of loyal people that we’ve helped and we’ve taken care of that way, when you do launch something, they’re ready to support you and buy.

[00:34:29] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and last tip for people too, if they are looking to get a book by a bigger publisher. So I always ask people, they’re like I want to be an author. I’m like, cool. Do you want a bigger publisher to do it or do you want to make money or what is your reason for doing it? Because the little dirty secret in the industry is bigger publishers take about 90%.

[00:34:54] Like I’ve turned down, I don’t know how many, I’ve did a couple book chapters for academic books. And. It’s so funny because they’re the worst. Like the one, I won’t say the name of the company, but they were after me. They’re like, Hey, you want to do a book? And I’m like, no, I already did a couple of chapters.

[00:35:10] That was hard enough. And then eventually we do this book on immune and exercise and I’m like, how much do I make off of that? You don’t have to write it all. You can get all your friends to do it and then you’ll make 10%, like 10 percent of an academic book that no one’s really going to buy.

[00:35:25] And I have to control all my buddies into doing it and manage them and have them do it for free. Screw you, so I think knowing what the dynamics are ahead of time and, caveat I did. Do a contract with human kinetics. So I’m doing a book with them on metabolic flexibility, but I did it just to say that I have wrote the book and it’s from a big publisher, mostly for the effect of saying that I did it.

[00:35:50] I’m under, I hope it sells well, but I’m under no delusions that I’m going to make. A ton of money doing it. It was mostly for distribution and to say that I did it. Or I have some other books that we’re doing on our own. It’s print on demand. We’re doing all the distribution ourselves through Amazon.

[00:36:07] Those are designed to actually make more money, even though it doesn’t look nearly as prestigious. Yeah, you

[00:36:15] John Gorman: know what? At the end of the day, It really just depends on what you want and a lot of it is just you do it because you love it and you just, Oh, yeah. And there’s not going to be a ton of money for most people, but you never know when someone pops.

[00:36:29] You never know when you go viral and you make it big. You just have to keep scratching and clawing, but don’t expect that to happen. You have to work just knowing that it’s a grind, like it’s just a grind. Yeah, and

[00:36:39] Dr Mike T Nelson: even bigger authors who you think are making a ton of money off their books usually not making as much money as what you think they make most of it off of the distribution, the opportunities, the back end, all that stuff that they can do quite well on.

[00:36:55] So again. Yeah, I think it’s good and I also think you’d probably agree with this too that I think there’s still something about having to write your ideas out and edit them and put it in a format that someone else is going to understand. Even if you sell very few of them, I think that process of old school writing is so worth it to refine your ideas.

[00:37:19] John Gorman: I agree 100%. And I will say this, I write in a fashion to where it’s like we’re doing this podcast, like we’re just talking and I write that fashion. And my best friend, his name is Kurt. He’s edited all my books, but you have to edit the editor. If you’re the expert, because I understand when I talked about resetting insulin sensitivity, or if I talked about luteinizing hormone and ties to hunger or leptin and ties to the hunger, right?

[00:37:45] That I remember that chapter specifically talking about leptin, hunger, and body fat levels. And I had to go edit him because he tried to fix the grammar, but he also changed the point of it. Trying to make right. So just know that if you have someone edit your books, you’re going to have to edit the message.

[00:38:04] You’re going to have to go back and watch the message to make sure your point doesn’t get changed by accident because they’re not trying to change it. They’re just trying to make sure that you know how to spell and put sentences together. Which sometimes I struggle with it at a higher level.

[00:38:17] So anyway Thank you. That’s my take on adding books, but there’s all kinds of other things too. Like owning gyms, I don’t know if you want to talk about that next Mike, but that’s something to, every, I’m a bro. So like every bro has always thought when you’re in a gym, you’re like, man, I’d like to own my own gym.

[00:38:33] I’d like to, I’d like to call the shots. I’d like to have my own gym, my own playground, design it the way I want it. And. I got into the industry managing anytime fitness is a little larger. Anytime’s 10, 000 square feet, which most are about 5, 000 these days. So double the size and my mentor, Monty Pierce ended up selling me a couple of those back in 2017.

[00:38:56] It’s already understood the gym business, but it’s not hard to learn, but that is something to where. If you want to add that to your income base, owning a gym, especially if you buy one, and we could do a whole podcast on which kind of gyms to open and how to do it, because there’s a lot of traps you gotta watch out for.

[00:39:15] Buying a used gym that already has a member base is a good idea, a franchise is a good idea, and that’s what I did, that are already bringing money in, either breaking even or making money. Mine made money when I bought them. If you think about that, there’s all kinds of ways that can add to your repertoire on what you’re doing.

[00:39:33] So now look back. You’re coaching. You start a full time coaching client base. Now you’ve got maybe five, ten years in the industry. Now you add one gym. And if you want to make good money, add two gyms as time goes on, maybe two or three years down the road. But I added two gyms. And you can loosely do the math.

[00:39:49] If you think about, if the gym has 500 members and you charge it on an average 35 a month, you can do the math and see what you bring in. I get all the time, like most average gyms somewhere in that range are going to bring out about 20 to 25, 000 a month. Now we’re not going to talk about taking expenses out and all that.

[00:40:07] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just gross revenue. Gross total revenue. Yeah. You’re looking at bringing in, somewhere in the 200 to $250,000 a year range. So now what you look at is your coaching. You’re doing some speaking gigs. Maybe you’ve got your first book out and you’re starting to add all these things up, and now boom, you add $250,000 gross revenue to what you’re bringing in a year.

[00:40:29] And you’re coaching, maybe you’re making a hundred to 150 a year, you are making 50 doing other stuff, speaking, selling books. You’re looking at. Close to half a million year now, and that gets you up to the 500, 000 range. So a gym will do it. You’re gonna have to go in debt.

[00:40:45] Most people, to buy a gym, you’re looking at buying one for 234 500, 000, depending on the gym and the location. But this enables you to reach out and have something else. Now, once you have your gym, You can sell all kinds of stuff at your gym. You’ve got other trainers that you’re going to make money off of.

[00:41:03] This is outside of just bringing in a gym membership fee. You can have trainers. I had some of the best trainers in the area paying rent. So now you’re making money off of their training. You can hold events. I held events and used my gym as an open gym all the time. There’s all kinds of stuff that you can do when you own a gym.

[00:41:21] And then when you own two, that’s when you start making good money. Because, if you own two, you may be bringing in half a mil just in two years and two gyms. So that’s something you really need to understand business. And I had a good mentor. You really need to understand profit loss, how to count your numbers, how to make sure that, everything is managed to a T. You really need to learn how to be a bean counter, honestly, or you hire someone that does it for you. I’m a numbers guy, so I do it all myself. I love the numbers. I look at them every day. But that is something that’s very interesting. And people can start off with a small gym.

[00:41:55] If you just want to have your own personal training studio and start off with that and you own your own business, you can do that and you can have other trainers bring their clients in there and now you’re making money off of them. You can train however many clients you want, but still have your online business, for example.

[00:42:11] So there’s all kinds of ways that people can do it. But to have that different lens that you look through, you start finding these other opportunities.

[00:42:20] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I started really small. You can even convert your garage into a gym. Yep, because I got when I was working at a gym, long story short, they filed bankruptcy.

[00:42:30] They didn’t bother to tell me I show up there to train clients. It’s Hey, you want all your money back right to this address in Iowa. And I’m like, bro, you could have at least pulled me aside. Like the day I was in here yesterday, training people and be like. Hey man, we’re closing tomorrow or we’re closing soon.

[00:42:47] I get it, they can’t say anything, whatever. So instead of looking for other gyms, I was following clients around at their gym pretending not to be their trainer and all this stuff. Yeah. And I said, this is stupid. And I knew I was going back to do my PhD at the time. I’m like, I don’t have time to do this.

[00:43:02] So I’m like I’ll just get a, power rack and some basic stuff. Put it in my garage and I’ll just transition clients there. If they want to do it, great. If they don’t want to do it, whatever. And my backup business plan was, I don’t know if this all fails, I have a really cool gym in my garage and it turns out that.

[00:43:20] For my needs, it was great because I could literally walk out my door, clients would drive to me. So the amount of time I saved was great. And as I got busier, I had to cut down on the number of clients anyway. So and even now I don’t train a lot of people here in person, but we’ve hosted just small events at our house for, four or five people at once for a weekend.

[00:43:40] They come in, we’ve got all the testing here. We do lectures in the living room, make food, go in the gym. We’ve got all the equipment there. And the nice part I realized was, I’m not paying overhead. So for me, for someone who’s not doing it as a full time thing it was great. So I think people can start even on a very small scale, play with some stuff, see if they like it, and then they can expand out from there.

[00:44:04] And

[00:44:04] John Gorman: I think that’s a really good point that you make to a lot of people, especially younger people. And social media is a great tool, but it skews people’s view of what actual success is. It makes a lot of people out there faking the funk. And a lot of young people think when you go to launch a business, if it doesn’t look huge and glamorous, you’re not successful.

[00:44:25] That’s the farthest thing from the truth. Success is getting it up and running and bringing some money in. It’s always going to be, fat muscle project, which we can talk about next. If you want to start as an apparel company, we started, I had apparel in my garage, me and my son and Leslie, who I was with at the time, like we all three started that together and it was apparel and we would go to shows and events and set booths up and sell shirts for 1999 and we were just trying to get the name and the products out there.

[00:44:54] And it was an apparel company and it was not sexy. It was a very mom pop. But then what happened later is. We started that in 2016. In 2019, I left the supplement company that I was with at the time, which is a long story. But I knew that instead of representing a supplement company, I knew I was a player, not a bench player.

[00:45:14] I knew I was a starter and they want to invest in, influencers and they want to go a whole other direction. That’s fine. Totally get it. They’re a giant company. Good for them, but for me, I want to be able to call my own shots and I knew I had more that I could do. So I took fat muscle as an apparel company and I relaunched it as a supplement company.

[00:45:33] And this is probably the biggest key point that I can drive home to everybody listening. So now I’ve got training under my belt since 2007 and here we are. This was 2020 when I launched the supplements. 13 years later, I’m now launching a supplement brand. I’ve got the training and I’ve had people that I’ve helped.

[00:45:50] 13 years, clients, DMS, meeting people as I’ve, regularly been on the speaking circuit. I’ve launched numerous books at this point. I had two gems, which I sold later, which, that’s, we can talk about this some other time, but I sold them, made good money, make good money on them when I owned them.

[00:46:07] So then I’ve had all this stuff now, 2020 comes and I launched a supplement company. And now I’ve got all these people that I’ve done right by for 13 years that are ready to come support. John’s supplement company, fat muscle project. And for people listening, I know I’ve said it a few times. Fat is P H A T by the way.

[00:46:25] We’re all our own fat muscle project. You don’t have to be a bodybuilder. It’s just, you’re trying to build your own best physique. And when I launched it, I remember the first 24 hours in sales, like we sold like 8, 000. And to me at the time I was blown away. Cause I was just hoping to bring in orders a day.

[00:46:43] I was so nervous, but what blew me away. And this is this whole ecosystem that we built over the years. I didn’t realize here comes all these people that I’ve helped and done right by to support me. And this company has grown off the backs of those people off of our customers. And to this day every single year we hold a customer appreciation event.

[00:47:04] I’ve got 25 sponsored coaches, some of the best people in the entire industry. I’ve already named some of them. On here, the Cliff Wilson’s, the Pete Fitchins of the world, I could go on and on, but I’ll leave people out people representing that brand, but we do a customer appreciation event to give back to them and, our top customer, we give 1, 500 in cash.

[00:47:24] We get this big title belt, like a wrestling title belt, like a WWE belt, and we give that out to numerous people our top retailers, the supplement company has grown so much like that alone is something that people do it right. They can bring in half a mill. They can bring in a mill a year. They can bring in, the potential is huge.

[00:47:43] I’ve got friends that have supplement companies. They’re bringing in over 10 mill a year just from the supplement company. But the point is all these steps have been laid out. They were just by accident. That’s why I’m trying to point these out to people. This whole ecosystem has been built to where you can launch these different avenues and you can monetize.

[00:48:02] All the hard work that you’ve done, you can now start to monetize it, but it takes a long time. 16 years later, it’s just this, I feel like this is just the beginning, what’s the next 10 years look like, that’s the interesting part. And the supplement industry is one that.

[00:48:17] It’s a tough industry, but for us it wasn’t tough because it was just so organic to launch it. And there’s a lot of other John Gorman’s out there that you’ve been doing this for 10, 15 years. You’ve got clients that are ready for your own supplements. Now you just got to figure that out. You got to figure out how to launch it, which is, which is something I help people with in my consulting gig.

[00:48:37] I think that’s probably the next thing. If you want to go into that after we talk about supplements is you can monetize your consulting, but you’re super into the supplement side of the industry. I know you and I talked about my hormone optimizer product on the phone. I said, Hey, I’d like to do some research on that because it’s really getting people good results.

[00:48:55] But I don’t know if you’ve done much else in the industry, in the supplement industry. I know you’ve got your hands full, but do you have anything you want to talk about on that side?

[00:49:03] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah it’s one of those things where it’s, to me, it’s both fascinating and maddening at the same time, right?

[00:49:12] Because, starting early, starting out early on, you’re like, Oh, the supplements and the big companies. And then I won’t name any names, but you start consulting for some of these companies, and at least if you’re. The scientist in the room, you’re basically just pissing on their leg all the time, telling them that it’s raining and that’s not going to work.

[00:49:33] You’re like the person in the room. That’s like a shooting down every half baked harebrained idea they come up with. And after a while, some companies will entertain that. And some companies will just be like, okay, that’s enough of you. Like you, you go away now. Again, that’s not to say all companies are like that.

[00:49:49] That’s an exaggeration. But on the flip side, it’s. I didn’t even promote affiliate stuff for supplements for many years because I was trying to be, Mr. Impartial and all this stuff. And the reason I switched was I realized like people on my newsletter and even clients of mine were buying absolute crap from Walmart and stuff that you Being in the industry, you know what’s high quality, what’s not, what’s on the label, what’s not, etc.

[00:50:17] But these poor people don’t have any idea. They’re just going by, oh, way, whiz, bang, whatever, was like half the cost, so it must be good. I’m like, I don’t know what’s in that container, because I know what the actual raws in that thing cost, and it’s about at cost. They’re not losing money.

[00:50:33] bUt I didn’t do anything on my own. I’ve had, God, I don’t know how many projects I’ve started, and then basically just shit can. One, because either the minimum runs were too high or two, I’m least honest enough to know that I probably don’t have a big enough distribution to float it myself.

[00:50:52] And I think distribution and like you said, fan base, all that stuff, I think for most people is going to be the right limiter. The good part is you can find people in the industry who are legitimate, who can give you consulting. You can find good manufacturers. You can find all that stuff now, which is great.

[00:51:09] On one hand, that’s probably easier than it’s ever been. On the other hand, there’s also more competition from Instagram influencers and everybody else and their brother too. And that’s the

[00:51:20] John Gorman: thing. I feel like I’m immune to that at this point, because here’s the thing. I don’t worry about the first forms of the world.

[00:51:27] And now when I left there at a very big chip on my shoulder and my athlete clients, they needed products. So when I made my products, I purposely had to make them at least as good or Their quality was high. I have less ingredients more protein per tub, like all better price, like all these things I made sure they were down to the labels had to work better.

[00:51:46] Like I was very competitive and that’s a healthy thing. But my point is I’ve never had to worry about competition because here’s why I’ve already laid the groundwork. I had a huge client base and people that I helped that were ready to buy the supplements. I wasn’t, I have, I’ve not spent money that’s actually done anything in digital marketing, It’s all been organic.

[00:52:05] I’ve got coaches that have client bases like mine and Cliff Wilson, Pete Fitch. And they believe in the products. Cliff developed a product for us, a meal replacement. Pete looks at stuff. I’ve told Pete Hey man, if you want to build a product, let me know. Like I’ll slap your name on it because Pete knows what he’s doing, but they’ve got a client base and they’re the people and my client base, they fuel this whole operation.

[00:52:27] So you don’t have to worry about Instagram influencers. Most people do if you don’t have a client base, but if you’ve built a solid run of people that you’ve helped, they’re going to come support it. And I don’t know if you link, my info or how to get ahold of me in the show notes or whatever, but Yeah, if you guys want to email me it’ll be in there, and I’m glad to steer you in the right direction. And if you want to start your own supplement company, I’m not going to pull any punches. I’ll help you. I don’t mind. That’s what I do as a consultant. That’s what I do for people. I’ve got two people that I’ve helped start supplement companies.

[00:52:59] Now there’s, because they’re people like me, they’ve already got the client, but they’ve got everything. It’s going to work. It’s going to work. It may not be at a huge scale, but. The potential is there, even if you’re bringing in a hundred thousand a year and you’re selling it to your clients, that’s huge.

[00:53:17] Cause if not, you’re recommending it from some other company and they’re making the money. So there’s a lot of people, there’s other John Gorman’s out there. They’re ready to start a supplement company. Hit me up. That’s all consult. And that’s what we’ll do.

[00:53:30] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I still find it. Yeah. It’s a fascinating industry because there’s always new stuff.

[00:53:35] There’s always staples. There’s always. Changes and that type of thing, too. But I think it, like you said, it comes back to. All of this, what is your base and who is following you and related to that, how do you keep in contact with clients? Like I’m a big, I’m a big newsletter person.

[00:53:54] That’s primarily what I do just because it’s a scalable thing. I like writing, but. Do you do primarily newsletter? Do you do more social media? Like, how do you, cause you’re only gonna be limited with how many people you can coach at one time. So how do you stay top of mind awareness with people throughout the years?

[00:54:12] John Gorman: I Don’t do a lot of newsletters. I just feel like a lot of my client base wouldn’t want that. So what I do is I do post on social and that keeps me out there in people’s eyes. I post my client results, like people that get on stage or if they’ve had a great just transformation, just a physique enhancement transformation.

[00:54:30] I post that stuff. I post a lot of things like, I actually turned this into a book. So I used to have these posts called knowledge bomb of the day. And it would just be, Hey, here’s hit versus steady state cardio. I did a four part post on that. I got 200 shares over the last four or five years.

[00:54:47] And it was just free content. It’s just me as the expert putting this out. Hey, here’s hit versus steady state, which. Which one burns glycogen, which one burns fat? Should you do it fasted? Should you do it now? All the things you and I’ve been talking about for decades, but you’re putting it out there because there’s so many new people, they don’t know if they should do steady state or hit.

[00:55:07] So I would make posts like that constantly. And it was never at the end. I’d never put, Hey, interested in training, hit me up with a DM. Like it was never that I just put stuff out to help people. And I still do that to this day. And people, when they think about who do I want to hire as a coach, they remember, Hey, John Gorman made these posts.

[00:55:26] Like I really liked his client results. Like he, he answered my questions. He’s really cool down to earth guy. He’s super busy, but he took the time to answer my questions and they hit me up, as a client. So that’s how I stay out in the quote unquote public eye. I do my podcast as well, and I put that content out, but I’m never asking anyone to buy anything.

[00:55:44] I’m just putting out content to help people. And there’s a difference between being passionate and putting content out like we do, Mike. And there’s a difference between putting it out, trying to hook people and rope them into buying from you. So you just have to make sure you’re authentic when you really want to help people.

[00:55:59] And it’s easy to see through the bullshit, right? Like the smoke screen. But if you do that and you help people, they’re going to come back and they’re just going to port you like whatever it is you’re doing, coaching, supplements. If you have a gym, they’re going to want to come join your gym.

[00:56:11] Whatever it is, come here. You speak the sky is the limit. But when you corral this whole conversation that we’ve had, that’s this kind of jumped all over. You can see here’s the potential to make. Seven figures and a lot of people, a lot of us grew up and that’s always like the unicorn, right?

[00:56:28] Like the pod at the end of the rainbow, we’re all like, man, how could I ever make it to seven figures? There’s your blueprint. There’s your blueprint. And guess what? If you don’t make it a seven, you’re going to make it a lot higher than you thought possible. So that’s really my blueprint.

[00:56:42] It’s my story. And that’s what I help a lot of people develop and get down the road with. Yeah, I,

[00:56:48] Dr Mike T Nelson: I totally agree. I would challenge you a little bit on the newsletter thing because I would be willing to bet that there’s a lot of people who probably want to hear more from you. And they probably will because this is my big thing, right?

[00:57:01] Cause social media can be extremely useful, but it’s also very much a rented audience and a black box that you don’t control. And it’s almost like playing the lottery. Like you get some stuff, you could have the best content in the world, but sometimes it gets shown, sometimes it doesn’t, but you have other stuff that gets shown and shared 200 times, which is great with the newsletter.

[00:57:22] You can determine. Where you send people, how often you send it. If people don’t like it, they just unsubscribe and it’s not a huge deal. So again, that’s my little plug, because obviously I’m biased towards newsletters because going back to running your own business, I sometimes think of what’s the worst case scenario.

[00:57:40] And I’m like If I had to start over and I still have my newsletter list and I lost everything else entirely, I would be okay. I literally would be just fine, and that’s one thing that I can control too. So for me, that’s my sort of backup safety blanket that makes me feel a little more warm and fuzzy.

[00:57:58] I, I

[00:57:59] John Gorman: think that newsletters are huge and I think if people can put together a good one. I think it’s a great idea. It’s a massive. I don’t want anyone to get the idea of me saying it’s not a good idea. Oh yeah. On my end, it’s just like writing a book. I’ve had advanced ketogenic dieting written for four years.

[00:58:17] It’s three quarters of the way done. I haven’t finished it. Because I don’t want to write anything else. I’ve already, for me it’s more of a challenge. It’s that, that dopamine hit that I get from a new challenge and the process, and I’ve fried those areas. I don’t feel like writing because I’ve already written one, like I’ve already written four.

[00:58:34] So I feel like at this point in time, it’s just going to be another book. I just don’t get excited to do it. And you know how it is. If you’re not a hundred percent excited, the content’s not going to be good. So for the idea for me to actually write something out, I’ve got all these other exciting things I’m doing with the supplement company and with seminars and things like that, that, that’s got my attention.

[00:58:54] I just don’t feel like writing anything else, but. If you also are good at building a team and you’ve got people around you, they can take the content that you have. Yes. And they can put it together for you. They can take your thoughts and words and they can put that together from posts and different articles, and they can slap something together for you.

[00:59:13] And that’s a good thing, right? I just, I don’t have someone to do that. Because I control things too much. I would have to then edit what they put together. Cause I want to make sure that message doesn’t get changed, but you’re a hundred percent right, man. I think newsletters are a great tool.

[00:59:27] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that’s similar to me. Like I don’t really let anyone else write the newsletter for me. Like I’ll have some help with the podcast and, we’ll put, highlights and, Susie does really good job with all that kind of stuff, but. It’s also, to me, there’s just the line of I don’t want someone else to write something that I wouldn’t say either.

[00:59:50] Like we have people who help with editing and that type of thing too, but yeah. And I think with AI and just content galore coming up, the more people can see that you’re like a real human being who actually gives a shit about them, like the better off you’re going to be. Good point, man. Good point. What are your thoughts about information products?

[01:00:13] I know we talked about books and that type of thing, but my bias view is I like them because I look for what is some of the leverage. So the nice part about informational products is your cost is generally very low. Granted, the cost to get the material and to put it in a system and all that stuff does take a lot of time and money and effort, etc.

[01:00:34] But the distribution is becoming a lot. Easier now, which is nice. On the flip side, though, I do wonder about high end, and I sell very expensive certifications, I wonder how long the market for those is gonna stay around. That is one thing I do wonder about, because it seems like there’s More of a race to the bottom with the commoditization of everything.

[01:01:01] Such as

[01:01:01] John Gorman: online courses, online certifications. So I’m glad you brought this up because that’s actually a key component that we should bring up. When COVID hit, I. I know that myself, Jason Theobald, and other people I know in my close little circle, we started doing a lot of classes, and I would do advanced ketogenic dieting, I did how to reset insulin sensitivity, I did advanced dieting strategies, all these different classes.

[01:01:26] I did those, and I 30 people show up for a class, and I charged 2. 50 a pop, and it was great money. And I would be done in two hours time and I would record those and I have them in a folder and they’ve all got access to them. And then I would sell those to people after and I still have them for sale, too.

[01:01:42] Like, when people want to go get that stuff, but the thing, like anything else. The market starts to get saturated. Now everyone’s doing classes, right? Everyone’s an expert. And what happens is now your numbers are so low, I made a lot of money in the beginning and it’s great, but again, for me, I was like, I don’t want to keep trying to do this to try and scrounge and hopefully get five, 10 people to show up for a class.

[01:02:04] So what I did is I pivoted. And that’s where I started doing my one on one extended learning, and that’s what I call it, and it’s basically consulting, but I take Joe, who has a, 10 online clients, and he’s trying to scale it up to 50, and he’s trying to get to six figures a year, he hires me, and every single week, we sit down just like this, and I cover whatever topic he needs to learn that week, and it’s just me and him one on one, so I might give him a class, we might do a Q& A, We might sit down with pen and paper, or I’m typing in a Google Doc, so he’s got all this stuff for the week, and he learns everything that he can for me that he needs to learn specifically.

[01:02:40] Instead of joining a class where you’re learning the same stuff as everyone else, I tailor it to where it’s 100 percent from my mind, from my experience. So I pivoted and I do that. I do have one or two spots open because I just had someone expire. So if anyone’s interested in that, they can do it.

[01:02:56] It’s pretty cheap. It’s gonna be somewhere around 1200 bucks for a few months, so it’s not a ton of money, but we spent an hour a week together going over all the stuff that you want to do. I prefer that. I could make more money by trying to do the classes and getting a lot of people in, but it’s just so hard these days because everyone’s doing it.

[01:03:13] Jason Theobald is probably the best example. With the best classes out there. He’s bringing in a ton of money and he’s just putting out good content and he’s building his systems over there. So if you guys want to check him out and Mike, I don’t know what you’ve done on your end. Like I said, it’s been hard for me to keep up with everybody,

[01:03:32] Dr Mike T Nelson: but

[01:03:33] John Gorman: tHat’s a tough one.

[01:03:34] That’s a tough one to crack. But if you’ve got people that are interested in learning from you, you can do that. I’d rather hold in person events myself, but there, there is ways to make money there.

[01:03:43] Dr Mike T Nelson: You’re right. Yeah, so I have the obviously the flex diet cert, which is right now It’s about 30 hours and the problem that was solving was because I would go around a lot of these gyms Especially when I was speaking a lot more I don’t speak quite as much anymore on purpose and you go to the gym and it’d Be so funny.

[01:03:59] They’re like, okay. Yeah trainings dialed in everything’s cool. I’m like, ah, what do you guys do for nutrition? They’re like I don’t know. We have a 30 day challenge on fasting and then keto. And then you’d only cucumbers month three, or it was always like the stupidest thing ever that they had. And I’m like, what are you people doing?

[01:04:18] And these were, some CrossFit gyms. These were some high end gyms that were charging two, 300 a month, so it was not. You’re running the mill, just, global gym type thing. And so my big thing was, okay, can I come up with a system where you take one person from that gym, put them in charge of, a hundred clients, they can run them through a semi customized system where they do get customized information, but it’s systematized so that one person could actually do it and not, pull out all their hair.

[01:04:46] And the interesting part over the years has been. The gyms who have done it, like the feedback’s been amazing. I’m like, oh my god, this is like the coolest thing ever. The thing that I didn’t count on was back to the gyms and people being business owners. Surprisingly, a lot of people who run gyms are not business owners.

[01:05:02] They, because I would try to explain the numbers to them. Okay, let’s say hypothetically you have 100 people. You get 50 people to do this at only 100 a month. Like, how much more money are you going to make? Oh, it’d be like five grand a month. Yeah, and you have, what do you pay? One person to do it?

[01:05:16] I’ll give you the whole system. Here’s what it is, a thousand dollars. I don’t know if I want to do that. I’m like thinking, you’re not even doing the work. And they would look at me like I was, a two headed space alien. And so I pivoted away from that. And ironically, most people who take the cert now are online trainers or people are fitness enthusiasts.

[01:05:37] And yeah, so the thing I tried to solve the problem, it worked well, the feedback was great, but I didn’t count on the fact that some people just the business doesn’t make sense to them

[01:05:49] John Gorman: a hundred percent. And that’s why I said the whole thing, when we kick this off if you see things through the DNA of being an entrepreneur, if you see things through that lens, I know I’ve said that four or five times, it’s a huge leg up.

[01:06:01] You just have that DNA. You have that advantage. And by the way, You learn to become a better businessman, a better business woman as you go. I bought my gyms in 2017. I had basic P and L’s from when I was an online coach. Like it’s easy. I spent this much money in a hotel and doing an eating and I brought this much money in and here’s my net profit.

[01:06:22] Like when you have a gym, Like you learn how to become a bean counter really quick. So you learn as you go, but when you have that entrepreneurial DNA, you’ve got that fire to learn. So yeah, do this. I know we’ve got a hard stop time, but thank you so much for having me on. It’s been a fun podcast. I know we could probably keep talking for another 30 minutes.

[01:06:41] Dr Mike T Nelson: So yeah. My last quick thing is we’ll wrap up on gym owners is whenever people ask me, they’re like, I want to be a gym owner. My first question is one, I’m not a gym owner. So I’m the person to ask. To do you like business and it’s so funny, like 90 percent of the time they’re like, not really. I’m like, okay, you realize I don’t know much about running a gym, but I know it’s a business.

[01:07:03] And do you, are you going to put someone in charge of the business? No, I’m going to do it myself. Okay, cool. Do you like numbers? Do you like running a business? No, I want to be a gym owner, but that’s a business. I’ve seen

[01:07:15] John Gorman: so many people lose their gyms because they just do not get it.

[01:07:20] They got into owning a gym from Anytime Fitness and they got taken to the woodshed and they lost it. They had to file bankruptcy or they lost their gyms or they sold them to other people that went in and flipped them and did really well because they get business. So I agree 100%.

[01:07:35] Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much.

[01:07:37] Where can, what’s the best place for people to reach you? I know you’ve got a bunch of projects. I’ll make sure to link to everything here for you. Yeah, my

[01:07:43] John Gorman: email, it’ll be in the show notes. I’ll send that to you. If you want to check the supplement company out that’s, I’m having a lot of fun with that.

[01:07:49] It’s PHAT, fat muscle project. If you want to put that in the show notes as well, but yeah, that’s the easiest way to

[01:07:55] Dr Mike T Nelson: get ahold of me. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing all that. I really appreciate it. There’s not a lot of people who come on and share all the. The things that are going down and have the experience to do it.

[01:08:05] And just the breakdown also. So thank you so much for all that is super helpful,

[01:08:10] John Gorman: super blessed and lucky to be doing what I’m doing. So if I can help one person, it’s worth it. So thanks for having me.

[01:08:15] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you so much.

[01:08:17] [01:08:18] Dr Mike T Nelson: Thank you very much for listening to the podcast today. Huge thanks to John Gorman for coming on the podcast and giving us a peek behind the curtain of how he is running his fitness business all the work that he’s done over the years.

[01:08:34] Obviously, as you can tell from the interview, I’ve known John for a long time. I’ve always had great interactions with him. He’s always been extremely helpful to me whenever I’ve had questions. So definitely check out all the information and everything that he has going on. If there’s any questions for me, please find me.

[01:08:51] And if you’re interested in doing the FlexDiet and mentorship please find me and hit me up. And if you’re interested in any doing of John’s stuff please find him and get in touch with him. So a huge thanks to him for coming on the podcast and sharing everything that he’s been doing so far.

[01:09:08] Thank you as always for listening to this podcast, any reviews or hit subscribe, all that stuff helps with the old algorithms to increase the distribution of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Greatly appreciate it. We’ll talk to all of you again very soon.

[01:09:29] That was wonderful! Bravo! How was great! Well, it was pretty good. Well, it wasn’t bad. Well, there were parts of it that weren’t very good, though. It could have been a lot better. I didn’t really like it. It was pretty terrible. It was bad! It was awful! It was terrible! Get him away!

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