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The Tracks Nobody Sees, But Every Marketer Should Hear.
This podcast celebrates the hidden gems of marketing insight found across all professions—both within and beyond traditional marketing roles. Just as B-sides on a single contain brilliant tracks that are treasured by true fans, every profession contains marketing wisdom that isn't obvious at first glance but is incredibly valuable when discovered.
Tom Hootman (02:31)
We've been talking about a podcast since March and it's really easy to like, what are we going to name it? What are we going to do? What's the format? What's the designer who's working on the branding? it's really easy to want to have all of that. Just like when I started the business.
Dean Turner (02:45)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (02:47)
There's this, I kept setting these like little checkpoints of like, well, when the website's done, when we get two clients, ⁓ I'll announce it when we get to here. And finally you realize you're just making that shit up just because you're scared.
Dean Turner (02:57)
100%.
You can pivot. Amazon was a bookstore. Like that's the number one thing you need to remind yourself. Like just to if you just focus on it's like the Warren Buffett circle of confidence. You just focus on like one thing at a time. Put it out there and then you can always just shift. You can always pivot. You can always change. You don't need to be married to anything.
Tom Hootman (03:01)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, especially at the onset because no one's watching or listening. Like we were just talking about at the gym, like no one's paying attention.
Dean Turner (03:19)
No it just-
That's the beauty of That's when you can make all the mistakes and you truly learn by doing. And that's like anything.
Tom Hootman (03:26)
Yep. I had this
weird bug in my head where because I come from marketing and everyone I know is a marketer and I have a pretty, I'm fortunate to have a really wide network. I know how marketers judge. So I was like really in my head about like, it's gotta be fucking perfect. Cause they're gonna roast me. They're gonna roast me behind my back. And then I realized, it's behind my back. doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Dean Turner (03:45)
doesn't matter. And I
feel like, like, if you have the right mindset, like, a good roasting kind of goes a long way. Right? Like it fucking does. There's a little bit of you should want to be roasted on things that you deserve to be fucking roasted on.
Tom Hootman (03:52)
It does. It does.
Dean Turner (04:00)
Like so many people just want to be coddled and want to be told like, you're doing the right thing. And it's like, I actually think one of the notes, the notes I kind of wrote down here was something that people value is like just being fucking honest with them. Like if it's a person who actually is interested in growing, is actually interested in improving, whatever it is that they're doing. Like if somebody is fucking like knows more than you about a topic and they're honest with you, like that's one of the most valuable things that you can get.
Tom Hootman (04:24)
What about you? When you started your business, you have a really nice site, right? So like, found your, I followed you on Twitter. I refuse to call it X. I follow you on Twitter and then I eventually hopped over to your site and I was like, damn, this is a pretty sharp site. Like kind of like the conversion path for me that we talk about. was like, this isn't, this is like he's got his shit together. Did you do the site first? And how did you get clients at first?
Dean Turner (04:27)
was Jeff. Jeff.
simple.
Mm-hmm
I Did the site for the first time seven years ago. So it was 2018 actually. I just gotten out of school The the plan was always to transition to online remote work like full-time, right? But obviously the only the big thing there is one
competency and then two lead generation, right? I had neither of the two figured out at first as one would expect, right? So the easiest thing you can do obviously is just like brick and mortar, personal training in person, as long as you have a certification and you're not like a complete shithead, they're probably gonna hire you, right? So I get hired like, know, couple, brick and mortar gym, you know, couple days out of college, right?
Tom Hootman (05:09)
Mm-hmm.
For a gym or like on yourself? ⁓
Dean Turner (05:27)
at simultaneous. I was doing the whole, both things simultaneous, the remote work, which is all me never had anybody but me, right? Involved But as far as, you know, getting off the ground, was pretty much like getting clients, getting results, learning the training business. was brick and mortar started training commercial at a Retro Fitness in 2018, which I don't even know if they're in your area. They're not really around anymore. COVID wiped them out.
Tom Hootman (05:48)
Never heard of him, yeah.
Dean Turner (05:50)
They were like in LA fitness, is obviously like kind of nationwide or whatever, but they got wiped out by COVID by and large. The rent was too high, the overhead was too high, and they just had to eat the cost for a while and they just got smoked. But anyway, so I start there and I start working on the site, right? And I'm just like, yeah, I need to build a fucking website, right? If I'm gonna have any kind of online presence and obviously do that in tandem with social media where you can market yourself, generate a following.
you know, the generate and whatnot. So I build this site and I don't even remember what the original like iteration looked like, but it wasn't, I think I was trying to do too much. I was using Weebly on the backend, which is what I still use. And the site was like live and I might've had some articles on it and stuff. I might've had like some, yeah, I some content. I might've had some details about like training or whatever.
Tom Hootman (06:36)
Content, you gotta have content for SEO.
Dean Turner (06:44)
And like, how you could get signed up with me and it definitely was not like it like you talked about a clear path in terms of like getting getting to the point where like you're actually going to get on a call, make a sale and stuff like that. It was definitely not fucking optimized for that because I knew fuck all about like business, human psychology, how people operate, why people buy. I was basically my my big problem early on was
I was so focused on what I wanted to do and I was, I just lacked focus on what other people wanted from me. You know what I mean? And like, that's all business is about is like, you're solving an issue. You're making someone else's life better. Like that's the broad overarching theme. Like how can you make someone else's life better that you either through a product or through a service. And that's why they're going to fucking pay you. So the site goes live, whatever. And like very little traction. And I was pushing social media and not Twitter at all. Right.
I was pushing like Instagram because that was the big thing at the time which obviously it's still huge But a super super like red water it could be referred to as there's a lot of sharks swimming there, right? Yep. Yep, exactly So you want to obviously exist in like a blue water where there's not as many sharks and there's a lot of fucking fish to catch right? So I push Instagram, you know gain very little traction kind of over the years pick up an online client here pick up an online client there mostly ⁓ through
Tom Hootman (07:42)
Mm-hmm, red water, blue ocean,
Dean Turner (08:00)
you know, word of mouth more than anything. I had like some old, in-person clients who moved away, who eventually became online clients and stuff. Those were kind of like my test dummies almost, right? Like my original online clients, like, like obviously I charged them much less. but thank God for them because they were the ones we talked about the podcast, right? They were the ones I made kind of all the mistakes on, right? They were the ones who helped me refine.
Tom Hootman (08:12)
Yeah.
You have to.
Dean Turner (08:25)
My process and understand how to actually go about this in a way that's conducive to success for the client, right? So fast forward, you know to 2022 right? So now i've been in the business for like four years mostly in person online a little bit of traction, you know more than it was Learned a lot right but still not any legit lead gen source, right? And I think the site I'd taken down at this point, right? I think it was like I don't even think it was active I think I was just like fuck this like it's not even
doing anything, why even pay them monthly, whatever it was, right? And in 2022, I was like, okay, like I need to make something simple. And I was listening to a lot of podcasts at the time, consuming a lot of content on like how you can generate a following online, all that stuff. And you have all these gurus out there that say more or less the same thing, but actually putting it to plan, putting it into practice is different. So I was like, I just need to come up with like a simple offering and I need to focus on.
Tom Hootman (08:57)
Mm-hmm.
Dean Turner (09:21)
what the individual wants from me, not what I want to lecture to them. Right. So I go on, I started the Twitter in like 2021 and it wasn't really doing much, but it started to pick up a little bit of steam. And in summer, 2022, I got this idea. I was like, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to offer free group programming, right? Cause it's, it's obviously a really good thing to have like, you know, a monthly recurring revenue or whatever. And the goal was to offer the
Well, the saying is never charge for something you once gave out for free. But the thing is you can if you vastly upgrade like the experience or whatever. Right. So my goal was start this group with programming on my site. That's kind of the content that's going to be on the site. And then eventually take it off platform.
where it can be, you know, more, it can have like exercise selection, you know, as far as videos go, we're going to have all the instructions listed. It was going to be bare bones. And then I was going to upgrade it once I got a following on that, which I was going to generate through social media. And basically that's what I kind of effectively did. I started to get some questions on Twitter from people, started to use the QT feature, the quote tweet feature to answer it. Right. And
Somebody like gave me a shout out at one point. was at 200 followers on September 8th of 2022. Right. And I had a few online clients at the time I was training primarily in person at a time. I had a lot of in-person clients at the time. I was working like 30, 35, maybe even close to 40 hours a week of in-person clients at the time, which is a lot for an in-person. You're on, 100 % it's way different. And I'm not saying the desk job's easy. You know, that has struggles
Tom Hootman (10:49)
It's a lot, because you're on, right? It's like, say it, like you have to be on, you're next to them.
No, yeah, I mean, it's,
yeah, I've had a boss who was like, hey, like how, he wanted us to have like seven, eight calls a day. And it's like, no, a call is like the lights come up and you're on. It's taxing.
Dean Turner (11:02)
Mm.
Wade 40 hour not all 40 hours are created equal, right? So anyway, I start to answer questions It starts to like snowball and I was like, you know, I really might have something here I spent almost the entire summer Building the website and I built the website myself. I don't even know if I watched a fucking tutorial video. I literally was on Yeah, I was literally on Weebly dragging and dropping and the thing is I could have built the website in a matter of
Tom Hootman (11:09)
Mm-hmm.
It's probably why took you a summer.
Dean Turner (11:32)
Days, right? Not even days, right? Probably hours. But you talked about the path that you took to become a client of mine. I kept changing it. Every little, I know don't let perfection be the enemy of completion, but I was basically like, was for the first time in my life, I think I was thinking of it from the consumer's vantage point, right? And I was literally like, how can I, the question that I kept going back to was,
how can I make it so that it's as easy as possible for this person to commit to me, right? To pay me money. That's ultimately the goal, right? Not that I'm just trying to siphon money from people, but my bet was if I can get you to give me money, you're locked in, you become a client, and then I can focus on getting you the results you want, which at that point, I was pretty confident. I kind of knew what I was doing on the people I got results from, right? So, site.
goes live again and I've tinkered with it a few times, but basically I tried to make it super bare bones. It's literally a black and white site. Like I think the only colors are black, white, gray, except for on the training plans page. I differentiate blue and pink because it's men's and women's, right? Make it very easy. But most of the site is literally black and white. It's a very clear funnel. Like you go on and it's like, Hey, click here for coaching, click here for workout programs, right?
Tom Hootman (12:24)
Yep, I saw.
Dean Turner (12:41)
Simple fucking ass. It's like it's just making it a very narrow decision tree for you because if I give you a million choices like Baskin Robbins You're just gonna look at it and be like I don't even know what fucking ice cream I want walk the fuck out Whereas if I give you a chocolate or vanilla pick which one you like buy it enjoy the ice cream and be on your way and come right back so that's the site goes live with the the the free programming at the time which was for group and then just the only two offers were that and then the coaching which was the paid option, right
It just started fucking scaling in tandem with Twitter, right? Because I'm getting more and more questions I'm building more and more of a presence kind of establishing authority presence so to speak, know I would answer questions I would corroborate it with like, know Whether it was research or whether it was some kind of anecdote or multiple anecdotes or whatever data from clients or whatever and it literally just kind of fucking snowballed from there and now I just go on there and
do more or less the same thing with it with a hint of like, you know, shitting on people for this. I just kind of pick a topic of the day, run with it, see if it's got traction. If not, pivot to something else.
Tom Hootman (13:45)
Well,
you do a good way of that's a good way you you did it with me. I mean, spoiler alert, I'm a client of yours. I probably said in the intro, but you you should on you shit on bad advice and advice you don't agree with. And because there's so much of it. I think that's the angle you found was like there's the Red Ocean is full of dipshit sharks who are just pulling people in left and right. And I think it's a good way of qualifying your clients as well, because
Dean Turner (13:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tom Hootman (14:10)
When I was, I was like, Amy, I'm going reach out to this guy because I agree with all of this, right? So it's, mean, you're up to 40,000 followers now on Twitter and 39 six. And, it's continuing to grow. I mean, at this point, do you consider yourself an influencer?
Dean Turner (14:15)
It's a little bit intuitive, right?
Right around. Yeah. Now haven't hit it yet. 39 six. You're jumping for a guy. Don't count your chickens.
So, sadly, yes. The whole thing is this, So, it's such a cringey term, right? And I went back and forth on this and I was like, am I an influencer? Am I not an influencer or whatever? I think when the Ninja CREAMi posts really started to pop off was when I was really like, wow, I have a lot of influence over people because...
I was getting mess and I'm not sponsored by Shark Ninja nothing like that right I literally just bought the freaking CREAMi and which has a funny backstory that I'll have to tell you and yeah the CREAMis are legendary so I buy the CREAMi I start using it and I just start talking it up I was like this is a great freaking product like I gotta let people know about this and I was not the first person person to buy it or let people know about it or whatever
Tom Hootman (15:02)
It's an ice cream maker, the way, for those of you uninitiated.
Dean Turner (15:17)
But when I did the one post went like super viral. I think it did like 970 K views, like almost a million or whatever. And it got a hundred. It might've been in the thousands of replies. I don't even remember. was like last, was almost a year ago. And I was getting messages like replies and DMs, direct messages from people left and right. And they're like, dude, I bought the CREAMi because of you, dude, I bought the CREAMi because of you, dude, I bought the CREAMi because of you. And I was like, damn, like I'm literally just putting my stamp on this and people were just doing it. So in the most literal sense of the word,
Yeah, I suppose I am an influencer. Everybody influences other individuals around them to a degree, right? I suppose it's just a spectrum and once you cross kind of a certain threshold, you could be considered that. So unfortunately, because of how cringy the term is, I suppose I am.
Tom Hootman (16:02)
Well, have you been
have you been approached by brands to like want you to?
Dean Turner (16:06)
People have, you know, I get hit up like all the time, like you should, if I, if I open my DMS and just scrolled, like I think I could scroll for maybe, maybe 24 straight hours, just people, just everybody wants, everybody sees you as like a dollar sign for them. Right. And they're just like, how can I take this guy and make money off him? And there are plenty of like mutually beneficial, you know, exchanges in business that are good for the people that are doing the selling and good for the people that are doing the purchasing. But a lot of people just want to fucking siphon. So yeah, I get hit up by.
by like, you know, people with brands and protein companies and creatine and stuff like that. People have sent me stuff to trial and then they're like, and I've done it. And then they're like, can you put your stamp on this? And I've been very, very hesitant to align myself with any sort of like company or whatever, because once you do it, man, like you're kind of tied to them in some way. I'm, and, and one of the big things with, with my line of work is like your brand, your reputation is always on the line. So you gotta be really careful with how you proceed.
Tom Hootman (16:50)
Yeah.
Constantly,
Dean Turner (17:04)
Mm-hmm
Tom Hootman (17:04)
totally. mean, if anything, I've noticed, because I even asked you at one point through text, like if you were working with any brands, because if anything, you predominantly say all the time, I do not work with Ninja and I do not work with VersaGrips and I don't, like this is just a good product because you have to protect your brand at that point and be really upfront because it's a cynical society that automatically assumes like, this asshole gets money from them to say that.
Dean Turner (17:19)
Mm-hmm.
Thanks.
100 % like it calls into question your credibility and there's there's zero doubt that I've probably left dollars on the table in not aligning myself with a brand or multiple brands whether it's protein or Ninja or Versa or whoever the hell it is but honestly man I'm just focused on the bigger picture anyway my goal my goal is literally just to help help people achieve their best body and make money along the way like it's very very simple very narrow for focus so I just kind of orient ⁓
Tom Hootman (17:58)
No, your bio
on Twitter is pretty much that. Like, it's the first half of that, just help people get their best body.
Dean Turner (18:01)
in.
Get your best body, make money. That's it.
Tom Hootman (18:06)
It works, right? And it's interesting because you do something very different from my personal experience when I mention you and people, like it breaks their brains a minute. They're like, how do you, wait, you have a trainer but you don't like work out with them? How does that work? I don't know how many times, I did it today at lunch. I was with a couple of team members and I was like, yeah, so there's two spreadsheets and one is my data and the other is the sessions. Wednesday morning, Sunday morning.
Dean Turner (18:07)
Simple.
Tom Hootman (18:31)
And they're like, like, did you, did you get that idea to do like this? Cause you've kind of mastered the art of the virtual trainer.
Dean Turner (18:38)
It just kind of happened, I guess. don't, I, started it. So I've always thought of, you know, um, succeeding with exercises being kind of a twofold type project, right? It's always training. It's always diet. And you get the people who are like, well, it's 80 % diet and 20 % training or, you know, throw it. They sort of throw some random number at it. Look, both are fucking important. Right. So I was like, I need to have a way to quantify and I'm kind of a numbers guy, right? I need to have a way to quantify. Not that the qualitatives don't matter cause they do, but I usually pick that up in communication. Right. Um,
I need to find a way to quantify how they're doing from a training standpoint and how they're doing from a nutrition, a diet standpoint. And I think it just kind of spawned over time. Initially, My early online clients, I was doing something similar, but dude, I was doing it through like email. It was like a freaking joke. I'm like sending, like you're like downloading Excel spreadsheets and Word docs and like sending them back and forth. Total freaking mess. And then somewhere along the way, I just kind of found out about Sheets.
Tom Hootman (19:23)
God.
Dean Turner (19:32)
Like you can like, like you, you sent me the text message yesterday. Like here he comes. I'm on the Sheet. He's coming. There you go. So I just found out about Sheets and I was like, you know, this kind of works. And, ⁓ I think I did some, some Sheets like pretty early on that were absolutely atrocious. And one of the things that I did do when I was building in tandem with building the website back, you know, number of summers back, I built a lot of these Sheets.
Tom Hootman (19:36)
I can see I went in to update my info and you were already in there because I knew it was 820. It's keys coming
Dean Turner (20:01)
which I now use as like base templates. Like I never give, I've never given the same Sheet out to a client twice. ⁓ I'll use it kind of as a base template and I'm like, okay, what are the specifics that I need to tweak for this individual client here? And it's kind of one of those things where like, it's almost like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure type deal. I took so much time, like even so one of my client Sheets that I use on the backend that nobody ever sees.
Tom Hootman (20:06)
Yeah. It's like a, it's a pitch for us. Yeah.
Dean Turner (20:28)
is a client Sheet which has everyone's name and has notes about them, stuff like that. Like these things took me days and days and days to do, but now they've, so they might've taken me an initial 20 hours or 30 hours, but the level of efficiency that I can now operate with because I have them at my disposal, it's like borderline unrivaled. So it's one of those things where like, I kind of didn't have this genius plan. I kind of just.
like fell into it and figured out as I went, just by making mistakes and then thinking, hey, how could I do this better? How can I improve?
Tom Hootman (20:58)
of your clients, you work with lot of executives, busy executives, family, like is there like a demo that's like your like ideal client profile?
Dean Turner (21:07)
No, no, I'd say, I'd say if I had to give like a term, I like people that are self starters. That's the big thing, right? You, so you talked about a minute ago there, the people who they can't fathom you. Well, what do you mean? you don't see the trainer, right? For a lot of people, this setup flat out won't work because they need to have an appointment to show up to. Yep. And they're not going to, and they're not going to do it otherwise. So I'd say the self starter.
Tom Hootman (21:25)
Fucking no way.
Crazy.
Dean Turner (21:31)
Yep, it's crazy. The self-starter is kind of my ideal client. If you're that, I don't care if you're an exec, I don't care if you're homeless, I don't care if you got kids, no kids, wife, whatever, doesn't matter to me. Most of the people I deal with are pretty responsible professionals. They go about their business.
Tom Hootman (21:38)
Yeah.
Dean Turner (21:47)
They're not going to have much of an issue getting in the sessions themselves. They don't need to have somebody to show up to. They need to have somebody to report back to. And they need to have a clear and concise plan to follow. And they need to know whether or not they're seeing actual progress. So they like to assess.
Tom Hootman (22:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, the Sheets. mean, you can you need someone who kind of gets as equally addicted to the Sheets as you do, which we I think everyone probably does who works with you because you're like pouring over them. Probably too much so because there's times where you're back you back me off. You're like, dude, don't sweat that.
Dean Turner (22:08)
100%.
the people who do.
100%. Yeah, I'm so focused on the long-term trend of the Sheets. And then I kind of have like two client archetypes, the people who literally don't give a fuck about the Sheets and completely disregard them and never see any progress, right? And then the people who are hyper obsessed with the Sheets and I need to tell them, hey, pull the reins back. Let's focus on the long-term here. Don't worry about that single day's weigh in or whatever, or that single workout that wasn't the greatest in the world that can easily be explained away because you had a long stressful day at work.
Tom Hootman (22:44)
Yeah. So along those lines, because I'm sure you've had bad client experiences when you trained in person, which is probably totally different than like the worst training session or client experience you've had working in your current model. What's the one that like still sticks with you because it went so sideways in like a memorable way?
Dean Turner (23:01)
Okay, so I had this, this is a remote client, right? And this is actually somewhat recent.
Tom Hootman (23:04)
Good,
I'm glad you use a remote client and not someone who was like in person, because that's a cop out.
Dean Turner (23:10)
Yes. So the remote one, this this was a wild one. So I had this client. not I'm not going to say his name, right? Let's just call him Joe. Right. Generic name. That's not his actual name. And Joe was legitimately crushing it. Right. Like when I say crushing it, like probably one of the most successful clients, at least in terms of his trajectory that I had. So he signed up. He paid me for six months. Right. Yeah. If I remember correctly, he paid outright. I don't think he was paying month a month. And so he pays me for six months.
Week one does all his workouts, logs everything, going great, right? Week two, same thing, week three, all the way through like week 18, right? He's sending me progress pictures, right? He's filling out these Sheets. Like it was, he didn't miss a single like rep locked, right? And his weight had, he was somebody who was running a calorie deficit. He was cutting, right? He was losing, focusing on losing body weight, body fat. And I can't remember what his weight started at. I think he was like 175.
Tom Hootman (23:58)
Mm-hmm.
Dean Turner (24:04)
And he was down across those 18 weeks to like high one fifties, maybe mid one fifties So he was losing like a pound a week. Like this dude was killing it. Not only that, his training performance was staggeringly good. So like when I would compare like his week one to his week four, and then his week four to his week eight and his week eight to his week 12, he was, his strength had probably improved, you know, on average 50%, which is
Tom Hootman (24:08)
Mm-hmm.
on a cut.
Dean Turner (24:29)
Which is wild. And he wasn't like detrained prior, not like a guy who like hadn't trained at all. Like he was coming to me with a decent resistance training background, whatever. So he's crushing it. All's going well. And then all of a sudden, ⁓ the holidays roll around, right? And he like, he like his, he kind of falls off in his Sheets, but he told me, you know, he was, he was out of town or whatever. And I was like, no problem. I figured it was kind of a one-off type deal. Cause he had been so dialed in before then.
Tom Hootman (24:44)
no.
Yeah, and every
client probably does that. Like they have holidays, have to travel, have some, something comes up.
Dean Turner (25:00)
You expect the ones that are dialed in though to at least be like they're regularly like the regular degree of communicative that they are right he was getting more and more like he was just starting to get spotty like he missed a check-in and then he like hit one then he like missed two and I was like, all right. This is getting a little weird all of a sudden bro just goes ghost like full ghost and to this day. I have never heard from him again Go on go on. I I
Tom Hootman (25:09)
Yeah.
He's just gone.
Dean Turner (25:26)
Let me tell you, this is how wild I can't, I was looking up his obituary. I was like, I was like, did this dude die? Like legitimately, I'm not even trying to be funny or joke. I never ever, I was stunned and I could see if he was like at the end of the six months and he's like, Hey, he didn't want to re-op or whatever. He didn't want to pay the money again. Which is fine. Which is totally fine. Like I'm not going to like no hard feelings.
Tom Hootman (25:31)
So that's right.
No.
I got this.
Dean Turner (25:49)
We weren't even at that point. were like eight. We were like, think we got to the 20 week mark. So even if he didn't want to re up at that point, he didn't want to have that conversation like face it or whatever. But he wasn't even at that point. So I'm just like, why did this dude just go? It was just bizarre. I can't, I still can't believe it given how well he was doing.
Tom Hootman (26:06)
He's just gone. Well, that's the thing. Usually you have a probably a lot of people who in a moment of clarity sign up and they're ready to go. They might get a week or two in and they're like, fuck, this is hard. I'm done. I can't do this. I don't think I can do this. And then they either own it and they're like, yeah, I'm good. Not for me. Or they just ghost. But to do it for...
Dean Turner (26:13)
Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yup. Yup.
He was crushing it.
Tom Hootman (26:30)
I thought you were going to tell me fuck. I thought you were going to tell me that he was lying. But then you said he was sending progress pics regularly. I thought you were going to tell me like he like said he was going to send progress pics and he was he was like systematically like pyramid scheming his his metrics. And then he actually sent pictures and he was like fatter or something like.
Dean Turner (26:36)
Yeah.
Thank
I've never had that happen, I have. Whenever you get the, you do get a lot of liars. Whenever you get the liars, you never get the pictures. Never.
Tom Hootman (26:57)
I it's really really fascinating because Every time I can't hit a workout or I miss ⁓ I in the back of head I'm like, I just fill it in like he's not watching and then you're like, what's the point? Like I think what happens is people think Shit Dean's gonna be mad and you're not the kind of person who's ever like hey fuckhead You're just like hey man, it's your dime like we'll get it next week. Very positive. That's what I like about you
Dean Turner (27:19)
with you. depends. That is something that I've had to find a balance of, right? You have to, this is a lot, this is physiology, but it's psychology, right? Big psychological component. Some people do respond well to harsher, sharper criticism. And some people respond better to encouragement. I usually err on the side of encouragement. And once I get to know the client better and better, I know how to communicate with them better and better and get them to do what it is that they need to do.
Tom Hootman (27:48)
Interesting. So I was going to ask you this about leaders and consultants,
Can you tell a client who's gonna do really well pretty much out of the gates?
Dean Turner (27:57)
No, there have been people who have shocked me in either direction Like I can think of one of my most like because you know You get on the call with this person and I'll talk with them for you know 45 minutes hour hour 15 and you know You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but everybody's judging a book by its cover, right? kind of how it goes Mm-hmm
Tom Hootman (28:13)
Yeah, it's a dual interview.
Dean Turner (28:17)
And I really don't do a whole lot of in my head like you know this person is gonna be a flop or this person isn't but there have been some people where I just get off the call and I just think to myself like you know this person's they sound like they're gonna do really well right and then they don't and then the other people you know who they're like they seem kind of downtrodden they're like non-committal and you're like man I can't even imagine this person's gonna sign up all of a sudden they pay you in full and you're like are they gonna do that well?
And then they just freaking blow it out of the park. Like some of my most successful clients, like I would have never thought this guy, I would have thought, hey, maybe he's going to do reasonably well. Absolute freaking killers. And you do find it out somewhat early on though. Like you can, the success rate of people who fill in their Sheets, like fully and completely early on, you're like, yeah, I got it. I got a good one here. Like you're six weeks in and you're like, hasn't missed the lift. They filled everything out. They've sent me progress pics again.
Tom Hootman (28:48)
Yeah.
Dean Turner (29:14)
They're already moving in the right direction. I'm like, dude, this person is going to be a freaking killer. but it's very, very hard to tell right off the rip. I'd say this when somebody comes to me and they tell me that they have some sort of definitive hyper specific goal with a like rigid timeline attached to it, they almost always flop. And when they tell me that they're like reorienting their entire life to, to focus on this, they own in tandem with what I just said.
because those are usually the same types, they almost always flop. It's usually the people who are a little bit more apprehensive and do understand that they need more of a lifestyle change that tend to succeed.
Tom Hootman (29:51)
Yeah.
the little New Year's resolution people. People who are like, tomorrow I'm going to do this. And it's like, it's not that big of a deal. Like, there's a little bit of time.
Dean Turner (29:55)
Yes.
Just start today.
Yeah, just win one day at a time. Yep, 100%. The people that are so focused on this hyper-specific goal and not focused on, just win every hour and win every day, win every week as it comes. Those types of people who are focused on win every hour, win every day, win every week, they do really, really well. And the people are like, I need to lose 30 pounds in 76 days. And if I don't do it, I'm a complete flop. Seven days in, you don't even hear from them anymore. It's crazy.
Tom Hootman (30:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Along those lines, finding you was kind of like luck of the draw, like Plinko. I think before I reached out to you, I was really looking at trainers on Instagram, like you said, which is hilarious. And there are so many, the number one so many. And then I see you interact with other trainers on Twitter. And it's interesting because you could tell you've got your list of people. You're like, this person's legit.
With with no shortage of coaches and consultants out there How can clients tell the difference between the noise and someone who's the real deal?
Dean Turner (30:57)
I feel like the number one way, and this probably isn't super fair to new entrants, but it's kind of just the way the cookie crumbles, is just the results that they've gotten for themselves and other people, right? I mean, if you're gonna be a trainer online, you better have at least gotten yourself results, right? You better yourself at least look good, right? Like this is the number one field where your body is your business card, right? And then the results that you can show you've gotten other people, like so funny enough, I actually just added a results tab on my website. the only reason I didn't do it before is because I'm...
Tom Hootman (31:12)
Yeah.
Dean Turner (31:27)
I was totally lazy about it and that's why I posted so many, which you're on by the way, but somebody that shows that they've gotten results for themselves, shows that they've gotten results for others, is pretty well spoken. They say things that are like,
intuitive, they don't seem to be overly scammy, you know what mean? Like do this one weird trick in order to get X result. It's like a lot of the reason that I think you were attracted to me as a trainer and a lot of people are is because like I touched on earlier, a lot of the things I say kind of just make sense. They're kind of intuitive when you really sit back and think about it. And I throw a lot of hard truths out there, a lot of sobering truths where I'm like,
You know, people will put up like the picture of the glass getting filled with water and it says like, burn more calories than you consume, right? Get a tall glass of that and you lose weight. Nobody wants to accept that. So when people, but most people tend to know it's kind of reality. So when people just see me throwing out like the truth again and again and again and again, and my messaging is very consistent and it's very consistent. And you know what else?
Tom Hootman (32:25)
It's consistent, yeah.
Dean Turner (32:28)
I don't, I don't know if you've kind of noticed this. I don't really advertise my coaching services or any of my paid services or products or whatever you want to call it at all. Because so many people on there do, and I kind of do hate the term grifter. It's almost like grifter was a good term and now it's become like, now they just call everybody a grifter, right? Like just because you do advertise something doesn't make you a grifter, right? Every, if you, you could post like the best deal in the world nowadays and people will be like, ⁓ grifter, right? Everybody's just, right.
Tom Hootman (32:34)
Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Mm.
Yeah, I mean that's, yeah.
Dean Turner (32:57)
I don't do it because I do think it's kind of a slippery slope, but I think the person who is like, who does too much advertising, there's somebody who you might kind of want to steer away from.
Tom Hootman (33:07)
Well,
I mean, you posted something just the other day where you retweeted, there's a ton of these everywhere, especially on Instagram, where it's a graphic of these 10 exercises to reduce belly fat. They're all the same, right? Like the little illustrations. And you just retweeted it with calories in, calories out. Do this one simple trick. And it's like, it's kind of how it works.
Dean Turner (33:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Awesome.
Yep, yep.
Yep, 100%. I just, think that's a great part of the vetting process because it is very, very difficult, you know, to figure out who is legit and who's not. And I think part of the vetting process, honestly, is just time. You, and you need to follow someone and you need to follow them for an extended period of time. A lot, a lot of my clients, right? Present clients or more even past clients.
They followed me for a long period of time before they actually got on a phone, before they filled out a questionnaire and got on a phone call with me. I cannot tell you how many people, probably the vast majority have said to me, and I don't really ask it on the phone. They'll just volunteer the information. They're like, yeah, I've been following you for, and they'll be like 18 months, 15 months, know, two years or whatever the case may be. They usually aren't as specific as 15 months, you know, but you get the point. They tell me they've been following me for a while. I'm always a little bit surprised by the person.
who's like, yeah, I started following you last week and you seemed cool. And then they get off the phone and they're like, here's all the money. And I'm like, damn, like, you know, I'm confident in my abilities. I know you see the results and stuff, but like, I feel like you should have let me establish a little bit more rapport.
Tom Hootman (34:35)
Yeah, well, in those instances, what they've probably done, my guess is they started following me last week and they started following you and then they've probably scrolled through years and years of your content.
Dean Turner (34:45)
They could have, yeah, they definitely could have, which is another way to vet for sure. But I feel like it's different when I'm in your face every day. So my big thing is, like this phone right here, right? The most valuable piece of real estate was formerly like, you know, the corner in, some corner in Manhattan, right? Now the most valuable piece of real estate is literally just being on someone's phone screen, right? Cause there are fricking credit cards right next to them. They're sitting on their couch. They are ready to fire off that money to you.
So as many times as I can get into the Twitter algorithm has to help me out with that, right? And I have to help myself out by putting out content that's like useful or engaging or whatever. As many times as I can just get in front of you, right? And show you, hey, I am the person who I say I am is just, that's kind of my bread and butter there. And that's kind of been my ethos. Like how many times can I show you, how many times can I demonstrate value to you on that very, very valuable piece of real estate you're finding?
Tom Hootman (35:20)
Yeah.
I mean, I struggle with this with LinkedIn posts, right? How do you come up with so much? And it has to be a grind. You're all day, every day.
Dean Turner (35:45)
It's
all day every day. It's a grind. So I kind of have a couple different ways that I go about it. I think the way that you kind of curate your social media feed matters because you're going to be able to generate ideas off of what other people are talking about. Right. I'm a huge advanced search my own content guy.
So what I will do is, and I've only been able to start doing this recently, right? What I'll do is I don't know if you've ever used the advanced search feature on Twitter, but I only ever use it on my laptop. So I'll literally sit down in my office, right? Which is at my house. And I will go on the advanced search and I'll type in, you know, D and T training, which is my app. And then you can set the timeframe and I'll set the timeframe for like a three month stretch. like, you know, January 1st of 2024 to April 1st of 2024.
And then it'll start with the most recent ones, the April 1st ones. And it will just pretty much list off your tweets. It'll literally just come up with your feed for that timeframe. And I'll go through it and I'll literally just springboard ideas off of things that I haven't maybe thought about in the last 15 months or whatever, because I've been talking about something different. And I'll do it with some other people's feeds too. I mostly do it with my own and I'll never steal content. Like I've literally never, I'll steal my own content. I steal my own content all the time.
Tom Hootman (37:02)
Yeah.
Dean Turner (37:03)
I love when I say something and I'm like, damn, I'm like, I said that I'm like that. That's how I'm like, that's me. It's almost like a different version of you, right? I'll steal your own content. I never ever steal anyone else's content. I've never done it. but I'll take, I'll take something they posted about and I'll be like, that's an interesting topic. And then I'll just think something up and just fired out there. So that's the way I do it. I'm a big, I'll listen to a podcast just on, you know,
Tom Hootman (37:07)
That's pretty good. That was pretty good. I should use that again.
Yeah.
Dean Turner (37:28)
something fitness oriented and then inevitably some other coach will mention something right or some competitor some bodybuilding competitor or whatever will mention something if they're like a guest and I'll be like, that's a topic of interest and I'll come up with a tweet about it or whatever and then and then a lot of the time what helps me is when people reply and ask me questions, right? Because again, I've kind of established myself as quote unquote like an authority presence people will reply
They'll ask me questions and then I'll be able to use their questions as quote tweets and then I'll get replies on that. It's kind of like a snowball. So when you get enough buzz, when you get enough engagement and when you've posted enough tweets, it kind of has become easier in a way early on. I think it was just like white knuckle this shit, just like come up with something that seems interesting, throw it out there. And the other thing is you can never be afraid to flop, never be afraid to flop. Like I have some tweets where I'm like,
Tom Hootman (38:20)
Yeah.
Dean Turner (38:22)
this seems pretty good and it was a total freaking dud and other ones I put up and I'm like, yeah, this doesn't even seem that good. But for whatever reason, it caught traction. Maybe it was the time of day. Maybe it was because it was actually interesting. And it's a volume. Have you ever heard of the clay pots experiment? There was a teacher who basically had 30 students or whatever, and he split his class in two and he said, you 15 are going to make as many clay pots as you can possibly make at the end of the semester.
Tom Hootman (38:37)
No, what is this?
Dean Turner (38:49)
and or throughout the semester, right? And you will be judged on how many clay pots you make. OK. And then the other group was you're going to make one clay pot and you will be judged on the quality of that one clay pot. And not only did the group that, you know, made the most clay pots make more clay pots, obviously, because that was their objective, they made the best clay pots by a mile because they made so many. They refined their process. So it was kind of a volume game. Actually, I took that
Tom Hootman (39:13)
made so many.
Mm-hmm.
Dean Turner (39:18)
story from Hormozi
who produces like a ton of content, Alex Hormozi. But that story stuck with me and I was like, sometimes man, it's literally just like a thousand bullets. Just shoot the bullet, shoot the bullet, shoot the bullets. And inevitably something's gonna stick and then you're gonna learn from that and you're gonna be able to do it again, do it again, do it again. I think so many people are focused on, I gotta put something up that is super, super hard hitting and it's like, well, you're only gonna take one opportunity a day. How about you? I literally put alarms on my phone.
Tom Hootman (39:35)
The
Dean Turner (39:45)
every hour, usually starting at 9.35 to 9.40 until 9.35 to 9.40 at night. So pretty much 12, 13 times a day to rip a tweet. And I will rip a tweet pretty much almost every time the alarm goes off. If you check my feed, it's usually eight to 10 plus a day. And that's not including any replies. So it's a volume game.
Tom Hootman (40:04)
That's fascinating. So, you know, you've talked to other trainers online. There's a lot of other trainers in the space. What do you think like the one or two things that great trainers or leaders have in common?
Dean Turner (40:14)
I think they lead by example. I think that that's kind of the number one thing. You got to prove that you yourself walk the walk. Otherwise you really can't expect, you know, anybody else to do it. If you think about, so I kind of think about, ⁓ Tom Brady, right? A lot of people or like Kobe Bryant, they, you know, two of the greatest competitors ever. They would be at the gym before the guys who were trying to, you know, make the team, right. And they leave after the guys.
that were trying to make the team. And it's like, how's that make sense? This guy that's making all this money, right? He could retire right now, go live on a boat, You know, do nothing for the rest of his life. How is he outworking the guy who should be the hungriest guy? Cause he's trying to make the freaking team. He is proving to you, he is showing you that he is never going to ask you to do anything that he himself is not willing to do. I really think that that is kind of the number one thing is, you know,
being able to show, demonstrate to your clients that you are the person you say you are and you are willing to do all the things that you ask of them. think another thing is being a good listener, being consistent with your clients. How many times have I missed a check-in with you? know what I mean? It doesn't happen. I even tell people on initial calls, like, yeah, if you don't hear from me on Wednesday or Sunday, unless I tell you I'm on a vacation or something, this one-off. Yeah, I still do that.
Tom Hootman (41:22)
Never. Yeah.
and you still check in on a vacation, that's all right.
Dean Turner (41:34)
I'll literally be like, I'll tell people on initial calls, I'll be like, if you don't hear from me on a Wednesday or Sunday, like maybe call the local police around me. I may need a wellness check, I may be dead because it just doesn't happen. You've got to be consistent.
Tom Hootman (41:41)
It's a wellness check.
You check in on everybody every Wednesday and Sunday.
Dean Turner (41:50)
damn straight.
I've even had people who, speaking of bad client experiences, people who paid me for six months, right? And two months in, they stopped answering me and I've texted them every single solitary Wednesday and Sunday, even without a response. Like I could scroll through messages where they were, they were texting like 30.
Tom Hootman (42:06)
You're just,
basically you paid, you're gonna get me.
Dean Turner (42:10)
You're gonna get me. mean, the thing is, like you, nobody is gonna come back to me at the end of the six months and say, you did not deliver on what you promised you would deliver on.
Tom Hootman (42:13)
That's crazy.
Do you, I'm sure you've had people who've come back and said like, hey, I want my money back. And you're like, well, you ghosted me two months in. Never.
Dean Turner (42:24)
Never.
I have never been asked for a refund from a client, from a one-on-one client that I can remember ever. I was asked for a refund on a ready-made plan this one time
I had this one woman ask me for one back and she was very, very nice actually.
And I explained and she basically didn't really ask for it back. She kind of asked me for like an explanation on why it was marketed the way it was. And I recorded a screen record video for her that was like kind of lengthy. And I was like, hey, here I looked, I took her email like piece by piece and I was like, hey, here is why it was listed as that. Here's my logic. And she responded and was like blown away. And she's like, wow, I did not expect you to come back with like this much detail. She's like,
She's like, I understand why it's laid out the way it was. I'm happy with my purchase. I will let you know like how things go down the road. And she was very, very nice about it. That's the only time ever. And it was like a quasi refund request.
Tom Hootman (43:13)
Yeah, because you're a bit of a type A. I didn't know if you knew that. you type A's, you're long with type A's because you cover your bases.
Dean Turner (43:20)
I think I morphed
into that. used to be like a type Z, do nothing. Yeah.
Tom Hootman (43:24)
do well. You're getting older is what that means,
my friend. I'll leave with this. So you're obviously still taking clients. And you have a ton of clients. Have you ever considered like, how to scale without just being you? Or you? Is the beauty of what you do the fact that it's just you?
Dean Turner (43:30)
Mm-hmm.
Every business grows to the constraint of every business is the founder, right? Literally, I'm the one I'm the impediment, right? I'm the one blocking me from scaling. But here's the thing, right? So I have ever thought about it. It's like that. Not the number one thing I think about. It's the number one, like ongoing future thing I think about, right? Because I like helping people, right? But I if I could, I suppose I'd like to help in an even bigger way. But I'm really, really
good at what I do, Or at least I kind of think so, I can be better. I have more to learn. Absolutely. think I will continue to be better and improve going forward. I'm plenty good to be proficient, competent, whatever. So I'm kind of like in between a rock and a hard place where I'm like, I feel like I'm very competent at what I do. And I feel like just stick. It's a conundrum. It's like, do you stick with the thing that you are very, very good at?
Tom Hootman (44:16)
That's the answer I'd expect from you, I don't...
Dean Turner (44:33)
Or do you put the thing that you're very, very good at on the back burner a little bit, not that I won't give my clients any less attention, but maybe stop taking as many on to focus on some other side project that will help you scale, so to speak. So I've thought of it. And right now I think my current goal is pretty much to scale my one-on-one capacity to the point where like, I feel like I'm legitimately capped. And people have asked me, people are like, how many clients do you have? And speaking of that backend spreadsheet.
I could tell you the exact number if I was good at updating the actual numbers tab. My client base is like in the mid sixties right now or something like that, which is a lot of fucking people. Right. And I keep thinking to myself, and I had people ask me on calls. How many do you think you could take on? The numbers got to be in the triple digits. Right. So I'm pretty much just going to probably just go to that point.
Tom Hootman (45:19)
Just keep going.
Dean Turner (45:20)
And then maybe figure it out from there. I have scaled in a way because like the ready-made plans are scaled through leverage through code, right? Because every time I wrote the ready-made plans one time, every time someone buys one, it costs me zero minutes of my time, right? Obviously, when I take on another individual client, it takes me more of my time. So I'm bound by time constraints there to some extent. But I think this scale is going to be like...
the ready-made plans, selling in a higher capacity. think eventually if I want to scale like the one-on-one coaching, I probably do have to hire another individual. And I have actually a person or two in mind, but I want to just get to the point where I feel it's an absolute necessity because again, we talked about earlier, this is all about your brand, reputation. When you put someone else on there,
If they fuck someone up or they do something, you got to be able to explain that. Yup. You got to own that. I had a bad experience with Dean Turner training. Well, you didn't have a bad experience with Dean himself. You had a bad experience with one of Dean's coaches, but Hey, that, that falls back on me. So a hundred percent. It's not like a, you know, Apex Training or something like that.
Tom Hootman (46:08)
Yeah, you own that. That's you.
Especially when you name it Dean Turner Training.
have you thought about, mean, this just came to mind, hiring someone to help manage socials or like having someone build a platform for the data, right? Because like you sell a dashboard versus the Sheets.
Dean Turner (46:37)
Yes, and I think those are all things that like may behoove me to do. And I just kind of haven't done them because the way that I do it now just is kind of working so well, you know what I mean? So I liken it to this, right? There's this restaurant, you've definitely seen me post the food before, like you know the chicken parm that I post all the time? Yeah, so I go there with my mom.
Tom Hootman (46:56)
Yeah, all the time. I was going say the Italian place, right?
Dean Turner (47:00)
Right me and my mom go and me my mom obviously I don't I don't live with my mom anymore I'm not my mom's basement. one hour hour and a half a week. We link up Italian place, right? And here's the thing. I love about this Italian place, It is like a nine and eight. Let's call it an eight out of ten. Okay, I Go to it every week because I know it's gonna be an eight out of ten, right? It's got
Good food, it's got good portions, it's got good prices. Yep, servers, really nice, love them, right? Now I could try somewhere else and it might be a 10 out of 10, right? But it also might be a two out of 10. And I just got burned, right? So the way that I'm currently doing it, would put it, it's like kind of akin to the Italian place. It's really, really freaking good. And like I could reach out and eventually I probably will improve it, right? And maybe change the offering or whatever.
Tom Hootman (47:22)
comes out fast, it's hot, they don't.
Dean Turner (47:49)
But for me right now, it's not super worth the leap, which is why I haven't made it.
Tom Hootman (47:54)
Yeah. I mean, scale when you're ready and scale the way you want to scale. Yeah. And I think that it's also, you've kind of done things in a different way. And you talked in your journey about how you kind of blew up out of nowhere and the Ninja CREAMi thing and the how that like you it's all serendipitous, but you created that serendipity by putting yourself out there, right? The clay pots analogy of like just making so many clay pots and you've gotten good at it. Like that's one of those things where you don't rush it.
Dean Turner (47:56)
Yes. Mm-hmm. 100%.
Tom Hootman (48:21)
Like if you're in the 60s and you think you can get in the triple digits, you've got time, right? And it's one of those things like if it's not a headache, don't rush it. Like you've figured out a formula that works for you right now because so many entrepreneurs, so many people start a business immediately want to get way ahead of themselves and they outgrow themselves. And then it falls off and they don't deliver the experience, the reputation is damaged. And it's like, well, I should have stayed where I was.
Dean Turner (48:45)
100%. It's a balance between trying to find scale and then sticking with what you know you're good at and what you know you can consistently deliver. It really is a balance.
Tom Hootman (48:54)
Yeah,
I like that. That's a good place to wrap it up. Dean, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for everything.
Dean Turner (49:00)
Absolutely, sir. It was a pleasure to be on here.
Tom Hootman (49:02)
I appreciate you. Take care, brother. I'll see you. I'll talk to you in Sunday. Awesome. Thanks, man.
Dean Turner (49:06)
yes you absolutely will, if not before.
Yes sir brother.