Richard  

Allow money to be a deal breaker, allow your price to become a deal breaker. Because for the people that it is an issue, the ones that want to complain, the 20% that are really hard work, let them complain and let them drop off. Make room for the people that you you're willing to serve. Your whole business is not based around one person, right? And as soon as you realize that they can be replaced, then it's quite easy to get over that sort of mental block.

Will:  

Hello, and welcome to Group Fitness Real Talk, the podcast where we get real about what instructors need to know to teach group fitness in 2022. And with me today, I have my special guest, Richard Playfair. Richard, how are you?

Richard  

I'm alright, thanks. So I'm better than your voice is right now.

Will:  

Yeah, I'm a little bit scratchy today, I won't lie. Now, this isn't your first time on the podcast, which is so some of our listeners will recognize you. But you want to give yourself an introduction just for anyone that hasn't come across you before.

Richard  

Sure. So quick, 30 seconds, I used to be a group, exercise instructor and personal trainer. And as I left that profession to focus more on video production, I found that there was a real big need for it in a video space. So since 2015 2016, I've solely focused on helping businesses in the fitness area, create videos for online workouts collect, create collateral for marketing purposes, all to accelerate and promote businesses to the point of sale. So they can earn more money with less effort, really, because that's what video allows you to do.

Will:  

Absolutely. And I should say right at the start that this episode is going to be split into two parts. And in the first part, we're going to talk about some of the business and marketing aspects of being a digital fitness instructor in the current industry. And then in the second part, which is going to give some hints and tips on some of the more technical elements that you might need to know. So things like equipment and hints and tips for actually producing your content. But we're going to start with just a general conversation. So Richard, you and I first had one of these podcasts in 2020. In the I think it was towards the end of the year when the move to digital from instructors have become a very big thing. And a lot has changed since then you have a very popular Facebook group where people come to talk and debate about digital fitness, where you lend them your expertise. Why don't you take me through what you think the transition from 2020 to 2022 has been for instructors that are teaching digitally. 

Richard  

Okay, I guess if we reflect on what happened two years ago, there was a bit of a panic start wasn't there where everyone was giving away free content. And I'm glad to report that we've kind of seen the back of that now. So when people are using free videos, free workouts, it's done in a bit more of a strategic way. They realize there's a value proposition there. And they've got the skills and expertise that are in demand, and people are willing to pay for it. So it's nice to see that people have built up the courage to actually, you know, put a stamp on things with the price nowadays, rather than just you know, letting everything go for free. Another thing we've seen since then is everything was live streamed, it was a bit of a panic, they wanted to be in front of their customers and their clients and their members. So there was a huge effort to always be live to do lives every day. And at the start of the pandemic, I was like, slow down a minute, people aren't going to run away anywhere else they've not got a lot of options anyway. So start thinking about incorporating more undemanding so you don't burn out. And I know you did a podcast on burnout, some way through the pandemic.

Will:  

It was January 2021. Believe it or not.

Richard  

It was a year later. Almost a year later, nine months later, because the signs were coming through that people were were doing too much. And when you do too much you become stressed out and you can't think straight and then imposter syndrome creeps in and you just entered this downward spiral of of motion when your whether your business is actually ever going to make it. And back then I said really instructors should be looking at doing one live for every three on demand. And that seemed ridiculous to most people. But then since then we've had data come through in the likes of waxer, who the shift workouts around, have disclosed information which relates almost matches that exactly. You know, it's people are consuming more on demand content than live stream content. And instructors have even said that to me as well that people want more on demand because it gives them that flexibility anymore. It gives them that flexibility.

Will:  

It's the I like whenever I think of digital I always think of digital as a a piece of content that allows you to fit it into your day. And the problem with a live stream is that it's like a live class that it's scheduled. And if you're looking to use your digital fitness workout as a way to slot it into your day for convenience, which I think is the most important factor, the live stream element, even if it's a live stream that's then replayed. But I guess then it's turned into on demand. Right? So there's that whole conversation about if you are repurposing your content, then it's a different question. But I think that there was a, when instructors first went digital, and they didn't necessarily know what they were doing, I think they went to do like for like with what they were doing in their physical locations. So they were teaching every day they were teaching live streams every day. And there was a, there was an element of connection and community that instructors provided during the early stages of the pandemic. And the lock downs that I don't think can be underestimated. But for sure, a lot of instructors got very, very burned out by trading so much time for creating content and content and content that wasn't necessarily getting as many views as they could have got if they'd been a little bit more smart about how they went about creating it.

Richard  

Yeah, the drive was really to build collateral and a library, wasn't it, repurposing content and making it go further. But if we reflect once again, and what I was saying about on demand versus live in a one to kind of three ratio, the reason why that was good is because not only saves you time for money, but it actually allows you to optimize the value of the content you're creating. Because I do a lot of consultancy work now with brands who are launching on demand, and they have no idea how much content they need to produce. So often they overthink it, they do way too much. And if you're putting out a new workout every day, or five new workouts every week, the lifespan and the shelf life of those videos is going to be severely reduced, because people are aware that you're going to put something out tomorrow. So if they miss a workout, they're not going to go back to yesterday's, they just wait for two days. So you actually end up spending a lot of time money creating constantly doesn't get much use out of it. And that doesn't seem to make much sense. So understanding how much how much your members consume, and how frequently they do it is really important. And that was something I said way, way early on, because there's no need for you to burn out doing so much. If you know that people are doing two workouts a week on average, and just create two workouts a week, and then spend the rest of your time doing other stuff. So

Will:  

Yeah, building building your business, which is the thing that I think a lot of instructors , they focused in on getting themselves across digital, which is great, but didn't quite think about how they were going to use that digital reach to grow their business, which ultimately is important.

Richard  

Yeah, and if you value your time, let's say comparing it to an average studio class of 25 pounds an hour teaching in a gym or facility, if let's say that's your value per hour. And you're you're creating lives every week and spending that time and that potential money doing that, and you're only getting one use out of it. But you may as well just be teaching in a studio or in the community and not recording it, right. It's exactly the same principle. So you need to optimize that better, you need to make sure you're aware of the consumption rate of your of your members. So because there's a disadvantage to over producing as well that you can, people might feel like they're getting left behind. Like they should be doing five workouts a week. And if that mentality creeps into their head, and they start to feel a little bit disconnected from what you're doing, or the routine that you should be on, then the likelihood that they're going to drop off increases. So maybe your time will be better spent doing fewer workouts but more outreach and direct connection.

Will:  

Yeah, more community building. Yeah. Now you were one of the first people who in the last podcast where I had Ollie Bailey from Gymcatch on, and he dropped some stats. And one of those lot two of those stats were that 39% of instructors on the platform, were teaching live stream classes and 14% of instructors on the platform had an on demand library. And I think that podcast dropped at about 9am on a Tuesday at about 9:07am I got a text message from you going, are you serious about that stat?

Richard  

That was, that was unbelievable. But not surprising, because I've paid careful attention to what's happening with direct conversations of clients of mine and in the community on the Facebook group. And it's become clear that soon as the gyms have reopened, and people can return to the live in studio experience, that they've dropped digital. There's been they've just, I'm not bothering you anymore, or I am but in a bit once I've got back on top of my, you know, face to face community.

Will:  

I do a lot of consulting in the digital space as well, obviously. And my experience was that everybody felt that they had to do it. But that the minute that live classes open back up again, everyone kind of breathed a sigh of relief and went thank God because I really didn't I was not invested in that and kind of dropped it.

Richard  

Yeah. And I warned about this early on because there's been such a dramatic shift in the way that we spend our time and the way that we work nowadays that we've had to two years for people to completely reorganize their lives. And that reorganisation might now include doing an on demand workout, or doing a live stream workout first thing in the morning, or in the evening, because if they don't have the opportunity to get into work now or into the gym, or their place of work and go to the local gym around the corner and do the class, then you've created an environment for them, where the only option for them is to terminate what they're doing, and change their their connection to you to somebody else. So being very aware of once again, that stat and consumption gives you a good idea of of how you should change and how much you should drop back from digital how much you should keep your foot in the game there.

Will:  

And it's an interesting time in the digital instructing space, because there were a lot of big startups that got quite a lot of funding to create platforms that instructors could do to teach on. And we can name a few there was on polio, and Moxie and talent, tech, and all of them have either gone out of business or being bought out by other companies. And I'm not sure how those companies are going. But it's, it just shows that there was a real rush into the space because everybody knew that that was something that consumers wanted. And now there's an element of consolidation going down. Do you have any view on which of those platforms is your favorite? Like, how would you suggest to an instructor if they came to you? And they say, what should I use to deliver my digital classes? What would your answer be?

Richard  

Well, you're right, there are so many of them, right. And throughout the course of the pandemic, there were so many ads on social media feed saying, you know, deliver your classes here and there, we're evolving all the time, I've got a close relationship with Fitune you and I have since the start of the pandemic, and I've made that perfectly clear, in my group, as well. And I've got a link that we can share if people want to join that platform, which will give them a discount of the yearly membership, and a free trial that goes along with that as well. It's very hard to keep up. But they're all They're all very similar.

Will:  

Yeah, the thing. I mean, this is the thing, right, the rules solving for the same problem and doing in a very similar way, which is why they capital survive, ultimately, yeah,

Richard  

I think the important thing is to use the technology. I know there's a lot of resistance in the fitness space, particularly from instructors who want to do you know, fitness on the side or part time, it's not there. It's not their full bread and butter, earnings. So they'll do kind of things, the bootstrap way of paypal links and checking people off list and letting them into the Facebook group. It's so manually intensive to do that.

Will:  

And you don't get the data, right, because the data is ultimately the thing that helps you to continue your business and to grow your content strategy out.

Richard  

Yeah, exactly. You can spend a lot of time doing things to save a few quid. When really, let's reflect again, if your time is worth 25 pounds an hour, then your 25 pounds is better spent doing other stuff. And I did a calculation on one of my LinkedIn posts sent out a while ago. And let's say that you let's say that you using PayPal, for example, to do all the management for you to do stuff, rather than doing bank transfers and all that mcgubbins like

Will:  

Haha, cash on the door. 

Richard  

Yeah, exactly. I mean, how much time are you spending for that one hour class? To manage all of that stuff to cancel people to do this, that and the other? And Pay Pal? I think out of 100 pounds, it will take like nine quid. Yeah, so if you earn less than 10%, right, the money that they actually charge you. So if if let's say, you know, it takes you two hours to manage everything for a class each week, you've just wasted 50 pounds of potential revenue, if your time is worth 25 pounds an hour, right? Because you can invest that time doing other stuff like social media posts, which incidentally, if you're putting, if you're putting ads and pictures and promotions, onto social media, don't forget that everyone around the flipping world can see it. So put your location and address. Because if your, if your strategy is to take people from your on demand, or you're live classes to live workouts or personal training, make it clearly obvious that you're around the corner from them. So if you're doing it in Paddington in London, or Mosside in Manchester, or wherever it happens to be stick it on every footer of every post you do, so people can immediately see whether you're significantly important to them or not. 

Will:  

Absolutely. And what so what are the pitfalls that you've seen instructors run into, the biggest pitfalls you've seen instructors run into? And what are the key pain points that consistently come up in your Facebook group? So we'll put a link to the Facebook group. If you're listening to this and you're not a member, you're welcome to join. Richard would love to have you, I'm sure. It's a forum to basically talk about all things digital fitness. Are there questions that just come up time and time again. And if so, yes. What are they? 

Richard  

Yeah, a lot of the time they kind of superficial to do with strategy, I find. There are the technical questions here, there, and everywhere. Which webcam do you recommend? How do I do this?

Will:  

We're gonna get into that. Save that for part two! 

Richard  

The sort of things that have been, you know, well delved into over the last two years, but usually it's it's a superficial problem that they've got, which has got a more important underlying issue to deal with.

Will:  

Okay. Tell me a bit about that.

Richard  

So an example might be, I need to put my prices up. Yeah. How much should I charge? Yeah. Right. And I know you kind of covered this with Gymcatch. So most instructors fall foul on three points with regards to pricing for me. The first one is they massively under estimate their worth. They undercharge massively. They offer way too many pricing options, like way too many through any more than three too many. Right? And I understand it can get complicated if you're offering in class and hybrid and all that sort of stuff. But we'll get to that in a minute. And then the third one I wrote down a second ago, what was it to get to get again? So we've got pricing? Oh, yeah, that's it, I mentioned it before. It's, it's kind of like the efficiency of pain of Payment Management, like use a platform, like fittune, or gymcatch, or whatever it's going to be to do the booking for you save that time, spend it elsewhere, you know, in your business. So you can actually scale your efforts using all your time, you can't scale or your efforts to earn any more money, right? You just, it just consumes you.

Will:  

Yeah, because I was a big advocate of set up a Facebook group, like have a Pay Pal do it like that. And that was a very useful solution at a time when these other companies didn't exist. But now they exist. And they are purpose built for allowing instructors to monetize their live livestream and on demand classes. And they're just not that expensive in the overall scheme of things. When you compare it to the time you could spend doing all this stuff that takes away from the time that you spend, creating a strategy, doing your marketing, doing your social media, writing your classes, all that sort of stuff.

Richard  

Yeah. And you can seem quite clunky, and old fashioned now, if you don't have that, switching from somebody else who had that to you. Yeah, and you're asking for a bank transfer every week. Yeah, that's resistance. I just want it to automate. That's what people want.

Will:  

Oh, my God, there's nothing I hate more than ever before my bank details in. I really don't want to use Amazon anymore, because I want to be more sustainable. But Amazon just has that one click and ohhh it's so great.

Richard  

Oh Yeah. Even on the phone. Exactly. So those are the first three, I say there's five. So the first three are to do with pricing, we'll go over them in a second. And the other two are to do with making it clearly obvious what is your value proposition and experience proposition. Like too many links say go here and buy a class pass or whatever, or go here and buy a ticket to my session, you go to the page, there's no video, which shows you an example of what the class is like. There's no like promo, there's no free video to download. People want to see before they try, then try before they buy, right. It's kind of like that, that moving pattern. And then the fourth one is data. We mentioned data before. Now you might be filling people in your classes already, you know, in your community classes or online, and they don't actually have email addresses. That's the most valuable collateral you can have right.

Will:  

Yeah, build your list, always build your list.

Richard  

So if there's anyone watching this, and you're teaching the community, go there with a sheet of paper next week and say, everybody here I want to stay in bed reach with you, and contact, I've got some exciting things coming up, I want you to be the first to know, update your emails here. Or if you don't want to write on the list, just text me your email right now. Gathering together because if you're like the future for for digital and for fitness professionals is not just trading time for money doing classes. It's like creating on demand programs. That's where we're going now, you know, tying people into a four week program or plan that you're going to do, and getting them to make that initial payment, the initial transaction, which is five or even 10 times more than an average class. Yes, that's how you're going to start to scale.

Will:  

And there's just no reason not to do it. Right. Like we we've all seen how it's done. If you are if you have the skills to deliver a class in front of people, you have the skill to deliver cars in front of a camera, and you can do it using your iPhone, like we're gonna get into the technical side of what you would suggest in the second half of this episode. But there's there's not a lot of restrictions, and most people are savvy enough with the phone now where they can create that library. Now, do you have any view, I think you do, so it's a bit of a leading question, about whether or not people should just be creating a library of mixed classes or whether they should be doing it around programming like a specific program to follow or just a catalogue of classes that people can do as and when they see fit. What's your opinion on that?

Richard  

They're different types of customers aren't they? So the people who love fitness love to dip in and dip out and they love the variety, and they love....

Will:  

That's me. I worked for Beachbody. I've done all these things. I have never completed a program. I've done all the workouts in the program, but I've never completed it because I like to just do what I want in the day.

Richard  

Yeah. And I think if we look at the different types of people, the people who are they love fitness, they have a built into their routine, they want to try something new. They're interested in new equipment, all that sort of stuff, they'll always dip into the library, right? So they have that flexibility of doing that. But when you're planning content, like I draw an analogy to, you know, the crystal maze that used to be on television, do you remember this?

Will:  

I do, this is actually before my time coming to the UK. But yeah, we'll, we'll put a link to The Crystal Maze.

Richard  

So at the end of the game show used to be in this giant crystal, which had a wind blowing around it and you had gold tickets in there and silver tickets, you have to collect as many gold as you could put through this letterbox to win the prize at the end, right. So most instructors are offering an experience which does that like people can reach and they grab what they want. And then when the fans turned off, the instructor, someone like you goes around and picks up all of the gold ones picks up all the silver ones, and like splits them and separates them and creates nice neat piles again, so I want you to think about doing it the other way. So rather than just being chaotic, and pulling programs together to create nice piles of things that might go together and work well as programs, it's so much easier to start with the program in the beginning, create a four week series that might be anything from four to six workouts over four weeks. So it sits well in a program together. It allows for progression allows for people to monitor their progress, it provides a benchmark for them. So they feel like they're getting somewhere and reaching them. 

Will:  

And it's also a potential onramp for new customers, right? Like if you do a a intro to me as an instructor or a beginner series, it's a great way to get people off the couch and into into your classes as a customer. 

Richard  

Yeah, it's so much easier to market what a program does. Rather than market we've got a million workouts in our library. Everyone's like, yeah, but that's where do I start? Yep.

Will:  

Decision paralysis from the sheer volume of content on the on the platform and the availability of it.

Richard  

Exactly. And that relates to my earlier point with pricing, you should have no more than three, right? Because people are going to have that's more than enough for people to choose from what they wanted to do. 

Will:  

And when you say three prices, like what would those prices be a an ala carte monthly membership and a weekly? Do you have a view on what those structures should be?

Richard  

Yeah, so let's let's look at the people who are most likely going to fit into your demographics that need your classes. You've got the kind of the one time first time buyers who just want to try something without big commitment. And so pay as you go. Yep. Then you've got people who want to regularly do it. And they're pretty sure they want to keep regularly doing it. But they want the flexibility of stopping when they want and then restarting again. That's kind of like a monthly. And then the last one might be I'm all in for the year.

Will:  

Yeah. So you provide an annual one all. 

Richard  

Absolutely, yeah. So if we think about pricing for our websites, we can do a thing called anchoring. So anchoring is when you provide your three pricing options, but you start with the most expensive one on the left hand side of your website, for example, because we leave, we read left to right, even scan left, right. So let's say you offer a year's all in membership, it's your highest price thing. The next thing might be your monthly subscription. And then the very last column, or option would be pay as you go. Now in decreasing value. So when you compare the cheapest one to the top one, it seems like an absolute steal. Yeah, even if you're currently even if you're currently charging, let's say five quid or $5 a class, you can easily bump that up to seven to 10. I think anybody should be charging any less than five pounds in the UK for a class or sort of like 10 to $15 in the US. 

Will:  

This is for a digit to class or livestream class or a in-person class?

Richard  

Both the same. 

Will:  

Ah, this is interesting. So your view is that it should be the same pricing across all the options. 

Richard  

Yep. I don't, I don't believe there's any difference between your on demand option. They're different, right? So if you're delivering a class in the community or in a gym that people have to pay, there's the inconvenience of travel time to get there and making a big window in your day, which can be completely eliminated by on demand. But then on demand isn't the same as face to face book classes. So there are advantages and disadvantages of each. The thing is put it in the put the job in the mind of the person buying to make their decision on which is valuable to them. Yeah, cuz if you price them as the same. You don't have to worry about the difference in price anymore. They can just choose how they want to engage with you. 

Will:  

Yes, as long as you don't overcomplicate things right?

Richard  

Yeah, and let's not forget as well that it allow money to be a deal breaker, allow your price to become a deal breaker. Because for the people that it is an issue, the ones that want to complain the 20% that are really hard work, let them complain and let them drop off make room for the people,

Will:  

Ha, be hard-nosed about it.

Richard  

I think there is I mean, your your whole business is not based around one person, right? Yeah. And as soon as you realize that and they can be replaced, then it's quite easy to get over that sort of mental block.

Will:  

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, okay. So before we get into, before we move on to part two, which our listeners will have to wait a couple of weeks. I wanted to ask, what do you see for the future? Like, what, are there any changes? Or do you think we've stabilized into a place where digital is now a fundamental part of an instructor's arsenal of content? And the way they promote themselves and run themselves as a professional? And do you what what developments do you see in the industry in the coming years in this space?

Richard  

Well, first of all, right now, it's a massive opportunity to start to pick up on on demand, and your virtual classes again, because so many people have dropped off, that the opportunity to open up and reach people, again, is getting better. And some platforms, as you mentioned before, have you know bit the dust, they're no longer around, they've either merged with others or partnered with other platforms that, you know, that's caused some disruption, and unrest amongst some instructors that are gone, I can't be bothered with this, I'm not dealing with it, I'm going back. So the only way you can really scale your business is to have some form of some form of digital programming. Yeah, I agree. There are only so many hours in the day, there's only so much burnout that you can withstand. So we're gonna see a further evolution of the way that people consume this content. And it's no longer going to be high, it's no longer going to be go to the gym, or if you can't go to the gym, you can do an on demand. We're gonna we're starting to see the amalgamation of the experience.

Will:  

Yeah, the number of people I see working out with apps at the gym.

Richard  

And we're gonna see the amalgamation of the experience into an extension of your brand. So not only doing people doing your classes in gyms, because they've got the equipment, so you don't have to restricted to body weight anymore. You can do weights, you can do bands, you can do whatever, yeah, but also the people, you have the opportunity to create a program that people can do with you face to face. And if they can't do it, and can't make it, they don't miss out because they can still do the same program online. So the experience becomes uninterrupted and linear, rather than fragmented and optional.

Will:  

And you're not losing out just because they can't make it to a class one week, you're not running the risk of them dropping off because you can get them through the digital version, and then pick it up with them on social media.

Richard  

Exactly. And that's what it is. It's kind of like this in person or online full experience program, rather than just a four week program online. And this is where I think the the fitness industry is going to start crossing over more into the event space. We've seen that happen with the digital space... 

Will:  

Ah, yeah. I've heard you talk about this before. Take us through your thoughts on that. 

Richard  

Yeah, so, there's been some slow uptake for gyms to fill studios, again, you know, and changing formats to reduce costs, or, you know, limiting hours that they have the studios open for are available to do certain things. And we're gonna see, we're seeing more of these pop up gym experiences, or fitness experiences led by, you know, Instagram stars, or whatever it's going to be, I think what we're going to see is more of that, we're going to see more opportunities for people to host their own events. Use spaces, which aren't optimized for use in gyms that are quiet during certain periods of the day, or aren't open on bank holidays, you know, we're going to see more of that people being more innovative, innovative with almost the retreat experience locally. Yep. Because they don't want to travel or traveling has become difficult again. So, you know, micro community events, you know, that's where I think we're gonna see a lot moreof that. 

Will:  

And that's in-person, rather than digital.

Richard  

That's in-person rather than digital. Yeah. But it's going to be pre-faced or led by a digital experience. So the whole effort of programming and letting people know and following you online is like, we've done this online, now let's meet up because...

Will:  

Right, yeah, build the community stuff you're putting out digitally, but then bring them together for one off? Yeah. So you mean bring them together for one-off events? Even if the backbone of your business is built on digital and social media?

Richard  

Yeah. And we're looking at ticket prices of because it has to work this way for scale and profitability. If you're doing a pay as you go, ticket price would be like 99 quid there'll be the experience of maybe it's a two or three hour event and that's it.

Will:  

Like a concert. 

Richard  

Yeah, exactly. That's why I say that's where I see it going. And it's just, it's just good for venue owners as well. Because then they can lease, they can contract, they can say, you know, we can guarantee this much spend on it, or we can guarantee this much income from it just makes sense.

Will:  

Okay, well watch this space, maybe some big fitness events coming in partnership with Sweat Live moving forward. Thank you, Richard. So that brings us the end of part one. If you are interested in knowing some of the more technical side of digital fitness, then I want you to tune into part two. Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, don't forget to subscribe for all the latest episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please drop us a review. You can also get in touch with me at will@sh1ftfitness.com. I'm Will Brereton and you've been listening to Group Fitness Real Talk.