You Good? - July 31, 2022

You could write the exact same tweet and get crickets.

The difference?

He’s Elon Musk. You’re not.

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Social media’s competitive.

Meaningfully standing out if you don’t have an existing, recognizable brand is rare.

When you do interesting things, your social media following will grow.

You don’t grow your social media to enable you to do interesting things.

^^That’s where people go wrong.

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However, you should still create content even if you’re not Elon.

Let me show you how, complete with embarrassing screenshots from my own journey.

First, pinpoint which stage you’re at in your journey. This will help you focus your energy.

Next, produce content for your clients.

Now, this won’t be new or shocking information that they couldn’t get anywhere else.

You’ve read the same books and watched the same videos as thousands of other fit pros.

Nothing you say will be unique.

But, it’ll be special to them because you wrote it.

To be honest, most people should probably stop here.

Unless they have large ambitions of building a big international business, they shouldn’t care about building a platform beyond their community.

At this stage, follower count doesn’t matter.

Remember, 50 people in your target audience who now want to train with you is enough to make $180,000/year at $300/month.

10,000 people that this information doesn't resonate with is worth $0.

Keeping existing customers longer, treating them well, and making more from them is a lost art.

My Application

On my first blog and later a rebranded one I started at JonathanGoodman.ca, I began writing articles for my clients based on how I was helping them.

I’d have a conversation with a client in the gym, write a reminder for myself on a note on the back of my clipboard, and type up an article on it that night.

On it, I also profiled my clients with an award I called the H.A.F. badge (Hard as Fuck).

Lo’ and behold, a few early articles went viral (like one on why fruit doesn’t make you fat).

Those viral articles led to me being called one of the ‘45 best trainers you’ve never heard of’ by Livestrong (now Sportsrec. I’m #29), features in Men’s Health books, a writing spot on Schwarzenegger’s blog, and more.

This all happened because I wasn’t trying to make it happen. There was no ulterior motive.

I was simply trying to write helpful content for a select group of my clients.

There’s a lesson there.

Trying to stand out before attaining knowledge, experience, and success is a mistake.

Elon Musk isn’t Elon because of social media. Instead, he uses social to amplify his name and people pay attention because of what he’s accomplished.

There’s steps to this.

It’s hard.

That’s why it’s valuable.

If it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be valuable.

First: Learn.

Next: Build your community.

Then: Dominate your industry.

And finally: Win the internet.

My application

It’s now 2022. I’ve published content online almost every day for 14 years.

In that time I’ve also:
Built 8-figure businesses (and have the scars to prove it).
Travelled the world.
Had two children.
And much more.

Only now am I ready to compete on a world stage, confident that I have the experience, business success, and stories.

Social media’s an inefficient place to build a brand from scratch.

Instead, build something great first and use social to amplify it.

Now, there are loads of influencers who have built big pages but don’t have any real business.

There’s also full-time content creators who are effectively entertainers. That’s a different conversation.

And yes, outliers exist who have leveraged their social media account into a big business. But those are outliers.

And if you’re studying to join an industry with the goal of emulating a proven path, avoid the outliers.

But I hope it’s what you needed to hear.

The anxiety around content creation can be paralyzing.

I’ve felt it many times and based on what I hear from others, I’m not alone.

I can’t even tell you how many DMs I’ve received from trainers telling me the reason why they have so few clients is because they aren’t reaching anyone on social media.

My response always begins with, "But how many people have you spoken to today?".

Have real conversations with real people. Do stuff in the real world. Then use social media to amplify it.

I hereby give you permission to not care so much about your follower count because, odds are, it doesn’t fucking matter and it’s distracting you from what does.

-Coach Jon

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P.S. Sorry for the bad screenshots of my earlier websites. I didn’t save pics at the time so got them all on the Internet Archive but it’s missing pictures. My advice to you is to document your business progress, no matter what stage you are at. Take lots of pics. You’ll be thankful you have them later. Learn from my mistakes.