Cold Outbound Outreach, LinkedIn Automation, and Marketing Trends (with Justin Hanover)

00:00 - Sarah St John (Host)

Welcome to the Frugalpreneur podcast. I am your host, sarah St John, and my guest today, launched his own gym business at the age of 19 and is the head of business development of Fitness Revolution, which is a leading coaching and consulting agency empowering fitness business owners to achieve their fullest potential. Welcome to the show, justin Hanover.

00:24 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Thanks so much, Sarah. I'm happy to be on the show and to beover. Thanks so much, Sarah. I'm happy to be on the show and to be able to bring value to your audience.

00:30 - Sarah St John (Host)

Yeah, it's good to have you. Can you give a little bit more of your background, how you got into the fitness business, having your own at 19 and just entrepreneurship in general?

00:40 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

even so I would say, like, definitely this place is. Entrepreneurship is something that got a hold of me. You know I get very early and and it's something I couldn't shake. So I mean, even in high school I just knew I wanted to start creating and building something for my own. Going to college really wasn't on my radar. I had really no desire to do that. My perception is like I don't need to waste more time sitting behind a book where I can go out and start doing something.

01:04

So that was pretty much my mindset right out of high school and, I guess initially going the safe route. I started actually going to school for architecture and quickly realized that that wasn't my path. That was not how I wanted to be living. It wasn't in alignment with what was my calling, if you will, and so I left that and always had a cheaper fitness space, things like that and really just coaching serving people has kind of always been rooted in me.

01:29

That's when I went into the personal training, got certified, went to a school for that, and then I knew that going to a big box gym wasn't going to be the path I wanted to go again because it's not really sustainable. So starting my own thing was the only option. So I went into starting a mobile business a bunch of people's homes and different businesses around Basically started out really super grassroots maybe $2,000 in my bank account to make this work and grew it over time over 10, 11 years to becoming a facility that was serving over 350 people. We had eight team members and a 6,000 square foot facility. So I was excited that was my college, if you will like, business of really learning about what it takes to grow a business From there, exited that business and really pushed more into the business side of coaching and providing support for other businesses to be successful. And that's what led me to Fitness Revolution and a quick summarizing story.

02:35 - Sarah St John (Host)

Wow, that's awesome. So you create, I guess you went to people's houses, so you probably didn't have the overhead because of that. You did personal training at their house and then, at a certain point, you had your own gym. What was that transition like? And most of the people who listen to the show are more usually online entrepreneurs. But if someone wanted to open some sort of brick and mortar or retail physical location whether it's a store, a fitness, I mean anything what are some challenges or things to watch out for when doing something like that?

03:12 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Well, I think maybe it's a dial it back first. I think the biggest thing is is it's a mindset and a mentality that you have to have, whether you're opening a physical location or an online business. And I would say, coming out from that bootstrapping mentality of like you need to put the effort in, you need to actually do the actions. That's going to unlock the opportunities to do what's coming next or where you want to go next. It doesn't matter where you're operating your business. It matters more of what are you actually doing to get to the result that you want to get to.

03:40

And for me at that time, I was like basically going door to door selling people, if you will, and it connected me with somebody that allowed me to open up my first little location.

03:51

It was like maybe 600 square feet and it was a tiny little space that was then bridge into actually owning a moving to like a physical location at that time, and I told myself, that person believed in what I was doing and what I was creating enough to give me a shot, and that's why the underlying thing here is that I put myself out there and then the opportunity presented itself and then I was ready to grab that opportunity. So, more than any message here, whether again, whether you're doing physical or online, it's what are you doing to create opportunity and if you're just sitting there thinking like, okay, because I exist, my business should flourish, well, that's not going to happen. This is why you need to actually create and allow opportunities to come to you by putting yourself out there, doing the actions needed, and a lot of times, especially early on, it's doing things that aren't fun, that aren't sexy, that most people want to avoid and think they're beyond. But you're not. You're just starting out, so be willing to do the hard stuff.

04:53 - Sarah St John (Host)

One of the things that you focus on is outbound marketing, and I'd love to talk more about that, because I don't think I've really talked about that much on this show, so could you share a bit about that?

05:06 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely so. In essence, Outbound really is just about building awareness, bringing people that are not aware that you even exist as a solution, and getting them aware that you exist as a solution, and then you can guide them through whatever the pathway is from that point. That's really what it is at essence. There's so many different ways to go about it. It can be through social media, it can be through email, it can be through cold calling, it can be through direct mailing. It's many different avenues and it doesn't really necessarily matter which way you go. It just matters more having an actual process behind it. But you can systematically move people through a conversation, right? I mean, like that's really what it is. You're having a conversation, somebody new what does that look like? What's that first interaction like? How are you warming them up? Are you building trump and what are you moving them towards? What's that like? Maybe that first offer that's meant to just solidify trust during seeing you as the option or the solution for their crop. That's really what pop out is, in essence.

06:14

And think what throws people off a lot with this is it quickly gets memorized in thinking oh, it's just I'm spamming people and I would hope that what you're delivering and what you're providing, not jump, that you actually prompt what it is, that you're providing you for quality service or quality product.

06:37

If you don't, then yeah, you have no business offering it to anyone. But if you do have quality product and quality service, then it is your moral obligation to make sure that everybody that we're benefiting from having your product or service is getting your product or service or knows that your product and service exists. That's the whole point. And you're reaching out to targeted people. You're not just blanketing, paying anybody to be that breed. That is a waste of effort, that's a waste of your time. You want to make sure that you're specifically going after who would benefit from your product or service, who actually is having a high potential of being a client or a customer. That is who you're targeting with, and then the messaging is very personalized and represents that alignment there that they would be a client and that you provide solution for the problem that they most likely are experiencing.

07:30 - Sarah St John (Host)

Yeah, I know you specifically have to like LinkedIn outbound. I know there's some different software programs that help automate the process for LinkedIn, specifically where you can search by a keyword and develop a list and then have it send out an automatic message and then, when they reply or if they don't reply, it like schedule that. Anyway, what are your thoughts on those types of software programs that kind of help streamline?

07:58 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

that Really what it does in essence. It helps streamline, it helps you have a system behind your outreach. That's really the point. It doesn't matter what software you choose to use. The point is that you're making sure that things are slipping through cracks and that you have the same experience for every single interaction. That's really the point.

08:19

When you have consistency in your communication that allows you to see trends, that's where then you can see where your actual metrics are for connection, response, lead rate, lead to book I mean I saw you're seeing those actual metrics and then you can actually then pinpoint where there's kinks in the process and where you need to dial in, whether it's maybe your targeting is off because your connection percentage is really low. If you're not having consistency in how you operate and having the volume of actions that need to be happening every single day happening every single day, then it's tough to really understand what's really happening and how to diagnose what's breaking. Because if you try to do everything manually, chances are you're going to have days where things are crazy and you just don't get around to doing it. You don't send as many connection requests as you should or you don't follow up with people that responded as quickly as you should. So I mean there's all different things that can happen, and once you start breaking down that consistency then it kind of deteriorates the whole effectiveness of the approach itself.

09:22 - Sarah St John (Host)

Yeah, so do you use an automation software for your LinkedIn outreach?

09:28 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Yes, so we actually we have a system that we, that we build and provide for our clients. We build and provide for our clients our toolkit reminder and it's a system that allows you to essentially provide targeted outreach and personalized outreach to the type of person that you're going after. So it allows you to scrape very easily from different platforms and you can use this on pretty much every, virtually every social media platform, so not just LinkedIn, but that's what we use and what we use internally, and it just it makes it very visual and very easy to see how you're moving people through the conversation thread and, like I said then, it's it makes it very obvious to see where the issues are.

10:11 - Sarah St John (Host)

What was the name of it again?

10:13 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Fit Lead Finder.

10:15 - Sarah St John (Host)

Oh, okay, and so you can use that on multiple platforms. So how would it? Because you know the thing about linkedin is you can search by like what someone's job title is or whatever. How would that work on something like facebook or instagram or twitter?

10:32 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

a great question. So it depends on who you're going after. So let's just say, say let's just for the lack of issues of fitness business as an example. So say you're looking for people that want to lose weight, so you can type in weight loss groups. Now you can go into weight loss groups or weight watchers or things like that. So I mean, like you can find different groups that already are harnessing the type of person that you want to go after and you can scrape from those groups. Same thing you can go after businesses that are complementary to you.

11:01

So let's say, if you're a coach of some capacity and you find a marketing business that serves coaches or the type of person you're going after, basically, so now you can go to that marketing business and you can scrape from their followers on Facebook or any other platform, really. So that's just a couple different ways, obviously, of using it. And then the beautiful thing with those platforms is obviously, the more you use them, the more it starts working for you. So, like Facebook, for example, will start suggesting people to you. So you can just go to your suggestions and basically go boom, boom, boom, boom, right through. There are people that Facebook's seeing like, okay, this is the type of person you want, that you're interacting with, that you're engaging with, that's engaging with you. Let's bring me more of these types of people. So then it just more you use it, the more it just becomes even easier to find the people that you're looking to get in front of.

11:51 - Sarah St John (Host)

Yeah. And when you say scrape just for people who don't know, that's like pulling either their email address or their profile, I guess yeah.

12:00 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, we pull in their profile and so basically, like the platform we use, it's a Google extension that this overlays. So, whatever platform you go on, then you'll see the extension pop up Like, okay, here's the option that you can basically do. And then, if you're like searching for people, it also allows you to enter in specific keywords. So say, if you're looking for CEOs, founders, it's like whatever you can enter those keywords in and then it will start scrolling the page and pulling out the people that have those keywords and then so that way again, it's another layer of qualifying, so that you're bringing in the right people. Then, once in the pipeline, you can then further run a qualifying automation to then further read out people that are quite a fit, because obviously that initial pull is just going literally off of what's on the screen, whereas then the deeper qualifying automation goes off based on their entire profile.

12:51 - Sarah St John (Host)

So, other than social media outbound marketing, what else are you finding that works in 2024?

12:59 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Yeah, multiple different ways. I mean, like I would say, cold email works really well. In email reaching out, you're meeting somebody with a different mindset. If you will. Social media people aren't necessarily in work mode. They're more in like relaxation, let me scroll and waste time here, type of thing, whereas getting in someone's email inbox, that's more personal, it's more intimate and they typically are more in work mode. Your messaging needs to be adjusted based on where you're meeting that person at. And then even the cold calling works really well.

13:31

Again, it's just all how you approach it. If you just hop on the call and immediately start pitching somebody, then, of course, who's going to be receptive to that? It's about starting a conversation and opening that door. You're not going to put the home run right away. It's just okay. What's going to crack that door open so that we can facilitate an actual conversation here. So that works really well.

13:51

Again, it's just all understanding the consistency and volume that you need to be doing. A lot of it is numbers, of course, because what this is doing is it's allowing you to tap into the percentage of people that are thinking about the problem they involve right now, and so that's not going to be everyone and those people that are thinking about it. Those are the ones you want to obviously connect with, push into more and bring more into you. So you're going to throw some people off as you get no's. You're going to get a lot of no's.

14:19

It doesn't mean no forever. It just means that right now this is not priority for me. It could be three months from now, but you can't get discouraged with that. You want to make sure you're focusing on the people that are resonating with it, that are saying yes to it. Those are the ones you want to push into. This is not about twisting somebody's arm and using sales tactics to force them into something that they're not ready to do or isn't on their radar. It isn't going to generally lead to the best client experience. You want to make sure that you're pushing into the ones that are showing positive feedback and resonating with how you're approaching them and what you're discussing, because then that's obviously going to lead to a much better client experience and overall outcome for both parties.

15:01 - Sarah St John (Host)

So what is the best way to open that door or start a conversation without being too salesy right out of the gate?

15:08 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

It really kind of depends on what it is that you're offering, what your core offer is. I'll give you an example SEO client that I've worked with his opening line that's been working really well is more a question of curiosity. So it's more just like hey, I see you're producing consistent content. Do you have a method behind that? I'm always interested in learning new ways to make sure that my content's resonating with my audience. So now that's really enticing.

15:34

It's really people want to share things, but they want to feel like they're being invited into an actual mutual conversation, which is what it is. It's a mutual conversation. It's not me just coming in and dictating at you type of thing. So now it opens up the conversation for them to share insights and then you actually have like a real conversation and then through that, obviously you're able to see like okay, this is an area that I could possibly help you in. Would you be open to having an actual conversation around that and what that can look like for you, Just looking at it from the perspective of what is their ultimate need, what is their immediate pain point, and then how do?

16:15 - Sarah St John (Host)

you start a more collaborative conversation. Okay, and then what are some marketing trends that you've noticed lately?

16:27 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

Definitely things are moving more towards, even at a faster rate, personal connection not actually saying it always has to be a personal brand, but people want to connect to people and I would say, now more than ever, we're seeing that push into more work where businesses that are trying to be like the spaceless business it's just not resonating as well and it's not landing as well as the business that has a person up front that is allowing people to connect with them. So that is huge. And then tying that into social content, we're definitely at a point now where it's clear, obviously, that unless you're an entertainment business and your sole purpose is to provide just content for pure entertainment, you're not going to get the reach organically that you want on the different social platform. It's just not going to happen unless you pay, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just making sure that you, one understand that and then, two, you utilize that money wisely. You can quickly blow through that and not have any outcome whatsoever. So, and for most business authors, for the ones that are listening to this, chances are your business, that the objective is to get them off the social platform onto your website or whatever it is that the next step is, and these social platforms know this. They know you want to get them off their platform, but they're not going to reward you. They're not going to reward you. They're not going to reward you with free traffic to get people off their site.

17:52

So I think that that's a huge thing that people need to start having this realization around. Great, you're spending all this time on content, but what is it really doing to build awareness? And that's where it can tie into then the outbound side of marketing. Having an actual solid outbound system is going to funnel new people into your awareness and building an audience to then where your content actually become more relevant. So if you're going to just keep relying on, obviously, the algorithm to show you new people, that it's going to be slow going. And then, which ties into, I think, like the ad space, the big social media, paid ads and stuff like that it's just not as effective with all the security and personalizations that have been in place and all these different platforms where you Google and Apple and everything and everybody wants their pieces of pie.

18:37

I personally know businesses that were spending 300 to 500,000 a month on ads some even a million a month on ads and they literally came to a halt. They just could not get them to produce at this same level as what they're, so they were losing money. Obviously and these are businesses that are clearly like, resources is not an issue. They can get the best creative, they can get the best ads. So it's coming to that realization which I think, over time, is essentially going to start driving down at cost.

19:07

I think platforms should start realizing that, that people are vacating and leaving because it's just not as effective or they're not going to spend as much. We could potentially see a downturn in how much it costs, which would be awesome, but it's just keeping that in mind, realizing that the issue with the pain as soon as everything's behind the curtain, we don't really know how it works. It's a lot of testing, a lot of trial and error and guess what? You can wake up tomorrow and everything's changed, so you have to be okay with it. That's again another perk of my life outcome. It's like there is no curtain.

19:40

It's very easy to diagnose your own default. The process Pretty much usually comes down to two things of why it's not working. You're either targeting the wrong people or your messaging isn't working. It's one of those two things is typically what the issue is.

19:56

If, again, if you're doing the right actions and you're doing the right ball and you're only doing five people a day, then obviously it's never going to work. But if you're doing that shit right, then typically it just comes down to are you targeting the right people and do you have the right messaging in place? So I think that's just another thing, like people that are doing, just being aware that there's a lot of uncertainty, and when you're looking at it from the perspective say, you're selling your business, a prospective buyer is going to way more heavily prioritize the business that has a marketing system in place that they have control over, versus the one that they don't have control over and they know there's going to be instability in the takeover and transition, whether that could be paid ads or it can be that your business is built on you entirely, versus a optional outbound system where anybody can step into it and it'll keep running. So I mean those are things that start paying attention to as you look over.

20:51

so, basically, so basically, the personal connection and outbound it's typically more just time is what it costs you to test and you can pretty much figure out if it's going to work in maybe three to four weeks, whereas a paid ad depending on what your offer is and what you're doing, I mean it can be upwards of between three months to have something dialed in to where you can really put money behind it. So that's where it's like, on average, you have to be okay with losing, depending on how much you're spending anywhere from maybe $3,000 to $10,000 on just testing, whereas obviously like an outbound approach it's. I mean, even the most expensive software out there isn't going to run you anywhere near that, and so it's really just time of just getting enough messages out there in front of people to see how it resonates, and then you make the optimizations from there is there anything in terms of marketing, whether it's outbound or in general, that you wanted to touch on, that we hadn't touched on yet?

22:08

I guess I would say, like the, to add one more thing to the trends as a creative, as we move forward, every business like you have to start thinking creatively of how you can draw more attention. I mean that's that is first and foremost. You have to get attention before you can win over their heart, and a lot of people try to win over hearts before they have the attention which is, again, like I said, with all content, things okay if you're not speaking to anybody. What I mean? What was the point of putting the hours you did into creating content? So you have to make sure that there's someone there first to be able to speak to and have that attention. That's why there's different people I look up to for inspiration, and one of them definitely is PT Barton. With how he operated, he lived by that of getting attention, that you have to get attention to be able to do something with it. Everything he did was purely about grabbing attention. You have to have people talking about you. You have to get people looking at you in some way.

23:04

So bringing it back to trends, it's how could you own the media source? It's how you start looking at things. I don't think anybody this year is going to start owning Google or Facebook or anything like that, and if you are, I definitely want to hear from you how that happens. It's looking at different media sources, different traffic sources that you can own. It could be blogs, it can be websites, it can be social media platforms or groups that exist already that are harboring the type of person that you're targeting, and you can own those, you can take those over, you can acquire those and for most cases, you can start acquiring those things for sometimes no money or very little, and you can structure those deals in a way where you don't even have to upfront money to take those over.

23:51

But I mean, I can start looking at things differently of where's traffic? Where are people going already that you want to get in front of? Then how can you own and again, that can be many different things podcasts, it can be a blog, it can be a website. Where is the traffic? How do you get control of that traffic?

24:08 - Sarah St John (Host)

yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, definitely, owning versus it's the whole owning versus renting land. Basically, basically, that all.

24:17 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

That's definitely the point there. You can own more of the real estate, if you will, of the marketing landscape. Then you're going to have more control.

24:25 - Sarah St John (Host)

Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time today and talking about different marketing trends. Outbound marketing I know the website for Fitness Revolution is frnationcom. Is that the best place for people to go, or do you prefer them reach out to you on social?

24:45 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

If you're listening to us and you're in the fitness space, then, yes, frnationcom is definitely the place to go and learn more about us, how we operate, how we help consistently, businesses grow. If you want to just back up with me personally, then you can find me on all different social platforms Instagram, linkedin, facebook, justin Hanover and I'm open to connect with anybody and be able to answer the questions that you have or just have some good conversation.

25:10 - Sarah St John (Host)

Well, I really appreciate your time today. Thanks for coming on.

25:14 - Justin Hanover (Guest)

No, it's an absolute pleasure, Sarah. I appreciate the opportunity to have this platform and to be able to connect with