Surprising Changes to Mark Fisher’s New Marketing Book

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Business of Unicorns podcast, where we help gym and studio owners create a business and a life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. Join me and the Business of Unicorns team each week for actionable advice, expert insights, and the inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.
Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real unicorn in the fitness industry[00:00:30]
Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? Welcome to another episode of the Business Unicorns podcast. Today, I’m here with Mr. Mark Fisher. Mr. Mark Fisher, how’s your week going so far, sir? It is
Speaker 2: going
Speaker: pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s time to, it’s time for the sun to come out here in the- Yes
Northeast. We’ve been, it’s, we’ve been teased for a while, but I’m really ready for the warmth and for the summer around the corner, [00:01:00] hopefully. Yes. Uh, ’cause it’s, it was a cold one, and I’m ready to get outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it has. I think the world is being more, more social, which I appreciate. This, this weekend, hilariously, my friends are complete idiots, which I mean as such a compliment.
Very, a very important event in the social calendar- Oh … of the year is Tourist Con. Ooh. Which is fun. A lot of friends, tourists get together and do a conference, so there will be lanyards. Nice. There will be pitches. Nice. A lot of my friends are v- the vast majority are all entrepreneurs of various degrees.
Not in fitness, pro- most, the vast majority in tech. So [00:01:30] this is a completely hilarious event where essentially we all make savage fun of each other. Fantastic. It’ll be great. Yeah.
Speaker: That’s what friends are for. That’s what friends are for. That’s right. Yeah. Good for you. Um- We’re getting
Speaker 2: to do the Shark Tank feedback, so I look forward to- Okay
regaling everybody with my, my hard negotiation skills and hungry, rapacious desire to win capitalism via market share and shareholder value.
Speaker: I love that. I can’t wait to hear what kind of success you have. Yeah. Well- Make a lot of money … speaking of your success, you recently put out- Too fabulous … an updated version of [00:02:00] your marketing book, which you had put out a few years ago now, the first version.
But you made some updates. Yeah. And within the last few weeks, as of recording this podcast, last few days of recording this podcast, there’s a new version out that people- Yeah … can obviously get access to. Link down below in the show notes, of course. But I thought we would talk a little bit about what’s changed since you first launched that book.
It’s been a few years, and you updated it to reflect some updated thinking and understanding- Yeah … about what you think is working right now in marketing. I’ll start with a big, broad question, which is, what’s new in marketing, Fisher? [00:02:30]
Speaker 2: What is new? Artificial intelligence is new. That’s certainly- That’s- … one of the things.
Yeah. And I think the other really big change is just the digital lead generation landscape has just changed. Mm-hmm. The performance of paid ads, the way the Instagram algorithm works, even the way filters are starting to impact email marketing. There’s just been a lot of changes. And the thing that is interesting to note is the book was only two years old.
It’s not like it was, like- Mm-hmm … so old. Sure. And two things I should say before we forget. If you don’t have it yet, the new version, if you just go click [00:03:00] the link, which is gonna be in the show notes, it’ll be zoomed to your inbox. And I would note that the… If you knew that book really well, if you’re like, if you’re a super fan, I have to tell you, it’s not like this is a dramatic makeover, right?
So you’ll find like the, that the principles certainly haven’t changed, and to be honest, the non-digital lead gen things haven’t really changed that much. It’s not like there’s a brand new system for how to approach business partnerships. I would say this, I think [00:03:30] there’s a few extra tips and tricks in there that I think- Sure
I’ve learned over the past two years and that I’ve seen. But I don’t think, I think they represent maybe some improvements in my own thinking. Mm-hmm. Not so much that those systems have changed, right? Like I think the- Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that, that makes sense, right? That’s why often like local polit- politics look the same as it did 100 years ago in many ways, because becoming three mile famous in your community is, looks the same, right?
It’s- That’s right … it’s about getting out and meeting strangers and building partnerships and networking, and building up that reputation. And so it makes sense, I think, and certainly I [00:04:00] know you put some extra bells and whistles and tips and tricks in there that we’ve learned that work- Yeah … for us and our members.
But I, makes sense to me that it’s not the bulk of the change, ’cause even though it’s only been two years- It’s a little bit of change … two years in a digital AI timeline that we’re on is a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Two years ago, I mean- Yeah … we really… ChatGPT was a thing at that point, but yeah, it’s astonishing the way they’ve changed and continue to change.
It might be quite annoying. I might have to do this, probably have to do this once a year. And I take solace, again, the principles haven’t changed, right? So [00:04:30] if you’ve read the old one and for some reason don’t wanna read the new one, probably still gonna mostly be valuable. But listen, so first of all, the advent of the way that AI is changing how we fulfill a lot of these digital lead generation functions is really, really a big deal.
And I have spoken about this before on this podcast, and I also have an AI webinar floating around that perhaps Rosemary can drop a link in to the show notes if you want access as well. It’s not so much, I think, that the, it’s become infinitely [00:05:00] easier because now you can just have AI write all your captions for your Instagram or write all your emails.
And in fact, to my mind, it’s one of the things I’m seeing as the biggest mistake. It’s almost better just not to do it, right? So here’s an example, and this is somewhat tangential but I think relates. I was listening to a podcast this morning with Cal Newport- Mm-hmm … and he was reviewing, there was a study that came out recently for one, one of the scientific journals, and what they had noticed was like there was a big spike in incr- just never ending increasing volume of submissions and studies coming out [00:05:30] since ChatGPT went live and the 4.0 went live.
And unfortunately, there’s actually been a decline in the number of studies actually getting published because the quantity’s gone up, but the actual quality’s gone down, and the number of quality studies is actually getting lower. Mm-hmm. So you have this potential risk in general with AI, and this relates, I think, to our world in, for marketing where- Yeah
you can do things a lot faster, but they’re actually worse and less effective. So you’re getting more things done, but they’re [00:06:00] not things that are effective, right? So full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, right? Which bring to mind Covey’s dictum of we can be effective We can be efficient with things, but to be with people, we have to be effective, right?
And marketing is a people-centered thing. That’s not to say, again, that there’s of course no place for AI. Certainly there is. But without giving away the whole book, I would say it’s certainly not having AI help you create a massive amount of volume. Mm-hmm. Particularly because I think the other biggest changes in the landscape are the way [00:06:30] the meta algorithms are working, right?
The organic algorithm, it has become harder in many ways than it’s ever been to break through. I’ve also talked previously on this podcast, and that’s another change in my own thinking about, like, maybe we don’t need to spend 10 hours per week trying to become viral on Instagram for your brick-and-mortar small business where arguably it’s unnecessary, and B, it’s never gonna happen anyway because that type of content is not really designed for virality, and C, even if it became viral, all that matters to you are the people within a three-mile radius, right?
And as [00:07:00] social media has moved away from another term I heard recently I thought useful to think about this, it’s not so much social media anymore, more interest media, right? Mm-hmm. Because the whole world has gone to the TikTok algorithm, so it’s less now about your social graph and about the people that are following your gym.
It’s more about just is that content generally interesting and gonna keep them on the platform, right? Now, I’ll pull up here and just add one other final thought as we do a tour of the past six months of podcasts. This brings to mind another podcast we previously did on are you [00:07:30] a personal brand, a founder-led brand- Mm-hmm
or a logo business brand? And listen, again, if you have rizz, as the children say, and you are a good dancing monkey, you’ve got main character energy, metaphor of your choice, then yeah, by all means, it still might be valuable for you to go in on Instagrams if you know you crush it with reels, and you are proving you can really use that to drive people maybe by a sell-by chat into actual prospects that actually come into the gym.
By all means, go with it. But I think even since I did this book a [00:08:00] couple of years ago, I think the amount of time, I think the amount of– e- even just the frequency, the number and kinds of posts I think gym owners should be doing, it’s just evolved because I’m just not seeing it that valuable. Understand what I’m saying?
You still gotta be on there. I’m just saying that if you know that is not a skill of yours and not something you’re doing amazingly well, if anything, we might just wanna double down on some of these offline strategies and pretend like it’s 2007 all over again and get out of your gym, and go meet the people, right?
And I know we talked about the, the– I don’t know if we talked about this on the podcast, the Meet the [00:08:30] Strangers Challenge. Have we talked about this? I
Speaker: don’t think so. I, I- Oh, okay … I think Brianna’s has been on recently, and we might have mentioned it, but- Okay … you, you’re welcome to introduce it, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
There, there’s not a ton to say about it other than every quarter in the bus- in Unicorn Side, we have a challenge of some kind. And this particular one was really focused on go talk to people you don’t know in the person. It’s just a little more complicated than that. We were awarding points and having a fun time.
It’s been going awesome and People are getting great results and we’re loving all of it. And a lot of it’s just been forcing people into social pressure of doing the harder marketing thing, [00:09:00] which again, has always mattered, but as we’ve seen the degradation of the results you can expect through paid or organic digital lead generation, it’s become even more important to really drive those offline lead generation sources.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure. I think that’s a really great kind of overview of the landscape and how you see it right now. Maybe let’s dive in and get super tactical. Mm-hmm. So I’ll start with a very specific tactical question, which is, with the proliferation of AI, we’ve also s- we’ve seen this giant number of tools, digital tools that [00:09:30] do- Yeah
all kinds of things. And some of them are just iterations of old things. So chatbots aren’t new, but AI chatbots are new. Mm-hmm. A million automations- Yep, yep … sometimes now powered by AI, right? And so when you think about what most listeners need out there, what most gym owners n- need, what is like the soft– s- the s- the suite of software that you think is really necessary right now for marketing?
What are the functions of software- Mm-hmm … that everyone really needs to have to be effective? I
Speaker 2: mean, I think the basics haven’t really changed. You [00:10:00] still need a good CRM. You still need something that allows you to see a pipeline. The vast majority of gym owners listening are probably using GoHighLevel, right?
Because it’s white labeled by a number of the marketing agencies and website agencies, and even booking billing platform. I think that is a good software and it can work well. Um- For people who don’t
Speaker: know what GoHighLevel is, can you just like rattle off the core- Yep … functions that are in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It does a lot of things.
It’s part of why it’s interesting. It’s quite the Swiss Army knife. But to your question around like what are the basics that you need, it allows you to [00:10:30] track your leads and allows you to see them in tile cards as a pipeline, so you understand in a given moment you can look at all the leads that are in play that have come in recently that we would define in our world as hot- Mm-hmm
that you’re following up with more intensively because they’ve come in recently, ergo they’re hotter than these other leads. And of course, cold leads, we wanna follow up with them too. Something I do speak to in the book and something that we do with Unicorn Society members, where I write everybody’s marketing calendar for them, ’cause I think that’s another missed opportunity for a lot of gyms, is if [00:11:00] you’re not following up with the leads after they’re hot.
That’s always been a mistake. It’s never been more of a mistake than 2026, just because frankly, a smaller and smaller percentage of those leads are gonna go all the way into membership in the beginning window. So your cost per acquisition and the sheer marketing cost to get new clients is continuing to rise, and you can offset that a little bit if you are tenaciously, frequently following up with people.
And I think that’s another change for me in the pa- cer- even in the past two years, [00:11:30] is I think the frequency with which I think it’s reasonable to go back to your never-been clients matters. But at any rate, to go back to your question, so the software stack is, it’s pretty simple. It’s, you got the, some kind of customer relationship management software.
Doesn’t, doesn’t need to be GoHighLevel, but it could. S- a lot of the booking and billing platforms have one as well. It dep- it depends on who you’re talk- shan’t name names to protect the guilty here, but some of them, I think the marketing suites are particularly not amazing, partly because it’s just hard to do a lot of things as a software.
[00:12:00] So this is another clunky thing about this moment that I expect will be solved at some point in the next couple of years, is a lot of us have a booking billing platform where we have essentially have a CRM for clients once they’re members, and then we have a separate system that we use when they are leads, and that is a clunky thing, particularly because some of the booking billing platforms don’t talk to the lead sales CRM platforms.
But at any rate, I think if you’re a mature gym owner, you’re not gonna be wanting to do this in Google Sheets. You’re gonna want those. [00:12:30] The thing that we are tantalizingly close to, right? At the time of this recording, and I can’t, I wanna play my hand here, but I have, we’re, I say we’re working on some things behind the scenes here at Biz Free Unicorns that we will be talking more about soon.
I, I do think we are now seeing, as we knew was gonna happen, we knew this was probably gonna be the year. We are seeing text-based AI follow-up apps that essentially do SMS that I think are there. Mm-hmm. I’ll say briefly, a lot of you know that AI, the voice agents continue to get better and better. So [00:13:00] if you talk to, say, ChatGPT, you’re gonna find that just keeps getting better and better.
So that also might be by the end of the year. I don’t think the voice agents are quite here now. I do know some of the marketing agencies offer it. I’m not actually persuaded it’s gonna be that effective yet, partly because not everybody picks up the phone. But I would say that a platform that I can’t say is a must have right now, but probably will be must have, it, um, might be in the next three months.
It’s like crazy to see how fast things are moving, is having an AI automation that is [00:13:30] actually good doing the follow-up. Because the AI SMS-based automations have been here actually, I think for like over a year or more. GHL has some native. Yeah. And they were just okay enough, right? So depending on how sloppy you’re willing to be.
And I don’t mean this as pejorative because part of marketing is just like, just get the job done. Sometimes everything can’t be perfect all the time. But I think by most people’s estimation, the native GHL AI follow-up automations were just not there yet. But I think those apps are coming, and we’ll probably be talking more about one that- Yeah
we’ve been [00:14:00] testing internally that we’re bullish on.
Speaker: Yeah. The reason I started with this question is because I find so many of the gym owners we talk to, they know they sh- that speed to lead matters, that following up with leads- Yeah … quickly matters. They know that following up relentlessly with them for a few days matters.
They know that circling back to their old clients matters. They know that texting people over emailing is probably better and essential these days. They know all of that. But up until this point, the tools just haven’t made it so easy for small- Yeah … businesses like ours- That’s right … [00:14:30] to really do it.
When you’re just all stuck on the floor coaching a lot and building your business, you just don’t have the time every day to do it. I think these tools are now making that excuse obsolete, right? That’s right. It’s just like there’s really no, there’s no reason, especially ’cause these tools so far are not crazy expensive, right?
They’re all- That’s right … they’re, they’re all reasonably affordable- That’s right … considering the power and lift that they have to do all this follow-up on your behalf, and not just email, but text always, uh, text as well, and now conversation and maybe even voice coming down [00:15:00] the pike. Yeah. It’s just like there’s really no reason to not be able to follow up with your leads in a, in the most effective way.
And so I think- That’s right … this software just becomes essential to do any decent- That’s right … modern marketing. That’s right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because you’re not the one having to do it once this happens. That’s it. That- And I should note, like presumably this is going to be like an arms race that levels out quickly because presumably any reasonable competitor’s gonna have it.
I think there likely- Of course … will be a window where you’ll have an extra advantage. And even on the other side of it, even if it flats on everybody has this [00:15:30] kind of capability, it’s still going to make your life easier, particularly if you’re a gym owner and you don’t wanna have to be the one to do it, or you are following up with your team who are never, if we’re being candid, gonna be as good and tenacious as you will with the lead follow-up.
Admittedly, it is one of the tricky things about this book because when this book went live into print, I wasn’t yet in the place to say, “Okay, I think I- this is here, and I think I speak to that.” I think it’s been a couple weeks since I finished the final draft of this. But because we’re just being evil, cruel monsters teasing, I’ll say that if- If [00:16:00] you wanna find out more what we’re talking about, one, I’m probably gonna talk a lot about it soon once this baby launches, or you can email me at mark@bizofunicorns.com.
And maybe I’ll be nice and allow you to understand with some early warning about what we see coming down the pike and how we’re involved.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. One more question about the marketing book as we wrap things- Mm-hmm … up here, which is there anything else in the book that people might be surprised to read in terms of your updated thinking on marketing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the w- the one that I think people would be surprised to read is I’ve g- [00:16:30] just gotten a little bit bearish about content email marketing for gyms. W- again, with the asterisk of listen, if you love writing and you’re great at personal brand, it’s just so rare that I see the situation where the gym owner actually has the skill, has the interest, and importantly, that’s actually as good use of their time as the other things they might do to do lead generation, right?
Because this is, and this is maybe like a final thought- And I refer to this earlier in the book, a conversation with a friend of mine I had about the danger of a book like this is you c- you [00:17:00] can’t do all the things. And the issue that we see a lot, and this is a lot of our job, Frank, as a coach to nicely, politely, but firmly sometimes give you a kind slap, is yeah, all things being equal, sure, you would do everything.
If you had 200 hours per week of manpower, yeah, you would just do everything, write the emails, edit them five times, split test the subject lines, be on– create all the reels, do all the biz partnerships, show up at all the local township events. But that’s just not the way this [00:17:30] works. The typical gym owner is gonna have…
If you’re early stage, some of you are gonna have to be squeaking by on five to 10 hours per week. And real talk, it’s hard to have less than 10 hours per week on lead gen, which means some of you are gonna have– you gotta go through that gnarly passageway where you’re on the floor 30 hours per week, and you just gotta get it done because you gotta do what you gotta do to grow the business.
Obviously, that all is facilitated if you’re having a lot of organic word of mouth, the product is very good. But even an advanced gym owner who, let’s say, the, the, like a typical high-level gym owner, let’s [00:18:00] say they’re off the floor entirely, they’re running the hypothetical seven-figure gym with decent margins.
The reality is, yeah, you might have some support on the marketing, but even as the owner, you still have to spend a decent bit of your time on leading and management. You still have to spend some time looking at the numbers and doing management. You– even with a good EA, you’re gonna have some administrivia, some tax stuff that you’re gonna have to be the one to do.
So even this owner that’s off the floor and really cleared their plate is not gonna have usually more than 25 to 30 hours. And then again, maybe if [00:18:30] it’s a bigger gym with margin, and this makes sense because there’s room to grow, you can have maybe another person that’s three quarters of their job can help.
A, a long way to saying you can’t do all of the things. So the email marketing is probably the one I think people have continued to be surprised by. And it’s just hard to get the nuance right talking about it, because like I’m not saying don’t do it. I am saying probably don’t do it. But really it’s– I’m just trying to question your thinking if you’re very committed to it, because I know a lot of people are still, and, and I still just [00:19:00] disagree.
I don’t think it’s a good use of time for most gym owners. I think you’d be better off just to, to run some back end offers very consistently like we do when our members use the Done For You marketing calendar- Yeah … to actually convert the leads rather than writing a long email about the time I discovered creatine in high school, right?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%. I, and I think most listeners and folks in Unicorn Society who I think have started to hear that message from you and from us, most that I talk to breathe a sigh of relief.
Speaker 2: Are relieved.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Most are like, “Oh my gosh- Yeah … I’ve been writing this fucking newsletter for years, [00:19:30] and I just, I hate it and I don’t know what to say.”
But they’ve been doing it begrudgingly, right? Yeah, that’s right. And for the folks who do love it, I- they also are like, “Oh yeah, I’ll probably keep doing this,” right? That- Yeah … ’cause this is fun for me. Yeah. I like writing. Yeah, listen. I like telling my story. I like being a thought leader. Great. If you go, if you have the time, go for it.
Just make sure it’s balanced with other things, and you’re paying attention to what’s actually driving results.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, if you’re only- If you’re doing it only for a hobby, that’s fine. Sure. It’s, uh, if you wanna watch Netflix, also fine, right? Is it m- more useful than Netflix? Yeah, maybe it’ll have some impact.
But if you- Yeah … if you’re [00:20:00] not getting the results that you want, like your business growth, your lead generation- Yeah … if you’re not seeing your kids enough, like I’m gonna, I’m gonna push on that hard. And as they say, “In God we trust, all others bring data.” I’m happy to see your data to prove to me that your email marketing is working for you as a gym owner, but.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%. Well, I think that’s, that’s a good place to leave it. I think that’s a really great kind of final thought is l- your data’s gonna tell you what to focus on, so- Yeah. Yep … make sure you’re tracking those numbers, kids. Which we cover
Speaker 2: in the book, too. We cover in the book, too- Yeah … in a very simple way.
Yeah. The simplest way you’re gonna see it.
Speaker: Final reminder, if you want this new and improved [00:20:30] marketing book, go down the show notes right now and grab it. It’ll be in your inbox in minutes. And thanks for a great conversation, Fisher. This was a great one. And dear listeners, have a kickass week. Go read the book, and I’ll see you on the next one.
Bye-bye. [00:21:00] Bye.