508: The Perfect Client Funnel: Generate New Leads Predictably, Solve Problems, and Make Money From Group Coaching with Healthpreneur Fitness Coach Yuri Elkaim

Robert Plank 0:00 Marketer of the day number 508, the perfect client funnel, generate new leads, predictably solve problems and make money from group coaching with healthpreneur Fitness Coach Yuri elkaim. Hey everyone, we're so glad that you tuned in. We're talking right now with Yuri elkaim. And Yuri is one of the world's premier speakers on business strategy and online marketing for health and fitness entrepreneurs. And he believes that being you is the greatest gift that you can give to others. So we'll be talking about that. And Yuri is also a strong believer in working smarter and not harder, especially in this day and age where things like the grind or the hustle are kind of heralded with badges of honor, and there's a time for hard work. But as with anything in life, more isn't necessarily better, especially when it comes to building your business, because those kind of things leads to burnout, dissatisfaction. We don't want that. We want to build smarter marketing campaigns. Have self managing systems. Yuri is going to set it straight. So how are things today? Yuri,

Yuri Elkaim 0:58 thanks for going very well. Thank you so much. How about yourself?

Robert Plank 1:02 Better than ever. Thanks for asking, and glad to hear it from you. So, I mean, out of all the, you know, the craziness that's always happening online, and we always need to, you know, focus and narrow things down. I mean, what has you fired up these days? What's your focus?

Yuri Elkaim 1:17 Really? It's trimming away the fat. It's really simplifying business down to its essentials and doing nothing else other than what really matters, which is bringing in new clients and helping them achieve an amazing result. So I have a health and fitness business that we've built online for 12 years, massively complex business, hundreds of products, all sorts of funnels, and I'm like, I never want to recreate that business ever again. So with our current company, healthpreneur, which is more B to B, you know, we've had it for, you know, since the inception, two years ago, the whole goal has been to create the simplest path to the end result, but the end result not just being success, but also fulfillment, because I realized with my previous business, I wasn't very fulfilled, and I was very disconnected from my audience. You know, selling a lot of products, everything, I was kind of hiding behind a lot of automation. And so with our current business, it's the whole idea is to scale by going deeper, not wider. So working a lot more closely with people higher price points, really helping them, like, get stuff done and really create results for them. And that's what's fired us. I mean, that's got me fired up. And we have a very, very simple business, which is very nice.

Robert Plank 2:30 Well, cool, great thing to get fired up about. And I can definitely relate not to all of it, but to the aspect, I mean, not not to the scale that you build things on, but the aspect of maybe getting off track, forgetting why I started, and then getting to the point where I'm just running around, putting out fires, all the stuff, and then just, and just like, kind of like, like, corrupting my own business and and definitely the aspect of having the success, but then it's sort of a hall of victory, of saying, All right, well, I have the success in the Money or the business, but then it's such a time sucker. It's such a cause of stress, or even, like the burnout factor of being like, geez, like just feeling tired or feeling run down and not really understanding why and that need to have that, that business simplicity. So it sounds like, as you were setting that up, it sounds like you built it successfully the hard way first, right? Like now you have, you have your cake and eat it too. Now things are simple, but it sounds like back in the day, you built up the the fitness stuff, with all the extra baggage of all the hard work, right?

Yuri Elkaim 3:32 Yeah, totally. And it's really the way that a lot of people are still building their businesses, which is, you know, build your platform, tons of content, lead magnet, trip wire, ascension, funnel. And, I mean, I've built more funnels than I can even remember accounting. I'm happy I did all that, because I really, really got well versed with direct response. You know, copywriting, how to influence people in a positive way, understanding the nuances of you know how to grow a business online. But you know, a lot of that stuff is is tougher to do nowadays, and it's we see this, especially in the health space, with with coaches or people trying to sell ebooks. I mean, the days of that stuff, it's a the old model of doing that is dying a slow death. And I really believe that if people are still pursuing that business model, they're gonna have a very tough time succeeding, because when I started in 2006 online, you can sell an e book for 67 bucks. No problem. Now, with all the information that you can get for free, on YouTube, on a blog post, it's we've seen a price erosion. We've seen a huge demonetization of information, and that model is no longer what it used to be. So I really believe that if people are still doing that, they're going to struggle. We're already seeing that happen. We're seeing people's deliverability email wise go right down. The revenue being slashed in half, literally over the over the, you know, within the last year. Right because they're still operating in this old, archaic model. So it's, it's an exciting time if you're doing things that are kind of on the up and up and moving forward in the right direction, but it's also a very frustrating time if you're still relying on some of that older, archaic stuff.

Robert Plank 5:15 That makes a lot of sense, and it sounds like the the analogy is sort of like how it used to be, way back in the day, before I was even born, that the TV only had like, three channels, five channels. Now there's a million channels. So it used to be you could just throw any old piece of crap on the TV, and now people like TV shows and things like that have to hook people because there's so much competition. And as far as the online stuff, I mean, yeah, I agree with you. It seems like kind of a similar path there in that back in the day, you could just slap up something, you can price it whatever you want it. You didn't have to be as focused or deliberate in the things that you did. You just could do whatever, and then it would somehow work out. But now that there's all this extra competition, we need to be better about our strategy. Be better about the things that are important, that aren't aren't important, right?

Yuri Elkaim 6:02 Yeah, and then I think TV is actually a really good analogy, because what TV is currently experiencing is everyone's using Netflix because they're not getting what they want from cable television. So Netflix comes in and says, Hey guys, just whatever you want when you want it for like, eight or 10 bucks a month, and cable is, again, it's dying a slow death. And even, I would even say a lot of the Hollywood movies are are really like, I mean, I don't know if I've seen a good movie on iTunes for the past four or five months, because I think all of that, that focus and energy is now moving to, like, original shows on on Netflix. So it's, it's, I mean, it's, if people are still producing stuff from the old way. I mean, sure some of it might work. It might be an uphill battle. But you know, when we have a completely new model, which is really giving people more of what they want, you know, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to compete against

Robert Plank 6:58 that. So how do we figure out what people want. How do we do these things that that are actually going to make us money in our business and stand out in this day and age?

Yuri Elkaim 7:07 Yeah, so I think there's a big opportunity now for true experts. So if you have expertise in a specific area that can really, like, solve a big pain or problem for someone, you have a big uprend. If you don't, then whatever what to say, it may not apply to as much, but let's say you're someone who has an expertise in health or finances or business development or whatever, you can solve a problem for someone, the future is really going to be dictated by a lot more service based offers. So we went through a whole, I'd say, a decade or so where products and info products were a big thing, and the pendulum has swung the opposite direction now, because the more high tech we get, the more high touch people are going to want. And that's just a human fact, like we feel, I think, more than ever, more disconnected from other humans, even though we have, like, Facebook and social media, where, you know, you'd think we're more connected, but we're really not. So we have a lot of nonsense going on that's disconnecting us from true human interaction. And I think, as a business owner, if you offer any type of coaching or consulting, now is the time to really cash in on this, and not in a way that is, I say, cash in the most respectable way as possible, but really developing a what we call a dream come true system around your expertise in a very specific way that moves people from where they are to where they want to be, to help solve a problem of pain for them, and in a way where you're not doing one on one coaching, but you're coaching a group of people in a more leveraged fashion. So whether that's 510, 2050, at the same time, all moving on the same path, on the same journey towards the same destination, and as a result of that, you're able to charge a lot more. So I believe we are in a day and age where premium pricing is a big, big advantage, just like there's always going to be people who fly first class, there's always going to be people who want the best, and if you can bring the goods and you're willing to work with people a little bit more closely, again, not one on one, but in a leverage group fashion, the opportunities now are better than I've ever seen. And the nice thing about that is when you build out your business model in a very simple way that can generate leads predictably for you, you have to spend more of your time doing what you love, which is teaching, coaching and serving your clients. So that's really where our focus is. Obviously, we focus with health entrepreneurs and coaches and practitioners. But even if you're in consulting or finances or anything like that, the opportunity in that space right now is absolutely gigantic,

Robert Plank 9:43 super cool. So what I'm hearing from you is no reason to panic, unless you're still trying to make it work the old fashioned way. But if you're willing to do what's working now, then then you'll have a lot of success. And I think that what, what? Uh. Caught my attention there is that. So you say that you know, you need to be a true expert and solve a big pain or a problem. So how does a person narrow down, like, what that is? And, I mean, does that change over time? Is it? Is it a matter of figuring out over like, you know, trial and error, like, how does someone really get it dialed in, like, what's this big problem that I'm solving that's maybe in that sweet spot of I can do it really well, but it's not super competitive, but people want it. I mean, how does someone get that just exactly figured out? Yeah,

Yuri Elkaim 10:30 it's a good question. I think there's a certain amount of self awareness that has to come into play. So when it comes to health and fitness, there's a lot of different areas I can help people with, and that was my fault for not narrowing that down right from the get go. So I became a generalist, whereas other people, they've decided, listen, I'm going to be the person who specializes in thyroid disorders, and I'm going to help specifically women who have Hashimotos thyroiditis. And so I think part of it is, you know, a what is your background, educationally, in terms of, let's say you're in the health space, where that's a bit more applicable, and you just say, listen like I have a great expertise in this specific area. This is where I feel most passionate about because maybe it's personally affecting me as well. Another, another way to consider it is just look like, if it's more on the business to business side. Maybe you're someone who has a really good ability to help people generate more leads using Instagram, right? So you can show people how to build their business using Instagram intelligently. That's a that might be a specific desire or pain point that sort of people are dealing with, right? They're using Instagram. They're spending all day doing Instagram stories, but nothing's coming of it, so you can show them a system to actually do things properly, or maybe you're able to help someone understand and build out how to deploy Facebook ads profitably, instead of just having Facebook ads that suck money out of your bank. So there's a lot of different problems, and as entrepreneurs, our goal is simply to solve problems at a profit. That's pretty much all we do. And there's a lot of different ways to position and package what it is you offer, but at the core is you have to pick one person, really figure out who that ideal client is, focus on one capable problem to solve, and what is that powerful promise you're going to make to help them. Get excited about how you can help them. I

Robert Plank 12:24 love it. So you choose that ideal client, you figure out the promise. So that way you're not just tossing out a bunch of subjects or keywords or things like that. So this is making a lot of sense, especially like that. Just the whole reminder of, well, you start with your background and get it narrowed down, but then, like, we need to be solving problems. We can't just, you know, throw out a niche throw out a subject. Needs to be getting someone to where they need to go, whether that's fixing their thyroid, getting the leads from Instagram, things like that and so. And you mentioned, as we were getting ramped up here, that it's important to not only solve this problem, but solve it for people, but then do it in a way that's in a group environment and leverage, not always one on one. So can you unpack that a little bit and tell us, like, what we need to know about this group stuff, this leveraging stuff.

Yuri Elkaim 13:10 So when I first started online, the whole the I guess the allure of the online business was, set up a product, like, set it and forget it. Really like, put up an ebook, sell it, never interact with people, lay on the beach, live the laptop lifestyle and that. I mean, there's still people that are still doing that, and there's obviously Amazon businesses that sell products that never interact with their customers. And that's fine, but what we're talking about here is really about, if you want to do that, you have to have massive volume, like you have to have volume upon volume of visits and clients and customers buying your stuff, and most people just don't have that. So when we look at a group coaching model, we're looking at, okay, I've got specific expertise in a certain area, and I've been working with clients over the last couple of years, and I seem to be saying the same thing over and over and over again. Now what most people do is they create a course, and they try to sell the course. So it's a DIY Do It Yourself type of program, and usually most people sell it anywhere from like 500 to $2,000 and the trouble with that nowadays is that DIY is becoming very unattractive, like people don't want to have 1000 hours of videos to go through to figure something out. But the cool thing is that whatever work you put into writing a book, creating a course, whatever it is, there's a process behind that. There's a way that you help clients go from where they are to where they want to be, and all we're trying to do is unravel that, and then, instead of just delivering it as a do it yourself. Course. We walk a cohort of people, a group of people, clients, together, through that process. So it might look like you take your course, and on a Monday you release. Is the first video. Here's the training. Here's the marching orders for the week. On Thursday, for instance, you might come together as a group and do a zoom call. So as a group, everyone's on the call, and this is where they can ask questions, troubleshoots, you know, get the support that they need. And so what this allows you to do is really take the automation, Evergreen side of things, and build it into more of a live experience, so that people feel like they're getting personalized attention to their specific issues. And maybe this is built over four weeks or eight weeks, or whatever it is, but the key is that it's done with you, not do it yourself, and there's always going to be a higher desire for someone to do it with you, or even done for you, then there's going to be to do it by yourself. It's kind of like learning how to drive a car by yourself, which is kind of an interesting prospect, versus learning how to drive a car with an instructor, and at the top level, done for you would be actually not even having to learn how to drive a car, because you have self driving cars, very soon that'll that will be able to do that for you. So where coaching comes in is really it hovers between that done with you and done for you. Grounds, and that's you know, can take the form of here are some swipe files. Here are some frameworks and templates that you can deploy in your business that's more done for you, done with you becomes like the coaching and answering questions and really holding people's hands as a collective to move them through that process. And the nice thing is that usually, most coaches get worn down with one on one, not only because it's time intensive, but it's also energy intensive, you know, like when you're doing one on one on some people, you're taking a lot of their their crap, so it becomes, it turns into a psychotherapy session pretty quickly. In a group, that doesn't happen, you're working with however many people, 1020 people, everyone's there. They're focused on the goal. They're not going to waste anyone's time with personal problems. And there's social accountability to the group. There's also accountability to you the coach, because they've paid you a good sum of money to take part in it, and that, just that alone, makes a group versus one on one that much more effective. And when you can, when you pair that with a premium or higher priced type of offer. So the crew, the group coaching program is, you know, not less expensive than one on one, because a lot of people think, well, if it's one on one, it's got to be more than if it's group, and that's completely false. It doesn't matter if it's one on one or group. All that matters is you're able to produce a result for your clients. So if you're charging 345, even higher, $1,000 for your specific program, it makes a lot of sense on your time, because now you're spending maybe two to three hours a week delivering it, and the rest of the time like you can focus on enrolling new clients, having more free time with yourself or your family, and it really just frees up your business. Instead of having to write 1000s of blog posts, spend all day doing Instagram stories and a lot of other stuff that is very, very unlikely to move the needle in a big way for you. I

Robert Plank 18:04 like that a lot. Dang. I mean, there's, there's so much to unpack there. I think I'm gonna go back and listen to the recording of that a couple of times, because, like, there's so much packed in there. But what you're saying there makes a lot of sense, that if someone out there has that scratched itch, they have a really big problem. And they go and they look at some of this, some of these courses, or things where they're just given these videos, I can definitely imagine that people might be looking at that, especially these days, and say, well, I already don't know what I'm going to do if I get a bunch of videos, I'm either not going to go through them, or I might even be left more confused than when I started and and so I can definitely see the appeal to this, this group thing, and especially, there's something in there about how when people are in the from the opposite side of things, from the coaches side, when there's the group environment, then the those clients, so to speak, are on their best behavior. So that way they're not just they're not just rambling, or they're not turning it into the their possession. They're actually focusing on what it is that their problems are. And just to get kind of get everyone caught up a little bit. You mentioned a zoom call, which is a pretty new thing, like I used to use Go To Meeting, go to webinar and stuff. But Zoom is pretty cool, because you can just set the meeting room. People come in. Everyone appears on camera where they're on their computer, on the phone, so that way it's just a really easy way for everyone to be in that be in it together and and, you know, just kind of meet face to face, or as close to face to face as they can be. And so I mean this, this all sounds really great. The, you know, the Zoom stuff, the group coaching model. You have the membership site where, like, the orders on Monday, you meet on Thursday. But do you see any places where people get held up, or any snags, or where there could be snags with this?

Yuri Elkaim 19:46 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, number one, if you don't have a program that you fully believe in that can produce a result for someone, it's gonna be very tough to sell it. So if you're charging three, $5,000 for, let's say, a four or eight week coaching program. Okay, you need to be fully confident that what you're providing people can really make a difference in life. And so number one, and that's a good thing, because when people invest heavily with you, it forces you to be at the top of your game, like you can't mess around. So that's, that's the first thing is, if you have to tweak some stuff and kind of run some stuff through some some beta testers first do that, because you need to be able to make sure people get a result. Second thing is, how do you get people to enroll in the first place? And there's a lot of different things you could be doing, but we've got a very simple process we call the perfect client pipeline, and it basically goes like this, Facebook ad, the webinar. Webinar, invite them to a strategy call, and between the webinar and strategy call, we have them fill out an application. So you have four moving parts. Three of them are automated. So Facebook ads, webinar and the application, you don't need to do anything with other than setting them up. Facebook ads obviously will manage those on a weekly basis. Maybe that's an hour to an hour and a half of your time if it's done properly. The webinar, if it does a good job, you don't really have to do anything with it. If it doesn't do a good job, then you can simply re record it. And this is an automated evergreen webinar, so it's recorded once, not live every single day. So where most people drop the ball is they don't have a they don't have a predictable way of bringing new leads into their business. That's the number one problem we see is they're doing manual prospecting. They're doing all sorts of stuff on social media that are killing themselves, creating content, and nothing seems to be moving the needle. And that's that's just because they don't have a simple system like this, or they don't have the confidence to deploy a Facebook ad campaign because they're scared of losing money. And you know, Robert, as we know that there's a big difference between having a Facebook ad and having one that converts Well, there's a big difference between having a webinar and a webinar that converts well. So it's just a matter of really following a proven process and a system so you're not wasting your time trying to figure all this out for years and wasting a lot of your money in the process. So having that predictable machine that is bringing leads in converting them into qualified prospects. And again, if we're offering coaching here, we're going to move people into some type of call. Because if you're offering a three, $5,000 type of program, it's not going to happen from a Buy Now button on a sales page like you have to be speaking to people to enroll them at that level. So you want to make sure that the people you're speaking to are highly qualified, and that's where the Facebook ad, webinar and application all play an important role to qualify and disqualify people, so that the only people you get on the phone with are pretty warm, if not very hot. And typically what we see is, if we speak to two people, one of them will enroll. And if you know, if you've done things properly, that that percentage can even be higher. But the key is that these calls are not sales pitches. They're not full on, like, hard closes. They're really about serving and seeing if there's a good fit for the both of you to work together, and if there is, then it's just a matter of showing you can help them and then just letting them know, like, here's the next step if you're interested. And so I'd say where people really kind of lose their footing a little bit is on number one, generating those leads predictably. That's where Facebook ads come in, because they're like, 24/7 digital salespeople for you. And then obviously the webinar has to be it has to be done properly. And then obviously, like the deliverable, like, if you if you're not producing a great results, then you know you're not gonna have a lot of confidence to get out there and really put some money behind this. But the good thing is that if it's done properly, you'd be spending $1 on Facebook ads, making two in return, making five in return, making 10 in return. That's an obscene type of ROI that you just can't see with low end information products. And really, like any other investment that I'm aware of, like, if you put in $1 to Facebook ads, and you can get five back within a week. I mean, that's a 500% return. You're never going to see that anywhere else in the world. So this is what we do in our business. This is what we help our clients do, and this is why it's it's very exciting, because there's only a small number of moving parts. This is the only funnel you need. You don't need to be split testing 1000 different things. There's only a few spots where things can, you know, quote, unquote, break, and it's very easy to identify what those are and then be able to fix those. So it becomes very, very exciting for people, because they don't have to spend all their time marketing. It's all more or less automated, and they get to spend more of their time actually speaking with people, coaching people to great results, and while making a lot more profit in the process.

Robert Plank 24:35 Super awesome. I love it and and I mean so much good stuff in there, and especially that, you know, I can, I definitely have, in the past, been stuck in the area that you mentioned where, you know, just cranking out the content, cranking out the blog post, without a real clear plan and what, and some of what you laid out there reminds me of, like, because, like, I saw software and things like that. And years ago, everyone was obsessed with this idea of. Like, drip content, right? Like, I gotta have my membership site. I need to have drip content. And if I don't have drip content, then I'm not going to make any money. And if I do have drip content, I am going to make money. And it's, it was sort of a silly thing to see people, uh, worrying about when it's like, well, you don't necessarily need to have this one gimmick. You need to solve problems and have this, this funnel to bring people through. And then as far as that whole area of talking to prospects on the phone and selling them on something high ticket, that was something where I hesitated for years because I didn't do it with the funnel. I was just calling, you know, random customers or having them call me, and we didn't really know what to talk about, and it was a bad experience. But then in these last few months, I've come around to to your way of thinking, and a lot of these things that you're laying out here of having the funnel in place for the purposes of really filtering down who you should be talking to, and vice versa, right? So that way you're talking to people who you want to work with, who would want to work with you, and it makes it a very smooth process. And so I'm so, yeah, this all sounds great. And this is like, the the way to pivot in this day and age, where the the rug has been pulled out from under a lot of us, where, you know, there's there's more competition, the Facebook ads cost more, there's more marketers out there. So we have to get this funnel, this machine, in place that you talked about, and I'm assuming, or I'm guessing, that you have some resources and links for us to help us get to where we want to go, because we definitely don't have time to unpack all the steps and strategies and things like that on on a podcast episode. So I mean, what do you have for us? What sort of resources and links here to help us get this sort of system in place that way we can have the the ideal business?

Yuri Elkaim 26:38 Yeah, for sure. So our main website is, it's actually funny, because we've taken down all of our lead magnets, all of our courses, and we basically have simplified our business to a very, very, very simple model for us where there's two ways we work with people. One is our workshop, and then one is our mastermind. And in order to get to our mastermind, you have to do the workshop, but to get a better sense of how we kind of all lay this out, and more specifically, what we believe is a new way of building a seven figure business in the new era. We've got a great webinar, and it's actually mostly catered to, obviously, the health and fitness industry. So if you're a health or wellness practitioner, fitness coach, anyone who has an expertise in that area, who enjoys coaching people, or you have a supplement based business that is not on Amazon, that you want to learn how to grow and avoid becoming commoditized. We can certainly help with that. So this, I've got a great webinar again. It's called a seven figure health business blueprint, and people can register for that if they want to at Health printer group.com, forward slash nine. That's the number nine, and that'll just take you over to the registration page, which is a super fancy registration page, not really, but it's, yeah, like, it's a 71 minute training. It will basically unravel in more depth what we're talking about here, and really give people a tangible way of going into the future, and especially if they're into any kind of coaching, this is, this is a game changer for them, for sure, super

Robert Plank 28:10 cool. So if you're the kind of person that you're you're worried about upcoming changes, or you feel like the the old tricks aren't working, you need some new strategies. Then go right now to healthpreneur group.com, forward slash nine, and figure out what you need to to know. As Yuri said, whether you're a fitness coach, a non Amazon supplement business, whatever your situation is, go there and hear Yuri out and hear and see what he has to say. So that way you know what you need to be doing to work smarter and not harder, and outdo your or your competition and make a bunch of money and have a bunch of free time and enjoy where you're doing and all those great things that happens from having a successful business. So there's no downside to hearing some new advice, some new tips and things like that. So make sure you go there to health preneur group.com forward slash nine. We'll see you over there, and thanks you so much for stopping by and drawing, dropping tons of knowledge, packing a ton in on this call. I really appreciate it, and appreciate you too.

Yuri Elkaim 29:06 Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thanks. Chad and Robert, please subscribe,

Robert Plank 29:09 rate and review our show at marketer of the day.com/itunes and like us on Facebook at marketer of the day.com/facebook you