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Hi everybody, I'm Jay Croft and welcome to the Optimal Aging Podcast, where we discuss the business of exercise for people 50 and over.
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Each week we explore what healthy living means for millions of people over age 50 with a focus on communications, content, and making powerful connections.
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Today I want to talk about something many gyms and studios do, but which many of them do poorly.
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That's member profiles or testimonials.
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You know, photos and a little copy congratulating a member or sharing a bit of success.
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It's a great idea.
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Your members and prospects want to see people like them succeeding.
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They want to relate, to be able to say, hey, maybe I could do that.
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They want an ordinary person to help introduce them to fitness or to support what they're already doing.
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And they want to know that your business sees their effort and appreciates their successes.
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And what you get out of this is an endless source of powerful, compelling content that's cheap and easy to produce, and that you can use anywhere on your website, on your social media accounts, in your email newsletters, on and on.
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Member profiles are popular with your audience, easy for you to do, and effective in sharing your message.
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Still, there's just one little catch.
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They have to be good.
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And I'm sorry to say many of them are not.
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But it's so easy to do them well that I want to share quick tips with you.
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I'm going to start by answering this question, which is really the most important question that you need to keep at top of mind when you're working on member profiles, and that is what should be the focus of a member profile.
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Is it you and your business, your training methods or staff, your dedication to customer service and your passion for fitness and helping people achieve their dreams?
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Nope.
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Member profiles have one main feature, and that is the member.
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But too many member profiles spend too much time talking about the business, the owner, or the trainer.
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Here's an example.
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I'm making this up, but you've i you see stuff like this all the time.
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Here we go.
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Hi everybody, Susie Jones here, owner of Fitness with Susie, and I'm so excited today because I get to tell you about an awesome lady who has done everything we've asked her to do.
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Now she's lost 25 pounds, and she says she can't believe how much she loves Fitness with Susie and the results we've given her.
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I could go on and on, but you get the point.
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If you're not careful, it's really easy to write and publish something like that.
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So instead, keep the focus on the member.
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Your value in her story will become clear.
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Here's a four-point process to writing profiles that demand to be read and shared.
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First step, choosing someone to highlight.
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You might focus on someone who has met a goal, lost weight, recently completed her first marathon for a profile.
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Something like that.
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Well, I suggest highlighting people whose story aligns with your business priorities and values, or maybe something that's happening in your community, or a specific program or service offering that you have.
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For example, if you recently started a new small group training program, choose someone there who is meeting his or her goals.
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If someone has found that the key to his success has been the friendly, supportive nature at your gym, then address that without shifting too much focus, of course, from him to you.
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And remember that almost every month is reserved to put attention on a struggle or an ailment of some kind.
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You know, for instance, October is breast cancer awareness month, November is always diabetes awareness month, etc.
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So focus on one of your clients who has found health through fitness, mention his or her struggle with this serious disease, and guide your audience to where they can find more resources about it.
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Here's an example of a custom profile I wrote for one of my Prime Fit content subscribers who wanted to highlight her nutrition training program.
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I'll change the names here, but otherwise this is it.
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Here's the headline.
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Her motivation was simple, quote, to take care of myself, end quote.
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And here's the story.
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Growing up in Greece, Nia Valka spent countless days swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.
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But like a lot of people, when she started her working years, the daily exercise ended.
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Over the decades, Nia lived in France and Italy, married and had two children.
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She's now fifty-eight and a program manager for a tech company here locally.
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Five years ago, after the kids were old enough to free up her time, Nia wanted to start regular exercise.
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A friend recommended our hometown studio, and Nia has been with us ever since.
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Quote, I wasn't getting any younger and I was putting on weight, end quote, she recalls.
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Quote, I wanted to be strong because I knew that we lose muscle later in life if we don't work to keep it.
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I want to take care of myself, end quote.
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Nia was thrilled to see results almost right away.
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She lost some weight, but more importantly she gained muscle and strength.
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And after taking our nutrition program, Nia is enjoying healthy meals throughout the day, like fish and vegetables for dinner and a salad with meat and cheese for lunch.
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She learned the importance of getting more protein, limiting carbohydrates, and using a smartphone app to track her food so she could make adjustments as needed.
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Quote, it's the mindframe that does everything, end quote, she says about her success in building habits.
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Quote, if you really have it in your mind that you need to do this, that you want to do this, then you will, end quote.
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She's stronger now, more confident performing ordinary tasks of daily living, and looks forward to traveling to New York and back home to visit family in Greece, where she might even take a dip in the sea again.
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That's a nice little story, which brings us to the second of our points in the process.
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Tell a story using classic storytelling elements that make up every story.
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There's always a hero or a heroine, for instance, there's a conflict or a problem, a mentor or a guide, a location, a series of escalating events, resolution of the conflict or problem, and finally success for the hero.
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Whether you know it or not, every story you tell, read, hear, or watch has all of those elements, no matter how long it is or how short it is.
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And make no mistake, you can get all of them into a very small space for a profile.
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Here's an example.
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Now it's even better with the photo that goes with it, so I'm gonna include a link to that in the show notes.
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My friend Evelyn posted a photo of her eight-year-old Bella on Instagram and on Facebook with the following caption.
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Well, I'm gonna describe the photo first.
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Bella's this beautiful little eight-year-old girl, and she's got her hands up in triumph, and she's standing in front of her sunflower gardens, which are blooming.
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It's beautiful, and she's got the biggest, happiest smile on her face you've ever seen.
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Okay, and here's what Evelyn wrote about her daughter.
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She planted the seeds.
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She waited patiently all summer as the plants grew and grew, getting taller and taller.
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This week the flowers bloomed.
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Happy.
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A lot of people responded to that photo on Facebook, including writer Karen Rosen, who astutely noted that is a perfect 24-word story with illustration.
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It should be in a magazine.
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The third step is knowing what kind of questions to ask to get what you need, and then planning how you'll conduct the interview.
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You can do it in person or over the phone or on Zoom, but do not do it via email or text or giving them a form to fill out by hand.
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I know sometimes we see profiles in magazines or on a website, and it looks like that's what was done.
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But if you read that and it's any good, I promise you it was not done that way.
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They were they were edited.
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You can tell, you know, when when someone just publishes whatever the person responded with.
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Now you can still present in a format, but you shouldn't just take whatever you get and publish it.
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That is snooze city.
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And you do have an obligation to your audience here to not take them to snooze city with any of your content.
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So you're going to ask about more things than you will have room for.
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You're going to ask questions that bring boring answers.
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You're going to get the occasional, hmm, not that I can think of response.
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And that's okay.
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You just don't use those responses.
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Instead, if you think you're going to use, say, five responses, then ask ten questions and use the five best.
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If you think you're going to write five paragraphs, then ask enough for 15 paragraphs and just use the good stuff.
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And most importantly, on the topic of questions, ask follow-ups.
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You know, that's why emails and forms are no-nos.
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You get the best stories out of conversations.
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Now you should know this kind of thing from sales conversations.
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A prospect says he wants to lose 50 pounds in a year, you're going to ask why, right?
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And when he says he wants to walk his granddaughter down the aisle, you're going to ask about his family, right?
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And when he says his daughter almost asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle to save him from the embarrassment, well, there you are.
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Sales gold, right?
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It's the same thing with profiles.
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You don't get that via email.
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Here's my guide for a good interview.
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It might seem like a lot.
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It might seem intrusive, but trust me, it's neither.
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And the whole thing won't take more than 15 or 20 minutes.
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Start by letting them know that you already know a little bit about them and by asking an open-ended question, something like this.
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Your trainer Ken tells me you haven't missed a session all month.
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That's great.
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What's your secret?
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Next, ask about her fitness journey.
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What was she like before?
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What was her main struggle?
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Was she overweight?
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Was she eating too much junk food?
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Missing out on family trips, and she just couldn't seem to make steady improvement on her own.
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Then you want to know what made her seek a change now with you.
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You want to know the catalyst or the crisis that led her to your business.
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You know, for many people over 50, this can happen gradually.
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Like maybe they were active in college, but then they started raising their kids and going to work, and now as they're about to retire, they realize they're not ready or able to enjoy the rest of their lives.
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Or for some people it might be more specific.
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My doctor told me I'm on the verge of getting diabetes, which killed my mother when she was my age, for example.
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Next, ask how she felt, physically and emotionally.
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How did this affect her relationships and self-esteem?
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Now a lot of this will probably come out during the conversation, but if it doesn't, you want to ask.
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And it's not rude.
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You might think you're going too far.
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You're not.
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And if you are, then the person will let you know.
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But trust me, what's rude is to assume that you know how she felt and ignore the common decency of seeking her input, denying her the right to tell her own story just because you don't want to be rude.
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Next, ask how she felt that first time that she came into your place.
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Was she nervous?
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Was she thrilled?
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Was she welcomed right away by the staff or by another member?
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Did she have a feeling right away that it was a good decision, that kind of thing?
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Then you want to find out how your business or program or staff helped her.
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Get specific.
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A quote like, I finally lost the weight is not good enough.
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You want these details to be specific and real because that's when other people will relate and see themselves in her story.
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It's a paradox of storytelling that the more specific the story, the more people it will appeal to.
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But if you try to write so broadly that some notion of everybody will get it right away, then you end up with meaningless cliches.
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Finally, what's different for her now?
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Get specific.
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Has she lost the weight?
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How much?
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Is her doctor happy?
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Do her grandkids enjoy playing with her more?
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Has her husband booked that vacation?
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Whatever it is.
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Get her to share.
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And she will.
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Trust me, I've done this countless times.
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People like sharing their positive experiences, especially when they know it will inspire others.
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Finally, the fourth step, when you write it, you can put the answers into a format if you like, traditional QA or something more fun like the doers scotch profiles they used to run in magazines, or the profile in the back of Vanity Fair, where you present a targeted question to set up a relevant answer.
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It's contrived, but that's okay, as long as it's honest.
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Or you can just write it straight through, like the examples I've read on this episode, or like a short article you might read in the local newspaper.
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Whatever you choose, write dispassionately.
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Let the story speak for itself.
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Don't be silly, don't use exclamation points all over the place.
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Be sure to address these handful of points out of all the information you got.
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What their life was like before, what it's been like working out and being healthy since they came to see you, and how much better their life is now.
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You can add more, of course, but cover those bases, sort of the before, during, and after.
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Here's an example of the opposite that I hope proves my point a little bit more.
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I saw this on Facebook recently under a super impressive before and after photo of a woman who's probably in her sixties and had lost a lot of weight.
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She looks great, and from her smile, you can tell she's really happy.
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Her studio owner wrote this under the photos.
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Mary changed her life because she was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
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This is possible when you really are ready to do the work consistently.
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That's it.
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So intrigued, I DMed him to ask for the story.
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He said that was the story.
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I said no, it's not.
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Missed opportunity.
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I still want to know what happened to Mary.
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I want to talk to Mary, and maybe I will.
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Look, don't make the same mistake.
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Talk to your customers, listen to them, share their victories.
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It'll make them feel great.
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It'll provide powerful proof of your values and effectiveness.
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If you need help with this, let me know.
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I am happy to give you some coaching or some templates.
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And if you like, I can even create custom content for you that's just about your people.
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Shoot me an email at J J A Y at PrimefitContent.com.
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Thanks.
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Now I'll be back next time with a report from the Functional Aging Institute's two-day business training in Nashville.
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Until then, have a healthy day.
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Thank you for listening to the Optimal Aging Podcast.
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I'm your host, Jay Croft.
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And I hope you enjoyed it.
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And if you did, I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend, and write a review.
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All of that helps us grow our audience.
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I also hope you'll share any comments you have with me in an email or on social media, including suggestions for people I should interview.
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You can learn more about me in my content business at content.com.
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You can send me an email at JContent Jonathan.com.
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I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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So find me anywhere you like and be in touch.
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And again, thanks for listening.
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Join us next time.
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Hi everybody, I'm Jay Croft and welcome to the Optimal Aging Podcast, where we discuss the business of exercise for people 50 and over.
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Each week we explore what healthy living means for millions of people over age 50 with a focus on communications, content, and making powerful connections.
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Today I want to talk about something many gyms and studios do, but which many of them do poorly.
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That's member profiles or testimonials.
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You know, photos and a little copy congratulating a member or sharing a bit of success.
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It's a great idea.
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Your members and prospects want to see people like them succeeding.
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They want to relate, to be able to say, hey, maybe I could do that.
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They want an ordinary person to help introduce them to fitness or to support what they're already doing.
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And they want to know that your business sees their effort and appreciates their successes.
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And what you get out of this is an endless source of powerful, compelling content that's cheap and easy to produce, and that you can use anywhere on your website, on your social media accounts, in your email newsletters, on and on.
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Member profiles are popular with your audience, easy for you to do, and effective in sharing your message.
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Still, there's just one little catch.
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They have to be good.
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And I'm sorry to say many of them are not.
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But it's so easy to do them well that I want to share quick tips with you.
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I'm going to start by answering this question, which is really the most important question that you need to keep at top of mind when you're working on member profiles, and that is what should be the focus of a member profile.
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Is it you and your business, your training methods or staff, your dedication to customer service and your passion for fitness and helping people achieve their dreams?
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Nope.
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Member profiles have one main feature, and that is the member.
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But too many member profiles spend too much time talking about the business, the owner, or the trainer.
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Here's an example.
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I'm making this up, but you've i you see stuff like this all the time.
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Here we go.
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Hi everybody, Susie Jones here, owner of Fitness with Susie, and I'm so excited today because I get to tell you about an awesome lady who has done everything we've asked her to do.
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Now she's lost 25 pounds, and she says she can't believe how much she loves Fitness with Susie and the results we've given her.
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I could go on and on, but you get the point.
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If you're not careful, it's really easy to write and publish something like that.
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So instead, keep the focus on the member.
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Your value in her story will become clear.
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Here's a four-point process to writing profiles that demand to be read and shared.
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First step, choosing someone to highlight.
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You might focus on someone who has met a goal, lost weight, recently completed her first marathon for a profile.
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Something like that.
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Well, I suggest highlighting people whose story aligns with your business priorities and values, or maybe something that's happening in your community, or a specific program or service offering that you have.
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For example, if you recently started a new small group training program, choose someone there who is meeting his or her goals.
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If someone has found that the key to his success has been the friendly, supportive nature at your gym, then address that without shifting too much focus, of course, from him to you.
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And remember that almost every month is reserved to put attention on a struggle or an ailment of some kind.
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You know, for instance, October is breast cancer awareness month, November is always diabetes awareness month, etc.
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So focus on one of your clients who has found health through fitness, mention his or her struggle with this serious disease, and guide your audience to where they can find more resources about it.
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Here's an example of a custom profile I wrote for one of my Prime Fit content subscribers who wanted to highlight her nutrition training program.
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I'll change the names here, but otherwise this is it.
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Here's the headline.
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Her motivation was simple, quote, to take care of myself, end quote.
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And here's the story.
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Growing up in Greece, Nia Valka spent countless days swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.
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But like a lot of people, when she started her working years, the daily exercise ended.
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Over the decades, Nia lived in France and Italy, married and had two children.
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She's now fifty-eight and a program manager for a tech company here locally.
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Five years ago, after the kids were old enough to free up her time, Nia wanted to start regular exercise.
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A friend recommended our hometown studio, and Nia has been with us ever since.
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Quote, I wasn't getting any younger and I was putting on weight, end quote, she recalls.
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Quote, I wanted to be strong because I knew that we lose muscle later in life if we don't work to keep it.
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I want to take care of myself, end quote.
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Nia was thrilled to see results almost right away.
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She lost some weight, but more importantly she gained muscle and strength.
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And after taking our nutrition program, Nia is enjoying healthy meals throughout the day, like fish and vegetables for dinner and a salad with meat and cheese for lunch.
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She learned the importance of getting more protein, limiting carbohydrates, and using a smartphone app to track her food so she could make adjustments as needed.
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Quote, it's the mindframe that does everything, end quote, she says about her success in building habits.
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Quote, if you really have it in your mind that you need to do this, that you want to do this, then you will, end quote.
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She's stronger now, more confident performing ordinary tasks of daily living, and looks forward to traveling to New York and back home to visit family in Greece, where she might even take a dip in the sea again.
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That's a nice little story, which brings us to the second of our points in the process.
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Tell a story using classic storytelling elements that make up every story.
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There's always a hero or a heroine, for instance, there's a conflict or a problem, a mentor or a guide, a location, a series of escalating events, resolution of the conflict or problem, and finally success for the hero.
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Whether you know it or not, every story you tell, read, hear, or watch has all of those elements, no matter how long it is or how short it is.
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And make no mistake, you can get all of them into a very small space for a profile.
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Here's an example.
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Now it's even better with the photo that goes with it, so I'm gonna include a link to that in the show notes.
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My friend Evelyn posted a photo of her eight-year-old Bella on Instagram and on Facebook with the following caption.
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Well, I'm gonna describe the photo first.
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Bella's this beautiful little eight-year-old girl, and she's got her hands up in triumph, and she's standing in front of her sunflower gardens, which are blooming.
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It's beautiful, and she's got the biggest, happiest smile on her face you've ever seen.
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Okay, and here's what Evelyn wrote about her daughter.
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She planted the seeds.
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She waited patiently all summer as the plants grew and grew, getting taller and taller.
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This week the flowers bloomed.
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Happy.
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A lot of people responded to that photo on Facebook, including writer Karen Rosen, who astutely noted that is a perfect 24-word story with illustration.
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It should be in a magazine.
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The third step is knowing what kind of questions to ask to get what you need, and then planning how you'll conduct the interview.
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You can do it in person or over the phone or on Zoom, but do not do it via email or text or giving them a form to fill out by hand.
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I know sometimes we see profiles in magazines or on a website, and it looks like that's what was done.
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But if you read that and it's any good, I promise you it was not done that way.
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They were they were edited.
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You can tell, you know, when when someone just publishes whatever the person responded with.
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Now you can still present in a format, but you shouldn't just take whatever you get and publish it.
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That is snooze city.
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And you do have an obligation to your audience here to not take them to snooze city with any of your content.
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So you're going to ask about more things than you will have room for.
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You're going to ask questions that bring boring answers.
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You're going to get the occasional, hmm, not that I can think of response.
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And that's okay.
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You just don't use those responses.
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Instead, if you think you're going to use, say, five responses, then ask ten questions and use the five best.
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If you think you're going to write five paragraphs, then ask enough for 15 paragraphs and just use the good stuff.
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And most importantly, on the topic of questions, ask follow-ups.
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You know, that's why emails and forms are no-nos.
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You get the best stories out of conversations.
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Now you should know this kind of thing from sales conversations.
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A prospect says he wants to lose 50 pounds in a year, you're going to ask why, right?
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And when he says he wants to walk his granddaughter down the aisle, you're going to ask about his family, right?
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And when he says his daughter almost asked her stepdad to walk her down the aisle to save him from the embarrassment, well, there you are.
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Sales gold, right?
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It's the same thing with profiles.
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You don't get that via email.
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Here's my guide for a good interview.
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It might seem like a lot.
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It might seem intrusive, but trust me, it's neither.
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And the whole thing won't take more than 15 or 20 minutes.
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Start by letting them know that you already know a little bit about them and by asking an open-ended question, something like this.
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Your trainer Ken tells me you haven't missed a session all month.
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That's great.
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What's your secret?
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Next, ask about her fitness journey.
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What was she like before?
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What was her main struggle?
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Was she overweight?
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Was she eating too much junk food?
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Missing out on family trips, and she just couldn't seem to make steady improvement on her own.
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Then you want to know what made her seek a change now with you.
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You want to know the catalyst or the crisis that led her to your business.
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You know, for many people over 50, this can happen gradually.
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Like maybe they were active in college, but then they started raising their kids and going to work, and now as they're about to retire, they realize they're not ready or able to enjoy the rest of their lives.
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Or for some people it might be more specific.
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My doctor told me I'm on the verge of getting diabetes, which killed my mother when she was my age, for example.
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Next, ask how she felt, physically and emotionally.
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How did this affect her relationships and self-esteem?
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Now a lot of this will probably come out during the conversation, but if it doesn't, you want to ask.
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And it's not rude.
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You might think you're going too far.
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You're not.
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And if you are, then the person will let you know.
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But trust me, what's rude is to assume that you know how she felt and ignore the common decency of seeking her input, denying her the right to tell her own story just because you don't want to be rude.
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Next, ask how she felt that first time that she came into your place.
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Was she nervous?
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Was she thrilled?
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Was she welcomed right away by the staff or by another member?
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Did she have a feeling right away that it was a good decision, that kind of thing?
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Then you want to find out how your business or program or staff helped her.
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Get specific.
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A quote like, I finally lost the weight is not good enough.
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You want these details to be specific and real because that's when other people will relate and see themselves in her story.
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It's a paradox of storytelling that the more specific the story, the more people it will appeal to.
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But if you try to write so broadly that some notion of everybody will get it right away, then you end up with meaningless cliches.
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Finally, what's different for her now?
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Get specific.
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Has she lost the weight?
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How much?
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Is her doctor happy?
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Do her grandkids enjoy playing with her more?
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Has her husband booked that vacation?
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Whatever it is.
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Get her to share.
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And she will.
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Trust me, I've done this countless times.
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People like sharing their positive experiences, especially when they know it will inspire others.
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Finally, the fourth step, when you write it, you can put the answers into a format if you like, traditional QA or something more fun like the doers scotch profiles they used to run in magazines, or the profile in the back of Vanity Fair, where you present a targeted question to set up a relevant answer.
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It's contrived, but that's okay, as long as it's honest.
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Or you can just write it straight through, like the examples I've read on this episode, or like a short article you might read in the local newspaper.
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Whatever you choose, write dispassionately.
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Let the story speak for itself.
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Don't be silly, don't use exclamation points all over the place.
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Be sure to address these handful of points out of all the information you got.
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What their life was like before, what it's been like working out and being healthy since they came to see you, and how much better their life is now.
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You can add more, of course, but cover those bases, sort of the before, during, and after.
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Here's an example of the opposite that I hope proves my point a little bit more.
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I saw this on Facebook recently under a super impressive before and after photo of a woman who's probably in her sixties and had lost a lot of weight.
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She looks great, and from her smile, you can tell she's really happy.
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Her studio owner wrote this under the photos.
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Mary changed her life because she was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
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This is possible when you really are ready to do the work consistently.
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That's it.
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So intrigued, I DMed him to ask for the story.
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He said that was the story.
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I said no, it's not.
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Missed opportunity.
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I still want to know what happened to Mary.
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I want to talk to Mary, and maybe I will.
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Look, don't make the same mistake.
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Talk to your customers, listen to them, share their victories.
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It'll make them feel great.
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It'll provide powerful proof of your values and effectiveness.
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If you need help with this, let me know.
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I am happy to give you some coaching or some templates.
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And if you like, I can even create custom content for you that's just about your people.
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Shoot me an email at J J A Y at PrimefitContent.com.
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Thanks.
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Now I'll be back next time with a report from the Functional Aging Institute's two-day business training in Nashville.
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Until then, have a healthy day.
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Thank you for listening to the Optimal Aging Podcast.
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I'm your host, Jay Croft.
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And I hope you enjoyed it.
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And if you did, I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend, and write a review.
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All of that helps us grow our audience.
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I also hope you'll share any comments you have with me in an email or on social media, including suggestions for people I should interview.
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You can learn more about me in my content business at content.com.
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You can send me an email at JContent Jonathan.com.
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I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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So find me anywhere you like and be in touch.
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And again, thanks for listening.
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Join us next time.
