Jen (00:01.354)
Richard, welcome to the MumSafe Movement podcast. How are you today?
Richard Toutounji (00:05.151)
Great. I am pumped to be in the MumSafe podcast. I've been waiting for this moment for a while, Jen. Totally.
Jen (00:11.63)
excited to hear that. And now it's here. Cool. Let's kick off the way that we kick off with all of our guests. So we're gonna I'm gonna ask you a word to share how you're showing up today. And like I say to all of them if it's been an absolute shit fight of a morning it does not have to be a positive word so it's however you're showing up. Then we'll go into a win and something that you've been working on.
Richard Toutounji (00:32.043)
Okay. I think my word is filled up. Do I have to explain why or just want the word? Okay. Well, I'm filled up. I had a pretty, I was in Melbourne last week and then I flew back to Noosa with a friend's 40th and it was really like a big weekend filled up and so then I came back and-
Jen (00:37.022)
It's entirely up to you. Like it's, we can go off on tangents depending on, I'm interested in why you're filled up. Filled up of what?
Richard Toutounji (00:54.707)
We're renovating at the moment, so I had to clear some stuff and I'm like, had a little bit of space and it's like, okay, cool. Now I've got to get into work zone. So I'm filled up, not everywhere, but definitely filled up in some parts of my life. Um, the win is podcast. Um, I find that every time I do a podcast, that's a good win for me. Cause one of those things sometimes that I don't put enough time into. So that's a win for me. Um, something I'm working on today, we've got an upcoming summit end of the year. And, um, that's something where I'm, you know, gonna put some work in today.
Jen (01:15.255)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (01:25.303)
Um, yeah, they're my three words filled up field podcast summit.
Jen (01:27.798)
Nice. Nice, I like it. And your summit, do you do most of the organizing or do you have your teams doing the organizational part?
Richard Toutounji (01:35.403)
Uh, I'm probably like, you know, that book called the lazy CEO, that's me. So I try to outsource every single possible thing. But, um, at the end of the day, listen, I am, I need to, you know, like anything you want, you want to, you want to, you want to make great. You got to push it and you got to put the time into to get it moving. Events always, um, they always ground you, I think, because like, you've got to get, you've got to get it all right on a certain date. So sometimes it's one of those things. Yeah. I hate, but then when it comes together, it's fine. So.
Jen (01:50.285)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (02:04.543)
Do it earlier and it's less partial.
Jen (02:06.862)
Yeah, and it's interesting. I mean, you were at the mum safe, mum safe retreat, that's the word, not long ago, and the lead up to them can feel like so much but then when you are in the room, like that energetic exchange of being in the same room as people makes everything that you go through to get it all organized so worthwhile.
Richard Toutounji (02:18.731)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Toutounji (02:28.755)
What a great way to energetic. Yeah. That's totally what it is. Right. And then you're leaving. Oh, that wasn't too bad. We'll go again. Do you know what I mean? So it, we'll go again. Yeah. So yeah, totally.
Jen (02:36.394)
You have to go again, like everyone's pumped right for the next one. We've even locked in where next year is already. So like we're going to go to Byron next year. The concept for me behind that was where can I drive to next that I don't have to get on a plane before we go further afield?
Richard Toutounji (02:51.491)
I love that. Yeah, where can I drive to next? Well, there's so many great places here in Queensland, so you can go a lot of places.
Jen (02:55.862)
Absolutely. Yeah. And three airports close by. So I was saying that's a bit of a bit of a win to Richard before we get started in, you know, the questions of the podcast and you obviously run a marketing company, which I think is everybody in the fitness industry is interested in. Tell us a little bit about your journey. Like how did you get to one working in marketing and then to choosing to work with the fitness, fitness and wellness industry?
Richard Toutounji (03:17.579)
Thanks for watching!
Richard Toutounji (03:24.103)
I guess how I got started in marketing, a lot of people get started in fitness and they get started in business, so it's kind of a two prong approach. But I sort of started relatively young, I left school in year 10 and I knew what I wanted to do, I wanted to be a personal trainer. I went to TAFE, did my course, found a course by the way and did it. And then I guess early in the piece, I did some mobile personal training, but early in the piece I...
I went into business with a, my, my boss at the time, she was the person employing me for the mobile personal training. And, um, she was about to buy a fitness studio in neutral Bay. I didn't know where it was because I was living out in Western suburbs at the time. So anything in the city, apart from the city, I had no idea. Well, it was in neutral Bay. And, um, and I basically said, Hey, that's going to be a good, I want to go, I want to do that. And I asked my parents, um, they didn't have the money at the time. And I needed like come up with $45,000.
They had the utmost belief in me. I look back now when I got kids and they go, wow, they had belief in me to take it off their mortgage. They took it off their mortgage and they had a little bit equity there and they took not much, they took it off and I had to go pay back that. My dad put a plan in place to pay it back every single week and so forth. And again, when you're a little bit naive, you didn't really understand that money was they needed. And I went ahead and started my.
career that way into business. So I think when I got my studio at 17 and a half, it was a business, it wasn't fitness to a degree because it was running a business and the service was fitness. So that's kind of how I merged them into both. And I was, I guess, you know, a year and a half in, I was pretty stressed, Jen. I was stressed every Thursday because I walked in and there was already employees, there was already staff, there was rents and I...
Jen (05:00.066)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (05:15.079)
really didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I knew what I was doing, but I made a lot of mistakes and I kind of, you know, I was the young kid, I lied about my age. I put an extra probably six, seven years onto every time someone asked how old I was because I was scared that they wouldn't continue their membership because they thought, oh, this young kid, what does he know? So I always lied about my age. When someone said how old you was, I said, I was at least 26. And that was okay, I got by with that. I even tricked my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, my age, I had to tell her.
back in the day because, because then I was so scared. And then after a year and a half, I said, you know what, I'm going to sell this business because I just, I stress so much knowing where the next lead would come in. I stress so much knowing how to make sales. And back then, Jen, there was no membership. It was like buy a 10 or 20 or 50 pack, right? So I was like counting down those packs cause I want more money, right? And so that's sort of how I, that's how I sort of got involved. And I learned the art of marketing through, I worked on cruise ships.
Jen (06:00.93)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (06:14.303)
directly after I said, hey, I'm not running a business anymore, I'm gonna sell that. I sold it, I was a breakeven, made a little bit of money, bought a car, and then I worked on cruise ships. And I learned the art of sales and marketing and how to do seminars and events. And I quickly, quickly learned, Jen, it's the hooks and the titles that you use. On American cruise ships, I worked there for two, three years, and there was a seminar that happened on the first day at sea, and it was called Eat More, Weigh Less, Eat More, Weigh Less.
And then there was another seminar halfway through and that was called like, um, body composition, get to know your numbers and nutritional values of food. And Jen, out of all the, like, I can tell you, like it was chalk and cheese with the headline hook. So it was like, eat more, weigh less on an American cruise ship where people come to eat, right? We would get 300 people attending that, attending that seminar. And the next one throughout the week, which is like a really long name, nutritional value content, there was around 10.
Jen (07:11.224)
Yeah.
Richard Toutounji (07:11.783)
people attending and sort of from there I understood the ideas of you'd have to attract somebody in, you'd have to use the right headlines and hooks and things like that. So that's how I progressed in this amazing industry.
Jen (07:25.374)
I love that you dove in the deep end. Like I didn't know that about your owning a studio at 17 and a half. And it really gives you a pain threshold, right? Like most 17 year old PTs or even 27 year old PTs are either renting space at a gym or playing in a park. And there is no, I mean, yes, there's a pain threshold because if you don't make money, you don't eat, but there's not that bottom line and people to pay and rent to pay that are really teaching you the lesson.
Richard Toutounji (07:42.443)
Thanks for watching!
Jen (07:53.302)
very quickly about running a good business.
Richard Toutounji (07:55.987)
Yeah, it really, and maybe you're a bit naive when you're younger, Jen, I'm not sure, but I mean, I was so determined, and I think that's when you're a little bit younger or you have this dream or you have this inspiration to do something, you gotta go do it, you know, because there's times, there's opportunities, and things don't always last that way. So you really gotta back yourself and believe in yourself because as you get older, I mean, this has happened for me, Jen, as I got older, I've certainly doubted, I've certainly haven't backed myself, I certainly went to comparison.
But back then, I mean, maybe it wasn't social media, maybe I didn't really care about anybody else, I just did it and I didn't ask, I didn't really ask permission for anybody because you're just determined to do something. I think a lot of things have shifted. I mean, as you get older, you get wiser, but I always liked, I actually liked the younger, that whole bit of naivety always works well in business too.
Jen (08:47.974)
Yeah, absolutely. I am I've heard what you said about no social media like there was no Facebook back then, right? So there's you couldn't even use like, and we're gonna go there in this conversation, like, there was no Facebook marketing, so you couldn't use it. Okay, so you went off to work on cruise ships, you did the marketing and the cruise ships. And then how did you get to where you are now?
Richard Toutounji (08:53.539)
No. Perfect.
Richard Toutounji (09:09.107)
Sure, how to get back? Yeah, okay. I didn't want to know if you know the full story, but I'll continue the journey. Okay, perfect. So I'll continue the journey. I came back, Joey, my wife now, she met me in America and I came back and when I came back, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. But when I was on Cruise Line, I really got obsessed with the concept of obesity and overweight. The reason being is because I saw a lot of those stats in the US at the time.
Jen (09:12.91)
Give us the full story. I don't know this story. I'm interested. Hey.
Richard Toutounji (09:37.475)
And I didn't know what to do, but I was just like dumbfounded. When I was over there, I started to write a book, you know, in my cabin, I was writing a book and I said, listen, when I get off this, I'm gonna write this book. And so anyway, I got back and, you know, I said I was a lazy CEO. So I started, I said to Joey, hey, listen, your school teacher background, do you wanna come and help write this book? And I convinced her yes. So she got a few chapters written, which was good. And then I did the fitness side of things and I put this book together in a.
Again, I wasn't a nutritionist. I didn't have kids at the time. I didn't have much experience, but I had a lot of passion on that, hey, this message needs to get out there. Because I just saw walking on cruise ships and families, it wasn't anything to do with food. It was a lot to do with their habits and what they put in their mouth at any of those ages. And I saw that firsthand working on there. And so I wrote this book. There was two names we were gonna give the book. It was called Healthy Habits for Kids.
And the other name, well, that was the name we were going with. We got a publisher for it at the time. And the other name was called, we came up with last minute. It was called Eat More. No, sorry. It was called, um, please mom don't supersize me. Now it's probably, uh, your mom's on listening to this is probably like, Oh my gosh, how did you call it that? But anyway, um, that title Jen got us a lot of media. It got us on, on TV, channel nine, channel seven news, Alan Jones. Uh, it was a best seller and it got an order. All the media.
outlets and all the books on at the very front of all the DEMICs around Australia. And, um, it, it's sort of like the fact of was like, you know, moms, anybody looking after kids that that's kind of where it came from. And so again, using names, um, and so forth like that. So we did that. And then, um, I, you know, that took a long time to publish, Jim, we were talking about books before, and so books took a long time to publish and it was sitting on the back burner for a couple of years and then
At that time, I got into more corporate wellness. I launched a corporate wellness business. And this is kind of where I got into the whole digital marketing world because we launched about 100 different contractors around Australia really fast. I didn't know nothing about corporate at that time. The only reason why I got into corporate was my mom worked in a corporate office and she was looking for a massage therapist to come into the workplace. And I said, hey mom, I reckon I could do that. I'm trying to figure out what I wanna do next.
Richard Toutounji (12:03.451)
So I found a massage therapist and I bought a massage chair and bang, that's how he went, right? And that sort of grew relatively fast. And again, the problem with that was that a lot of people were asking, hey, can I see your personal trainer? Can I see a massage therapist? And they wanted to see pictures and videos and I didn't even have pictures or videos. And so at that time, then I sold my business, Corporate Wellness, and that was, I sold...
That was my second business I sold at that time. I sold Corporate Wellness and it was great because it showed me the whole process of start and sell and I was in that stage of start and sell. And I think I wanted to start and sell because I just wanted to keep going and doing something else. And it was like, okay, I'll just do that. I'll just sell it. So I sold it. It was amazing. It was a great experience. I remember selling it and I got a check and it was the biggest check that I saw in my life. And I think there's some music came on, the radio and I was like, yeah, it's party and Friday or something. And I was like, I got it on Friday.
It's always ingrained, you know, in my brain. And, but that point then, then I created a directory. It was called meet your personal trainer. It was back in 2000 and probably, yeah, 10, eight, something like that. And it's because it's like, okay, well, if I'm gonna do it for my business, I might as well do it for everybody. And at the time, Jen, there was no mobile phones. There was those cameras. And so my mission was to make sure that every single personal trainer that didn't have a studio, that didn't, that wanted to get out there, could get out there.
Jen (13:04.267)
Yeah.
Jen (13:11.206)
I remember this, yeah.
Jen (13:17.428)
Mm.
Richard Toutounji (13:31.823)
And so I went around to get my idea proven. I went around Australia personally and I went to every kind of business coach event. There wasn't that many business coaches back then, believe me, and businesses that were outdoor based. And I said, hey, I've got this idea. I wanna feel more your clients and I wanna put them on this directory. And it's gonna be the biggest directory in Australia. And they said, nah, not interested. So what about if I could just film your clients for you?
and then put them on. And they said, well, if you're gonna do that, sure. So I flew to every state and I basically put a camera in someone's face and I said, hey, can you talk for 30 seconds about what you do and how you do it? And most people ask me the question of why would I put myself on camera for? Again, this is before IG, before Facebook. And then when I did do it, eventually, they didn't know what to say or how to say it. And they were scared to say it.
Jen (14:27.551)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Toutounji (14:29.779)
But anyway, I eventually got a thousand plus people personally filmed on my directory to prove the concept, because there was no concept back then, it was just yellow pages. And so it was the largest video directory for personal trainers. And I guess since then, I guess the whole digital marketing thing, I realized that a lot of people didn't know how to market, they didn't have any confidence, they didn't know what to do. And so yeah, we launched a business called Comm Marketing, and now we teach people how to do their own marketing, how to be confident on camera, how to generate better quality leads.
And ultimately how to run a successful business. Cause it all comes down Jen that, you know, I struggled when I was 17, 18, 19. I struggled my entire business life. I was just winging every single thing. Um, there was no courses and things I was at. I couldn't afford them at the time. So I just learned as I went. And, um, I think that's the passion that I have is that I'm sick and tired of. You know, this industry, the fitness and wellness industry, we have massive hearts. We love what we do, but.
Quite frankly, if we can't market ourselves, we're kidding ourselves. And we can't market ourselves, we can't grow our community. If we can't market ourselves, we can't help somebody. And we can have the biggest heart possible. If we can't make dollar from our industry, we can't have an industry. And if we look at other industries out there, Jen, I call them need industries, you know, want to need industries. A need industry, and I used to have a lot of directories back in the day, I had a removalist directory. And this is kind of the concept where I came up. But the removalist directory, people would move from, say, Melbourne, sorry, Sydney to Queensland. And you would need...
Jen (15:35.331)
Mm.
Richard Toutounji (15:56.871)
you would need to hire a removal truck. You couldn't fit it all in your car. I tried, right? You couldn't, right? And so this removal-less business, they would charge their service, say, between 3,000 to 12,000, $15,000, right? So when they generated LeadGen, it was like, wow, I'm prepared to pay for that lead because the upside is really good. And then when I had my directory meet your personal trainer, when a personal trainer would pay, say, 30 or 40 or $50 a month to be on there, they struggled.
Jen (16:02.11)
I'm sorry.
Richard Toutounji (16:27.119)
struggled with the concept of why should I pay $50 to be on directory because I might only get a couple of leads a month. And so I just think it's like maybe my DNA to explain that even if you get one lead from there, because what we do in our industry, it's not a one transaction like a removalist. It's not a one transaction like I'm gonna go to the shop. This is a transaction and all the good amazing trainers out there, this is in transaction.
that lasts sometimes up to 10 years. You know, you got a client that's 10 years. And so I just think that marketing and lead generation, I wanna like simplify the hell out of it. Because I think we're not thinking correctly when we look at what's a client worth to us. A client is worth, you know, if they stick with us for 20 years, and if you're a PT, it's worth 5K a year. If you're a studio, it's worth 2K years, 20K, that's 30K. That's 50K. But,
Jen (16:57.836)
Yep.
Richard Toutounji (17:24.903)
We just need to understand that our industry, the fitness and wellness industry, we just need to compare ourselves to other industries that are willing to pay top dollar for a lead. And that sort of like, you know, working in other industries and then sort of settling in this fitness and wellness industry, I see from other industries what they're willing to pay. And the ones in the fitness industry, they're willing to put their energy into marketing. They're willing to put their energy in sales. They're willing to do courses like yours, Jen, are the ones that ultimately last.
Jen (17:34.158)
Mm.
Richard Toutounji (17:53.659)
and ultimately make the biggest impact in their communities. And of course you make the biggest impact in communities, you help more people, you make more money. That's just, you know, saying that. So that's sort of the second progression of how I got to digital marketing.
Jen (18:01.611)
Mm.
Jen (18:07.626)
And I love how it ramped up and you got more and more passionate about what you were talking about the further we got closer to com marketing, which is just testament to what you do and how enthusiastically you do it. So, yeah. A couple of things that stood out to me then was, you know, you understand like what you're doing now at com, working with studio owners and gym owners, you have personal experience of that pain threshold that those
Richard Toutounji (18:17.395)
Thank you.
Jen (18:35.286)
business owners have from your own experience. And, you know, maybe that was then the driving force of why you got out of it, but now it's a driving force that you don't want anyone else to be in that situation. So that was more an observation on my part.
Richard Toutounji (18:50.337)
Yeah, totally, totally. Maybe it's that soft spot I have for people that are really struggling to make that, but there's so many layers of marketing and so many layers of what we do and they're not coming from, oh, this is the latest hack on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok and that. It's coming from good business.
I know people want to know more of and how to market. Ultimately, they're just tools. They're going to come and go. And it's how we structure the business and our price points and how we put our brand out there, things that never changed, by the way, then we can use the tactical tools that are here for the better. And to be honest with Jen, like when I launched my book, we didn't have Facebook live, we didn't have Instagram. You know, we had to pay a public, we had to pay a PR agent. I remember $15,000.
to get our book out in the marketplace. And that was big money. And now we have these platforms like Facebook Live, like Instagram, like TikTok, like blogs, like websites, where if we didn't have that, you're gonna have to pay. So we might as well learn to use these things so we don't have to pay the big bucks of PR agencies and things like that, which other industries have to do, by the way.
Jen (20:08.298)
Yeah, I think the other thing that I picked up on what you said is around on that knowing your numbers and your return on investment, I think not enough fitness people truly understand what the value of a lead is. And I don't necessarily mean that it has to be a Facebook paid lead. And you know, there's definitely place for that. But when you choose to invest time and energy and money in learning, and again, what I'm getting from you is that you teach people how to fish, you're not just going here's the client or
you're giving people the layers so that if they choose not to use Facebook as a paid resource, or if they are saying, I can choose to put money into Facebook advertising or money into learning how to advertise. I'm not saying for free, but money into learning something that I'm then going to carry along with me forever. You're you're showing them and you're giving them the tools to do that, which is one of the reasons I wanted to get you on the podcast. You came to our Mum Safe retreat.
a it's like a month ago now time flies and you delivered a presentation called Zero Dollar Leads and which complements a lot of the philosophies that I have and I also feel like we need those base foundation layers in our business ideally before we go into Facebook marketing. Now when you talk to other people they don't necessarily agree with that and I think you know we have different lenses and different viewpoints which I I'm here for all of them but
Richard Toutounji (21:08.001)
Yeah.
Jen (21:33.938)
If somebody is wanting to start marketing for zero dollars, and I'm going to say zero dollars, meaning they're not paying for advertising, not necessarily that they're not spending on their education in the marketing space, because I think it's two different things, where would you suggest that they start?
Richard Toutounji (21:49.108)
Yep. Yeah. Well, number one, I would suggest they understand the biggest thing, the reason why people aren't contacting, aren't producing leads is one thing. It's called attention. And because attention was easy to get back in the day, meaning that less people were advertising on Facebook, right? Meaning that you had probably...
Jen (22:03.168)
Okay.
Richard Toutounji (22:12.371)
maybe five million advertising on Facebook when it started. Now we've got billions of revenue going through Facebook, right? It means that the tension is the hardest thing to get because we're seeing something like 7,000 different ads a day, like random, right? Crazy numbers. And so the biggest thing we can do, it doesn't matter what platform of emails, Instagram, Facebook, whatever platform you're playing on, whatever you're doing, the biggest thing we can change, and our marketing today, right? And you can go back to the last 12 Instagram posts.
You can think about the next email you're gonna send out. You can think about the next Facebook live, you can think about anything that. Then one thing you wanna do is we've got around three seconds to get attention. One, two, three, that's it. So I want you to look at your content that you're about to put out and think about if I've only got three seconds, is it gonna attract? One thing, is it gonna attract the market that I wanna get to? So my avatar, obviously Jen, we're trying to attack moms, we've gotta attract that.
type of mom that you want, right? Number one. And number two, to attract that person, you've either got to, in three seconds you can't do much. So the things that you want to attract is just basically call that person out. Number one, if you do nothing else but just call out the avatar, the person you're trying to attract, that is gonna be the biggest game changer that you're gonna have. Because when you call them out, what's gonna happen, they're gonna attract and continue having the conversation. Now, just because you call them out means absolutely nothing.
There's a few things we had to layer this. Number one is I always call it like we wanna, we wanna pattern interrupt something. So for example, Jenny, I know it's school holidays now. So if your kids came out running in that back room and said, oh my gosh, mom, I've burnt my toasty, right? And the hands are on fire, that would give us attention, right? So anything that gives us attention, I'm not saying don't do that by the way, right? But anything that gives attention in the marketplace, like hands popping out.
in front of your screen. Anything that jumps in colors, I wear black, I'm wearing a black shirt. If I was wearing a pink shirt, that would definitely give me attention because I don't usually wear it. If I had a different color hat on, that would give me attention. If your hair was down, it's usually up-gen, that will give you attention. It doesn't really matter what the attention is, but make sure it's attention that captures your audience. That's the biggest thing. And then I think the last part of this is really easy. I always say be sharp, be enthusiastic, and be an expert.
Richard Toutounji (24:36.955)
in the first three seconds. How do you do that in three seconds? Well, it could be what you're wearing, it could be the background that you're in, Jen, you're in a nice background, and the lounge in the background. Attention outside, it could be like you're walking, anything walking and moving in the back of your screen is very good for attention, right? So if you're good on camera and you're happy to do that, try walking around and you'll find that holds attention as well. If you're trying to get pilates and you're always in your pilates studio, for example,
Why don't you go outside and sit on a park bench? That will get attention. If you're always filming in a white wall, go outside and find a pink wall or a blue wall to fill and that will give you attention. So think about attention as in anything that a flyer, what's the call out of attention? And so I think the basics of marketing are being missed and not explained to people, where before we didn't have to teach attention because you put a Facebook ad out, guess what? You generate leads. But now we, Facebook ads are expensive, they're not cheap.
So it's not like just because you're moving your Facebook ad and you put a thousand dollars a month, you're gonna, your business is automatically gonna change overnight. So that's my number one tip, Jen, is attention. I think that's what the market needs at the moment is attention.
Jen (25:49.762)
Do you think with attention, like there's the things that you've just talked about having a physical person in the space and talking in videos, does it always have to be videos? Can it be like statements on swipeable slides and other different ways of attracting attention?
Richard Toutounji (26:05.608)
Yeah, totally. I mean, on Instagram, you'll see the slide stripes and that kind of stuff. And they're great because even if you put attention and that's something that a person wants. So for example, I always say that on Instagram...
on anything you do on socials, it should be something that people are thinking about now. So when we say dream aspirations, like, okay, I want to the dream aspiration to a business owner is like, I want to have a successful business that I can go away, work, not in the business work on the on the business and we're outside the business, sorry, and be on a holiday for four weeks every year and all that kind of stuff on a million dollars. That's dream aspiration, right? I don't want to gain a million dollars. But but people don't generally can't think that far ahead.
So the problem that people are having is like, oh my gosh, I have no time. My mom, I don't have time. So we gotta solve the problem of time. How do you get time in the next one to two days? Because that's what's on their mind. So with your Instagram posts, your Facebook posts, you don't wanna be talking too much about dream aspirations. Oh my gosh, I need to increase my profitability. Nobody's thinking about profitability. People are thinking about, oh my gosh, I've got a lead and I don't have time to call them. So your post on Instagram is like, how do you get a hold of the leads that don't pick up the phone, right?
if that was business, it was obviously a training, it was like, okay, hey moms, how do you actually get time to train in your holidays? That might be something they're thinking about in the next week to two weeks. If we try to think too far ahead, it's too much of a dream aspiration where they're not gonna take immediate action because they've got a bank of items in their brain to get to before they get to your dream aspiration, if that makes sense.
Jen (27:42.094)
Hmm. Yeah, it makes total sense. I've got another question. It's a little bit left of field, but let's say you were doing a post that you wanted to get attention, but it was more from an authority perspective. So you're raising your authority in a specific space. Now, would you use, this is how you do something, or would you use a, this is how you don't do something. So would you go a negative approach or a positive approach?
Richard Toutounji (27:58.419)
Hmm. Well, everybody loves a bit of negativity, don't they, Jen? I mean, let's be honest. They love to, they love, they love to know what's going on. But, but, but I don't like, like people say, oh, we should be positive on social media and share what's going on. I, I personally don't.
Jen (28:12.496)
I feel conflicted about this one. Yeah, yeah.
Richard Toutounji (28:24.251)
Like I don't like to share too much negativity stuff on social media. It's not too because I wanna look that way. It's just that generally I'm not walking around and whinging to every single person about my life or what's going on. So that's just me. Some other people would prefer to do that. To answer your specific question, both ones will get attention, Jen, negative and positive. But yes, sometimes negative stories gets more energy, put them in positive stories, but I don't believe in, and Facebook also too.
Jen (28:38.239)
Yep.
Jen (28:44.248)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Toutounji (28:54.135)
they want more uplifting stories than negativity stories on Facebook as well. So your content will be pushed better if it's more positive outcome. And sometimes a simple one, Jen, can be like from cluttered to clean. So from positive to negative in a post, right? And that's how I always look at attention. So I went from a mess in the house to now it's clean. Like things like that, I believe, get the right type of attention.
Jen (29:02.206)
Mmm.
Richard Toutounji (29:22.027)
because you're saying you were here and now you're here. You don't have to do it in every single post, but I don't generally like to click bait on posts, me personally.
Jen (29:29.49)
Yeah, yeah, nice. I heard you say before around when we were talking about videos, like getting on a video, speaking on camera, what would you say to someone who kinda knows that they need to do that, but what they really wanna do is just hide behind the computer and never put themself out there?
Richard Toutounji (29:50.863)
Yeah. Number one, I always say just get over yourself. And when I finish saying that, and we have to be practical, why do you want to get over yourself for? Why? Okay. Well, the fact of the matter is that you probably want to grow your community and where you want to get to in your business. And the reason why videos is so powerful over, as you just said before, should we create a post on Instagram about a quote and things like that? A video is just, it's more powerful than anything else.
Jen (29:55.818)
Yep. Ha ha ha.
Richard Toutounji (30:20.243)
They say a picture says, what is it, a million things or a thousand things, well, a video says a million. So yes, you can do photos, and photos are very good, by the way, for Facebook ads, and they're very good for people to like it. I had a photo the other day, Jen. It was me and Joey, and it was a simple photo. I think we went to Melbourne, and it was a black tie event, tux event, and Joey just put a photo, one photo, pretty easy to hit the like button, right? There's no real, there's no real,
Jen (30:22.702)
A thousand words. Yep.
Jen (30:45.422)
Mm.
Richard Toutounji (30:49.423)
story around, it's a like button thing. But when you put a video out, you're gonna get less people viewing the content, but you're gonna get in more engaged people watching the content that you need. So if you're trying to get your message out there to the marketplace and they've seen a few pictures or you've seen a few quotes, you've gotta step up a bit and know that if you had an opportunity to be on TV, for example, and when we did our original publicity with our book, we learned a lot about
TV, I was also on a reality TV show, Amazing Race Australia. We learn a lot about interviews. And the biggest thing I got from that is that it doesn't matter if you don't get yourself on camera, eventually you're going to need to be there one day. And it's going to be a positive or negative experience. So it's best to get yourself out there and share your message because what they can do with cameras, they can cut a lot of different things, right? So I just think that it's such a great habit to be in.
We're in probably the best industry for social media, meaning that we have more positive outcome images and photos and videos. When we set market to finance brokers and things like that, there's very little things we can talk about, right? But with fitness, there's so much, there's so many colors, there's so many stories. Even if you don't wanna be on camera, you can get your clients to be on camera. So it really just comes down initially. And that's why we created a video directory back in the day because...
If you can just say, hey, I'm Richard, and I'm your local personal trainer in Milson's Park or in Sydney or in Gold Coast, and I'd love to come and help you get to reach your goals. If you're interested, watch the content below or click below. Like you've gotta be personable, we're in a personal industry. We know that if, for example, if you're in a fitness first or anything like that, it's the trainer that can actually communicate the best. And the thing that I love, Jen, is that I know, I know that if a client is gonna train with you, anybody's listening to this,
I know they're gonna deliver an outstanding service. I know that you've done your CECs, your courses, your certificates, you spent hours running the programs. And my heart breaks, when we realize that we wanna do that, but nobody's gonna walk in the door or talk to you if you cannot put your content out there in the first place. And so that's how I get over myself when I struggle with videos, it's not natural to me. It was naturally Joey, she was always a high eye, my wife, and it was like, oh.
Richard Toutounji (33:06.515)
I was always behind the camera. So, um, you know, she's, she's always the original videos and it, it's, it comes, it always, always got to keep doing it every day to keep your, um, you know, to keep that practice going. Not, it's not easy for anybody. I don't think, I don't think it's anybody for anybody for easy. Like I've, when I do a video, I've got multiple shots on my phone beforehand. It's not easy. You just got to do it.
Jen (33:32.042)
Yeah, I think you definitely don't want to be the best kept secret. And if you can just focus on the impact that you can have when you get over yourself, then that can be a real driving force. I remember back in the days of being nervous to be on, I could do pre-recorded videos, but I couldn't do anything live. And I remember starting to try and do lives, but I really had to, I did it once. And then I was like, I'm never doing, I'm never doing that again.
and then taking a step back. And I only did pre-recorded videos for a really, really long time until I just kind of, I don't know, stepped into that space. So baby steps, like you just got to start doing something.
Richard Toutounji (34:12.146)
Instagram stories are a great way to get practice, you know what I mean? Because it's like, they go away! Exactly! So practice there.
Jen (34:15.298)
Well, they go away, right? Like...
Jen (34:20.21)
Yeah, I do try with our Mumsafe trainers to have the rule of you're only allowed three takes because otherwise it becomes this big, big thing. And if it's that like, just don't watch it back. If you're that critical of yourself, just don't watch it back.
Richard Toutounji (34:33.004)
I've never watched anything back in my life, Jen. Never, nothing, zero, I never watched anything back.
Jen (34:35.328)
Really?
Jen (34:39.25)
Yeah, it's a good learning experience. I think it's not good if it's going to stop you doing it, but I think if you have the ability to look through a lens of how can I do that better, even that recording this podcast, I've picked up on a lot of the ways that I speak filler words, different things that I go, oh, I can need to be more of aware of that next time. So definitely a learning experience.
Richard Toutounji (34:57.367)
I'm going to take that aboard. Maybe that's what I need to learn is get, I need to listen back. I need to listen back. But yeah, I just make sure I do it. And I just, if it feels right and I've had the message, I go, yep. Okay, done. Let's move.
Jen (35:02.822)
Not all the time, but yeah.
Jen (35:10.29)
Yep. I realized I was cutting people off a lot with the word. Yep. I was going, yep, yep. So if people listened to the podcast before and then now I try and have space and then also maybe just use softer like instead of yep. Anyway, um, Richard at com, you guys have this process called the five funnels of marketing. Can you tell us about that and why you think it's so awesome?
Richard Toutounji (35:17.451)
Mm.
Richard Toutounji (35:35.81)
Yeah, I love stories. I'm going to tell you a little bit of story then I'll tell you why it's awesome. So as I mentioned to you before, I had a directory, it was called relocating.com.au. I purchased the domain name for $10,000. I thought there was a business attached, but there definitely wasn't.
Jen (35:39.454)
Awesome. Cool.
Richard Toutounji (35:50.331)
And I created a directory for all, all removalists, right? And I spent a long time, couldn't this directory together. There was about 300 directories and 300 removalists. Sorry. They were all paying around $300 each at the time, something between two to $300 each a month. And life was pretty good, Jen. I had the meet your personal and trained director running at the same time in parallel, right? And the way that I ranked was generally, it was only one way. There was one funnel on my table, Jen, and it was...
called search engine optimization. I guarantee you when you search remove list, I was number one for that area. I stayed up a lot of late nights to get that only because it was free and I couldn't afford paid ads at the time. So I ran my entire business on SEO. One day it was running for two, three years really good. Honestly, it was one of the best businesses to date that required very little or no work. I don't mean to throw that out because it really, it was such a great.
business that just worked. Why? Because we brought a lot of leads in the door. We were bringing hundreds of leads in every single day and everybody was happy. And that's when SEO was a big thing. Meaning that was the way most people search for something. There was no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter. So the marketing wasn't split like it is today. Then one day I woke up and a removalist called me and they said, hey, I haven't got many leads today. I said, oh, it's just a slow day, you'll be right.
A couple of hours later, I got another call from a remove list. They said, Richard, I've got no leads today. Not happy. They're very direct kind of people, right? They're very, very direct. Um, they don't complain. They pay their bills, but they're direct and that's what you got to handle. And then over the next course of next 15 days, I had 80% of my removal is call up, not happy and cancel their subscription. I lost 90% of my revenue in the space of 20 days and I couldn't do anything about it.
Jen (37:43.767)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (37:47.803)
Why? Because I had one marketing leg on my table and that was SEO, search engine optimization. I didn't have Facebook, I didn't have Instagram, I didn't have paid ads at the time. I was, and it was just so fast it happened, I didn't realize, Google did an algorithm change and basically all the links that I was attached to dropped and then I was on page 20. And I lost so much money and it hurt me so hard that I realized that
We think we're good with Facebook only. We think we're good with organic stories. We think we're good with our one thing, but it always changes. And so what we teach at COM is we teach the five funnel marketing system. We've been teaching it for years and we track five funnels every single day and we track every month. And we know out of five funnels, if you're trying to, for example, get 30 leads in the next 90 days, that's one of the programs that we run, right? If we want...
sorry, not 30 leads, I apologize, 30 members in the next 90 days, right? Depending if you're, what your conversion rate is. So let's say, for example, we're trying to get, let's say our conversion rate's, let's say 50%. So let's say we got 150 leads in, we divide that by five, that's 30 leads per funnel, okay? 30 leads per funnel. So what we wanna do then, let's say we convert it 20%, all right? So it's 30 times five, it's 150 times 20%.
that gives us about 30 members, right? And that's just that one conversion. Obviously we can change the conversion metrics and all those things, but not every funnel is equal, but we know that if something happens, for example, something always happens with Facebook, let's be honest, right? And if something happens, we all whinge and say, oh, my Facebook got hacked or blocked, or I can't run ads, or all these kinds of things. I've heard them all before, but essentially that is not being set up correctly. And so we wanna make sure that you've got five funnels working correctly at all times, and you know,
how to read the stats, you know, when the leads are coming in, and you know what buttons to push. And so we have five different funnels from retention, from paid ads, from organic, from free, from zero dollar marketing strategies. And depending on the business and the database size and how long they've been involved in, we will give our clients which funnels to use and then when to execute them up. And I mean, yes, Facebook ad is a big strong push at this point, but I can tell you right now that
Richard Toutounji (40:12.599)
most businesses that are running free trials and things like that can't afford Facebook because if you can't convert, you can't keep running Facebook ads. And that's why that's one of the other strategies we do not teach is to run free trials, but that's another conversation. But yeah, that's our five-factor marketing system. Great.
Jen (40:19.906)
Hmm.
Jen (40:25.706)
I don't teach that either, so that's fine. Yeah. I like that. And I like, I do, I think that as trainers, sometimes we, or in life in general, we're going, what is the one thing that's gonna change the game? And the sooner that people realize that there is no one thing and you need layers of things, which is exactly what you're talking about in your five funnels, then it all just becomes easier because you realize that you can stop chasing
the next new exciting thing and go, let me get these layers or my table legs in place or my funnels in place to then ultimately lead me to where I need to be and tweak each one as you go and see which one's working best and all that kind of thing.
Richard Toutounji (41:08.673)
Totally. And yeah, all these things come from experience too, Jen, like yourself, you've been in the industry for a long time and been in business for a while and they come from experience. And so when we teach something, we don't, at Comm, we don't have just, it's not the Richard show, it's we have multiple coaches in every area of organic or socials or paid and I'm not the best paid Facebook advert. I'm not saying I am, but I've got a team member who is. And then everything's recorded.
Um, they get solid structure and strategies, not just around the hacks. You know, there's, there's just, there's too many hacks out there and there's too many people pushing the hacks out there. It's ultimately, you know, I've experienced, I went to hack for SEO for many years and it landed me on my butt.
Jen (41:50.79)
Yep. So to kind of get an idea of the kind of businesses that you work with a com, can you tell us a little bit more about who your ideal client might be or your ideal person to support?
Richard Toutounji (42:03.742)
Yeah, sure. Well, 80% of our business is our education arm. We have another side of our business. We do the whole thing for you. And again, it's not like we're against agencies or anything, but especially when you're in the space that we were at, you've got to be smart with your dollars, right? So we work really well.
with businesses that are doing over about $15,000 of gross revenue a month. And they want to get to a $40,000 revenue bucket, meaning a half a million dollar studio. I believe the half a million dollar studio is what most studios can get to. Obviously, we're talking about most, we're talking about equalization. And generally, to get to a half a million dollar studio,
You won't need an agency to get there. You just need to make sure that you insert the five funnel marketing system in. You might need a marketing system as you get to maybe 25, $30,000 in revenue. Need some help. But essentially they're the ones that we believe we can really help with. And obviously we go all the way up to big chain gyms. Um, but yeah, we, we structure ourselves anywhere between if you're, you know, 15,000 or $80,000 per month, that's sort of our sweet spot of who we like to work with.
Jen (42:53.undefined)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Toutounji (43:10.651)
I mean, we also work with PTs that are wanting to get a group studio PT program around. We have a short course for those guys because they're the next people that, you know, we've got some PTs at the moment, two guys, two young lads in Penrith, they're in Christian and Clayton and that's where I grew up in Penrith, New South Wales. And, you know, they've got so much passion that they've been a trainers in doing their time, working in a gym.
Jen (43:14.646)
Hmm.
Richard Toutounji (43:38.899)
that they're about to open up, they just joined our program to launch a studio. And their first ever had a studio and they're about two months away from opening up and they've got, I think they've just, they're just shy of a hundred members, a hundred members signed up ready to go on their membership purely because they are passionate about what they do and they're getting the right guidance and gosh, I wish I had something like that when I was, um, you know, 17.
Jen (44:05.902)
Yeah, I think that's just hit something for me in that often we think as trainers or business owners, or I don't, you don't. Sometimes trainers and business owners think that I've got to get to this point before I get help. And it's ironic to me because trainers all know I, when the client says to them, I'm just going to get fitter before I come and see you. And all we can think is, don't you understand how much further you could be along?
Richard Toutounji (44:18.215)
And I think that's a great way to start a business.
Jen (44:36.158)
if you just got that help from the get-go. So if you are someone thinking about opening a studio or wherever you are in your business journey, get the help. You know, there's so many stories, Richard, I'm sure, from inside of Comm, I mean, you've just talked about two, we've got them inside of MumSafe that go, I came on board at the get-go and this is where I am and I'm not trying to undo all of this random stuff I've done. On the flip side, if you're struggling.
go get the help now because you're not going to stop struggling, especially if you can look back and go struggling a year ago, that it's not going anywhere. Yeah.
Richard Toutounji (45:07.267)
No, it's not. And I forgot to tell you one more story. It represents the moms. This beautiful client named Kylie and Kylie came to us at about 90 members-ish, 80, 90. She was sitting on that for two, three, four years, like a long time. Actually, no, sorry, I apologize. She was sitting on that for eight years. She had a studio. She was in Wollongong and she looked at the content from the sidelines. You know what we do? We read a book, but we don't read it. We look at the cover or we look at someone doing social media or business. Oh, we'll just copy that.
Jen (45:20.556)
Yep.
Richard Toutounji (45:34.611)
She did that for eight years. And it wasn't until she got brave enough to say, hey, like she caught us up one day and I remember the conversation. I said, why? And it kind of like, she was so scared. And the reason why she did this, because she just wanna spend nights back with her kids. Where before when she started, she didn't have kids and it wasn't an issue. So she was happy to smash out the work, but she just wanted to spend nights with the kids. And that was her number one goal. And so she became one of those four.
I think four years and she's now at something like 400 members. And it's not so much the growth, but she spends nights with her kids. And that was her number one thing. And that's the kind of clients we like to work with. Not, you know, the ones that have a reason, just like when I started, you know, at 17, like I just, I wanted to help and order to serve. It's like the ones that love the industry, the world's best kept secret. And they just want to have nights with their kids.
and we're always torn between business and family. And I don't think we should be torn that way. I think it's okay for us to have a business. It's okay for us to work only two nights instead of three in the business. And that's ultimately who we love to work with where people are here and they understand the value of, you know, if I don't get this right, I'm gonna lose more than money here. I'm gonna lose time with my kids, time with my family, time with my partner.
Jen (46:56.951)
Yeah, it's...
Yeah, it's really understanding that those whole life values, right and going, am I building a business that supports that? Or am I building a business puts me in conflict with that, and then getting the support and I think if people are, you know, ever in a position where they think that they want to do things, but their inclination is exactly like, Kylie, your client to stay on the sidelines. It's am I going in one year's time I'm going to get am I going to wish that I
I've done this or am I still gonna be wishing or am I still gonna be looking from the sidelines? And if the answer to that is yes, it becomes more of a, well, how do I make this happen now so I don't waste a whole year and then have to just start in a year's time. So, hmm. Richard, to start to wrap us up, you mentioned something about 30 members in 90 days. Like I know that people can get in contact with you, but tell us a little bit more about what that is and how that it might work. Yeah.
Richard Toutounji (47:38.318)
Yeah, totally, totally. Yep. Yeah. Well, we put a promotion out a few months ago, January, you may see our ads and, um, it was around 30 members in nine days and we sort of took the calculation that.
If people follow our structured, our funnel system, they turn up, they do the work, and we took all the best case scenarios if that was to happen, right? And we looked at all our past clients that have followed our structure, our file funnel did the work. On average, coming in around the $15,000, $20,000, $25,000 revenue mark, right? For a studio we're talking about, obviously a gym that's not gonna work, but for a studio, that equaled 30 new members in the space of 90 days. So,
Jen (48:24.022)
Mm-hmm.
Richard Toutounji (48:29.707)
For any members out there that are in that space, that's something that we really strive towards once you implement our five funnel approach, then our goal is to get you 30 new members in the space of 90 days. Now, obviously, if you're a gym, you want much more than that. So obviously, there's other things that we do there to make that happen. But obviously, if someone's in that space of between sort of 12, 13, 15,000 and 25,000, that's something that we do. And that's how people get started with us.
Um, it's, but if that scares you and say, oh my gosh, that would like that way too many for me, sometimes it's about learning how to use these five funnels. Um, so you can move in your business and they can, you can just check us out at website com marketing.com.au if that's something of interest to you guys.
Jen (49:15.954)
Awesome. And is there anywhere else people can get in contact with you if they want to?
Richard Toutounji (49:19.955)
Yeah, I'm happy for a conversation on Instagram. They can follow me if they can get my last name right. It's T-O-U-T-O-U-N-J-I. It's pronounced to turn G for anybody that says, hey, there's that Richard T bald guy out there. It's to turn G. That's what it's from. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yep.
Jen (49:35.291)
You know what I noticed last week at the, so who was, yeah, when we at the senior management summit on Friday, I think I can't remember who it was who introduced you, but they, you were like the only person that they didn't use your last name, which I'm sure you get all the time. But on the flip side, it's memorable because people don't understand, like don't know how to pronounce it properly. So yeah, I get, go.
Richard Toutounji (49:50.003)
Ha ha ha.
Richard Toutounji (49:58.901)
We know a funny story, sorry, a funny story there. When we launched our first book, we actually changed our last name to my middle name, which was Mark, M-A-R-C. The reason being because our publisher said, oh, it's going to sell better with a really clean name and not a complicated name. And I was probably young enough and dumb enough to say, yeah, that's okay. So we launched our book with Rich and Joey Mark instead of our last name.
Jen (50:22.103)
Huh.
Richard Toutounji (50:23.251)
But I don't recommend that's a good option. I think you should always stick to your authenticity, your name, but when you're young and you, it was just a stunt that he thought was good and I didn't think, well, you live and you learn. So yes, use your name and I think that's the memorable piece of attention at the end of the day.
Jen (50:28.972)
Yep.
Jen (50:41.886)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Richard, thank you so much for joining us today. I've taken a lot away from it, as I always do when I listen to you. And I appreciate your generosity of time and energy with myself and also with everyone else you come into contact with in the fitness industry. So thank you very much. Have a beautiful day.
Richard Toutounji (50:59.269)
Thank you for the opportunity. It really enjoyed it. Thank you guys for listening.
Jen (51:04.482)
See you later.
Jen (51:08.258)
Thank you.
