[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts.
[00:00:05] Josh Kennedy: Today's topic is Marketing Lessons Learned from Istanbul. And basically, I think this is just a an opportunity for James to tell us about his holiday in Turkey and show off, right? So before you go into the show, before you go into the marketing lessons, cause obviously there are some good lessons we learned.
[00:00:21] Do tell us briefly about your holiday and how it was.
[00:00:24] James Breese: It was great. It was, it was a lot of, a lot of fun. However, the one thing that did irritate me Cause I couldn't get online. So, and I know people love being disconnected from the world, but to me, it's my worst hell and worst nightmare. So I had to run from coffee shop to coffee shop, McDonald's to Starbucks most of the time to try and get onto the waifu who then kicked you off every 15 minutes.
[00:00:44] But it was beautiful. Istanbul was amazing.
[00:00:47] Josh Kennedy: That's a good lesson in itself though, isn't it? Straight away, because if you're going to go over there and try and do work, be aware that the internet is terrible and you get kicked off in 15 minutes.
[00:00:56] James Breese: It is, and there's no roaming unless you want to pay a thousand pounds a [00:01:00] day just to be able to use it properly.
[00:01:02] So, you know, that was a big lesson. I think I need to go better prepared next time in terms of what work I need to do and what Beforehand, before I can go there, but the city itself is amazing. Shout out to all the guys, and all the guys there in Istanbul who showed me around that one night. They took me around Istanbul to show me the real Istanbul was absolutely amazing.
[00:01:22] So I got to really, really see a whole lot of side of the Istanbul that I'd never would have done on my own. And thank you very much for all those guys. And hopefully we'll be doing some more stuff for them in the new year.
[00:01:31] Josh Kennedy: Yeah. Well, I learned something new. I didn't realize it was a European side and an Asian side of Istanbul.
[00:01:36] I had no idea. Did you know that Andrew?
[00:01:39] Andrew Wallis: I did, but I'd conveniently forgotten, I guess, and I want to get over there, I want to try the Turkish coffee. Um, big coffee snobs as we are, um, it's something that, um, we're drawn to.
[00:01:50] Josh Kennedy: Get yourself some Turkish hair as well, maybe. Maybe, maybe.
[00:01:56] James Breese: Honestly, that was the funny thing, genuinely, on the way back over.
[00:01:59] On [00:02:00] the flight, it was hilarious because every guy except for me was coming on the plane with their hair transplants. I felt like very I don't know what the word was, I just felt like very on my own, I think, in that sense. But it was interesting, the guys all had their hair done and the women all had their teeth done, so turkey teeth and turkey hair is a real thing.
[00:02:17] I didn't realise that, so I might
[00:02:20] Andrew Wallis: go for the two for one then, I'll get both done at the same
[00:02:22] James Breese: time. Exactly. There you go, that's the marketing lesson right there for you. In there.
[00:02:27] Josh Kennedy: Why not, hey? Well, they, they obviously market their teeth and hair very well, don't they? Because a lot of people go over and get it done, so they must do something right.
[00:02:35] On that side. Anyway, let's, uh, let's No, let's get onto the serious stuff. What were your marketing lessons, James, from Istanbul?
[00:02:42] James Breese: One simple, really important marketing lesson. I think it's important to every health and fitness professional out there because this can relate to you guys. So picture this. I was hungry, I wanted to get some food.
[00:02:54] I was right, my hotel was near the, the old district in Istanbul. So it was a big [00:03:00] touristy area. And there were lots of restaurants and places and people trying to pull you in to the restaurant every single day. You couldn't use Google because you didn't have it. No, exactly, I couldn't. Not until I had it on here.
[00:03:10] So it's a literature. I was walking around the old time, beautiful place at nighttime when I wanted food, I was a buyer looking for somewhere to go and eat to have some food. So what happened was this big long street with all the great restaurants there, and I was being bombarded by people coming up to me.
[00:03:27] They were shoving menus in my face. They were grabbing me by the arm and say, Hey, come, you come see, come see, come see, come buy the food or buy all the food. And it was so off putting. It was absolutely unbelievable. Like it was like, no, I don't, I don't care how good the food is. You've irritated the crap out of me and I don't want to go anywhere near your place.
[00:03:46] So imagine this. So think of this now, again, the street, I'd say about five or six people came up to me, grabbed me by the arm, tell me about it. Then they got really mad when I didn't go in to have food with them. That was the other thing. They told me off when I didn't go in to have food. [00:04:00] So I had about five or six people.
[00:04:00] I was getting really frustrated. So I literally said to myself, you know what, I'm just going to go and find. A little corner kebab house and get a corner on the street food and sit outside and just have that there. That's what I thought to myself. 'cause getting so annoyed by all these restaurants. And then finally I was walking, like walking just a bit further on towards the end of the street and I got, the guys came up to me going, Hey, you're not from around you are you?
[00:04:21] You look British. And I went, yeah. He goes, where in Britain are you from? I said, I'm from Wales. Ah, no way. He said to me, means cheers to your health. Like when you're cheer, you know, cheersing someone when you're having a drink of beer. And I was like. How the hell do you know that? That's a really specific Welsh term in the middle of Istanbul.
[00:04:40] So we got into a conversation. He goes, yeah, I used to, I used to work in Bodrum. I used to run a whole load of hotels and resorts down there before moving back to Istanbul. And I worked with a lot of Welsh people. And when we went out drinking, we always used to, he taught us iechyd da, and then he said, I also know siomai and hwylfawr as well, which is hello and goodbye.
[00:04:58] I was like. That's insane. And he [00:05:00] goes, what are you up to? I said, well, I'm actually looking for someone to eat. Well, do you wanna come and see my restaurant? And he said to me, I said, yeah, do you know what? I will. So I went over, had a look at his menu. It looked pretty good. It looked a nice little outdoor area where it was like all the heaters outside.
[00:05:13] He goes, look, do you wanna come on in? I said, yeah, do you know what? I will. So I did. I went into that restaurant and had food there that night. Now compare and contrast that to the five or six other guys who were hounding me before. Right to that guy who I just had a little conversation and we had some something in common and he brought up a whole Welsh thing that related personally to me What a difference in style of marketing.
[00:05:36] Now, imagine this. Picture yourselves as fitness professionals and health professionals who are being taught by all the fitness business gurus right now. You should be DMing people in their inbox, liking them, commenting on them and just harassing them on social media to basically force yourselves to get the sale off them.
[00:05:54] You are like those. Those restauranteurs, those marketing guys in those restaurants trying to [00:06:00] pull me in while I wanted nothing to do with them. You're doing the same thing to your prospects and clients. So the biggest lesson you can learn here is you don't want to go and try and pull people into your services, kicking and screaming.
[00:06:12] You want to attract them like a magnet. That's the key thing. Relate to them, show something of value, connect with them on a personal human to human level, and then ask them if they want to have some food. All want to do business with you. It's such a big lesson here now in terms of how marketing should be done in 2024 and beyond.
[00:06:32] And I think a lot of health and fitness professionals are getting it wrong right now because they're listening to the wrong advice. And that is the biggest lesson I can share with you right now. Attract, don't pull the kicking and screaming. Andrew, what do you think of that?
[00:06:45] Andrew Wallis: Um, I totally agree. And there's two key points.
[00:06:48] I think I pick out from that first is. You did amazingly well to run the gauntlet and make it to the end of the street without getting kidnapped along the way. And [00:07:00] secondly, it's so, it's so reminiscent of I do a lot on LinkedIn. And if I think about the invites or the connections on LinkedIn, it's that pulling you in and selling your services right out the gate before forming any form of relationship and getting that trust element in place.
[00:07:20] So. No, it's, it's great that you found a fantastic place to eat and, um, it's, it's an important, um, marketing tip really to, to be, be aware of. Here's a special
[00:07:31] Josh Kennedy: message
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[00:07:59] Ever wonder how [00:08:00] many new clients you're losing by not being Google's number one. Don't wonder act now, book your free strategy call at strengthmatters. com forward slash website today. I think so too. So yeah, so like again, takeaways for you guys are. If you're posting on social media, if you're posting content regularly, don't try and force your way into their inbox.
[00:08:19] Attract them first. Maybe offer some kind of, leave a comment down below to get a free copy of a lead magnet of some sort to get a conversation going. But don't go for the sale, don't try and push hard. Right? Strike up a nice, natural conversation. You know, that's all you got to do because it's attracting in a nice way.
[00:08:37] That's going to make you stand out and become a professional service and business in 2024 and beyond. So there you go. That's my biggest marketing lesson from Istanbul. Amazing trip, amazing people, amazing food, and amazing hospitality from Goksan and his whole Move Better Institute team. But yeah, don't be those guys in the street, which you'll see everywhere now.
[00:08:55] If you go and hold in certain places in Europe. Indeed. Before we sign off,
[00:08:59] Josh Kennedy: James, what did you
[00:08:59] James Breese: [00:09:00] have, by the way? Ha ha ha ha! I sampled a That That night, or like the other nights? No, that night. What did you have that night? That night I was literally classic chicken sheets, some rice and some veg and some soup.
[00:09:14] Actually, it was very good soup. The other nights I got samples from local traditional cuisines. So Eda and Gokhan literally took me out to like a traditional Turkish restaurant and I tried their local delicacy of lamb intestines, uh, which was fantastic.
[00:09:33] Josh Kennedy: Delicious. We'll leave it there. That is it for today.
[00:09:36] Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe. And if you want to find out what's holding you back from growing your fitness business, get yourself a free website audit by going to strength matters. com forward slash audit.