Tribefit Review | Online Coach Dom Thorpe - interview with Chris Lynton from Tribefit

Chris Lynton:
Hey, everybody. Chris Lynton here, and today we're very blessed to have with us Dom Thorpe from all the way at the opposite end of the globe. Dom Thorpe, how are you, buddy?

Dom Thorpe:
I'm good. How's it going?

Chris Lynton:
Really good. Really good. Dom is based in the UK. Obviously, I'm here in Sydney, Australia. And Dom, I guess, first and foremost, thanks for your time this morning. For those, or for those people who are dialling in and may not have heard of your story, can you maybe give us a little bit of a detail about yourself, your background, your journey and, I guess, any results to date?

Dom Thorpe:
Yeah, cool. So I've been doing fitness for about... a lot of years. 12 years now, nearly. So started off as a face-to-face trainer, but with a bit of a focus on disability. So I would, I mean, there weren't that many disabled people near me. So what would happen is, I'd be training a lot of sort of able-bodied clients, but I would get disability leads through. And I've done that, as I said, for the past 12 years or so. And thrown in various other attempts at different businesses to try and expand and grow ever since then, but still kind of stuck with it for a long time really, and didn't really see much change. And after about, sort of, 10 years, I was like, after 10 years down the line and I'm still earning what I was earning 10 years ago, something needs to change.

Dom Thorpe: So I tried to launch an online product, which was sort of a good product in my mind. But it was a cheap programme, and I'd been selling that to people that I knew, and everybody that did it got great results, or whatever. But, and I tried pumping some Facebook ads as well. But part of the product was I required people to give me a thousand pound deposit, and I said lose 10 pounds in 30 days, and if you do, you get the deposit back. But if you don't, you lose a portion of your deposit depending on how much weight you actually lose. And trying to convince somebody that you don't know to give you a thousand pounds with no social proof was proving difficult. So I know people I knew were doing the programme, I couldn't get anyone I didn't know to do it. And then my buddy, Matt, all of a sudden launched his online products, and he started killing it. And I was like, "Dude, how are you making so much money?" And he was like, "I'm charging 500 pounds for just a programme and weekly course." And I was like, "People won't pay that." And he was like, "Well, they are." And I was like, "Oh."

And so I saw him grow his business, and eventually he told me, "I'm doing this thing called TribeFit." He didn't say it like that actually. What you said was, "You know that thing we spoke about in December," and I was like, "Yeah." And he said, "And you told me not to do it." And I was like, "Yeah." He said, "I've been doing that, and that's why I'm making the money." And I was like, "Oh, right." Well, I kind of said, "I eat my hat." And so then as a result of that, eventually I thought, right, now I need to jump on this bandwagon. So hired you, launched disability-specific training programmes, and that was about a year ago that one... No, not even nine months or so ago.

And since then, it's gone... I've pretty much stopped needing, or I won't be renewing any more clients. So by the end of the year, and we're in mid October now, by the end of the year, I'll be entirely office-based. And revenues have sort of last year doubled, but on track to sort of almost triple by this year. So yeah, pretty good by all accounts.

Chris Lynton:
Beautiful. Now that's fantastic. And I guess just to give Matty some props, and he does a hell of a lot more than a programme, and a couple of calls for his table. But I guess just to put it in its colloquial terms, obviously Dom's just referring to that... the simplicity of what you can offer for those sort of price points as long as you're doing a good job in how you deliver. And Matt's doing, obviously, some fantastic things as are you, mate. So I guess, first and foremost, hats off on your growth, on your journey. I know you mentioned that you were a face-to-face trainer. You had like 10 trainers underneath you at some stage or something like that. Is that all right?

Dom Thorpe:
Yeah. So as I set up in 2008, and by about 2010 just solely using AdWords, I'd scaled, and I could get new leads in quite easily. Too many for me. So I started taking on other trainers. But the problem with it is that AdWords was in London. There are only a certain amount of people searching at any one time. So my... doesn't matter how much budget I put into AdWords, I couldn't get more than 10 new clients in each month. And eventually, as you grow, you lose 10 clients each month, and so you reach that plateau point. And so I couldn't really scale. I was earning a lot, paying out quite a chunk of that to wages for trainers, but it was just not really knowing other avenues to go beyond that to actually scale, basically.

Chris Lynton:
Yep. Yep. Cool. And so it was... It sounded complicated, sounded fairly low-profit, and is what kind of made you go, now something's got to change?

Dom Thorpe:
Well, that... Yeah, that was quite a while, that. I've had several different businesses since then. I set up a couple of other different personal training models, like one where I tried to... Well, that's how I met Matt actually. So I thought, if I dropped the cost half price and find trainers that aren't yet fully qualified, so they're still training, and I pay them half the price. And then, so Matt actually applied, and I gave him a job. So he worked for me for a few years. Then we set up another company, Wireless Fitness, and yeah. So, like I said, tried lots of things. None of them worked like this, basically.

Chris Lynton:
There you go. And I guess as you said, you saw Matt kind of overtaking and doing some big things, and you thought, I've got to pull the trigger on that.

Dom Thorpe: Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Lynton:
Cool. Cool. All right, well, awesome. Appreciate that. And it's good to hear, I guess, the journey. Everyone has their own sort of path, and how they find out what they're doing. So I guess in the here and the now, what does your day look like in comparison to when you were a face-to-face trainer?

Dom Thorpe:
So I don't do 6:00 AM sessions anymore, which is a dream. I get up and go straight to the gym. So I'll meet Matt, we'll hit the gym at seven o'clock, come down, we get to the office at about half eight, and sort of take a bit time to set up, and then plough through the office mainly. So at the moment, I've got... I do about five hours a week with clients, so there are a couple of evenings a week still getting in the way. But the big difference actually, and this has been, I don't know what I would have done otherwise, is my daughter now has started nursery, and I collect her from nursery three nights a week. And if I hadn't... If I didn't have this income that isn't related to being out with clients at specific times, I don't know what I would've done actually, because I certainly wouldn't have been able to go and collect her from nursery. Because when I was a PT full time, literally, my days were chockablock back-to-back with clients, and I was on my scooter there going around London.
So, yeah. It's just, I've got a lot more control over my time basically. Some days, like today, I get up really early for things like our coaching call and stuff. But a lot of the time it's just my work window, hours wise. So I've mentioned revenues look like there'll be three times as much as I was previously. My window, I used to work 80 hours a week, and now that's gone down to about 60, and I'm hoping that by the end, well by January, it should be more like 40 hours. So, but then revenue will increase further. So I'm winning basically.

Chris Lynton:
Of course. Of course. More time, more income coming through. Mate, that's awesome. So I guess, in terms of tips for those who are watching it and listening in and going, God, I'd love to be down the same path or whatever it might be. If you could speak to yourself, I guess, two years ago, what sort of advice in hindsight would you give yourself to fast-track your journey?

Dom Thorpe:
Basically, I'd say get a coach that knows what they're doing. But that, I feel a bit like that's... It's difficult because I think you can do hit and miss a lot. And, which is why I said to Matt when he told me, "I'm going to do this thing and it's this much money," I was like, "Don't be a dick." Because Matt had spent loads of money on crap, and things like that before. Not just business coaches, but personal trainers as well. I'm like, "You are a personal trainer." But if you can find someone that knows the system, and who's done what you're trying to do so they can literally emulate it and they've put it together in a platform, it's just quick. It took, as anybody on TribeFit who follows the system, does it in no time pretty much. Within about, if you're smart and you work hard, within about a month you can start making loads more money than you were before. So get a coach would be my advice.

Chris Lynton: Good, good, good. And guys, that wasn't me-

Dom Thorpe: No, it wasn't.

Chris Lynton: ... in a [crosstalk 00:09:59] plug. But it's smart. Success leaves clues. I hear what you're saying.

Dom Thorpe:
Really, I spend a lot more time... No, I don't. I don't. But regularly, I think, damn man, if I'd have done this when I was young, like some of the guys that are coming onto the course now, I'd be killing it. And I sort of, I think, I wish I had this back then, but doesn't matter. We've got a journey.

Chris Lynton:
That's exactly right, and hindsight's a beautiful thing. Well, I guess other than that, is there any other traps or pitfalls that you've kind of tripped over yourself that... or any advice you could give to anyone of things to avoid or whatnot that may, looking back, may have slowed down the progress?

Dom Thorpe:
Well, so in general, I think along I spent many years spreading myself too thin, trying to do too many things. I think focusing down has been central to my success. And as with, I mean, with your online stuff, sort of deciding who your target audience is makes a big difference. Right? And when I was trying to sell my previous online programme, I didn't have an audience. I was just trying to fire ads anywhere, and I think that's probably it because you can't write the language towards them. So that's probably one aspect of it. The other... I don't know. I think what I've found is my big, or big things that I've thought, oh crap, I don't know what's going on here, is when scaling adverts, suddenly getting tonnes of calls, but people not answering in America, for example.

And one of the things that you said was a simple thing, get Skype, U.S. number, right? Okay. And that literally transferred from nobody answering the phone to I don't know what percentage, but a lot of people answering the phone. And it's just, occasionally things will bomb. And it's been nice actually to have just somebody to quickly say, "Look, this is happening. Why is it happening?" And then you get an answer, and solves your problem. And I think... So, yeah. There are pitfalls that you can go into with ads, I guess, and do lots of stuff wrong. So it's useful to have the tutorials, but then also to just say, "Am I missing something? This is not working or whatever." So that's been quite useful.

Chris Lynton:
Cool. Cool. Okay, mate. Well, I guess, look, we've probably gone through the majority of stuff. Your journey from where you were to where you are now. Obviously, working hard, keeping focus, narrowing down on the focus, the nature of your help, and obviously keeping focus on the sort of big levers that actually generate clients and help deliver those clients. So I guess to wrap up, buddy, or first and foremost, I appreciate your time, and, obviously, getting up early as you mentioned. To wrap up, do you have any words of wisdom, you probably already said them all, but any words of wisdom for anyone that's either beginning or wanting to start online or, alternatively, they're just struggling because they can't grow or get any consistency?

Dom Thorpe:
I think the bottom line is you... to do the testing and the trialling that you need to do on your own, take so much time. So if you can find somebody that already has done it and knows what the answers are, it's a lot quicker for somebody to just say, "Do this." And me and Matt are asking you, "Oh, what if we try this? What if we try that?" And you're like, "We've tried it. We've tried that, and this is the way." And so it saves so much time if you can just get the answers the way someone else has already done the testing basically.

Chris Lynton:
Yeah. Yeah. No, we've made all the mistakes, so if we can help and save you from making the same painful mistakes, then you're only going to get there faster, so that makes total sense. And tucking behind someone that's actually done it, that makes total sense. I've absolutely loved your... trying to do Matt's voice, and I'm sure when he watches this back, he's going to say, "I don't sound like that." But it made it's... absolute almost sounds identical to what he sounds like. But, mate, that's it. That's it from our session, our call. Guys, if you are... If anything's resonated, if you've got any questions, feel free to reach out to me from this session. Feel free to reach out to Dom. He's an absolute legend. I'm sure, as long as you don't hog his time too much, he's always there and happy to help as well. So I guess first and foremost, to finish up, thanks for your time again, Dom. You're a legend. Keep on crushing. I know you're onto a record month this month, and we're going to make sure you hit that and keep going from there. So thanks for your time, buddy, and we'll speak soon.

Dom Thorpe: Pleasure. You're welcome.