The Strength Community and the Coaches Losing to the Instagram Coach

If you’re a part of the strength community, you hear it all the time. “Instagram Coaches.” Often, the phrase is accompanied with varying proportions of distaste and jealousy. Old timers abhor these youngsters, who may, at times, misrepresent their credentials. Conversely, young start up coaches will resent the statement, saying they are simply using technology to their benefit to promote and sell their product.

Strength coaching is a delicate subject. In such a small community there are big name coaches often thrown around. These individuals are often accepted as the preeminent sources of time-tested methodologies that work. At the later stages of their career, most of them are not actively seeking athletes to work with — the athletes are looking to work with them.

Cool, so what’s the problem?

There isn’t one. If you’re one of the rockstar coaches mentioned above. But what happens when you’re in the middle of the shuffle?

Let’s say you’ve had over a decade of experience but limited visibility in terms of digital presence. You’ve put in the work. You’ve grinded. You’ve “interned” with all the best coaches out there. Why are these kids with nothing other than 4 successful meets beating you at talent acquisition?

1. You have very little to zero digital presence. After all, who needs that right?
2. You think development of digital presence is stupid and child’s play.
3. You’re too busy working to build digital presence

Note: Reason 2 & 3 directly relate to reason 1.

We’ve all heard it before: you can develop the best product in the world but if no one knows about it no one is going to buy it — you will still be broke as hell.

This is not a conversation dedicated to social media. This is a conversation about content creation.

I’ve worked with one other coach (who was starting up at the time) before I settled on my current coach (who has over 15 years in the industry). I’ve been approached by many in between. So let me give you an insight from the end-user perspective:

When I contemplate working with someone, I am looking at the following (in no particular order):

• Personal competition track record
• Client competition track record
• Examples of programming
• Quality of athletes (are they better after working with this person?)
• Willingness to teach and share expertise (writes articles / engages when asked question on social media / participates actively by giving back to the community)
• Professionalism (is this person actively causing unnecessary controversy within the community)
• Reputation (what are people saying about this person)

This can be a very exhaustive list, so remember this list represents a small sample of considerations, but I wanted to provide a sample of considerations.

And guess where I am searching for this information? Google, Facebook, Instagram, group discussions at meets, and tracking down former clients or current clients to get the real scoop.

Do I believe every person on earth is doing their due diligence? Probably not. But I think, as a business owner, you should work your way from addressing the most concerned to least concerned person, not the other way around.

So how does the middle road coach get the correct exposure? You guessed it, generating the correct content, in the correct context.

Publish your work on social networks

If you’re not posting or reposting your clients work, you’re missing out. And if you don’t want to feel like you’re taking advantage of your clients, I assure you, you shouldn’t. They’re already likely to post it anyway. Just ask.

Give back to the community in a public way

Share your knowledge. Write more, engage more with people. No one is publicly asking you questions? Politely involve yourself in relevant conversations. Speak about things you know very well. Don’t lie, and do not misrepresent yourself. If you don’t know something, find someone who can help.

Don’t poach

If someone is happy working with someone, don’t be the asshole that tries to take them from someone else. Professionalism matters, and while no one will say it to your face, word about how you run your business will travel. Plus, demonstrating your competency and expertise will draw people that want to work with you. Attract your own clients, no one like a thief.

Showcase your success stories

Happy clients are more than willing to give you a hand with this. Why? Because everyone loves to improve. All you have to do is ask. And yes, asking is good. Asking has a two fold effect: your client feels valued (and often flattered to be showcased) and the coach gets quality, organic, testimonials about his or her work.

Don’t be afraid to talk about yourself

I’m not saying brag. But if you have more than sufficient amount of experience under your belt, you shouldn’t keep that a secret.

Everyone loves an underdog and the sport is all about underdogs. There is not a single person that competes at a high level that has not had to overcome some sort of career-threatening injury, or some sort of me vs. world circumstance. People are naturally attracted to a certain level of honesty. Speaking to your credentials, paired with a personal anecdote, is often enough to communicate to your audience what you are made of.

If you’ve read my previous post about branding and story telling. This is an excellent place to consider those questions and create content that addresses your brand and fills in the gaps.

“Content is King but Context is God”

Don’t check out yet, I’m almost done. This is the most important thing I can tell you today. As you are writing, do not forget who you are communicating with. This is how the Instagram coach is killing it.

So what’s context? Context is relevancy. Getting the right information to the right person, at the right time, in a way they’re actually willing to read it. Meaning, it is in your best interest to write or vlog in a style similar to how your audience already interacts with one another and then post it in the right place, (where people are already looking for the information you have to offer).

A good example of this is a recent article by Swede on EliteFTS titled The Obstacles You’ll Becoming a Great Powerlifter. Swede wrote this up after soliciting feedback from a range of lifters, organized and distilled it down in a manner lifters can empathize with, and then launched it on EliteFTS — where people are already looking for powerlifting articles. It is important to note he also promoted it on Facebook, where he has an existing community of followers who are looking for this advice.

So, back to you. Do you remember what you were looking for as a young athlete trying to work with a coach? Do you remember how frustrating it was?

Good. Now present your content in their perspective. Answer all of the questions you are constantly being asked (in real life, in internet land, etc. ) and all of the questions you once had when you were starting out.

Be authentic.

Who has time for this?

You do. You should make time for this. It matters. As technology rapidly changes how people are digesting data, receiving data, and searching for data, you have to adjust or you simply won’t make it.

If you address content creation one piece at time, you will find your credentials will speak for itself. Consider your content portfolio your resume.

After all, if you were in the job market, you would most likely be running the same type of search before going to the job interview. Why would you think your prospective clients do not view meeting you as a your job interview for them?

Ask me anything, I’m always listening…