How to Build an Online Fitness Empire with Over 40 Alpha Funk Roberts

In this episode, Funk Roberts owner of Funk Roberts Fitness Inc and YouTube Channel helps people by providing them with fitness and business advice through his various fitness programs and businesses.

Funk offers a variety of workout programs, fitness tips and advice, and motivational content to help people improve their health and fitness. He runs a monthly membership website called Over 40 Alpha Membership for Men Over 40, with over 14,000 members, dedicated to helping men over 40 excel in health, fitness, weight loss, business, and life. He has over 20 years of experience and has helped over 1 million fitness enthusiasts, combat fighters, trainers, and coaches reach their fitness goals.

Funk’s mission is to help another one million men in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond regain their manhood, boost testosterone, build their best body, and live a healthy, happy, and productive life. He is a certified master metabolic trainer, certified MMA conditioning coach, fitness nutrition coach, core conditioning specialist, kettlebell training specialist, pain-free performance specialist, and mindset coach. He has also released an online kettlebell workshop and course for beginners.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch and scale, a high value online training program. I’m your guide Chris Badgett. I’m the co founder of LifterLMS the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. stay to the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMS cast. I’m joined by a special guest, his name is funk Roberts, he’s over at www dot over 40 alpha.com funk is building an online fitness Empire for men over 40 looking to go through health transformations I recently came across you and our community of users and LifterLMS I found your story and everything super inspiring. Welcome to the show funk.

Funk Roberts: Thanks so much for having me, Chris. I appreciate it. Yeah, I’m excited to to share whatever knowledge or whatever I can with.

Chris Badgett: Awesome, man. Well, there’s a couple of things that really jumped out at me One is you’re prolific like you, you make tons of videos, you gotta you got to subscribe to funks YouTube channel, it’s funk Roberts fitness you have as of this recording over 710,000 subscribers. Some of your most popular workout videos, or videos are about like 10 minute workouts doing burpees specific like kinds of workout, but bring it bring us back to the origin story here. What happened for you to kind of become this guy that’s going to lead other men and his fitness transformation, which you’ve obviously come back up with your own results in your own health and stuff. How did this start?

Funk Roberts: Yeah, so I used to be a professional athlete growing up. So I played professional, indoor and beach volleyball, like, at the highest level. So if you see, you know, the beach volleyball and on, you know, the Olympics, or whatever I used to play that with, I don’t know if there’s any other players still there. But, you know, this was in the 80s and early 90s. And so I’m 53 Right now, I’m from Toronto. And so fitness has always been in health, and everything has always been in my life. My parents were amazing role models, because, you know, they worked every day, they, they, my dad or my mom, my dad had two jobs at work, they came home, they would go out practice their sports, and then every single week, it seemed like they would be coming home with trophies or medals.

And it’s just, they never really said anything. To me, I just saw the hard work because they’re still cooking and cleaning the house and fixing things and going out and practicing and then playing and coming back. It’s just, it was just a constant thing that I saw and wanted to emulate. So I was accelerated in all sports that I did, of course, professional beach volleyball and indoor volleyball came what I did. And so, you know, I was I was always enamored with bodybuilding and and you know, like, flex magazine and Muscle and Fitness as I was growing up.

So I knew that after I retired from volleyball, I would do something in the fitness industry, but obviously, you know, you retire from volleyball, you’ve got a family, you got, you know, got kids and, you know, I started the corporate life, right, you got your nine to five is sitting at a computer. And that’s basically what my 30s were, you know, just just that grind, right? I still did dabbled in some personal training here and there. But it wasn’t until later on in my 30s when YouTube started, I think my first YouTube video is like 20 Sep 2007 or something 2007. But I, you know, I, I saw an opportunity and a platform to be able to reach more than just, you know, one on one personal training, which I hated. And, you know, bootcamps.

Which were pretty good, because I’d have, you know, 100 200 or 100 to like, you know, 80 to 100 people at a boot camp, because I was one of the first people to do these boot camps here in Toronto.

But again, just having to lug all that all that equipment and then putting it back in the car and then have to go home and then sleep and get up at night. You know, seven to go to a nine to FiVER, I was too much. But then when when YouTube came up, I saw that opportunity. And I just started to post videos on YouTube. You know, I didn’t know what you know, no one really knew what they were doing. Just yeah, here’s a couple of shoulder exercises, you know, very basic. Literally, I had I had videos, some of my earliest videos, I’m in my basement.

Now a dark skinned man. So I’m in my basement, no lighting, barely see me. I’m doing this volatile, long workout. And you know, it’s it’s so funny when I look back. But that was my passion. You know, I found my passion which was, you know, health and fitness.

And so, you know, dating back probably, you know, in my late 30s I started to post but then also in my late 30s Things were starting to happen to my body that I wasn’t really, you know, used to like I was going to the gym six days a week I was working hard At the gym, but my body wasn’t changing. I was big and puffy. I was like, I’m right now about 187 pounds 511 Then I was 215 270 pounds, and I was very puffy. And so I started to you know, I had a really big belly. And I didn’t know what was going on, I started to, you know, my workout partner looked at me and he’s like, you know, doesn’t piss you off that you’re like, the hardest worker in this gym.

Like, you come here six days a week, you work hard, and you still look the same. And that really like, you know, I got pretty defensive. And I went home that night, and I took off my shirt because I really never looked in the mirror. Right? Like, I was always living in the past, like, oh, I used to be a professional volleyball player, you know, like that, that persona you hang on to, you know, and it’s like, it’s like, Al Bundy, when he used to always talk about being a quarterback and polkadot I mean, even though he’s sitting on the couch, it’s the same thing.

Got we do that we live, we, you know, we highlight things that we used to do and not really live in the in the now when, you know, it’s you know, taking off the shirt, seeing exactly what was going on big belly big and puffy, not liking what I saw. And so what do you do? You go to the gym harder? What do you do you go on low carb diets, you go on, on all kinds of different low carb, no fat, I was going to everything intermittent fasting, but it was crazy trying to figure out what, what what would work and still nothing would work.

And then I started to get get injuries. So at that point, you know, I’m just I’m just kind of going along. And then I think the you know, the last part of what set me down in a spiral was the girl that I was seeing at the time, she left me because I had no sex drive. She literally told me I’m leaving you because we’re not having sex. Because I didn’t have any I didn’t have a sex. I didn’t have sex drive and I didn’t have anything I just wasn’t, I was just there. I felt like I was just there. Even though I was posting on YouTube. Internally, I wasn’t who I want it to be. And as soon as she left that sent me down a spiral, I started going out the strip joints and, and partying and doing drugs.

It really sent me down into a very, very, very deep hole. And I was masking my manhood by going to strip joints by, you know, partying all night by trying to you know, oh, yeah, look at me, I’m here. Meanwhile, internally, I wasn’t, I was feeling horrible. I was depressed, I had no drive, I had nothing. I was just, I didn’t know what’s going on, then I started to get injured. So now I’m getting injured. Because I’m working out so much. And I’m partying so much. I’m sitting in my, you know, my, my basement and just hating myself.

And so when I went to the doctor, my doctor told me, you know, we took blood tests, and then I went back to get the results like, Hey, dude, your, your testosterone levels are like 190. And I’m like, why? First of all, I didn’t really, I thought because I was big. I must have tons of testosterone. Hey, man, I party with strippers, I must have testosterone. You know, I’m big on the loud guy in the bar I party with, you know, I must have been he’s like, No, your testosterone levels are the levels of an eight year old man. And then he explained to me what testosterone actually does for our bodies, and how it relates to everything.

My depression, my sex drive my mind not being able to lose weight, the belly fat, the no muscle not getting injured, your feeling of of being depressed, you know, and everything and not having the drive, the energy levels, all of that stuff was due to my testosterone levels being so low. And so of course, he wanted to put me on testosterone replacement therapy, but I was like, No, there’s no way I’m doing that. I’m going to look and find out how I can naturally increase testosterone.

But the cool thing about it was, I saw hope, because I’m like, Okay, there’s hope. There’s a reason why I feel like this. There’s a reason why all of this is happening. So I literally like, I just like hit the pavement, did a lot of research, talk to some hormone specialist. When I’m telling you this is when I was 40. This is when I was 40. So I’m 5313 years ago, and I literally in six months transformed. My body completely transformed my body 235 pounds ripped, because I changed the foods I ate, I changed my workouts like you know, I focus a little bit more in recovery. And I felt so good.

I felt so vibrant. But here’s the thing here now I feel like I’m 20 So now I’m I’m doing 20 year old things like I started to train Muay Thai and I fought professionally in Thailand, you know, and, and I got married in my 40s. And, you know, I started my business in my 40s I left my six figure job and said, You know what, I want to do fitness. And you know, my present like, literally my I walked in my president presidents, I remember this vividly, and I said, You know what, I’m gonna leave. You know, you guys have been great.

He’s like, Yeah, I was waiting for this this moment, because everyone in my place I was working was on my newsletter, my fitness newsletter, so they’re always asking me a funk. How do I do this? Or how do I build muscle? How do I lose weight so it wasn’t I wasn’t hot. writing that I was doing a lot of stuff on the back, like, you know, when I came home from work and I loved what I was doing as a passion to write blog posts and post videos, and I was what I loved.

But I knew that if I wanted to, if I needed to do that, and make money from it, I’d have to leave this and, and jump right in. And I didn’t even tell my wife at the time. Well, I didn’t tell my wife that I that I quit. So I literally went came home and said, I don’t I quit my job.

Chris Badgett: She’s like, What?

Funk Roberts: Do you better get your ass upstairs? Because you’re gonna start working? So

Chris Badgett: What year was this? Where’s

Funk Roberts: This? Yeah, this is 2015 Probably 2015, like seven years ago, seven years, seven or eight years, the timings kind of you know, it’s all it’s a little bit blurry, the longer I’ve done this alone, but yeah, I was about 2015 2014. And, yeah, and I just, I just really, really set set my, my sights on launching workout programs and that sort of thing. But then, about four years ago, I almost died because I had something called crypto organizing pneumonia, which is a very rare lung disorder. And it just, you know, just a long story short, the doctor literally said to me at one point, you better come back to the hospital, and stay here because we don’t know what you have. And if you’re gonna die, he might as well die here.

Because we you have people here. And you know, that was, that was a huge moment for me because I was in good shape up to up to the point where I started to develop this. Anyways, they found out what it was crypto organizing pneumonia, and part of the recovery was going on prednisone, which is a horrible, catabolic steroid that kills your testosterone kills your muscles, makes your head frickin 10 times the size that it’s supposed to be. It’s a very and messes up with your hormones. And so at that time, during this recovery, I said, Okay, I’m gonna go back and really, truly put this program that I developed before to the test to see if I can keep my T levels high to keep everything high.

If I do, and if this works, we’re going to we’re going to watch this. And it did like, six months later, I was off the prednisone three months from that I tripled my testosterone levels which had dropped. And from there, I started my over 40 Alpha brotherhood, because that’s because I know what these guys are going through. I went through it. Well, I went through exactly I looked at not only once, but then I did it again. And I knew that this this, this program that I developed will work. And lo and behold, that’s that’s where we’re at right now. 40,000 men in this program, they they’re changing their lives or changing their health. And that’s, that’s that’s the origin story.

Chris Badgett: That is so cool. That is such an awesome story. Let’s let’s talk about like the tribe, the avatar, the ideal customer profile, this this over 40 Man that’s in a similar spot that you were and you mentioned, like testosterone is kind of a mechanism of where a lot of the problem lies. What is what is the pain? Like where’s the pain coming from whether they’re working out and not getting results? Or they’re not working out and things are just downward spiral in terms of belly fat, fatty liver, whatever. How, like, what did you discover, to fix testosterone naturally? And I know you have a ton in the program, but what are some insights to get the men out there excited?

Funk Roberts: Yeah, you know, you’re you hit goosebumps every time when I when I hear this, because when I first launched this, I launched it as okay, we’re going to increase your testosterone naturally. And that was what I that was my hook. Right? And so my avatars men over 4040s 50s 60s 70s who struggle with belly fat loss who struggle with no energy who struggle with maybe not being able to, you know, the low sex drive, who struggle with not knowing what workouts to do and what to eat because they’re tried everything that they used to do. But I was leading with testosterone.

And and what I realize is the connection between testosterone and everything else I just told you, there is no connection there for most men, there still is because there’s no information out there about how testosterone affects men our age, right? Because it’s all about testosterone, testosterone, bodybuilders, testosterone, testosterone, testosterone replacement therapy. That’s what that’s what all you hear, you don’t hear, Oh, well, this testosterone helps with all of these things.

You’ll fight loss, strength, muscle, et cetera, et cetera, all the things I talked about. So it was a little bit difficult, because not everyone understood the testosterone thing. So I had to go back and do a survey and ask what is your number number one struggle and so we have this massive sheet. I had about 10,000 men respond. Lo and behold, belly fat, no energy, not knowing what workouts to do, what to eat, you know, kind of like the basic things. And so I’m like, okay, perfect, that’s what we’re going to lead with, we’re going to help you lose belly fat, we’re going to help you lose weight, we’re going to help you with your, your pre diabetes, those things that are prevalent that guys actually know that they have, the Sun enters the symptoms.

And so once we once what as soon as they come into program, they it’s all testosterone, like I tell them that this is, this is why you’re getting these symptoms, and here is the solution, we’re gonna work on a pillar, like a full holistic solution. That’s not difficult, because, you know, there’s a lot of information but there isn’t, it is very, just follow the program, I make it very simple because again, we’re older guys, we don’t have time a we don’t have the time, B, we don’t have the margin for error, we can’t just do eat whatever we want, and expect to recover. We can’t just work out five days a week and expect to recover because we’re not the same as we are.

And you know, the science and you know, as we get older, we not only suffer from low testosterone, because here’s the thing, testosterone levels naturally decreased one to 2%, every year after the age of 30. So no one knows that or not. Well, no one really know these guys, never none of these guys knew before they came into the program. Also, we suffer from sarcopenia, which is a natural loss of muscle due to aging. So I have, I have men who are skinny, but have a belly who are skinny, and try everything. And just you know, they just, they still have the you know, the they may have a little bit of manboobs, they may just have no energy, they can’t understand it.

So it’s not like I need to lose 200 pounds are 100 pounds, because I’m already skinny, but I can’t put on muscle, I still have this belly, I don’t have energy. It’s Yes, it’s your T levels are high, or are sorry, levels are low, your estrogen levels are high because belly fat and estrogen are co related, you know, and then and then it’s all about balancing hormones. So it’s not just a testosterone, it’s balancing hormones. So that’s basically it’s the symptoms that I learned that we have to lead with. And once we lead with those symptoms, once they come in, it’s the education.

That’s that’s the key because I’m very, very big on educating these guys. So they understand why am I waiting? Why am I not eating? Soy? Oh, that’s right, because it increases my cortisol or Arcos my estrogen, or why am I eating you know, sweet potato because sweet potato is great for my thyroid, which will kickstart my metabolism. It’s got boron, which is great for my testosterone. And it’s a healthy, complex car. They know this stuff, they learn it so that they have the power with food, they have the power with workouts, they have the power with the recovery, they have the power to make the decision, the right decision.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I could talk to you forever about fitness because I find your target market but yeah, I want to kind of talk about funk the entrepreneur. Yes. Tell us about YouTube. Like your YouTube success. You have a lot of videos I’m sure it drives leads into your your products and programs and stuff. What are some kind of counterintuitive or non obvious things that you’ve learned? Kind of developing YouTube as an entrepreneur?

Funk Roberts: Yeah, that’s great. Great. So yes, so for YouTube for me, YouTube. It just became something because I am comfortable in front of a camera. I learned to be comfortable in front of a camera I learned to be comfortable speaking. So and YouTube was the only thing at that point. There was no Facebook actually, I don’t think I’m pretty sure there was no Facebook. When I started YouTube, or it was very, it was in its infancy. It might have been just in the universities or something but it definitely wasn’t so it was more MySpace at that time. And so I just latched on to YouTube because I figured I can get a message home I can get workouts done because my goal at first because when I first came into this into my my business.

I was a I’m a strength conditioning coach for fighters because I used to fight so again I used to fight I thought so I and I used to develop strength and conditioning workouts for fighters because I realized that fighters were still doing the buys and tries the back and shoulders the old type of workout. So I decided, Okay, I’m gonna make this cycle funk MMA, and it’s going to be all videos and it’s just gonna be workouts so if you’re a martial artist, or you know jiu jitsu Muay Thai, MMA, whatever, you know that you could go to funk MMA, see a workout and you know that that workout is gonna help you with your conditioning. That was my goal. So I was just about content and YouTube was obviously the best way to do that.

But as we as things started to progress, YouTube’s algorithms change and so you’ve got to start changing with those algorithms and start changing, you know, as more people were on YouTube and searching, you got to make sure the thumbnails are right now you got to make sure your tags are right so that people can see your videos when I was posting at the very beginning. I mean, everyone is seeing the video. It’s not a lot of people at that time. But now there’s so much so I learned throughout that, okay, what is a? I just want to be me.

So I’m not I’m not going to I’m not going to try to be someone who I’m not because I started that way. I’m like, Okay, I’m funk Roberts, I have to be this, like, the superhero brand. Right? I have to be the suit. But then I realized none of that. And that’s too much work for me. I’m not, I’m not I just want to be me. And if you’d like me, like me, if you don’t, you don’t, but you’re just this is who I am. And you’re gonna see it through my videos and, and that sort of thing. So that was eat that made things very, very easy, because I don’t have to worry about stuff. But as as we kept going, I also wanted to, okay, so how can I?

How can I set myself apart from some of the other guys, you know, there’s, there’s ATHLEAN X and Jeff Cavalier. And the way he does his things are different, right? He these five exercises should do and he does that sort of thing. And then there’s other people out there. So I said, Okay, for me, again, it’s the workouts but now I have to evolve my workouts. It used to be just, I’m shooting a demo. And then that’s it. That used to be I’m shooting a demo, and I’m going to talk over it and then then once once COVID hit, it was I’m doing follow along workouts, and not only am I going to do follow along workouts, but I’m gonna coach through it. And I’m gonna go through the the entire workout with them.

So they can see me struggle, and they can see me and I that was a that was a that was a no one on no one on YouTube was doing that before COVID Nobody was so it was a very big thing because I’m like. Okay, well listen, I’m gonna be struggling and they’re gonna see me struggle, they’re gonna see me have to put the weight down. But that’s reality. And that’s how my my program is all of my workouts in the over 40 offer program are all follow along workouts. So I just thought, Okay, I’m just gonna do this. And again, people who want who like it, they like it. They don’t they don’t. Well, during COVID My YouTube channel blew up. Because I was putting follow along workouts all Bodyweight Workouts. So people who,

Chris Badgett: Obviously without a gym, yeah, without a gym, which was everybody in the

Funk Roberts: World. So and people loved it. People were just Oh, my God isn’t the first time first guy can see that. That is actually coaching because that’s a big thing for me coaching through the exercises, because that’s how I do them anyway. And then oh, and he’s also struggling. So it’s really real. And I just saw net. So then I thought, Okay, this is what I’m gonna do follow along workouts follow along workouts, but then I started to see more people doing follow along workouts.

So they started so they started doing the follow up, but they don’t coach because it is very difficult to do a full 20 3040 minute workout coach and do the workout. It’s difficult. Some people started and tried and they realized very quickly, it’s like, okay, you know, we’re gonna do we’re just gonna put the music in the back, and we’re just going to work out which is what you see more now.

Like the big the big ones out there. That’s what they do. They just put the music behind and they and they and they do which is great. I mean, that’s, that’s a niche that people like, and then there’s others who are starting to come out and just okay, I’m just gonna do the workout with you. And I think people love that more because you get to, you get to experience who I am. And you know, there’s a connection that was that’s a big thing for me is connection. I want to connect with my audience.

I can’t connect with an audience if I’m just putting music and I’m just doing an exercise. There’s no connection. Here. There is a hear me farting. They hear me burping they hear they hear everything because it’s real. We all do it in the gym. So why would I’m not gonna I’m not gonna do anything else.

But then we have to then we have to go Okay, listen, we’re doing these workouts but now we got to take it up a notch guys. Like, we got to we got to keep evolving. We can’t just do the same thing. Like you know, we changed cameras. We had two cameras now we now what I wanted you to keep engagement because you also have to think about what YouTube likes will thumbnails they want watch time. So short video isn’t going to work. They want watch time they want. They want to sell ads. So 20 minutes plus, that’s your that’s your video. So think about that. Think about your thumbnails, think about the tags and think about one single message. Because my my single message is metabolic workouts.

If you do metabolic workouts, you’re gonna burn fat build muscle, I do mean metabolic workout. Sure. So metabolic workouts are like what most people think of hit. So you do one exercise for 30 seconds, you rest for 30 seconds, move on to the next exercise for 30 and rest for 30. And what metabolic workouts do is not only are you there short, but the because of the intensity is so high, you’re going to burn calories during but then you’re going to continue to burn calories up to 24 hours after because your body’s still trying to get back to homeostasis, which is where you started. When you’re doing like long 45 minute cardio session.

As your you’re going at a medium pace for 45 minutes, and then 30 minutes, or an hour later, your body gets back to homeostasis because you did not increase the intensity plus anything higher, any workouts that are higher, were more than about 30 minutes, you start to increase cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone, which we do need specifically during our workouts. But too much cortisol is exactly what kills your muscle growth. It kills your testosterone, your hormones, and it also causes belly fat. So that’s why you see a lot of people at the gym who do the elliptical, and you have to lose weight for the first month. But then six months later, they still have the belly, they still have because and they don’t have a lot of muscle because it’s not that long cardio session, that’s not maximizing their calorie burn.

And so when you do, again, the shorter workouts, you’re you’re releasing testosterone and you’re releasing growth hormones, you’re not hitting that cortisol. And because workouts are so intense, depending on what level you’re at, you’re going to continue to burn. So a lot of times guys, will will, they’ll come in and go man, why funk? Why two hours later, do I still sweat? Like, I think I have a sweating problem. I’m like none, and it’s because your body’s still still still burning, like your metabolism is still going, it’s trying to get back, it’s a good thing actually, that you’re doing that because you’re still burning.

So that’s metabolic training. In a nutshell. So I say I say the same thing, whether it’s a four six year old person, obviously, it’s going to be the exercise gonna be a little bit more joint friendly, or whether it’s a fighter. But more more importantly, now it’s more for men over 40. So now we add that we add pop ups during the exercises now because again, I want to keep that engagement most of the pop ups do so they’re just like if I’m doing if I’m doing a lunch and I say okay, guys, keep that knee pointed out.

knee pointed out once to the knee. Why as I’m doing it, right, because I want to keep people engaged. I want to keep people watching and most people who watch my follow alongs they just watch it first before they do it. Like no one really just clicks on again, I’m gonna do this workout. Some do a very few, but most people want to see it first to see, okay, let me see this workout are cool, but I want to keep them engaged. I want to educate them, I want to give them as much as I can in regards to the right technique, because I’m not there to, you know, to Okay, pull your knees out or, you know, keep your shoulders back, you know, shoulders back.

And then my my editor’s will point shoulders back like, so it’s really it’s another lab trying to keep leveling up so that I can keep the engagement because that’s what YouTube likes. But also I can use it to educate as well and keep people entertained, it’s edutainment, right, just shikshan entertainment, and results driven, they can actually do it and get something done. One last tip, just one last tip about YouTube’s if anyone is going to start using YouTube. So the other thing is I only I focus on YouTube.

I don’t focus on YouTube and Instagram and like I only have 40,000 followers on Instagram, I barely post on Instagram, because he can’t do it all. You have to be one person. Yes, there’s a couple of people who got billions on each one. But that’s because they got millions of people on both platforms. I only have only focus on YouTube. And yes, I will post on on Instagram and maybe some on Facebook, but it’s not my number one I focus on YouTube. That’s where I can connect with people. And that’s where my my voice is.

So if you’re doing YouTube, just focus on YouTube, focus on your messaging, and focus on longer videos to keep people engaged don’t have to be Showtime videos, man. Like I said, some of my great greatest videos that my burpee video is done outside in a park. My wife, you know, we still can’t believe that video. But then when we watched it, we watch the other day like, Hey, man, that’s a good video. Like, that was really good. Like, okay, I don’t even have to reshoot that I know it’s in the park and grasses up to my up to my you know, my waist, but it’s a good video.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I was listening to your podcast this morning, the over over 40 Alpha podcast and I heard you were promoting or somebody was becoming a captain. And, and it basically a part of what you do is what I call it education entrepreneur. One of the skill sets is building community. And I was wondering if you could kind of touch on that community piece, particularly if you’re serving a market, maybe people will have challenges and they don’t necessarily want to go go talk about their belly fat or their low sex drive or whatever it is. So it’s like a challenging community but somehow you’re able to also build community how do you how do you connect these people to each other to help motivate and you know, drive your business forward?

Funk Roberts: Yeah, this is the number one thing that keeps my guidance my business this is the number one thing is the bar tribe, we call it a tribe element we teach this when you create a community, a tribe, a positive cult, okay, not like CrossFit is, is a positive cult, they have their own words and wants, and they have their own lingo. And you know, like, they know. And that’s a massive close community and they’ve created a tribe. So when we created over 40, alpha, that was the number one thing was Guy gotta cry, I want to create a tribe, I want to create, first of all, a community of men who can, who can be vulnerable with each other massive, massive test, men aren’t vulnerable.

Men don’t talk about things at all, except just shop talk with their buddies. So having men a from all over the world, all different colors, all different religions, all different languages, calling each other brother telling each other, they love each other. You know, that’s what happens. We’re inside our brotherhood.

So but there has to be like, there’s a formula. So first and foremost, you know, when I, when we created it, it was an identity, what’s the identity over 40? Alpha, that’s our identity. So everyone’s an over 40 Alpha, you know, when you come in? And how do you really become the over 40 alpha, where there’s a journey. So when I set up my membership site, most membership sites, no matter if they’re fitness or anything else, usually, you join, and then there’s a whole bunch of things that you can access, like resources, right? That’s kind of like the Netflix. But for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, and they’re coming to you for information, and then you just put them in this this place library, they still don’t know what to do that.

Okay, where do I go? What do I do? I still don’t know, I need hand holding. And I understand that with men, or with anybody, you know, the good thing about men is when you give them something, they’ll do it. Like, I’ve tried women on the women’s side, and it’s a whole different ballgame. No disrespect to women love you guys. But it’s just a different way of dealing with women. Men are just do this. This is why it’ll work. Okay? Like, it’s insane. It’s amazing. Amazing. You get a bit of pushback at the beginning, like Believe me, it works, just keep doing it. So we had to have this journey. So you start everyone starts in the same place. That’s the other thing.

Everybody starts in phase one. And so because they start in phase one, they go to phase two phase three phases are 28 day programs, they’re just 28 days, right? So everyone starts and then there’s the first year is called one year to alpha. So you go through 12 phases 12 likes, every every phase is different workouts are different. And they become an OG at the end. So they get this OG status. Now I know GE, right. So during that journey, though, how do you keep them interested? How do you keep them, you know, really focused on this journey? Well, we have milestones every three months, you hit a milestone and that gets you a t shirt. Right? So now what are we doing? We are creating uniformity.

Right? What what is what are communities have the same uniform, they look the same, they dress the same? Right? So that’s the uniformity because when you go through the mound, the milestones, a, you’re gonna get a t shirt that says something that that relates to exactly what you just did, you know, I got it done, you know, phase phase after phase six, it’s, it’s, I cannot stop, I will not be stopped because you’ve gone six months, there’s no turning back, you know, phase nine is stronger today better, like better tomorrow or something like that. And then at the end, it’s kind of like all of our pillars, and then they get their name on the back. So now they’re an OG efficient. Now, they’re also become moderators, because they lived. Not many people can do a program for 12 months.

Chris Badgett: Right? Serious business. That’s a commitment.

Funk Roberts: Yeah, it’s it’s a commitment. And so at the end, they become moderators because they can teach a lot of the new people coming in there. You see that moderator badge, okay, that person has been here, they’ve done this. And because everyone’s done phase one, most of the times people will come in and they’ll start an odd man phase one workout was so hard and everybody will say I know what you go into. I remember that workout instead of going suck it up, you know, like, get it done. It’s like Oh, dude, yeah, we remember that workout that was tough, don’t worry, it gets easier, it gets easier.

So now they’re just kind of like uplifting the guys who are coming in and then and so then we have another 12 phases, which is another 12 phases of workouts and then we have another 12 So there’s three years of programming in this program in this in my in my brotherhood and again every month going through so now we’ve got a uniformity we’ve got the the levels and now we have our our sign so this this is the brother like everyone if you look at the pictures, everyone posts, the post their picture and they have this sign right here and inside the Brotherhood, they all have this. So that’s part of our, you know, if I’m walking down the street, and I see someone Hey, that looks like somebody and I do this to them. Maybe Because back, you know, they’re part of the Brotherhood.

That’s what we want. That’s literally what we want. So the other so that’s, that’s it and then now we’re doing this because the end of my workouts, I always ask for you to hook me up with a bump at the end of the workouts dying. So now I’m seeing people do that all the time. Next up, so now we’ve got our signs, right, we have rituals, you have to have rituals, something that everyone does. So Sunday is our accountability ritual, people will write in their accountability, we have rituals, like posting your meal, so they’ll post their meals guys will come in, or I will all come in and say, oh, yeah, that’s good. Or you need a little bit more carbs or this and that because our nutrition is very simple.

They’re just, they put it’s just, uh, you know, balanced plate, carbs, fats, proteins, vegetables, fruits, fruits, etc. And they and they posted and people can can help them. They’re sweaty selfies, right? That’s, that’s a ritual of posting a sweaty selfie. Every Sunday 10am doesn’t fail. I have a coaching call a live coaching call, which is what you probably listen to one of the one of the live coaching calls. Because I want to coach these guys. It’s not just about because my goal is actually not the fitness part of it. It’s creating, recreating our men, because we’re losing our men. We’re losing our manhood.

They’re suppressing our manhood. So I need to develop alphas men who can lead their procreate provide protect their families, the people around them, but not do, she’s got not do specs, Alpha men, guys who let maybe left their kids when they were younger, where you know, like went off, you know, go ahead and pay child support, go back and get that stuff done, you know, and then teach your kids, your daughters, your, your sons, your grandchildren, you know, how to how to live, how to live that life and regain it. You know, testosterone is a good thing, and we need it to survive.

So I teach a lot of that sort of thing, mindset stuff. And that’s that stuff. And then we have Captain, because, again, there’s lots of people in the Brotherhood, and there’s guys who shine guys who are always posting some guys who are always doing their motivational stuff. Some people who are just just, they just that, you know, people can see. So Bruce Taylor from Australia was our first captain. And I didn’t, we didn’t even they just started calling him captain. So we said, You’re a captain. And so now Bruce is one of our captains. He’s one of our leaders. And then we Andrew. You know, he was always posting motivational stuff. So he’s another captain, and then Rob is another captain. And here’s the here’s a huge thing. Rob just created this internal challenge called the torture chamber.

He just said, Hey, fuck, I’m just gonna create this challenge. Is that okay? I’m like, Absolutely. Inside of our Facebook group. And now everyone’s loving it. It’s like, Oh, my God, I just did Ross torture chamber. So now everyone is jumping on that, because of that community. The other thing is the vulnerability. And that’s something I stress a lot. I always tell these guys listen. iron sharpens iron. We’re all here for the same thing. But what they realize is, as soon as they start to transform their body, they realize it’s it’s not about them now. It’s, it’s something bigger than them.

Right? It’s something bigger, it’s like, oh, man, no, I need to, we need to help men. Like, you know, there’s so many guys out there, they see it in their families, their friends who are struggling, they start to see you around them. Because they’re now changed their lifestyle. They’re no longer on prescription pills. They, you know, they’re they’re, they’re no longer pre diabetic, they’re there. Their relationship with their, with their wives, their kids are running around, some guys are having kids guys are going back to school guys are getting their masters guys are are swimming the Alcatraz frickin swim.

Like it’s insane. Like what these guys do. It’s unbelievable. And so they realize, oh, this is bigger than me, man. Like, this is like, there’s a big movement happening here. And so we don’t talk politics, we don’t talk religion, we don’t post pop culture. And when guys have problems they posted in there guys will help them and guys will guide them and it’s a place to be vulnerable. They post their pictures that you know, like the first first day guy posted pictures. 250 pounds. He’s He’s overweight, but he knows that he’s not he’s gonna get support.

Right? Not, you know, oh, come on, lose weight. No, it’s like, okay, great. We got you, man, we got you. You’re not going to be the same guy that you were there that you came in, you’re not gonna be that same person three months down the road. For a month down the road. You’re not gonna be the same persons. And that’s really what it’s all about. But when you create that, that environment, now I have to be in there like, oh, sorry, I’m on Fridays at 9am. We have our Hangouts where I just go on and for an hour we hang out. I talk whatever man last week we talked about the best, the best.

The best. Super nuts to me are the best adventure actor like, you know, like Tom Cruise or, you know, Ryan Gosling, because we’re so Ryan Gosling’s new movies. I gotta go He’s he I buy what he’s selling. And so now we go back and forth. So it’s, again, a way for us to kind of connect with each other. And remember, we have Muslims, we have Christians, we have atheists, we have everybody and everyone loves each other. First, I gotta tell him, I love you, man. I love you, man. And they meet up with each other.

When I’m meeting Philip Schmidt today from France. He’s coming in. He’s coming in at 8pm. We’re all going to meet him at his hotel. Last Last time we met venger bay from Ottawa with his family. Next week, we’re meeting Josie back coming to Toronto. It’s amazing. And then they meet each other. They have with each other. It’s incredible. I get goosebumps because I didn’t expect it to be this powerful, but it’s super powerful community. But it starts with that tribe. You gotta have that tribe element.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And that’s like a textbook masterclass. I love it. I love it. Let’s let’s talk about tech for a little bit. Tell us about your WordPress story. And what brought you to LifterLMS.

Funk Roberts:  Yeah, so so we use wishlist as a membership, just because I just started using WordPress from the beginning. So you kind of you know, my developer has been with me since the beginning. So you know, together, we’ve kind of been building out what we want, whether it was a blog, or whether we’re our programs. And so WordPress has been there. And then wishlist happened to come out and look, it’s a great plugin. It’s got everything I need. Let’s start building things on wishlist. And so as you know, as we continue to do this, we have an app now, so ever. So you know, our WordPress. wishlist is connected to our app. So whatever’s on our WordPress, we can put it on the app. That’s great through bid app, which is awesome and then now because So, again, I’m always trying to evolve.

And I do, even though I met over 40. Actually, what’s starting to happen now is a lot of these guys are asking for Oh, funk, you know what I think I want to become, I want to get into fitness. I think I want to help other men like Tao got started to come on. Oh, my God, guys. All right, here we go. So. And then also, kettlebells is a big thing in our family, like we, my wife, and I use kettlebells a lot. kettlebells were a big thing. When I actually transformed my body, I’m certified, my wife certified. And we realized that there’s not a lot of people in the world who know how to use kettlebells.

But they want to use kettlebells. Because it’s such a, it’s such a powerful piece of equipment, but you have to be taught that it’s not like a dumbbell. It’s not like a barbell. It’s not like bodyweight, like you can’t just pick it up and start using it, you’re gonna get injured, so you have to learn. But once you learn, man, it’s incredible. So we wanted to create a course, we shot the course, we shot the course we shot everything in there. Okay, now we got to put it into our course, software. So we looked at one that really didn’t have the features.

Then I found LifterLMS and started to look through everything. And I remember I spent like an hour and I’m just like, Man, this is great. Like, this has everything the plugins and like all this is because I always think about two years down the road, right? I’m always thinking. Okay, what will I need two years down the road. That’s why I bought the multiple platforms, because I couldn’t wait my developers, like just buy one. I’m like, no, no, because we’re gonna put three or four or five different courses here.

So it might as well get this now. And you know, the certifications and the exams because I want to this is even though this this kettle boss, which we’re launching tomorrow, by the way, even though this is for beginners, or people who’ve never used calabaza, for people who have never gone through certification, I know that trainers are going to want to do this and get their CE CE their their continuing education credits. So I need the exam portion. And I know that you guys have a plug in for that. So perfect. Now I can offer the CPUs and get all those accreditations from all other things. So the scalability of lifters great, the ease of implementation.

I mean, I’m not doing the implementation. But the ease of let me what I’m looking at right now is exactly what I wanted. Like, it couldn’t be any better than what I envisioned it to be. Because I’ve done a lot of online courses. I’ve gone through many people’s online courses. So I know already what I want. And you know, you guys have everything. You guys have everything. And I just found out that you also have a WooCommerce implementation we have because I also have a WooCommerce store. And I want to sell some of these on WooCommerce. So another massive I was like, yes, WooCommerce lifter, what is happening here. We’re going we’re going but Let’s go baby. Let’s go. You guys are amazing. You’re amazing. I love it.

Chris Badgett: Nice. Well, it’s great to be with you on the journey. One more question to kind of inspire the other education entrepreneurs out out there. How do you think about like your sales funnel? Or how do you get sales? Obviously, you’re you’re great at getting all this content out there and attracting your tribe. Your vibe attracts your tribe kind of thing. Like but like I noticed you have some like a challenge that you do like how do people kind of get into your world?

Funk Roberts: Awesome. Yes. So very Very important. So for me, I do not want to be the guy having to do ads all the time. I’ve gone through that, and I hated it. So your

Chris Badgett: Organic marketing guy like content marketing? No, no,

Funk Roberts: We do we have we have we so I have my YouTube team. So we use YouTube and we have ads. Now, I’ve created a couple of ads, but I don’t want I just said, I didn’t want to do the ads every day, like the ads every day. But we have ads running on YouTube that push people to use to push people to our our own the $1 trial. And that did well for a while. But things change. So we had to change up.

And and the team that I have said no, you know what we need a standalone product. So that’s why the challenge is a standalone product. But it’s a challenge. And we know from before when we used to run challenges, because that is a very great way to get people in your membership. And in fact, that’s a excuse me, that’s an incredible way to get people into your memberships running challenges. Because you run the challenge, you have that product.

And the challenge mimics exactly what’s inside my membership. So from the daily emails to the type of workouts to the app, so that after they’re done the challenge, obviously they want more get done this challenge, I got results. What’s next, oh, you’re gonna come into our membership, the over 40 Alpha. But the great thing is the people who buy the challenge are all ready in my Facebook group. So they already see all these alphas talking about phase 20. And phase A phase this excitement, excitement, excitement, a lot of the guys in the Brotherhood have also already been through the challenge.

So you have this challenge, you put everyone in the same bucket, right. And then after you migrate them into or trance, you know, you convert them into your membership, which looks exactly the same, really, there’s nothing different, they have to go through the same steps to do to unlock or not unlock. But to get to those phases. So we have YouTube ads that worked very well. And for for us to scale those YouTube ads, we’d have to know our lifetime value. So we have software that that figures on our LTVs, our ltrs, which are lifetime revenue. Very, very important, because now we know that our ads are getting, you know, $31 CPAs.

But we know that our day one lifetime, is $38. So now we’re saying hey, let’s jack up because we were covering it like we’re not we’re we’re still making money. So let’s, let’s say like spend more, spend more, spend more. Now I have no YouTube, but I don’t have to worry about posting every day on Instagram and Facebook, because that’s what drives people in, I want to be inside my membership. That’s what I want to do, I enjoy being more internal content for the membership.

I don’t want to spend all my time outside. So that’s why we have that ad. And then we’re going to be connecting with somebody else who’s going to help us focus on Facebook and Instagram. Again, I told him I don’t want to be doing ads every day. So let’s get one or two good solid ads that will go out and drive people into that funnel. So very important to now that’s just me like some people love doing the Palais Comm, you know, they love doing that I just don’t like doing that.

I’d rather be in I want to get results. So that’s the most important thing for me. So a lot of times people focus on, I gotta drive people in, but they leave their customers alone. And that’s where they lose their customers. You can’t leave your customer, your customers are the most important people in your business because and they refer their

Chris Badgett: Friends I was listening to a podcast where your your it was like a brother saw the other brother had died had been.

Funk Roberts: Robbing Anthony. The other thing is, as you can see, I have supplements, right? My supplements I don’t, I’m not a big supplement company. But these supplements I sell to my members. Why? Because my members trust me. They know that I’m there. They know I’m not there to sell them crap. And my name is on those supplements. So that’s a huge that’s a massive revenue driver for us. Like literally every day we’re selling supplements and subs I have resistance bands. Why? Because man over 40 lovers, isn’t it. So I made my own resistance bands, created a couple of phases and programs resistance bands related. And now I can sell those. So once you if I did not have that connection, there’s no way I can sell those.

I mean, I could sell it but I would just lose that I would lose my integrity. I feel that that’s just me and I want to have integrity. And I want to know that when I create a supplement because I create myself from scratch. It’s going to be powerful, it’s going to work and they’re going to need it. Right they’re going to say I’m creating something so you guys are going to need during your journey. So being having that membership and getting them results and having a connection allows you to scale. You can do courses you can do other products and not other people’s products, your own products.

Right I don’t sell other people’s products because once again, it just it there’s a deal Kinect it’s like well why are you selling that product? I know if I if I don’t have I don’t have it and yeah, I made like sending them over. But most most most of the times I want to create my own my own brand my own stuff because I get 100% of that as opposed to 50 or 10% or 12% or whatever it is, depending on

Chris Badgett: What it is that’s awesome and just the the bottom of the funnel the sales conversion point for the membership what what is it? Is it like primarily a sales page that does the heavy lifting like what if you were advising another education entrepreneur like what do you think makes your sales page convert are work well for you? I know you have a lot of before and after pictures, which for fitness makes a lot of sense. But what else?

Funk Roberts: It’s a copy. It’s 100% the copy

Chris Badgett: That was actually on my list to talk to you about I wrote down copywriting Where did you learn how to write like that? Or do you hire it out? Or what do you do?

Funk Roberts: James little Galbo he is my copywriter. And here’s here’s the thing, because James and Joel Galbo are my copywriters. Joe Lowe Galbo is a direct, and I don’t like to say competitors because we don’t compete. He has the anabolic life. So he also does men over 40 Like massively does men over 40 So we both do men over 40 But he and his brother write my copy. They write my emails because Joe Joe and James are the best copywriters as far as I’m concerned. They they’re they they’re they hit it bang on. So we don’t I again, like my mindset is and oh, well, he does the same thing as me. So I’m gonna go against them. No, it’s like, Hey, here’s the

Chris Badgett: Mindset. There’s a billion

Funk Roberts: Men out there we that we have to So let’s all do this together fit father does the same thing. And him and I have gone back, you know, like talked about what are you doing? You know, you’re all young kids. So what we’re doing great sharing, because we all have different personalities. And we are going to, we’re gonna attract different types of men who are in their 40s 50s 60s 70s. So there’s nothing really to worry about. There’s a lot of men out there. So it’s all out there. But the copywriting I cannot tell you spend the money.

Because it makes a difference. The difference between our old 30 Day Challenge pays and I tried to do and I’ve been in this industry for many years, I have books on copywriting I’ve written sales pages before, but the when we had our old page and we had the ads going to compare to as soon as we put James’s like as soon as James wrote the copy, and then we put everything to that copy. It’s we get 2030 new people every single day and that’s just on a very low spend we’re going to be increasing the spend but imagine 2030 new sales every single day adds up to 300 or 900 sales a month and then those guys we convert them into the membership usually about 60% 50% Convert.

Because not everyone starts to the 30 day challenge the same time right they just buy it because they own it right but it is it is the copy like spend the money on the copy yes it may cost you six grand yes it may cost you seven grand but I guarantee you you will make that up in no time law and it’s long paid sales pages. It’s the story airs Listen, there is a formula and sometimes there’s times where I will I’ll look at a long sales page I’m like how the hell wrecking thing or I watched those those sales videos sales page videos vs vs sales.

I get 30 minutes 45 minutes, but when I used to do affiliate stuff every single time I would send to those pages they would crush it’s it’s it’s the formula man I don’t know what it is and I don’t I don’t care. It works so get get a copywriter get someone who can create your sales page and those those testimonials are so important make sure you you highlight as many testimonials as you can whether they’re pics whether they’re fake the Facebook ones are really good.

Because people It looks real like it’s oh that’s someone just or wherever you can grab those from don’t write them out and say Jim said this actually post it because there’s more of a connection when someone sees that it’s like okay, okay, this is this is a post done by whatever and whatever well they’re supposed to about whatever whatever. That’s so important. Those are those are the elements the testimonials and this is copy from a sales right

Chris Badgett: Bonk it’s been awesome. You’re such a shining example of education entrepreneur driven by mission and vision and impact and really making a dent in the universe. So I thank you for spending some time with me. For the people out there listening what’s the best ways to connect with you and all the different places?

Funk Roberts: Sure. So if you want workout follow along workouts go to my YouTube channel, you know start just go there first see who I am. You may like me, you may not but you’re probably like me. Anyway. I wrote I’m real, this is who I am. But you can go to my Instagram funk Roberts Fitness on Instagram and then if you are ready to transform your body for $1 Go to over 40 alpha.com. It’s a $1 trial 30 days you’re going to lose 2720 pounds.

And we’ll be there through the entire journey with you so yes and again thank you so much and I want to help create the lifter community I want to be a LifterLMS or I don’t know I want to be part of that community man there’s a lot there’s a lot there we can we can really create that tribe, the lifters unless you guys already have one. I’m just joining it now.

Chris Badgett: You’re in man you’re in we have a pretty big Facebook group and stuff too. But it’s uh, it’s great to be connected. And it’s great to be on the journey together. And yeah, man, I appreciate it. Thanks for shining your light and yeah, we’ll see along the path.

Funk Roberts: Thank you guys and take care everybody.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com For slash gift go to lifterlms.com forward slash gift. Keep learning. Keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.