毅力如何帮助 Fitlosophy 卖出超过 50 万本书

Felix ：今天我加入了来自 Fitlosophy 的 Angela Mader，它位于 getfitbook.com，它是 GETFITBOOK.com。 Angela 是 Fitbook 健身和营养杂志 12 周系列的创建者，该系列避免了快速修复的噱头，而是专注于正念和对目标设定的感激之情。 成立于 2008 年，总部位于加利福尼亚州纽波特海滩，欢迎安吉拉。

安吉拉：嗨，菲利克斯，非常感谢你邀请我。

菲利克斯：是的，很高兴有你参加。 告诉我们更多关于您的故事以及其中一些最重要的故事…… Fitbook 是主要产品，是特色产品，但这里列出了许多不同的产品。 告诉我们更多关于您销售的产品的信息。

安吉拉：是的，绝对的。 Fitbook 是在 2008 年创建的，它来自我想为自己创建并从那里拿走的那些必需品之一。 从那时起，我们真的从单一的产品发展为一整套生活方式品牌产品，这些产品真正具有目标设定方法和健康生活方式的方法。 这包括从……我们显然有一整套期刊，所以不仅仅是 Fitbook，而且我们还有一个更适合减肥或期待妈妈或孩子的期刊，我们有一个更新的期刊，它是一本名为 Fitspiration Journal 的健身满足感恩的期刊一直到其他产品。 营养产品和工具，可帮助您衡量您的份量控制并衡量您的健康和减肥之旅的进展情况。

它确实一直围绕着 Fitbook，因为它确实是我们工作的核心。 我们所做的一切都围绕着这个想法......从字面上看，我们的口头禅是过上适合生活的生活。 这是一种生活方式，不是快速解决方案，因此 Fitbook 仍然是我们所做一切的核心，我们刚刚围绕它创建了一条线来支持人们的旅程。

Felix : 非常酷，所以多谈谈 Fitbook，里面有什么以及人们如何使用它？

安吉拉：是的。 就像我说的，Fitbook 是我在 2008 年创建的，它是一本健身和营养杂志，所以它是 12 周，这是最初的产品。 我这么说是因为从那时起我们对这本书进行了多次迭代。 最初的 Fitbook 是 12 周，你基本上每周设定目标，你设定奖励，它提醒你每周做不同的事情。 然后，您实际上每天都会跟踪您的进度。 从您的锻炼和健身到您的食物和营养以及您的份量控制，应有尽有。 它鼓励睡觉，鼓励喝水，所以它实际上更像是一种反思和一种真正个人的工具来跟踪你的进步。 我们总是说，很多追踪器都是你做了什么，Fitbook 更多的是你要做什么。

俗话说，“计划失败，计划失败”，Fitbook 就是关于计划，所以我们的一句话是，“写下来，让它发生。” 为什么写下来有效，背后有很多研究，我可以让你厌烦几天，但真正写下来才是有效的。 我们采用的概念在当时非常类似于……我的第一个贸易展是我身边的一个应用程序，我周围的每个展位都是一个应用程序。 然而，Fitbook，直到今天，我们有超过 50 万台在分发中，而且还在不断壮大。

菲利克斯：太棒了。 我要问的是，在一个人人都有应用程序、每个人都使用应用程序的世界里，我为任何我想要取得进展的事情寻找应用程序而感到内疚。 为什么创建实体产品对您来说很重要？

安吉拉：嗯，我知道有人像我一样，非常想拥有有形的东西的人，我只是一个纸上谈兵。 我知道是否有像我这样的人在那里有市场，所有研究都表明，不管你信不信，那篇论文是有效的。 我经常参考的一项研究是 Pew Research 的研究，他们发现虽然大多数人确实使用某种方法来跟踪他们的健康和健康状况，但他们发现纸张实际上是最有效的工具，而技术确实没有发挥作用。 他们发现健康和健身应用的平均寿命为 3 到 4 周。 看到结果的时间很短，所以所有的研究都指向了论文有效的事实。 是的，人们问我的第一个问题就是，“你有应用吗？”

我说，“好吧，纸是行得通的，但是是的，我们确实有一个应用程序。” 我们确实有一个应用程序，它是一个目标设定应用程序，它确实会带您完成设定目标的过程。 如果有人和我坐下来喝咖啡，我会以一种非常有爱的方式向他们介绍他们的目标是什么以及他们为什么要实现这些目标。 然后他们使用 Fitbook 来跟踪他们的进度。

菲利克斯：非常酷。 是的，我也是笔和纸的忠实粉丝，就像我之前说的那样，我使用了很多应用程序，但我没有那么投入，或者我想我并没有沉浸在这个过程中用于计划或者我正在写一些东西，只是通过将笔放在纸上的手本身感觉就像它让你更多地参与并真正专注于任务。 当我有一个应用程序时，我几乎在寻找离开它并去做其他事情的最快方法。

安吉拉：是的，有很多干扰，实际上是 [听不清 00:06:13] 研究，我在 entrepreneur.com 上发现的这篇非常酷的文章巩固了我们曾经认为的一切，这超出了您的健康和健身范围。 无论您想要实现什么目标，无论是财务、职业还是健康和健身，他们确实发现，如果人们真正将目标写在纸上，实现目标的可能性会高出 76%，这里是下划线和粗体，也告诉别人。

它确实带来了这种责任感。 在 Fitlosophy，我们不仅努力创造产品，而且努力创造责任感和我们称之为 Fitbookers 的团队，但我亲切地将他们称为我的客户，他们都在其中。

菲利克斯：太棒了，是的。 我想谈谈您多次提到的 Fitbookers 和 [音频不清晰 00:06:57]。 在我们到达那里之前，这一切的开始......也许在那之前，你在做什么，你在 2008 年进入这个行业之前的背景是什么？

安吉拉：天哪，实际上，我本身没有健康或健身学位。 实际上，我的本科生在计算机科学方面的事情和商业方面做得更多，并进入了那个领域。 我一直都知道我要成为一名企业家，我来自一个很长的企业家行列，我从 12 岁起就一直在阅读企业家杂志，我必须在这个世界上做点什么。 有一次我参加了一个会议，他说……实际上是杰克·坎菲尔德，他说：“你在忘记时间的时候花时间做什么？” 对我来说，它正在阅读企业家杂志，它正在阅读任何健身杂志，所以通过这个过程，我决定我想要一个在这个领域的产品。 我想出了 Fitbook，因为它是我已经为自己创造的东西。

我实际上是在 2005 年进入我的 MBA 课程的，我已经有了 Fitbook 的想法，然后通过学校的许多课程和项目，我使用 Fitbook 作为设计项目的来源，作为商业计划设计项目的来源，也是其中的一部分一个……我还做了什么？ 创业课程。 我在所有这些项目中都使用了 Fitbook 的这个想法，所以当我 2007 年毕业时，我实际上已经创办了一家营销公司，但我创办营销公司的唯一原因是我可以灵活地在晚上启动 Fitlosophy。 我是在晚上开始做的，然后我在 2008 年开始全职做这个，并正式推出了这个产品。 现在，直到今天，我确实拥有个人训练、健身营养方面的认证，而且我们实际上聘请了真正知识渊博的人来帮助开发我们的许多项目。

真的，我认为如果你是一名企业家并且你只是有一个想法，那么你不一定有很多次的信誉甚至教育。 我告诉人们我非常感激我获得了 MBA，但你根本不需要一个来创业。 这是你必须做的事情，这就是我对 Fitlosophy 的感受。

菲利克斯：我不确定这是否真的对你来说是一个问题，只是根据我从你那里听到的信息，但当你谈到整个可信度时，我认为这是一个重要的观点，因为我与很多企业家交谈过，很多想成为企业家的人都在考虑第一次创业。 有一种感觉，他们需要得到别人的许可才能开始，基本上除了他们之外的每个人。 听到您谈论，也许您从未经历过这个问题，但也许谈论您如何解决这个问题，或者我想在您需要许可或需要可信度的地方与这种感觉抗争，在您开始之前需要其他人的验证。

安吉拉：是的。 我认为这是因为人们认为它比实际更大。 当我一开始就告诉人们，这不像我想的那样，我当然对 Fitlosophy 和 Fitbook 有远大的梦想，但事实并非如此……如果我真的想，“好吧，我要创办这家公司，我将在所有这些大型零售商中销售，我将有数十万人购买这种产品，如果我这么想，那将是令人生畏的。 事实是，你只需要迈出第一步，如果你不迈出第一步，你永远都不会知道。 我记得我在 2008 年参加了我的第一次贸易展，从字面上看，这很有趣，因为这是我和我的妈妈和我的设计师。 从字面上看，我们没有团队，只有我们自己。 我出现了，至少有 5 位私人教练走过来对我说：“我有这个想法。” 我的回答，我的意思是最友好的方式是，“嗯，它在哪里？”

我和那个说他们有这个想法的人之间的唯一区别是我做到了。 我一直在鼓励人们，如果你不走出去尝试一下，你永远都不会知道。 我个人解决这个问题的方式是，我想驱动我的不是对失败的恐惧，而是对从不尝试的恐惧。 我真的在这个“去，去，去，做，做，做”的空间里工作。 我可能会失败得很惨，但我不害怕，我害怕什么都不做。

菲利克斯：是的，我认为你的意思也只是，你必须开始，真的没有其他方法，没有其他陈词滥调，我们可以放在这里但是当你刚刚开始时，就是这样你学习......你不只是从读书或阅读中学习......这些东西有帮助，但我觉得有时我们花了太多时间准备而不是做，我认为这也是你得到的，只是尝试一下，然后得到开始了。

安吉拉：嗯，我称之为分析瘫痪，你可以分析一些东西，直到你脸色发青，从某个地方开始。 对我来说，我开始在谷歌上搜索，这实际上是……我如何制作一本书，我如何制作一本带装订的书，谁来制作……？ 我发现很少有人这样做，我开始打电话给人们。 我没有制定完整的大胆、明智的商业计划，我只是开始了一些事情。

菲利克斯：是的，你所说的美妙之处在于，你不是随便开始学习一堆你可能需要或可能不需要的东西，你有一些你已经在研究的东西，你正在采取行动在上面。 通过采取行动，你需要学习的东西就会浮出水面，然后你可以将你的教育重点放在“我如何创作一本书，我如何分发一本书？” 当您开始采取行动时，它会将您的所有行动统一起来，所以我认为这是您给出的很好的建议。 你之前说的一件事我肯定想回到过去，你说杰克坎菲尔德对你说过或对人群说：“你做了什么让你忘记了时间？” 你能说更多吗？

安吉拉：是的。 我认为它会随着生活的不同阶段而变化。 对当时的我来说，我的世界是如果它杀了我，我将成为一名企业家，这实际上是我生活的动机。 这就是我花时间思考和梦想的事情，对我来说最令人沮丧的是，“好吧，太好了。 我想成为一名企业家，这到底是什么意思，因为如果我没有东西可卖，我该怎么办？” 当他这么说的时候，我就像，“哦，天哪，我对晚安的想法是 Barnes，Noble 喝咖啡，坐在健身区，坐在杂志区，买所有我不买的商业书籍甚至知道我要创建的业务是什么。

如果你能以某种方式将你的热情与你认为可以赚钱的事情结合起来，这让我很震惊。 我认为这也是很大的不同，仅仅因为你有一个爱好并不意味着你可以赚钱。 这是我认为有趣的另一件事，它曾经是我的爱好和激情，当它成为你的事业时，它确实会从爱好中带走一些乐趣，因为你每天都在做。 直到今天，我可以很严肃地告诉你，如果没有工作，我现在无法阅读健身杂志。 这不一定是坏事，但即使是在健身房，我也会想，“好吧，我应该像这样给产品拍照还是应该拍这个？” 有时你最初的激情是什么，小心你明白，最终，为了赚钱，它确实变成了工作。

我非常感激，因为对我来说，这是我生活中很自然的一部分，就像俗语说的那样，“如果你热爱你所做的事情，你将永远不会在你的生活中工作一天，”这就是我的感受。

菲利克斯：不，我喜欢这个，你说只是因为它是一种爱好或激情并不意味着你可以从中赚钱。 当你开始从中赚钱时，它确实会改变关系，我猜是爱好或激情，因为就像你说的，你必须每天都出现，这不是你只是做的事情，因为现在你觉得今天花在做特定的事情上事情和明天你不想这样做，但你仍然必须这样做。 我认为它没有...... 我不会说你从那里开始失去激情，但你只是改变了与它的关系。 对我来说也是一样，因为我花了很多时间开始播客和创建内容，我有一个，不是说很难，但在消费内容方面，我不喜欢消费以前的内容，因为你不不想花 24 小时做任何特定的事情。

安吉拉：是的，你筋疲力尽，对吧？ 我一直在这样做……我说我已经这样做了将近 8 年，但事实是我对 Fitbook 的想法远不止于此。 假设我已经这样做了 10 年，当然我每天都能找到让我充满活力和兴奋的事情，但我可以诚实地告诉你，创业方面和商业方面现在和健身方面一样让我兴奋它。 老实说，在某些方面，我更热衷于让人们成为最好的自己，我并不一定认为减肥总是其中的一部分。 这就是我们的产品真正进化的方式，以及我作为一个人的进化方式。 当我第一次开始 Fitlosophy 时，我只有 6 包，我正在参加健身比赛，我对健身房很着迷。

随着事情的发展，我仍然喜欢锻炼，我喜欢活跃，但这并不是我的全部，它并没有定义我。 你可以在我的最新产品 Fitspirational Journal 中看到这一点，它专注于更多的人生概念，比如感恩和欣赏事物，以健康的方式将健康和健身融入你的生活，但不让它成为你的生活。

费利克斯：有道理。 你有这个想法很长一段时间了，而且绝对 [音频不清晰 00:16:19] 一直贯彻到底。 我一直听到人们想做事情，对事情有想法，然后一旦遇到困难，他们就会跳到下一件事，这是一个非常普遍的问题。 您有这个想法已经有很长时间了，所以 [音频不清晰 00:16:30] 对此。 您提到的另一件有趣的事情是，您基本上是创办了一家企业，这样您就可以从事您真正的业务或您真正想要蓬勃发展的业务。 告诉我们，一旦你决定开始这个，你 [开始 00:16:43] 营销咨询？

安吉拉：是的。 我从高科技行业起步，从事营销和咨询工作。 我是为其他人做的，我意识到我可以对自己的客户做同样的事情，并创办自己的咨询公司，我在获得 MBA 的同一年就做了。 从字面上看，这就是它如此迷人的原因，我在纸上写下了我需要在营销公司赚多少钱才能取代我的全职收入。 我刚刚在一家广告公司找到了第一份 6 位数的工作，我妈妈想掐死我，因为我说我要辞掉工作，但这是一场激烈的竞赛。 我不喜欢时间，我不喜欢我让别人变得超级富有，而我正在做所有的工作。 我真的在纸上写下了，“好吧，我要赚这么多，我要创办自己的公司，如果我在第一年没有做到这一点，我会坚持下去。”

现在，我要说的是我对营销和品牌建设充满热情，如果你花时间看 Fitlosophy，你会发现，有时，甚至你的才能和你擅长的事情也可以通过你的业务看到。 对我来说，Fitlosophy 也是一个出口，当我拥有营销公司时，我将 Fitlosophy 视为我的客户之一。 我的所有高科技公司首先是我的客户，然后到了晚上，猜猜我做了什么，我在 Fitlosophy 工作。 我有标志，我有网站，这就是高科技背景的来源，因为我可以在晚上自己做所有高科技的傻事，并在旁边创建这个业务。 说到时间的流逝，我会一直工作到凌晨 2 点和 3 点，现在我看，我什至不知道我是怎么做到的，老实说，我累了。 那时，不知何故，我对它有着如此疯狂的热情和惊人的坚持，我猜想显然能走到这一步。

菲利克斯：当然。 给我们一个时间表的想法，你刚得到一份 6 位数的工作，不久之后，你辞职创办了自己的公司，这也是 2008 年左右还是在那之前？

安吉拉：不，2007 年。我 2007 年毕业，我在 2006 年底找到了那份工作，我在那里呆了大约 3 个月。 2007 年，我毕业了，辞掉了工作，晚上开始了 Fitlosophy。 即使在我有工作的时候，我也一直在研究 Fitlosophy，但当我意识到这份工作是第一名时，我很痛苦。 我经常跟别人这么说，尤其是我在大学里说话的时候，我会说，“请不要辞职，你妈妈会来找我的。” 事情是这样的，我知道……如果你有一份让你感到满足的工作，并且晚上回家时你很开心，那么你就有精力在晚上从事这项工作。 当我回到家时，我筋疲力尽，我脾气暴躁，我很累，我没有精力去从事我的激情项目。 我知道，“好吧，我可以坐在那里抱怨它，或者我可以做点什么。”

老实说，我更合乎逻辑、更年长的部分就像，“哇，这太大胆了。” 我在业务中做出的决定也继续大胆，其中一部分是因为自满对我来说是不可接受的。 我不能呆在同一个地方，你之前谈到很多人有很多想法，但他们不坚持。 哦，天哪，我有一个文件夹，里面装满了我创办的企业、我拥有的想法或我完全 [听不清 00:20:09] 的事情。 可以这么说，我真正坚持使用 Fitlosophy 和 Fitbook 的唯一原因是因为我看到了兴趣并且它卖掉了。 每当有人走过来对你说：“你从哪里得到的，我可以买一个吗？” 你决定，也许你正在做某事。

Felix ：不，绝对有道理。 我爱你……我从未见过如此 [听不清 00:20:30] 的人，我猜在这个播客上至少谈论过你所说的中间立场，大多数人只是说，“是的，辞掉你的工作并继续全职工作。” 或者有人说，“不要辞掉工作，坚持到底。” 你是说如果你的工作是充实的，而且它实际上让你觉得你在一天中精力充沛，那么坚持这份工作，因为你仍然可以在工作之余和工作之余有精力和意志力从事你的业务，我认为这是非常重要的一点。

安吉拉：[Crostalk 00:20:55] 取代了你的收入。 我也在不同的地方，有些人……我有很多朋友……实际上，我现在正在和一位朋友谈论她讨厌自己的工作，她想辞职，她想做自己的事情的想法，我是怎么做到的？ 她有一个孩子，她还有一个在路上。 她在生活中处于一个非常不同的位置，我不确定她会做出什么决定，但我没有那个元素。 我想如果我完全失败了，我可以找到另一份工作，我一直这么认为，还有很多人……你必须记住，我在 2008 年创办了这家公司，我们都知道这是整个经济的彻底衰退。 人们正在左右失去工作。 当我从本科毕业时，人们正在获得签约奖金，我什至不知道他们是否已经这样做了，但我在 .com 繁荣时期处于高科技领域，金钱就像......公司聚会几乎是疯狂和病态。

2008 年的情况大不相同，人们正在失去工作。 对我来说，这不是我会失去控制的选择，而是我觉得我会得到更多的控制。 归根结底，如果我丢了工作，我该怎么办？ 如果我要创办自己的公司，我知道如果要责备任何人，那就是我。

菲利克斯：对，有道理。 你创造了这个产品……至少 Fitbook 最初是你为自己创造的，你觉得你需要它所以你自己创造了它，你是否必须以任何方式验证它以确保还有其他的……听起来就像你坚持这个的原因是因为它会盈利，感觉它会盈利，感觉它有市场，你是如何早期验证得出这个结论的？

安吉拉：嗯，我创造它的故事是因为在创造产品之前的 7 年里，我虽然在大学和高中的 7 年里，经历过多次饮食失调和身体形象问题的斗争，所有这些让我非常不健康的事情。 这是通过写日记的过程，实际上是通过一个程序，我通过写日记真的帮助我识别我的想法和感受，真正拨通事物并控制控制我生活的东西。 我知道，“好吧，如果这对我有用，它可能对其他人有用。”

老实说，我刚刚成功，实际上有一天我在 24 Hour Fitness，这个人走到我面前说，“嘿，你从哪里得到的？” 我说：“我卖掉它们。” 请注意，我此时没有卖掉它们，他说，“好吧，我在哪里可以买到？” 我想，“你想要多少？” 他就像，“嗯，他们要多少钱？” 我说：“20块钱。” 他就像，“好吧。” 那个周末我回家了，我在 [Kinkos 00:23:30] 打印了几份，我把它们装订了，我买了一些小别针，我把它们贴在那里，我想，“好吧，我能做到。” 直到今天，我的办公室里还有那两张 20 美元的钞票，我为此感到非常自豪。 对我来说，这就像，“好吧，我正在做某事。” 老实说，我要非常清楚，我没有创造火箭科学，这不是……这是一本书，它卖的原因是这个，我认为数字是我们不卖任何炒作或类似的东西，但我们做销售这种希望的概念。

使用 Fitbook 的人希望他们能够实现他们设定的目标。 我们不是市场上唯一的期刊，也不是市场上唯一的期刊。 实际上有数百个竞争对手。 唯一的区别是我们实际上是唯一一家将健身和营养期刊作为我们核心产品的公司，我们围绕它创造了一种生活方式。

菲利克斯：太棒了，是的，绝对想谈谈这个不仅仅是卖书的想法。 这也很有趣，在我们到达那里之前，很有趣的是你说你第一次在健身房里验证了这一点。 这不是我第一次从人们那里听说过这个，其他公司在健身空间里穿着衬衫或在健身房使用健身装备，有人走过来问他们，“在哪里我可以买？” 那是他们第一次发现的时候。 这很有趣，因为我从来没有看过健身房，想知道下一个大产品是什么，我不看健身房里的任何人。 每当我听到这个消息时，我都会想，“哇，这一定是一个很好的验证，因为我从不在健身房四处张望与任何人谈论他们的产品。

你说你没有创造火箭科学，我认为这是一个非常重要的话题，因为，特别是对于那些坐在那里思考他们想要创造的产品并开始思考前所未有的疯狂想法的新企业家看到这个那个。 听起来你没有使用这个东西，你没有将它用于这个项目或这个产品，你是否曾经......如果你要重新开始，你会采取与你没有相同的方法吗？不要重新发明轮子，还是有一个地方让你进来说，“让我创造一些前所未有的全新事物？”

安吉拉：嗯，你这么说很有趣，因为即使我说那里有很多期刊，我真的......因为我不想这么说，因为这听起来真的超级自信，但我正在和我的目标会面买家和目标买家实际上从一家竞争公司购买了 4 种期刊，它们是我们所在领域的一家大公司，我在 Target 工作了一年，我拥有那个岛。 突然间，这家公司进来了，比我有更多的钱，让我告诉你，他们在我的下面有 4 种期刊。 我记得看到它，我想哭，我真的……不，我确实哭了。 我坐在塔吉特的架子上，开始大喊大叫，我想，“这就是我的结局。”

在这一点上，我知道我们稍后会得到这些数字，但此时 Target 大约是我收入的一半。 你可以想象当一个竞争对手进来时，你会说，“天哪，我出去了，我完了。” 这是令人着迷的部分，他们没有卖，他们的没有卖。 他们实际上最终把所有的日记本都拿出来了，而 Fitbook 仍然存在。 这就是原因，因为我不只是创造了诸如“嘿，这对我有用”之类的东西，只是把它放在架子上并希望它有效。 当我谈到我的 Fitbook [音频不清晰 00:26:49] 时，您不知道我的客户在创建这个产品时的参与程度。 一切都归结为，“我们想要一条额外尺寸的额外生产线。” “好，我们再多加一行。” 我们认为这很难理解，您对此有何看法？” 从第一天起我就让我的客户参与进来，Fitbook 背后的整体理念和理念一直保持一致。

我会告诉你，让我的客户参与这个过程已经产生了一种从设计角度来看非常独特和有创意的产品，它引导人们完成不仅设定目标而且跟踪目标然后在整个过程中反思的过程，它从字面上握着你的手。 我们也不会太认真，如果您仔细阅读它，它是一个有趣的产品。 我想我的长期观点是竞争对手确实进入了这个领域，但根据我在 Target 与我的健身采购员的谈话，她说，“你真的创造了这个空间安吉拉。 在遇到你之前，我们甚至在我们的小岛上都没有健身日记。” 它起飞了，其中一家大公司进来了，因为他们看到了他们错过的机会。 有了这个，我觉得我真的为这样一个事实感到自豪，嘿，我们带回了在健身领域写东西的老派概念，从那时起大量的健身期刊问世了。

我不喜欢击败任何竞争对手，因为老实说，我希望人们使用对他们有用的东西。 我非常兴奋的是，我们正在做的是让人们看到应用程序并不是唯一的方法，减肥药也不是唯一的方法。 这已经被证明是有效的，试一试。

菲利克斯：太棒了。 你说的一件事是尽早让你的客户参与进来，我认为这也是一个很好的观点。 您如何从客户那里获得反馈，您在做什么？ 那么，第二点是你怎么知道什么反馈可以接受，什么不可以接受？

安吉拉：嗯，这总是很有趣，因为我认为我们拥有的规模越大，并且像电子邮件这样有趣的反馈，我们真的......我最有趣的客户服务电子邮件是很久以前在我们的网站上，它说，“这是 [听不清00:28:54] 尺寸，易于携带，可放入健身包或钱包中。” 我收到一封来自客户的电子邮件，因为您不是……她说：“我想退回我的 Fitbook，它不适合我的钱包。” 我当时的助理是我的表妹，她在上大学，我需要帮助，她在帮助我。 她就像，“我想告诉她买一个新钱包。” 我想，“是的。” 说真的，一开始很容易，因为我们有我们的电子邮件列表，它实际上是从我的朋友和家人以及与我一起上学的人开始的，以及类似的东西，显然它随着时间的推移而增长。

我做了很多调查，我做了很多用户组，所以我们会做谷歌环聊并征求人们的意见。 我还将在现场小组中引入 Fitbookers，并向他们询问有关产品和可用性之类的问题。 我们有很多不同的方式来询问人们的事情，但我所学到的只是到目前为止，如果我要改变 Fitbook 的任何戏剧性内容，我可能会让更多的人发疯，而不是让人们真正开心。 有了这个，我们已经开始开发 Fitbook 的新迭代，例如，Fitbook 是非常 12 周，设置和代表形象以及知道他们在健身房做什么的人。 我们继续开发了一款名为 Fitbook lite 的产品，该产品耗时 6 周，它采用了更入门级的方法来实现目标。

不是每个人都知道健身房的组数和次数或体重，所以这是 4 次更健康的调整，可以在 6 周内减掉 5 磅。 它使减肥更容易实现。 然后在光谱的另一端，我们刚刚推出了一款名为 Fitbook PREP 的产品，它与 Nicole Wilkins 合作，实际上是为铁杆人物竞争对手，真正进入健身领域的人。 我们开始在利基市场开发这些产品，这样我们就不会让我们的原始客户感到不安，因为老实说，我有些人已经使用 Fitbook 8 年了，仍然拥有关于 Fitbook 的一切，他们发布图片其中。 我对他们更忠诚，而不是像“嘿，你需要这样做”的新客户。 我想，“不，这些人已经和我在一起很长时间了。”

Felix : I love this that you're saying that rather than changing the existing product because there so many I guess like legacy, not legacy but there are so many users or so many customers that are already used to the way that it's been done before, you created a new product. How do you know when it's time to … You're saying as well that you have iterated the Fitbook over time. How do you know when that line is crossed where you're saying, “You know what, let's not change the existing product, let's create a brand new one for this other type of customer base?”

Angela : Well, a perfect example is we have Fitbook and then I name them all, I don't know why, it's probably the tech background in me so we have Fitbook 2.0. Fitbook 2.0 which people don't know this is their internal names. We had to change it because we had the food pyramid and the Fitbook. Well, everything from food pyramid went away so we were outdated, people were upset so we went more into this, we actually created a concept similar to My Play but we call it our food Fitlosophy. We had to make a change on that and so we asked customers at that time, “What do you want?” We realized that there were … People were like, “Well you have space for cardio but you don't have space for classes.” We were like, “That's a really good point.” so we added that. Anything that made sense and where we felt like these customers have really go input and adding extra space of exercises while keeping the integrity of the product or people wanted to originally add space to track calories and I was adamant against that.

Counting calories was like the death of me when I was battling my issues with eating disorders and so I wouldn't put anything about calories in there so I would say no. There were some standards that we just said, “No, this is what Fitbook is.” Fast forward, our Fitbook PREP that we just came out with, it does encourage counting your macros because frankly, somebody that's competing at a high end athletic competitive part of the sport, they have to be tracking those things. We really try to separate them so that we encourage the user regardless of their goal.

菲利克斯：我喜欢这样。 It sounds like you've based on what is the goal of the customer and if it can't achieved with that same product without changing it too much, you create a new one, I think that's a great approach. One thing you were saying earlier was that you don't sell a book, you sell hope and this is another thing that I think you said to us in the pre-interview portion which is that, people don't want to be marketed to, they want to be inspired. I think these 2 are very closely … Too close that you say that are very closely aligned. Tell us a little bit more about this, what do you mean by not selling a book or not selling a product but instead selling this kind of feeling of hope?

Angela : Yeah. I think … I'm in a very special market called health and fitness and while I love that because I have an opportunity to have a different voice, I'm not proud of the industry and the message that we send people. Happiness is having a 6 pack, happiness is feeling good in a bikini and looking like this. Whatever this definition is of what healthy is and so we really try to change the conversation from basing your happiness and your health on what the world thinks and instead being the best version of you that you were created to be. We really try to step outside of the product sale, almost to a fault, sometimes I'll be talking to my marketing girl and I'm like, “We haven't posted a picture of a product in a while.” We love to inspire people because I think that if you can inspire people and tap into what they really want to be and who they want to be, there is this one saying, “Aim to be a value, not a success.”

I want to add value for my users and so you have to couple that and marry that in a smart way to sales. Obviously at the end of the day, we're not running a non-profit here but what drives this business in my opinion is the fact that the products work. If all I need to do is inspire people and convince them that, “You know what, there is another way and you don't have to be what the world thinks to be happy.” I believe that they will want more of where that came from. We try to do that through, whether it's just inspirational images we post a lot on social media to blog posts. One of our recent blog posts was reasons why you should toss your scale because there are so many other reasons to lose weight but health is number one, not looking a certain way. Changing this conversation has really been I think a key differentiator in creating a different conversation within this industry.

菲利克斯：我喜欢那个。 In terms of marketing the business, what has been the most successful for you guys, has it been the social media or what other I guess mediums have you used to market the business?

Angela : Yeah, I would say early on because things have drastically changed. When we started this business, we … When I started the business, there was no social media, believe or not, I know that makes me sound really old but we didn't have social media and so we started out with email marketing. Other ways that we've decided to market the business obviously is through social media, email marketing is a huge part of how we actually retain people and actually nurture our relationships with people. It's through content so blogs are huge for us. We do SEO, we've seen a lot of success with that because frankly if people can't find you, they're not going to buy you. One of our most successful ways early on was PR. When I say PR, it was literally Angela packing up a red box and finding the name of editors and sending it to them and hoping that they would feature it.

We got some early winds pretty early on with some magazines, got some placements so that really helped spread the word. Fast forward to today, we really do lean heavily on email marketing, content marketing and a lot of SEO.

Felix : Cool so email marketing, content marketing, SEOs. Let's start with email marketing, you mentioned that you used email marketing a lot to retain customers so tell us a little bit more about how do you use email to do that?

Angela : Yeah so here's the cool thing about our product, if somebody buys a product and then they're like, “Okay, what next?” We have this opportunity to help them. We use auto emails so that let's say somebody receives a Fitbook, maybe a week after they receive it we're like, “What's your goal? If you need help setting a goal, try out our app, it's free.” We nurture that and then say, “Hey, get you goal.” Then a couple of weeks in we say, “Great job, keep going, how's it going, connect with us on social media so you can be part of the Fitbook family.” Then 6 weeks in, halfway there, we really do nurture them through the process of using our product. Let's say they buy one of our products, lets say our food scale or our snack stocker, anything like that, we will send them recipes or we'll send them information that not only just gives them the product but actually gives them useful information for how to use the product. In that way you're nurturing them through the process.

Felix : That's an awesome point because I think when a lot of us think about email marketing or [inaudible 00:38:10] email campaign or auto respond or you're talking about, we think about hitting the recipient with as many things as possible, as much content as possible, as many other things to buy as possible. I think what you're getting in and I've heard of this as well is to help the customer get the most value out of the product that they just bought from you. Getting them to realize the value of it and get the most out of it, that's how you win the customer, not by bombarding them with more things but help them get the most out of what they've already bought from you. It's sounds like that's what you've been doing which is based on what they're buying, helping them get the most value out of that particular product, I think that's a great move.

Angela : Yeah and I think one thing too is it obviously makes sense because we love our customers but from a complete business and logistical perspective, it costs way more money to acquire a new customer. Think of your cost acquisition for a new customer, it's a lot more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer. The challenge and the opportunity is thinking about yes, getting new customers is great, you want to spread the word but how do you nurture that existing customer? Not only do they continue buying from you but they actually spread the word about you as well.

Felix : Yeah, that's an awesome point. How do you actually get these people onto your mailing list to begin with, what are some strategies that have worked well for you?

Angela : Yeah so we do a lot with Shopify, I love Shopify. Our blog is a huge source of traffic from a mailing list perspective. We'll offer content, we'll post a really yummy looking recipe on social media or in an email blast and we'll post it on the blog and then they'll get all the recipes on our blog. When they get there obviously they're encouraged to sign up. We also do special free things, a lot of free things on our website. For example, every month I release a new calendar, it's just a printable calendar where you go to getfitbook.com/calendars and you can download a monthly go getter calendar. Obviously we want your email address when you get there. We have different landing pages for why people come to the site. I'd be honest, the best and most effective way we have actually uped our subscription rate is when people first go to getfitbook.com and they land on our homepage, we're trying every month, actually we've been doing this for about 4 to 5 months now, is testing a different offer to see what drives subscription.

We've done everything from testing 10% off your first order to free shipping on orders of $48 dollars or more or get a free recipe book if you sign up for our … What we're really doing is identifying what is converting and not only that but what is converting those newsletter subscribers then into customers.

Felix : I love that, I think the A/B testing, the way you're doing is key because you can always have a new winner and then find new ways to beat that winner over and over again over time, you're just going to increase your conversion rate for emails and of course for sales as well.

Angela : Yeah. Just by the way, free shipping trumps all almost all the time. It's just a little heads up for maybe your listeners. People want free shipping and in the world of Amazon, it's almost the only way to compete. Now, what we've found is to make it profitable, underlying keyword bold, is to make sure that it's on a certain dollar [inaudible 00:41:31], sorry to interrupt you.

Felix : No, thank you and keep on doing that, I think those are great gems dropping there. Cool so when it comes to content marketing, you guys you do post pretty consistently on the blog, it looks like at least once a week. How do you know what kind of content to create for the blog especially if you're turning out so much content?

Angela : You're making it sound like we're so strategic, thank you. It's called … I will be reading a magazine and have an [crosstalk 00:42:00], I'll have an idea or I'll be on the set on the gym and be like, “Oh my Gosh, we have to do this.” I do have … Early on I was the only blogger and I love to blog and I have more time, I wasn't managing there as much. I would blog literally I think every day, it was amazing. Honestly, I think it was a huge reason that we got a lot of traffic because blogs really do drive traffic. Now, as time has gone by, I've hired somebody to oversee our marketing, we have a blog editor now and so they really work on putting together a content calendar a month in advance. We look at things like today is national back to work day for example, we have a blog on biking to work. “Even if you don't have a bike, here's how you can participate and how to be healthy at work.”

We'll look at events coming up, it also will revolve around any kind of things that are going on in the industry but we really try to do consistent things. We feature one fab Fitbooker every month so we know consistently we're going to do that. We try to post one kind of recipe article or post a week. They really do a great job of creating that calendar but I'm still very highly involved in it because I want to be able to curate good information that is very relevant to our followers but I'll be honest, they've done a phenomenal job and I just oversee it now. It's been really great.

Felix : Yeah, that's great that you now have a team working to help you create this content. Are people just discovering the blog through the SEO and just through Google searches, how are they coming across these articles that you're putting out?

Angela : Well we obviously promote them to all of our email lists and every time a blog is posted, it's auto sent to our email list. Then we'll do another follow up a couple of days later like, “Hey, if you didn't see this.” We also use social media as a really key driver because on social media, people … I don't feel like people want to be sold to on social media. They want to engage and they want to create a relationship. We will do things like, number one we inspire people daily, we literally post motivational quotes or something like that every single day. However, what we'll do is we'll post an image of the recipe or the workout like I think today's post was a picture of me and my bike. We'll say, “You want our 4 tips to stay fit at work, go to getfitbook.com/blog. What we do on social media is we give them something and we try to give them some content and say, “If you want more, go to our blog.”

We really use our social media to send people to the blog. We also do giveaways on the blog. We try to do that so that we engage people on the blog in a very more intimate way than we do say on social media.

菲利克斯：是的，这是有道理的。 I think that that's the key step that sometimes people miss, they spend so much time creating the content but the promotion is the key because people are not going to come across unless you're actually pushing it out there so that's great advice, putting it out. Especially like you're saying, people don't want to be sold to on social media so that's a great opportunity to post content because content is not directly selling it but still there's a tie back to your business itself.

Angela : Well and one of the things that I've seen be super [inaudible 00:45:07] in here and I noticed this on certain pages that I follow on Facebook and social media is there's this curiosity factor. We've started things like … One of our most popular blogs is like the one food hack you're not doing in the kitchen. If you read that you're like, “What am I not doing? I have to read this.” Then we send them to a blog and we give them all these ways, [tons 00:45:30] of food scale that you didn't think about. It's not necessarily, “Hey, buy our food scale.” It's like, “Hey, did you know you could do this, this and this?” We really try to add value more than just sell.

Felix : Yeah, I love that title that you're talking about, playing on the curiosity thing. I'm a big fan of that too, I love having those kinds of headlines because it really does pull a lot of psychological leverage that get people to take action. Sometimes when people are doing things like that, you hear a lot of people complaining about, “It's a click bate title.” For me, I always say it's not … I don't ever consider anything click bait if it actually provides a value at the end of the day. You're clicking through and you're learning something and getting something out of it, please, click bait me into clicking on your article if I'm getting something out of it.

Angela : It works, I'm such a sucker for it on Facebook.

Felix : Me too.

Angela : What am I not doing?

Felix : Yeah so one other thing that I think you mentioned was about PR. You I think told us this before the podcast, before today was that rather than focus on promoting the product itself or the business itself, you focus on promoting your customers, your fab Fitbookers. Tell us a little bit more about I guess this different approach to PR?

Angela : Well and I'd be lying if I didn't say I don't love the product placement too and that's been our strategy from day one is like, “Put the book in your holiday guide.” That's been done and we love every placement that we get, don't me wrong but what has been really fabulous is seeing our fab Fitbookers get this opportunity to share their weight loss story in a really big way. We had one fab Fitbooker, Megan, she is young, super inspiring, she's lost over 60 pounds … No, actually 80, I correct myself. She was featured in the New York post and she was also featured in Women's Health Magazine. It was huge, the hits were crazy, I remember seeing our followers on Instagram blowing up but I couldn't figure out why and it was because New York Post picked it up.

Aside from the fact that she used Fitbook, she got to be the star of the story of her life losing this amazing amount of weight and she was 23 when she was a college athlete and she literally had a heart disease and went through a procedure and she knew she had to lose weight. Fast forward, she ended up losing 80 pounds. She's super inspiring and I love that her story is told. Actually just this month, one of our fab Fitbookers, Trisha, she was featured in Good Housekeeping Magazine and she's lost 140 pounds using the book. She literally has … Her life is completely different, she runs marathons, half marathons, she ran one ultramarathon, all these triathlons. Their lives are going to be the story that inspire other people.

When I talk about PR, it's not necessarily “profiting off of their success” but it is putting them at the corner point of the story where they should be. The truth is, Fitbook is just a tool to help them get there, they're the ones that do the work. I love this because that's what it's all about. Just because you see a book and it's 22.95 at getfitbook.com, that's not inspiring, that does not change lives. Seeing Trisha who lost 140 pounds, seeing Wayne who was an alcoholic who overcame his disorder, his alcoholism and lost 70 pounds, seeing Megan who lost 80 pounds, that is what inspires people. That really has been our approach is to really put them where they belong and not [some of the 00:49:02] spotlight.

Felix : Yeah, I love it that you're on a first name basis with a lot of your customers. It's so true that those kinds of stories are way more interesting than just talking about the product itself. You may have an amazing product, I think the personal stories are always going to be much more interesting and much more relatable and it's going to be very hard to be a better salesperson than your happiest customers. They're the ones that are going out there, have way less of a bias view, they love your product of course so there's bias there but hearing from someone that's just like them that's been in the same situation as them, as your other customers and hearing about their success because it they've used your product I think you can't get a better … I don't want to turn it just a sales message but they're going to be doing the selling for you way better that you could yourself.

After all these kind of marketing strategies that you've used successfully, just give us an idea how successful is the business today, it think you mentioned earlier that there's 500,000 Fitbooks I guess that have been purchased since the beginning?

Angela : Over half a million, I don't have an exact number because literally we're in production at least every month. I know we hit the half million mark actually towards the beginning of this year. We are in Walgreens, Target, Amazon, Vitamin Shoppe and obviously we sell in our website as well as select other small gyms and clubs and stuff like that. Successful is such big term but the way I look at the company as that we continue to grow year over year. A big part of that has been our website and so I see that as a huge success.

Felix : Angela I know you have a feature coming in on Entrepreneur Magazine, can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Angela : Yeah, absolutely. In the June issue actually, they're doing a feature on our switch to Shopify. They have this column called the fix and it's essentially an entrepreneur that had a problem and how they solved it and then the results of it so they're actually writing the article about our switch to Shopify in June of 2015. Just to give you an idea, we actually saw 119% growth from Q1 in 2015 to Q1 in 2016, 119% growth year over year in sales. It's just been a huge part of our success as we move to more of the [inaudible 00:51:26] online growth strategy. Yeah, they're doing a whole article about it, I got to do a photo shoot, everything, it was so much fun.

Felix : That's awesome so in June issue, I guess it will be out by the time this podcast is out. Speaking of Shopify, what kind of other tools and apps are there on Shopify or off Shopify that you use to help your run the business?

Angela : Yeah, absolutely. Shopify, we do a lot of integrations, that is partly why we chose it. Mailchimp is a huge part of our email marketing strategy obviously and Mailchimp is obviously a leader in this space. We use email marketing with Mailchimp, I'm a huge fun, it's actually really funny to use too if you've ever used it. Other apps that we use on Shopify specifically is we have product review features, we added that because product reviews is a huge part of why I buy things for example like on Amazon or … I'll always look at reviews. We have that, we also have Refersion, REFERSION is our affiliate system so we can get our users who love us talking about us. We have an app called Presefy which actually creates clickable, buyable links from our press placement.

For example the press placement I was talking about with Trisha, I was talking about Fitbook, we'll show the press placement and then over on the right, Presefy actually pulls in a link to actually buy that product that was featured in the article which is really cool. Other integrations that I could not live without Quickbooks online, that was a huge reason why we actually made the switch to Shopify as well was the integration with Quickbooks online was huge. Anybody that's using the desktop version of Quickbooks, please switch for the love of God, Quickbooks online is the coolest thing ever. From an app perspective, one app that I literally don't think I could live without, we used it internally for our team and it's free is called Trello, TRELLO. Everybody talks about Slack and frankly, I'm not smart enough I don't think to use Slack yet, I tried, I really tried,

Trello is so easy for us as a team so we manage all our projects, we all manage our marketing calendar, our team calendar, we manage our own personal to do list, everything through Trello, it's amazing. We also use Google Docs, we use Insightly, I'm not sure if you've heard of it but Insightly is a CRM for a small business. They're a sales force and all those but they're super expensive. Insightly is extremely affordable, it integrates with your email platform, it makes CRM possible I think for the small business. Then well obviously Dropbox and we use One Drive which is actually a Microsoft platform. We actually all run Macs internally but we do use One Drive as our internal sharing system for remote basically file management.

Felix : Very cool, yeah. One other thing I want to talk about here which was again discussed before the interview was that you said perseverance trumps passion. You went as far to say passion is overrated, tell us a little more about that, what's your I guess perspective on this whole perseverance versus passion?

Angela : I guess I say that because I have a ton of passion. Passion is not what pays the bills, passion is something that can grow thin and it can wear out over time whenever you're not seeing the success that you wanted to see. The ability to have perseverance is the only thing that gets you through. So many people are like, “I'm passionate about this.” That's great but does that have longevity? I always say passion is super important it's what gets you started but perseverance is what gets you through.

菲利克斯：酷。 Let's say there's a listener out there that says, “Okay, I know I need perseverance and Angela's saying I need perseverance so how do I get more perseverance?” What can you do I guess to work on being more persistent and be persistent when times are rough?

Angela : I was asking my team about this because I wanted to prepare for this and have something wise to say and one of my team members said, “I know what your super power is.” I'm like, “I did not know I had a super power, what is it?” She's like, “Never take no for an answer.” That is so true, whether it's in a meeting with a buyer, whether it's a conversation with anyone, whether it's a vendor, a customer, a client, an employee, when I say don't take no for an answer, it's not that I would get my way, it's that there is always a better way to figure it out. I don't think you can teach perseverance but I'm also in the school of thought that you can't teach entrepreneurship either. I think there are key philosophies and key strengths and key … There are a ton of things I'm not good at Felix and we could spend all day telling you all the things I'm really not that great at.

I can tell you that you can't tell me to stop, you can't make me quit. If I choose to, I may decide to go a different direction with the business, I might decide to create something different or new but you can't tell me I can't do something because that's just not the way I think. I don't think that's something that you can be taught but I guess my advice for anybody would be just as adamant as you are about wanting something in your life, you have to able to put that equal amount of work into it because it does not happen overnight. I think so many people see the logos and the places that we're [sold 00:57:07] and I'm so proud of those and I'm so honored. They don't see all the hard work and the nights that I literally cried myself to sleep or that I couldn't pay bills or that … I would go into a meeting with a buyer and be told no and then told yes and it's this roller coaster.

You either have perseverance to handle it or you don't. My advice is if you want to do this, buckle up because it's a crazy ride.

Felix : Yeah, I agree. I think though if you do want to ever work on a skill or the skill that you want to build, I think it just comes down to doing it as if you already have it and then it's like a muscle. The more you work it, the more you can get better at working it, I think it's the same thing with perseverance. I think when it comes for you is just never take no for an answer, start doing that, when someone says no to you, don't just be, “Okay, I guess I'll try something else.” Don't do that, try to find ways to make it work and then as you do that more and more frequently I think that's how you build up the skill of perseverance. Definitely some people were born with more perseverance, it sounds like you definitely were but if anyone out there that doesn't have, I think you can work on doing as much, keep just doing it essentially.

Cool so thanks so much Angela. What's in store for the remainder of this year, what kind of goals do you have, I know you probably have this all written down somewhere so what do you want to do this year?

Angela : Yeah, absolutely. I think one huge thing for us has been what gets the most attention is our placement in our mass retailers. I think I mentioned before that at one time Target was 50% of my business. That's not a good thing, just for anybody listening, that's not a good thing. If Target pulls your product or Target is struggling in the market place which they actually are right now, that has way too much of an influence on sales. The way that we're approaching 2016 and into 2017 is actually diversifying our channels pretty dramatically. Part of that was actually our switch to Shopify last year. Historically, our direct online sales has been about 10% of our revenue, last year it was 15% of our revenue and this year, our goal is to forecast it to be 20 to 25% of sales. It's actually the largest growing segment of our business is our online sales.

Here's why it's important, I guess for anybody listening, as you know, our margin and our profitability on any of our online sales is dramatically higher than anything that we're going to do through Walgreens and Target, Vitamin Shoppe, Amazon. We're really diversifying the business in a new way and the other thing is I love this because with this new model, we actually have a lot closer connection to our customer. Somebody that buys the Fitbook at say Target or buys the Fitspiration Journal at Vitamin Shoppe, they don't necessarily know who Fitlosophy is and we don't have the opportunity to market to them.

We now have this opportunity as online sales is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our revenue to actually nurture the customers in a more intimate way.

Felix : Awesome so getfitbook.com is the site, that's GETFITBOOK.com. Anywhere else you recommend our listeners to go and check out if they want to follow on what you're up to and what you're up to with the business?

Angela : Yeah, you can find Fitbook, FITBOOK on Instagram and on Twitter and on Snapchat. We also are Fitbook by Fitlosophy on Facebook. I really recommend just connecting on our website, if you go to getfitbook.com/tryit, we actually have this free downloads so you can see what the products are. I don't try to sell people on anything that doesn't work for them so I love giving people a glimpse inside our products and say, “Hey, try it out.”

Felix : I love it, I'm just taking a look at this now, I think anyone out there should look at this because I think it's a great way to get someone involved or get a customer get a better understanding of the value of your business without [actually if they 01:00:57] buy a product. I think it's a great example for anyone to check out. It's just getfitbook.com, try it on the top. Thanks again so much Angela, thanks for coming on.

Angela : Thank you so much.

Felix : Thanks for listening to Shopify Masters, the eCommerce marketing podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs. To start your store today, visit shopify.com/masters to claim your extended 30 day free trial.