Hut & Craig’s *New* Fitness Equipment 101

Before buying something like a treadmill, home gym, or even a set of dumbbells, do you head to the Internet and search for reviews on that particular item? In our new segment, I will ask Craig some probing questions like this:

How do we know which online reviews we can trust?

Watch this video to learn Craig’s answer:


Hut: This is Hut Allred from New Wave Fitness here with the beef master himself, Craig Lewin.

Craig: Hey, these are 30-pound dumbbells, man—that’s pretty good a for a skinny guy, right?

Hut: He ran to grab these dumbbells and said that his arms had to be pumped up for this video.

Craig: It’s just important that everybody out there looks at us and doesn’t just say, “Oh, look! It’s the really good looking, tan, beefy dude with the skinny guy!” I don’t want that to be the case. So I got my shoulders, my arms… All right, I’m done.

Hut: You’d be surprised, some of the YouTube comments that come through…

Craig: I know. Listen, the point is, I’m trying. I need everybody to know that I am trying but it’s a process and we all don’t have the genetics of Hut Allred.

Hut: Well, you know, we do our best. It’s all about your best.

Craig: Look, I feel good though. My arms, they’re pretty good, right? They’re definitely bigger.

hut-craig_online-reviews

Hut: All right, let’s start off by just kind of digging in—just something that really helped everybody out here make the best decision for themselves. And I think the first things is, when people go to look for equipment, the first thing they do is go look at reviews and try to base their decision on the reviews that are out there. So I want you to share some light on kind of how they should go about that.

Craig: Well, you guys know that we’ve been doing this a long time and I know we’ve been doing it a long time together. We’ve been in this industry now for 23 years and one of the things that you start to see out there is how the business has change with, obviously, the Internet becoming such a big thing.

People used to just come in the stores and shop locally. Now you have a lot of people who are getting online and they’re looking at reviews. They are doing it even before they walk in a store, sitting out in a parking lot. And the biggest thing I want to tell everybody that’s out there is that there are so many fake reviews.

Hut: Yes.

Craig: We call them affiliate reviews. Any time that you see a review that you read and then there’s a link to click to take you somewhere to buy something, nine times out of ten, that whole review has been made by that company…or they have gotten people to write those reviews for them. They’re not real reviews, so be careful with those types of things because a lot of those mass companies out there will write fake reviews to drive you to their site.

Listen, from a business standpoint, it’s very smart; it’s all about business. But when it comes to you guys getting the quality that you deserve, and getting equipment that’s not going to break down, that you’re not going to say, “You know what, forget it! I’m just not going to use this anymore,” because it’s breaking down on you…

Hut: Or have the customer service in place to follow up and solve a problem if there is a problem.

Craig: Absolutely, yeah. You know, our customers deserve that, right?

Hut: Yes.

Craig: And so all we ask is, pick up the phone, call us. We’ll tell you about it. We’re not here just to sell you the equipment that we have sitting on the floor. If you have a question about something that we don’t even carry, our guys are experts in this field.

Hut: So what you’re saying is, if they’re out there looking at reviews, they find something that they like, they read the review, they can call one of the store managers or store reps here at Busy Body or Fitness Headquarters, and they will actually give them their opinion.

Craig: Absolutely right, yes.

Hut: If that means they’re buying equipment somewhere else, they’re buying equipment from somewhere else.

Craig: Fine, that’s fine. Because at the end of the day, you might be watching this videos from somewhere in Ohio. I don’t have stores in Ohio. But if you want to pick up the phone, and you want to call us and let us be the experts to help you guys…. Look, at the end of the day, this is what we do.

We’ve chosen a career path of being in the fitness industry. We love the fitness industry. The part of us enjoying it, why we’re not out there selling cars or computer equipment or something different, is because we enjoy helping people, and we are helping people.

Hut: And as a result of that, you’re building relationships, and when you build relationships, that’s what people want. They want somebody that they can come to, you know, feel like they are being taken care of.

Craig: Absolutely. Listen, it’s good juju. It’s good karma for us. We want to help you guys out there. That’s the whole idea behind it. And we’ve done this a long time, so pick up the phone and call us. Let’s talk about the reviews that you’re looking at. Let’s talk about any questions that you might have.

Hut: Perfect.

Craig: We’re here to help you guys.