Benji Donhardt - Supafitgrow: Innovations in Gym Marketing

[00:00:02] Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice, supportive review wherever you consume your podcasts. If you're interested in staying up to date with the Future of Fitness, go to

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[00:02:01] This episode is brought to you by our good friends in Matabolic. Matabolic is a boutique franchise system built for entrepreneurs and backed by experience. Founded by former professional athletes Brandon Cullen and Kirk DeWall, Matabolic blends elite training principles with a proven business model. With 36 open locations, 8 new markets launching soon, and another 50-plus in development,

[00:02:30] now is the time to invest alongside a growing, high-performance boutique fitness brand. Learn more at Matabolic.com. That's M-A-D-A-B-O-L-I-C dot com. All right. We are live. Benji Donhart, welcome to the Future of Fitness, my friend. Thank you very much, Eric. We're looking for the episode. Yeah. It's always, you know, interviewing people down under, as we say here in the States.

[00:02:59] It's always interesting, like timing and scheduling and all that. It's like, you know, no one really cares about my struggles, but it's like, wait, what day is it there? What time is it there? It's not, nothing can't be overcome, but it's, it's always, it always takes some planning. So anyway, point is, happy to have you on the show. Glad we made all the logistics work. And, you know, I've got to meet you in person right now and talk to you a couple of times online and enjoy our conversations. And, you know, I love the accent. It's very marketable.

[00:03:28] Some interesting stuff today. I think I agree with you as we were talking previous to recording here about artificial intelligence and the adoption of our industry. You know, I think we, we tend to move on things a little bit late. It's not always bad, right? It's not always bad, but a lot of times it's also not always good. And we can certainly adopt certain things. And I think within your world of digital marketing and sales and lead generation and things like that, there's, there's a lot of very exciting times ahead, but it's really competitive too.

[00:03:55] I mean, you know, in the digital marketing space that, you know, something gets used and, you know, people kind of get out there and do a really good job with it. Then everybody uses it. And then it kind of loses its salience, kind of loses its pop, right? So you have to continue to be innovating in the space. And I think that's something that you're, you're really big on too. The thing that I found interesting about you, and we'll get into this, I'm sure, is how you're growing your company, Superfit Grow, right? Like partnerships, acquisitions, like that's unusual for a marketing agency, at least from my purview. Anyway, I'm going to shut up, Benji.

[00:04:23] Why don't you give us a little bit of your background, how you got to be the CEO and founder of Superfit Grow. And we'll go from there. Yeah, definitely. So I went to school until about year 10, left in year 10, and actually then did a stone masonry apprenticeship. So I did that for about seven years. Back where I grew up in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, that was the normal thing to do back 20 something years ago, 25 years ago now. Wow. Sound off. But yeah, so that was the normal thing to do. Went, got a stone masonry apprenticeship, completed that, then worked for myself for about,

[00:04:53] well, a good probably three years after that. Really enjoyed it, loved it. But just, I didn't want to be a tradie for my whole life. That's what they call it. You're in Australia, a tradeswoman or a tradie. I knew there was more out there. And I'm always looking for challenges, always looking for something more. And how can I push myself to the absolute limit? So I was sitting down at a friend's place on the Wednesday evening and a show came on called Maybe Clearest Divas. And I just was immediately drawn to it. And it was military. My father had been in the military.

[00:05:21] And it was just something that I wanted to, yeah, wanted to pursue. So the next day I pulled up the recruitment office and just said, look, I want to do this. This is what I'm going to do. And they said, come in for an interview. And obviously did all the tests, did all that. But there was the clearest of category was full. So basically I was like pretty let down. But then they said, well, you can go in as something else and then transfer over. So that's what I did. And I entered the military in 2019.

[00:05:49] No, sorry, 2009, January 19, 2009. So I did that, went in there and absolutely loved it. It was fitness. It was just everything I wanted and expected. Really, really tough. The general training is obviously they're trying to break you, which is really good. But again, I was thriving. I'd left school since I was 16. So it wasn't too hard for me. I'd already been around adult males and really sort of doing an apprenticeship pretty hard. So yeah, it was quite easy for me. I really loved it.

[00:06:17] I did the basic training and went into category training. Did that. I was specializing weapons and ship diving. And basically did that. Went through that. Got posted into Sydney after all my training, which was about nine months. And that was my naval career. So that was my naval career. And I then started trying to transfer into the clearance divers as they told me I could. And I just kept getting no's and no's and no's. It kept setting me back saying, no, you can't transfer. It's full. We're not going to allow anyone in.

[00:06:46] I kept trying, kept trying. Did the ship divers course. And from that course, I then got offered a spot on CDAT. So CDAT's likely equivalent to the Navy SEALs 10 days of hell. That's what they call it here, clearance diver acceptance test. I did that as a transfer category. And you're not meant to pass as a transfer. You're supposed to pretty much drop off on day one or two. But I passed it. A plus. Got, yeah, absolutely smashed it, which was awesome. And again, I knew that's where I wanted to be. So I did that. Passed the course.

[00:07:14] And then they said, no, you can't go into the actual clearance diving course. And I said, why? They said, it's just the way it is. And we need you on a ship to go on a deployment. So I did that. Did all this stuff. Then through, yeah. In short, I did a lot of different deployments. And then another spot on CDAT came up or another acceptance test. And they said, I have to do that if I want to try and get in. So I did it again. 10 days of hell. Went through it. Put myself through it. And then at the end of it, passed it. I told no. Again.

[00:07:43] And that was a defining moment after sort of six years in the military. I was like, I think I need to choose a different path. I think I need to go somewhere different. And I need to do something that's more aligned with what I believe in and I'm passionate about. I learned a lot in the military, a lot of good things. I learned a lot of bad things. I learned a lot of good things about leadership and then negative things about leadership. So I left the appointments discharge paperwork in 2014. And during that time, I started doing my personal training certificate. So I did my personal training certificate. I started training people in the military.

[00:08:12] And then people were coming to me over going to the PDIs because I'm great with people. And I'm good with people. I love human beings. I love helping them. I just love serving others. So I did that. And yeah, it was quite interesting. They also go, oh, why don't you do this as an actual career? Like get out in the military. People were saying, you should go and be a PT on the outside. And anyway, the military tried to keep me in. I said, no, my time's done. And during that time, two mates approached me and said, we're opening a gym. I was an F45 gym at the time when they were, I think, were the fourth one in Australia.

[00:08:41] And they said, we want you to come and manage it and basically be sort of kind. And yeah, that's what happened. I left. We opened the gym. And the rest is history. As soon as I put my foot inside that gym, I knew that's where I needed to be. And it aligned with everything about who I am. So love to serve people. Love to help people. Do what I love. Passionate about fitness. And it was just, it was awesome. It was really good. Did that for about a year. We maxed out capacity of the facility. And then that little noise in my head started coming.

[00:09:10] You need another challenge. You need to go and grow a bit more and get uncomfortable. So I put the feelers out there. And that's when they were starting to launch into the US. So an investor approached me, said, we want you to come to the US. We want you to open a gym in San Francisco, white and the heart of San Fran. And we want you to, yeah, manage it. The, again, kinder. So I'm like, yep, excellent. Let's do it. Went to meeting after meeting. And about a week before we were supposed to leave, they pulled the pin. And the investor said, I'm out. I've got coffee. I'm like, shit, what do I want to do here?

[00:09:40] I left a relationship. Left the gym that I'd started and built an incredible community and a lot of friends. But I still knew I had to go. I still knew I had to leave and get over there. So I left on my own one little suitcase and basically just walked into gyms knocking, saying, do you have any shifts available? No, but he said nothing. And they said, oh, we can't. Like, yeah, we're not looking for it. Then I said, look, I don't want to be paid. I just want to learn the culture and the difference between the two countries. Said that, I got some opportunities, which was great. So I did that.

[00:10:09] Went over there and just did that for a couple of months and then came back, obviously, visa issues. And then I had a job here working for the group of F45s and personal training. Did that. And then another opportunity to go back to the States. So I did that. And I was actually managing a gym over there in La Jolla, California, which is awesome. That's beautiful. Put an incredible community over there. Took them from there. It was around 30K in revenue to about 40K, which was good in about three months. Then came back to Australia. And I took a sales, fitness equipment, sales manager's job.

[00:10:37] So that was for a company called Hoss Fit Torsion Bars. They're about a bar about this long. And as the weight increased, the diameter increased as well. So it was really good for mobile PTs and stuff like that. So we sold the rights here in Australia within the first like six months. And then that took me back to the US. So I kept going back to the US. I'm just, I love the US. I think it's an incredible country. Land of opportunity. And if you're hungry enough, you can make anything work, which I'm a big believer in. So I did that.

[00:11:05] Went back to the US and we then sold the rights at URSA to a company. I can't remember the name of the company, but we sold the rights to them. And that made my job redundant, which I then came back to Australia and started a small consulting agency, basically all around conversion. So at that time, it wasn't really marketing or lead to it. Probably at the end of 2017, 2018. So it was pretty easy to generate leads, even organically from Instagram and Facebook. So I did that.

[00:11:35] The biggest gap I could see throughout my whole time in the fitness industry was people didn't really know how to sell. Trainers were exceptional coaches, but they weren't great with encouraging people to join and convert them into members. They were too normally scared to ask or position it in the wrong way. So I sort of put myself through a lot of courses and sort of self-taught myself sales and I've become really good at it. So I started a small consulting agency and just started working in that sense. Actually, I'd walk him to the gym and I'd meet the owners and I'd go in there and do

[00:12:04] like a secret shop. And then I'd assess their sales process over a seven-day period or a five-day period, how many times I was contacted, what the meet and greet was like, all that sort of jazz. So I did that. Awesome. Really, really good. But I've got to a level where I couldn't really keep expanding or couldn't keep growing. And that's when I met my business partner, Michael. And he had about 17 years of corporate experience in marketing. So he had all that. And by that time, it was about 2021.

[00:12:32] And we met, we did a few test clients, and that was the birth of Superfit Grow. We first called it Superfit Gyms, but then we wanted to obviously not pigeonhole ourselves just in the gyms. We wanted to work with more like Pilates and spars and stuff like that as well, and more wellness and health. So we changed the name to Superfit Grow and that was it. That's the birth of Superfit Grow. That's how we got there. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. Any question out of curiosity from that backstory?

[00:12:58] You know, when you look at the United States, there's a very much an admiration, if not at times, glorification of the military, especially Navy SEALs, right? And I'm not saying it's unwarranted. I've never been a SEAL, but I have friends and they're generally badasses. Is it the same in Australia? Is there like an admiration and a glorification of the military there? There is. It's not as patriotic as what the US is. Mm-hmm. Like I, even when I had mentioned to someone in the US that I was like in the military

[00:13:26] for six years, I'd always, their response was very different. Where here in Australia, it is okay, but it's nowhere near like the US. Yeah. In the military, the clearance divers and the special forces is that very, everyone looks up to them. But it also comes with a stigma as well. Like there's, I've actually vladen getting there because they're like a lot of the guys is big dick swinging competition, put it that way. Like there's, everyone's trying to be better than everyone. And that's not who I am. I'm like, I'm not really like that.

[00:13:56] I'm more humble. I, I want to compete, but I don't want to be like a douchebag about it, if that makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense. So very different, very different in the US to the further in military. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome, man. Okay. So back to the, back to industry stuff. So Superfit Grow, like you're on a, you sit on a plane, right? You're flying from Queensland over here to the United States. You sit down next to someone and they're like, what do you do? What do you tell them in like a couple of sentences? Yeah, definitely.

[00:14:25] Look, we help gins, fitness studios, wellness, spa, anything grow through authentic and transfer of communication in regards to marketing. So if you could imagine, we base our service off custom service first and then results. So we generate quality leads and we really want to understand the, as much as possible. It's not cookie cutter. And we really care about what we do. We've got so much passion about the industry and generating like not just the client's results,

[00:14:53] but getting the consumers inside the gyms. So it's a very, we're a very different sort of marketing company. We don't look at ourselves as a typical agency. And there's a few different reasons for that. Again, the customer service is 100% like top of mind. That is what has to happen first. Because without a relationship with a client or a really strong relationship, you're not going to understand what they actually need. And we care not just about leads. It's not just, oh, we want to bring you 150 leads a month. It's we want to bring new leads that convert.

[00:15:23] So we want to understand the conversions. We want to understand where's the gap if they're not converting? How can we generate those leads to get to a 10 to 15, 20% conversion from lead to sale? That's what we want to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, I don't have to tell you this, but there's a lot of marketing agencies out there, a lot of marketing companies out there. In my tenure within this industry, it's come a long way from a lot, at least in the micro gym, boutique, independent gym owner. I don't know a lot about the health club business.

[00:15:52] I've never been an operator in the large kind of big box type thing. But obviously digital marketing over a lifetime since 2007, the smartphone and social media and all that has changed dramatically, right? Like it used to be like SEO, maybe put something in the paper, right? Like do some of the newspaper, do flyers on cars, which is still, I would imagine still very effective, right? But, you know, since the real kind of advent and emergence of digital marketing is a very,

[00:16:18] very viable solution, it's gotten, it's gotten crowded, right? It's gotten crowded. And in the gym space, it's getting more and more crowded over the last, you know, eight years, I would say. So like you mentioned customer service is a pillar, but like, give us some of the details. Like how do you really differentiate with customer service? Like, how do you make a difference there? Yeah. So if it all starts with the, obviously the sales process, so the customer service in that sales process and really understanding what it is that the client needs and wants.

[00:16:45] So we don't ever want to sell something to a client that doesn't need something. We've had an opportunity where someone wants to buy our product. We said, no, that's not what you need right now. So we have to push you away. You need to go into this. That's where it starts from the sales process. It doesn't, it's not a churn and burn, quickly let's sell as much as we can. And then they don't get results and they go in three months. We want to build a relationship, a long-term partnership to work with these guys for 12 to 18 to 24 and so on months. It's not about that quick churn and burn.

[00:17:15] So it starts with the sales process. Then the onboarding process, what we do in the onboarding process, really understand what that client needs, what that client wants. Then we go through a complete strategy brief. So really understanding the brand voice, the brand tone, the brand guidelines of that boutique gym or whoever it might be and how they can be different and who they are as people. So we do a lot of storytelling in our marketing as well. So if the owners have got an incredible story, we want to encourage them to share that.

[00:17:46] And 99% of gym owners in the boutique space have got an incredible story of why they started it, but they don't share it with anyone. One of the biggest, best forms of marketing and selling is by telling the story because people will either resonate with it or they won't. So we really want to understand that brand and that person. It's like most agencies might be a three to five day onboarding. We take seven to 10 days purely because we want to understand that customer. We want to build that relationship with them and let them know that we're here for the long term.

[00:18:15] We're not here just a quick three month churn and burn. See you later. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Makes total sense. And then what specifically, what tools do you guys have in your tool belt? Are you using Facebook, Instagram? Are you using SEO? Are you using Facebook and Instagram? So the Meta platform, we do help them with email marketing as well. And that's very only utilized email marketing. So behind any ready, really strong digital campaign, you need a really strong email marketing campaign to compliment that and help it.

[00:18:44] Because not like I think it's 3% of people are ready to buy straight away. So most people need those seven to 15 touch points. And with a strong, authentic email marketing campaign, it can compliment the digital really well. And what I mean by that is instead of trying to sell, sell, sell in every email or in every digital campaign, provide value first and education. That's something we do really well here is we really want to educate the consumer as to why that gym or that facility might be good for that consumer.

[00:19:12] We need to understand, we need to make sure that there's value there and they understand what they're going to get. I actually watched a real yesterday on Instagram and it's so true is 90% of the sale is done in the marketing is done correctly. 90% of the sale is down there because everyone's going to know what, well, that consumer is going to know what they're going to get, know what they're in for. And there's no clickbait or like quick, try to like trick people. That's gone. Like it's, that was 2016, 2018 in between there.

[00:19:41] And anyone that's doing that now, you'll notice the lead quality will be so much poorer, so much poorer because people are, they're accustomed to it. Now they click onto it. Got to be authentic. Got to be transparent. Be who you are. It's no offense to anybody in marketing, but like it's the content. I was in marketing as well for a very long time. I still consider myself in marketing in many ways, but we tend to ruin any, all new things. Like something cool come out, right? Like email came out. We're like, whoa. Oh yeah. Like I remember the first email I sent, my brother was in the Antarctic doing research

[00:20:11] and I was in college and I sent an email and 24 hours later, I came back to the computer lab. A lot of people don't know what a computer lab is, but it's a place where we used to go to computers because not everyone had a computer. And you know, I would get an email back. I'm like, holy shit. Like you just sent me like, that would have taken weeks for me to write a letter and send it back. Like now that was amazing, you know, within five, six, 10 to where we are now, like emails, like marketing everywhere, right? Social media is the same thing. It used to be this really cool thing.

[00:20:37] You connect with people and like, you know, maybe get a date or like meet some girl you want to talk to. Right. And then. Hey friends, this is Eric Malzone. And this episode of the future of fitness is brought to you by the podcast collective. Since our inception in 2023, we have emerged as the fitness health and wellness industries premier podcast placement agency. We're honored to work with many of the industry's most prominent technologists, thought leaders, startup founders, and business executives. Why?

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[00:22:03] Now it's just marketing everywhere. So it's kind of interesting to see like how quick marketers will take things and then saturation comes. So that being said, like what is the next technology that you think is going to be huge within the world of marketing? We've alluded to artificial intelligence and things like that. So where do you think the next frontier is for marketing and specific to gyms? Yeah, I think it's AI. I think it's experimenting with different AI tools. And it's not one size fits all.

[00:22:31] So it's not that this one tool is going to work for you. It's got an understanding how the tools can help support. I think it's going to start on the back end first before the consumers see it. So on the back end, how can we use it as marketers and running marketing companies or agencies, if you will, to improve those operational efficiencies, to help speed up time, to help produce better copy and test more.

[00:22:54] So if you are writing copy yourself, it's going to be a lot harder to test 20 different variations of copy rather than if you're not using AI. So I really feel it's behind the scenes first on what we do with copy in regards to creative as well. Obviously, with the creative video creatives, we've just implemented more AI tools on our back end to help us speed up that process. And it's working. It's doing really well.

[00:23:19] And as I mentioned earlier, we've got one campaign for a client in the US that has got an AI avatar. And we've already got two leads at $4 from that. So it's really interesting. And people at first, and I ask friends, family, like, oh, no, I don't like that. I'd rather be a normal person. But we need to start thinking it's not about what we think, it's what the market decides.

[00:23:42] So instead of thinking, oh, I'm not going to do this because I don't think it's going to perform well, we need to sort of start to think more like, I don't know how it's going to react. I don't know how it's going to perform. Why don't we get it out there in the market, test, and let the market decide. You can test a lot faster with AI, a lot faster. Yeah. So expand on that. Like, why can you test faster with AI? Is it just like multiple variations at once? Exactly. Is it the adaptability? Exactly right.

[00:24:09] You can ask ChatTBT or Claude or Gemini, whatever you're using. You can ask certain questions about that market. You can create 20 different forms of copy so much quicker than if you're doing it without AI. And I'm not saying that you're just going to use AI like you have the AI and then not proofread it. You're still going to have a human there that proofreads that. And there will be tweaks you need to make, but it speeds up that process. So I can write 20 different forms of copy in 30 seconds and then go back and have a look at it. And then, oh, that needs to change. This might need to change.

[00:24:39] Yeah, that doesn't sound right. So I could do four hours worth of work in half an hour. That's wild. I'm a Claude guy. I use Claude a lot from my... We're just out of Claude. Michael absolutely loves it. He's like, yeah, it's really incredible. I don't know. For people listening. Yeah, for people listening, I spent a decent amount of time training ChatGPT to have a specific voice for the type of content that I was trying to create. But I had to do a lot of editing and work with ChatGPT.

[00:25:05] Whereas Claude comes out about 80, 90% where I want it on the first shot when it comes to copy or any kind of newsletter or any kind of article or whatever you're trying to create. Yeah, that's just shocking. It's incredible. But we're also using it for like our playbooks and we're starting to create AI assistants. So each department, so our creative department, our cabinet department have got playbooks, but we're starting to create the AI assistant. So we've got an AI assistant that's there to help.

[00:25:33] And it's, again, it's not going to be long before. Yeah, you can, you can, you don't need to hire as many people to get one job done. Yeah. It's incredible. What about data and the analysis of data with AI? I mean, that's, you guys probably see a lot of data flowing through your systems, through your dashboard. I'm sure, you know, meta has AI built in to analyze the data. But yeah, give us some insights into like data is a big word. Yeah.

[00:25:59] So how are you guys leveraging specific data sets that have the consumers? You have external data sets that you guys are using. Like what's, what's the role there? Yeah, good question. So within regards to results, so we're using like, it's mostly done manually now. We're looking at implementing AI tools to help analyze that data. So CPL, CTR, all the marketing terminology. So we can speed up those process and reporting. So right now we're doing reporting manually. And that comes back to our obviously customer service.

[00:26:27] We don't want just a report spat out through AI that goes to a client via email because there's no value in that. The client doesn't see, the client will read it or might not even open it. But if we get on a call and we run the reporting, so we've got a call booked, the client comes, we run through the reporting, we're getting that customer service. Well, what we then do also is got an AI tool. The Fathom Notetakers will then, will then take the transcript of that call, put it into ChatDBT or Claude, and then put up, use that to do a follow-up email, a summary of that call.

[00:26:56] So they not only had a call, they've also had a full summary sent to them by email with using AI, which is really, really, really fantastic. Yeah, it's, yeah, that's sort of how we're using it. Yeah. And are you guys, when you come in and you help gyms, are you primarily on the marketing and lead generation? Or do you guys also offer service as far as like client engagement or retention? Like where do you guys sit in that journey? Yeah, funny you say that. We want to, so the way we position the market, where we do the marketing, we want to have that help their attrition.

[00:27:26] So the better quality lead and the better suited that consumer is to that gym is nine times out of 10, they're going to stay longer. Like we don't want to hard sell them into something. And we don't want the gym to have to hard sell them. As I said before, 90% of the marketing is, 90% of the sale is done in the marketing. So if we're doing the marketing right, we want to then increase that LTV or that too. So the gym comes to us and says, average lifetime value is about four or five months, right? We want to understand what type of lead generation you're doing. Are you doing any brand marketing?

[00:27:55] So with everything we do, we don't just run lead generation. There'll be an element of brand marketing running, maybe $5, $10 of that budget, in addition to lead generation. So we've always got brand out there and that's done usually via video. And it's like meet the team, meet the owners. And again, that's storytelling. So they've always got there, we're warming up their audience first, and then we're giving them a lead gen. So the audience knows exactly what that gym provides. And again, like a lot of, and not that they're anything,

[00:28:23] I just don't think they go into those levels of we are, is you run lead generation only, get them in on a 28-day challenge. They might sign up, but then the chance of them converting on is pretty low because they've come in on more of a really quick, like cheap, or it might be a discounted option. Whereas we don't want to do that for the gym. We want to make sure that we're advertising their full program and the people are coming in and wanting to pay for value, not just for price. And that's one thing our industry, especially here in Oz,

[00:28:52] is suffering with is the race to the bottom. It just baffles me that everything else in this world is inflating and going up. Yet for our health and fitness and something that's going to keep us healthy and let us live longer, people don't want to pay that money. And then gym owners are like, oh, I have to sell, I have to drop to $30 a week or $40 a week. It's like madness. Yeah. It's one of the biggest regrets I have as a gym owner was engaging in the new challenge, which at the time was just mind blowing. Right?

[00:29:21] Like I didn't even know, I was telling the story to someone else this week. I like six week challenge. It went against everything in my ethos. Right? But I'm like, God, you know, I've just heard so many great stories about this. And then I'm like, all right, I'll do it once. We'll see what happens. Right? It's literally like using drugs. You're like, well, just do it once. Yeah. And I can get addicted to this. Right? And then I couldn't believe it, how many leads I got. It was like five, 600 leads that came in. I'm like, I didn't know there was that many people in my zip code. And they kept through a decent amount of signups. I think I had like 60 signups.

[00:29:51] But man, like the damage it did from a perspective of like the type of people it brought in, how much attention it took away from our core community of people who've been there for a very long time. I had people who'd been in my gym for four or five years who were like, this is, we don't like this anymore. We're out. Yeah. Right? And it just destroyed it. And then, you know, I actually track these numbers, which are loud. But I think my retention rate after three months was something like 7% of people who come into the six week challenge. And it's just, it's a different type of consumer. It's a different type of mindset.

[00:30:20] So if anyone's listening, try not to do it. I know it's super tempting. Just don't do it. Well, it's all relative to where you are in business. Like if I opened a gym, if I opened a gym and I opened it with, say your break even is a hundred members, and then you hit the hundred members, you break even. All right, what can we do now to then push it up to 150? Yes. Running a six week challenge is good because you're at the very start. But if a gym comes to us and goes, oh, we're at 250 members, we want to get to 285, then be consistently there.

[00:30:49] Then we're going to devise a plan and a strategy of how we can slowly grow authentically and not bring in 50 members at once that then upsets their current members and then stabilize. So they're at 285 consistently and you need strategic marketing strategies to do that. So you need to understand how many, like we always ask the clients, how many clients do you need over the next? It's not just, most gyms can't handle 30 new members in one month because they don't have the backend processes, they don't have the systems, they don't have the onboarding process.

[00:31:19] You need to grow and it's all relative to where they're at in business. So a six week challenge could be really good for someone that's really early stage. For someone that's been established for four years, it's got a good membership base that just wants to get up to about another 30 or 40 members. It's a different strategy. So you've got to align the strategy with that goal. And that's, again, it comes back to how you say how we're different. Nothing we do is couldn't cut her. It's always a line and we always create an offer that's aligned with that brand or where they want to go.

[00:31:47] Because then you've got a relationship, you can work with them for a long period of time, not three months and then, oh, I'm going to go try another agency. Biggest problem in the industry. Everyone we talk to has been with four or five agencies in the last 12 to 18 months. Our mission is to stand that out. When you come to Superfic Grow, you're going to understand that we care about what your campaigns are doing, care about conversions. We want to work with you guys for 12 to 18 to 24 months longer. You've got that person you can trust. You've got that company you can trust. That's what we're about.

[00:32:17] It's awesome, man. Besides the organic growth you get by delivering results for your clients, you've been taking, I guess, bigger bites maybe through partnerships, acquisitions. Talk about that. That's a little bit unusual for your space, I feel. But tell me if I'm wrong. It's very unusual. It is very unusual. And a lot of, look, I believe heavily in partnerships. We've been involved now with Beyond Active for the last three years.

[00:32:43] The thing is, you don't get immediate return from it, but you get long-term gain. And we're under that. We're 10-year mission and goal is we've got it in there. We've got it planned. We've broken down into a five-year goal. And everything we do is about long-term vision. And how can we make the industry better long-term? We don't want to get 100 clients in three months. We want to grow gradually. We want it at a rate that is providing an incredible service still to the industry. Partnerships are a great way because they're so unutilized.

[00:33:11] People, I think the big thing in the marketing place, everyone looks at a competitor as a negative thing. Where I, I've talked to nearly probably all of our, most of our competitors in Australia, I've talked to nearly all of them. In the US, we're starting to talk to more. But part of our long-term growth strategy is strategic acquisitions. Understanding like where they're at. And a lot of the agencies are one solo person. They, they get to a certain point and they'll, like it's hard running an agency. It's not easy. So they'll be, oh, no, this is too hard.

[00:33:41] How can we then help them and possibly acquire them, merge, whatever that might be, still provide their clients with incredible service or even better service and help that, that owner out. Maybe they might want to stay in and work with us or maybe they might just want to get out and leave them. We, we, we acquire that business. So to be honest, if you're left to feel strategy, but I think we work with some advisors and we've got a, yeah, I'm very, I'm a very different thinker and very, very strong visionary.

[00:34:06] And I think we can definitely achieve it by again, building strong relationships with the right people. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's hard. I was, uh, when I sold my gems, I decided to get an agency work with a colleague of mine. And, and, uh, just two of us, we had some assistants offshores and brutal. It was hard, man, you know, and the more successful you are, the harder it gets. And you just, you just can't keep up with the amount of work and the expectations and things like that. So I have no interest in getting into your line of work. So don't worry about me. I am not a threat. It is.

[00:34:36] It's very difficult. And like every single day, I think throughout my whole life though, like I've always, I thrive in that challenging adversity. I thrive in that in difficult times. I wake up every single morning and I absolutely love when a challenge is put in front of me. And that's the sort of culture we've built through that whole agency now and our whole company is there is going to be a challenge every single day. It's how we face it, how we face it. We face it having fun. We face it as a team and we face it transparently, authentically.

[00:35:05] And then the challenge, like life's challenging. It's not easy. There is anything that's been built. That's great. It's been an absolute nightmare to get there. So if we go in there and change that mindset to, oh, today's going to be an amazing day. No, today's going to be a terrible day. If it's a great day, that's good. It's a plus. That makes sense. And again, like I said, the agency, the complaints, the little things that people want here and there, they're well within the right to want that. And that's our job to serve them and to make it happen. So yeah, why would we whinge? Yeah. I love it.

[00:35:34] So from, you know, I guess from an entrepreneurial standpoint, you and I talked right before this about having an illogical mindset. Yeah. If I got that or thinking illogically, sorry. Expand on that. What do you mean by that, dude? Yeah. Look, everyone in life, in general life, in business, everyone wants to conform. They don't want to say the wrong thing. They might piss someone off. They don't want to think outside that box. Like they don't want to be a little bit different. Like when we're writing copy, we look at it or when we're looking at campaigns like that,

[00:36:04] does that look like everyone else's out there? Yeah. Let's, let's go back and let's read, let's redo it. Let's, let's go and think a little bit differently, right? The more we think differently, the more, especially marketing, the more you can stand out. But people are so afraid to be judged about a decision they might make. People are going to judge you whether you're right or whether you're wrong, whether you're good or whether you're bad. So what we really, again, want to do is this year is really think that it logically and just step outside the box, be different.

[00:36:32] And then that really will help us show why we're different as a company. Like we empower our team to think differently in every single department. Think differently. Don't just think, right, here's the box and here's what's normal. What, what could be another solution to this problem? Or what could be another creative we could use here that might be a little different to capture people's attention? What could be another formal copy we can use that might work? And we then have to then empower our clients to understand that that's how we work. And that's what, that's how we want to work with them. Yeah.

[00:37:02] Get, dig into that one. Get a little more granular. Give us an example of like how you've worked with the team to be like, you know, come with something that's maybe counterintuitive or against the market, you know, help them that you've helped your team get into that mindset. Cause that's not an easy thing to do. We're all Reddit, right? We kind of have these patterns that we see and we, we engage with. So how do you, how do you get people out of the rut? Got in a live location now. We asked our whole team, what are they, what they thought of it? Or I had media borrowing the U S did.

[00:37:30] And she said, it was, it's fantastic. She said, what do you think of this guys? And nearly everyone wrote. Don't like it. I like her. The normal video looks better. And then I chimed in and said, the keyword here is the normal video looks better. But what if guys, what if we test that? What's the worst that's going to happen? If we present this to the client, we get approval. What's the worst that's going to happen if it doesn't work? And they said, they tell them, they're like, oh, not, I don't know. They said, well, maybe a high CPL, maybe a low click through rate. That's the worst that's going to happen.

[00:38:01] But what if it works? And what if we get incredible low CPL and they get conversions from it? What if that happens? Oh, that'd be amazing. And then that's the start of a case study we can then use for another client to empower them. So as a leader, I'm always asking questions. I'm not dictating what we're doing and this is that. I want to empower them to let's think differently. Let's do this. I want you guys to come up with something creative and come back to us and then ask questions

[00:38:29] rather than sort of saying, no, it's going to work because of this. Let's ask questions. And understand them why, and then educate them that way. Because again, all our staff need education. They need leadership. But leading through questions, I think is a really good thing. Yeah. It's, you know, the time that we live in, people's attention is the currency, right? And it's so hard to get. It's so hard to get. And then you see like really good campaigns, in my opinion, really good campaigns, like Equinox, like the beginning of the year, they always come up with something that's just fantastic, right?

[00:38:57] I'm like, I don't know if that makes sense, but I love it. I love that they're doing it. People are talking about it. It's spreading, right? It's just, it's really cool. And I think it's hard to take that risk that you're right. And when you kind of get into, I've always had this three-part questions that I ask myself when I'm about to confront something I call big, scary decisions, right? Number one, it's like, well, what's the worst thing that can happen? Right? I don't know. I mean, that's always the first question we can get into later. What's the worst thing that can happen? Usually it's like, like when I open my gym, what's the worst thing that can happen?

[00:39:25] Gosh, you know, I'm quitting my corporate gig. I have to maybe sleep at the gym for a while before it eventually folds. And then I go back to a company. Oh, that's not that bad. I wasn't married. I had nothing. If you've got a roof over your head, you've got this. People get paralyzed. Again, it all comes back to, as humans, we don't want to be judged by others. We fear that, oh, that's wrong. Or you fear that negative email or that negative comment. Negative comments and negative conversations. It's actually positive.

[00:39:56] Because without negativity, like one of the biggest things I see when people have, like you've got your Google reviews, oh, take that bad one now. No, leave it there. It shows that you're transparent and you're authentic. You're natural. No, you can, I think you've, crap, what business you've got, what restaurant you've got, what gym you've got. You never have 100% positive reviews. If you do, there's bad ones that have been removed. And the bad reviews are good because it tells us where we need to improve. As a human being, if I'm not doing what I'm doing, I tell my team, pull me up on it.

[00:40:25] Like the other day, we had a referral come through and our GM, Brad, I said, I'll jump on. He goes, why? You don't need to be on the sales call, Benji. Go away. He's off. They're like, oh, cool. He kept me in check. Yeah. I'm not taking offense to it, but we're so soft as a society. We're so soft as you. It's like, oh, I don't want anyone to say anything negative. That's when we grow the most. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I know, man. I've put a lot of content out there. Everyone's my own gem of a message. Like, just live your life.

[00:40:55] You know, get off the internet. So, well, to give us, you know, some insights, you know, we're kind of sitting at the beginning of 2025. That's a weird thing to say. To give people context. So what's the year look like for you? Like events you're going to be at, any predictions you have for the year, any big initiatives, anything that you see coming down the pipe? What do you think 2025 is going to be like for- 2025 is a year of growth for us and really exploiting Sudivic Grow into more, like leveraging more of the US market and really exploiting more into that. Like we want to go to the Athletic News event.

[00:41:25] There's one of those coming up in, I think it's October. We want to, we're still involved with Beyond Active. We want to start moving into more, more PR sort of publications, club solutions, really just starting to spread our net. AI is a huge focus this year. Like every single meeting that we have at all hands, the focus is everything's AI. Like we want to get that into our team so we're comfortable and confident. And we're going through our first round of funding at the moment. We should hear something back in the next two days, which is absolutely fantastic.

[00:41:52] And it's going to really help us accelerate the growth of the company internally. And obviously through our partnerships and acquisitions, which is going to be very, very interesting. Again, just provide the best possible service for the market. Partnerships, I keep going hard with that. It's a massive year of growth for us. Last year, I think it was a year of foundation, really getting a solid team. We've got an incredible culture and team now. Now it's let's go. Let's strap that rocket on and let's move. You mentioned partnerships. So it's just kind of the last question I usually ask here is like, what would you,

[00:42:22] how can we help you as an industry? Who would you like to hear from? You know, maybe it's from partnerships or anything else, obviously clients, but like, yeah, who would you like to hear from and how would you like them to reach out to? Anyone, anyone that's interested in what we're doing, anyone that feels that we can support them. Anyone that, yeah, he's like, it's not just one person. Like we're always open to conversations. And my look at it is we might have a partnership conversation with someone that might not be the right fit there, but let's continue the relationship. It might happen down the track, six months.

[00:42:50] So anyone that's in the industry that wants to reach out and have a chat, if they think we can support them, whether it's partnership, whether it's working with you guys, whatever it is, it's where I'm always open for a chat. Awesome. Awesome, man. Where would you like them to go? You can go to our Instagram. So there's super fit. My super fit is, my Instagram is super fit Benji. We've got super fit grow is our Instagram handle. And then you can go to our website, which is super fit grow. Right on, man. Well, Benji, thanks for spending your morning with me for my afternoon. It's been a pleasure.

[00:43:20] Hopefully you think there needs to be another one. Yeah. Yeah. You can do that. Yeah. I really enjoyed it, mate. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Benji Dunhart. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Fitness. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, CastBox, whatever it may be.

[00:43:50] Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media. Talk about it to your friends. Send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and we want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners.

[00:44:19] So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.