Building Your Adjunct Network - Ari Gronich

You're gonna build bigger, better, faster by being able to collaborate with people versus compete. And that goes the same with with our profession and other professions. Being able to not be, well, I do that too. You know, I do that too. I do that too. No. What's your passion? Knitture yourself into your passion and then find the adjunct people that can help support you doing that.

Hi Fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Maldon, and this is episode number 83. I get to talk to Ari Ronick. So Ari's just an all-around good dude, great guy, uh, veteran of the industry, he's a fitness educator. He has his own style of education. It's very holistic and it goes along with uh the diverse background that he has had leading up to this point. And here's the bottom line if you go through Ari's uh certification education process and do the practicals and all those things that are necessary, you will make more money. Yeah, you'll make more money and you'll have more fulfillment doing it. It's that simple. And uh some tidbits that he gives us in this uh conversation is how to build adjunct networks. So referral networks with chiropractors, um, PTs, orthos, very, very valuable networks that are the right way to build a business. We all know it. Facebook ads and lead generation is excellent, but the gold is in the referral network. So speaking of networks, I am so excited to talk about the fitness accelerator. Because I have interviewed over 300 people within the fitness profession in the last nine months. And if there's one thing that is uh very apparent to me uh when the mic is on and when the mic is off, is that many people, just like you and me, feel very isolated when working on their business. They feel alone, right? They don't know what to do next. They don't know who to go to for the answers that they need. Well, we are building that network. It is called the fitness accelerator. So go to fitnessprofessionalonline.com forward slash fit accelerator. You can get two weeks trial within this community, and uh, I'll see you there. So, our goal here, you guys, is to elevate the fitness profession with better networks. It's that simple, right? Look at other networks, look at other professionals, attorneys, um, dentists, uh, you name it. All these people have better networks, and we don't have it. Yeah, we have Facebook groups, right? I enjoy a good cat meme, just like you, a good argument over a status update, but that's not elevating the industry at all. This is. So go to fitnessprofessional online.com forward slash fit accelerator, be part of the movement, be part of our tribe. I would love to see you there. If you have any questions, you know where to find me. And with that, let's move on to episode number 83 with Ari Gronik. Enjoy the show. Ari Gronik, welcome to the show, man. Absolutely, thank you for having me. Yeah, we always have uh very interesting conversations, so I'm I'm glad to get one uh on the recording here. And uh yeah, let's let's start off with this, man. Um, obviously, you know, I've talked to you a few times. Um, you know, you have a very uh storied um, you know, background in health and fitness, and um, you know, it's brought you to the to the point of educator that you are now in your own unique way. Um tell us kind of how how you got there, you know, what what the background is that got you to where you're doing now.

Okay. So um, so I became a gymnast when I was three. I started going to gymnastics, uh, I started martial arts when I was five, and I started getting injuries right around that time. My dad was going to a chiropractor, and I was the kind of person who I was talking about philosophy and religion when I was five years old. So uh when when I was at the chiropractor, I I was asking questions. What are you doing? That's my daddy. Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? So I was I was constantly seeking um more information about what it was that they were doing in order to make my body feel better. Um fast forward a little bit, I started having some medical issues that we couldn't explain. And gaining weight. So uh I was an athlete, like all around athlete. I played baseball, tennis, long-distance cycling, uh, gymnastics, martial arts, etc. And I start gaining weight, and my joints start hurting, and I start cramping up all the time. And I'm I'm like seven, eight, nine, ten years old. I'm getting hot flashes in migraines. And by the time I was about 12 years old, um I wasn't going through puberty at all. And so they started treating me for that, so I had to be injected into puberty. So if you can imagine a 12-year-old kid having to have a horse needle, because testosterone is thick, right? Having to have this horse needle shoved in my you know, butt every week. You have to be nice to your dad because he's the one doing it. Yeah. And um, and none of that was working. So uh by the time I was 14, I had to have breast reduction surgery. By the time I was 17, mind you, my parents were uh in Amway, so I knew a little bit about nutrition and stuff from that. Uh, and then obviously going and doing martial arts and being an athlete, fitness was good. I I ate fairly good. It was before the mass chemical download on our culture, right? Before internet, before cell phones, all those things. So um, so I'm seeking answers for my own medical stuff because I'm feeling lethargic. I have chronic pain, and then back issues. And so I'm 17, I get my uh herbalist uh certificate, master herbalist. I start doing aromatherapy. I'm 18 years old, I graduate high school, my parents take us on a whitewater river, whitewater uh rafting trip, and I get sunstroke. I'm on a homeopathic remedy that I have an allergic reaction to, and I end up dead for 26 minutes. That was a long short story, right?

Wow, man. God, so yeah, that's that's a uh that'll build some character as you're growing up. You're gonna have to uh so um I think we're about the same age, right? I'm 41. How old are you? Yeah, I'm I'm a couple, I'm 42. Okay, yeah. So we yeah, that we're in that same age bracket of like um before internet, um, probably both victims of the no fat long uh non-fat craze. Oh yeah, big time. Yeah. Um really interesting. So, you know, how did you so let's say like the last 10 years, how how has this evolved? Because you did you get it, did you start training people? Did you get into how like how does that story even like continue? Continue.

All right. So so um at so I wake up in the hospital a couple days later and I like hop out of bed, no um no memory of like any lights or tunnels or any of that stuff, you know, nothing like that. And I just stood up and I said, I think I need to go be a healer. And so the first step was I sent letters to like 26 schools. I got letters back, I picked one, I opened one, and I went to that school. It was just like that was where I was supposed to be. Nice. And um, by my third month at the school, I ran the entire clinic. Um, I had started one of the first corporate wellness programs in the country with Nike, Intel, and Tektronics, because they were in our backyard of where my school was in Oregon. And so I went there and I said, Hey, we need you to come to our clinic. And they said, We can't spare our people that long. I said, Okay, well, our clinic will come to you. And by my fifth month, I was working as an intern with this pro sports team. So um it seemed to be the right school. My teacher didn't know how to own a school, but she she was in the industry over 40 years, and so she knew everyone, and she was connected in the community in a way that um, as you and I have talked about partnerships and collaboration, she she just that was her nature, and so she had experts from all over the world come in and teach us intensive work on specific subjects, so we didn't get like just generalized knowledge, we did that too, but we had drilling into a specific um modalities, like we had a chiropractic instructor come out from Logan and one from Palmer and do straight chiropractic training. Uh, we had somebody come out uh from Russia, actually Russian sports therapy, and teach us her version, her family's version of that. So it was just amazing the kind of education I got, even though I didn't go the route of college like most would have. But I was good enough and willing to learn enough and put myself in the right space to be able to learn so many different modalities in the field that um that how I pieced them together was interesting and different. And so I was able to discuss woo-woo things like energy work and lay on of the hands healing with an engineer from a major tech company and why it is that this is working on his body in a way that he could go, oh, I can I can get that, right? Yeah, because it's all just electricity anyway. So that was kind of how that started. So, fast forward, uh, most of my career has been spent with Olympic, Paralympic, and pro athletes helping them go from injuries to gold medals. And so I've developed, as you said, the the educational program to teach the fitness industry the all the way through the chiropractors and DOs, right? They all have pieces missing. They have their generalized study and then their specific study, but they miss what a chiropractor does, and they miss what a PT does, and they miss what a massage therapist does, or a you know, a personal trainer does. And because they miss those aspects, they get poor results overall, generalized in the industry. The results are not even close to the possibility. And until we learn how to either teach ourselves all of those techniques together, which is my end game goal, is I'd like to create the next version of therapy where it's integrated, where somebody who's learning about exercise is also learning about hormone balance, is also learning about joint integrity, is also learning, you know, all those things, right? Yeah. So I'd like to see that become the norm in our industry because look, fitness professionals, there's people working at the local hospital in the gym, and they're making 18 bucks an hour, and that to me is sick. It's a shame. These $18 an hour, you're helping somebody's heart conditions, diabetes conditions. I mean, we're helping medically our community, and we're being treated, you know, the and the industry in general has this look, right? And it's our fault. So this is the future of fitness podcasts, right? So I want to make sure that I honor that and say it's our fault, and we need to change it in the future because our society is not a bunch of healthy people trying to shape themselves, which is how our industry got started. We're a bunch of sick folks who have injuries, who have all kinds of ailments, and we need to be able in the fitness industry work with the doctors, work with the therapists, work with everybody in a way that's congruent and integrative so we can get better results. And that's gonna elevate the monetary compensation we get as well. Yeah.

And the value I think uh maybe it was even you, or it was just a recent conversation where uh the average fitness professional makes 32,000 a year, right? Yeah and in most in most urban areas that's poverty level, right? And uh, but it's such it's it's such an important, it can be, and you're right. It is, I we we have to take it upon ourselves. It's our responsibility for where we end up, right? Um but it's such an important part. So, you know, when I hear healer, right? Um you know, that's that can be a very broad term. And I'm I think, you know, what what is your what's your personal like definition of healer? Like what what does that look like?

Well, at one level or another, we all do some kind of healing work, whether it's smiling at somebody on the street that you know heals their day. Um and I have a story of a friend of mine about that who saves somebody from suicide with a simple smile and a hello. Uh, somebody who felt invisible was on their way, you know, so that could be healing. A professional healer, somebody who's getting paid for that, they have an intention to be the conduit for somebody else's healing, in my opinion, right? So um rather than it's me being a healer on you or for you or to you, I'm just kind of like the vessel, so to speak, or the conduit for that kind of work. Now, when I talk about like healing and explaining it scientifically, I can give you an example of that, which you know, I'll just lay on the hands, goes back centuries, right? Well, what we found scientifically is that the palms of our hands and our feet produce a lot of infrared heat, far infrared heat. Far infrared heat, we know penetrates two to three inches into the body. So if you're penetrating two to three inches into the body, causing a heat response, that triggers an immune reaction in the body, which triggers your brain to send signals down and say, hey, go take a look at this place. We've got to send some healing, you know, chemistry to that area. That's an explanation of energy work in a pretty scientific way that can't be really refuted because we can watch it on a heat map, that happening in the system. So we're affecting the nervous system in a way we know that touch affects the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system to calm down cortisol levels to ease somebody's um, you know, trigger of anxiety and stuff like that, and there's ways to do that. So, as a professional, it's using all the skills necessary and then becoming really present with the person in front of you so that your ego goes away, and the only thing in front of you is the person and their need, right? That to me is the ultimate form of being a healer, is when you don't care anymore about your techniques, you already got that covered. It's whatever is that person's need in the moment is what they get because you're already skill covered.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting now. Yeah, that's and that's a lot of a lot of fitness professionals don't know what healing of the, you know, laying of the hands, things like that. I've I've been fortunate to have some people um in my life who did some of that work for me, and I was like, wow, wow. Just wow. Um so we talked about this before, and this is just kind of a good um place to start. You know, I uh just a few days ago, so today, let's say July 24th, 25th, people want to go check it out um on social media. I asked a question of, you know, what will it take for the fitness profession to be considered, you know, um up there with you know professions like attorneys, um, you know, doctors or you know, maybe doctors is a little far-fetched for now, but let's just say like physical therapists, right? Even what's that gonna take? So I'm gonna ask this question to you in two parts. Number one, because we've kind of been teasing out, but let's really clearly get it out there. What is the problem? Right? What is the problem? And then let's talk about what your solution is.

Okay. The first part of the problem is that we injure a lot of people. So it's hard to be part of the solution when our knowledge base is not up to par in order to stop the injuries from happening. So uh to be considered a health industry, we can't cause more harm necessarily. Now, mind you, doctors, prescription, you know, all those things don't really fall in that anymore because they already had their credibility before that started to happen. Right. And so their credibility kind of lasted through. But as a fitness professional, we're a young profession. You know, a hundred years ago, the gym was out on the farm, hooks and hay. You know, there was no need for a physical gym situation and trainers to do that because we led an active lifestyle to begin with. And so it's a new profession. It's trying to find itself. It started out as a shaping profession. So, how do we shape ourselves to look the best we can look? The most symmetrical, largest, you know, I mean, all that stuff. It was all about shaping. Then it became about weight loss, and that was all it was about. It wasn't about health, it's still hardly about health. Some of us guys that are old timers that have watched the industry, you know, evolve, have said, okay, this is not working for us, right? This isn't what we intended. And so now we have to kind of go back and say, okay, this is where we started. This was our evolution. Awesome. But now what? And as I've said to you, we need to increase the skill set. Now, I'm not talking about like I heard when we asked the qu when you asked the question online, there was a lot about regulatory bodies. Yes. I don't care about regulatory bodies at all. Zero zilchinata. In fact, in my opinion, they become turtles, have no neuroplasticity at all, and have no ability to shift and change with new information, right? Right. So I'm not talking about forced regulation and boards and things like that. I'm talking about the people who are teaching, who choose to teach, whether it be ACE, whether it be NASM, whether it be NCCPT, doesn't matter. I don't care. Nesta, all of them, right? They can teach the information online all they want. They got to start getting hands-on classes in front with people touching people and in front of people, because otherwise, it's a failed system. You can't learn how to work with somebody unless you're working with people. And so the online courses are great for head knowledge, they're crappy for what to do with the person who's in front of you, for getting that hands-on experience. And so we need to build more hands-on training into what we're what we're doing. Um, as a fitness profession, most of the assessments are visual assessments. As you and I have talked about, eyes are your biggest liars. We only see about 5% of or perceive 5% of what's in front of our eyes. So they lie to us all the time. And if somebody's hip looks twisted and out, and you start training them for that, but really their opposite ankle is injured and they're compensating, you're gonna train an imbalance, and then you're gonna cause an injury, right? So we've got to get hands-on, we've got to start teaching musculature, injuries, you know, how to assess for injury versus a weakness or an imbalance. All those kinds of things have to be standard in what we choose to educate people in. So that's part of our role as the leadership in the community. We've we've both been in the business a long time. And so it's incumbent upon us to have seen what isn't working and say, okay, what that was cool. We tried that, it didn't work, let's try this instead. You know, if every CrossFit gym had people trained by me in them, they would have none of the injuries or lawsuits that they have. They're a great training ground for functional body movement, but they have no idea how to keep you from getting injured. Right? We've got to shift that and change that and make it standard practice to prevent injuries versus just train for an action. Yeah. So I know I'm I'm on a soapbox a little bit, so I apologize for that. It's great. It's great.

You know, I um so the gym I owned and operated was a CrossFit affiliate at its heart. You know, although we did do a lot more, and we we really started. Started to evolve. Um, and I know Danny is continuing to evolve it after um, you know, now that I'm I'm not there, but it's um, you know, I had this this I loved CrossFit as a sport. That's why I got into it. You know, I was an athlete. And I think uh, and not to blame you know anything on CrossFit because I know they already have enough blame on their shoulders for a lot of things from from the fitness and health industry overall. Um, but I you know, I was there uh during the ground, you know, some of the the more uh formative years of it. And um, you know, the thing that really just I I that kept me up at night was like, you know, a lot of people are coming in, they want this, right? Like people want, they wanted to like, dude, beat me up, train me hard, get me PRs, like all these things, but just having this conscious every night, like, you know, oh god, but that, you know, the way that that hip is rotating right now is bad news. You know, it's a time it's a taking time bomb. And uh so you try to correct it, but people don't care. They're like, no, I just want to do 50 more wall balls, right? So it's like this, you know, and uh and then they go and they blame and then the chiropractors are the chiropractors love to crossfit, right? Because like, oh, they just give me a steady flow of clients, right? So there's always like this, there's this weird like relationship amongst um, you know, the what I will call the medical profession and then the fitness profession. Um, and it's a very, very disjointed, extremely disjointed, right? Um, in fact, sometimes even worse, it's just uh opposing.

Adversarial, yeah. It's very adversarial. Yeah. And what what I always say in class is if you can learn how to turn them into your clients, then you'll have the best referral source for your business for life. And the best way to do that is to know their language, to know how they speak, to be able to say, hey, you know, you're a diabetes doctor. I have skills in training people with diabetes to help reverse it, if not balance and manage it, right? Right. So that is a skill set that can earn you instead of 18, 30, 60 bucks an hour, $150, $200 an hour, right? Right. That alone is worth the price of admission, so to speak, of getting new skills. Yeah. You know, I I talked to you before, like lead generation experts are awesome because they help the industry get get out there. But my question is, do they deserve the leads that they're getting? Do those fitness people, health people, trainers, therapists, do they deserve the business they're getting? Are they the best per people for that job? Are their skills up to par with having the blessing of those people coming to them for their health? Yeah. Yeah. Because it's one thing to get somebody a lot of business, but another thing for them to keep it, another thing for them to know how to, you know, leverage it, and another thing for them to actually deserve it.

Yeah. And I think the free markets will hopefully kind of sort that out, although they failed in some situations I've seen. So, so all right, so you know, we've we've kind of established some semblance of what the problem is, you know. Uh I mean, Louie, we could get 10 different fitness professionals and health professionals on this call and we could argue about it for days. Oh, absolutely. We saw that from that from that social media post. So what what is your what is your uh version of the answer? Because I know you're actively doing it uh versus just theoretically talking about it. So that's a big deal, right? A lot of people just talk, but you're actually out there doing what you believe is is the right solution. So give us give us your interpretation and how you're doing that.

So I've developed a class that I can teach from trainers to DOs, and every single person in between, if they're touching a body, manual therapist, kinesiologist, doesn't matter. If they're touching a body and watching the movement of a body, they will learn something about how they can do their job better, and they'll learn about how they can develop more power partners to get better results for their clients, period. But I go I go a little bit beyond that because I want their businesses to succeed and thrive too. So I teach them about business principles and partnerships and collaboration and things like that. Uh, so they get the business side as well as the skill set side. And um, as and as you know, I've talked about this before. Um, you know, I want to develop a community of leaders that have that kind of level of training and thought, philosophy. Doesn't have to be the same as mine, as long as they have it well established in their mind. And I'd like to sit around a fire in a circle and go, hey, how do you want this to look in the next 20, 30, 50, 100 years? How do we want this field to develop? And let's sit and create it, let's mastermind it, let's plan it out, put an action plan to it, and then do it together because there's more people on this planet than we could ever touch, or or you know, there's no need for competition, no need for crushing it, no need for killing it, you know. Let's let's collaborate with it, let's make it live, and let's do that together. So that's a really big passion of mine. Um, and then, you know, I I I like to live an extraordinary life. So um, for those people who like to go further with me, I like to take them out into a retreat kind of setting, 10 days on an island somewhere, and drill programs, drill situations, drill real life cases into people for hours and hours and hours at a time, and and then party and let it go. And so that it becomes part of their cellular memory. So the minute that they go home, they're like, you know, I love that. When I watch them, they and then they call me and go, I just had a client who hasn't been able to walk in this long without pain, and now they're out of pain, and we just hiked up them out. I love that.

Yeah, yeah, that's the best. That is the best. Um so well, let's let's get into kind of the granular aspects of it. You know, when when you go and is it like a is it a course? Is it um is it, you know, how how yeah, how is it, how do you how do you get that in there? How do you how do you work with people besides obviously that that 10 days sounds amazing, by the way?

So so it starts out with a two-day, really simple two days. Uh it's 18 hours, it's uh 16 of those are CEUs, an hour a day of a of a lunch break, and the rest is go time. So we literally I break down your body and mind by doing this as an intensive so that I can get stuff in. The entire day is a combination of lecture and hands-on. So what I'm saying, you're feeling in your body, and then doing on another body. So um it's a really cellular memory that you get it into. Um, everybody who's left has walked kind of jacked, but we go through things like assessment protocols and from every field from personal training to massage to uh functional medicine and x-rays, MRIs, right? And then we go through upper and lower bodies exercises that are uh prevention of injury, rehabilitation from injury, and then training for competition. So, how do you go from an injury to competition style training and as fast as possible? So I go through that kind of level. Next day we get into program design and development. So, how do you take somebody with diabetes and thyroid conditions and um they're you know 100 pounds overweight, they want to uh go walk a 5k and their knees can't move. You know, like how do you do that? And how do you program that? And they're coming in and you're saying, Oh, well, let's start with 10 sessions. Here, pay in advance for 10 sessions, and we'll see what happens, right? That's kind of the industry standard.

Oh, yeah.

I I like it better when it's all right, so you want this. What's your lifestyle like? Well, you know, you start asking a list of questions. Who's your support system? Are they on board with you? Are they gonna be of of support and help, or are they gonna be a hindrance? And you get all of what's going on in somebody's life, and you say, okay, are are is their goal realistic? Can we accomplish that? If so, who do we need and who do we need that has a skill set that I don't have? And then what can I do to program that in? Now, you could sell a package like that for a lot more money than you can sell 10 sessions for you know what? For no program that's just an experiment. You can sell that. You can sell that as a package, you can have partnerships with doctors, with other people to do that for them. It's a business skill set, right? The more you know in those kind of ways, the more you can make. So when you have somebody who can do that, so that's what we do program design development, how do you take that person from where they're at to their goal that they need to get to and do it 100% of the time? So I go through that, then I go through mindset. So I'm seeding mindset the whole time, but at the very end, I go through your mindset as a business owner and what it is that you're doing and why, and then your patient's mindset and what it is, what is it that they need to be able to go from a hair of hope left after everybody else hasn't worked out, to faith that you can help them and they can do it, that that it's possible for them, because that's the biggest hurdle of them all.

Yeah.

Having somebody know that you're the perfect person to get them to the result that they want.

Yeah, yeah. That's that's the sale point, right? So you you and I had talked in the past about building an adjunct net network, right? Um what are some actionable items? You know, if I'm you know, if I'm uh a fitness professional, I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking, God, you know, I really like to start partnering with people who who will cover things out of my scope of practice, which for most fitness professionals basically everything, right? Outside of uh bicep curls and squats. So, you know, if they want to start working with physios, they want to start working with kairos, they want to start working with pain specialists. How do you start what are the actual steps that people do to start building those adjunct networks?

Uh, first of all, learn a little bit about how they speak, about their language. Go online if you need to, take a class like mine, doesn't matter. Learn how, what language that they use, because each profession has a different set of language that they speak, right? So now that you know their language, you can go and have a conversation with them. Hey, I'm a trainer, I'm a fitness professional, I'm an exercise specialist, I'm a whatever it is, and um I specialize in working with people with diabetes. And this is how I work with how I work well with with diabetes doctors. And then you can, you know, literally you just go up to them and say, hey, this is what I can do for your patients. What I'd like to do is show you with one or two of your patients, see if it if we're a fit, you know, or you can even say what I've done is I'd like to work on you. So I'll give you, I was when I was in Los Angeles, I had about a hundred chiropractors that I worked on. And I'm not a chiropractor, but I'm adjusting all these chiropractors. And I I just said, you know, let me work on you and let's see if if we're a match, because I need work on me. And I and I was testing them. I was testing their skill set. I was testing if they're able to work on my body, how they work on it. So I'm interviewing them. It's one of the things that people don't do enough. They don't interview their doctor, they don't interview their trainer, they don't interview the professional they see. They let them interview and tell them stuff instead of asking questions. Yeah. Good idea to learn from those people. So I went and I learned. I learned what they did, I learned their different techniques. What's the difference between network and gestalt and you know Palmer and Logan and all that stuff? I learned it. And then when I go and talk to them, I can have the conversation. Hey, I can help your people. This is what I'm looking at. Can we do some cross-marketing? Can we do a movie night? This is one of my favorite things. Movie night with other people and other professions. You watch a movie about health and fitness, and then you create a panel discussion. So they bring in their patients, you bring in your clients and stuff, everybody's together. Now you're on a panel together, right? And you're having a discussion as equals. Yeah. That elevates the field, right alone, just in the eyes. You're next, you're a fitness professional next to a doctor, next to a nutritionist, next to whatever. And you have a discussion about what you just saw. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So those are those are actionable ways.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. That's a that's a great idea. I would I would have done that in a heartbeat, you know. Uh we had movie nights, third Thursday talks, all kinds of things. And um, you know, I always invited uh we had a series every third Thursday in the month. We would have a talk at the gym and always try to get someone out, um, you know, whether it be a local chiropractor or a physio, and just talk about a specific thing. And that was always a great way to build a relationship. And I mean, anytime you can highlight somebody as as the professional they are, you know, people just they they like that. Let's just keep it that simple. They like that, and that's a good way to start.

You know, absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's funny, I I was watching uh Tom Bileau, I I told you I watched Impact Theory a lot and I was watching an interview he did with um Pedros. And Pedros said something, most of what he says I I like and I agree with many uh much of it, but in this case, he he said, if if a gym opens across the street from mine, I have to do everything I can to be better than them. I have to do my social media better, I have to do this better, I have to do this better. And to me, that's an old-fashioned way of thinking. When we are in the future, right? You can have a fitness gym on every corner, just not going to be able to serve enough population. So the difference is going over to that person and saying, Hey man, welcome to the neighborhood. How can I make you more successful here? What can I do to support you? Can I help you with your grand opening? You know, like, and you start bringing them in with you. Guess what you could do? Cross-market, cross, you know, cross-promote. You can have huge events with both facilities and you know, more. And guess what? The people who are gonna be magnetized to you are gonna be magnetized to you. The people magnetized to them are gonna be magnetized to them, but you're gonna build bigger, better, faster by being able to collaborate with people versus compete. And that goes the same with with our profession and other professions, being able to not be, well, I do that too. Or, you know, I do that too, I do that too. No. What's your passion? Knit yourself into your passion, and then find the adjunct people that can help support you doing that. And I think you're gonna be a pretty successful person in general, in your own heart and mind, as well as in your pocketbook. Yeah, yeah.

And there's two, you know, very, very common threads that that come through. I mean, you know, whatever 250 to 300 interviews I've done so far is like number one, scarcity mindset is rampant within the fitness industry, right? Everybody thinks there's not enough. There is so many clients out there, right? And number two is people are scared to niche down. They're like, well, who do you deal with? Who do you work with? Anybody between 18 and 80. No, it's not gonna, it's not gonna cut it long term. You know, you really have to get specific. And then once you you think you're specific, get even more specific, right? Uh working with a gentleman now to really niche down his gym, and he's like, you know, I want to work with, you know, the empty nesters, women over 55, right? I'm like, okay, great. I think it's awesome. It's a beautiful market, you know, very loyal, great people, under service. So let's take it even more, you know. So we're working on that next. And what if it's like empty nesters who are type two diabetic? Now you have something. Now you are the obvious choice, right? And you've eliminated all competition in your market, quote unquote competition, but you've also opened the door to a ton of collaboration, right?

And uh yeah, absolutely. My my wife used to um have a company called Conscious Living Partnership, and it was kind of like a holistic chamber of commerce. Uh, she had moved it into 18 states. It was a great company before she got sick. But one of the things she did is, you know, like B and I, it's like only one of any profession. And she had five hypnotherapists come to one of her meetings, and they were a little bit distraught, like so many of us. And um, she ended up saying to them, Well, what do you like best about what you do? And one person said, Well, I like doing weight loss, another person, well, I like doing smoking cessation, another person, I like doing past life regression, you know. Something so they ended up figuring that they all liked and were passionate about different parts of hypnotherapy. And instead of trying to get all kinds of generalized people for hypnotherapy, they started marketing together, promoting each other. So it was they pooled five people's marketing budget into one need, right? Saving them a fifth each of their marketing budget, and then they promoted, oh, you want smoking cessation? Okay, you got to go to this person, and you want this, okay. That's for me, right? They all made tons more money and had more fun. Yeah. Yeah.

That's great, man. It's great. So let's uh I want to stop because that that's the thought I want people to end with right there. It's just that that very positive, collaborative um effort, because I think that one thought, that mindset will completely transform the uh the fitness profession if it starts to gain more ground than it loses, you know, essentially. So uh where do people where do people find out more about your courses and your education?

All right, you could find me on Facebook, uh, Twitter at Perfor or LinkedIn at Performance Therapist uh Academy or Ari Gronich uh on all of those. Website is Performance Therapy Academy.com if uh if interested in that. Um and one of the ways I love to collaborate is uh host locations. If if you have a group of people that that are under your purview of trainers, I'll come in and work to up level your whole gym for you and we can collaborate. It'll be an extra revenue stream, etc. etc. All kinds of fun that way. So that's how they could find me. And I make a great resource for for people. So I just want to offer to anybody who listens that's that's on your list. I love helping people. I'm willing to offer, you know, a 15, 20-minute strategy session with anybody. Uh, the last person I did that with in five minutes, I gave her two ideas that put 2,500 bucks in her bank in the next day. So, you know, amazing what 10 minutes can do. Yeah, right on, man. I love it.

All right, thanks for coming on the show, man. It's always a pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Ari Gronich. Hey Fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or Fitness Marketing Alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge, that's a big deal for us. And when we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness MarketingAlliance.com