Cody Hunter -Online Coaching for Business Executives

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 31. So I have the absolute pleasure of talking to Cody Hunter. So Cody's story is a really, really good one. He was a professional rugby player from New Zealand. He actually had to stop because he got his face smashed in. Rugby players, man, different breed. Then he talks about his business of building and launching CrossFit in Korea. So he partnered with Reebok, and this thing just exploded, right? He was up to 450 members, which is just an astronomical amount of members, and how it actually grew too fast, and how that uh how that situation played out and what that was like to be in a place where most of us think we want to be, but sometimes we find that we don't. After that, he pulled out. He decided that uh that wasn't for him anymore. And he faced an 18-month non-compete clause. During that time, he found some really valuable time to look at things, see what he wanted to do with his life, find out different ways to make money, and now he's growing his online coaching business, which is really exciting. He's very, very focused on his avatar, which is executives. And I think he's gonna do great things in 2018. Uh, he's really kind of embodies what the future of fitness can look like and the remote revolution that we're facing now. And uh it's super exciting, and I hope you really enjoy it. Great all-around guy. Without further ado, this is episode number 31 with Cody Hunter. Everybody, welcome back. Eric Malzone with the Future Fitness Podcast, and today I have a foreign guest. I have Cody Hunter of Hunter Lab Coaching. And uh man, welcome. I know we have a lot to talk about. Welcome on the show. Thank you, Eric. Good to be here. Really appreciate it. So I know a little bit about you. You and I, you and I have had a couple conversations, but um right now you are where?

As of this. So right now I'm based in uh Seoul, South Korea, which I've actually been here for now for uh about 12 years, but I've been only really working in the fitness industry in Korea for the last like 10, sorry, I would say seven to ten years. So um, yeah, Seoul, South Korea. It's it's a great place. Cool.

Yeah, I'm I'm I would love to check that place out. Tell tell the people who are listening how you got there. How how was your journey there?

Yeah, it was a strange journey. I mean, I had no desire to go to Korea at all. And uh when I came here in 2005, I was a rugby player or a struggling rugby player with major injuries. You know, I had you know I caved my face in one year where I had to get my whole skull reconstructed. And then the following year I had four knee surgeries, like to remove cartilage from everywhere and put it back together. Um, by the end of that year, I got a job, I was working in a gym, and uh I, you know, it was just not what it wasn't really working out. So I um I just read the morning newspaper with a cup of coffee, and there was a small classified article that said, you know, teach in Korea. So I thought, why not travel, make some money, rehab my injuries so I can come back a year later and be you know fitter, stronger, and faster. And so that was that was what got me here. Two weeks later, I was living in Korea in a small country, uh a small city teaching uh English to kindergarten kids, to five-year-old kids in second language. Yeah, it was madness.

So you can tell me, so what what are the big differences culturally that you've noticed being in Korea? I mean, is there anything that that sticks out?

Uh at the start, like 10 years ago, it was crazy. There was lots of stuff going on. Depends where you lived as well. I mean, I have a couple of tattoos, so if you had a tattoo showing, people would get really offended by it, think you're some kind of gangster. Um, you'd get lots of staring at you, you'd get uh, you know, but but all to be honest, my whole experience here has been extremely positive. And I mean, it sort of comes down to you get what you give. And I think a lot of people I know in this area that moves into a career sort of give out this vibe of like uh like uh no, not not enjoying themselves or or they want to leave or they're trapped here, and they have this big so they give out this really negative vibe where then if someone looks at you a strange way, you don't ignore it, you take it on as an attack, and then it's this big sort of, you know, let's get going and let's argue and let's be you know aggressive. So it's really funny. I mean, I've been here for 12 years and it's been nothing but positive, it's an extremely safe country. Um, I mean, people probably have looked at me sideways, but I don't honestly see it. I don't care.

Uh and you're telling me too that you so you've had an interesting experience. I mean, um, you know, I consider myself I was kind of an early adopter with CrossFit back in 2008. Um But you you got to see really like a like really what that early adoption phase looks like in Korea, right? You're right there at the ground level. Tell about tell people about how you got into that and what that experience was like launching it there, and and your experience with Reebok and all that really cool story.

Man, I mean it's been such it's such fond memories, right? Like we were extremely lucky. I I was in a position where I had built up my own brand and my own business that was a small boot camp studio. Um, and I built it up to have like a hundred like really dedicated members that I could only fit 96 people in the day, and I'd have four on the waiting list every day waiting for me to call them to come into class. So I was like, it was a time where Korea had never seen anything like that. And then when Reebok jumped on board and CrossFit, uh, you know, Korea was one of their main targets to make it really thrive. So at the time when I um was approached by Reebok to to work with them and start opening some gyms, I had um, so there were like maybe two other CrossFit boxes here, uh, and no one really knew what it was, what was going on. So in 2012, February, I opened my first box here um with full support from Reebok that really looked after us and they gave us you know great sponsorship and helped us market, and we did all our events. We're actually the second Reebok CrossFit gym that opened. We were the second one in Korea. There were two gyms. One was a regular CrossFit box, the other one was opened by Reebok personally, the other one was my box uh that was sponsored by Reebok. Um, and so it was the 2012 CrossFit Open that started about the week after we had opened. Uh we had zero CrossFit members because they were all boot campers from my old gym transferring over to this new facility that at the time was unbelievable how massive it was. It was actually quite small compared to US standards. This place was like the shower room, maybe. But um, it was it was uh, you know, we could fit you know 15 people on the floor in any class. And anyway, it was it went like wildfire. And that CrossFit open, we invited the other boxes to compete at our box, and it was the most amazing time. At the exact same time, I had a baby, so my wife was my wife gave birth in like I think it was like 12.2 maybe during that week. So I went from the hospital to the box, did the workout, and and got in the community, then went back to the hospital to spend time with my wife and son. Um, but the it just took off like wildfire, and within three months, I had 450 members in that gym. It was on fire. No one knew what CrossFit really was, but when they saw that community and that energy and that uh it was unbelievable. And and in in hindsight, we grew way too fast and we lost a stack of members as well. Like it just went up and went wha-bang, and we probably crushed out you know a big burn rate in the first like uh you know, three, four months after that, just because we couldn't, it was just too much, too many people. The capacity was overbooked, it was crazy. Um, and it sort of tapered after that, but CrossFit after that grew from roughly three affiliates in Korea to you know around 200 over the next like three to four years. It just went boom and blew up, and it was uh all over TV and variety shows were using it. It was it was massive.

Wow.

So I my question is, you know, when um you know, if I was on ramping someone to a CrossFit gym, you know, I'd always be asking questions like, you know, what's your athletic background? Things like that. What was that process like in Cree? Was it different? Was it were there more varied athletic backgrounds, or was there no background athletic backgrounds at all? Or how did you how did that that client differ from other other markets?

Yeah, great, great question. And that's a really interesting point, even compared to these days, where CrossFit is definitely there's more of a competitive feel to it, so that it's more of like an athlete, almost a specific sport, right? Not really GPP anymore. It's like athletes are there to work out. But back then, it was housewives and businessmen. It was just regular people who had never worked out in their lives, some of them. So um the on-ramp was obviously an extremely uh important part of us. We we I was because of Reebok, I got connections to Austin Malialo with Reebok CrossFit One, and he helped me set a lot of things up, helped me with my on-ramp, helped me give me great advice, and he's one of my you know, one of my mentors, he's a superstar. And um, but so we we took things, we started things very smoothly like that. We made sure we we stuck with you know basic mechanics and and fundamentals before we processed, you know, before we progressed onto things. Um, coming from a boot camp background that I did, I had my level one, but my gym, I in my first gym, I couldn't do CrossFit WADs because it was on a second floor of a bar and I couldn't make noise and it was like vibrating, it was crazy. So we did we did wads, but I hadn't really worked on any any major skill work in terms of our barbell or even kettlebells, etc. Um, so we started really simple, and our programming was super simple, and we just followed along and tore people up really well. Um, it was uh it was but the thing was it was very much low, low skill level, very low athletic athletic level. Um and we had to take our time for sure. It was it was quite it was challenging, but very cool.

What other um was there any other I guess competition with within in Korea? Like was there, you know, I'm obviously I'm looking at like nowadays, like was there an orange theory type thing?

Was there you know, other boot camps, or how how was the competition in Korea when you're yeah, it was nothing like the big globo gym scene here was so massive for so many years, but they all used to go bankrupt. So they were extremely, you know, the model is totally flawed and more probably more so here than anywhere in the world. But you'd turn up to a gym and the next day the doors would be locked and you'd just be what it's just shut down the very next day. We're talking like huge three three-floor complexes that you would never think were shut down. Um so that was actually really challenging. People didn't want to join the gyms because they were really everyone had real fear about those that that happening here. It happened so often. Um, the only competition was those rough Globo Gym sort of places. Uh, I was the only person that did boot camps in the whole country. I I started that sort of era here, the group fitness sort of boot camp thing. Les Mills started coming in. There's there's group classes and spin and that kind of stuff. Uh, but again, it wasn't taking off, and it still hasn't really taken off actually over here. Um, but group fitness and Koreans thought they didn't want to work out together, they didn't like to see each other sweat or not look good, like they're very conscious of their appearance. They look, I mean, always look great, right? It's amazing. It's like always very clean and tidy. I'm not even kidding. You know, so our cultures had their game set out for us. We had to sort of spruce ourselves up a little bit. But um, so in a group environment, getting, you know, watching each other sweat, they were like, we're really into that. But once they realized the community aspect of it, they it just took off. They love it. They're such a community-based um culture where you know they love to welcome in new people. And afterwards, they'll head off to, you know, whether it's at night, they'll go to bars and have fried chicken and drink beer together, they'll all wear the same clothing that they purchased because they want to be part of a group. They are that's why this was such a, I think, targeted place for Reebok to go to because that's their kind of culture. Very, very locked into trends, but again, just like all trends and all crazes, they it can go around in circles and then hit you back in the ass later. But um, early, early on, they were big time Reebok fans, big time CrossFit fans. Uh, yeah, it was really exciting time.

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun, man. I mean, anytime you you hear of growth, well, a couple things. When I hear you know, 340 members, I think, holy shit, that's amazing. Then I also get really anxious. Yeah, exactly. Me too. It's how many people. Uh, that's crazy. So it's that's cool, that's interesting. So tell me what's what's the transition been with for you in the last few years? I know you you start working on some different things. What are you up to now?

Yeah, so um, I mean, I built this company up and I started off with two partners, and the further it grew, we grew from one box to six boxes throughout Korea extremely fast. Um, so we had to bring in a lot of money, we had to bring in a lot of uh, you know, investment, a lot of new shareholders came into the company. Um, you know, I was I I sort of just ended up taking the backseat and just slowly moving smaller and smaller ownership and power to what was going on. So um, you know, at by the end of it, it was six boxes, it was very much going in a corporate uh direction and not just the company because that was the growth of it, but the actual boxes turned out to be like corporate real estate where the the rent fees were a hundred grand a month kind of thing, like getting upwards of a hundred grand a month, maybe after the first two or three years, um, where your membership base had to be 600 members, and uh that was kind of like your base. And uh anyway, it sort of grew to a point where um the direction of what everyone wanted wasn't what I wanted. I just started not enjoying it actually. So after two years of CEO, uh I stood down and sort of took a year back to go straight back to grassroots. So I was doing group coaching again, I was just sort of coming back into the boxes because no one knew who I was. I I basically worked my way out of my business to be a point where I was just uh at that time I thought that was wise. You know, I shouldn't be the person, I need to make sure the business is thriving, not me. I need to so I put myself back and really shut my brand down. Um, which which hurt me. I should, you know, that was in hindsight not a good idea. But um, you know, so I left after two years. I spent a year finding my place. Do I want to stay here? Do I want to leave? Uh, and by the end of a year of just doing what I needed to do, I just I just jumped off the cliff and said, Look, I'm out of here. I'm gonna I I'm I'm done, guys. I'm gonna leave the company um completely and I'll I'll take on this you know, 18-month non-compete you're you're gonna issue me strict, a strict issue of my non-compete. So um, but it was the best decision I ever made. Like straight away the stress had disappeared. The the you know, I was just free again where I where I thought I could do whatever I wanted. So I spent 18 months unable to open a gym or work in a CrossFit box uh at all for those for that time. So that hurt. I had people lining up to open businesses with me. They're like, let's do this. I'm like, look, I I'm my hands are tied. So I went into uh selling equipment, selling protein, uh personal training outside because I couldn't do it in the gym, but I was allowed to do it outside. Um, what else did I do? Consulting for a couple of gyms. Uh, I did almost whatever I could to make money, I had to support my family. Um, and then at one point I just got creative and I thought, look, this you know, grassroots level for uh corporations are becoming really popular where, you know, so we can build some community and get some brand activation. So I made a proposal to Rebok to build a actually it was called a Spartan training camp at that point. I was like for Spartan race. Uh I said, look, I'll coach people every weekend for free. You guys can contract me and I'll help build your brand and build a really tight following of the loyal tribe members so they can, you know, obviously do our races and do everything. Um so I was given the challenge. You've got a year to prove it to us that you can do it. Uh, but we don't want it to be Spartan race, we want it to be Reebok focused, so be more human is what we would like you to focus on. Um and so I said, fine. And they said, if you can get 20 people, man, we'll be really happy. And I was like, get out of the way, you know, like serious. Uh so within six months, there was like the biggest turnout was 120 people showed up to a workout. Um, and it was just people from all over the cities. Uh, it was amazing. So from there, they signed me up, and then we went, uh, then we went and opened five different districts, we called them throughout all of Korea, and had all these different coaches building these be or human projects, we call it. So that's been happening now for two years, and we're just coming to the end of it, actually. So that was kind of my back project. And in the meantime, I was building my brand back up again, trying to figure out like what do I want to do? Do I want to open a gym? Uh, do I want to go into more of a lifestyle coached area where I can have less clients but really give them good value? Uh, do I want to head back to New Zealand? What do I want to do? So um it just sort of had to work everything out, and and it became sort of obvious that owning a gym in Korea was not going to be something I wanted to do. The the rent fees were too high, the barbell had kind of burst, and uh, it's a passion, and maybe I'll do it again sometime somewhere. But for now, I was like, I need I'm enjoying this freedom, mobility, coaching uh executives from you know, CEOs and and uh you know general managers from big companies based in Korea were starting to come to me through referrals to train outside in the mountains, any weather, um, versus their cushy like health clubs that they were members of that cost you know hundreds of thousands of dollars to sign up for. So I was like, well, this is that was my hobby actually at the time. Um so with that, I would I made a goal of finishing all my work at 8:30 in the morning, all my coaching, and the rest of the day I could spend building the business. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna uh you know create? Anyway, it all worked out really well and and uh ended up becoming quite, you know, building a really good base of clients that I coach now and decided to go, you know, the future is to go online as an online digital coach for um you know, focusing on business executives because I understand I was one for years, I've worked with them for years, I know their pain points, I know the travel schedules, I know the flights, the diet, everything is is is my is my um you know, is in my wheelhouse to to help them work on that. Um and the personal training industry is so messed up where if I'm coaching face to face, right, it's really not that much value. I mean, it's great, but it's not as great as it could be. And then when they leave, they go and travel to China for a weekend or even a month to the US. When they come back, they're a complete nightmare again. I've got to start them from scratch, they haven't worked out, their diet's gone to shit, they're back to square one. So no one's winning here. I'm not being paid, they're not getting any results or any coaching at all. And we're just doing this really vicious kind of cycle of like ups and downs, and and ultimately no one's really happy in that situation. So uh the new models I've created is more of a hybrid model plus online model, and it's that they're doing super well. And I hope to release 100% online from January, from January next year, 2018. So I'm working heavy on on that right now.

Oh, that's cool. That's a really cool so you you essentially just kind of ping-ponged your way into your niche, right? That's right. Um, you know, it's and it's interesting working with business executives is such a it's such a great clientele, but it's also pretty challenging. I mean, I know I always you know that like first of all, you're right, like their schedules are a mess. They're gonna reschedule with you constantly if you're trying to do private training, and they always want to meet at like four in the morning. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, yeah, okay, that's gonna be double. That's gonna be double. Uh so how did you um how are you marketing yourself within that that niche? Is it kind of happening organically? Are you are you are you building, you know, how are you doing it?

Yeah, so um I was fumbling away because this whole um building funnels and understanding how I can build like a really good following, et cetera, is not my wheelhouse at all. People assume I'm a really good marketer, but I'm not. I'm just very passionate about what I do, so it looks like I'm a great salesman, but I'm not selling you anything. I'm just I just love what I do and I want you to be part of it. So, but but going digital and going online is a totally different different story, right? And how do I find people from all over the world to join me? So um what I've done is I've actually joined a couple of of uh uh groups where like consulting groups where I'll bring them on and help me build this back end model, how I can build my landing pages and and find uh you know, do some prospecting and and find my avatar, etc. Um, I fumbled away by myself for a little while and I just started wasting too much time. And I was like, I need to do this, so I re- I invested some money, and now it's like uh I'm even more working it out where I have currently a really good connection to a lot of expats and executives in Korea. Um, so it's very organic. Everyone I've ever got is through referrals because I've never advertised ever, because I didn't want to do that, wasn't my job, actually. That was kind of a hobby's job. So now I'm changing the tune. A lot of my content I'm creating is is directed towards that sort of style of training and diet and nutrition and everything in their world that I know is challenging. So I've now built my my content map, is all related to this sort of side of things. And I'll also bring in my current team. So I coach, I have six regular people that I coach uh at the moment. I'm gonna bring them on board, we'll do a uh a think tank. I want to know exactly what they want, what they need, what they're willing to pay, uh, what are their biggest problems, and you know, from from me uh as a coach for next year, what would it take for me to get you to sign up for me as a remote coach from anywhere in the world, wherever you are and wherever I am. So um that's happening in the next couple of weeks, which I've never really done that before as well. You know, the the whole ask campaigns, uh uh, excuse my accent, the whole ask ask campaign, maybe it's easy to understand. But um, I really enjoy that whole model, you know, like it's like selling a gym membership. You know, if someone comes into the gym, if I just straight away tell you what you need, you know, I could be completely wrong, right? Even though we know we we we have what you need. But just saying, what is it you're after? What are your problems right now and how can I help you? And and just listening, which means then my content and my business and my model can be built around exactly what they've told me, and I can be on point and know exactly what I'm dealing with. So I'm really enjoying that phase of it and it's happening as we speak.

Yeah, it's so smart, man. And it's it's like you know when you look at marketing, you look at business development. It starts pretty simply. You know, it is just talking to your current clients or refining people to who you want to be your clients and asking them to simply just Have a coffee or have a conversation and just dig in because man, you know, they'll it's it's not you get so many great answers, you get so much great insight because we get stuck in our own thing with trainers, right? Where we just love our own cooking, right? We just think that we got it all figured out, we know exactly what people want, but we don't. We don't always have our own biases, we have our own lenses that we look through. So that's that's really cool. I I'm curious too, you know, how how do you train business executives differently than you would um somebody somebody off the street, right? Somebody who comes.

Yeah. So so like I was sort of saying, the direction is funny because a lot often the programming and the whole that sort of side of things is not that much different to what it would be for everyone else, right? But my whole uh from from doing surveys and my you know market research and talking to my guys as much as I have, the biggest pain points are always uh you know uh convenience and versatility, right? Like they don't know where they're going to be. So in terms of their training, they could be at a hotel, they could be at an airport, they could be at home, they could be anywhere, right? Um also um accountability, those are the two main things. Accountability is the biggest one they want, right? Because again, they're usually the guys that make all the decisions, they're the ones who have to run the show all the time, they're always on. And they actually enjoy the fact that I'm on the phone messaging them with their workout and telling them what they need to do and send me some photos of your lunch today. They actually really enjoy not having to be the brains behind all that for the for this part of it, they're just doing what they're told. You know, we all need coaches, right? I have a coach and everyone needs a coach, and it's great to have that accountability to be like, oh man, I've got a call with Eric in a couple of weeks, and if I'm not ready for that call, I'm gonna I've gotta get to work. I can get to work. So um, it's mainly their whole accountability side of it and understanding their lifestyle. Most of them are family men as well, which is a very, a very strong section of my world where I want to make sure I I'm as balanced as possible. I'm not it's you know, perfect balance is is impossible, but I mean I want to make sure that I can so I can offer really good advice and work with them on that as well, as much as possible. Uh, most of them are men, so I suppose you probably gather that from the conference. I I have one one lady I've coached for for a long time, and currently she's remote, but um most of men, but just understanding their world, understanding what they need, and when they're traveling for five weeks, you know, they can still work out and they still must record their scores at the end of every day. And I must see that so I can understand they're doing it.

Cool, that's a really cool system. So, where do you see yourself in in a year? Where do you see this going? Are you just uh do you have any numbers or targets? I'm sure you do. I mean, if you're working with business coaches, you must have some targets. Where do you want to be?

Well, in my first year, I want to be able to bring in at least 200 grand for the year from online revenue only. Uh, and then allow me, that will allow me to move into an environment that I want to I want to live in. Whether right now it's New Zealand, a beautiful area of New Zealand. I want my kids to go to school there. Uh, I just want to have a very beautiful area to create great content and continue building that online business, but then focusing on other passion projects that I really enjoy that may be uh more volunteer side of things, whether it's working with teenage athletes that are not getting as much support as they need. I'm very into big mentor programs for um, you know, again, athletes moving into professional era or uh, you know, this kind of guidance thing. I'm kind of old, I'm I'm an old head in the game now, right? I've done it all, I've I've failed lots and I've made mistakes and I know the directions to go to. So um with New Zealand rugby now, there are a lot of great opportunities to work with with athletes like I was, you know, when I was 20 years old, and there was no one for me. I I mean, you know, I I didn't have a father around either. So I had no one to sort of talk to and get that that perspective or advice like that's a stupid idea. Why don't you think about this? Or are you sure that's what you want to do? No one. So I just sort of bounced around doing what I thought was right, and it was many times it wasn't so wasn't such. So um, yeah, so I'm gonna build the online business up a lot and then get more face-to-face where I can add really a lot of value on the face-to-face stuff. I don't want to be paid just to say, five more reps, let's go. You know, I want to make sure that the value is really, really high value work in face-to-face.

So yeah, you're um you're one of, you know, what I call, I I haven't even named it yet, but there's this certain generation of coaches that are now evolving into digital coaching and online presence and really pumping a lot of time in there, like like Luke, Luke Kayan. Um so it's really cool, man. I'm I I love what you're doing. And we're uh, you know, I'm I'm hoping you you'll inspire some people um to look at things a little bit differently within their their fitness practice. So, you know, if people want to find you, if they want to ask you questions, where do they go?

Uh you can find me on Instagram at Cody HunterCoaching, and the same for Facebook, Cody Hunter Coaching. That's where you'll find me. And I'm always up for conversations and calls and and questions. I love it. It's that's one of my most favorite things about the business.

Yeah, I like it too. Cool. Well, Cody, thank you so much, man. I I I really appreciate your time. This is really insightful, and uh, I'd like to check in with you maybe in about a year and see and see where things are at, maybe get you back on the show. What do you think?

Oh, that'd be amazing. Thanks, Eric. Take care. Bye, brother.

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