Don't Just Build a Gym. Build a Business. - Stuart Brauer

Businesses create jobs. They create other careers. That's what a business creates. Businesses don't just create money. There's plenty of one-man shows that I could still be considered a business, but in our line of work, no one, it's never going to be a one-man show for a micro gym. But guys, invest in human beings, not in bodies and skierds and pegboards.

Welcome back, Minute Friends, to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 57. I talk to Stuart Brouwer. So, although a relatively young man, he's been in industry for 15 years, and he is the CEO founder of CrossFit South End, which he recently re-randed to Urban Movement. And most notably, he is the CEO and founder of What the Fuck Gym Talk? That's right. I said it, WTF Gym Talk. So, in my opinion, my humble opinion, uh, Stuart is a natural-born disruptor. Uh, I remember when he came into the CrossFit affiliate world, uh, three, four, maybe five years ago. I don't know. You know, time flies. But he started posting videos. He started his media company with an iPhone and he started posting videos of his opinions, um, interviews he was having, and strategy sessions he was having with business owners and gym owners, and it's just started taking off. And say what you will, you know, he rubs some people the wrong way, some people don't like his language, fine, whatever. If you listen to what he's saying, and if you hear more importantly, what he's saying, you realize that he comes to the industry in this particular niche, which I love, with a very honest and authentic desire to help. And uh he's making a living doing it, so more power to him. Now he has a great event coming up uh June 2nd and 3rd, which I'll tell you all about here in a second. Um, but if you've been listening to the show for the past few weeks, you know what I'm gonna talk about. It's Modern Fitness Pro. It's our close Facebook group. So my business partner, Doug Holder and I started the group because we want to have a place where conversations that matter take place. And it's going on. It's going on right now, with you or without you. Uh but we hopefully we would like to have you in here. Uh just this past week there we had a very long conversation about what a fitness professional, what a personal trainer should make. Now you can have all the statistics on what we make currently, but really with the role and the benefits and all the value that we add to our communities, why can't we be making much more? You know, let's talk about it. Why not? What do we need to do to get there? Anyway, I'm very passionate about the group. I hope you could have decided to come join us. It's the Modern Fitness Pro closed Facebook group. It is by application. So if you fill it out and the questions look good, we'll let you in. And then you will be part of that conversation with 2,100 fitness professionals from all over the world. So it's really cool. So let's talk about Stewart's event. It is June 2nd and 3rd. It is in Westfield, New Jersey at CrossFit 908 Central. So here are some of the topics. I'm sure there's more. Uh I love these topics. I really do. Tactical sales training. Whoo, sales. That's like an evil word of the fitness professional, right? But he's gonna do it really well. Uh the PT first method, which is personal training first, um, as opposed to group model and how he uh implements that into gyms on a day-to-day basis. Creating Facebook campaigns to free you from the six-week challenge of companies. Yes, I love it. We call it crash diet marketing, and uh, I love that he's tackling this head on. So yeah, it's a great event. You can go check him out at uh WTEF Gym Talk. His name is Stuart Brouwer, and there's so much value for you guys. If you are in this niche, if you are in the micro gym niche, um, listen to this interview, listen to it a few times because from mindset to strategy to tactics, all the stuff that needs to be taking place, the conversations that really need to be taking place within the community is is happening in this episode, and I'm sure all over his media. And uh yeah, so without further ado, let's get into it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. This is episode number 57 with Stuart Brouwer. Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast interview series. My name is Eric Malzona, I'm your host, and today I have a very well-spoken gentleman named Stu Brouwer. Stu, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, I'm I'm excited. This is uh we were just drawing a little bit before recording, and uh I think we have some cool views on what's going on in the fitness world. So before we get to it, let's uh let's tell the world. What what's your story? Who who are you? What do you do? Uh what do you stand for within the industry?

Yeah, absolutely. So um I'm uh I'm I'm self-made. I'm uh, you know, picture yourself 14 years old, you're a skinny ginger and soaking wet, you weigh 145 pounds. That's that that's a tough gig, right? So I found um especially I went to an all-boys' school. So you either played sports and then in your free time you were trying to get laid, right? So that was it. And and again, given those uh those characteristics, tough gig. Um, so I lived in the weight room. You know, I I very early on became uh, I like to call it a student of strength and conditioning, the early things like the MEL Sifs and just the bodybuilding realm and all that that carried me to university where I went and pursued my degree and got in an exercise fizz. And then right around 05, right going into 06, I find CrossFit during an uh internship with the NSCA at a velocity sports performance in Nashville, Tennessee. I was the intern just doing grunt work and running their classes, this, that, and the other thing. And I they they I believe they were CrossFit Nashville. They were like one of the first ones. So I get exposed to it. I go back to school, I'm constantly going from my internship to college, back and forth when anytime we had a long break to get my hours, and I'm digging deeper and deeper down this CrossFit realm. So by the end of 06, I'm all in. I'm telling my buddies about it. I'm the dude walking into the gym with a PVC pipe over my shoulder, and everyone's making fun of me. Like, what is it? Who is this loser? So um, I got a little bit of disciplinary problems and I had a good time in college. I did a victory lap, I had a real good time. And uh during in the the city was really nice, letting me work off hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of community service. I got to be the strength and conditioning coach for our university's men's wrestling team. Helped out with some of the other sports, but mainly men's wrestling, and they took the CrossFit, obviously. A wrestlers are fucking psychos. Two, they just understand go hard for a certain period of time, rest, work intervals. So that was like my start. I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where I had an opportunity to work with a great guy, Steven Baker, who owned a CrossFit Middle Tennessee at the time. And he gave me my first like, I was kind of his go-to coach. I was helping him out, and I got to see the struggles of a small business owner, and I knew that's what I wanted. I wanted to seat at that table. I knew I wanted to do that thing. Um, I knew I had the, I'd been working in my coaching crafting game for years now, but I didn't have a clue how to run a business. So I I what I considered at the time, I kind of sold my soul. I went and worked for Globo Gym. I went and got a gig as a trainer at a Globo Gym. I worked my way up to a personal training director, and then I worked my way up, I got recruited, did regional uh sales, and eventually was the VP of a pretty large uh Globo Gym company. Um that that led me to Charlotte, uh North Carolina, you know, through that through that whole Globo Gym experience. And I settled in here. Um I had my 40-hour week Globo Gym gig doing consulting work, traveling all over, and and then I'm like, I love Charlotte. It was great. It was the right city, had the right look, the right feel, the demo was right. So I started a mobile personal training company. That mobile personal training company would have contract with apartment complexes. So I had a 40-hour gig that was paying me extremely well. And then I had this side hustle of about 20 hours a week. I had seven trainers working underneath me. We had we were in 12 different apartment complexes, and we were just crushing. Like that side hustle was doing very well. I knew I had to go group, so I broke that model. I'm like, screw it. We're going away from PT, we're going into group. We went out to the park, I did a boot camp. That boot camp eventually became my first brick and mortar. My first brick and mortar became my second. And then I decided I wanted to get in the real estate acquisition. Um, I planned, I saved, I made the right moves with the right people. I looked out and I purchased a very um uh very nice piece of property in a very booming section of Charlotte, North Carolina here. And now we have rebranded and remolded from this PT apartment complex gig to a boot camp to what was known as CrossFit South, and still is in to some people, and now we are urban movement. Um, and urban movement is uh is a much different model than than what CrossFit you know was for me originally. It is it is my evolution of CrossFit South. Okay. What does that evolution look like? My facility is aesthetics and experience first, not utility first. I got rid of all my GHDs when we went. We keep we kept one for Pete personal training reasons, but I got rid of all my GHDs. I got rid of my jerk blocks, I got I got rid of um uh the the more advanced Olympic Olympic weightlifting, and to say more to this kind of like an oxymore, they're all advanced, but we do hang power variations of the majority of the movements. We rarely will do, we don't do full snatching or overhead squats. We do movements that are more accessible to individuals. We do more strength than we do kipping. I would say probably in our in our workouts, you're looking at 80% strength movements versus kipping. We allow a larger menu when you show up. So when you show up to what we call our signature class, which is lift and move, lift and move, you get to walk in and you get to pick whether you're gonna do a strength bias workout or a conditioning bias workout. So it kind of looks like what gyms have been trying to do, like, oh, there's a strength section, then there's a mechcon. No, you just walk in. They're both mech quote unquote mech cons. Just one of them is three heavy power cleans, you know, uh three tall box jumps, and uh, you know, six strict pull-ups versus the other one is 12 unbroken power cleans, 12 lower box, more cyclical, cardiovascular kind of a box jump scenario, and uh, you know, 15 jumping pull-ups or kipping pull-ups. So you get to pick every day when you come in what you want. You want to lift the world fucking A. We're gonna do it. You want to be a cardio bunny, be a cardio bunny. I don't care. I'm running a business. I'm not here to push my methodology on you and my belief as a coach as to what you need. You know, the gym owner that runs the 5K, I'm like, why the fuck do you do that? They're like, well, 5K row is important for fitness. I'm like, dude, who are you who are you serving? Yourself or like the clients? Have you ever ran a poll on that workout? Like, anyway, so um that's that's kind of movement. We became a third place. I brought in uh I subleased to a uh coffee company, South End Grind. We have a 2,000 square foot coffee lounge, Wi-Fi, co-op working space, full service coffee company in here. Um, Rider Dice Spin Studio, which is their first location. My wife owns that. That's a concept that she uh, you know, her time spent inside the soul cycle world um as a client there. So um, so we have we have this very cool concept, and we're continuing to evolve it. And I'll continue to involve it until someone walks in urban movement and they they tell their friend, oh I go to urban movement, and people say, What's that like? And they don't answer CrossFit. Because until I've done that, I haven't rebranded. So all you guys out there listening, that's like, oh, I'm rebranding, and all you did was change the fucking logo and the colors of your, you know, your building and your website. That's not a rebranding. You just dressed up a turd. So for me, I realize rebranding is gonna be a three-year play for me. But until someone comes in and I don't know what it is yet, I haven't figured it out. I don't know. But right now, you ask anyone what they do with a removing, they would some of them would answer CrossFit. It's starting to change. We're starting to lose people because we're not CrossFit, which is great. Like it sucks, but I I give my GM a high five because we're now finally getting to what I consider a rebranding. Yeah. And that would be scary for a lot of people. Oh, it's scary for me. I hate, I mean, like you're talking somebody's had in a love affair with CrossFit since 2005. And like if I met Greg Glassman, I'd probably break down crying, like because of my gratitude for what I, you know, inspired me and empowered me to do it, you know, a 21-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid. Um, but I I also do believe that I'm, you know, I'm not I'm not in love with CrossFit. I'm in love with what CrossFit does. And I can dress that, I can make that any way I want. I'm still doing constantly varied functional movements, you know, you know, it's things like that. It's just I'm doing it to my own, to my own beat of my own drum. I'm branding it my own way, and I'm I'm just looking at what I think all the other CrossFits are doing, which, you know, what the fuck gym talk, which is you know, my consulting handle has enabled me to really do. Um, and I see what's being done, and I'm just I always like to go against the grain. If everyone is running out of a building and going right, I'm the dude that's gonna go left.

Yeah, yeah. I love it. And I've I've seen the evolution of your of your voice within the CrossFit community, right? I've seen it at first, I was like, who what is this? Who is this guy? And then all of a sudden he's you're everywhere, right? Within the CrossFit, seemingly everywhere on social, within the groups, all these things. Let's talk about that process. Sure. How did that start? And how did you what was the consistency, the things that you needed to do? What was your what was going on in your head? What was the fear? All of it.

I I did what I think every gym owner right now has the true dream of doing. I brought my business, CrossFit South End, to a point where I have uh, you know, in the other room next to me, my uh my ride or die in business, um Isaac, who's my GM, right? She runs the show here, right? So I I was a I developed and created a team with Isaac leading the helm of that that allows the business to run itself. The business is profitable. I succeeded with CrossFit South End. I climbed that summit. CrossFit South End is very successful, urban movement is very successful. I about three and a half years ago, I remember having kind of this epiphany, and I, you know, I listened to guys like again, we were talking earlier, like uh Cooper was the first, like the first business coaches in the CrossFit scene were Nikki Violetti, the wife of Rob Wolf. She had a business blog that a lot of people don't realize, John Gilson, and then Greg Glassman. I listened to Greg Glassman's videos and stuff whenever he would get the small little tidbits on it. And then you had guys like Craig Patterson was on the scene for a while. You had other guys, the biz showed up for a while, and I never really resonated with them real well. And um anyway, so I I saw this and I just knew that we were all still figuring it out. We really didn't know what we had, but I did know this that in a gold rush, which is what I saw with CrossFit, everyone went running to the group model, this underground like group model, and I knew that was a gold rush, but anyone who knows anything knows that in a gold rush, the people who get rich do not get rich mining for gold. It's the motherfuckers selling shovels. And I look back at what I did in Globo Gym, and I probably I had to do 20 consultations a week as a personal training director, right? So I did 20 hours of consultations a week on top of hiring and firing, developing and having to hit sales quotas and all these things that a business needs to know how to do. And I thought to myself, man, that we're gonna be we're gonna, we need to bring PT back. Like this, I knew the singular revenue stream wasn't working. So I fucked with it in my gym. We made it successful, and then I started getting inquiries and stuff from people, talking to them, and I created this handle of what the fuck gym talk. But the only thing that allowed me to create that business, which by you know, I'm very, very proud of this. A lot of people don't know about this. I don't think I've ever said this out loud to on anything on air. I uh I no longer take a salary from my gym. Um starting it, I made that I made that cut in January of this year. Um, no longer get paid. I take no dividends, no, you know, nothing from crawl this business that I've spent the better half of you know my life building. Um and and to be honest, it was the thing that put me in a put baby in a corner to grow what the fuck gym talk, which is why you might see me everywhere. I I took every dollar I was making and put it into media. Every fucking dollar. I was making zero money, right? This is before I jumped off uh you know CrossFit South ends uh salary. But while I did that, I threw every dollar into media. I have an entire production team. Like literally, we put out a new video every day. We do a new podcast normally about every three to four days, and there's generally four to five posts per day. I would like to say that I think I put out more content than anybody in the video format. That's my favorite format. Um but in the in the business coaching realm. And but the only thing that allowed me to do is go all in on storytelling. Any of you guys that are currently gym owners and you have this idea, another side hustle you want to do, whether it's you know, business coaching, whether it's you have an idea for a piece of uh accessory, a wrist wrap, a new chalk, anything, whatever your side hustle is. And I think every entrepreneur gets to a point where they do they see an idea that popped off their first idea, right? I know the micro gym need, micro gym scene needed business coaches. There's 30 different guys out there telling you where to shovel a crossball when you have a tight muscle group, right? There is very few people telling everybody why your LCV is important, why having a singular revenue stream will destroy your business and you'll never make it to double digits, and why coaches should get paid a certain amount for that, all those, all those things. I saw that. And with that in mind, I decided I need to get the word out. And the only thing I can do is get in front of a camera every day. So I started with just an iPhone. If you look at my old stuff, um, it's ugly. Like it's not attractive looking video content at all. If you look at it now, you tell a huge difference. It's cool to watch the journey. One of my Chris, who's my head videographer, he did a throwback video for me for my birthday, um, which is this past December, and he made this cool video showing the very first what the fuck gym talk video. I look like it's just it's horrible. It's just the worst lighting, it's just real bad, and then just kind of showing that journey, and it's it was really cool to see. But yeah, now this is my full-time gig. Um, I work, you know, about 30 hours a week doing consulting. I've got uh about 85 gyms under my wing right now, and it's uh it's been phenomenal. I'm really excited.

Yeah, picks and axes, man. That's that's where the uh that's where the money is for sure. So your storyteller, let's let's talk about let's talk about this hero's journey, right? So let's talk about you know the the gym owners, micro gym owners that you you find and you start working on. What are they like? What how do you come in and help them? And then what's the what's the state after? Sure.

Yeah. Um I've been fortunate enough. I've never marked it. Here's one cool thing about uh you know, a handle that has WTF in it. Facebook denies everything. It denied my first Facebook when I tried to create the Facebook page back in the day. Every ad, even when the ad is legit and I'm not swearing in it, and if you listen to my content, you know I'm yeah, I'm from listen, and for everyone who has a thing, like I know I've getting emails that about the swearing. Here's the thing, real quick, guys. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in a very Irish Catholic family watching the Browns every Sunday. You go to school as an eight-year-old and you call people fuckers. Like that's just what happens. Like, and still being a Cleveland Browns fan today, that's just that maybe that's where my swearing comes from, is the the Cleveland background and the Irish family. But um I uh I don't have to find anybody. Everyone, it's all inquiries. I've never created, I've never really ran ads with C2 C D CTAs, call to actions. Um, I utilize the internet. I go, I'm in Facebook groups. I'm a member of like South African affiliate owners. I make videos with no call to action and I drop them in. I share information. Yeah, I literally have never in I've never gone after a fish. The fish come to the boat. And I I ask them what is your problem, and I see if I can help. There've been cases where I cannot help. I am not the guy for them, right? Um, you want a six-week challenge funnel? I'm not your guy. Right? I'm not your guy. You need, you know, uh you want someone to come on site for two weeks at your gym, I can definitely do that in half, right? So um you want to do Skype calls, I'm that guy. But um, when I get somebody, I do an intake form. So before you even can have that first call for me, hey, you pay for it. So again, anyone you get on a call, you're paying because I want you to have some skin in the game, and because I'm I'm I don't give away shit for free. My time's valuable. And I have you fill out a very exhausting qualitative and quantitative form. And a lot of times that's kind of a very aha moment for a gym owner. Sure. When I ask you, you know, what is your average uh, you know, revenue per client per class, and they break down the math, they're like, fuck me, man. I'm making $4.87. Like I couldn't even go to Starbucks with that per client per class. It just is this aha moment for a lot of guys. So we get on a call, we run through that stuff, and then I have different phases. And I, you know, think of it kind of like a big circle, right? And there's different sections cut into like a pie, and people start in different phases. You know, maybe it's internal metrics. We might look uh at your business and look and see that 87% of your current members are paying less than your market rate. And I determine your market rate is what you're advertising on your website or what you would charge a brand new person. So if I see that, that's maybe that might be the number one thing I go after, right? Is you know, doing a price raise. Maybe everything's good there. Maybe everyone's paying current rates, ACV is low, and you're running some bullshit fundamentals or on-ramp that everyone, you know, bring a friend day on Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. because that's when it's convenient for you because you actually have coaches on set. So maybe I attack that intake. Maybe I recommend PT first instead of group on ramp. So it all depends on the individual. I don't, one thing I'm really I'm I I talk to people about, I don't have any systems and templates, but I tell people I get a call with them. By the way, before this call starts, I don't know dick as to how I'm going to fix your business yet. I got an idea, but I'll definitely have a better idea at the end of it. I treat your business like I own it. I think about it. But if there's anything that I give you as a suggestion that you don't want to do within reason, I'm cool with it because I truly believe this statement. It is not what we do, it is how and why we do it. I've got gym owners in Australia doing month-to-month and a gym owner in LA doing contracts. They're both killing it, doing different their what's are different. But the why is correct. They have truly aligned themselves as to why they do it. They have a reason for doing it. And then it's the how, how they execute it. Ask most gym owners, why did you pick that price? Uh, that's what the gym was at that I was at as a client. Okay, that's not a good fucking why. Why did you pick that class schedule? Why do you develop your coaches like that? Well, that's what the gym down the street did. They don't have a good why. So in that case, I do care what the what is. But if you're what, you know, I'm not really worried about the what, it's the how and why. And I can help you find your why, and then I can help you execute on the how. And it honestly makes it fucking oblivious as to really what the what is, if that makes sense. But I work with gym owners. I require a certain number of calls, uh, depending on how deep they are. Right? You're sitting at a single-digit profit margin. We probably need to be on the phone once a week. Things are doing well, and maybe you need me to come in and you want me to come on site and do some staff development. Maybe that's less frequently. It all depends. It's 100% tailored to the gym. I don't have any systems and throw PDFs at you and all that bullshit. I have none of that. I've never created, I don't even have that in my own business. I I repeat, I have zero handbooks for my business. If you came to the work for me right now, I would have nothing to hand you. Everything we do is hands on learning, 100% built. There's basic framework for things, but I've never believed in a handbook or a user's manual, if you will. For my micro gym business, and that's just me.

So I have a question for you. Listening to all this, um, a couple things resonate with me personally. So when I made the decision to sell my CrossFit affiliate, my primary CrossFit affiliate in Santa Barbara, it was it was due to I really took a hard look at my why. And I was like, you know what? I'm doing this because I want freedom, and I don't feel that this is like, you know, if I want to travel the United States with my wife and my dog, I can't do that. Well, I can. It's just a lot more weight, right? So that was just a resonation point I just had when you were speaking. The other thing I want to ask you is when you hear the word term lead generation, what do you feel?

Yes. Lead generation, I think lead is the new buzzword. Um, essentially, I think we were all talking lead generation when Groupon was popular in 2015, 2014 kind of scene. Um, that's exactly what that was. Like I look at these six-week challenges as right now. Again, I had Alex Hermozzi on my podcast, right? He's a huge, infamous, you know, people fucking want to kill him or blow him right now. And I I really respect Alex for what he's done. He's he's and what he's done is growing a business, and that's why I respect Adam as a business guy. Um, smart kid. And when I hear lead generation now, I think that's just a cool buzzword, right? And I think, you know, when everyone's running groupons back in the day, it was just acquiring leads. So do I think you need lead generation? Maybe. If you tell me that your churn is 10 is, you know, you're churning 10% members, right? So you let's say you have, let's say you're one of these guys that has 300 members, you're losing a fucking one member a day for a month, right? You need to get one member a day just to wash, right? So um in that case, I I think lead generation is maybe a priority. I think most people don't need lead generation as much as they need retention.

Yeah.

You know, I I I think it depends on the business. Brand new, like I've got four gyms right now that we're working on pre-sales. They literally need to open their gym with 50 members to cover operating expenses, and I'm helping them do pre-sales, those individuals need lead generation, right? The gym that's been around for four years, like, man, I need more leads. Listen, dude, if you've been around for four years and you don't have, let's say you have 200 members, and let's say you're not getting 10 people organically per month through word of mouth in your own Facebook, you're doing a dog shit job. I promise you. You tell me that nobody comes in, period, off even if you're nested behind in an industrial warehouse, but they don't come in off an Instagram post, a Facebook, because you know somebody, a referral. This is a word of mouth business. I want people to remember that. This is a word of mouth business. Not all of your clientele, but a good number of it will come in from that. Your interaction and networking and ecosystem will be the determining factor. But gym owners, here's the thing, though, they get stuck behind these four walls. They never get to go and create an ecosystem. And that is what poisons them. So now they're constantly looking for lead generation. Cold traffic sucks. Anyone like Globo Gym, I had to hit cold traffic all day. I was on the phones. Think like fucking Wolf of Wall Street and Boiler Room. Pick up the phones and dial. Like that's what we did. And it sucks. It's way better to have a good ecosystem, know how to run check-in campaigns, know how to run referral campaigns, and constantly, John, why doesn't your wife come in? Well, she'd come in if you had a women's class. I'm like, well, that's funny. That's the fourth time I've heard that. Isaac, let's talk about a women's class. You know? Um, or maybe if no one's coming in, maybe it's because you need to look at your product and the the PR snatches and no one gives anything a fuck about 18.1. And uh, you know, maybe again this is storytelling you're doing online, right? But yeah, I think lead generation is something like I like lead generation November and December. My two slowest months. Charlotte is a transient city. We push lead generation in those months. I don't need to do a January, February, March. Um like again, it's cyclical. Lead generation is something every business needs to do. I just think every gym is just saying lead generation because they don't know what else to say, and it's just a buzzword right now. Yeah. Those are my thoughts.

And and and you know, this is I'm a digital marketer. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah. We're a full stack agency. And whenever I hear lead generation, I it's a it's a media red flag because I'm like, okay, as much as I would love to just do someone's digital marketing, I can't just do marketing and not pay attention to what's going on in the business.

Oh, 100%.

Usually lead generation is this magic sprinkle. They think they can just go on top of the problem and it'll just solve everything. And it doesn't. And you still have to get out, you still have to do all those things, you still have to make build relationships, you have to know who your local PTs, Kairos, athletic directors, all those people. You still have to get out and get outside your four walls. And it's so easy. So easy to stay inside where it's comfortable and just talk and just look inside of your this world that you created and stay there.

I agree, man. I I've one of the sayings I love um dropping on people, it's it's the magician, not the wand, right? Yeah, it's it's not how you get them in, it's what you do with them. You know, I I was just I made that comment 20 seconds ago, maybe before this podcast. Someone was talking about, I posted a video today about, you know, um getting uh biometrics on your prospects when you do a consultation. Someone's like, oh, but what about an in-body versus regular, you know, a scale from Walmart? And I'm like, it's the fucking magician, not the wand. Everyone's trying to like get something that's gonna make them better. No, you just need to be better. Truly and truly. Like your product sucks if you haven't had any organic generation of marketing. Again, when I when I say your product, maybe it's not your class, maybe your class is a rock star, but if you're not telling the story, nobody, what's that? Like if a tree falls and kills a mime in the woods, does anybody fucking know or care? And some shit like that, you have the best classes in the world. But if you don't storytell in an effective manner, like, you know, I tell people, like, you're like, Well, how what should I do with stories? I'm like, look what I do. How did you hire me as a business consultant? Well, I saw one of your videos where you did a side-by-side Skype conversation with a gym owner and you answered his questions. And I thought, hey, I have those same questions. How can you do that for your clients? How about you show a video of you working with 40-pound overweight Sally, if that is your avatar prospect? And have Sally talk about how working with you has really helped, and then pump that motherfucker into Instagram and Facebook. How about that go, you know, gym owner Johnny? He's like, Well, I'd rather talk about how awesome we all did on 18.1. Like, fuck about 18.1, gym owner Johnny. Nobody. They don't even know what you're talking about. It's again, the I again, the reason why, and all you guys listening, you know this to be true. If you were a client or a coach, and in a magical weekend, and a train and an ex in a certain period of events, you magically became a gym owner within a month. This is why you're still in that client or coach realm where you're we're still wearing that client and coach hat. You're not thinking like a gym owner. Time will fix it in one of two ways. You will learn, you will level up, which I'm seeing a lot of business owners do. They're like, okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna actually sacrifice my two workouts today and not follow Ben Bergeron's comp training because I should probably be following up with members and seeing how they're enjoying. I should probably be cleaning the floors and developing my staff. And I do see gym owners. I really think the trend is bucking in the way of professionalism. I think people are getting better because I think there are guys like me and all the other guys out there talking about this stuff and making gym owners aware. And it's cool to be good at business now. Back when, like four years ago, who was the best coach? Like who at a level two? You know, and like who, you know, who's going to outlaws Olympic weightlifting cert and like all this other shit. Like that was the cool stuff. Are you a good, you know, coach and gym owner were synonymous? I'm a shitty fucking athlete. I'm not the best coach in here. Oh fuck that. I'm probably still the best coach in here. Um, but I'm the best, I'm the only person that could do what the CEO stuff, right? And I look at CEO as I am the creative and then the execution officer. I create the ideas and I execute on them. And I realize that my job is not taking care of clients, it's taking care of my employees. Their job is taking care of clients. Too many owners get involved with the clients. I'm not saying I don't know all of them by name. I don't'm not saying I don't talk to them, but I when I realize my job is to grow staff, not members, changes your entire mindset, your entire fucking mindset.

So you that was that's an excellent point. You know, focusing on staff versus clients. Do you do you think that's the biggest blind spot that that micro gym owners have now? Or what do you think is the biggest blind spot that they have?

Number one is is currently not charging a market value. That's number one. Now, I I can only say I can't, it's hard to make that statement because I have no idea what you're doing on the inside. You might be doing a $60 a month service, you know, or less. Yeah, but by and large, not charging a professional rate. And the reason is because you don't feel like a professional because six months ago you were a fucking client at another gym and you took a weekend cert. So I understand that paradigm. I truly do, which is why you probably should be hiring some professionals, people that are better coaches than you. Okay. Um, but yeah, I think it quickly falls to staff development. We don't create, I had someone, uh, a new client, very successful business, like profit margins, 30%. He's probably doing you know, 40 to 50 grand a month with a 30% margin. Um he's got money. But he, I'm like, you still haven't created a business. And he's like, what do you mean I haven't created a business? Look at this. I've been open four years. I'm killing it. I got all these members. I'm like, no, no, no. Businesses create jobs, they create other careers. That's what a business creates. Businesses don't just create money. There's plenty of one-man shows that I could still be considered a business, but in our line of work, no one, it's never going to be a one-man show for a micro gym, a real micro gym. If you want to consider yourself a business for anyone listening, how many jobs have you created? My intake form I referenced earlier. And it's online. Anybody can take it. It should have two questions. It has like a bunch. It should have two. Who is your longest tenured employee? How long have they been there? How much money do they make? That's all I need to know. That is all I need to know. Most gym owners will. I'm bartering. I have four part-time 1099s. I've got one W-2 making $1,100 a month. Isaac, who I mentioned earlier in my GM, she started off at $600 a month. She left a very nice five-figure salary job, corporate Bank of America, you know, event planning gig to come work for me for God knows why. And, you know, we put a plan in place. For all you guys listening, here's a tactical piece to take from this. Look at what you're paying somebody. If you look at that person, you think, God, I do not want to lose them, and you truly value who they are as a person and what they can do for your business. And it's someone that you can see riding co-pilot with you, tell look them dead in the face and say, I'm gonna put it on paper. I'm gonna give you $500 added to your salary every three months. And now do the math in your head. How many memberships do you need to sell and retain in three months to add $500? For me, that's what I did with Isaac. I was like, okay, that's two point whatever. Fuck, I can do that in three months. Hell yeah, I can do that in three months. So my sales goals I set for myself, but again, I had a sales background. I set boom, X amount plus 2.7 members because I need to continue to pay Isaac every three months. Slap another 500 bucks. That's an extra six grand a year, fellas. For those of you guys not quick on the mathematics, but every three months, slap that 500 bucks in there and keep adding and adding. Guess what? You get someone somewhere and they see the consistency. And she would eat before I did. I don't know what the phrase is. Maybe it's a Senec thing. Leaders eat last, and then I hear people say no, leaders eat or whatever. I don't know what the argument is. I would feed Isaac before I'd feed myself. Yeah. And I wouldn't starve because I can't starve because I'm the one running the show. But again, I would, there were times when I would sacrifice my own money to go ahead and pay pay the coaches. Um not in the martyrdom kind of sense. Um, I know Coop just posted a really good article on that, but in the sense that I knew that investing in this woman was going to be one of the best things for my business. It has been. And now she's able to go ahead and now she has money that she's able to invest in her own staff here at the gym. And so and it just populates itself. But guys, invest in human beings, not in bodies and skiers and pegboards.

Awesome. There's a lot of value that you just had that you used throughout here. Um I'm thinking if I still own my gym, I would I would be calling you, be like, hey, let's let's let's consult, right? Let's consult. Yeah. Um, let's let's let's throw let's throw some ideas around. Where do people find you, man? I mean, obviously, WTF Gym Talk, right?

Yeah, so uh WTF Gymtalk uh.com is the website. I'm uh we're currently right now, we haven't announced it. I you know, and my guys that do all my IR company called Flex and they had to do all my PR, all my marketing, all my content, everything, my website, all that stuff. And uh they'd probably be happy if I I don't know if I'm allowed to do it, but we are one thing I'm gonna do, everyone does like there's a lot of gym owners, a lot of business gurus doing seminars and stuff. And I I'm um I love it. I think it's cool. Um I'm gonna the one thing no one's doing is sales training. No one is taking gym owners and being like, you guys fucking suck at sales. You're rock star coaches. Let's fix the former, right? Let me sit down and teach you sales psychology, how to sell somebody. And again, if you're doing my I'm a big PT first guy. Um But yeah, we're gonna be doing a sales, we're gonna be doing a seminar in New Jersey in June. I want to say it's the first weekend in June, but we'll be pumping out some information on that here soon. Um but if anyone's looking to level up, I think we're gonna call it spring training. Like this is literally, think about it as coming in, get some spring training, learn to fucking sell, right? Learn to brand, learn to actually market, like an actual course, not just let's pursue excellence. I love that. That's very clouds level. I'm trying to get people in the fucking dirt and get people dirty learning to actually sell, how to actually market and and how to create their own brand. Because if this that's for a whole nother podcast, is the branding of CrossFit and you're branding yourself as a cross-side affiliate. I think it can work for you in a certain way, but I think more often than not, it'd be nice to own something you actually own. And uh unfortunately you don't if you own a crosshead affiliate, in my opinion. But um yeah, so uh what the fuck, Gym Talk, WTF Gymtalk.com. Um, anyone who's ever comment, just comment on a video. I probably end up texting you, calling you, or shooting you. Like people don't realize they got that Facebook Messenger, like that you can call somebody on Facebook Messenger. I do that to people all the time. Like, I've never used this, and I can't believe you just called me. And I'm like, yeah, what's up? I have five minutes. I just like doing that. I think that's fun. Um but uh yeah, that's that's where people, that's where people can reach me. Awesome.

Right on, man. Well, I appreciate Stuart. I I I love what you're doing for um CrossFit. I mean, I love CrossFit. I'm still CrossFitter heart. Yeah, love the movement, and I appreciate leaders like you and um all the names that we mentioned today. Uh Cooper, Patty, I agree. All these things. All those guys, yeah. So keep going on.

Absolutely, brother. I appreciate it. Eric, thank you so much for having me on and giving me the uh the attention of your audience and everyone for listening. I really appreciate it. And uh yeah, if you ever have a question or anything like that, I you know I'm not one to uh to not answer it. Please dial me up, hit me up in the D. I'm be more than happy to shoot you off a 10-second video answer to whatever question you've got. But guys, keep uh keep trucking. And the one thing I want everyone to remember while they're doing this and going through it every single day. Even though it might suck right now, it's still a better day than being in the office working for somebody else. Like you'll hear people that love the golf say a bad day on the golf course is better than a great day in the office. Even if shit sucks now, it is better than probably working for somebody else, pursuing someone else's dream, right? So just uh I know there's a lot of guys struggling out there, and uh keep doing your thing, keep working your ass off, give it time, have patience, and um, and get some help if you need it. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Stuart Broyer. Thank you very much.

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